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November 23, 2007
In response to "How the Hell"
In response to "How the Hell," here's a little lesson in history. Back in the twentieth century, when America was not divided between the obscenely wealthy (read: you) and the desperately poor (read: someone like me, who lives on disability and food stamps) most people considered each other to be equals, equally deserving of respect and rights. As a result of this to you incomprehensible attitude, LAWS were enacted to PROTECT ordinary people from unscrupulous landlords. So people who rented, and might not earn as much as their overseers, still had the right to remain in their homes and pay a reasonable rent that was increased each year by an amount determined by the city government. There are still a few of these apartments left. Apparently, my city, where I have lived for 25 years, has become so overrun by greed that even the thought that someone like me should have the right not to become homeless is baffling. I wish I could comfort myself with the thought that you are capable of feeling shame, but I can see this is highly unlikely.
Comments
AMEN!
Posted by: Ysabelle at November 23, 2007 9:52 PM
OP, here. So you're presuming I'm rich. I'm not rich. Sweetie, I'm not even a conservative. Hate those bastards.
How about if I'm a cop with a three-family house in Bayside that I saved for for 20 years, and you're paying me $600 a month for a two-bedroom and dragging down the value of my hard-earned property to such an extent that I can't begin to sell it? RC/RS doesn't only benefit the poor, and it doesn't only soak the rich. It also soaks regular people, and lets heiresses live high on the hog for nothing. And maybe you're the incredibly rare example of a person who deserves a helping hand like this. But why is it your landlord's burden?
I feel for you, as these price go so insane and so many of our neighbors and people on fixed incomes are forced to leave their homes. But RC/RS doesn't work.
Anyway, back to my original question: How did specific apartments become designated RC/RS, while apartments right next door did not? Does anybody know?
Posted by: guest at November 23, 2007 10:03 PM
The font is smallish, but this is the best history of rent control in NYC:
http://www.tenant.net/Oversight/50yrRentReg/history.html
Rent regulation is a tough one. I live in a rent-regulated building where there are many low and middle-income rent stabilized tenants, mixed in with a few others (also rent stabilized) who drive Porsches and Mercedes and have apartments in Paris and houses in the Hamptons. Word is they bribe the building manager (who is not the owner).
Posted by: guest at November 23, 2007 10:43 PM
You're "desperately poor" but have a computer, an internet connection, and read Brownstoner?
Posted by: guest at November 23, 2007 11:04 PM
I bought the computer back when I had a job, before I got too sick to work. I pay $14.95 a month for an internet connection out of my alloted $300 in living expenses. This is the first time I have read Brownstoner and I am never reading it again as it is confirming all my worst fears about the inner lives of the hordes of wealthy zombies who are currently invading my neighbourhood and driving me out.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 23, 2007 11:31 PM
I actually have a friend who lives in a rent stabilized Manhattan apartment and bought a home in the Catskills. She is not rich. She simply cannot afford to buy in NYC, but that didn't stop her from home ownership. Her house was around $100k and her NYC landlord isn't exactly hurting. Elizabeth3, I take it NYC is not your original home unless you're 25 years old. If you're on disability, I also take it that you don't have to be at work everyday in the city. FYI, you can still buy a house for $100k and under, with rental income, within 1.5 hours of Manhattan (Newburgh, for one). What the hell is keeping you here? I don't mean it as an insult, but why would you WANT to stay in a place where rats jump on your bed? I actually did a post on this last month. E3, read it! Good luck.
http://reclaimedhome.com/?p=384
Posted by: rh at November 24, 2007 9:47 AM
I want to stay here because I have nowhere else to go, as I stated. The only way I could move out of the city is if my landlord gives me a settlement which I could use to do so. According to the posters on this blog, even considering accepting such a settlement makes me an extortionist. But leaving me aside for a second, I would like to point out that my situation is not unusual. On behalf of the 50 percent of New Yorkers who qualify for food stamps, what IS it that you guys want to do with us? You rail against tenants' rights and the legal obligations of landlords, but where do you expect your maids, nannies, gardeners, doormen, cashiers, etc. to LIVE? Should everyone who isn't wealthy just, um, please go away somewhere so we don't have to think about you? That's 400 million people. Why is it so hard to even consider the possibility that paying a reasonable rent on a modest apartment with the right not to be evicted is not an outrage, but a normal human response to living in a city that you share with other people of varying degrees of wealth.
