Crown Heights Dean Street
The intersection of Dean Street and Rogers in Crown Heights | Photo: Cate Corcoran

Crown Heights is changing, and high rents and landlords’ aggressive tactics are pushing out longtime tenants, typically African-Americans and Caribbean immigrants.

Familiar businesses — bulletproof bodegas, fried chicken joints, video stores — are being replaced by expensive eateries, cocktail bars and national chains. Property values are rising, with 19th century townhouses now commanding prices in the millions.

White college grads and young urban professionals are moving into freshly renovated units with freshly elevated rents. Former tenants lived with rats and prewar kitchens, but many can no longer afford the neighborhood.

West Indian Day Parade Brooklyn 2015
The annual West Indian Day Parade takes place in Crown Heights | Photo: Maude Delice

While longtime residents struggle to pay rising rents, they also note that everything from produce to crime has improved in the neighborhood. However, priced out, they cannot reap the benefits.

As rents surge higher, working class and minority residents increasingly find they can no longer afford to live in the same area, and are forced to move deeper into Brooklyn, to the outer boroughs or out of the city altogether, according to The New York Times. A reporter spoke to more than three dozen former and current residents of the area, as well as experts, about relocation.

Between 2000 and 2010, Crown Heights (as well as adjacent Flatbush and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens) lost 10 to 14 percent of its black population, census data shows. Not all may have been forced out by rising rents, although the Times story focused on renters.

crown heights doesn't need a starbucks
A two-person protest against Starbucks coming to Crown Heights last year | Photo: Brooklynian

Many former members of Brooklyn’s West Indian community have relocated anywhere from eastern Brooklyn to Boston, Maryland, Philadelphia or even back to the Caribbean, said the Times.

In the case of seamstress and former Crown Heights resident Shirley De Matas, she watched the rent on her two-bedroom at 1170 Lincoln Place rise from $800 a month in 1999 to almost $1,300 in 2014. Compounded by bursting pipes, rats, and an unhelpful superintendent, De Matas and her family moved out last February, renting in East New York for $750 a month.

crown-heights-871-st-marks-072115
Landmarked homes on St. Marks Avenue | Photo: Cate Corcoran

For others, moving back in with family is the thriftiest option. After years of living with seemingly incurable mold and vermin, hospital receptionist Angelique Coward moved herself and her four children three flights above her 761 Propsect Place home and into her mother’s apartment. The landlord has since renovated Ms. Coward’s three-bedroom and tacked $1,400 onto the monthly rate.

Other struggling Brooklyn residents opt for landlord buyouts. In 2010, Raquel Cruz gave up her Franklin Avenue apartment after agreeing to a $10,000 buyout from her landlord as well as three months rent on a $1,300-a-month Bed Stuy unit.

She had to pawn some of belongings to pay the rent. Luckily, she found an affordable apartment in public housing.

While accepting buyouts, living with family members, or moving deeper into the borough grant temporary relief to the affordability crisis for many residents, longterm plans increasingly include moving away.

[Source: NYT | Photos: Brownstoner]

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  1. This is basically a copy and paste of a previous Bstoner race bait article. Pretty weak Bstoner, this site has become more of useless version of a tabloid lately, as a long time reader its sad to see.

    Bottom line is if you put a an artificial ceiling on pricing in any market, in this case real estate, of course landlords are going to look to remove that ceiling and unlock value, its called capitalism. With the globalization of the economy most mid to lower level skilled labor is being competed away thus the stagnant wages. The higher paying jobs are increasingly moving towards more metropolitan locations thus the re-urbanization of the economy, so of course rents in places especially like NYC are going to outpace inflation and will continue to do so for quite some time. Politicians like to harp on the issue to get less sophisticated voters to support them but you cant hide from power of economics no matter who you are.

    Just because you have rented somewhere for any number of years doesnt mean shit in my opinion. If you liked the neighborhood so much 20 years ago you should have tried to own a piece of the action. If you missed out and are now outpaced by others pull out your TS card and I’ll punch it a few times for you.

  2. 10 years ago you could still buy marquis homes in most of eastern brooklyn for penny’s on the dollar compared to today. I see tons of minority homeowners who stepped up and made the sacrifices to own a home 10-20-30+ years ago reaping the benefits now with 7 figure windfalls. They faced the same obstacles as anyone else and still got it done. The race card is a cop out in this conversation.

  3. 10 years ago you could still buy marquis homes in most of eastern brooklyn for penny’s on the dollar compared to today. I see tons of minority homeowners who stepped up and made the sacrifices to own a home 10-20-30+ years ago reaping the benefits now with 7 figure windfalls. They faced the same obstacles as anyone else and still got it done. The race card is a cop out in this conversation.

  4. Point is just because you live in a certain neighborhood for a while doesn’t mean you own it and if you want to stay there forever you better manage your priorities appropriately. If you weren’t sophisticated enough to figure that out and are being passed by people who are that’s on you. Again, you are not a loser, but if you want a stable place to live outside of the control of others then don’t whine about it when prices move with demand. Which goes back to my statement that no one can hide from the forces of economics.

    Considering you can still buy a small apartment in the outer neighborhoods of brooklyn for ~$100k, even after the material price increases in the borough over the past 10 years with an FHA loan that $3500 down plus some closing costs and about $1500 a month. Its all about priorities people. Anyone rich or poor person who wants to work hard and be disciplined about their finances can achieve that. I know plenty of high school kids with regular high school kid jobs that if they just managed their money conservatively they could swing buying an apartment like the one mentioned above by the time they graduate.

  5. Montrose, don’t forget that 20 yrs ago, the city was giving some of these houses away for nothing. So I disagree that real estate was always the most expensive thing in most people’s lives.

  6. Point is just because you live in a certain neighborhood for a while doesn’t mean you own it and if you want to stay there forever you better manage your priorities appropriately. If you weren’t sophisticated enough to figure that out and are being passed by people who are that’s on you. Again, you are not a loser, but if you want a stable place to live outside of the control of others then don’t whine about it when prices move with demand. Which goes back to my statement that no one can hide from the forces of economics.

    Considering you can still buy a small apartment in the outer neighborhoods of brooklyn for ~$100k, even after the material price increases in the borough over the past 10 years with an FHA loan that $3500 down plus some closing costs and about $1500 a month. Its all about priorities people. Anyone rich or poor person who wants to work hard and be disciplined about their finances can achieve that. I know plenty of high school kids with regular high school kid jobs that if they just managed their money conservatively they could swing buying an apartment like the one mentioned above by the time they graduate.

  7. Montrose, don’t forget that 20 yrs ago, the city was giving some of these houses away for nothing. So I disagree that real estate was always the most expensive thing in most people’s lives.

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