New York City’s hardest-working brokers might be the tenants of 705 and 709 W. 170th Street. On Monday, June 10, they scaled the two neighboring five-story walk-ups to show reporters the appalling conditions of two empty units “warehoused” by the city’s “worst landlord,” Daniel Ohebshalom. Some were elderly, one walked with a cane, and most were out of breath by the end of the tour, but their spirited efforts backed their calls to turn the pair of Washington Heights apartments into co-ops.
“Prior to [this], I was never involved in any kind of organized tenant fight against [a] landlord,” said resident Gilbert Butcher. “This definitely prepares you for the eventualities that we would have a co-op and that we would know what to do.”
He said the tenants went on a rent strike, redirecting their monthly payments toward an escrow account instead. When the front door went missing, residents got the city to replace it and pooled resources to install a lock and security cameras. Butcher himself, who lives under a warehoused apartment, tends to the vacant units to mitigate the festering deterioration, including closing windows so birds don’t get in.
Tenant Sonia Peralta described freezing conditions during a recent winter due to a lack of heat and frequent trespassing, which led to urination, defecation, and open drug use in the hallways. She blamed the vacant, warehoused apartments for attracting unhoused outsiders.
While these issues are nothing new for long-time residents like Peralta, who moved in 45 years ago, they only enlisted the help of tenants’ rights groups like the Met Council on Housing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a rally before the apartment viewings, State Senator Robert Jackson recalled how the tenants became organized.
“I remember coming here, trying to communicate with [residents] and asked if [they had] a tenants’ association,” said Jackson. “At that time, [they] did not, so we organized the tenants’ association right on this stoop that night.”
To call the empty units “fixer-uppers” would be an understatement. Sickening smells greet the senses at the front door, only matched in intensity by the decaying conditions inside. Caved-in ceilings have left rubble scattered throughout the living spaces, while bird feces caked sinks and bathtubs due to open or broken windows. Water damage and mold lined the walls while varnishing the abandoned furniture with yellow and brown stains.
The units are off-market, with the last tenants having lived in them well over a decade ago. The advocates say the vacancies stem from warehousing: the practice of leaving rent-regulated rentals empty to the property owner’s benefit. Reasons range from high repair costs, holding a unit for relatives, or awaiting several neighboring units to vacate to merge them into a larger, non-stabilized rental. Regardless, warehousing removes thousands of rent-regulated apartments from the market during the city’s current housing affordability crisis.
Ohebshalom topped Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’s “Top 100 Worst Landlords” watchlist for 2022-23. He finished up a stint on Rikers Island last month for failing to follow through on a civil suit court order over the conditions at 705 and 709. It was not a pleasant stay, with another detainee reportedly punching Ohebshalom at processing.
Meanwhile, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office hit the disgraced landlord with a slew of charges, including harassment against rent-regulated tenants, on May 1. While announcing the indictment, D.A. Alvin Bragg said structural damage from Ohebshalom’s alleged negligence led to a ceiling collapsing on a toddler.
Williams told the Amsterdam News that his list serves as an accountability measure for property owners whose malfeasance overwhelmingly affects Black, Brown, immigrant, and working-class renters. He added that efforts to connect such violations back to Ohebshalom were difficult, because the properties were designated under his proxy’s name, Johnathan Santana, and through multiple LLCs.
“To be on the top, as Daniel Ohebshalom has been, you have to be significantly and intentionally doing the worst to your tenants, and this was the case with Daniel Ohebshalom and Johnathan Santana” said Williams. “There was a bunch of problems, even with trying to find who actually owned which building—another problem in itself. We’re glad the list is being used to affect change.”
Met Council on Housing executive director Darius Gordon does not advocate for arrests and jails, but the head of the city’s oldest tenants’ organization sees accountability for Ohebshalom as a win for renters citywide. After all, there are 99 other “bad landlords” ranked behind him.
“This is the worst landlord—if we got the number one person, [then] you should automatically see…a pathway to victory for yourself and your tenants and your neighbors,” Gordon said to the AmNews. “There is a pathway—these tenants have shown you the pathway. Hopefully, it doesn’t take decades for you to get the repairs or for you to hold your landlord accountable. It can happen today.”
While legal troubles mount for Ohebshalom, tenants look onward. Williams said more relief is needed, specifically by putting the building in the tenants’ hands. The rally pushed for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to greenlight converting 705 and 709 into co-ops.
“We’re here because we’re now in the next phase of this fight,” said Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa during the rally. “The next phase of this fight looks like giving ownership to these tenants whose homes these are.”
Co-ops—short for cooperatives—are owned by the tenants instead of a landlord. The housing model instead allows residents to buy in as shareholders and elect a board for decision-making.
According to a spokesperson from De La Rosa’s office, turning 705 and 709 into co-ops would require going through the HPD’s Neighborhood Pillars program, which offers overhead for nonprofits to acquire and fix up crumbling unregulated or rent-stabilized housing. The residents hope to enlist mutual housing association MHANY Management as such a custodian to facilitate the ownership change and repairs before establishing the co-op.
The advocates see the state’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) and the city’s Community Opportunity to Purchase Act (COPA) bill as the wider solution. Such legislation would give renters first dibs at purchasing the buildings they live in if their landlord decides to sell, allowing the formation of co-ops, preventing sales to mega investors, and ultimately curbing warehousing.
“But we don’t have to wait,” said Williams during the rally. “I wish that [TOPA and COPA would] be passed, but we believe HPD and the city can help these tenants move forward with MHANY, with the Met Council [on Housing, and] with Manhattan Legal Services [to] help these tenants own this building.”
Ohebshalom’s lawyer did not respond to attempts to reach him.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.