The truth is, I DON'T want to live here anymore. But it's not the rats that are making me want to leave. It's the moral corruption that money and power seem to bestow on those who have too much of it. Don't worry, I will be forced out. This is just my own tiny Custer's Last Stand.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 24, 2007 2:35 PM
"On behalf of the 50 percent of New Yorkers who qualify for food stamps, what IS it that you guys want to do with us?"
sorry sweetie pie. get your facts straight and then perhaps someone will pay attention to you. if you really think 4.1 million people (50% of new yorkers) qualify for food stamps, you are SADLY mistaken.
Posted by: guest at November 24, 2007 7:33 PM
Elizabeth3 you sound like a nut. Take your 400 million people and get out of town.
Posted by: guest at November 24, 2007 9:51 PM
The nuts are the rest of you (who can't even be bothered to register a name on this site so we can keep track of you [you know so when the revolution comes we can hunt you down like the dogs you are ]). Rent stabilization isn't fair. what would be fair is taxing the hell out of rich and building affordable public housing for the working poor and the disabled as part of a just society. But I suspect you all wouldn't really be in favor of that, would you?
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 24, 2007 10:09 PM
I love anarchists.
They are my favorites.
Let's hear it for free, independent thinkers!
Posted by: Ysabelle at November 24, 2007 10:15 PM
putnam denizan, is that your real name? What dogs are you talking about? Hunting down people? Are you psychotic?
Posted by: guest at November 24, 2007 10:21 PM
Um, actually I can only take 4 million (OK maybe 3) as the 400 was a typo. I am happy to see though that the "exterminate the brutes" contingent I've gotten all riled up are balanced by a few voices crying in the wilderness for some kind of justice. I'm more scared now of the landowners in NYC than I ever was of the violent crime this city saw in the eighties. You've convinced me. I'm outta here.
Posted by: elizabeth3 at November 25, 2007 12:13 AM
10:21 "guest" - serious reply. I find it annoying to read a thread with "guest" "guest" etc. I know what to expect when "Rehab" posts or others who actually identify themselves in some way. That way I can tell if there are three people posting, ten or one. My "real" name is Jake. Happy Sunday to you!
Less serious reply: The dogs I am referring to are the hounds of hell masquerading as landlords posting here. And my comment about "hunting" them down, was, of course, a joke. We all know that in this post-modern world there is no need for a hunt. When the revolution comes we will simply be able to press a button and the implants in the their heads will put them to sleep. It will be very non-violent really. Their tenants will just take their bodies out on the appropriate recycling day (do stony hearts go with plastic or glass? hmm).
Am I psychotic? Not really. Just easily bored.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 7:53 AM
haha very funny joke about hunting down people. you should write a sitcom. moron.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 9:42 AM
Proper landlords need gainfully employed tenants, unless they're renting in a not-for-profit capacity. Poor and disabled people in need of subsidized rent levels and legal protection require government housing.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 10:05 AM
Exactly. And so you "guest" 10:05 are willing to accept taxation at a level which fully and permanently funds such housing? One part of taxation could be say 50% taxation on the difference between market rent and the former rs rate on the destabilized apartments to recover, for the public good the unexpected windfall for owners of those buildings. Otherwise don't buy buildings with rent stabilized apartments unless you can uphold your side of the social contract.
But in the unlikely event that the landed classes actually agree to provide such housing to the poor, it still doesn't address another important component of NYC RS, the transfer of power from landlords to tenants vis a vis automatic renewal leases. This, at this time, has become a political issue, where the voters (majority renters) want to keep their power to force landlords to provide adequate heat, etc, without getting their asses kicked to the curb when the lease comes up. It is a politically determined and purposeful rewarding of one group of society over another.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 11:19 AM
Good landlords get their arses kicked around by the elitist poor and disabled folks who believe they are entitled to rights over privately owned property. That's why slumlords don't give a rats arse. There's simply too much risk in having tenants.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 2:09 PM
then don't have tenants.
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 3:30 PM
2:09 couldn't have said it better!!!
there are leeches on both sides of the fence - regulation does not help either side.
elizabeth 3 - if i lived in such a hell hole, i'd cut the cable tv & start saving the $14.95 for an internet connection towards a better place to live. the biggest problem w/ all is the screwed up priorities.
improving your lot in life involves sacrifice.
Posted by: guest at November 25, 2007 4:50 PM
OP's argument is totally shot to hell by the fact that rent control is not means tested. You can be "rich" and be rent controlled, meaning that the law frequnetly is a subsidy to rich people.
Posted by: Boerum Hill at November 25, 2007 5:16 PM
Okay so we can start taxing rich people to build affordable housing?
Posted by: Putnamdenizen at November 25, 2007 6:50 PM
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