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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Brendan Mitchell, Director of Real Estate at University Neighborhood Housing Program (UNHP)
1:50:13
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3 min
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Brendan Mitchell from UNHP testified about the challenges nonprofit developers face with the Housing Connect lottery system, particularly for re-rentals of older, affordable units in the Bronx. He highlighted how the current system has led to prolonged vacancies and mismatches between applicants and available units.
- UNHP has struggled to fill large, low-rent units through Housing Connect, with some sitting vacant for up to 18 months
- The lottery system often connects UNHP with applicants uninterested in or unable to live in their older Bronx buildings without amenities like elevators
- Mitchell advocated for nonprofit organizations to be permanently exempt from the re-rental lottery requirement, praising HPD's recent one-year pause on this requirement
Brendan Mitchell
1:50:13
Thank you, council member Sanchez, and and your entire team for engaging with us at on this issue.
1:50:18
My name is Brendan Mitchell.
1:50:19
I'm the director of real estate at University Neighborhood Housing Program in The Bronx.
1:50:24
Among other things, UNHP is a nonprofit community developer and operator of affordable housing.
1:50:31
I wanted to use this time to share about our struggles with the housing lottery from the perspective of a nonprofit developer.
1:50:37
For the last four years, we've had very large units with very low rents sitting vacant through a pandemic and a housing crisis.
1:50:46
This is not because these units are in troubled buildings.
1:50:49
It's not because they're too small or overpriced or for lack of trying on the part of our various marketing agents, but because the housing lottery in its current form could not connect interested parties with the housing we have available.
1:51:01
As a result, quality units sat empty for as long as eighteen months while we tried to fill them through the lottery.
1:51:08
Our largest project is reclaim HDFC, which is 10 buildings in total spanning from Southern Boulevard to University Avenue, and was named appropriately as all 10 of these buildings were once vacant in the eighties until they were reclaimed by the people of the Bronx through community development.
1:51:25
All 10 of these buildings were gut rehabbed in the nineties and have received various upgrades as needed over the years.
1:51:30
These buildings have larger than average units compared to what we see being built today and lower rents as they have been rent stabilized with relatively low turnover.
1:51:39
These are not the buildings you might expect to see when you log in to your Housing Connect account to apply for new construction projects.
1:51:45
They do not have elevators or bike rooms.
1:51:47
They do not have free Wi Fi or, in many cases, laundry rooms.
1:51:51
They do have an average tenancy across 265 units of over twenty five years and an average rent of roughly $1,100.
1:51:59
Our regulatory agreement requires that these units be rented to families making anywhere from 40 to 60% AMI with 27 units reserved for homeless families.
1:52:08
We like to believe that most people remain in these units for so long because although our buildings may
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:52:14
You may conclude.
Brendan Mitchell
1:52:15
Thank you.
1:52:15
I'll be quick.
1:52:18
Because although although these buildings may not have the amenities architectural frills of new construction, they do provide decent quality housing at an affordable price to low and moderate income families in the community.
1:52:29
The applicants that we've consistently been connected with through the lottery for re rentals have been uninterested in moving to The Bronx, disappointed that they are being selected for a building that was built over a hundred years ago, unhappy or physically unable to move into a building that does not have an elevator.
1:52:45
By contrast, every single day, we have low income people in the community walking into our management office asking to rent these units and calling the super for information on how to rent them.
1:52:55
And in addition to the people that Jamilia works with at the Northwest Bronx Resource Center, our direct services arm, to rent these units because they live and work in the community.
1:53:03
We also get calls from other nonprofit housing providers looking to place existing tenants in larger units, looking to checkerboard while renovating for existing tenants or relocating existing tenants due to a fire or a flood.
1:53:15
Working together with these partner organizations in creating, preserving, and maintaining affordable housing is how we get this job done.
1:53:22
This is why we believe that nonprofit organizations should be permanently exempt from the re rental lottery requirement moving forward.
1:53:28
The delays involved with filling our vacant units have hurt hurt our projects financially at a time when buildings like this are up against rapidly rising costs and historically low collection rates.
1:53:37
We are grateful that New York City HPD has hurt our concerns and recently announced a one year pause on requiring re rentals to be filled through the lottery.
1:53:44
This will provide us much needed financial relief in the short term as we can quickly fill our units with income qualified tenants like we have for thirty years prior to this requirement.
1:53:53
We look forward to participating in discussions with our agency partners around re rentals and the lottery over the next year and welcome any changes that allow us to fill our empty units quickly and efficiently.
1:54:02
Thank you.