Gentrification and landlord harassment

Upon reading Stabrowski, Newman and Wily, and Vigdor’s articles on displacement by gentrification, one thing becomes clear, that gentrification has a negative effect on low-income people, by either displacing them out of their own neighborhoods or if not displaced, they are left to live in poor conditions in a neighborhood they cannot afford. This causes a feeling of discomfort, isolation and not-belonging, which is clearly seen in Stabrowski’s “New-Build Gentrification and the Everyday Displacement of Polish Immigrant Tenants in Greenpoint, Brooklyn”. Although some manage to stay put in a gentrified neighborhood, their neighborhood becomes unfamiliar due to the newly built high-end stores and shops that they cannot afford. With gentrification comes a new wave of people that can afford higher rents.  This then builds the greed of landlords to oust their tenants from rent-stabilizing housing to make room for the newcomers that would pay more for the same apartment.

Gentrification causes landlord harassment which in turn causes tenants to move out or live in undesirable conditions. Some ways that landlords harass their tenants is by either increasing their rents, not providing a timely renewal  lease for their rent-regulated apartments, or cutting out services such as heat, gas and basic apartment maintenance which would make living miserable and force them out. However, sometimes moving out is harder than living in harsh conditions. “If the costs of relocating are relatively low, displacement will occur. If relocation costs are high, households will accept cost increases, suffering a decreased standard of living in the process” (172) Vigor concludes in his paper “Does Gentrification Harm The Poor?”.

“Stopping landlord harassment in gentrifying Brooklyn” is an article about the notorious landlords and the effort of tenants to fight off landlords that take advantage of the process of gentrification by pushing people out of their building to make room for new, higher-income tenants. In the article, the author gives an example of a women named Marcia McLean who is offered a buy-out to move out of her apartment of 30 years. She refused the buy-out, however she agreed to move temporarily while her apartment was being renovated. When she got back, the locks were changed and was kept out of her apartment. Schemes like this and many more are ways that landlords push out old tenants from their rent-regulated apartments. Those that do manage to stay, do so “in the face of intense pressures from rising rents, deteriorating conditions, and landlord harassment” (Stabrowski, 796). However, the community that they once knew is destroyed, leaving them isolated and uncomfortable in their gentrified neighborhood. “In this sense, they too should be considered among the displaced” (Stabrowski, 796). Although they physically remained in place, they feel just as displaced due to the gentrified neighborhood that they no longer recognize.

I chose to talk about this issue in particular because out of the many problems that come with gentrification, this is one that can be avoided and easily fixed. Landlord harassment should be viewed as discrimination by the government. Therefore, the same laws that go for discrimination should be imposed on landlords that harass low-income families to move out.

Stopping landlord harassment in gentrifying Brooklyn