RESEARCH IN ACTION

The Right to the City–New York City Alliance released a report documenting the thousands of vacant condos across New York City.

“People Without Housing and Housing Without People: A Count of Vacant Condos in Select NYC Neighborhoods” presents findings from a citywide, participatory research project when for three months hundreds of members of the Alliance walked the streets of 245 census tracts in nine community districts.

A sea of vacant condos

Canvassers identified over 4,000 vacant units that could be converted into low-income housing for those in desperate need of housing.

“I was amazed at how many vacant condos we found in our survey. No one is living in these buildings. A lot of people need housing, especially low-income people, and there is all this housing out there just sitting vacant. The city needs to give these condos to people who really need them,” said Cynthia Hairston, age 59, a lifelong NYC resident and neighborhood activist.

The Condo Count documents the ways vacant properties harm communities and are a financial drain on the city. Highlights of the study include:

• Hundreds of luxury buildings in low-income communities contain thousands of vacant units.

• Despite the failure of the luxury building market, hundreds of new buildings are being constructed.

• The production of luxury developments in low-income communities cannot sustain economic growth.

• New York City has an opportunity to house thousands of low-income families in need of housing.

Many ideas to convert ownership

The report outlined RTTC-NYC’s principles and several policy options to convert and maintain these units as permanently affordable housing for very low-income people. RTTC-NYC called on city officials to facilitate the conversion of these vacant units into low-income housing. Several conversion options include tax foreclosure and eminent domain, conversion to public housing and the development of community land trusts.

After identifying vacant properties and training community leaders through this participatory research project, the RTTC-NYC alliance is focusing on developing a campaign to convert several of these properties into community land trusts. Alliance leaders are meeting with relevant elected and agency officials and are creating an action plan to fight for the conversion of these properties into community controlled, permanently affordable housing for low-income people.

The Right to the City-New York City Alliance is a member of a national coalition of social justice organizations working to develop a stronger urban justice movement. The network envisions a new kind of urban politics that asserts that everyone, particularly the disenfranchised, not only has a right to the city, but as inhabitants, have a right to shape and design it and to promote an urban human rights agenda.

People Without Homes and Homes Without People: A Count of Vacant Condos in Select NYC Neighborhoods

Authors:  The report was co-authored by leaders of twelve Right to the City member organizations. Research and writing support was provided by David Dodge, Alexa Kasdan and Lindsay Cattell at the Community Development Project of the Urban Justice Center.

Contact: Avi Rosenthalis, Right to the City-NYC Coordinator – arosenthalis@righttothecity.org.

Date: May 2010

Featuring Right to the City—New York City Alliance a grantee of the Sociological Initiatives Foundation.