Does a call go out on some type of landlord's website go out directing landlords and brokers to come to this article and whine about ending rent stabilization? What else can explain these ridiculous comments it is clear to anyone who read with an open mind that rent regulations need to be strengthened and enforced.
3
Here in America's most "progressive" city exists a ghastly corrupt and highly effective sub-system that enables a number of ghoulish landlords to methodically steer people, many of them society's most vulnerable, towards homelessness. That New York State and city officials allow this carnival of cruelty to flourish in housing courts is astonishing. New Yorkers have become numbed by gentrification—the term itself—so much so we apparently don't have a clue about the methodical mischief making it all happen.
New York State and city officials should move quickly to set up and fully staff a stronger regulatory system that monitors and punishes landlords and the lawyers who work for them when they engage in the sort of behavior these three pieces illustate.
3
This is going to be an unpopular opinion here, but give me a break. Most of the people in housing court are already on public assistance, and now they get even more public assistance in the form of a one-shot -- some as many as four times. A lot of landlords are certainly rotten people (like the one who put a stop order on the 50k check, or the one who rented out the couch and printed out a fake eviction notice) but, quite honestly, it sounds like a lot of these people -- many of whom should be old enough to know better -- don't have any interest in helping themselves. Proof that endless assistance and coddling doesn't actually help people, but rather makes them complacent.
14
Also -- not knowing how much back rent you owe? Not knowing how to calculate $1200 x 4? I really don't have much sympathy for these people who can't keep track of their debts and don't seem at all interested in being able to.
9
It's almost inappropriate to mention this, but the article is so well written. I lament that so many in our cities, in my old borough, where I still nurse fond memories, struggle in this way between the cracks. I worry that any stability and good fortune I may experience will be only temporary.
This is no way to live, and I hope the real lives depicted here and those struggling elsewhere get remarkably better soon. I also hope the NY Times collects more writers as talented as NR Kleinfield. This is what effective, affecting journalism looks like.
1
The disposition of minorities from coveted neighborhoods continues.
How is this bad tenant list even legal? What about a bad landlord list? Despicable.
3
Sorry, but if you don't own it, and you aren't paying your rent, it's not "your home." You are trespassing and the owner of the property has every right to evict you.
12
The addiction of "rent control" only makes housing problems worse by not encouraging people to invest in new housing.
It's NOT the answer, it's the problem. NYC should go into rehab and slowly kill all these subsidies.
Funny, Houston, with no zoning laws and no rent control doesn't have this problem.
Hello.
11
Thank you for this profound and illuminating reporting! I went to housing court in late 90s when corrupt landlords were doing a sweep in the East Village for gentrification. I fought, but didn't have the deep pocket the corrupt landlords did. Nor the muscle. My dad even got a call from the ____(fill in the blanks mob) with a not-so-veiled threat that I better give up fighting for my apartment or else. I'd raised my son in our home for a decade! My roommates and I all had to leave and I was priced out of being able to find another place to live. With a child, no less. Ended up having to move across the country, always hoping to come back when I could afford to own in the city I love. Twenty years later, still wishing to go back to an eclectic Village that sadly has crushed the souls of artists in the name of profits.
When someone buys a home, either to live in or to rent, he or she is tying up their money and taking the risk that it will be lost. In most places,on the other hand, a renter simply has the use of the space for the current month, without taking any financial risk. It makes no sense to me that a landlord in New York has to pay $100,000 to persuade a woman who has had a two bedroom apartment for only $300 a month to leave. The Columbia employees who will move to that building will benefit by having a shorter commute while people of her (and my) age do not need to be near a place of employment
7
Why does the city lack needed affordable housing? For all the taxes we pay, there is no excuse for it. They need to buy some buildings all over the city and charge a reasonable rent for people who are struggling. Landlords would not be charging such ridiculous rents if there was less demand. Start allocating much more money to affordable housing and many of these issues will go away. If done right, the city can even make some money renting properties. Why is such a simple thing so hard in NYC? We need better leaders.
1
Because it has been a total and abject failure! Look up "NYHA". Astonishingly, the city demands more of private landlords than they can deliver themselves.
8
typo: "NYCHA"
3
Uh...you do know they already did this? Plus "buy up buildings"? in the most expensive real estate market in the US? that would be BILLIONS of dollars! and NYC has shown they cannot remotely manage the housing they do OWN -- it is filthy, run down, ugly, mismanaged, etc.
7
I wonder if the New York Times could publish a list of politicians that receive contributions from some of these landlords. I suspect the reason they have been allowed to continue to operate the way they do is connected.
13
The landlords and lawyers who do this to people probably have 3 or 4 homes of their own, yet they must take an old person's home away. utterly shameful.
3
Lots of landlords on here crying out for a free market! a free market! But it seems to me they only want to get rid of the laws they don't like. They want dog-eat-dog anarchy for everyone else, rule of law for themselves.
NYC landlords I've known will weep and moan and complain and show up in housing court wearing soup-stained shirts and broken down loafers, pretending to be senile, while they have half a billion dollars and three vacation homes. They will fall on the ground, beat their breast and wail because paying tenants want their lease honored - the roof to stop pouring water, mice out of their beds, working appliances. (100% real examples, btw) The system is their enemy, when it's time to deliver on their half. Boo hoo, the unfair rule of law!
But boy, when they want someone evicted or the rent paid, they are ready to take the rule of law and beat an old lady out into the street with it.
Landlords, the system already works for you. You already twist it and turn it and bribe everyone from the dog catcher on up to Albany. You already corrupt and undermine the system so it's your tool, not your limiter. But you're mad because it doesn't do what you want, instantly, 100% of the time, like you think it should. You're so mad, you want the system gone.
I'm going to suggest that you guys should feel some gratitude for the rule of law. Without the rule of law, you only own what you can hold by force. You'd be fools to demolish it. But greed makes people into real fools.
5
Problem is our country accepts a million plus legal immigrants annually.
This amount does not include illegal entrants.
Most of these immigrants come through the gateway coastal cities and stay in them because there are jobs for them. They don't want to move away from these cities because they often have ethnic enclaves in them. But are we building hundreds of 1,000's of new housing units annually too? Nope. Do the math. We have no more housing. Not affordable, nothing, nada. Homelessness and lack of housing will continue to skyrocket everywhere.
There is no end in sight.
12
What does your racist-tinged rant have to do with tenant-landlord relations in Brooklyn?
2
More people = less available housing stock = higher rent. These articles are very much about how housing in New York has become unaffordable. Which part of ts' "rant" is racist?
10
I wish this series would not invoke gentrification. It distracts from the real issue of affordable housing and changes the subject in very ugly ways. Honestly, there is no such thing as gentrification, especially when it comes to private property transactions.
First of all, nobody has more of a right to affordable housing than anybody else. And second, what you call gentrification is a symptom of the crisis, not the cause of it.
