Tenants and housing advocates came together for East Harlem’s first anti-displacement task force meeting to fight the growing trend of landlords pushing out life-long low- and middle-income residents for newer high-income tenants.
The task force, which met for the first time September 10th, was convened by Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito who represents East Harlem, a community in her district where the issue of affordable housing has become a major issue. She stated that the goal of the task force is to harness the energy, concerns, and anxiety of East Harlemites into productive actions, such as sharing information and resources and coordinating collective efforts to deal with the affordable housing issue. The elected official explained that many low-income and working-class community members feel that some landlords are pressuring them to move out in order to rent the vacated apartments, which traditionally have been rent regulated, at market rate. She cited how landlords are increasingly opting out of housing incentive programs such as the state-level Mitchell-Lama and federal-level Section 8 initiatives designed to make affordable housing available. “We have landlords who participated in incentive programs in the past saying, ‘We don’t have to continue’ because these communities [that are undergoing major development like East Harlem] are becoming trendier to people who have more money and are willing to venture north of 96th Street,” Mark-Viverito said. “As long as there are people willing to pay a higher cost [such as rent], the people who have lower means are always going to suffer [from displacement].”
Attendees shared stories with the group of how landlords pressure life-long tenants to move out. One example is pricing tenants out by raising the rent. Matthew Amos, an East Harlem resident, described how his landlord raised his $900 rent to $2,000 last year. “I used to be offered a 10-year lease, but now I only get a yearly one and rent just seems to go up every year,” Amos said. “My rent is sky high and I’m struggling to pay it now.”
Another tenant explained that some landlords allow buildings that they own to fall into disrepair, hoping that the current tenants will get frustrated and move out. Jessica Casanova, another East Harlem tenant, described how an elevator in her building has been out of service frequently since June 2007. “I had to walk constantly up and down the stairs because the elevator wasn’t working,” Cassonova explained. “I’m now taking physical therapy for my knee as a result of the elevator not being repaired in a timely fashion.” Other members of the task force added their own testimonies including one of a building where the fire call box was removed, but never replaced, endangering the lives of tenants.
Others also told about illegal means that some landlords use to try to displace tenants. “There’s a number of ways landlords harass tenants to get them out to make [an apartment] market value,” said Jerry Castro, a community organizer for Hope Community, Inc., a community organization that advocates for affordable housing. He added that immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, are the most vulnerable to these harassments. “Sometimes they’ll [landlords] use their immigration status against them and threaten to call ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], send fake legal documents claiming that they have to appear in court, or have people knock on their doors at midnight pressuring them to vacate the premises.”
The group proposed some ideas on how the task force can be an effective instrument of change in dealing with the affordable housing crisis in the community. The recommendations included the task force serving as an informational network for tenants and housing advocates to share their information with one another, raising community awareness on how to organize a tenants’ association and tenants’ legal rights, and creating campaigns to stand against policies that endanger existing stock of affordable housing in the community.
