City To Turn 'Cluster' Shelters Into Affordable Apartments

"THE BRONX, NY — New York City officials will take steps turn run-down apartments used to house homeless people into permanently affordable apartments, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday. The city will use public money to help nonprofit groups buy the so-called cluster sites or use eminent domain to force them from the hands of landlords, de Blasio said.

The proposal — the first of its kind in city history, the mayor said — represents a two-pronged policy supporting de Blasio's goals of boosting the city's affordable housing stock and ending the use of cluster sites, which critics say are dangerous and expensive.

The city currently rents about 2,300 privately owned apartments to shelter homeless families, paying rent and additional costs for supportive services. Now it wants to turn about 1,100 apartments in 25 to 30 buildings, mostly in the Bronx, into permanent rent-stablized homes..."

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