The Legal Aid Society has filed a second Article 78 lawsuit on behalf of five long-term Harlem tenants who were on track to becoming homeowners through the Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) Program, until the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) wrongly terminated the tenants’ participation in the City-run program, as reported by the New York Daily News.

In or about 2002, the tenants at 206 West 120th Street enrolled in the TIL Program, which offers affordable homeownership opportunities to low-income New Yorkers. In 2008, the tenant association, including an 82 year old senior, a veteran, and other long term residents of the building, were temporarily relocated from their building with the City’s promise to renovate the property, move them back in, and transfer ownership to the tenants as cooperative homeowners within two years.

Fourteen years later, tenants are still not back home and the building remains boarded up. The tenants are in temporary housing in various locations with no sign that they will ever return to their homes. In the twenty years since the building was enrolled in the TIL program, two tenants have passed away while waiting for 206 West 120th Street to become a cooperative.

“It is unacceptable that our clients have been displaced for 14 years while waiting for the promise of becoming homeowners to come to fruition, and the City hasn’t even begun renovating the building,” said Charles Alvarez, an attorney with the Harlem Community Law Office at The Legal Aid Society. “Instead, HPD is once again attempting to stop these tenants from moving forward in process and further delaying our clients’ return to their homes. We will continue to fight to ensure that they become the homeowners that the City promised over twenty years ago.”