How one family made millions on the homeless of New York

Mark and Solomon Lazar, the sons of Joseph Lazarus, a former political ally of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, lead the charity organization LCG in Brooklyn, each of whom earns 240 000 dollars a year from this post.

But they found other ways to increase their income, writes New York Daily News.

Since 2012, the city administration has paid millions of LCG dollars to place homeless families in temporary housing. In addition, in 2015, the organization signed a four-year contract with the New York City Administration for the amount of 10,9 million to create a shelter for the homeless in Brooklyn.

And Mark and Solomon Lazar use LCG money to pay for business services. Razzal Hospitality and Management, which they own. Razzal manages many facilities where LCG accommodates homeless families.

In 2016, LCG paid Razzal $2,7 million to manage part of the program to house the homeless in private housing clusters.

LCG also paid $1,94 million to the Lazarus Brothers private company in 2015 and $1,4 million in 2014.

Meanwhile, LCG customers who live at sites in the Bronx filed a lawsuit complaining about poor living conditions, including cockroaches, leaking toilets and broken appliances.

Some also stated that the LCG specialists, who, according to the program, help them in finding permanent housing, did not meet with them on a regular basis, as was provided for by the program.

Moreover, from August 2017 to April 2018, at least 45 families living in the Bronx cluster facilities provided by the LCG were evicted by homeowners. LCG rents this property from a company. Apex Asset Management LLCwhich in turn rents them directly from the owners. What caused the eviction and which party did not pay the money until it was clarified.

The city's homeless service said that complaints from LCG clients and evictions caused the department’s recent decision to shut down nonprofit organizations' access to all the city’s clustered facilities until 30 June.

The service informed LCG of its decision in February and wrote an official letter to the organization 2 April. Currently, LCG serves the 171 family, living in cluster homes in 55 locations in New York. The organization stated that the eviction of its wards by homeowners “was a surprise and took her by surprise,” and that this situation is “disturbing.”

The city plans to complete its clustering program for the homeless by 2021.

This program has been seriously criticized as inefficient and expensive, and it has also been established that most cluster facilities have a huge amount of violations of sanitary standards and housing conditions.

At its peak, in 2016, this program included 3 600 private homes that homeless families temporarily settled in New York.

Since then, the city authorities have closed 1500 of such units, another 800 is planned to be converted into permanent preferential housing for the homeless.

The homeless service said she was working with LCG clients to find permanent housing for them or transfer them to other shelters.

But some of them said they did not want to move, because they had already established contacts with people in the area.

However, many tenants complain of poor conditions in the apartments, including mice, cockroaches, broken toilets and appliances, to which LCG responds that the organization has long asked owners to eliminate pests and malfunctions in these apartments.

A spokeswoman for the company also said that the relationship between LCG and Razzalbelonging to the brothers are completely legal. The transactions between them are displayed in the tax returns, in addition, Razzal was chosen as a service provider as a result of a “transparent tender” in which other firms participated.

City Housing Service stated that it was not aware of links Razzal with the brothers Lazar, and now the ministry intends to study the situation more closely.

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