WASHINGTON — A New York woman who was due to get nearly $7 billion from a Biden administration climate slush fund once forced through the sale of a low-income housing complex in Westchester County, resulting in rents spiking up to 80% and making the cost unaffordable for many, tenants say.
Sadie McKeown — a Democratic donor appointed by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo to the boards of the state Housing Financing Agency and Energy Research and Development Authority in 2021 — was ticketed to receive $6.79 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for her nonprofit during former President Joe Biden’s final months in office.
As president of the nonprofit, the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), McKeown then propped up a coalition of groups called Climate United to steer their cut of the EPA’s $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund into building climate-friendly housing and other carbon-reducing initiatives.
President Trump blocked the payouts after assuming office, when his EPA chief Lee Zeldin discovered the scheme described by one Biden administration official as “throwing gold bars off the edge” of the Titanic — and froze the funding at Citibank in Manhattan.
McKeown, whose pay at CPC peaked at $883,703 between fiscal years 2019 to 2023, per tax filings, has long pursued a carbon-neutral agenda — sometimes, her critics charge, at the expense of her organization’s “equitable” mission.
In 2020, McKeown helped broker the sale of Asbury Terrace Apartments, an affordable housing complex in Tarrytown, to for-profit developer Mountco for $15.5 million.
Before the sale, the complex of more than 100 units was owned by the Asbury Terrace Housing Development Fund, whose board was comprised of leaders from Tarrytown churches and faith-based groups and which had provided below-market rentals to low-income residents for decades.
McKeown chaired the board of that fund while serving on Tarrytown’s Housing Affordability Task Force and Municipal Housing Authority. She signed off on the Mountco purchase and got rents raised after petitioning the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), according to records filed with the Westchester County clerk.
The December 2020 sale funneled millions of dollars in net proceeds to the pet projects of another local nonprofit, the Housing Action Council — the executive director of which, Rose Noonan, was serving with McKeown on the affordable housing task force.
CPC’s senior vice president overseeing the Hudson Valley region, Doug Olcott, is also a board member on the Housing Action Council, which was tasked with approving expenditures for future projects from a fund created by the proceeds from the Asbury Terrace sale.
McKeown told The Post that “CPC had no part of the financing at Asbury Terrace,” while Olcott “is a volunteer and recuses himself from anything CPC-related.” McKeown did acknowledge her position on the housing development fund’s board and claimed the sale was “a good outcome for the residents there.”
But the Mountco acquisition resulted in rent hikes of between 70% and 80%, pushing some residents who said they were on tight budgets out of the building.
Meanwhile, frustrated tenants — some of whom mocked McKeown as “Shady Sadie” for her elusiveness during the Mountco sale process — say the new ownership did almost no renovations to the property, as would have been expected to justify such a large increase.
Maddy Viruet, a single mom who lives in the apartment complex, said her payments are set to jump $1,000 to $2,352 per month for her two-bedroom unit — a hike she can’t afford.
“We have nowhere to go — other than to just pack our bags and leave — and that’s what I think they want us to do,” said Viruet, noting that more than two dozen other tenants, several of whom are single parents, were facing the same increases and some had already been forced to move out.
More than 80 of the units have residents on rental assistance, meaning they are only required to pay up to 30% of their income toward rent, while federal taxpayers are left covering the remainder as part of the HUD program.
Many tenants like Viruet who don’t wish to disclose their finances and apply for Section 8 rental assistance must pay the increased rate, which first began to take effect in September 2024.
Haydee McCarthy, who says she lived at Asbury Terrace from around 1990 until 2007 and then again briefly in 2015, added that her grandfather left after the sale and she knows other neighbors who have had to move because of the rent increase.
“With the exception of one or two neighbors, there was never any communication from the board at all,” McCarthy said. “Most residents didn’t have any idea that a nonprofit existed or that a board existed.”
McKeown said the rent increase was factored in “over time while I was on the board consistent with HUD governance and guidelines.”
