The Fund received a letter on December 23, 2022 from Larry Jayson, the Executive Director of Housing and Family Services of Greater New York (HFSGNY). He shared the impact bridge loans have had in supporting HFSGNY’s essential work.
The Fund for the City of New York has been responsible for sustaining our organizational work since 2012. Without loans from the Fund, our staff and bills would not have been paid for many months during these 11 years.
Had the Fund not extended us these loans, our organization would have gone out of existence no later than 2013. Had we gone out of business, the 2,887 homeowners we assisted with foreclosure and the 14,496 tenants that we assisted with more than 25,000 cases would have, in some cases, lost their homes through foreclosure or their apartments through eviction.
The more than 2,500 seniors and disabled persons who were made aware of the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption and Disabled Rent Increase Exemption programs and assisted them in their applications would have seen their rents grow year after year to the point that they couldn’t afford their rent or were denying themselves food and medications to enable them to stay in their homes.
The 46,143 tenants who attended 2,872 building meetings and the 45,208 who attended 549 community meetings and expositions would not have been made aware of their rights and responsibilities, household hazards, and any number of programs that exist to enhance their lives.
You can ride through many parts of Brooklyn and Queens and identify neighborhoods that thrive because of the work we have done in neighborhood preservation and foreclosure preventions. Where we have worked with landlords and their tenants in improving the conditions of one building after another, you can see where small businesses are now thriving in which once were empty store fronts. Neighborhoods where we have worked in foreclosure prevention are not threatened by vacant homes.
Fifteen housing counselors who take pride and are expert in helping people stay in their homes under improved and less threatening conditions would be somewhere else without the environment where we have made it possible to help hopeless cases over many years find successful solutions to housing issues threatening them with homelessness.
Thank you, Andrew Walrond and thank you to the Fund for the City of New York.
Larry Jayson
Executive Director
Housing and Family Services of Greater New York