The current crisis in New York pertaining to affordable housing is an unfortunate one in that the people, who cannot afford it, are facing higher and higher rents every year. The system has failed to benefit people on the lower end of the economy, much like it usually does. The question then becomes, how do we mold the system to fit all the needs that are present in our society, rich and poor. The articles that we read this week discuss the actions of local governments and groups, as well as Mayor Bill De Blasio, in attempting to attend to problems with current affordable housing and dealing with the creation of more housing that is affordable. One of the articles, by Ethan Corey, discusses the tactics that the Crown Heights Tenant Union has used to make an impact on the system. One of the methods that they are using is to negotiate directly with landlords and make contract agreements in order to regulate rent increases in the future, protect tenants from being evicted prematurely, and to try to ensure that landlords will take care of their units in terms of maintenance and repair. I think that this is a step in the right direction, facing the landlord’s head on with negotiations, because I think that going directly to government officials is hopeless. I think it’s hopeless to do so because government officials try to make everyone happy in a system that is unable to do so because of the very nature of capitalism. I think that direct negotiations are more likely to persuade individual landlords in neighborhoods to satiate the needs of their tenants. Also, the collectiveness of programs like these, give the people more hope in their cause.
Building more affordable housing in a city with a limited amount of open space can lead to problems. The dense population creates overcrowding of public facilities, schools and transportation. The mayors plan to build more affordable housing simply beckons the question, where? Where do we put buildings that can support the large portion of the population that needs a place to live that is affordable? New York has increased in population and is becoming one of the most overcrowded cities, with apartment buildings being stuffed with tenants, and more people looking to move in. In this sense, I think that density bonuses are a plus because it will take a certain amount of space and utilize it to a large capacity by making taller buildings. On the other hand, building these very tall developments will offset the balance in certain neighborhoods that have mostly low-rise structures.
We, as a class, can create a website that outlines the projected outcome of some of the neighborhoods that are developing more affordable housing, creating projecting pricing guides. We can also come up with ways to target certain neighborhoods with over-bearing landlords, and develop grounds on which the people in this neighborhood could potentially negotiate with these landlords.
Category: 2/26/16
The Traits of the Affordable Housing Militia — Elijah B.
“Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ” Is this the condition that I feared?”– Seneca
I argue that there are three necessary traits that individuals must adopt if they are to be successful in attaining and maintaining affordable housing. These are: Stoic Dignity, Calculated Aggression, and Communitarian Sense, to be described below:
Stoic Dignity: Individuals caught in the throes of the Affordable Housing Crisis are often victims of antipathetic treatment by their landlords, who deliberately withhold, deny, and cease domestic services in order to drive out financially weak tenants. The tenants must not grant any leverage to such behavior. Rather than feel threatened by the degradation of their daily life, they must, in the midst of the combative process, remain resolute and unperturbed by environmental factors. Those tenants who have no qualms about suffering from the weather, power shortages, leaks, loud ambience, etc. can translate admirable stubbornness into a bedrock of action. With this “I shall not be moved” mentality, nothing short of police interference can relocate a tenant from their domicile, a measure that many more timid realtors and land lords will be unlikely to call for without a negotiation process.
Calculated Aggression: To accomplish one’s aims, one must know how to attack their adversaries where and when they’re vulnerable. Faced with eviction and unfeasible rents, a tenant community must take all necessary measures to pressure their aggressors. These can include but are not limited to:
- Protests at the offices of the aggressors.
- Letters to Congressmen addressing the issue
- Articles online addressing the issue, via online news and blog posts.
- Vandalism of antagonist property
- Appeal to Councils, City Boards, Municipal Government, and friends of the community who may have useful connections to press the issue and take action.
- Loitering, Vandalism, and Hooliganism in one’s neighborhood to decrease neighborhood appeal.
Once attention has been gained and negotiations begun, the community must, when face to face with their adversaries, be utterly relentless. Bargaining may be allowed, but only to the direct favor of the community. All arguments should proceed from reason rather than emotion, and friendliness must be extended to the adversary, to disarm them. Appeals to humanity are highly effective, but must be conducted in a deceivingly diplomatic, charismatic fashion.
