BETWEEN THE LINES IN THE VILLAGE VOICE
There are undoubtedly a large number of bad landlords in New York City. One would think that the Voice could find them and write about them instead of playing patty cake with non profit groups, rabble rousers and local politicians. Every year it comes out with its 10 WORST LANDLORDS, not to do a service to the public but to sell newspapers. The Village Voice is of course, known for its propensity toward attention grabbing headlines and lurid photographs and this article is no different. All one has to do to take its measure is to look at who advertises and pays their bills. Maybe what is needed is an article about the 10 WORST NEWSPAPERS in terms of how many X rated ads offering illegal services they have. Back to the issue at hand, we could perhaps all agree that HUD is the country’s number one worst landlord; that’s a given. However, without speaking for the rest, they really missed the mark by naming Steven Kessner. You can chalk it up to a reporter losing her objectivity and allowing herself to be led around by the nose by a tenant group with a hidden agenda.
Although the article pays lip service to Kessner’s claim that overcrowding apartments is the issue, it is glossed over and buried in the details, for instance, the photo in the article of mold on a tenants bathroom ceiling. What is not being said is that if 20 people live in an apartment with one bathroom, each showering once or twice a day, the ceiling never dries and mold grows. There is nothing that a landlord can do to prevent that except to try and reduce the occupancy load in the unit. Steven Kessner is trying to do that and has opened himself up as a target for the politically connected non profit groups that support the undocumented alien population in New York. Isn’t it strange that all of the articles written about Kessner cite the same couple of tenants? Although this article mentions that he has almost 60 buildings in East Harlem with over 1200 units, Kessner’s inclusion in the article is based on two tenants in two buildings. The Voice reporter makes sure to mention that Steven Kessner has over 3,000 HPD violations. Again, she fails to mention that these violations are spread over 60 buildings or that most of them have been abated but are not removed from record because the city inspectors can’t gain access to the apartments. Nor does she mention that a majority of the violations that are left are in overcrowded apartments. The article starts off by quoting Steven Kessner as saying “I fix it, they break it.” However, it fails to back up that quote with the evidence that was given to the reporter, instead, using alleged conditions in a couple of apartments to build a case for a two tier portfolio of trophy buildings and buildings dedicated to unfortunate immigrants. The conclusion of this article was written first and the rest was then filled in. Shame on the Village Voice. How about this for your next article....NIGHTMARE TENANTS that destroy apartments and then insist that the landlord has an obligation to repair them.

For more information on Steven Kessner, look up his website www.StevenKessner.org or his company website www.re-management.com