Rents are rising faster than incomes, and residential real estate is becoming more and more a corporate enterprise. That affects everybody who needs a place to live, and pitting them against each other makes for better headlines than solutions.
8
Incredible article. It's most unfortunate that so many people find themselves at the mercy of callous landlords whose only interest is in making as much money off renters as they can. I'm a landlord who owns a private house with an apartment that I rent. I don't charge my tenants exorbitant rent. I cgarge well below market rate. I'd rather have a reliable, clean, stable, considerate tenant living with me, than subject myself and my home to a constant turnover of tenants who can't afford to pay the rent because I'm charging ridiculous rates. For those tenants looking to "game" their landlords - and I've had problems and had to go to court (recouping my lost rent using the court system and City Marshals) - you destroy your credibility, lose positive landlord references and make it more difficult to get decent housing once your name falls on the "bad tenant" list.
1
In my 30 years of land lording I have learned the following:
1. Take care of your property and your tenants and they will take care of you.
2. Keep the rent reasonable and allow the tenant to have disposable income and he or she will stay for years.
3. Your tenants are human and prone to life problems that affect them far more significantly than they affect you. You have resources and a lifestyle that they lack. Don't confuse these realities.
4. Be nice to them and their families and be respectful.
5. Do not hesitate to evict a game player, of which, at most, compromise 1% of tenant populations.
6. If you must go to court, kill the offending tenant, the court staff and the judge with kindness and reasonableness; your pain will be minimal, and you will get a better result.
Tenants are human, and you are entitled to a reasonable return on your investment. Be nice. It works.
24
Are you renting? I'm serious.
The attitude of landlords in my neighborhood is "these people animals." I know because they say "you people are animals." Not in reference to drug dealers, mind you (to head off the Trump excuse). In reference to churchgoing grandmothers who worked fifty years as a maid.
3
The poor and disenfranchised will be leaving close-in Brooklyn where young people who actually work in Manhattan will take over neighborhoods. This is the way of the world. When many of these impoverished minority citizens’ forebears moved here in the 1930’s from the South there was also an economic imperative involved. Again, this is the way the world works.
3
I rented a rent stabilized apartment to a lady with two children through NYC Human resources through FEPs program. After moving in she refusing to honor the terms of the lease. She is refusing to give access to the property manager to perform inspections of smoke/co detectors and paint condition as mandated by HPD. More people now live in the apatment Also she brought a very large dog contrary to the terms of the lease. This dog is scary to other tenants.
I called the Human Resources to counsel her. They told me to take her to court.
These are the situations the land lord has to face.
17
It seems there is a lot of venom and "can't they help themselves" attitude towards folks who live in rent stabilized or rent controlled buildings. But the vast majority who live in these types of units are middle to lower income folks who work hard, work for the city, are artists, folks who have lived in NYC for decades- good, decent people. Folks who could NOT survive on current "market" rents. People are disconnected from the reality that many folks live, day to day, week to week, paycheck to paycheck. Before we blame folks for their choices, maybe consider that for a few slight changes, that person could be you, your sibling, your parent, your grandparents, your best friend, your mailman, your teacher. Let's practice more compassion for those that have less and work just as hard or harder and get by because they somehow managed to find a rent stable apartment years or decades ago.
Folks who abuse the system, do so on both sides of the law and financial spectrum, so let's not only point fingers at bad tenants either.
14
Compassion is not paying my bills. And a life business plan that assumes an abundance of "compassion" from strangers is not a good plan. I'm a decent person. I've lived in NYC for 20 years. Does that entitle me to something? Free rent? A cheap apartment? After reading this article, I noticed some common themes. People having children without the economic means. Under-employed people living alone in apartments they could not afford in the first place. People who seem to amble around in life without any semblance of direction or responsibility. Yes, bad things happen to good people, but bad decisions also happen to good people too. If one paycheck spells the difference between having a home and being homeless, maybe it's time to re-think your life decisions (without expecting the rest of society to bail you out).
12
The real problem is that New York City's population continues to grow faster than the number of housing units. This creates a perpetual housing shortage which has existed for over 70 years. Ironically, the laws created to help tenants, like rent control, rent stabilization, and requiring builders to build a certain percentage of affordable units, actually make the problem worse. These laws have the effect of decreasing the profits landlords and builders can make, and therefore disincentivise them from building new units. As long as a sufficient number of new housing units aren't being built there will be a housing shortage. The public sector has come nowhere near making up the shortfall. Ironically, it makes no difference what types of units are built (high rent vs affordable), as long as the number of units being built is greater than the rise in population, prices will come down.
It is worth noting that no cities that that lack these regulations have a housing shortage.
8
Let's go to a very different time and place. Post-war West Germany, in the period right after the war, was plagued by shortages and a very inefficient economy. One day, General Lucius Clay issued an order lifting price controls. Voila. Immediately, the West Germans had an economic miracle that lasted a very long time. Why don't we lift price controls on rental housing in NYC. BTW, it seems to have worked in an old, Northeastern "progressive" city like Boston just fine as well.
9
Oh, grow up, objectors.
Some people need help, and some for their entire lives or for the rest of their lives; and not everyone who needs help is a lazy bum.
And anyone can be that person someday, no matter how well s/he plans and scrimps and saves.
Enough, already, with the fantasy that bad things only happen to bad people.
Good grief.
10
Corrupt landlords, using corrupt laws, in corrupt courts, to issue corrupt verdicts, while a corrupt real-estate developer sits in a corrupt White House earning millions off corrupt tax laws.
Now, can anyone tell me what they all have in common? That's right! They are all the products of GOP policies.
For the GOP, the poor and middle class, like natural resources, only exist for one thing - They exist in order to be used. No wonder the right is so "pro-life", after all, they need an endless supply of cattle to consume, lest, like cockroaches, they have to start feeding on themselves.
I know it's a harsh analogy, but, in this case, I think it's apt.
6
Utterly shameful and utterly disgraceful that in the worlds richest country in 2018, we have people,human beings reduced to this and a system that is so archaic and disorganized as to be practically useless.
Utterly appalling,just like the endless mass shootings.People,publications and politicians will wring their hands but just like the killings,nothing will be done.
Utterly predictable.
4
Am I to understand that “planned obsolescence” actually intended for an outcome which is the quintessence of institutional racism?
In the words of Zack de la Rocha: “Listen to the fascist sing, ‘Take hope here, war is elsewhere. You were chosen, this is God’s land. Soon we’ll be free of blot and mixture. Seeds planted by our Forefathers’ hand.’”
1
BTW: If you have any doubt about who the "real victims" in this whole thing are, just ask any landlord.
NOTE: The answer can be found in any comments written by a landlord.
PS: For further insight into the plight of America's other "real victims", do a search for, "good help is so hard to find". And be prepared to shed copious tears.