All of these actions are not realistically effective unless pursued en masse. This leads to the third trait:
Communitarian Sense: To hold the greatest bargaining power, communities must be of one mind and one action. To this end, Tenant’s Unions (like the one in Crown Heights) must be formed to ensure community participations in strikes, protests, meetings, etc. . Additionally, it would be ideal if entire housing developments made the social transition into communal living. With the obliteration of individual property, and the combined efforts of all to finance rent payment of the buildings, it would become extremely difficult for any one family or individual to get evicted, supported as they would be by the aid of the majority, and protected by that majority’s potential wrath towards the powers from above. Such a unified social unit, strengthened by bonds of duty and armed with both environmental resilience and a drive for offensive action, would be the most potent force in quelling the tide of gentrification, rezoning, and real estate that threatens quotidian and domestic life.
Affordable Housing Proposal- Amy Yedid
After reading these articles, I probably don’t have even a fraction of understanding of the struggles that renters face but I think I got the gist of it and it’s clear to me that changes must be made in policies for affordable housing and these are just a few of the proposed policies that I think should be enacted.
48-Hour Response Time For Necessary Repairs.
I agree with one article writer’s depiction of most landlords, that they “operate on a continuum between greed and laziness,” which prevents them from up-keeping the apartments they rent out, sometimes even forcing tenants to pay for these improvements themselves. I don’t, however, believe that the landlords are purposely trying to push tenants out; after all, that’s where their income comes from. I just think that most times they are too lazy or cheap to take responsibility for the repairs. However, tenants are suffering from this laziness. Therefore, I would propose that landlords have a 48 hour response time to make necessary repairs before a tenant can take legal action.
Rent Freeze
A five-year rent freeze sounds a bit too much for landlords to compromise on. I’d go with three or four-year rent freeze instead. Even after that amount of time is up, there should be a limit on how much of an increase in rent a landlord can ask for. And if this rent freeze is not agreed upon, I support Steven Flax’s proposal for a 1 percent increase for one-year leases and 2.75 percent increase for two-year leases. With Williams Willard’s proposal that rents be increased 3.6 percent to 5.5 percent for one-year leases and 4.3 to 9.5 percent for two, while it may look like small increases to landlords and might not even bring them much profit, it’s a huge burden on some renters who can barely even keep up with their current rents. A small increase in their rent can mean a few less meals for them or cutting out other necessities just to make ends meet.
Rezoning
Moreover, I would propose to enact the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) program where 25% of units must be made affordable to families with an averaged income of about $46,600 for a family of three. Now many people criticize this program and state that this plan is still not enough for lower-income residents but I think that this plan is a great compromise between the interests of landlords and tenants because, as I wrote before, landlords need to make a living too and reserving 1/4 of their building space to lower-income families is a sacrifice for them. When you compare this 25% to Bloomberg administration’s 2005 rezoning of Williamsburg where only 11% of units must be made affordable to low-income families, this proposed plan is a tremendous step up.
As a class advocating for more affordable housing, we could make an interactive website that would inform people of the struggles that renters have to face every day along with proposals of solutions to these problems and perhaps we could set up polls with different questions and allow visitors to our website to vote on certain important matters and voice their opinions so we can see where people stand on these matters and be able to see their sides of the story. I don’t believe that we can ever make every single person happy with the decisions that the government makes but I do, however, believe in compromise and I would hope that the website would allow both tenants and landlords to make proposals and, hopefully, compromises.
Affordable Housing Proposal
To be completely honest I am still a bit torn about the housing crisis and I would need to do years of research in order to actually formulate a solid proposal. There are so many competing points of view and so many paradoxes that it’s very difficult to say that one idea is completely right or wrong. So, based on my limited knowledge of the topic through the assigned articles and my short experience with renting in New York, this is what I have come up with.
Firstly, an informational website containing renting and sale prices is obviously a good idea. People have a right to know if they are overpaying for their apartments and they should be aware of the price increases in their own communities and others. Although I just read several articles about community activism, there is still a vast number of renters who are not involved or informed. The only real way to (maybe) make progress in this issue is through political action (i.e. voting, petitions, community boards, protesting, asking questions ect.).
