What Kind Of Map Do You Want?

This is your campaign. As the Hands Around Stuy Town Rally approached, you got the chance to pick an online project that would involve people in New York Is Our Home and spread the word about what we're doing to protect affordable housing in New York City. The winning idea was a project to create a citywide map of rent hikes.

We launched that project last week by asking for your address and monthly rent for the last few years. Already, almost 100 people have taken the survey. That means we're ready to create the map.

We want it to be as interactive as possible. Before we go forward, tell us how you want to use the map.



After you vote, take the monthly rent increase survey if you haven't yet and then ask your friends to take it.

Who Came? 7,000 People

You made history Wednesday night. 7,000 people. 92 groups. 38 elected officials. That's who came to the Hands Around Stuy Town Rally.

New York City's housing crisis has been building for years. You know that, because you've been living through it.

But you put New York's broken rent laws front and center. You put rent stabilization back on the map and put vacancy decontrol back in the public discussion. You served notice that it's time to pass the Save Starrett City Law and put all Mitchell-Lama buildings into rent stabilization. And you let everyone know that New York Is Our Home!

The rally was a huge success - but it's just the beginning. So what can you do now?

We're launching a new project to create a citywide map of rent hikes. We're asking you for your address and monthly rent for the last few years. The result will be an interactive map charting how individual rents have risen in recent years and showing areas with dramatic rent increases.

Please spend a minute to take the monthly rent increase survey.


We're also going to Albany on June 5th to demand that the Senate and Assembly pass legislation immediately to put all Mitchell-Lama buildings into rent stabilization and to close loopholes that allow landlords to get out of rent stabilization. Email Chloe Tribich from Housing Here and Now for details if you can join us on June 5th in Albany!

An event this large doesn't just happen. It's the result of a lot of hard work.

We'd like to thank everyone who came. You made the event the success that it was. And a special shout out to the speakers and elected officials who came and to the groups in the New York Is Our Home coalition who all did so much work to publicize this event (listed along the right hand side of this page).

Here's some of the coverage we got for the rally:

• Ed Ott Gets Going on Affordable Housing [Politicker]
• Hands Across the East Village [Daily Intelligencer]
• Hands Across the Complex [Empire Zone]
• Heading to Stuy Town Today? Bring Purell [Curbed]
• 10,000 Expected at Affordable Housing Rally [The Real Estate]
• WFP Turns Up The Heat On Affordable Housing [Daily Politics]

Check back for more!

Thanks to Those Who Spoke

"If we do not fix rent regulation, New York's working-class and middle-class will slowly bleed to death. What makes this place great is that we're all in this together - nurses and computer techs and teachers and struggling actors and cops and everybody. Let's keep it that way."

- Dan Cantor, Working Families Party

Yesterday's speakers at the Hands Around Stuy Town Rally conveyed the passion and urgency of the crowd. Thank you all! The speakers included:

• Mary Brosnahan, Coalition for the Homeless
• Bertha Lewis, ACORN
• Dan Cantor, Working Families Party
• Ed Ott, Central Labor Council
• Hilda Chavis, NW Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition
• Randi Weingarten, UFT
• Lillian Roberts, DC37 AFSCME
• and elected officials.
  

Here's the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott speaking:

Who Came? The Electeds

Here's the list of elected officials who came to yesterday's Hands Around Stuy Town Rally. Thank you all!

• Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum
• Comptroller William Thompson
• Council Speaker Christine Quinn
• Borough President Adolfo Carrion
• Borough President Scott Stringer
• Senator Martin Connor
• Senator Thomas Duane
• Senator Liz Krueger
• Senator Kevin Parker
• Senator Bill Perkins
• Senator John Sabini
• Senator John Sampson
• Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins
• Assemblyman Jonathan Bing
• Assemblyman James Brennan
• Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell, IV
• Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr.
• Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat
• Assemblyman Richard Gottfried
• Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi
• Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh
• Assemblyman Rory Lancman
• Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal
• Assemblyman Keith Wright
• Council Member Charles Barron
• Council Member Bill de Blasio
• Council Member Gale Brewer
• Council Member Inez Dickens
• Council Member Mathieu Eugene
• Council Member Dan Garodnick
• Council Member Alan Gerson
• Council Member Eric Gioia
• Council Member Robert Jackson
• Council Member Letitia James
• Council Member Jessica Lappin
• Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito
• Council Member Darlene Mealy
• Council Member Rosie Mendez
• Council Member James Sanders
• Council Member David Yassky

Update: added Senator Bill Perkins and Council Member Gale Brewer to the list

7,000 and Counting

The New York Is Our Home coalition is closing in on 100 groups. And with all those groups working to turn people out for tonight's Hands Around Stuy Town Rally, there are now over 7,000 people coming!

