When it comes to affordable housing, rent-stabilized landlords aren’t the problem. They’re the solution.
This piece was written by Janice Hamilton and Lincoln Eccles. Hamilton provides affordable rent-stabilized housing to families in her 8-unit building in Prospect Heights, while Eccles houses 14 families in his rent-stabilized building in Crown Heights.
Rent-stabilized buildings like ours are family businesses. Our immigrant grandparents and parents came to America from places like the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. We grew up in these buildings. We are in this for the long term.
Operating a rent-stabilized property is difficult because most buildings were built before WWII, which means they need constant massive capital repairs, upgrades, and new amenities to improve the quality of life for our tenants, and to compete with new construction.
Buildings like ours are a neighborhood’s economic engine. When landlords like us have the resources to make major upgrades and improvements, we are providing hundreds of millions of dollars in business to local contractors – and that means they’re putting more people to work, which translates into tens of thousands of jobs for neighborhood residents. Our money stays local, in our communities.
This post was sponsored by The Rent Stabilization Association. If you would like to reach our readers, please contact us.