If I were to draft an actual policy proposal I would first do extensive research about the community or communities involved. This research would involve interviews with renters and landlords in the community as well as sit ins at community board meetings. Interviews are required because not everyone is represented at board meetings as Ben and I mentioned last class; at the Bensonhurst board meeting there was a single Chinese member in a vastly Chinese community. The community board members often draft their own proposals and I would use these as a springboard, of course taking budgeting and landlord statements into consideration as well.
With the East New York plan in mind I would attempt to create something that caters more towards the actual population of the community instead of the potential gentrifiers which I believe this plan does. The “affordable” units would be designated based on the median income of the community and the percentages that fall into each range. (Say 40% of people make below $30,000. A corresponding number of units would be designated for those people.) Additionally I would direct more funds into monitoring of the current landlords so that they do not take advantage of their tenants and make sure that they are taking care of their buildings properly. Lastly I would carefully consider the current uses of buildings up for rezoning. If an area that is used for manufacturing is rezoned so that skyscrapers can be built, residential buildings will appear along with ground floor shops. These shops most likely would pay less than the current industry and would leave many people out of work. Additionally the skyscrapers would be a beacon for the wealthier who move into the community, displacing members.
Of course I miss a lot of important issues but these are the few that stood out to me.
Affordable Housing Plan
Capitalism works because there are always ebbs and flows. There was white flight and there was crime, then there was a revival now there is over-saturation. The same people who had to live through the blight and the crime are being driven out by the sons and daughters of the whites that fled in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s not fair for them and its not fair to anybody who wants to live a affordable life in New York. We have just become too much of a cultural and economic icon for the tide to be reversed by people’s decisions. The commercial sector takes notice of cultural and political changes and uses information to make money. That’s why Brooklyn has blown up and that’s why it has become so expensive. It’s part of a real estate bubble like in any other place, there is going to be a rise and there will be a fall. This does not mean that landlords and developers should get to walk all over people. Bloomberg was very developer and landlord friendly because he himself was a man of commerce. Now De Blasio is trying to make himself into the great progressive crusader against the affordability crisis. He knows he has to work to do within the confines of the market and that means working with developers but not favouring them. In the future I think that the best the city can do is try to make sure that people are not abused by their landlords and by developers. That means strengthening tenant unions (something De Blasio mentions in his ESN plan but does not emphasize) and giving community boards more of a real voice in what goes on in their areas.
Like the Professor mentioned in class, it was the Poles in Williamsburg that decided to start charging more for the newer people rather than only renting to other Poles, they made a decision to benefit from the forces of the free market and they paid the price. There is really nothing that can stop the forces of the market and De Blasio’s plans are really just a straw roof for the people that know that the dreaded hipsters are heading their way. Unions work very well for industries and are the one of the greatest social aspects of our society that protect people from the arbitrary nature of the market. Tenants who form together and make themselves powerful, even by getting lawyers or getting themselves into the government, will be able to actually to protect their homes. Realistically, the only way to stop people from wanting to move into your area is by going after the super gentrifiers that are now pushing the hipsters out of Park Slope and Williamsburg. The people are being pushed down into Eastern and Southern Brooklyn and will continue to flow and change rents until they realise the New York the moved here to live in does not exist anymore because they have gotten rid of what they grew up dreaming about. That’s a different way of saying that they will have buyers remorse because coming in somewhere just as the financial bubble is about to pop is no fun. Time is on the side of the tenants because this bubble has been building since the 90’s but for now my recommendation is to build a defense around grassroots political organisations and prepare for the arrival of the developers and wait for band aids from the city.
