HDFC Co-op Tenants Allege Board Has Been Using Building as Piggy Bank in Lawsuit

July 29, 2015 — The 54-unit, four-building co-op at 13-19 West 106th Street is also called 13-19 Duke Ellington Boulevard Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC). The complex, reports DNAinfo, became an HDFC in 1994 when tenants took it over from a deadbeat landlord. But it looks like there's trouble in paradise. According to the article, the building "has slipped back into disrepair" and now tenants have filed a lawsuit alleging that it's because "board members [have begun] using [the building] as [its] own personal piggy bank." According to tenants Glen Grant and Pascally Toussaint, the board has racked up more than $143,000 in back taxes and nearly $70,000 in water and sewer charges, says DNAinfo citing public finance records. The tenants say that "building doors have been broken for a decade. Smoke detectors have dead batteries. The boiler rarely works. There was a recent rat infestation and bed bug problem, and when Grant sits at his computer desk, mice run over his feet. While the building piles on debt, the president, vice president and secretary/treasure have been collecting monthly salaries of $1,600, $1,000 and $650 respectively since 2006." Board members are reportedly trying to "get a loan, sell a co-op-owned apartment and raise maintenance prices. They recently held elections for the first time in more than eight years, and in a letter this week announced another meeting for shareholders will be held in August." Unfortunately, if the building doesn't sort out its arrears, the city will likely "transfer ownership to an affordable housing developer who would turn it back into rentals. Current shareholders could remain as renters but would lose all their equity." And that's a sad situation for any co-op, HDFC or otherwise, to find itself in.