STATEN ISLAND — The city is asking landlords to offer short-term leases to Hurricane Sandy victims still waiting for their homes to be re-constructed.
As part of a push complete the delayed Build it Back program by the end of the year, Borough President James Oddo and Amy Peterson, director fo the Mayor's Office of Housing Recovery, called on landlords to offer apartments to Sandy victims, with the city picking up the rent.
"We’re at the point where we have the capacity... to get this work started and completed and get people home," Oddo said.
"Obviously you can’t live in your house as its being elevated, you can't live in your house as its being reconstructed and we need to find a place for these Staten Islanders in the interim.
"I know that there are Staten Islanders out there who have apartments available, who, if they hear our call, will step up the same way they stepped up and pulled people’s furniture from homes, they’ll step up the same way they brought socks and clothing to people’s homes."
In October, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an end of 2016 deadline to complete repairs on all single-family homes in the Build it Back program, but Peterson said one of the biggest problems was finding housing for residents while crews work on their houses.
"Hundreds of apartments are going to be necessary to house the hundreds of homeowners that we are elevating and rebuilding in Staten Island alone," Peterson said.
"There’s a lot of unknown but what were really asking is for landlords and homeowners who might have an apartment to rent to step up and offer their apartments for 2016."
Under the program — which had $40 million dedicated to it in April 2014 — the city would pay $1,495 for a one person household in monthly rent and up to $2,667 for a five person household, Peterson said.
To help get more places available, the city will also put out a procurement this week to get service agencies and other groups to help find apartments for the program and do emergency placements for some homeowners.
"We are fast tracking the procurement," Peterson said. "The urgency of this is something that is felt at the mayor’s level and at every level so we’re going to make this happen quickly."
Aside from trying to get more landlords to offer their apartments, the city also expanded its pilot program to reimburse Sandy victims for security deposits and first month rent while they're displaced, Peterson said.
So far, the city has had 744 construction starts on Staten Island and completed 354. About 75 percent of homeowners who registered for the program in the borough have started construction or received reimbursement.
Get a peek at how we're preventing future flood damage for many homes in NYC @NYCBuilditBack @SweetConstGroup pic.twitter.com/hemG5gRdse
— NYC DDC (@NYCDDC) January 4, 2016The program, started under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has been plagued with delays, suffered from "flawed or incomplete" work paid for by the city and has been critized by residents and de Blasio himself.
"It's self-evident that the pace has been a profound problem," de Blasio said in 2014. "Right now, for a lot of people, it's still more theory than fact.
"We know we have to do better."