2
"The well-housed want their packages delivered, their children minded, their graves dug. But where do these workers live?" - This is such a fundamental aspect that people who are against rent control need to remember. Working and lower-middle class New Yorkers keep this city running - or do we really want NYC and the U.S. to become like Dubai, where millionaires and billionaires live in the cities and have workers live in subhuman dormitories basically like slaves?
Also, that housing court list that is sold to landlords and brokers needs to outlawed or regulated - even if a dishonest landlord brings a case against you, or if you bring a legitimate case against your landlord and win your case you are still blacklisted alongside everyone who's ever been evicted?!!
32
I'm now a 70 year old man. I was born in the Bronx. In 1947 my parents, both veterans of WWII returned home to start a family wherever they could. Luckily for them an aunt had just passed away and they were able to rent her one bedroom 1st floor apartment at 353 Cypress Ave (across from PS 65) for about $35 a month. Mom and dad lived there from 1945 until about 1953. By then there were 4 of us. We slept in the single bedroom. The apartment was hot in summer, cold in winter and had little furniture. The kitchen table was so old it literally collapsed forcing my parents to buy a table they didn't have money for. The ceiling above my sister's crib leaked and after several months it was finally fixed. Windows were always leaking air and covered with ice most of the winter. Mom or dad would bang on the pipes to call for heat. Everyone was in the same situation. At some point we moved to 1549 Townsend Ave. Mt. Eden and the Grand Concourse. There was a separate kitchen and I thought now we were rich.
New York was different then. If you looked hard enough you could find an affordable apartment or even a home on Long Island though VA mortgages. My grandparents lived in a rent controlled apartment in Brooklyn on Winthrop St. My other grandparents lived on Moshulu PKY and later Queens, Jewel Ave. Wages were meager but no one was being evicted or having rent raised to impossible rates.
Now there is no justice in New York. Why this unscrupulous meanness? Why?
7
Rent control distorts the NYC housing economy, so that apartments here cost far more than they do elsewhere. Who are the protected tenants? Among the least productive of all so-called New Yorkers. Burdens on the city, and non-contributors to society.
Read about the woman who migrated here 50 years ago, pays $900 for a two-bedroom apartment, and speaks only Spanish.
Instead, a family of four with two bread winners could be there, contributing mightily to our city, state, and country. Out with the old, in with the new.
Repeal nasty, corrupt rent control.
11
So, to recap, only those YOU deem worthy, industrious citizens (REAL New Yorkers, you say) belong in affordable apartments. You'd better hope that nothing happens to you that puts you at the mercy of people like you.
2
Reading these articles are truly heartbreaking. Especially elderly tenants being pushed out so that the landlords can charge market rate rents .
If you think about though , just like everything in life has a cost so to guaranteeing renters a "stable rent rate for life" and insulation from future market price fluctuations , also has a cost .
This cost must be borne by someone . Either the tenant , all of us tax payers in the form of subsidies , or the landlord .
Currently we have chosen to impose this cost on landlords .
We do not allow landlords to charge market rates for an asset that they invest in and own .
The only time this would possibly be justified is if the cap is in effect BEFORE the investors built the structure so the investors can fairly assess the risk versus reward .
Otherwise its plain thievery of private property . Heads I win tails you lose .
Imagine you invest and risk your capital to explore for oil or a new medicine and after you dodged loses and brought a valuable commodity to market society suddenly says no no you cannot charge the market price you counted on .
I am very supportive of tenants but we should start thinking about all of us supporting the tenants versus forcibly imposing the cost onto investors who
take risks for all of us that we may not want take ourselves .
6
Some of us "risk capital" and believe we are thereby entitled to everything. Some of us work for a living and are told we're filth and don't deserve to sleep indoors.
1
Why we feel Climate Change is the biggest threat to our existence, I have no idea. It’s more like our salvation, not from the planet, but the world we’ve created on it.
3
The queues and squalor in these pictures remind me of scenes from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Men and women queuing for hours and squabbling over meager and low quality scraps. What do these scenes have in common? Price controls! I recall a Russian man saying in a documentary shortly after price controls were lifted: "I knew things were getting better when the price of eggs fell!"
8
And just look how great things are in Russia today!
1
I thought i had seen enough when the times was writing about collusion with russia and stormy daniels which was yellow journalism
now this?
This article is pushing in the wrong direction
true! landlords use unscrupulous devices to achieve their goal but the answer is not sanctioning them because it will only bring more of the same
the system is flawed and must be income based throughout whether the tenant has been living in the same apartment for 50 years or 50 days
tenants who have the capacity to pay and are paying rent controlled and stabilized rates are exploiting the system and are as guilty as the landlords sited here
push in that direction ny times
the direction of fairness!!
10
Incomes are declining nationwide. The middle class is all but gone, No one can afford $3k or more a month for an apartment in NYC, unless mommy and daddy gave you the cash.
1
The way NYC coddles slumlords is an absolute disgrace. These shysters act with total impunity and, if they're really unlucky, maybe get a $20,000 fine for some crazy thing like totally destroying an entire building while tenants are still there. In contrast, in Paris, the socialist mayor is cracking down on slumlords with fines in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. After a couple of Parisian landlords get a $250,000 fine, do you think they will continue to abuse tenants and break the law? In London, there will be a new "name and shame" database of slumlords, and this is on top of an existing government program that holds deposits in a neutral non-landlord accounts.
Many Brooklyn landlords -- pushing out vulnerable black and hispanic tenants for gentrifiers and Orthodox families -- are housing terrorists. Yes, terrorists -- they literally terrorize tenants until they give up. Absolute disgrace.
13
This is happening everywhere and is proof that lower taxes on the wealthy never leads to more jobs and higher wages. The result is hoarding wealth and closing all doors to upward mobility, no matter how hard one works, or how many jobs they have. They are the true "takers" in this culture and they are drinking everyones milkshake. Taxes obviously need to go up on extreme wealth...alot... like post WW II alot...
8
This about greedy realtors/landlords raising the rent so high that tenants cannot keep up, and folk have fell behind and can't pay the exorbitant rent prices. Greed always win out here in the U.S.
3
As an owner of a small building that houses my home as well as 3 rentals, I'm torn when I read this article.
On the one hand, you'd have to have a heart of stone to not feel for some of the people profiled in this article. Some of their stories are heartbreaking.
On the other hand, as a landlord, I've lived the injustices of housing court first-hand thanks to "professional tenants".
One was a holdover case who refused to sign a new lease but also refused to leave, and was not interested in paying for rent or utilities, even as he had the most enormous TV delivered to him. In the end, he didn't pay rent for much of the two years he lived here. He eventually left, after multiple extensions by Judge Schneider, not because of the court but because his cousin made the mistake of co-signing his lease and she didn't want a court settlement on her record. We never recovered the money owed to us (nearly $20K), causing us significant financial strain. After all, our mortgage holder didn't care that this guy was a deadbeat who abused the system.
