Without intervention, roughly 827 residents in the nation’s oldest affordable housing co-op, Van Cortlandt Village’s Amalgamated Houses, could face gas service shutoffs by July 1. A newly-formed board of cooperators say that preventing the looming gas shutoffs is just one item in a laundry list of necessary repairs believed to cost around $150 million for the near century-old co-op.
The board of cooperators, known as Amalgamated Cooperators United (ACU), cite a longstanding financial crisis and looming default on its insurance coverage if it fails to make a $400,000 down payment on June 1. Amalgamated’s monthly operating reserves in a given month are less than $200,000, according to Amalgamated cooperator and member of the co-op’s new board, Robert Smith.
During a Feb. 15 board of directors meeting, the board painted a financial picture that included cash and reserve funds totaling just $176,076. Amalgamated also owes roughly $1.5 million in payments to past vendors.
“If you have less than $200,000 to play with in any given month, every serious contingency becomes a life-threatening emergency,” said Robert Smith, an Amalgamated cooperator and member of ACU. “And that’s one of the reasons we’re facing this double whammy. We couldn’t fix the problems that were identified in the inspection, and we don’t know where we can find the $400,000, among the other issues, to keep our residents taken care of.”
The Amalgamated Houses are 11 apartment houses, scattered over six blocks just south of Van Cortlandt Park. The buildings came into existence as part of a 1926 Housing Law, offering a 20-year tax exemption and low-cost building loans to developers who kept profits below 6%
Many of the tenants, board members said, are moderate-to-low income and seniors. A bulk of the buildings in the portfolio were constructed before 1955.
Last December, Amalgamated’s contracted plumbing company assessed that “major work” needed to be done to repair the…
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