Rockland County Continues to Tackle Illegal Housing

Rockland County is unveiling its newest tool in its fight against illegal and substandard housing. The county now requires landlords to register their units online with the Department of Health at the cost of $25 per unit. It is the next step in the Rockland Codes Initiative to combat overcrowding in rental housing.

County Executive Ed Day said the problem lies with some landlords who take advantage of Rockland's lower-income residents by sacrificing safety for profits. Rockland officials said they find that badly maintained rental housing tends to cluster in two communities – Spring Valley and Haverstraw.  Both are home to large poor and working class communities – predominately  Latino residents, with some Haitians in pockets of Spring Valley.

"We have seen some living conditions that are horrific: exposed wiring, we had one building where we had a child's room in a basement with no egress, right next to a boiler," Day said.

But, Day said the county has already seen improved conditions since the initiative began two years ago. He said higher fines have been a big help in getting the attention of a lot of bad landlords.

"If you are a slumlord," Day said, "We are telling you very simply: you will become a landlord, or we are going to chase you down and we are going to take away your profit margin."

The initiative allows officials to charge landlords up to $2,000 a day for each violation. 

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