New York Public Advocate Jumaane Williams unveiled 2023’s worst landlord list as pending budget cuts threaten to curtail enforcement of housing laws and a bill to help shine light on building ownership awaits the governor’s signature.
New York’s annual shaming of landlords with a large number of building and housing violations included many familiar names this year, including Daniel Ohebshalom, Johnathan Santana, Michael Niamonitakis and David Schorr. Combined, the 100 names on the list amassed an average of 739 violations each for a total of 73,866 violations, a 7% increase over last year.
Williams faulted staff shortages at the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for a slowdown in responding to non-emergency violations.
“I think there’s a problem with capacity,” Williams said at a press conference on Wednesday. “I think with some of the budget cuts that have been proposed, it is going to only worsen and we may see more of some of the horrors that we’ve seen in the past.”
Mayor Eric Adams has called for steep budget cuts to deal with increased spending on migrant care and the loss of federal pandemic aid. According to the annual Mayor’s Management Report, the response time to non-emergency complaints has increased 85% over the last five years while the number of complaints has increased 21%.
Santana topped this year’s list with 3,293 violations, followed by David Tennenbaum with 2,416, Larry Hirschfield with 1,394, Sima Abdavies with 1,372, and Alfred Thompson with 1,341.
Calls to the landlords’ lawyers were not immediately returned. The landlord group Community Housing Improvement Program declined to comment on this year’s list.
Williams pointed to the recent building collapse in the Bronx to illustrate how damaging a landlord’s negligence can be. That building’s owner, 1915 Realty LLC, lists Yonah Roth as its head officer. Roth is affiliated with another landlord, Jacob Zanger, who ranks 50th on the worst landlord list,…
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