Similarly, we had an affluent couple who also refused to leave when their lease was up. They had plenty of money, but because they knew the system well, they threatened to keep our unit tied up in legal limbo indefinitely (they knew they could ask for extension after extension by claiming they didn't have a lawyer) if we didn't give them $5K to leave.
We're not all mega-landlords. This broken court system cuts both ways.
59
I've heard story's like yours before, and I must say I'm a bit dubious. (My mother was a small landlord for years so I know not all building are run by greedy corporate LLCs.) However, I find it very hard to believe that any judge would allow someone to live rent-free in an apartment for two years. Most courts allow 1-2 extensions, but beyond that the defendant usually has to leave a deposit with the court to ask for a third. So, I'm sorry - but that story of the wealthy couple living rent free for two years just isn't true, no way.
(Unless you had the world's most inept lawyer handling your housing case.)
I think the story of the "professional tenant" who stays rent free in an apartment for years is another one of those urban legends that conservatives tell to scare people into supporting laws that take away tenants rights
8
@Sallie - I know someone personally who stayed in their apartment for 4 years without paying rent. This happened recently. It was in a desirable Manhattan neighborhood and the case was just settled last year. It happens more than you think, especially when tenants have legal representation and know how to work the system.
7
Ooh, "professional tenants." That sounds terrible. Wondering: Are these the same as the people buying lobsters with their food stamps and driving Cadillacs on welfare? Just wondering. I never run into these folks myself, but man, they sure do like to hassle innocent landlords and Trump voters. You poor folks are just swarmed, eh?
2
I don't want to state the obvious but all of this revolves around a lack of money. Tenants don't have enough money to pay their rent (even though the overwhelming majority of them are rent regulated units). Courts don't have the money to add courtrooms and hire judges to deal with the 69,000 odd cases filed in Brooklyn. And landlords complain, many rightfully, that they are losing money with defaulting tenants.
If we want to address this issue, particularly in Brooklyn where many of the tenants simply do not have the money to pay the rent, we (the city government and its taxpayers) need to subsidize the difference between 30% of a tenant's adjusted gross income and the legal regulated rent charged by the landlord. This will require billions of dollars not only for the rent subsidies but also for the bureaucracy to review tenant's income, check the validity of the rent and then issue checks to landlord for the subsidy. The alternative is the chaotic ad hoc system that we currently have.
7
Jaja here come the landlords defending themselves
2
Or, these people can move. How much is the price of a bus ticket?
Several people were cited in the article who have little connection to Brooklyn, like Mr. Caple, who lived in California and Long Island.
There are plenty of places in this country where rents aren't so high, and landlords actually have to find paying tenants to fill empty units..
Try Watertown, NY. Memphis TN. Birmingham AL. Florida. Plenty of places.
5
Garth,
But in a democracy people make their own choices as to where they want to live. Besides, part of what makes life enjoyable and worth living is having friends and family nearby. If people move to these other locations, and even if they are affordable, what the enjoyment in being disconnected from friends and family?
One reason that non-stabilized apartments are so expensive is that those units do not compete against the stabilized ones. You have artificial scarcity in parallel markets. In many towns in NJ, it is the rent increase that is regulated, and the state Anti-Eviction Act gives the tenant the right to keep the unit for their lifetime, subject to limited exceptions. But there are no succession rights and the rent re-sets to a market price after vacancy. Plus, unlike NYC, evictions are relatively fast (1-2 months in the northern counties). This more than ample protection for the tenant, and eliminates all the gaming that comes in reaction to government price-fixing. Moreover, it provides ample incentive to invest in affordable housing. Yesterday's article shows that if your plan is not to de-stablize apartments, don't bother.
On the dysfunctionality of the Kings Housing Court, any of those lawyers can recount cases where the tenant manipulated the system, brought repeated motions to stay the eviction, and milked the apartment for months or years. Want landlords to make repairs? Don't tax them endlessly with legal fees and expenses to subsidize tenants who do not pay rent. From the landlord's perspective, the housing court operates to create a private source of public housing.
14
WRONG!!!
Put all those rent controlled units on the "market" and you'll just have more overpriced dumps that only students could be convinced to live in.
10
No, part of the responsibility of owning an income property is maintenance, period. You cant afford the maintenance then don't buy the building.
1
You are implying that most tenants are being evicted by unscrupulous landlords who have recently purchased rent stabilized buildings and are trying to double and triple the rent. That is not the case at all.
The vast majority of tenants are being evicted because they are not paying the rent, and/or are destructive. And many of those landlords are just regular people who own a 2-family house, and need the income to pay the mortgage.
It can take a year to evict these troublesome tenants.
How about an article on hardworking small landlords, who lose their homes in foreclosure because of bad tenants.
49
Here's a novel idea. Buy a house to actually live in and pay for if YOURSELF.
Whatever happened to that?????
If you need someone else's "income" to pay YOUR mortgage, you shouldn't be purchasing anything.
5
Sir, go back to read the article thoroughly. A lot of these people describe appalling conditions to live in. The City of NY requires heat and hot water to be maintained 24/7. Rodents, roaches, falling ceiling, non working toilets - all conditions which appear in the article, are not considered safe & clean conditions. Landlords are to maintain a safe housing standard.
Albeit, many seem to need financial counseling, or some sort of counseling in general. Payment of rent is a contractual agreement. Obeying housing laws of this City is the Landlord's responsibility of that contract.
8
You have to be a chronically late (i.e., several years successively) to be considered a true late payer, at least legally speaking, so landlords have to remember that, too.
My small-potatoes landlady took me to court and refused to renew my lease because I was late over a six-month period--but I paid each month. I'd lost my job and had financial difficulties, and gave her adequate notice that I'd be sluggish in my payments. She refused partial payments and made a mountain of a problem where none really existed. Meanwhile, she has defrauded me, because my apartment is rent-stabilized and she never revealed that fact.
I am STILL in court with her and now have finally reached a turning point where she'll have to prove that she deregulated the apartment fairly, which will not be possible, because we've already determined that she never made any improvements and my rent never reached the legal threshold for deregulation. So all this mishegas for nothing, because in the end, she will have to pay me for 5 years of overpayments, and she'll have to reduce my rent to what it was 15 years ago.
There are indeed some decent landlords out there, but they are hard to find, and in this economic climate, the lure of sky-high rents turns a lot of them into greedy ogres. I am not the first stabilized tenant my landlady has tried to go after. After going through this situation, I have little regard for landlords of any ilk.
4
Back in the 70's Mitchell-Lama housing and its lending program for the co-op program 'Hope Notes' made it possible for the middle class to afford to live in NYC at a time when many were fleeing. Those residents got a leg up through tax abatements.Most of those enclaves voted to go to market rates when the tax abatements ended, and those apartments, having enjoyed tax abatements for 30 years, have now entitled their shareholders to ask millions in resales, and, I assume, bring more in taxes to the city's coffers.
