Tenant Harassment
It is common for landlords in the area to engage in several forms of tenant brutality including:
– Threats
– Lying about the availability of rent stabilized apartments
– refusing to protect the building from gangs
– unorthodox construction of the building
Some landlord’s engage in this behavior to kick out residents living in rent-stabilized apartments so they can bring in new tenants that will be charged full price. Other landlords try to push out tenants so that they can sell their building to companies trying to construct condos. Generally, landlords use unethical means to push out tenants, as they do not want to pay the tenants off.
Interview With Jacob Herald
I personally interviewed Jacob Herald, a past resident of Williamsburg that moved in 2006 due to increased rent. He grew up in a house on North 8th Street, across from the Lady Mount Carmel Church. In 2005 when the rezoning plan was approved, Herald, who was 13 years old, began to see changes to his neighborhood such as new residential construction and an overturn of commercial businesses. For instance, he noted that the Polish bakery on his block closed down during this time. Herald also observed a change to the ethnic distribution of his neighborhood as Polish and Mexican immigrants were slowing being displaced by upper class whites. In fact, Herald himself was forced to leave his house due to an increase in rent.
His landlord did several renovations on his apartment building, including remodeling all the walls and floors and cementing the backyard. It should be noted that the landlord never told the residents that he was doing renovations; rather, he just increased the rent. Since Herald was a child when all this was happening, he couldn’t say for sure if the landlord was illegally increasing rent but he said, “I am pretty sure that he was not supposed to be doing that.”
As one of many residents being threatened with eviction, Herald was targeted by several community organizations that offered to help with the situation. Herald said that his parents often received pamphlets in the mail and were invited to meetings at his school. However, since his parents had enough money saved to move, they did not attend many meetings put on by these organizations.
Mobilization Against Displacement (MAD)
– A coalition of community organizations and tenants associations, including Churches United, Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A (Brooklyn A), Los Sures, North Brooklyn Development Corporation, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG), and the St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corp. MAD’s
– Main objective: To provide education to tenants, help preserve low income housing, and provide legal aid through Brooklyn A.
– Rally at Grand Ferry on March 23, 2011: asked the city for reimbursement of funds