As part of the rally, we're asking for your help to launch a new project to map rent increases in New York City. Fill out our online monthly rent increase survey with your address and recent monthly rent history. The result will be an interactive map at NewYorkIsOurHome.org charting how individual rents have risen in recent years and will collectively show areas of dramatic rent increases.

Take the survey today!

Thank You!

Thank you for your help to launch a new project to map rent increases in New York City.

The result of everyone's online monthly rent increase survey will be an interactive map at NewYorkIsOurHome.org charting how individual rents have risen in recent years and showing areas with dramatic rent increases.

There's one more thing you can do right now: tell your friends. Click here to send email using your own address book.

Losing Ground

There is no doubt that New York City is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Shaun Donovan recently referred to an "affordability squeeze" and acknowledged the need to preserve regulated apartments.

Losing Ground (pdf), a new report from Housing Here and Now, documents the threat to affordable housing in New York City and lays out solutions to the problem.

The New York Is Our Home campaign has united tenant groups, the Central Labor Council and the Working Families Party to craft the following proposals to preserve our affordable housing stock and allow New York City to retain its diversity and vibrancy:

• Preserve Rent-Regulated Units, including repeal of vacancy decontrol to eliminate the rent threshold that allows owners to decontrol units once they become vacant and hit that threshold.
• Prevent unfair rent increases and tenant harassment by strengthening enforcement of the rent laws and making other reforms at the NYS Division of Housing & Community Renewal (DHCR).
• Preserve Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 Housing, including extending rent regulations to ALL Mitchell-Lama and Section 8 buildings and closing loopholes that undermine rent protections.
• Preserve State and City-built public housing by restoring State and City funding to protect 27,000 units of public housing and to preserve thousands of Section 8 vouchers with an annual State contribution of $70 million and a City contribution of $120 million.
• End the State's Discrimination against New Yorkers Living with AIDS by capping rental payments to 30% of a tenant’s income. The State now requires some tenants living with AIDS and receiving SSI to pay all but $330 of income toward rent.

What They're Saying About Affordable Housing

Support is building for tomorrow's Hands Around Stuy Town Rally. 95 groups have joined the coalition. 7,000 people are coming to the rally tomorrow - blowing past our initial goal of 6,000 people. And more than 50 state legislators have endorsed the New York Is Our Home! agenda.

People are talking. Here's what they're saying.

Here's Ed Ott, Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor Council, a federation of 400 affiliated local unions representing over one million working men and women in New York City:

"A top priority at the Central Labor Council since our inception has been to protect affordable housing and preserve tenant rights for the working men and women we represent. The lack of affordable housing in New York has become an unmitigated crisis. With tenant rights our focus, we will continue to work hard to protect the millions of low and moderate income tenants who now live in daily fear of losing their homes."

Here's George Gresham, President of 1199 United Healthcare Workers East, a union representing 275,000 nurses, nurses aides and home health care aides:

"Our deeply flawed rent laws have failed to protect the affordable housing that we have, squeezing thousands of New Yorkers out of their homes, with thousands more on the brink. It is absolutely vital to working families in this City that our elected officials make immediate progress on this agenda."

Here's Dan Cantor, Executive Director of the Working Families Party:

"Elected officials need to realize that the housing crisis in New York City has reached a boiling point. While the Bloomberg Administration is building 165,000 new units of affordable housing, we are set to lose more than twice that in the coming years. Already we have lost hundreds of thousands of units of affordable housing in this City. We are putting this back on the agenda and making this a litmus test for the 2008 elections. We will be judging our elected officials by their success and commitment to this affordable housing agenda."

Here's Randi Weingarten, President of the United Federation of Teachers:

"In terms of our government's investment in protecting affordable housing, the rent is way past due. Thousands of working families – including teachers, teacher's aides and home daycare workers – lost their homes to skyrocketing rents last year. Thousands more will lose them this year. This agenda for reforming our destructive rent regulation laws cannot wait."

Here's Bertha Lewis, Executive Director of NY ACORN:

"After Stuyvesant Town, after Starrett City, after tens of thousands of rent stabilized units being converted in our neighborhoods, when are our elected officials going to step up and say 'enough'. On Wednesday we are going to wrap ourselves around Stuyvesant Town to send a message and put this issue back on the map — and then we're going to fan out into Senate and Assembly districts and work until election day to ensure that this finally gets on Albany's agenda."

We'll give the last word to Julie Miles of Housing Here & Now, Director of the New York Is Our Home Campaign:

"This is a big agenda. But as the mayor has reminded all of us — we need to take action today to secure New York City's future. Securing the hundreds of thousands of affordable units that we are losing by repealing vacancy decontrol is the most important action government leaders can take to solve the affordable housing crisis."

