Open Letter to Mayor DeBlasio: Please Stop Talking About Building NEW affordable Housing - Bring Back Rent Stabilization & You Won't Need New Anything!

Mayor DeBlasio, I beg of you, Please stop your focus on building NEW affordable housing,  and instead work to reinstate the basic rent stabilization laws that (up until the late 1990's) prevented predatory landlords from doubling and tripling rents at year-end -- forcing renters to find new homes, uprooting families and destroying community.  Bring back rent stabilization and there will be no need to spend billions of dollars on NEW housing.

That isn’t to say that new affordable properties aren’t fabulous -- but what is truly destroying affordable housing in this city, what is jettisoning transient involuntary migrations as well as homelessness, is not the lack of NEW affordable housing, it is the capital improvement loophole that incentivizes landlords to throw their current tenants "under the bus" in order to get them out and (after capital improvements) bring in new tenants at rents that are double if not triple existing rates.

If you don't believe me, or need more facts & figures to convince you, please refer to this Assemblyman's report, "The New Housing Emergency" which explains, "The purpose of rent control and rent stabilization is to mitigate the potentially disruptive and displacing effects of a chronic, severe housing shortage in New York City and its surrounding suburbs. This long-term housing emergency exposes tenants to serious housing stresses such as unaffordable rents and intolerable conditions. Rent regulation addresses this situation by limiting rent increases and barring unjustified evictions, even at the termination of a lease period."

And yet, hundreds of thousands of apartment units have been taken out of rent stabilization.  The solution currently trending from your office appears to be a major push for NEW affordable housing.

Mr. Mayor -- when just a couple of months ago you stood up to the developers of the Domino Sugar Factory and challenged them to make good on their promise to include (new) affordable housing, I was encouraged.   I hoped it might be possible for at least one elected official (aside from Elizabeth Warren) to actually implement some of the policies which were expounded on the campaign trail.  

Your "Two Cities" platform and declaration to address the incredible disparities was inspirational.  So when the NY Times reported,  "Plan to Develop Domino Sugar Factory Hits Snag - DiBlasio,"  I have to admit, I was really hopeful.  I still am.  It's just the Sugar Factory stand-off turned out to be yet another shuffle over NEW units.  

Again, I urge you to consider those in the middle, not poor enough to qualify for said units and too low on the spectrum to pay out the $2500 to $3000 it costs for a one-bedroom or even a studio apartment in any quality-of-life neighborhood.  The rich, the poor, the middle -- New York may truly be a tale of three cities.

If it weren't tragic, this recent story reported in the NY Times might be hilarious:  Tenants had their kitchens and bathrooms bulldozed -- against their will -- while still living in their homes.  The landlord just wanted them out, understandably, to usher in the new unregulated tenants after capital improvements were completed.   The annoyance of having tenants refuse to move did not deter this landlord's vigor, and so he proceeded with forcible construction -- such a flagrant violation of basic tenant (if not plain human) rights that Governor Cuomo is now involved.  It would be funny if this was a one-off, but you know -- we all know -- that it’s not. 

A couple of years ago, the Times reported on a landlord removing the internal stairs of his brownstone walk-up on the Upper East Side in haste to complete new renovations.  "Forgetting" to notify the tenants -- which included among them, one very elderly woman who "accidentally" opened the door to her apartment and fell four flights down.

No doubt new developments are great for young people with zero ties to their communities can get excited by these new units Uptown, Downtown and at the Sugar Factory-turned apartment development.  But older folks with roots in their communities don't want to be "bussed" over to the Upper West Side or the Lower East because you have made a deal with some mega-developer who will deign to provide them with an affordable rent.  

According to a recent article in the Times, there is really only one defense against predatory rent increases -- buying a home.  But -- NEWSFLASH --  Not everyone can.  And who can't?   The millions of single men/women working & scraping by in this city on $50K; the couple with kids who - combined - make ~ $80K  -- those are your constituents too.  Along with the massive up swell of poverty stricken are those in the middle,  the rent-poor who already are spending 2/3rds of their take-home pay and do not have the $50 or $100K required for a down payment on a house, condo or co-op.

These are the people who CAN'T buy.  They don't have the "Excellent Credit Rating" unrelentingly required for buying.  The MIDDLE CLASS, burdened by defaulted student loan debt (to date - cumulative student loan debt is over $1 trillion), hospital bills, IRS and State tax debts – who share the common bond of credit scores somewhere South of the Equator whose Experian reports are spat upon in the realtor's office.  And so, are FORCED to rent.

Read this recent report on how "New York City Affordable Housing is Vanishing" and think how effective simple rent stabilization laws could reverse the sky rocketing increases helping communities protect themselves from the ambush of development.

If you are truly interested in the value of community and what that means -- please talk about rent stabilization laws - talk about bringing them back and keeping them in place.  You won't need to spend billions on new housing, just put the focus on monitoring and regulating the housing that we already have.