Affordable Housing class project proposal-Mohammed Arafa
The lifeblood of any great city is the people living in it. So New York as a great city must look out for all the people living in this great city. When the government of the people looks out for people and protects the people’s interest that is when government is at its best. One of the biggest problems facing the people of New York is the lack of affordable housing and the massive increase in rent prices in New York. Even when developers build “affordable” housing the market value of these apartments is so high that even at below market prices people still can’t afford them. However if they can afford them you will usually have a ridiculous number of applicants all applying for the same apartment. So what I think needs to be done is for local governments to allow transparency when dealing with developers which will allow the people living and applying for these apartments to make sure the developers are keeping their promises. For example if a developer agrees that they will list 30% of their apartments at below market value but then they don’t provide the same amenities that the other apartments offer the residents will be able to be informed about their problem. Also I believe city government should use its strongest tool to help the people not the developers and force them to develop affordable housing. Of course we need to balance the peoples need for affordable housing with the developers need for profit or else developers won’t want to build in New York. Another useful tool mentioned earlier by Crystal is the use of rent stabilization and rent freeze zones that will allow people to live in an apartment without worrying that the cost of living there won’t change over night to some ridiculous cost. One class project we could do as a class is to form a website with the common problems that tenants in New York face and try to inform the public as to how these problems originate and what are something that other people have done to find solutions to these problems. Also we could have a forum section where people can post about the problems they are facing as tenants of NYC and what they are doing about it.
Affordable Housing Proposal
This weeks articles dealt with how some communities have dealt with gentrification and what the city government is doing to provide more affordable housing to low income residents. Upon reading the articles it becomes clear that there is a large rift in the relationship between the city’s government and its residents. The trust is simply not there. What the Crown Heights Tenant Union accomplished with the a relative small increase in 1 year leases is admirable. However, the fact that that they had to sign petitions, and protest, and pass through metal detectors to attend the hearing is proof of the city’s reluctance to mediate an agreement between landlords and existing tenants. De Blasio’s plan for the East New York is new and a work in progress, the residents of East New York do not see the good it can bring to the neighborhood and are worried of the implications of allowing private investors to build. This issue could be remedied be the working together of both the city and the residents to draft up a plan that will satisfy all parties involved. It is here where organizations like The Crown Heights Tenant Union can come in handy, by expressing their concerns and the needs of the neighborhood the residents can have a say in what the future of their homes will look like. As is stated in the article by Ethan Corey, “there is power in numbers” if enough residents join a community union like the CHT, the city will be forced to take them seriously. For this reason it is my opinion that for a public housing site we should stress the importance of joining the local organization if there is one and if not, how to start one. It is also important to inform the general population of their rights as tenants. Also included with rights as tenants, would be various examples of housing that has gone up in price around the city in the past few years. Buildings that offer a percentage of their units as “affordable” would also be listed. Giving the public this type of information will enable them to make an informed decision on how to traverse the affordable housing crisis that has befallen the city in the past decade,
Affordable Housing Proposal – Jonathan
Affordable housing seems to be an inevitable result in the end for many neighborhoods in Brooklyn and of all in New York city. With rising rents and a stagnating median household income, it has become difficult for many Brooklyn tenants such as the ones in Crown Heights to afford comfortable means of living. Residents also face “lazy or greedy” landlords who are rumored to plan on removing unwanted lower and working-class for those in middle class or young and affluent who can afford a much higher rent. These frustrated tenants experience several days without heat, and irritating phone conversations with landlord who don’t respond quickly to the problems. In order to secure the future of their living quarters with a better standard of living and treatment, tenants have come together, forming Crown Heights Tenant Union (CHTU), to dissolve their dissatisfaction. The efforts to contact the landlord politically prove the power of tenants, and may satisfy some immediate issues such as a hole in the ceiling or heating. However, those housings in the end need to be renovated completely as these buildings are already well over 50 years old. Rising rent costs and stasis median income of renters call for affordable housing as increasing numbers of households will be left rent-burdened while the demand for affordable housings continue to increase.
