BY STUDENT
As a kid, it was pretty easy to bat an eye at the many struggles revolving my household. Leaving them for the older generations to deal with- but that is a given. I am too young to understand poor, I am too young to understand domestic abuse, or reasons behind being potentially taken from my parents. Of course, that changes as time goes by and unfortunately now I have to deal with it all. One in particular that stood out and has become prevalent is, housing. The apartment I grew up in was a small two room apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan under NYCHA. This apartment is pretty old. My great-grandmother moved into this apartment in her late 20’s, so around the 1940's. And now that I think about it- a time where many Puerto Ricans migrate into New York City, for better opportunities like work. Rent was not an issue for her because of how low and stabilized it was, which is great. Interestingly enough, according to the NYCHA Project Statistics of September 1949 the scheduled monthly gross rent was “$34.79”[1].
Furthermore, generations of my family have either lived in the same house, or in the vicinity. This apartment in particular, was rent stabilized. Meaning that under the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal the rent is being regulated. With that, the landlord is only permitted to raise or change this amount to a certain degree, yearly. So, it has been roughly same my whole life. Which was pretty great. Living in an impoverished neighborhood and enduring the many systematic issues, having at least a stabilized rent helped a ton. As college orientation comes up, threats of eviction are thrown at us much more often. But why- why is it so urgent to evict us, knowing our history in this apartment and no sufficient reason to evict. Mind you, this apartment was falling apart. While we can do what we can to mend it all together from: leaking ceilings, to literally not having a kitchen sink for 3 months; there is only so much we can do. It is also not our job. They have ignored countless tickets, yet feel the need to evict us. I of course was not the only one in the area struggling to get their heat turned on or a wall replastered. A 60-year-old woman told The New York Times of her experiences in her current NYCHA Apartment, she states ““They gave a ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket,” Santana said, paging through her papers. “Over here too, ticket, ticket, ticket, ticket. They just give you tickets. But they don’t do anything.””[2]. This is a familiar case for many tenants living in these apartments. But again, why urge to evict us? I think it's an issue of gentrification. Not only was my apartment on the eleventh floor, but I also had a view of the East River. That being said, once we were finally evicted in 2019, without hesitation, a new family was living in that apartment, being changed an average of $1200 as opposed to my average $200.
Again, I think the issue lies with not only gentrification, but in general how housing institutions are run. With clearly little to no regulation, and with the intent of receiving money. This is evident in not being able to complete the simplest of tickets and continuously disregarding the health and safety of tenants. This of course is not a Puerto Rican specific issue but span throughout the Black and Brown community. While I am only mentioning the housing status of the Lower East Side, these issues are being dealt with on a daily all throughout the boroughs; in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens. And you would have guessed it, these housing apartments tend to be placed in areas of lower economic status and/or minoritized communities. Why is it so easy for the state to reinvent building, “modernize’ homes, and make way for new improvement and tenants, but simultaneously fail to simply turn the heat on.
Bibliography
Ferré-sadurnÃ, Luis. “New York City's Public Housing Is in Crisis. Will Washington Take
Control?” The New York Times. The New York Times, December 25, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/25/nyregion/nycha-hud-deblasio-carson.html.
NYCHA, “New York City Housing Authority Project Statistics”. NYCHA, September 1949.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/pdbsept1949.pdf
NYCHA, “Public Housing 2017 Flat Rent Schedule”. NYCHA, 2017.
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/Flat-Rent-Schedule.pdf
Wang, Marian. “The Many Failures of the New York City Housing Authority.” Pacific Standard,
April 7, 2015. https://psmag.com/news/the-many-failures-of-the-new-york-city-housing-authority.
[1] https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/nycha/downloads/pdf/pdbsept1949.pdf
[2] https://psmag.com/news/the-many-failures-of-the-new-york-city-housing-authority
I really enjoyed reading your blog post. I love how you captured your personal experience with the coursework. The drastic increase in rent really shows how gentrification affects residents, especially lower-income residents. It is also not the first time in history where landlords fail to ensure a proper living environment for residents who do not pay extremely high rents. For example, during the time of the Bronx is Burning, many families were living in poor conditions. Their landlords failed to keep up with maintenance, just as your landlord did with your family. The goal is always to make as much money as possible, disregarding the need of the people living there. Landlords would pay to have their buildings burned so that they could collect insurance and your landlord did everything to get you out of the apartment so that they could receive a higher rent. Overall, your blogpost was great and very eye opening. But I wonder why there is no process to prevent landlords from forcing their tenants to move out of the residence?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this blog post in particular. I like the mix between information that is given out to the reader and your own personal opinion and formating. Low income neighborhoods and living spaces have always gotten the short end of the stick and have been treated with malice for years. The goal is to make money and the government does a good job to make sure that they take money from these places and provide a great inconvenience like they dont know whats going on with funding or lack of, education systems, and living situations.
ReplyDeleteI felt your post was really interesting, especially the way you connected your personal experience with the information you gathered on your topic. While reading it I was able to think back on the living situation my parents had with living in a basement. Fast forward when I was around 6 years old we leaved in an apartment with 'two' rooms with mine being the size of a closet and my sisters being half of the living room. Due to gentrification and the increase in prices of apartments, every apartment my family has lived in has been no more than 5 blocks apart.
ReplyDeleteYour honesty in this post was very powerful. The beginning was very striking and made me look forward to reading more. The way you wrote was quite different from everyone else I have read, it is more of a narrative and I feel as though I understand the housing system better.
ReplyDeleteThis post was well written and love the several connections you made. Gentrification is something that i see in my block (dyckman) more and more, and i know how challenging it can be to adapt to new changes, when a community already created it their own space.
ReplyDeleteVery nice post. It reminds me of how all of my uncles and cousins had lived in one house for many years when they first immigrated into the US. Being out in Arbor Hill with public housing, depending on government aid. Later on, they moved and found out recently how all the houses on the street we lived on were completely torn down with fences up.
ReplyDelete