Q&A
Update on the Office of the Homeowner Advocate and Homeowner Help Desk
1:43:02
·
155 sec
Kim Darga from HPD provides an update on various homeowner assistance programs, including the Office of the Homeowner Advocate and the Homeowner Help Desk. She explains the current status of these programs and plans for future initiatives.
- The Office of the Homeowner Advocate has been established with an appointed person coordinating internally and working with a third party for outreach and assistance.
- The Homeowner Help Desk is close to being relaunched, to be managed by the Center for New York City Neighborhoods.
- HPD is working on expanding assistance to class 2 properties and multifamily cooperatives, particularly HDFCs.
Kim Darga
1:43:02
Sure.
1:43:02
So we worked with counsel last year to create the office of the homeowner advocate or the homeowner advocate at HPD.
1:43:11
We have appointed There is an appointed person in that role now, and that person coordinates internally with homeowners that reach out and also through a third party that we select that is also available to do outreach, address homeowner complaints, and manage issues, provide technical and legal assistance.
1:43:44
We have we are very close to announcing the relaunch of the homeowner help desk, and the center for New York City Neighborhoods will be managing that.
1:43:55
And that allows us to also have access to the data that they have about outreach and engagement with homeowners.
1:44:06
So that will be part of what the homeowner advocate accounts for.
1:44:11
So that is for class 1 property owners specifically.
1:44:15
We are also working to provide technical assistance and assistance and accessing resources to class 2 properties.
1:44:28
We had a landlord ambassador program pilot that we administered a few years ago that basically was was administered by a community based organization.
1:44:38
Could do kind of a deep assessment with the property owner of conditions and help develop a plan to improve conditions.
1:44:50
That was limited to residential property owners and one of the things we're very interested in doing is expanding that to multifamily cooperatives as well, particularly HDFCs where we do see currently that about 30% are experiencing pretty substantial.
1:45:07
Physical and financial issues.
1:45:10
So that is we're gonna have to go through a procurement process to develop that program, so that will probably be up and running within the next 2 years or so.
1:45:24
So those are the 2 main types of resources.
1:45:28
And certainly in both cases, again, the the homeowner advocate will be connected with the organizations that are administering the other contracts.