First, I believe that affordable housings need some sort of a manager who will receive complaints and concerns from the tenants. This person in charge should be available at least six days a week and must respond in some form of communication within two days about what will be done about the situation. Even if the issue will take a long time to resolve, the response should ensure the tenants that it will be fixed as quickly as possible. It seems that the tenants in Crown Heights does not trust the landlords that they will listen to them. And thus, in this fashion tenants of the affordable housings should be given assurances that they are being heard and something is being done about it. Second, creating commercial areas on the ground floors of affordable housings will make streets livelier and more attractive. They should also figure out some ways to put people into work, such as constructing stores that can hire workers. As seen in mayor De Blasio’s ten-year plan for five boroughs’, rent has been increasing for the past decade while median household income has stagnated. This result of rifting economic inequality and from the great recession caused numerous people out of work. Most of the money that people make are sucked up to the top 1%. Although affordable housing provides safe haven for hundreds of thousands, it is only temporally until something is done about the inequality. Last thing that I will propose in affordable housing is aesthetics. The old red-brick no longer appeals to many. By overlaying with “skins” that give a modern feel, tenants will hold pride in their living spaces and take better care of it.
Yes, many people will be dissatisfied by the construction of affordable housing, such as CHTU. Tom Angotti quotes Jacques Proudhon in this book that gentrification is like property theft. Afraid to lose what they have, people who’s about to lose their property fought back and declared, “we won’t move.” People like CHTU believe that they will lose their living spaces to someone else if something isn’t done about it. They also are afraid that construction of affordable housing will only displace them even more. In my opinion, this is simple distrust of the towns people to the government. They should have some faith that the city government is doing something good with affordable housing, instead of adding another skyscraper to the skyline. If anything, the Mandatory Inclusionary Housing Program will require developers to build permanent affordable housings available at various income levels. One disadvantage of affordable housing is that it will create denser neighborhoods. This means more children, and more children means overcrowded schools. In order to provide proper education, perhaps building more schools might be a good idea too. There are so many interconnecting issues and causes that it is difficult to fix one problem without compromising another. There needs to be a lot more extensive research done on this topic to make a stronger proposal.
Affordable Housing Proposal – Christian Butron
Every city desires to be the very best in the world. Every city seeks prestige, prosperity, and stability. How each city pursues this goal is largely dependent on how it defines itself in relation to its residents. Is a city capable of being prestigious if its residents are not? Is a city’s prestige based on that of their residents? Should a city seek prestige even at the expense of their residents? These are essentially the big questions that New Yorkers face today.
In the face of increasing economic investment and a desire to raise the city above all others, New York has been undergoing major “improvement” projects in many of its once-dilapidated areas. While some see these new developments as improvements to the city that could raise the housing prices and attract outside investment, others see them as gentrification. With a large amount of wealthy people wanting to move into the city, housing prices, rent prices, and living costs have steadily increased. The effect is that lower-income residents are finding it harder to live in the city than before, forcing these people to move to different parts of the city or out completely. In some a parts of the city, the change is so bad the even middle class and some upper-middle class people are finding it harder to make a living. Some sort of “tiered gentrification” is occurring where middle-class people move out of places where gentrification by the super-rich occurring. They then move into cheaper parts of the city, raising the value of those parts, ultimately starting a new cycle of gentrification in those areas, and so on and so forth. If this trend continues, what we’ll be left with is a city full of non-original residents with a large amount of wealth. Perhaps that situation would be great for the city’s prestige for some people. But for many, it’s a “faux-prestige”, earned unnaturally and, in some cases, unfairly. To be fair, the city has tried to reach a middle ground between “improvement” for those with higher-income and “maintenance” for those with lower-income by also creating affordable housing. Unfortunately, such endeavors seem to be temporary measures to ease tensions and/or mask the fact that, by far and large, “improvement” continues. The mask, however, has not been effective. Lower-income residents have already taken notice of the trend and have lost an enormous amount of trust in the city government.
In my opinion, any solution that entails a mix of both affordable housing and expensive housing is bound to be temporary. The reality is that demand is higher than ever for housing in New York, but the supply is limited, driving prices up. The decrease in crime and improvement of old, poor neighborhoods has pushed housing prices to unimaginable levels. As long as the city continues with its projects, no amount of affordable housing can stop this trend.
In order for the city to fully address the issue, it needs to finally come to terms with its identity crisis and dedicate itself to one solution fully. The city needs to make a hard choice: should it define itself by its residents or by its prestige? If the city defines itself by its residents, it would ultimately value the prosperity of its current residents over its future ones’; such a step would mean a dedication towards affordable housing.