If the tax proceeds now from formerly abated apartments from all ilks were designated and directed toward subsidized housing for working poor it might ameliorate some of the housing problems we are seeing today.
10
Big Money owns all of us now.
4
Another shameful example of an America falling into squalid poverty or generational hopelessness as the poor become destitute, more lose hope and become addicted to opiates and any drug addiction is reflected back on the victim as the Dr and Drug Company induce greater prescriptions to increase profits and rewards and their profit center...the users as a larger and larger group see their mortality rates rise as more overdose and the number of dead grow.
Across the spectrum of American society , except for the financially viable few the costs rise , the help wanes and the bedrock of protections that hold up the core infrastructure of any Society are slowly hollowed out piece by piece, bit by bit. Big Business booms and the abilities , benefits , protections and choices of Employees wither and die until they are alone . exposed and left no choices, no recourse and no sympathy.
As money drives the motives of those that have it but want more and those that barely make it month to month just want enough, but too often it never is, never was and unless things change it never will be...the choices are less or none for these people, they must abide by what others can get away with and what they can survive on and if they can't , they delay, hope and pray. But time nor mercy waits for no-one in America if you owe money. If you don't or can't pay it back, bleak fate awaits. In America where the poor are made to become that which they are, kept where they can't escape from.
3
What is your point.
Are you saying that the poor have a right to stop paying rent and the landlord has no right to evict them when this happens.
The landlord has a right to charge rent when someone lives in the building he owns and is not getting away with anything when he demands to be paid and evicts the tenet when they do not pay.
A lot of these people can afford he rent but spend the money they have because hey know hey will get one shot deal from he city.
I worked in fair hearing unit located in a Income Maintenance center in Manhattan so I am saying this from first hand experience.
People thought the unit I worked in could advocate for them.
We could on some issues but not on eligibility issues.
I saw people in neighborhoods where the rent was high and claimed they couldn't pay because of some unexpected expense or loss of income but would be able to pay in the future.
Funny how this would happen every year.
Do not feel sorry for many of these people.
They know they will not pay because hey can get a way with it.
11
For those of you who are writing about ending rent stabilization- where will all your middle to lower income workers live? Who will serve you food, teach your children, clean your houses, sell you clothes, protect your streets, pick up your garbage, play music for you at concert halls and clubs..you get the picture. Without "affordable" housing (and I mean housing that's not $2700 a month or more) how will anyone but the wealthy live here? What kind of city will we have? How will the creatives, artists and entrepreneurs come here to improve our society? We need affordable rents to remain a great and democratic city. Rents are ridiculously high even in stabilized apartments when you look at salaries for the list above, most of which (salaries) have not kept up with inflation. Rents will not go down if you eliminate rent stabilization, if you think that I have a beautiful bridge to sell you...!
66
Very well put.
4
What do they do in other places.
What does salaries have to do with rent.
A landlord should have the right to charge what ever they want.
It is his property.
Why should he rent to someone who can not pay that amount when there is a person who will pay that amount.
When you go to the store to buy clothes do you have the right to say you should pay less because you can't afford to pay what is being charged.
Renting a apartment is no different.
If you can not see this then you should move somewhere where all he housing is owned by the state where the public has decided to subsidize the way you live.
11
Heavens. I don't know if I need a drink or a shower after reading this comment.
4
The attitude by many in the comments section is no different than the most regressive of Republicans. They read the Times but disdain working class and poor New Yorkers. Landlords are often evil money grubbing capitalist pigs because the NYC housing system financially rewards terrible behavior. When I first became an attorney in the early 1990's I also began volunteering as free legal counsel for the elderly. Housing Court was shockingly brutal and positively Dickensian; courtrooms and hallways packed to the gills with decent New Yorkers. It was like walking into The Marshalsea, the notorious debtors' prison in London. Landlords would stand up in open court and start screaming at elderly widowed women living on Social Security, "I want her out on the street!" Objecting was worthless as judges routinely did nothing. "Sewer Service" was constantly employed, landlords creating baseless notices of eviction and never serving them on tenants, just making it appear that they were served. It meant countless New Yorkers were evicted without cause. Stabilization is the only reason that any working class people remain in the 5 boroughs; it's no golden ticket, that's Rent Control, which is long dead. Rent stabilized buildings are a great investment for crooks. They sell for well below market rates and with regulations so weak raising rents to current market rates is ridiculously easy; just make apartments unlivable so tenants must leave, or come up with a baseless reason to evict them.
28
This won't end until landlords turn Brooklyn into Manhattan: a place where only doctors and lawyers and bank presidents can afford to live.
As someone else said, where do you expect the cabdrivers and waiters and doormen to live?
Like the economy, this will all come crashing down.
22
Irresistible force, meet the unmovable object. More fortunate people tend to displace the less fortunate, and the government tries to mitigate the damage. The Greeks and Romans struggled over this. They fought wars over it in the Middle Ages, and millions of people migrated to the New World to find a better place to live.
I'm sure scenes like this or worse happened in all those places. It will always be such until there is enough for everyone, if there ever is. The government can change the system's bias, tilting it in favor of landlords or of tenants, and it can try to weed out cheaters on both sides, but there is no way to square the circle short of a commitment to create enough housing for everyone, which is likely impossible in a place like New York.
This is a fine snapshot of an age-old problem. Thanks.
3
This series reminds me of a ploy sometimes used by landlords to justify an eviction: not depositing rental checks.
Our landlord tried this on all the residents of my building when trying to get us all out. In court, the judge indicated we were there for "non payment of rent". I showed the judge photos of the checks, and USPS delivery receipts. I then stated, this is proof I paid. The judge disagreed, saying the record of deposits showed I had not paid. I explained in return that I could not COMPEL the landlord to deposit the check, but I had done my duty and had paid my rent, and could not be cited for non-payment. That there was a difference between paying and depositing, and Webster's dictionary made it very clear. BANG! Gavel came down hard, "I will not be told in my courtroom what words mean"--.
Needless to say, I lost--everyone lost--thanks to this absurd ruse.
25
@muddlerminnow: Just a "petit mot" to9 say that I sympathize with you "tout a fait," and that what is happening in Chicago and New York is happening nationwide, not only "aux Etats Unis" but in Europe as well, especially in France, where the "winners,"those who voted Macron into office were the wealthy, affluent folks aided by the political classes. Late Jack GREENFIELD, WHO coined the term, "The Donald," also referred to the real estate lobby in NY as the "permanent government," which is not false.My view is that Mayor DEBLASIO, "POUR LA FORME," supports tenants, but "au fond," is counting on above mentioned permanent government for financial help in his seemingly inevitable run for the presidency. Improvement of sub standard housing so they don't become firetraps appears to be his principal preoccupation,but looking back at that conflagration in then Bronx in January which cost lives of 12 people,clearly avoidable, is not in fact true. Saying you are for social justice and being for social justice are not synonomous!Times newspaper's investigative reporting if first rate, what it does best, evidenced by this series, and authors and photojournalist are to be commended. Good luck, and my hope is that when 87 year old tenant, evicted so heartlessly by her landlord, took her buddy, her dog with her when she went to live in Pennsylvania!"Mucha suerte!'
