My acquaintance is a real estate agent in Brighton Beach. We’ll call him Semyon. In my eyes, Semyon's best feature is that he has gotten Novoye Russkoye Slovo, day in and day out, for years. If he did not call me from time to time to complain about some of our authors, it could have been said that he sees the world through the prism of our newspaper. The oldest Russian-language publication in the United States does not serve as his window on the world, but rather as a means to chat about the world using our issues as a starting point. Recently, he attacked my colleague who took pity on certain apartment tenants in connection with a series of decisions taken by the city authorities on another rent increase for the residents of apartments protected by the rent-control and rent-stabilization laws.
Semyon believes that these laws are absurd and should not have a place in our lives. He told me about one of his experiences that partially justifies his view. To understand the essence of his position, I should tell the reader beforehand about several important provisions of the above-mentioned laws. They protect only those tenants whose income does not allow them to pay market price for their apartment. This law, which is beautiful on the surface, is in reality absurd. A person who earns more than enough to rent an apartment at market price in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, or on Staten Island, can use this law to rent an apartment in the most prestigious areas of Manhattan, for pennies.
This isn’t very honest, right? It would be nice if the law gave equal rights to all. Meanwhile, there is no equity. If you were lucky enough to fall into an apartment covered by the law, then you are in the saddle, just don’t fall. Breathe through your nose! That is, pay as much as the landlord demands.
The number of apartments with rents regulated by the city authorities is continually decreasing. An amendment to the rent stabilization law of 1994 intends that apartments with rents that exceed $2,000 per month should no longer be regulated by law, if the residents leave them after April 1, 1994. Apartments whose rent has reached $2000 per month should also be removed from its regulation if the tenants have declared incomes of $250,000 or more for two years in a row. Think about it, a person who earns $249,000 per year is quite capable of finding an apartment at market rates, but why should he? The law protects his right to use the same benefits as a family that lives on half as much!
You will laugh, but the Governor of the Empire State, David Paterson, lives in a rent-stabilized apartment! And although his yearly income exceeds $250, 000 the rent on his apartment has still not reached $2,000 per month. He has the right. To look for equity here is simply foolish!
And now we proceed to Semyon’s story.
An old couple recently dropped by his office. They were interested in renting an apartment on the shore. They talked a while and it became clear that either the grandfather or the grandmother of one of the spouses came to America from Kiev. Semyon, as it happens, is from Kiev. Another grandfather or grandmother came from Baranovich. In short, little by little, Semyon and his clients established a trusting relationship.
This trust allowed him to quickly find out the couple’s plan. They had both worked their whole lives in New York schools, and they were both retired. Their school pensions were approximately 60 percent of their previous earnings, which had approached 100,000 for each. Some receipts from a personal pension fund and Social Security were also added to these pensions – but these are trifles not worth mentioning.
The married educators lived (and still live) in a remarkable neighborhood, Riverside Drive on the Upper West Side. From the windows of their two-bedroom, two-bath apartment, they have views of the park and the Hudson. They had children, but they've scattered; one son is a lawyer in Chicago; and the other is a consultant in Los Angeles.
“They’ve left the nest,” one of the visitors sighed.
The nest, I forgot to say, is protected by the rent-stabilization law and costs the couple $1,350 per month, although its market price is close to $5,000.
What does the couple want? The couple wants an apartment by the ocean for $1,500 per month and then to rent theirs for $4,000 to $4,500 in order to increase their already not very small, budget. Would anyone be bothered by an extra thousand per month, especially now, with the sharp decline of the dollar versus the Euro?
“Why the Euro?” my acquaintance didn’t understand. His sympathy for his clients began to fall at a rate significantly exceeding the growth in inflation.
“Well?” The visitors were surprised. “We live three months out of each year in Italy. You can’t imagine how everything has become more expensive there now!”
Indeed, Semyon could not imagine how everything had become more expensive. The last time he was there was in 1978 when he came to America with his wife, two children, and three suitcases. All that he saw was the city of Ladispoli and its surroundings. With his current income, he prefers to vacation in Florida.
Of course, the author from Novoye Russkoye Slovo who Semyon attacked, did not have in mind the above-mentioned workers with New York’s rays of hope. He had in mind our grandmothers and grandfathers who didn’t get the Section 8 program or those who honestly work for low wages. But in Semyon’s opinion, my colleague flatly refuses to believe in the market, which hasn't yet left the elderly and poor without places to live in all of the other cities in America and does not leave them without place to live in our New York, where the rent-stabilization-law protects only those who are very lucky.