New Flyer Is Up - Now Pass It Out!

Our latest flyer for the Hands Around Stuy Town Rally tomorrow is up on the site (pdf).

Take a minute right now to download it, print it out, make copies, and flyer your building tonight when you go home. This last minute push to remind your neighbors about the rally will really boost turnout.

See you tomorrow!

Next Week We Rally

Next week, you will be able to meet 6,000 other New Yorkers who care about affordable housing and join together to do something about it. Wednesday, May 23rd, is the day 6,000 of us join Hands Around Stuy Town. More than a massive rally, this is going to be visually stunning event.

RSVP today!

We're expecting the attention and excitement of the rally will bring new people here to the web site to find out more. So we're planning now for ways to get all those people involved. It can be serious or it can be fun, but it needs to send the message that New York Is Our Home!

Here are a couple of our ideas. Vote for which one you like best, or post your own idea in the comments.

Hands Around Stuy Town : 12 Days To Go

We're now less than two weeks away from the Hands Around Stuy Town Affordable Housing Rally.

Momentum is building for the rally. Borough Meetings in Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan were high energy and well attended.

May 23rd will be even bigger. Over 80 groups are on the phones calling their members to bring 6,000 people to the rally. And 70 people have RSVPed online.

We're expecting the attention and excitement of the rally to send a wave of people to the web site, and we're looking for ways to get those people involved. It can be serious or it can be fun, but it needs to send the message that New York Is Our Home!

Here are a couple of our ideas. Vote for which one you like best, or post your own idea in the comments.

May 23rd Affordable Housing Rally - RSVP Today!

What: "Hands Around Stuy Town" Affordable Housing March and Rally.

Why: Because rent is out of control, and New York Is Our Home!

When: Wednesday, May 23rd, at 5pm sharp

Where: Stuyvesant Town between 14th and 23rd Street on 1st Avenue in Manhattan

Who: You and 6,0007,000 other New Yorkers who care about affordable housing and are willing to stand up and be counted.

How: RSVP today!

Always complaining about the cost of housing in New York? Do something about it. An unprecedented coalition including the Working Families Party, labor unions, and nearly every housing organization in New York City and led by Housing Here and Now has united to form New York is Our Home.

We're launching a massive, grassroots campaign to break the logjam in Albany and protect our homes. And we're kicking things off with a rally and march at Stuy Town on May 23rd.

We're holding the rally at Stuy Town, but it's a rally for all New Yorkers. It's a rally about the threat to Starrett City. It's about the nearly 1.5 million existing affordable units we're at risk of losing. It's about what's happening to housing prices all over New York City and the rising price of housing that we're all struggling with.

Will New York City be taken over by luxury condos? New York Is Our Home believes in a New York City in which working families have just as much right to live as hedge fund managers. This is your chance to stand up and be counted.

Send the message that New York Is Our Home! RSVP today!

Lower Manhattan Borough Meeting Tomorrow

Lower Manhattan Borough Meeting

Saturday, May 5th
11am
Middle Collegiate Church, 50 East 7th Street, between 1st and 2nd Avenues

This is the last of the Borough Meetings, so if you've been waiting be sure to come on Saturday. For more information contact Wasim Lone from GOLES at (212) 533-2541 or by email

Brooklyn Borough Meeting Tonight

Brooklyn Borough Meeting

Wednesday, May 2nd
6:30pm
Brooklyn Borough Hall, Court Room, 209 Joralemon Street

Head over after work. And you're going to want to head over, because now they've got skits and songs on the agenda. For more information contact Theo Moore from the Working Families Party at (718) 222-3796 x209 or by email

Upper Manhattan Borough Meeting

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.

The Upper Manhatten Borough Meeting was the third in a series of Borough Meetings happening across the city, all leading up to a massive Affordable Housing Rally on May 23rd expected to draw thousands of New Yorkers.

A full house turned out to last week's Upper Manhattan Borough Meeting. 182 people, mostly from tennant associations in Harlem, filled the room before security started turning people away. Elected officials at the meeting included Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito, Councilmember Miguel Martinez and staff from State Senator Bill Perkins, Speaker Christine Quinn, Congressman Rangel, Assemblyman Keith Wright, Councilmember Robert Jackson and Councilmember Inez Dickens.

Discussion focused on the May 23rd "Hands Around Stuy-Town" Affordable Housing Rally. Expect a strong Upper Manhattan contingent at the rally. Councilmembers Melissa Mark-Viverito and Miguel Martinez pledged to fill 4 buses with people for the rally.

Join us at the May 23rd Rally - RSVP today!