Public Employee Press

Tenants and labor activists demand action
Union joins protests to preserve rent regs

The battle to strengthen rent regulations went down to the wire as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state Republican and Democratic legislative leaders urged legislators to stay in Albany to hammer out new regulations before they expired on June 15. The new agreement, reached on June 23, extends current rent regulations four years but falls short of protecting tenants in rent-stabilized apartments, activists say.

Busloads of DC 37 members and local leaders traveled to Albany June 9 for a Tenant Action Day rally in the Capitol to demand stronger protections for New York City rent-stabilized apartment dwellers.

The DC 37 members were joined by activists from the Crown Heights Tenants Union, Make the Road New York, the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association, the Alliance for Tenant Power, along with many other affordable housing advocates.

"Fight, fight, fight, housing is right!" chanted the activists gathered on the Million Dollar Staircase on the 4th floor of the Capitol.

Public Health Assistant and Local 768 member Ann Munroe traveled from Brooklyn to join the activists. Munroe is a homeowner but came to Albany in solidarity with the tenant groups. "You never know, I might have to rent again in the future," she said.

With Munroe at the rally was Local 768 President Fitz Reid. "People will be working just to pay rent, and in some cases are working full-time and are homeless," said Reid.

Activists called for an end to vacancy decontrol, which allows landlords to increase the rent outside the rent stabilization guidelines once it reaches $2,500 a month. At that point, the apartment ceases to be rent stabilized and the tenant could be forced out, unable to pay exorbitant rent increases. The new agreement increased the vacany threshold to $2,700. According to Delsenia Glover from the Alliance for Tenant Power, more than 300,000 apartments have been deregulated, depleting the city's affordable housing stock.

Tenant advocates also wanted to close a loophole that allows landlords to boost the rent by 20 percent when a tenant moves out. That
remains unchanged.

In a response to the agreement in Albany, the city Rent Guidelines Board voted on June 29 to freeze rents on one-year leases, and raised rents on two-year leases by only 2 percent. The decision by the board is unprecedented and brings needed financial relief to many of the city's
1.2 million rent stabilized tenants.

If you are having a problem with your landlord or he is harassing you, contact the Housing Unit of the union's Municipal Employees Legal Services. Tenants who are not union members can call the Tenant Protection Unit or the Office of the Public Advocate.

— Alfredo Alvarado