You won the housing lottery — to live surrounded by beggars, boozers and worse
Bronx developer Mark Stagg’s “bait-and-switch” shenanigans are making a mockery of two signature Mayor Bill de Blasio initiatives : affordable housing and his “Turning the Tide” homeless plan. In Thursday’s Post, Carl Campanile reported that back in 2015, Stagg flipped a Bronx apartment building into a transitional shelter facility . Working-class residents of the Crotona Avenue building saw their dream of winning the affordable- housing lottery turn into a nightmare once Stagg’s nonprofit partner, Bronx Parent Housing Network , moved 44 homeless families into the 55-unit building in November 2015. The rent-paying residents say they have to put up with panhandling, fighting, all-night partying and even assaults. Stagg used his signature tactic of asking the city for a property tax break in exchange for keeping 20 percent of units “affordable” — and then leasing the remaining 80 percent to a homeless-services nonprofit. Tenants came forward with their tales of misery after readin...