Housing Development
 

Families live in badly maintained and overcrowded housing stock. Our neighborhood was urbanized in the first part of the 20th century and is seriously overbuilt, with block after block of five and six story buildings, containing on average between twenty and fifty units each. Ninety-nine percent of the buildings here are multiple dwellings, 75% of the buildings were built before 1939 (compared to 50% for the city as a whole), and 89% - 65,000 units – contain lead paint, having been built before 1960, the year New York City banned lead paint in residential units.

Impact:

  • Collaborating with both the City and private lenders, we have helped tenants purchase 14 buildings from private landlords, acquired 10 city-owned buildings, and developed 3 vacant buildings. All 27 of these buildings are now under tenant control.
  • We are now working with three additional buildings that are home to 94 low-income families.
  • We developed Manhattan’s first and only Lead Safe House, where families with lead poisoned children can live while their apartments are abated. For more information on the Lead Safe House, click here.

For more information: Contact Jennifer Wells at 212-822-8300 or