“The board insisted there was proper management, which there was,” she added.
“We didn’t want anybody to have to leave the building — that’s just false,” added John Madeo, the general counsel of Mountco, who said the roughly two dozen tenants not on Section 8 rent assistance “were paying well below what would be considered reasonable rents in the area.”
“There was an income inequality in the building. That to us didn’t seem fair,” added Madeo, claiming that non-Section 8 tenants were likely paying less than 30% of their income toward rent and only four tenants had accepted an offer from the new owners to cover the difference for those not on the HUD program.
The 2020 sale also may have neglected an agreement with HUD to take on rehabilitation work in the complex.
Around $5 million was supposed to go toward updating the 1971 building’s roofs, windows, cabinets, appliances, flooring, lighting, boilers and a fresh coat of paint — but almost none of that work was done, leaving tenants feeling “cheated,” according to a letter drafted for HUD’s Office of Inspector General.
Madeo admitted that “we didn’t replace kitchens and baths fully,” but insisted: “If there’s work done poorly, we’ll redo it.”
Critics of the sale have charged potential conflicts of interest — and alleged the deal violated Asbury Terrace’s articles of incorporation, which precluded housing non-low-income residents or a sale involving a for-profit entity, court records show.
“When you’re advocating for things you have a direct interest in, you should be recusing,” said Adam Bradley, an attorney who represented one of the faith-based groups during the dispute.
“They’re screwing, in many cases, the people that already live in Tarrytown. They’re earmarking these affordable housing places — as you saw in Asbury — where the low-income units then end up paying substantially more,” he said. “It’s really earmarked for middle-income professionals.”
The New York Attorney General’s Office, however, consented to the sale and it was approved by a state Supreme Court justice.
Ethics complaints filed with Tarrytown officials indicate that McKeown was allowed to serve jointly on Tarrytown’s Municipal Housing Authority and its Affordable Housing Task Force — but had to recuse herself starting in 2021 from “any” deliberations of the latter.
McKeown no longer serves with either organization.
Roughly $8 million of the Asbury Terrace sale’s proceeds, along with a $3 million loan from one of the Climate United groups, were additionally set aside to revamp Tarrytown’s YMCA with “affordable and energy-efficient apartments” for seniors — a project which was cheered earlier this month by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul upon its completion.
Tarrytown natives have expressed skepticism that either the Asbury complex or the new YMCA is being used to house village residents.
At a Board of Trustees meeting last week, resident John Stiloski asked: “How many people from Tarrytown got in affordable housing at the YMCA project?”
“They’re all residents of Tarrytown now, John,” Mayor Karen Brown responded.
“Once it becomes a state housing project, anyone can come live in it,” Stiloski fumed to The Post, saying the Asbury Terrace deal and other housing projects pushed by village officials and McKeown’s nonprofit network have alienated “all the people of poverty and color who truly need assistance.”
“You can’t limit it to just people in Tarrytown,” Madeo responded.
“Any state or federal housing funded, to my knowledge, cannot be limited to community residents.”
McKeown claimed that the YMCA is now made up of all affordable housing units, most of which are lived in by seniors paying between 30% and 70% of their income toward rent, but inaccurately argued “CPC did not finance” the project.
“I had no direct interest other than to see new affordable units get developed,” she said. “It was a great way to use the proceeds of the sale, consistent with the [Asbury Terrace Housing Development Fund] bylaws and signed off on by the AG.”
The trio of Climate United groups that got the Biden-era slush money included CPC Climate Capital, Calvert Impact, and Self-Help Climate Capital.
“All three organizations have significant experience in financing, energy efficiency, and green projects in low- and moderate-income communities,” McKeown said.
McKeown is still lobbying members of Congress to unfreeze her nearly $7 billion share of the slush fund, according to a source familiar with her efforts, in a bid to continue taxpayer-funded projects upstate.
