Randy Mastro, Mayor Adams’ powerful top deputy at City Hall, is trying to find a way to block a controversial plan to build a housing complex in the Bronx for ex-cons with serious health problems — even though the mayor has been a big supporter of the project, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The exact motive for Mastro’s push against the project, known as “Just Home,” is unclear. But it comes as the project continues to draw intense opposition from the neighboring community in Morris Park, where Adams — who’s facing a very difficult path to a second term — could potentially pick up political support for November’s election.
The East Bronx neighborhood has trended increasingly conservative in recent election cycles, giving Adams, a right-wing Democrat, a possible political opening as he scrambles to assemble support ahead of November.
The area is currently represented by Republican Councilwoman Kristy Marmorato, who was elected in 2023 in part due to her opposition to Just Home and has long argued the city’s public hospital system, H + H, should modify the project so the housing is set aside for seniors instead of recently released inmates.
Against that backdrop, Mastro recently asked Dr. Mitchell Katz, the CEO of H + H, whether it would be possible for the hospital system’s board to rescind its approval for Just Home or modify it so the project would serve another population besides ex-inmates, two sources told the Daily News, speaking on condition of anonymity as they’re working on the project.
The sources said Mastro is also in touch with Marmorato and checking with officials at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which has a role in the project as well, for any other avenues that might achieve similar goals.
Any effort by Mastro to try to slow-walk or block the project, however, would likely be difficult to pull off.
The H + H board gave its approval to the project in January 2024, and the City Council’s Public Sitings Subcommittee is set to hold a hearing on the plan Thursday, paving the way for possible approval by the full Council as early as later this month. Council sources say the project has earned broad support.
Adams spokeswoman Will Fowler didn’t comment on Mastro’s behind-the-scenes moves, but said the mayor remains committed to finding a way for Just Home to move forward — though he included a caveat about potentially finding a new site for the project.
“Any conversations we’ve had with stakeholders have centered on one question: how do we cut through the politics of this polarizing issue and identify the fastest, most effective ways to provide more affordable housing, as well as supportive housing for these vulnerable New Yorkers?” Fowler said. “We remain committed to providing such housing and are working to identify locations, here or elsewhere, to do so.”
Mastro’s meddling in Just Home marks the latest instance of the first deputy mayor engaging in efforts to roll back initiatives previously trumpeted and proposed by the mayor. Since becoming Adams’ first deputy in March, Mastro has derailed an Adams administration plan to build an affordable housing complex for seniors in Manhattan’s Elizabeth Street Garden and also scrapped a prrogram crafted by the mayor to subject landlords to fines for failing to compost garbage.
The Just Home project, first announced by Adams’ administration in August 2022, involves transforming a vacant building on Seminole Avenue on the Jacobi Hospital campus into a complex with about 80 studio apartments.
Alvarez Enid/New York Daily News
Jacobi Hospital (Alvarez Enid/New York Daily News)
Fifty-eight of those studios would be earmarked as permanent supportive housing units, complete with wrap-around services like medical care, for New Yorkers who have just left incarceration and are dealing with complex health issues, like congestive heart failure and stage 4 cancer. The remaining studios would be set aside as affordable apartments for low-income ex-inmates.
The thinking behind the project is that it should service inmates recently released from Rikers Island and other city lockups whose health issues are too serious for them to be able to reside in homeless shelters.
Some local residents, including Marmorato, who lives around the corner from the site, argue the project could pose a public safety risk and say eligibility rules around the housing units could result in some pre-trial detainees ending up living at the facility.
As recently as last summer, the mayor was himself a big supporter of the project.
In a July 24, 2024 town hall event held at the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts, Adams pushed back when several local residents in attendance complained about the siting of Just Home. The residents lamented that the project could bring dangerous people to their neighborhood, but Adams made the case it would be more dangerous to not move forward with the plan.
“We got to house people, if you don’t house them, they’re going to live in your streets and they’re going to commit more crimes because they’re not housed,” Adams said.
He even said he’d be OK with being viewed as “the bad guy” for backing the plan. “I’ll be the bad guy to get us through what we got to get through, I’ll be the bad guy, throw the darts at me, call me names, I’ll be the bad guy … I got to get us through housing people,” he said.
Fortune Society, a non-profit selected to develop and operate Just Home, hasn’t been informed of any attempts to alter the project, according to Stanley Richards, its president and CEO.
Richards told The News the mayor’s focus on making “housing a cornerstone of his agenda” is admirable.
“The Just Home project reflects that vision, and we are happy to partner with the administration on an initiative that directly addresses those needs,” he said.
