NYCs one shot rent-help plan gives Mamdani a whole new way to squeeze landlords

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first nine months in office leave no doubt: To him, New York City’s housing problems are the fault of private landlords.That mindset inspired the “rental ripoff” hearings that encouraged tenant complaints, community-organizing efforts meant to spark tenant unions and a fast-track program to get maintenance complaints into housing court more quickly.Now, landlords say, a new threat may be looming.For decades, NYC’s generous tenant-assistance programs have stepped in to rescue renters under threat of eviction, by having taxpayers cover their “arrearages” and head off years-long battles in housing court.It’s an obscure program known as the “one shot deal” (a misnomer, because tenants can apply repeatedly) —  “emergency assistance,” according to the city’s Human Resources Administration, for tenants who “will lose your housing if you do not get help.”More than 54,000 New Yorkers received such aid last year, and no doubt many deserved it.But it’s also been an invitation for abuse — one that cries out for reform. Consider the experience of “Elena,” who owns three 20-unit pre-war, rent-stabilized buildings in the Tremont section of The Bronx.She and her husband inherited them from her immigrant Greek father-in-law, who invested his life savings to buy them.“Most tenants are good,” she told me, “but there are a handful of bad seeds who just don’t pay.”When she notifies such “bad seeds” that she’s about to begin formal eviction proceedings, they often apply for the one-shot deal to cover their large arrearages.Unpaid rent in just one of her buildings tops $100,000.But despite the lack of rental income, she must continue to maintain the aging buildings — even as insurance and taxes increase, and rents, thanks to Mamdani, are frozen.Then some resume their deadbeat ways just months after getting the city’s emergency help, starting the cycle all over again.No other city has a system so generous....