My desk is in the corner of Met Council's office, near where the
wires for our phone lines hang on the wall. Just before the
phone actually rings I can hear the maze of colored lines go
"click, click, click" like a cricket running across cardboard.
Answering the phones during hotline hours is hectic. We try to
maintain our humor amidst a sea of phone calls, often from
people in real danger of losing their homes. Kind of like the
doctors on "M.A.S.H." we attempt damage control in the wake of
the greediest real-estate market in the country.
My depression and rage are kept in check by that consistent
minority of tenants who refuse to be taken advantage of without
a fight.
1:30 PM
I get a call from a woman who was illegally locked out of her
apartment a year ago. Wants to get her furniture back.
"Why did you wait a year?"
"Well at the time I didn't know my rights."
Lease or no lease, regulated or not regulated, no tenant in the
state of New York can be evicted legally without first being
taken to court, I tell her.
"Can I charge the landlord a fee for renting the apartment with
my furniture in it?"
"No, just concentrate on getting your furniture back."
Guy calls in who lives in a three-family house, has a lease and
a roommate threatening him with violence. Both their names are
on the lease. Wants to leave with five months left to go. Can
the landlord go after him for the remaining rent if he leaves?
Yes he can.
"I don't know, can you hold on a sec?"
One of many times that I'll consult Jenny or Edith or Debbie.
The advice this time is, he has to decide if he wants to stay or
go. If he is staying, he should get an order of protection
barring the violent roommate from the house. If he wants to go,
he might get sued for the rent. "Yes, the landlord might have
the right to sue you for breaching the contract. If that
happens, you should try to bring the roommate into the case, so
he can be held liable for the entire rent."
"Hello Met Council on Housing-can you hold please?"
"I'm on a pay phone."
"I'll be back with you in 30 seconds." I can't usually make
promises like that. Luckily she called at a slow moment. It's
like that on the hotline: Five lines, all ringing off the hook
for an hour straight and then suddenly only one or two calls.
Maybe even dead silence. You never know how long a slow period
will last. Usually just a few minutes.
"Met Council, can I help you?"
The landlord is finally repairing her linoleum floor, which has
had holes for years. He's going to do the least work he can. She
has a friend who does that kind of work and has offered to
reinforce the floor for free. The landlord met with the friend
and verbally agreed, but "can he turn around and claim he did my
friend's work and charge me for it?" (I'm happy to have a
question I can answer without bothering somebody.)
"No. First of all what you're getting is a repair, not a luxury
renovation or a new piece of equipment. And secondly, to even
apply for a rent increase for those two things, he has to submit
receipts. So you're good."
An older guy calls in. A World War II vet. His roommate, who is
the primary tenant (and also a vet), is in the hospital. He's
lived with the guy for over 20 years. The primary tenant has
lived there since the 1950s. They're suing him for nonpayment.
He's one month late. "The thing is, we can get the money, but
it's gonna take time. We got a court date on Thursday but Legal
Aid said they can't even do an intake interview until next week.
And my friend, he ain't gonna be out of the hospital for at
least another month. Will a judge grant a postponement for that
sort of thing?" I tell him if there's any sanity left in this
world that yes, a judge should grant him a postponement so he
can get legal representation. I give him the number for Legal
Services and the number for the City-Wide Task Force on Housing
Court and tell him he should he should prepare to present his
case, just in case.
I think of the new rent-deposit law and of what will happen if
they need a second postponement and they still don't have the
back rent they owe by then. They're lucky. It probably won't
apply to them because the case was started before October 20,
when the law went into effect. If it did, they'd stand a real
good chance of being summarily evicted.
A woman calls in, rent-stabilized. Starts to explain that she
and her husband were paying the rent to a building manager. I
already know where this one's going. Sure enough, they received
a 72-hour eviction order. Building manager skipped off to
Israel.
She starts to say "When he gets back-"
"He's not coming back, ma'am."
Turns out this guy took two months' rent, which they paid with postal
money orders. They've put a trace on the money orders, but it's going to
take a while. In addition, this same character told them that they
should withhold their rent for outstanding repairs -- but, of course, he
never told the landlord about this either. This went on for three
months. All told, they're being sued for five months' rent.
"When did you get the notice?"
"Well we got it Tuesday, but it's dated last Thursday." She's in
Brooklyn, so I tell her she needs to get down to 141 Livingston St. and
get an order to show cause. She'll need the case index number, but then
she says that her husband is up in the Bronx -- with the notice-trying to
work it all out with the landlord. This is on a Friday approaching 4 PM.
"Hold on a minute. Jenny, can you get an order to show cause without the
72-hour notice?" Jenny asks if the woman received a card mailed from the
court -- because the case number should be on the card as well. "Well we
have the original papers we were served with, but building manager
building manager told us we could ignore the papers because it was all
being taken care of."
It's a pretty good scam. Steal the tenants' rent, then encourage them to
ignore the resulting court papers. That way they'll be evicted before
you can be caught.
I tell the woman in the future to NEVER ignore papers generated by the
court and that she should go downtown immediately and get that order.
Some questions are easier. "What's the current percentage increase for a
two-year lease renewal?" "My brother is moving out, how do I assert my
rights to succeed his lease?" "Do I need my landlord's permission to
sublet my apartment?" A lot of rent-controlled tenants are asking about
what's going on with the MBR.
The ones that linger in your mind, though, are the ones you don't have
quick answers to.
A woman calls in who lives in a hotel -- one of those that is rent
stabilized. Her roommate is the leaseholder and has a physically
debilitating condition. They've been together in the same apartment out
of survival and friendship for over 15 years. Joint bank accounts -- the
works. The primary tenant is in the hospital and her mental capacities
are fading. She may die there.
The woman calling has started to sign the rent checks (from the account
they've held together for years) and the landlord is refusing them. The
primary tenant has made several notarized statements indicating that she
wants her roommate to take over the lease, but the landlord is ignoring
these and telling the woman she has no right to the apartment except as
the dying woman's roommate. I tell her to gather all her documentation
and wait for the court papers. Legal Aid and Legal Services won't take
her unless she's got an active case.
We get a lot of calls like that, with no easy answers. I end up saying
"I don't know" a lot. But the more hours I put in, the more I learn. The
more hours I put in, the more I learn ways to dismantle that injustice
which pervades every aspect of housing in this city. At the very least I
leave the office knowing that I take an active part in that struggle.
And taking part in the fight for your own survival, while being a simple
and necessary thing, can also feel pretty damn good.
"No ma'am, I'm not a lawyer. I work at a YMCA in Brooklyn. I just
volunteer here once a week answering the phones -- you could too, if you
wanted to."
Dave Powell, at age 25, is one of Met Council's youngest volunteers. A
native of Brooklyn, Dave has become a regular Friday tenant hotline
counselor since August 1996, when he came to Met Council seeking
information about the then-looming threat to the continuation of rent
controls and Giuliani's housing record. Dave attended Hunter and
Kingsborough Colleges. He has also been active in campaigns against
racism and homelessness. He is a member of the ABC-No Rio collective, a
volunteer-run radical arts and community center on the Lower East Side.
He works at a YMCA as a swimming instructor, and is a drummer in a
hard-core band called Huasipungo. Met Council thanks Dave for his work
and commitment.
