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April 22nd Town Hall meeting to bring tenants and state senators together
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With so much attention being lavished on so-called "Tea Parties" occurring around the country, in which reactionary whites protest the civil commitment of paying taxes, and vainly trying to seem meaningful by trying to link their "movement" to the anti-colonial sentiments of 1776, a much more important event due to take place here in New York City is in danger of being ignored, an event which means far more to those who are denied a real voice in the media.
On Wednesday April 22nd New York State's senators will gather to meet the ire of New Yorkers being priced out of their homes due to rent destabilization. The event, which will take place at 417 West 57th Street will be used as vehicle to push the passage of bill S2237-A written by Assembly member Linda Rosenthal and endorsed by several prominent state Senators. The bill would help put an end to destabilization in all five boroughs.
For those who have read my earlier pieces on rent destabilization, (see examiner link below), landlords, with the help of the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), are removing more and more units from rent stabilization and onto sky-high Market rates. (Once an apartment's rent surpasses $2000 a month that unit is then destabilized and rent can go up to market rate; anywhere from $3000 to $6000 dollars a month. When more than half the units in any given building are destabilized then the building itself can go to market value.)
Every year the RGB rubberstamps building owner's requests for rent increases. In June 2008, under the cover of darkness and without a proper hearing the RGB threw in an extra hike for apartments occupied longer than six years – on top of 4% increases for one-year leases and 8% for two-year leases. The prevailing argument centered on unusually high fuel costs. Gas was approaching $5 a gallon and admittedly smaller building owners, those who own one or two walk-ups, were due to be hit hard. These owners also have an option to apply to state agencies for what is called a hardship to recoup their losses. In order to do so, however, they must open their financial books to prove these losses. The rent hikes are never rescinded, although fuel prices have dropped drastically thereby negating the alleged urgency of the situation.
What's At Stake
What's at stake are the homes of millions of urban New Yorkers including the 36% of those who earn only twice the poverty rate, those on a fixed income and the working middle class. Like the Trail of Tears of 1831, those being forced out of their homes are faceless to those who only see potential for profit when homes are lost but each has a story to tell and are being forced to move miles away from the communities that they've known all of their lives. Worse yet, as more middle class and lower income New Yorkers now call other states home, no one else is "allowed in". Destabilization is not confined to the trendiest neighborhoods, the East Village, Greenwich Village, Chelsea or Tribeca but is spreading through all five boroughs, worst of all in newly "hot" neighborhoods like Washington Heights, Morningside Heights and Harlem, home of the Apollo theater, which is gentrifying at an evermore alarming rate.
Thanks to several State Senators like Thomas Duane, Liz Krueger, Bill Perkins, Eric Schneiderman, Jose Serrano, Daniel Squadron, and many others, who have been working with various community members, we may yet avoid further rent destabilization and save the few remaining affordable places to live in the city. But Rosenthal's bill is being met with a stiff Republican opposition in Albany where landlord front groups have been lobbying to defeat the bill. Some Democratic Senators are playing politics and refusing to support the bill, most notoriously Senator-elect Pedro Espada Jr. Espada, strong-armed his way into chairmanship of the Housing Construction and Community Development Committee but is still clearly bucking the needs of his own constituents by refusing to support this urgently needed legislation.
Next Wednesday thousands of New Yorkers will be doing some lobbying of their own as the State Senators face the naked rage of communities in crisis.
Until next time…
http://www.examiner.com/x-6452-NY-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m3d26-Putting-An-End-To-Rent-Destabilization-In-NYC
http://www.housinghereandnow.org/pdfs/Manhattan_VD_rally.pdf
http://www.examiner.com/x-6452-NY-Progressive-Examiner~y2009m3d29-Why-the-2009-NYC-mayoral-election-must-be-about-affordable-housing
