Landlord Program “Unlocking Doors” Has Awarded Zero Dollars

8 September 2025

The evidence of ineffective programs to help rent-stabilized landlords keeps piling up.

The latest example, uncovered by Gothamist, is that only one owner has applied for the city’s Unlocking Doors offer of $25,000 for owners who fix up low-rent apartments that have been vacant at least two years and lease them to low-income voucher holders.

The lone applicant backed out. So, no money has been awarded in the 20 months since Unlocking Doors launched in December 2023. (Mayor Eric Adams unveiled it eight months before, but it took the city most of the year to get it started.) The city is now upping the offer to $50,000.

Does the lack of participation prove that few low-rent apartments have been vacant for years? Clearly not.

Whether the number is less than 2,500 (as the Department of Housing Preservation and Development claims) or 13,000 (Independent Budget Office) or 50,000 (New York Apartment Association), an effective program would have awarded more than zero grants.

Its failure should come as no surprise. Landlord groups complained at the outset that the pilot program was created without their input and that it was too small at just $10 million for 400 apartments. Building permit fees alone would eat up much of the $25,000, and renovations of long-vacant apartments typically cost several times more than that, landlord representative Jay Martin said at the time.

Four months later, in August 2023, Martin, who was then executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, told The Real Deal, “Housing providers have not been interested in the program because of the restrictive parameters.”

Besides the two-year vacancy requirement, apartments must have rents of no more than $1,200 for a one-bedroom and $1,400 for a three-bedroom. Another issue is that many landlords view voucher holders as high-risk tenants.

“Section 8 = tenants for life and we’re not talking the cream of the crop,” one reader posted at the bottom of the Gothamist story.

“I don’t think $50,000 is enough to make this worthwhile. A single bathroom renovation in NYC can easily run around $25,000, which already eats up half the budget,” another wrote. “On top of that, the rent would be capped at $1,200 [for a one-bedroom], so the return doesn’t justify the upfront cost. There’s also the added risk under New York laws that a tenant — or even a squatter — could stop paying rent, leaving me with expenses and no income.”

If tenants stop paying, it can take two years and cost many thousands of dollars in legal fees to evict them. (For those of you who have been following the case of Tasheem Jenkins, last month a judge gave him another reprieve until at least mid-September. And Jenkins was an unauthorized subletter, not even a tenant.)

Operating costs for rent-stabilized buildings are about $1,250 per unit. That doesn’t mean owners save $1,250 every month a unit is vacant, but they have made clear that they won’t sink money into units that pay little rent and could saddle them with a problematic tenant for years, even decades.

“Of course landlords won’t accept 25k or even 50k in exchange for never again making any profit. $1,400/mo is basically break even in NYC,” a Gothamist reader posted. “I would never accept it after having waited decades for old tenants to finally vacate, and then be reliant on the city to pay an absurdly low rent that provides zero profit forever.”

The reader went on: “Not to mention Mandani’s upcoming four year rent freeze! Better to just lock the doors of these low-rent dumps and wait for the laws to change.”

The commenter added, “FYI, a decent renovation with permits costs at least 100k, so at minimum the city needs to double their offer.”