He has spoken generally about the need to protect poor, disabled, elderly and middle-class tenants.

But the moves would hurt poorer tenants who were unable to pay the purchase prices, the aides said.

There were also seven bordars (poorer tenants) with five acres each, while one had three.

The concerns may sound petty in a city where poor tenants sometimes go without heat or hot water for months at a time.

In the second, the poorest tenants pay as little as $137 a month.

That's because, generally, the poorest tenants tend to be black and Hispanic; among the working poor, a greater proportion are white.

In return, the poorest tenants would see almost no increase over that period, and the rest would have 16 percent annual increases.

In many cases involving poor tenants, she said, emergency housing grants or other public assistance money are often used to pay back rent.

For hundreds of poor and elderly tenants, the building became almost unlivable.

In fact, about half of poor tenants who now receive vouchers return them unused.