It cannot just be old affordable housing where it’s a mix of private-rent controlled housing and public housing. It needs to be completely public so there are not multiple agencies with conflicting interests. Only one New York City Housing Authority should be in charge of the operation, with supervision and approval by the community boards. Such a structure can streamline the process of creating and maintaining public housing while being able to keep those in charge of the process accountable due to increased scrutiny. Also, there needs to be an emphasis on protecting old residents and providing as much housing as possible with livable space. There cannot be one neighborhood that looks like the suburbs and another one that looks like tenements. It’s not efficient. The housing should ultimately be paid by the city and all its residents through progressive taxation, further lifting the burden of living costs on poorer residents. Thus, an informational site dedicated towards housing and rental prices is not really necessary, though such a resource is valuable to those with middle-to-low income and are not eligible for public housing. The other solution of dedicating the city towards the rich would mean the continued wholesale transformation of not only the city’s aesthetics, but its people.
Extra:
But perhaps the most important part of this issue is not housing, is not the city’s identity crisis, but its economy. With lesser skilled jobs being lost to either automation or outsourcing, less-educated New Yorkers have less job opportunities and less real wages. This is the biggest reason why the lack of affordable housing is such an issue. Housing prices typically increase with an increase of prosperity, but the reality is that poor residents are simply being replaced by rich ones. That is why if we are to make a commitment towards affordable housing, it must come with a commitment towards education so that newer New York laborers can find jobs in the future service-oriented, tech economy.
Affordable Housing Proposal
If I am going to set up an affordable housing, there are several things I will do. First, I have to plan how many units in the housing can I build and what kind of units will I build. I will take into consideration of the applicants who are interested in applying for affordable housing and see the percentage of those interested in 1 bedroom or 2 bedrooms, or more. I will sort out the units based on this distribution so the housing can accommodate the needs of the applicants as much as possible. For example, if there are large portions of people who want 2 bedrooms units, I will build more 2 bedrooms units in the housing.
Second, I will set up a website with the rent prices so there will be transparency. I will also set up a rent control which will also be stated in the website so that interested tenants won’t be worried if the rent will increase. I will also set up a contract on the website with all the rules that are expected of the landlord/organization of the affordable housing. The obligations will consist of the landlord/organization reaching back to the tenants within 24-48 hours if the tenants have any issues with their units. The landlord/organization will also be responsible for getting whatever is needed to be fixed fixed by contacting a mechanics or an expert within 24-48 hours after reaching back to the tenant with the problem. I will also put up the numbers for these professionals onto the website just so if the tenants want to contact them themselves directly. But the landlord/organization should still be involved in the process and check up every so often until the issue is resolved.
In Tom Angotti’s “From Dislocation to Resistance: The Roots of Community Planning”, it is stated that displacement is a major issue in housing especially for Black Americans. It is mentioned that public housing in the name of urban renewal ended up displacing a lot of people living in the neighborhood. This leads to my third point. If I am building an affordable housing in a neighborhood, I want to build it on an empty space that no one was occupying. I don’t want to take away a living space of some people to build a new living space for other people. I want to make sure I am not taking away something from a neighborhood but instead add something beneficial to the neighborhood.
I will also have to take into consideration of zoning and planning. Zoning is restricting the number and types of buildings and their uses usually done by the government. Planning is the control of urban development by the government and a license has to be obtained to build a new property or change an existing one. The difference between zoning and planning is that zoning is restriction while planning is expansion. Both will be important if I am trying to build an affordable housing. I have to get permission from the government to build the housing (planning) and depending on the zoning rules, I have to take into consideration of what buildings I can actually build. Of course, I will also have to take in the consideration of the neighborhood in which I am trying to build the affordable housing. I want the affordable housing to be part of the neighborhood and future tenants living in that area to feel that they do fit in.
