Thousands of homeless New Yorkers could be treated as legal tenants

"Thousands of homeless New Yorkers who get free shelter in apartment complexes throughout the city could be treated as legal tenants — protected by rent regulations and lower rent caps — under a potentially precedent-setting case brought by the Legal Aid Society.

The Brooklyn Supreme Court suit accuses landlords of skirting emergency-tenant-protection and rent-stabilization laws by filling apartment units with people sent by the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), and then charging the city at or above market rates.

But the defendant-landlord in the case warned that building owners will pull out of the city’s controversial “cluster shelter” program to aid the homeless if the apartments they set aside for homeless occupants are no longer exempt from rent limits..."

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