2
I had a landlord in Washington, DC try that exact same ruse. We ended-up in court over it. The whole process was amazing - and I'm one of the lucky few who had the means and resources to fight. (I'm a lawyer myself, so I wasn't intimidated by the process, which I imagine is what happens to a lot of tenants). I actually got the judge to rebuke the landlord's attorney in small claims court for abusing the legal process, in addition to winning my case. I also reported the landlord's attorneys to the DC and Virginia bars for unethical practices. I had to put a lien on the landlord's property when he didn't pay-up. The whole process was exhausting, mentally and physically.
6
That's insane! cant believe a judge went along with that
4
I read a heck of a lot of 'news,' but it's exceedingly rare that reading a piece will just about make me want to throw up, as this one has. Inhumanity.
18
Mr. Kleinfield,
This is a fantastic article. Some of the most fair and unbiased reporting I've seen from the Times in years. I didn't come away felling like it was a social justice warrior rant for tenants. It wasn't a screed against evil landlords and it wasn't an appeal to another publicly funded "system." Your writing style is very tight. No wonder you won a Pulitzer and a Polk. I look forward to reading more from you.
Thank you.
Separately, "Where Brooklyn Tenants Plead the Case for Keeping Their Homes"
An apartment you rent is not "your" home. It belongs to someone else. Renters need to remind themselves of this fact. You can't claim property rights on someone else's property.
This is one of the flaws with rent control and rent stabilization. When tenant's leases can never be broken, when a lease and its controlled rent can be passed on from generation to generation it creates the need for housing court. This is another example of government creating the problems it now needs to fix.
46
An apartment is in fact a tennent's home, they pay for that in a legal document known as a lease agreement. It is not their owned property, but it is their home. I'm sick of hearing defense of landlord using this argument and other savage arguments referencing market forces. Housing is a HUMAN RIGHT and to attempt any profit at providing this basic necessity of a civilized society is problematic and there's little resolution other than government, a very left leaning or socialist style government to enforce the disbursement of this right.
21
Although I found this series well written, and fascinating (and very depressing)...in fact, the authors DO CALL for people to have property rights to an apartment they have lived in for years, and to be guaranteed very low rents forever and even to pass this "bargain" onto to their children and GRANDCHILDREN in perpetuity. That's more than even the right I have as a homeowner to pass on my house, which I paid for over 30 years and own outright. SO yes, that is what liberals call for with rent control/stabilization -- leases that NEVER END, even when the tenant DIES -- low rents in perpetuity -- "rights" to live where you want, in the most expensive city and neighborhoods paying rents from 1950 forever.
6
Does the landlord have a mortgage? If so where did he money come from? Many real estate investors in NYC and elsewhere became rich at the expense of others due to "zirp". Other large corporations, possibly REITS issue stock or bonds and Wall Street pumps and dumps.
By the way, I am a landlord. Small time.
3
We get it now. Landlords are evil, money grubbing capitalist pigs. Tenants are all downtrodden and exploited. Just because a contractual lease exists requiring the tenant to remit payments monthly to the landlord does not mean the landlord has the right to collect that rent if the tenant complains and shouts racism, ageism, or claims some other excuse for non-payment. We get it now.
51
That photo tells the story - I don't think I'm "profiling" when I suggest that many of the "defendants" are people of color ... and the white faces may be - most of them - representing them.
Obviously no "Eureka" moment, but one has to wonder about a City Council that is (?) "majority minority." Yes, there several hacks among them, but there are also some talented & dynamic people there, too.
Yes, I know that what they have (nominally) "on their plate" is every bit as diverse & complex as a Senator in DC, ... and they don't have a staff or other resources remotely comparable, ... BUT WHAT ARE THEY DOING?
Libraries are great, and making sure they don't slash their hours is a good thing, but that CANNOT BE what being a City Councilperson is ALL!! about.
We need leadership here. For a variety of reasons - "being part of the problem" has got to be central - this is not one the Mayor chooses to take on, but when one part of the City bureaucracy falls to THESE levels - with homelessness among the most obvious forms of fallout ... Is our City Government as much of a cipher and a disgrace as ALBANY ... for Pete's sake?!
1
Where do folks expect non-affluent New Yorkers to live? We can't all move to Detroit!
20
Folks expect non affluent New Yorkers to move to the outskirts of NJ and commute on busses to be housekeepers and dog walkers of the ultra rich who live in what used to be your family home for generations...that is, until a rich developer with political and financial connections got handed couple of nice passes to evict you, buy the building and turn it into 'luxury housing'.
15
By gosh, you're right! Silly me.
1
People need to live where they can afford. It's foolish for low income people to live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. It's even more foolish for the NYT to call this a "crisis."
27
If low-income people do come to their senses and evacuate New York, San Francisco, DC, and the rest of the cities this logic is applied to, the remaining residents better be prepared to adapt to a drastically different way of life. No more nannies, baristas, janitors, retail clerks, Uber drivers, service staff, take-out food...
Civilization really falls apart if you decide there's just no place in it for the lower class strata.
71
Exactly, Januarium. If we want these jobs done (and we do), such people need to able to afford to live here. I don't know what the answer is, but just telling low income people to leave is not it.
14
These articles prove the case that the free market is the only viable path to a fair system. Forget the courts, judges, lawyers etc and let the market determine what is "fair" . Nobody should profit from cheap rents or high rents that are the result of taking market rate units off the market. This is one big mess and anyone who thinks more government is the answer is crazy.
25
In the short term (10 years?) while this adjustment to the free market takes place, many, many people will become homeless. This will end up costing the City many more billions of dollars because the law requires the city of new york to provide shelter to almost anyone that asks for it. Further, as the homeless and mentally ill start to populate the streets, quality of life will decline.
We need to bite the bullet - hopefully with the help of the state and federal government - to provide subsidies to those that cannot afford their rents (based upon 30% of a tenant's AGI).
4
Why not cut out the middlemen? For the money they spend propping up this failing court system and providing subsidies to slumlords to keep people in deplorable housing, the city could invest in quality public housing so that the working class and poor can live both affordably and respectably.
2
SpaceCake,
Sounds right. Except that the cost of providing quality public housing well exceeds the costs of the housing court system and subsidies. The New York City Housing Authority, which probably houses less than 10 percent of New Yorkers, estimates that it needs about $15 billion just to take care of its current capital needs. If we want to provide truly affordable housing to the poor and working and middle classes think billions and billions and billions of dollars and then some. (My own view is that the money should come from the Federal Government, but that's not happening in my lifetime.)
