Landlord Revenue Rising

That's the word from the Rent Guidelines Board, where a staff report found that landlord net operating income grew by 1.6% (that's earnings minus operating and maintenance expenses). More at the New York Times and Gothamist.

Queens Borough Meeting

Last night a diverse coalition of tenants and affordable housing advocates met at Queens Borough Hall in Kew Gardens as part of the Queens Affordable Housing Borough Meeting. Marilyn Charles captured the mood of the crowd with her story: "I have lived in Queens for over 30 years. As a longtime resident, I fear the impact that bad rent laws and sky-high rents are having on me and my community. We need an affordable place to live." The New York is Our Home citywide campaign is organizing tenants to fight to preserve affordable housing in New York by changing unfair rent regulation laws. Marilyn's story is already to common. From 2002 to 2005, rents increased citywide by 10 percent. And if we don't act now, it will become even more common. Over the next ten years, the City will lose an estimated 300,000 affordable apartments. There's a looming exodus of working families from New York City. The Queens Borough Meeting was one in a series of meetings happening across the city, all leading up to a massive rally May 23rd expected to draw thousands of New Yorkers that will highlight these troubling trends. The May 23rd rally is at the Stuyvesant Town public housing development in Manhattan. Rally participants will demand protections for the rapidly dwindling City supply of affordable housing, including: Preserve rent-regulated units. Repeal vacancy decontrol to eliminate the $2000 rent threshold that allows owners to decontrol units once they become vacant. Prevent unfair rent increases and tenant harassment by strengthening enforcement of the rent laws. Preserve Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 Housing. Pass Assembly Bills 795 and 352, which would extend rent regulations to ALL Mitchell Lama and Section 8 buildings and close loopholes that undermine rent regulation protection. Restore State and City funding of Public Housing. Limit rental payments for New Yorkers living with AIDS to 30% of a tenant's income. The current State assistance program requires tenants living with AIDS to pay all but $330 of income toward rent. I'll give the last word to Julie Miles of Housing Here & Now, Director of the New York Is Our Home Campaign: "Securing the hundreds of thousands of affordable units that we are losing is the most important action government leaders can take to solve the affordable housing crisis."

Queens Borough Meeting Tonight

Queens Borough Meeting details

Wednesday, April 25 - Tonight!
6:30pm
Queens Borough Hall in Room 213, 120-55 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens
The meeting will be in Spanish and in English

Tenants, affordable housing advocates, clergy, Queens Borough President Helen M. Marshall, Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, Assemblyman Jose Peralta and Councilman Joseph Addabbo are meeting tonight as part of the Queens Affordable Housing Borough Meeting. We'll talk about increasing rents and the decreasing number of available affordable apartments and discuss ways to preserve affordable housing in New York by changing unfair rent regulation laws.

Tonight's Queens Borough Meeting, last week's Bronx Borough Meeting, and the three upcoming Borough Meetings are all leading up to the May 23rd "Hands Around Stuy-Town" rally, where thousands of New Yorkers will demand protections for the City's rapidly dwindling supply of affordable housing.

Tonight's Borough Meeting is being coordinated by the Working Families Party, ACORN, Queens Congregations United for Action, Tenants & Neighbors, Queens Community House and QLOUT. For more information contact Theo Moore from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x209 or by email

