Today On Ditmas Park Corner: Following The Affordable Housing Fight

First, there was sleepy silence as the bus left Ditmas Park not long after the sun rose Tuesday morning, with neighbors watching our streets lined with Victorian homes pass them by, clutching coffee cups and leaning heads against cold window panes while watching the frozen chunks of the Hudson River and the stacks emitting plumes of smoke in New Jersey become the backdrop to their morning.

But, quickly, as the caffeine sank in and the city dissolved into specks of gray on a horizon, that silence made way for singing and clapping and shouting things like, “Albany’s not ready for us today!”

“Amen!” another person yelled.

About 60 members of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition (a group that represents more than 20,000 tenants in the Flatbush, East Flatbush and Prospect Lefferts Gardens areas) descended upon our state’s capitol Tuesday, March 3, joining other tenants’ rights groups from throughout the five boroughs to lobby for stronger rent laws.

With signs in hand, neighbors took to the capitol building, doing everything from protesting state Sen. Jeff Klein’s vehement defense of the 421-a property tax abatement program (which has been slammed by neighbors as essentially a huge break for developers who don’t come through on building affordable housing) to urging support for tenants facing a housing landscape filled with predatory landlords who aim to illegally kick out longtime rent-regulated residents so they can fill market-rate units at a far higher price tag.

“Legislators need to know tenants really care about strengthening rent laws,” said Aga Trojniak, a coordinator with the Flatbush Tenant Coalition.

And while our neighbors may not have swayed all the legislators to whom they spoke to support a wide range of affordable housing priorities, they made their voices heard – and the lawmakers who did agree with their stance urged them to return to ensure their voices were heard just as loudly as the paid lobbyists from the real estate industry prior to the state Legislature’s expected vote on New York’s rent regulation laws, which will sunset on June 15.

For many of our neighbors, this sense of optimism is crucial. It is crucial because so many of those who took the day off from work to go and trekked through Albany’s ice and snow without complaint did so because they are fighting for their homes. They are fighting to be able to afford to remain in the place where they have lived for decades – many for their entire lives, where they have raised families in apartments where landlords seem to now see blinking dollar signs, where they want to live out their days without owners trying to shove them from their homes – by not making repairs (and causing ceilings to collapse) or taking them to court over what can be exaggerated – or entirely made up – claims.

Because so many of our neighbors are facing this, we thought it was incredibly important to cover the FTC’s trip to Albany, and today we’ll be devoting the day to coverage about the day at the capitol and the issues that were raised.

We’d very much like to hear your thoughts on all these topics, and we will continue to cover this, through the Legislature’s vote in June and, of course, beyond. As one neighbor said during Tuesday’s trip, this is about putting a voice to fairness. About fighting for neighbors who are working two, three, four jobs to make ends meet – and still are having a hard time paying their rent. Who are watching black mold spread across their ceilings like wild fire. Whose floors are cracking. Whose ceilings are caving in. Who want to have a place to call home.