According to the article, Gellert identified "economic opportunity, limiting inconveniences, and prosperity" as the themes he considered most important for the village of Philmont. Somehow this seems a bit ironic. It is impossible to calculate the negative impact that Gellert's real estate holdings and his record as a landlord have had on these themes in Hudson over the past few decades. One of Gellert's buildings in particular seems, in some people's minds, to be a reason to support the proposed Civic Hudson project.
Supervisor Bill Hughes (Fourth Ward) was quoted in the Register-Star a few weeks ago, lamenting the deplorable living conditions in some Hudson buildings and speaking of the proposed Civic Hudson project as the solution to the problem: "There is housing in this city where people have dirt floors, where they don't have furnaces, where walls have holes in them, unsuitable conditions. . . . We want to move those people out of those homes and get them into something like this."
It seems fairly clear that one of the buildings Hughes had in mind was this one at 718-720 Union Street, owned by Phil Gellert.
That all Hudson residents should live in decent conditions is not debatable, but is forfeiting the City's civic function and pride and partnering with the Lantern Organization to built yet more low-income housing the only way to ensure that? Surely, the City of Hudson, with the power to enforce its building code, and Columbia Opportunities, which administers the Section 8 program, could ensure that all apartments offered for rent in Hudson, particularly those subsidized by the Section 8 program, be decent and habitable. Besides, is there any reason to believe that if there are thirty-three new studio apartments in Hudson that thirty-three substandard apartments will miraculously disappear? More likely there will just be thirty-three more unfortunates in Hudson desperate enough to live in the substandard apartments.
Are building codes rigorously enforced here? If not, why not?
ReplyDeleteCase in point. Brick work is being done at the rear of the building on the NE corner of 4th 7 Warren. The building appears to be woefully out of alignment, but masonry goes on to close up former window spaces.
Does this really meet code and good construction practice?
Two thoughts- If Section 8 is administered by HUD at the Federal level, then officials from that agency ought to be called in to inspect Gellert's buildings.
ReplyDeleteSecond, if Eric Galloway and Henry van Ameringen want to do some real good in this town, they could start by buying Gellert's properties and fixing them. That would be far better than putting up new structures that would draw the homeless to Hudson.
I feel badly for those unfortunate enough to be housed in Gellert, and in the future, GalVan buildings. To wit:
ReplyDeleteFrom the NY Post (2011): "But the practice [supportive housing] is rewarding to the developers. In 2008, CBS News conducted an investigation into Lantern that the organization "took millions of dollars from the city to provide clean, safe and affordable housing for the mentally ill, recovering drug addicts and others in need," but put them "in deplorable conditions." At the St. Louis, CBS reported "deteriorating conditions under Lantern's ownership," including longtime residents who were now sharing rooms "with rats, mice, roaches, bedbugs and ...dangerously toxic black mold." When the station tracked down Lantern's president, Eric Galloway, at his 6,000-square-foot mansion in upstate Hudson, he refused to comment.
The building in the photograph above is and has been a total disgrace for years. When we owned the warehouse almost nextdoor the dirt lot in front of the building was littered with garbage bags overflowing from a dumpster and the back of a brokendown pick up truck - puddles formed in the large pot holes and children played in the mud. I believe at the time Gellert was fined $250 and told to remove the garbage which he did once or twice but it was never kept up. I once complained to the building inspector but he said he couldn't go inside the apartments without due cause but I'm sure the conditions inside were pretty bad. I also lived kitty-corner from another Gellert building on North Fifth Street where pitt-bulls chained on the porch used to scare me to death though maybe I should have been more worried about the owners.
ReplyDeleteWith all this section 8 subsidization windfall exhibited by Gellert and Galloway there should most definitely be a regular inspection of all apartments under this juridiction . At these prices for rent that we the taxpayer are ultimately paying for there needs to be regular accountability. Fines would also help pay the bills of this city .
ReplyDelete