A Bangladeshi family in Queens was recently fined $15,000 for illegally converting their home and sub-letting it to extended family, according to Nida Mohsin, a community organizer for Community Development Corporation (CDC) – a not-for-profit organization that deals with issues related to housing and community development needs of the South Asian American community in New York.

Moderating a focus group of landlords and tenants at the Central Library in Jamaica, Queens, Mohsin told News India Times on April 15 that a housing crunch is forcing many people of South Asian origin to live in illegally converted units in Queens borough.

“There are 100,000 illegally converted homes in New York, of which the lion’s share is in Queens. And South Asians account for a significant portion of people affected by illegal conversions,” Suman Raghunathan, interim executive director for Chhaya CDC told News India Times in a telephone interview.

According to an earlier report released November 2002, many South Asians live in overcrowded housing and illegally converted units because of the extreme housing shortage in New York since the early 1990s.

“Overcrowding is also a result of immigrant homeowners trying to make mortgage payments by renting rooms in their houses and through illegal conversions. Illegal conversions typically involve the modification of an existing one or two family home by adding an apartment in the basement or attic. Sometimes several dwelling units are added to a home to create an illegal rooming house.

As a result of their immigration status and lack of awareness about tenant rights, “South Asian Americans have been particularly affected by municipal crackdowns on illegal conversions and speculative landlords,” the report said.

The focus group was preceded by a workshop where tenants and landlords were introduced to city zoning regulations that prohibit converting one-family homes into multiple units.

“A lot of these people are first-time homeowners in the United States. They assume that when they build a house, they can do what they want in terms of modifying it. Many of them are not aware of zoning regulations that do not allow their homes to be converted into additional apartments that they can let out,” Mohsin said.

“In many cases, when a violation is reported, it is the tenants who suffer because of eviction. So a lot of these cases remain unreported,” she said.

Mohsin also addressed concerns of focus group attendees that their apartments could possibly be illegal. Chhaya and other community organizations were seeking regulatory solutions to the problem by seeking increased government fundi