Join The Flatbush Tenant Coalition For A Housing Justice March This Saturday
This Saturday, the Flatbush Tenant Coalition is joining forces with New York Communities for Change, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, and the Crown Heights Tenant Union for what is expected to be a huge march in support of stronger state rent laws that will better protect tenants.
“Rent regulation expires in June 2015 and it’s our last chance to send a message to elected officials before they head up to Albany in January – tenants want the rent laws strengthened to stop the hemorrhaging of affordable housing out of our neighborhoods!” Aga Trojniak, of the Flatbush Tenant Coalition, wrote to us.
The march starts at 10: 30am at Franklin Avenue and President Street and will end at Church Avenue and E. 18th Street (right by the Church Avenue B/Q subway station).
The Flatbush Tenant Coalition let us know that they will have vans for anyone who cannot walk the whole way.
With rent regulation laws set to sunset in June, they must be renewed by the state legislature and the governor. While there is very little danger that the laws won’t be renewed, numerous elected officials and civic leaders, including Borough President Eric Adams and Councilman Jumaane Williams, have said they could be further diluted to give landlords greater control. Adams has consistently called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to make affordable housing a priority – specifically by addressing the rent regulation laws.
“We can’t allow [Cuomo] to be in the shadows on this,” Adams said at a recent Flatbush Tenant Coalition fundraiser at Bar Chord. “…We must demand the governor get in this fight.”
In Flatbush, 70 percent of residents live in rent stabilized apartments, according to the Flatbush Tenant Coalition.
“But rent stabilization has been gutted over the last few years,” Trojniak said at the same fundraiser. “It’s now a set of loopholes where landlords can dramatically increase rents… What’ we’re seeing in the neighborhood is large corporations buying up apartments in bulk, and they’re waging war on longterm residents.”
This push by landlords to force rent stabilized tenants from their buildings has resulted in the loss of about 3,500 rent regulated apartments in Flatbush between 2008 and 2011, Trojniak said – and, as she and other neighbors pointed out, this landlord harassment has included everything from withholding repairs to taking neighbors to housing court over being one month late in paying rent.
If you have questions about the march, call the Flatbush Tenant Coalition at 718-635-2623, or email ftcoalition@gmail.com.