Think about how precarious renters feel (and are) – especially in your home town and my favorite place on the map - Park Slope –  the capital of capital improvement -- and where I am now exiled in Flatbush.

They say “The personal is political,” – but let me take a moment and make the political – well, personal.  Originally from Philadelphia, I gravitated to Park Slope to be near Prospect Park.  My life in Philly centered around Fairmount Park.  The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Grand Army Plaza – all provided a critical comfort zone while my over-educated and under-employed quest for various creative careers crashed and burned.  I could always come home to my apartment in the Slope, open the window, breathe the fresh air, go down to the local coffee shop, feel the community of sane minds, and begin the next day anew.

My first apartment in 1986 was an over-sized railroad on 7th Avenue- near President Street - for a mere $850.  In 1989, my girlfriend and I moved into a gut-renovated 2 bedroom on Lincoln Place near 5th Avenue for $1200.  That apartment was sold as a condo the next year, we were forced to move.  We found the top floor of a Brownstone on First Street near 7th Avenue for a mere $1600.

When we broke up in 1995 -- I moved to 6th Street near Seventh Avenue.  It was a large studio with a separate kitchen nearly as large as the living space and I loved the back garden view.  The rent was $950 the first year.  The next year, the rent was increased to $1300, I gasped.  The limestone walk-up definitely had more than 6 units – why wasn’t it rent stabilized?  I found out – the hard way – that this landlord did one of the many “dirty dances” that landlords do – rented me the apartment without telling me that it was actually a sublet.  How?  The entire building was rented to the landlord’s elderly Aunt, so all of the units were technically sublets.  Sublet apartments have no protections whatsoever and so the games began.  From $1350 to $1599 to $1720 – until I could no way afford to live in my own home.

I made a commitment to myself to be sure the next apartment would be rent stabilized.  Lucky, I thought, to find a gorgeous and gut-renovated (uh-oh…) one-bedroom on the same street – even closer to Prospect Park – definitely more than six units.  “Is this a sub-lease?” I asked when first discussing the apartment with the realtor. “Absolutely not.”  He said.  “How much does the landlord raise the rent?” I made sure to ask, thinking I would get an honest answer.  “You can check the history,” The realtor assured me, “Never more than $50.00”  And so I did and so it was.  The only oversight – on my part – was not understanding that once the apartment had been gut-renovated, it was eligible to be taken out of rent regulation entirely.  What started out as a $1600 1-bedroom quickly morphed to $1850 to $1920 after which, having David & Goliath stories embedded in me as a child, I hired a lawyer to fight the next increase to $2100.

A year of fighting and the lawyer explained that the best I could hope for was a settlement.  I was required to sign many papers stating that I believed the landlord had committed “no wrong-doing” – of course nauseating in the extreme – in exchange for a modest amount of money which enabled me to do what?  To move.  Out of my home.  Where I lived for 7 years on a block that I had lived – collectively – for over 15.  But where to?

My hopes of finding another apartment in the Slope were all-but incinerated when I discovered that most – if not all – landlords now run background checks which include your rental history and – wait for it – this is the best part of all– if/when a landlord sees you have been to housing court for any reason you are “black-listed.”  It isn’t legal but every tenant lawyer will tell you that it’s very real.  If you do so much as even challenge any kind of wrong doing in housing court it is on your permanent record.  When you go looking for a new start – forget it.  Your application will be automatically refused.  The reason, your background check was negative.

And so, after almost 30 years living and loving the Slope, I am now in exiled in Flatbush.  Or “Crap-Bush” as I like to call it for the astonishing and overwhelming presence of garbage on every block, every bench, every square foot -- garbage everywhere.  I have been horrified at the sight of average, "normal" looking men and women as they walk along the street, finish off their bag of Utz Potato chips and throw the empty bag onto the sidewalk, expressionless.  Over and over and over again, this ritual spreading of garbage seems native to the 11226 area code.

The courtyard in my Pre-War building does not face the street and so the Dept. of Health does not issue violations for daily Tsunamis of strewn and excessive waste which tenants seem to enjoy throwing out their windows.  My apartment itself is nice – it was renovated and thankfully, still rent stabilized (until it reaches the threshold of $2500 – which it will in about five years), but the property is about 30% renovated and 70% Section 8.  I have been told that the landlord here is doing what landlords do everywhere - allowing those units to fall into egregious disrepair until tenant are forced to move.  Same shi** - different address.

Mr. Mayor, respectfully, please bring back rent regulation, please stop predatory landlord practices.  Please make it illegal to be refused an apartment based on housing court history and please help me move back to my neighborhood.  Your neighborhood, where I belong.

This Thursday, you're going to unveil your new New York of affordable housing.  Let this blogpost influence your five or 10 point plan.  Bring back rent stabilization and stop letting landlords be lords.