1
There are plenty of things a good government can do to help the disenfranchised. Most of them involve collecting tax money and using it wisely.
Forcing landlords to give certain people below-market rent is just a way for sleazy politicians to avoid that reality. The result is a system where landlords and tenants are in opposing corners.
Capitalism only works when the buyer and seller both want the transaction to happen. This system will never work, and needs to be phased out.
55
As mentioned in your series before, this kind of gentrification is global. It's happening in Philadelphia now. Most development/gentrification is fueled by all kinds of Real Estate tax abatements that cities hand out like candy. This creates a toxic brew of inequality, that, forces long time residents to pay more in taxes. The cause? New property values, along with a larger population, that stresses an already broken infrastruce. It eventually leaves the poor, and long (seniors) time residents, left to carry a city's imbalanced books. Often, with cuts in city services. What surprises me? Why isn't this an election issue?
11
Too many people - not enough housing. If you build more housing, more people will pile in. How much publicly funded housing does New York City have already? How much does New York spend for housing vouchers?
13
Living dependencies created by government-mandated rent stabilization are unfortunate - a legacy of the 1940s and World War II.
But at some point this socialist idea of uneconomic rents has to be done away with. Buildings with rent stabilized tenants cannot pay high property taxes, which robs the City of income, and in effect holds down wages for city workers, depriving them of proper incomes.
It just makes no sense to say a person living in one of these apartments can live there and "grant" it to their children. Too many people with large incomes are scamming this system, while homeless families cannot go to sleep at night. END RENT STABILIZATION, or at the least end succession of leases to relatives.
77
"...down wages for city workers, depriving them of proper incomes."
Holds down wages for SOME city workers.
Have you bothered to look at what the top tier of "city workers" currently makes?
4
So, the grown kids moving home bc they have $250,000 student loans, entry level jobs and can't even qualify for average priced studio or 1 bdrm apt.$3500...should all move away? Where? The startups and creative industries here need young blood. They'll have no workforce. There needs to be more developments like Manhattan Plaza!..a better solution than ending succession for family members who have no where to go. NO one with 'large income' is 'scamming' system anymore since so many 'protections' were put in for landlords who monitor most tenants like private detectives!
4
After reading this series of articles, it is evident to me that rent regulation is counterproductive even to the families it is supposed to help. It puts the tenants and landlords at odds with each other. In a free market, landlords will want to maintain their apartments and keep their paying tenants happy. If a property is not maintained, the tenant can always leave. Government aid should be n the form of housing vouchers that are used on an open market.
As a side note, the taxpayers of New York City should not have to pay for someone's liposuction and other poor financial choices. Giving short-term loans for tenants with unexpected cash flow because of loss of employment, illness or other issues beyond their control is fair and humane, but supporting poor financial decisions is unfair to those footing the bill.
66
Housing vouchers used on an open market do exist; that's the Section 8 voucher program. At present, it's barely functional, because landlords in most states can legally refuse to even consider applicants whose rent is paid in part with a voucher, and even in states where that's technically illegal, there's no way of enforcing that law. Obviously they don't have to answer to anyone if they "happen" to choose tenants who do not use vouchers.
The problem is not the vouchers themselves – no one is expected to rent the units in question for less than they otherwise would. It's the renter's duty to apply for apartments listed at or below the amount of their voucher. But the phrase "section 8 renters" has become so ludicrously stigmatized, it's like the landlord boogeyman. The idea is that poor renters have no respect for the property, and are likely to trash it or throw loud parties – even though more than 50% of "section 8 renters" are disabled or elderly.
One has to wonder why that situation couldn't be averted by screening the tenants like any others, and making sure to check references from their previous landlords.
7
In a free market, landlords will want to maintain their apartments and keep their paying tenants happy
HA!!!
Thanks for the laugh.
If what you claimed was true, non-rent controlled properties would be palaces. And affordable.
They're NOT.
7
No kidding, Matty. You know what paying your market rent on time for years gets you with an NYC landlord? It gets you bupkis. Landlords view rent like a tithe to the church or like a droit de seigneur. It is something the tenant class must provide, on time and with a smile, or be punished. The landlords owe nothing in return. It is just their due.
I've seen a NYC landlord go to court to fight a family that was paying five figures a month when the family withheld rent for NO HEAT OR HOT WATER for three months. Three months. He wanted penalties and interest on the late (escrowed) rent. When he had to pay for part of their hotel stay - babies do tend to need heat in December - he was in a snit for months. Ranting about how they were con artists and complainers and how the city hates landlords and he was treated so unfairly. Ranting all the way down to his house in Florida and all the way up to his house in the Catskills and all the way to his suite at Atlantic City about his rack and ruin.
True story. Every word. And we're not even into the rodent problem or the burst water heaters at that property.
2
It's striking how many of these tenants are disabled or elderly – even some who are not explicitly acknowledged as such. The woman scolded for crying in the presence of Judge Finkelstein, for example. She's presented as one of the "bad ones" whose situation isn't justifiable, but the transcript of her erratic, nonsensical exchange with the judge strongly indicates she's suffering from an untreated mental disability. Thinking he could somehow help her track down the missing textbooks is so bizarre and disconnected from reality, it's heartbreaking.
Articles about the homelessness epidemic are always met with a chorus of voices singing the same old tunes: "Why don't they just relocate?" or "It's their own fault for making terrible life choices." Hopefully this series of articles will help some people connect the dots, and understand that the majority of renters impacted by the affordable housing crisis are victims of impossible circumstances. Even the people in this story who literally did nothing wrong – the ones evicted for fabricated reasons, or daring to report serious problems in the unit – will have to list a criminal landlord as a reference on any future rental applications. What are the odds they're going to ever find housing again? In what world is that their own fault?
47
Why ask that question.
Why is fault a issue.
I believe he homeless population is just not people who have bad luck.
Giving hem a apartment or making it possible to remain in a apartment they have not paid any rent is not a answer,
I don't know what should be done but I do know because most of these people are not normal and have problems functioning in our society just
giving hem money to live in a apartment for example will not solve the problems they have.
Education could be part of he solution but my guess there has to be a psychological or a biological component I am not qualified to determine.
This is something people who are smarter than me will have to answer
and hopefully resolve.
I see all these complaints from landlords, but I know somebody formerly of Brooklybn Heights, who lost his rent control 'cause he wasn't there 6 mos of the year. Do the landlord's have spies. At least you have rent control. While in grad school in LA, I got a letter evert 6-12 months saying that market conditions "dictated" that my rent be raised significantly. Couldn't stand those people.
4
Yea, as if landlords are forced by "the market" to act.
It's all a swindle.
4
There but for the grace of God, go I.
