Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Could NY Lose Rent Stabilization this Year?

Every now and then I reflect on the amazing fact that I am actually surviving, living, perhaps even thriving in the most expensive city in the United States.  I am not a banker, a lawyer, or a candle stick maker.  I am a social worker.  I pay $1,100 a month for my little slice of heaven, I mean Sunset Park. And let's be real NY is not heaven by any stretch of the imagination.  (Why do we work so hard to be here?)  San Francisco is my heaven but that's a whole other story of real estate hell.  My little slice of Sunset Park is a roughly 500 sq feet one bedroom, which I am almost positive has been illegally converted.  Illegal conversions account for such a high percentage of "affordable units" in Brooklyn     (and when I worked for a certain elected official in Brooklyn and started to get too close to this issue I was also informed of this) that the Department of Buildings and the Housing Preservation Department have an unwritten directive from the Mayor's office to stay away from citing and enforcing illegal loft and apartment conversions because if they were to push everyone out of them there would be no more low wage-workers, starving artists and other needed workers left because they'd have nowhere to live and then, God forbid, New Jersey would become the new New York City.

Even with my slightly higher than average social work salary I still just barely cover all my costs. Now part of that is due to the fact that I am paying down credit card debt that I accrued from my first low-salary job out of social work school.  Proof that being paid badly is expensive. I have old friends in the welfare reform movement that say it used to be much more affordable to be poor but now because of housing costs specifically it is so much more expensive and debt-inducing to be an individual or family with low-income. So how do people even make it work?  Why don't we see so many more people on the streets. A family of three resided in my little apartment just before I did. The name on my door was "Morales." I never took it down, it stayed there for a year. My guess is that Mom and Dad slept in the living room while the child slept in the actual bedroom.  This is not an exception, this is the rule.  Multiple families are packing into one and two bedroom houses. It brings new meaning to "single family dwelling rather it's "multi-family apartment unit."   A family of three or more will live in a studio or one bedroom "designed" for one person because it's the only way to avoid street homelessness and keep a roof over their head.  No one should be homeless but there are plenty of reasons why we don't see women and children on the streets. They'll do anything to avoid the dangers of such a terrible option. And government will do anything to hide that. But take a visit to PATH in the Bronx, where all families with children have to beg to enter the shelter system on any given night and you'll see clearly the horrifying reality of homeless women and children in the richest city in the world in the richest country in the world.  And before they let anyone in they will call every friend, every next of kin begging them to take their long lost friend, cousin to sleep on their floor, couch, whatever they've got before they'll let a family into the NYC family shelter system. So the NYC homelessness policy is in cahoots with this whole system that asks families to double and triple up in already untenable housing circumstances before they'll accept them into an already terrifying journey through the NYC shelter system.  Friends and families of these women and children are actually risking their own housing by violating occupancy rules and so when they get kicked out of housing the problem is further compounded.  

In the United States, we spend most of our income on housing and yet welfare benefits and the poverty line are based on an antiquated food budget.  How unfortunate considering that food prices in this country are already artificially low due to agricultural subsidies to wheat, corn, soy, etc. (No subsidies for fruits and vegetables might I add?--but that's a blog for another day). So food stamps, welfare benefits even the very helpful though grossly underfunded Section 8 Voucher program do not go far enough to cover families real costs of living. In theory people should be paying only a third of their income on housing when in reality they are paying half or more in high cost of living cities like New York and San Francisco.  Consider this, a two parent household with both parents working full-time minimum wage jobs are only making roughly $30,000 per year and that's not even NET take home pay.  Sure this family qualifies for EITC and the Child Tax Credit and those are essential but they have to wait for that.  A more dramatic, immediate solution would be to make housing more affordable and/ or mandate a true living wage across the country that reflects actual cost of living. 

OK, let's just assume that we believe that safe, tenable housing is a basic human right and recognizing that we live in a vastly unequal society we then have to address the issue of housing costs with real, legitimate affordable housing laws and programs.   

1. In June of this year Rent Laws in NY will expire, including rent stabilization.  Please call on your elected officials in Albany to make sure they support the renewal and strengthening of rent laws in New York State.  This isn't just a downstate issue or a tenant issue.  Homeowners and cities all over New York State will be impacted. Any renter is impacted and if a renter cannot  afford to pay the landlord the owner of that building is impacted.  

2. Put an end to Vacancy Decontrol! This loophole allows for any unit that goes beyond $2000 per month to fall out of rent stabilization and is then subject to the whims of the market and out of touch landords and management companies.  This is where long time community residents are pushed out and wealthier people move in and instead of contributing to the life of such a neighborhood they displace the history of a whole community. This is one of the biggest weapons of gentrification.  

3. Let's protect Mitchell-Lama housing and preserve invaluable Section 8 vouchers. 


These are my musings for now. I am home sick with a yucky cold so I thought I'd share this with whoever cares to read it.