Bronx Borough Meeting

Over 200 people came to the Bronx Affordable Housing Borough Meeting last Thursday to talk about solutions to the city's affordable housing crisis. Some of the groups that came include the Working Families Party, CASA, NWBCCC, Tenants & Neighbors, CVH, NYCAHN, ACORN, CB #4, Sheridan Ave Coalition, Twin Parks TA, MOM, Bronx Pentecostal Food Pantry, Zion Faith D.L.U., Concourse Village Inc. Mitchell Lama Residents, POTS, 1889 Sedgwick Ave TA, BHNCC, PTH, NIDC, Picture the Homeless, RAIN, NYC Labor Chorus, Skyview TA, Youth CAHN, UHAB, Nos Quedamos, CB #2, Housing Council Pct, Soundview Senior Center, United We Stand Tenant Association, South Bronx Action Group, Janel Towers TA, and the National Alliance of HUD tenants: Low Income Housing Coalition. Elected officials in attendance include NYC Councilmember Joel Rivera, NY State Senator Jose Serrano and staff from Assemblymember Jose Rivera's office, Public Advocate Betsey Gotbaum's office, Assemblymember Aurelia Greene's office, NYC Councilmember Anabel Palma's office and Councilmember Maria Carmen del Arroyo's office. I've posted pictures from the meeting to the right and on flickr. If you've got pictures of your own share them with everyone by posting them on flickr and tagging them "NewYorkIsOurHome" There are four more Borough Meetings scheduled. Which one are you coming to?

NYC Affordable Housing Shrinks

The Furman Center has released the 2006 edition of their State of New York City's Housing and Neighborhoods report (via DMI Blog). We're just starting to go through it, but a couple of parts jump out.

On affordability:

The median share of income New York City renters spent on rent rose from 28.6 percent in 2002 to 31.2 percent in 2005, even though 30 percent is commonly considered the maximum burden households should take on.

On the available stock of affordable housing:

Households earning 80 percent of the City's median income - about $33,000 in 2005, or roughly the starting salary of firefighters - could afford to pay $830 in rent in 2005. The number of units affordable to those households fell by almost 205,000 units during the three years between 2002 and 2005. Although 58 percent of the City's rental housing was affordable to such households in 2002, only 48 percent of the rental stock was affordable to those households in 2005.

And on the cost of owning a home:

Between 2000 and 2005, the median sale price for all condos, single-family, and 2-4 family buildings increased by 68%, reaching $480,000 in 2005, up from $285,805 in 2000.

These record high sale prices, combined with stagnating incomes, have led to a declining share of home sales that are affordable to households earning the City's median income ($43,434 in 2005 dollars). In 2000, 11 percent of home sales were affordable; that number dropped to less than 5 percent in 2005.

These problems are solvable, if we take action. New York Is Our Home is working with state legislators to tackle the affordable housing crisis head on. Starrett City is the poster child, but this fight is about the whole city. We want to cover more housing under rent stabilization rules, and we want rent regulations to be stronger.

You can do something. Read the New York Is Our Home approach and then come to the Affordable Housing Borough Meeting near you.

Bronx Borough Meeting Tonight

Bronx Borough Meeting

Thursday, April 19 - Tonight!
6:30pm
Lincoln Hospital Auditorium, 234 East 149th St., enter on Morris Ave.

For more information contact Rasheedah Shabazz from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x205 or by email or Jackie Del Valle from New Settlement Apartments/CASA at (718) 716-8000 x125 or by email

If You're Not Coming, You're Missing Out - Now With Skits

All the Borough Meetings are moving forward with an impressive lineup of community groups and elected officials.

The Bronx will kick things off with the first, and likely largest, Borough Meeting. 200 people are expected tomorrow, April 19, at 6:30pm in the Lincoln Hospital Auditorium at 234 East 149th St. (enter on Morris Ave).

But the Brooklyn Borough Meeting is going the added mile to stand out. Their secret weapon? Skits.

We'll have the video, or watch it in person.

Bushwick Bound

Brooklyn is getting ready for its May 2nd Affordable Housing Borough Meeting with a planning meeting on Monday the 16th at 3:00pm sharp.

To get there take the 38, 54 or 60 bus or the M train to the Myrtle Ave stop, then go two blocks to the San Jose Church at 185 Suydam St.

We'll finalize the Brooklyn Borough Meeting agenda and work on the skits.

That's right, skits. Be there.

