'Slumlike Conditions' in Foreclosed Slope Building
The Daily News had an article on a group of tenants who live in 294 Fifth Avenue in the Slope and say conditions in the rent-controlled building have deteriorated since the property went into foreclosure a couple years ago and a receiver was appointed to take care of it. The building’s boiler, for example, didn’t…
The Daily News had an article on a group of tenants who live in 294 Fifth Avenue in the Slope and say conditions in the rent-controlled building have deteriorated since the property went into foreclosure a couple years ago and a receiver was appointed to take care of it. The building’s boiler, for example, didn’t work for three weeks this winter, and the front-door lock is broken. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio held a news conference yesterday to support the tenants in seeking a court order that would force the receiver to make repairs. According to the article: “The slumlike conditions at 294 Fifth Ave. spotlight a growing concern: smaller apartment buildings that fall into disrepair in part because the building is overleveraged. ‘We think this is a growing problem around the city that the banks and lenders are not taking responsibility for,’ said de Blasio.”
Park Slope Tenants, de Blasio Team Up to Force Building Repairs [NY Daily News]
MM- your point about the Blanket assumptions people make” because of “a small minority” is WELL received.
But that makes my point here (not saying you disagree) – walk by this building; while you cant tell everything, you can tell allot…this is clearly NOT the example building/tenant that an intelligent politician should be using to decry “slum-like” housing conditions.
And so while I agree that judging this women on the facts presented is totally unfair, it is not unfair to note that this women lives in a great neighborhood, pays $149 a month, in a building that is far from falling down or decrepit and is not under the daily threat of crime, drug dealing etc….
Point isnt that this women doesnt have valid complaints or a cause of action – but in a world where there are some that take terrible advantage of the system, while others are truly victimized in a NON-DEBATABLE way – by using this ‘example’ our public advocate actually does more harm than good.
By the way Montrose,
You left your badminton racquets in the OT office again!
I tried leaving you a message with your secretary but she said I would do better by calling you at the club.
This thread is where the action is at. No-one commented on the gender of the sign-holder? I like things binary and when I’m confused about which box to check I get uncomfortable.
bedstuyu11216- been there, done the life catastophe path. You’re very right. It’s like getting hit with a tractor trailer. People who never experienced it, don’t understand just how catastrophic it can be.
Montrose;
Again I ask: how do you know that this woman is poor? I am not saying I know that she is rich, or even middle-class. I don’t know. I am asking you, however: how do you know that she is poor?
As to people commenting about her behavior: she is the one that called the 3rd-ranking official in in the city to her apartment, and she is the one that called in the newspapers, and had a demonstration in front of place. She made this a public issue.
Are we not allowed to comment on a public issue, because our economic status might be higher than hers?
Sorry, I don’t buy that.
Agree it wasn’t the landlord but some tenant. Her complaint was probably that the landlord didn’t enforce the fire laws. Or she was trying to signal Deep Throat 🙂
I never said she was poor. To the contrary, I suspect she can afford well beyond $149 a month.
I’m sorry, dave, but the “proof” that this woman is a complainer changes nothing. So she complains. I think fsrg is being very fair here, but again, there is nothing in the public record that proves that she dropped her ceiling, or put bars on the windows herself. Seems hardly likely she would, if she is a layabout complainer.
“I think there’s enough evidence here that this person and her $149 a month rent is a pretty good example of the worst of the worst. I wander what her son, Angel, has learned from her.”
I think you’ve taken that because she is a complainer, THEREFORE the rest follows. That certainly wouldn’t hold up in court, and doesn’t hold up here. Worst of the worst? Who made you judge and jury?
That’s what gets me the most about these threads, people making blanket assumptions about poor people, rent control, welfare, whatever, because of the actions or inactions of a small minority of the people that these programs help. Because she complains, she’s branded a scammer of the system. Because her son looks like he’s able bodied, both of them are lazy so and so’s.
And here we sit passing judgement on them. Those of us who have grown up with much, have superior education and opportunities, live in expensive homes, and have nothing much to worry about besides where to go eat, or take our vacations. But she’s sucking on oxygen from a tank, lives in an apartment with no heat in the winter, and has daily living issues none of us know about or would want ourselves. Yeah, she’s living the good life, ain’t she?
Yes, bedstuy11216, I know that situations can deteriorate out of control and people get thrown into financial chaos through no fault of their own. Those are not the people I was talking about.
In response to the sentence “When do they become rich?” They don’t, unless they work for it. This is the basis of entitlement. Not everyone’s entitled to become rich.
However, administrations like the current one thinks it’s their duty and right to take more and more from the rich.
How does that incentivize anyone to strive to become rich. It doesn’t.
Use whatever definition of rich you care to.