Letters & Briefs

Protect Seniors—Reform MBR
Gary Purville, Brooklyn

The time has come to reform the maximum-base-rent portion of the rent-control law. In the recent battle over the rent laws, Governor Pataki made a solemn promise that senior citizens and the disabled would be protected from any deleterious fallout. The majority of rent-controlled tenants are elderly or disabled and living on fixed incomes.

By the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal setting the 1996-97 MBR factor at 32.4% on Aug. 12, it exposed their malicious intent to defy that promise and to annihilate the most vulnerable members of this society. How a society treats its elderly and destitute is a measure of the degree of civilization that nation has attained.

Mayor Giuliani’s signing of Local Law 73, overturning the DHCR’s decision to raise the MBR to 32.4%, is commendable. As landlords prepare to wage war on the City Council, we implore the Governor to lead the way in subduing the genocidal forces that threaten our well-being. We demand reform now!

Marshals: Don’t Leave Home Without Them
Tues., Nov. 11, 1997, 10 p.m., Channel 34

A discussion of the changes to the Marshals Handbook that went into effect on October 27. The distinction between legal and illegal evictions and the process for eviction are discussed in the context of the new eviction laws affecting the housing court.

Host: Angelita Anderson, Executive Director, City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court

Guests: Jamal Speede, Manhattan Coordinator, City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court and Robert Eisman, Investigative Attorney, NYC Dept. of Investigation Marshals Bureau

116th St. Tenants Demand Repairs
— Deborah Schutt

Since forming a tenants association with Met Council's help earlier this summer, the residents of 112, 118 and 124 East 116th Street have vigorously been seeking long-overdue repairs to their buildings and apartments. It would be hard to imagine buildings in a more dilapidated state than these. Among the problems plaguing them are lead paint, which has poisoned some of the children; garbage in the back yard piled almost to the first-floor windows; roach, mice, and rat infestation; unlocked front doors; and incompetent management coupled with barely any upkeep. The holes in the floors are so big you can see into the apartment below. The wooden window frames are falling apart and have attracted thousands of roaches.

The tenants association, headed by Yvonne Cruz, has tried to set up a meeting with the landlord, Silver & Silver Properties, Inc., to discuss these problems. However, the landlord is still refusing to meet with them. They deny the existence of any of the conditions mentioned. Their only response has been to try to blame the tenants.

An inspector from the city Department of Health has been to the buildings to submit a report on the lead-paint situation. Currently, we are in the process of filing HP actions in Housing Court to try to resolve the other problems. If these actions prove to be unsuccessful, a rent strike is planned.

San Francisco Tenants Win One
—Steven Wishnia

San Francisco landlords’ attempt to end rent controls for small buildings is dead, at least for this year.

A proposed referendum to remove rent controls from owner-occupied buildings of two to four apartments failed to get on the November ballot, when the landlords couldn’t collect the 10,000 signatures needed to qualify. Landlords plan to try again next year.

“This effort was seen as a first assault on San Francisco’s entire rent law,” wrote Tenant Times, the newspaper of the San Francisco Tenants Union. If it had passed, it would have ended rent controls on 50,000 apartments, and could possibly have affected one-third of the city’s housing stock. The buildings that would have been affected were put under rent controls in 1994 in an attempt to curb abuses of “owner move in” (OMI) evictions, in which landlords who lived—or claimed to live—in a 2-4 unit building for at least six months could get the whole building decontrolled.

“Unsurprisingly, there were many landlords who moved in and out of their various buildings, taking each off rent control, jacking up the rents and then moving on,” wrote Tenant Times.

The referendum’s fizzle was a small but welcome victory for San Francisco tenants. Evictions have doubled since 1995, with OMI evictions up 89% from 1995 to 1996. And under the city’s version of vacancy decontrol—vacant apartments go up to market rate, but don’t go out of the system—rents for tenants moving in have gone up more than 30% in the last year alone. Vacant two-bedrooms now average over $1,500 a month, according to Tenant Times.