Affordable Housing on the Agenda in Albany

The state legislature starts up again next week after a two-week post-budget vacation. Lower Hudson Online kicks things off with a rundown of legislation likely to be addressed in the remainder of the session. Affordable housing is on the agenda:

Rent regulation: The law that controls rents for several hundred thousand apartments, mostly in New York City but also some in Westchester and Nassau counties, expires at the end of May. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he wants to raise the limit of $2,000 a month, above which controls on rents are removed.

"Two thousand dollars a month does not now pay for a luxury apartment," Silver, D-Manhattan, said of rapidly rising rents in the city.

But landlords are sure to resist any attempt to change that cap, which has been reducing the number of apartments where rents are limited during the past few years.

And not a moment to soon. A rent affordability report (pdf) from the New York City Rent Guideline Board (via Empire Zone) had this to say:

household income for rent stabilized tenants declined in real terms by 8.6% between 2001 and 2004, remaining at a nominal $32,000 for both years . . . In addition, evictions and possessions rose almost 8% in 2006, as well as an increase in the proportion of calendared cases that resulted in eviction, the highest level in nine years.
. . .
half of all households residing in rental housing pay more than 31.2% of their income in gross rent, and half pay less. Furthermore, more than a quarter (28.8%) of rental households pay more than 50% of their household income in gross rent. Generally, housing is considered affordable when a household pays no more than 30% of their income in rent.

Speaker Silver is right that we need to do something about rent stabilization and vacancy decontrol. The time has come for an ambitious approach to affordable housing. Read the New York Is Our Home approach and then come to one of our upcoming Affordable Housing Borough Meetings.

Save the Date: Affordable Housing Borough Meetings

Mark the closest New York Is Our Home Borough Meeting down on your calendar, and get involved in the planning by signing on as a member group (there's a sign-up form on the right side of the page) or calling the Borough Meeting contact person.

• Bronx Borough Meeting
  

  Thursday, April 19
  6:30pm
  Lincoln Hospital Auditorium, 234 East 149th St., enter on Morris Ave.
  
  For more information contact Rasheedah Shabazz from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x205 or by email or Jackie Del Valle from New Settlement Apartments/CASA at (718) 716-8000 x125 or by email

• Queens Borough Meeting
  

  Wednesday, April 25
  6:30pm
  Queens Borough Hall in Room 213, 120-55 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens
  
  For more information contact Theo Moore from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x209 or by email

• Upper Manhattan Borough Meeting
  

  Thursday, April 26
  6:30pm
  Harlem State Office building on the 3rd Floor in the "Windows of Harlem" Cafeteria, 163 West 125th Street at 7th Avenue
  
  For more information contact Rasheedah Shabazz from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x205 or by email

• Brooklyn Borough Meeting
  

  Wednesday, May 2nd
  6:30pm
  Brooklyn Borough Hall, Court Room, 209 Joralemon Street
  
  For more information contact Theo Moore from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x209 or by email

• Lower Manhattan Borough Meeting
  

  Saturday, May 5th
  11am
  Middle Collegiate Church, 50 East 7th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues
  
  For more information contact Wasim Lone from GOLES at (212) 533-2541 or by email

Translation from English into Spanish will be provided at all of the Borough Meetings.

And everyone should mark down Wednesday, May 23rd, as the day of the big New York Is Our Home Kickoff Rally around Stuyvesant Town. Meet at 5:00pm between 14th and 23rd Street on 1st Avenue in Manhattan to be part of the action. For more information contact Chloe Tribich from Housing Here and Now at (718) 246-7900 x250 or by email.

Starrett City Still Under Siege

Past rejections haven't stopped Clipper Equities and David Bistricer from putting a new proposal on the table to buy Starrett City and turn it into luxury condos.

First, a quick recap: The Clipper Equities development group led by David Bistricer proposed buying Starrett City, home to 14,000 people, for $1.3 billion. Analysts agree that a price tag that high means Bistricer intends to convert Starrett City to luxury condos. The proposed sale quickly became a proxy fight over affordable housing, and was derailed by an outpouring of community outrage.