Affordable Housing Project Proposal (Week of 2/26)
I found these readings a great follow-up to the documentary we saw about Community Board 1. For some reason, I kept thinking about Community Board 1 when reading about rezoning and I was drawing some parallels to the Crown Heights Tenant Union. I was thinking about the voice that these groups create for themselves and ho they should be heard more often. I also felt the frustration that comes when city officials choose not to listen. CHTU was another democratic group that is making a voice for themselves and doing so for their rights. I think affordable housing should be a right, as well as proper heat, hot water, solid ceilings, etc. It is absurd for renters to pay their tenants for caved ceilings, no heat, or no hot water. “It is not the renter’s responsibility to fix the boiler.” CHTU, and groups like it, would be a huge part of my affordable housing proposal. I definitely believe that there needs to be a democratic structure to regulate future rent increase and build communication between renters and tenants. I also think that state or city officials should work with a union like this to monitor their rights, aid in setting rent-stabilization laws, and monitor that no such laws are broken, as well as induce rent-freezes. I know that it is an extremely difficult thing to put in action, especially because of tenants, but rent-freezes seem like a much-needed tool to help the rent crisis/burden. In one of the articles, the writer wrote about a pattern in which people come in to rent, after some time, the rent goes up, the people move out, new people move in and the cycle continues. The writer mentioned staying in Crown Heights but noticing that she had new neighbors every so often. Rent freeze seems like a more secure way for renters to have the same apartments for a long period of time and continue to afford rent. In a proposal, I would push political officials to make a certain percentage of apartments, condos, studios, etc. not just rent-stabilized, but rent-frozen for a certain amount of time. As we mentioned in class, renters seem to be caught between the scissors, or jaws of the rent crisis/burden. Rent has continued to increase while wages have remained the same. My affordable housing proposal is collective action. I do not see the rent crisis/burden as an issue that can be resolved by one group of people or one tool. More groups like Community Boards, Tenant Unions, and understanding political officials need to participate to help fix the affordable housing crisis. I am also a fan of the idea of creating a public nonprofit organization in which those who can afford to, donate money to pay for the renovation of the New York City Housing Authority public housing projects. I really like this idea and because it is a way of enhancing the neighborhood’s livability without rezoning.
I am not a fan of rezoning. Rezoning was described as a “recipe for gentrification” in one of the readings. “Rezoning displaces the very people it is supposed to help.” I do not see how rezoning could ever be a solution to the affordable housing crisis. I feel that rezoning might actually perpetuate the affordable housing crisis because it displaces a huge number of people as well as drive up the rent in the surrounding area. Perhaps political officials see rezoning as a temporary fix because it can make “affordable housing,” create new jobs, new resources, and streetscape to enhance the neighborhood’s livability; however, all theses things are probably devised for the middle class, or upper middle class and not the working class and below. I see rezoning as an excuse for the political officials to put more power in the hands of the real estate market, or just the market in general, which is already an existing “pressure from above.” Housing is where people live, where they make life, where they find jobs, and create families. Political officials can not and should not ask people to relocate for rezoning purposes and promise that it is best for the development of the city, or that it is meant to create more affordable housing and then result in more overcrowding and displace entire communities. I don’t understand how Mayor de Blasio can promise rent freeze and then propose a rezoning project. It seems counter-intuitive to me.
“The median household income in the neighborhood is about $33,000, but in order to afford current asking rents in East New York, one would need to earn at least $44,000 for a one-bedroom or $56,000 for a two-bedroom apartment. Indeed, over two-thirds of East New York households are already spending more than what the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) defines as “affordable.”” I am entirely convinced that rezoning really is just a recipe for gentrification, which makes me grateful for the long process that it takes for a plan to get approved.
So my proposal for a class project is collective action. The best way I can think of doing this is creating some sort of social media platform and somehow combining all the ideas and possible solutions we think of together as a class, and sharing them with other people or groups who can have an influence on the affordable housing crisis. I know that many Community Boards have Facebook pages. My hope with a social media platform is that it can potentially generate enough attention so much that other Community Boards, Unions, existing non-profit groups, (maybe a stretch, but perhaps even) political officials, get in contact with us and there is an exchange of ideas. And even if the said social media platform does not get the attention I hope it would, it would be a way of bringing attention to a matter than members of a properly functioning democracy (as Mohammed said in class) should know about.
