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This repository contains the data analysis for the worst evictors website for the years 2018 and 2019.

Quick start

You can use Docker to do everything, or you can use Python 3.7 and Postgres directly on your computer.

Option 1: Docker setup

Just run docker-compose run app bash and you're set.

Ensuring enough memory is available

Note that in order for everything to work properly, if you're using Docker for OS X or Windows, you may need to increase the amount of memory available to Docker containers. Specifically, allocating 4 GB of memory and 2 GB of swap should work (the defaults are 2 GB and 1 GB, respectively). You can learn more about doing this here:

If you haven't provided the containers with enough memory, you may get a "Killed" message when running the scripts.

Uninstallation

Once you're done using this project, if you want to delete all data used by the database, you can run:

docker-compose down -v

Option 2: Non-Docker setup

First, create a Python 3 virtual environment, enter it, and install dependencies:

python3 -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate   # Or 'venv\Scripts\activate' on Windows
pip install -r requirements.txt

Make sure to set the DATABASE_URL environment variable to point at it, e.g.:

export DATABASE_URL=postgres://nycdb:nycdb@localhost/nycdb

Build everything

To build the database tables needed to calculate the worst evictors data, run:

python worst.py builddb

Then, to generate a CSV of raw data for the 2019 Worst Evictors list, run:

python worst.py list:citywide-19 > citywide-evictors-19.csv

Also, to generate CSVs of raw data for the 2018 citywide and rtc-specific Worst Evictors lists, run:

python worst.py list:citywide-18 > citywide-evictors-18.csv
python worst.py list:rtc-18 > rtc-evictors-18.csv

Notes on the Analysis

A description of the methodology for this project can be found on the website's About Page.

Automating the Owner Grouping Process (Citywide List, 2018 and 2019)

Our methodology for making the worst evictors list combines data analysis from publicly available data with a community research-driven approach, using on-the-ground knowledge of tenants and tenant organizers. We find it important to use a variety of tools and strategies when generating this list as an effort to make the most comprehensive survey of who is evicting New Yorkers, as well as to provide a list that would help and encourage New Yorkers to organize.

To make our Citywide Worst Evictors List, we use public HPD registration data to find the 'Head Officer', 'Individual Owner', and 'Corporate Owner' contact names for each registered property in New York City. We then group together contact names that share a common business address and combine their properties into portfolios. We use SQL to automate most of this process of grouping owner contact names together, while still incorporating on-the-ground knowledge from tenants and tenant organizers.

The specific SQL code that groups owner names for the most recent Citywide list can be found in the worst-evictors-list-citywide-2019.sql file in this repository. You can look at the specific groupings of owner names in the output CSV file generated using the command outlined above. Note that duplicate and near-duplciate portfolios were filtered out to make the published Citywide list on the Worst Evictors website.

Grouping HPD Head Officers together through research (2018 RTC List only)

For the RTC Worst Evictors list of 2018— our first iteration of the project— we conducted our own research using the Who Owns What tool to group HPD Head Officers together that shared a common business address, while also relying on first-person accounts of shared business affiliation from tenant organizers in our network. In comparison to the later citywide lists, the process of generating this list relied more on qualitative research rather than SQL code.

Here are landlords from the RTC Worst Evictors List that we found to be associated with a group of Head Officer names registered with HPD:

  • "ARETE MANAGEMENT" — JULIUS LAMAR, DAVID MATEO, RAFAL MARKWAT

  • "LABE TWERSKI" — LABE TWERSKI, IABE TWERSKI

  • "LARRY GLUCK" — LAURENCE GLUCK, LAWRENCE GLUCK, SMAJLJE SRDANOVIC

  • "E&M ASSOCIATES" — JOEL GOLDSTEIN, IRVING LANGER, IRIVING LANGER, LEIBAL LEDERMAN, AVI DAIVES, AVI DAVIES, HENRY SPITZER, LOUIS LANGER, NAFTALI LEINER, NAFTOLI LEINER

  • "PINNACLE" — RASIM TOSKIC, DAVID RADONCIC, ABIDIN RADONCIC, JOEL WEINER, EDWARD SUAZO, EDDIE LJESNJANIN, MARC BARHORIN, DAVID ROSE

  • "STEVEN FINKELSTEIN" — STEVEN FINKELSTEIN, STEVE FINKELSTEIN

  • "MATTHEW BECKER" — MATTHEW BECKER, MATHEW BECKER, MARC FLYNN

  • "MORGAN GROUP" — SCOTT MORGAN, RYAN MORGAN, BROOKE MORGAN, STUART MORGAN

  • "HAGER MANAGEMENT" — JACOB HAGER, NAFTALI HAGER, NATALI HAGER

  • "MOSHE PILLER" — MOSHE PILLER, MOSHE PILLLE, SAM ROSEN, SAMUEL BRETTLER

  • "MICHAEL NIAMONITAKIS" — MICHEAL NIAMONITAKIS, MICHAEL NIAMONITAKIS, MIKE NIAMONITAKIS, ANNMARIE BARKER, ANTHONY SIRIGOS, DESPINA SIDERATOS, EFTHIMIOS DIMITRIADIS, JAMES D. DIMITRIADES, JAMES DIMITRIADES, MICHAEL NEAMONITAKIS

  • "BRG MANAGEMENT" — ELY SINGER, JONAH ROSENBERG, SCOTT MITTEL, ANDY FALKIN, ARI BENEDICT, FAUSTO DIAZ, AVNER SKOCZYLAS, BARRY SENDROVIC, JONAH ROSENBERG, ARI BENEDICT, DANIEL BENEDICT

  • "A&E REAL ESTATE" — DONALD HASTINGS, MAGGIE MCCORMICK, DOUGLAS EISENBERG

  • "UFARATZTA LLC" — 1635 CARROLL LLC,2509 ATLANTIC REALTY LLC,312 EZ REALTY LLC, 437 BMW LLC, 491 EQUITIES LLC, 682 MONTGOMERY LLC, DEAN PARK LLC, DRAM LLC, GAN EAST LLC, M WILHELM, MAUNTAUK PARK LLC, MENDY WILHELM, MMS REALTY LLC, PRESIDENT PLAZA LLC, UFARATZTA LLC, YANKY RODMAN