Bistricer's latest proposal shamelessly calls for tens of millions of dollars in new public subsidies to Clipper Equities. In return, they'll convert Starrett City to luxury condos slowly instead of doing it right away.

Governor Spitzer and Senator Schumer both came out against Bistricer's new proposal to purchase Starrett City. From the New York Times:

Mr. Bistricer's latest plan to buy Starrett City for $1.3 billion has already received a chilly reception from Governor Spitzer, who spoke out in support of the tenants early on. In a letter last night to the Bistricer group, Mr. Spitzer's housing commissioner, Deborah Van Amerongen, said the plan "failed to adequately ensure that Starrett City would be preserved as viable affordable housing in the future, and would be unworkable under existing statutory law."
. . .
Senator Charles E. Schumer also sent Mr. Bistricer a letter this week saying he had "serious concerns" that the proposal "shifts a significant burden to the federal government, while not doing enough to protect the middle-class character of the development."
. . .
"I will do anything I can to keep it middle class," Mr. Schumer said of Starrett City. "But I'm not going to fight for more subsidies so the seller can make a bigger profit."

This is a major victory, but it's still a temporary one. The proposed sale of Starrett City and the sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village needs to light a fire under city and state officials to protect our existing affordable housing.

Starrett City won't be out of the woods until the New York State Legislature and Governor Spitzer pass legislation to keep Starrett City rent stabilized and repeal vacancy decontrol. That will be a lasting victory for Starrett City and affordable housing throughout New York. Until then, Starrett City residents have to live with the threat of eviction hanging over their heads.

Sign the petition.

(crossposted at Working Families Blog)

Location for the Queens Borough Meeting

We've got a location for the Queens Borough Meeting:

Wednesday, April 25
6:30pm
Queens Borough Hall in Room 213, 120-55 Queens Boulevard

For more information contact Theo Moore from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x209 or by email

And we've lined up Queens Borough President Helen Marshall to be the host.

Find the Borough Meeting nearest you.

Real Estate Prices Rising

The April release of quarterly real estate data shows the New York City real estate market is getting less affordable. From a New York Times article focused on Manhattan and Brooklyn (via Gothamist):

the average price of an apartment in Manhattan rose to $1.22 million in the first quarter of this year, up from $1.14 million in the last quarter of 2006
. . .
Buyers also seemed more willing to pay higher prices for new condominiums in Brooklyn. Corcoran said the average overall prices in Brooklyn rose 22 percent, to $628,000 in the first quarter of this year from $514,000 in the first quarter of 2006.

And prices are only going up:

"In the second quarter, I think we're going to see more appreciation because of the high level of activity" early this year, said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, an appraisal firm.
. . .
"People were holding back a little bit more a year ago,” said Hall Wilkie, president of Brown Harris Stevens, though he added, "Anybody who was holding back, isn't."

But there's also an increasing willingness to take on and solve this problem. Witness yesterday's conference by the Drum Major Institute asking, "Is New York City still a middle-class town?" Alongside discussion by a number of mayoral candidates (here and here), DMI released a survey entitled Saving Our Middle Class. From their report:

"Affordable rent" tops the list of the middle class's biggest challenges. Two out of three respondents describe affordable rent as one of the top three middle-class concerns in the city and it is the only one to get a majority response.
. . .
New York City leaders agree: building more government-funded affordable housing and increasing funding for k-12 education would be very effective at strengthening and expanding the city’s middle class.

And there's this blog post on Room 8 by State Senator Serrano on reforming the 421a tax exemption:

The 421a tax exemption looms somewhere on the Albany horizon, and it's not yet getting the attention it deserves.

Created in the 1970s to fuel development in a depressed city, the exemption program has been periodically reformed to help protect affordable housing in a now booming market.
. . .
I believe there is room for improvement in the city proposal

You can get involved. Find the Affordable Housing Borough Meeting nearest you.

And read what New York Is Our Home would like to see happen.

(crossposted at the Working Families Blog)