30
This is a disastrous situation, but one thing that should be abolished mmediately is the tenants blacklist. A tenant gets put on it without any regard for the reason or the outcome. The tenant appears on it simply as a result of a landlord's suit. Worse, landlords can add any tenant to the list at will--simply because they don't like the tenant.
The way it works is that companies sell data they get from combing the public landlord/tenant cases and then matching them the name and addresses of the accused tenants. This is before the cases are even heard! And it means that once a landlord sues a tenant, even if the suit was outrageous and clearly intended to clear a building illegally, and the tenant wins that suit, his or her next rental application will be horribly tainted. (I believe the tenant stays on the list for 7 years, but am not sure.)
The tenants blacklist is a vile landlord's tool and NYC landlords use it against people all the time. It's a gross injustice that it hasn't been outlawed. NYC should make it illegal--immediately.
35
WORD
Agree, despicable.
I take exception to this one-sided demonization of landlords.
I own rental property. My last tenant caused extensive damage to my property, refused to honor contractual commitments, and I was forced to deduct my damages from his security deposit. Then he hired a rude, aggressive lawyer to threaten to sue me to get his whole deposit back. These shameless people ignored a 10-page letter of explanation I sent them detailing and justifying every deduction. They threatened to sue for double/triple damages, saying that as per state law, any technical or procedural lapse on my part (e.g., forgetting to send a trivial administrative notice/letter, failure to give an annual interest refund of 1 cent, etc.) would invalidate my entire damages claim and entitle them to double/triple damages under state laws. When I offered to refund a third of the deducted amount in the interest of settling the matter, they said, nope, they want a full refund and REFUSED to provide any justification or explanation for their demands. In the end, I got intimidated and just sent them the full security back. I have never been to court and never want to.
The laws are heavily weighted in favor of tenants. Landlords are assumed to be dishonest and powerful. In reality, the vast majority of landlords are like me - individuals just looking to supplement income with a rental property. People like us depend on rental income to meet our monthly expenses.
I dislike the anti-landlord tone of this whole series.
107
I'm sure you were terrified at the threat of being sued by a lousy tenant.
4
I fully empathize with your cause as a small landlord, but I really think that you are putting yourself in the wrong category. As an analogy, small, individual farmers are being shoved out of business by Big Ag - who, for partisan purposes, nevertheless present the individual farmer as the face of American farming. Similarly, you are like the small farmer. But these articles center on Landlords Inc., the ones with the deep pockets who are forcing harm onto others. Please fight for what is right for you - but don't let them use you as a way to distract from their misdeeds.
2
I think the intention of this multi part article is to speak of the vast abuse by large companies and corporations looking to make a profit off of those who have little to low income. There will always be those tenants who abuse the system, like the one you had to deal with, which is unfortunate. But the vast majority of tenants are decent people and the ones being evicted, ruthlessly by these companies, need a voice (in this case, the NYT), to speak up about the shameless state of housing and rentals in NYC. These people deserve better, and neither state nor city are doing anything about it.
2
You taken a tenant to Housing Court for not paying for two months. They say the have "an application." They ask for a lawyer. The judge gives them two to three weeks to get one. Back in court they have no lawyer. They also have not paid any rent. Now the judge or their clerk push for stipulation. You agree, or come back to court in nine months. You agree to let the tenant pay their arrears over a number of months. They get another month free and then they run and you have a mess of an apartment to repair.
42
I have been intimately involved on both sides of the story here, re close friends.
Pre the Brooklyn boom, tenants ruled the show. They abused the system to no end and unless they did not pay rent for 2 yrs or more or killed somebody, you could not get them evicted,.It was not worth the landlord's effort to fight them too much since they could not get better tenants who paid the rent.
Now the opposite has happened since Brooklyn has become so valuable to landlords. They will do everything in their power to get rid of rent regulated tenants but legal and illegal.
The answer is regulated rents with a minimum to make a profit for landlords and a maximum not to gouge tenants. Let the free market decide the rents in the middle.
22
No.
I don't think the answer is regulated rent.
What right does the government have to regulate rent.
Rent regularization were instituted for a situation where the landlords would have been able to raise rents because of a apartment shortage created by he Second World War and the increase in demand because of the returning soldiers who needed a place to live and raise a family.
It was not instituted to help the poor or to make things affordable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/the-perverse-effects-of-rent...
If poor people need a place to live they first should live in a area where the cost
are less and if they still can not afford it and you believe they have a right to live in the city the government should be the answer.
So the answer is not rent regulation.
The answer is either housing built and paid for by the city for these people or money given to the landlords to make up the difference between what these people can pay and the rent the landlord is charging.
2
Thank you for your reply lucky. Maybe I was a bit too hasty re my definition of regulated rents. Certainly what you propose is possible. I am not dogmatic.
The bottom line is the extremes don't work for the average guy or the average landlord.
By average guy I mean anybody that is not rich, which is the great majority of the country.
1
This is an amazing and relevant story. Wonderful reporting. But you should also take a look at the other side of some stories: buildings where (like one case on a very expensive street of Park Slope) there is a rent-stabilized one-bedroom holding illegal activity, nuisance, violence (gun), overcrowding, hoarding (not to mention a backyard full of trash). Every other (renovated) apartment has a market price. Result: other tenants have to leave (and pay all costs involved), as it becomes unbearable to have neighbors like this. Everyone, but them. What's the role of the landlord here? There a good questions to ask.
52
A myriad of stories, most sad, but one photo struck me. It was of a woman's had holding a pen. Her nails were expensively done. She had tats all over here hands and arms and a cell phone lay next to the paper she was working with.
If she could not pay rent, where did the money come from for the nails, the tats and the phone? The article noted that money management was quite often an issue. I guess so, unless, of course, the photo was of a lawyer's hand.
In the book "Hillbilly Elegy" by J.D. Vance, the author noted some of the poor people coming into the store using food stamps where he clerked having things, e.g. cell phones, that he could not afford. Indeed, money management can be crucial.
47
It is really very difficult to evict a tenant who puts up any resistance, so rent is sometimes a tenant's lowest priority, to be paid from the funds, if any, that remain once all other expenses are paid. I have seen that behavior in some shareholders of a cooperative in which I sit on the board.
13
Perhaps she's one of the tenants whose eviction has nothing to do with failure to pay rent. Many of these stories were about entirely different scenarios, after all. Why jump to the conclusion that you're looking at something contradictory (someone who claims they can't pay rent, yet has the trappings of disposable income), when there's an equally likely, perfectly logical explanation for it?
There aren't many reasons the former option would look like the obvious one. It is more appealing, though, because it conveniently absolves us of needing to feel pity or sympathy for that woman. Once we're able to do that, it's pretty easy to extrapolate that most of the other sad stories here aren't really as bad as they seem, either. Compassion isn't a limited resource, though. We don't need to work that hard to conserve it.
7
Did you happen to notice what the tat on her left hand said?
3