A city agency responsible for upholding New York City’s housing maintenance code has been found in violation of those very regulations, according to a groundbreaking court decision obtained by The Post.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) has been accused of ignoring four court orders to repair a city-owned apartment in Brooklyn. This apartment was leased to a father more than a year ago, as detailed in the court’s decision.
Brooklyn Housing Court Judge Enedina Pilar Sanchez ruled that the agency was in contempt of court. Her ruling criticized the HPD for failing to address significant issues in the apartment, including the lack of electricity, unstable flooring, broken windows, and a bathroom she deemed “dangerous” and unusable.
“Renting substandard residential units to communities historically living in substandard housing perpetuates a cycle that must end with the very agency empowered to enforce the housing code,” Judge Sanchez stated in her critical decision.
The tenant in question, Julian Butler, 43, was supposed to occupy the deteriorating Bushwick apartment with his then-6-year-old son after losing their previous home to a fire in late 2024.
“I never thought the city would do this type of stuff,” Butler expressed to The Post. “You would think it would be like a private landlord that moves like that.”
Indeed, one attorney who has spent years in housing court says a private landlord would be facing “thousands and thousands of dollars in fines” in a similar situation — and noted it was the first time he’d ever seen the HPD held in contempt for housing violations.
“This is a very important decision,” said the lawyer, David Schwartz, calling it “a real slap in the face that the government really deserved here.”
“They’re the ones that are supposed to be enforcing the law. Meanwhile, they’re breaking it — It’s just so twisted,” Schwartz said.
While HPD’s main role is to enforce the city’s housing maintenance code by issuing violations and fines, the agency also owns and manages a portfolio of 170 buildings, mostly leftovers from when the Big Apple took over thousands of abandoned properties in the 1980s. At its peak in 1994, the city owned over 5,400 buildings totaling nearly 52,000 units.
After the fire decimated his other HPD-owned apartment, Butler thought his luck had changed when the agency told him a unit was open just next door at 143 Noll St., another of its buildings.
But he said the department forced him to sign the lease without seeing the apartment first, or else he would lose his chance to keep his HPD-subsidized housing for $700-a-month.
Turns out, the apartment was “garbage,” Butler said, with no electricity, a missing bathroom sink, broken windows, no cabinets in the kitchen, no lock on the front door, broken tiles in the bathroom and “dangerously uneven” flooring.
Butler and his son started renting on Long Island in January 2025 and waited for the city to meet its own housing code — draining his savings paying both rents and commuting over two hours a day to his job and his son’s beloved school.
But nothing got done.
So, acting as his own lawyer, the single dad and construction worker took the housing agency to housing court.
“I pretty much got tired of them playing around because they weren’t trying to fix anything,” Butler said.
Court filings show HPD tried to claim Butler was a squatter, then offered him another apartment in Canarsie, which was also “currently not fit for human habitation,” according to the judge.
Four judicial orders later, several issues persist — including the “complete lack of electricity in the apartment,” Sanchez wrote.
She found the agency in contempt at a February hearing, and ordered the city to fix the apartment by April 17 — plus provide Butler with a rent credit dating back to January 2025.
The order also states that Butler should not pay rent until the repairs are finished.
An HPD spokesperson told The Post that prior to Butler’s move-in, the agency installed new flooring, renovated the bathroom and more — and claimed that any electric issues were his responsibility to deal with ConEd directly.
The department will “keep working until Mr. Butler has the safe home he deserves,” said HPD spokeswoman Kim Moscaritolo.
The saga has left Butler stressed and broke, blowing through his hard-earned savings to keep him and his son housed while not losing the apartment that would help give him stable footing.
“I’m at my boiling point,” he said. “They drained me dry. It’s really taking a toll on me.”
