28 WWW.BROOKLYN-USA.ORG
Photo: Stefan Ringel/Brooklyn BP’s Office
Borough President Adams rallied tenants, including members
of the Mitchell-Lama Task Force, outside Brooklyn
Borough Hall before they boarded a bus he sponsored to
Albany for an advocacy trip to lobby State legislators on
strengthening the city’s rent regulations.
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WHY CHOOSE BEOC?
Through a series of initiatives, Borough
President Adams is working to ensure that
Brooklynites have an affordable place to call
home all over the borough.
As the city’s rent regulations were coming
up for renewal in June, Borough President
Adams sponsored a bus trip to Albany where
tenants were able to lobby for the strengthening
of the laws, including a repeal of vacancy
decontrol, where an apartment can be taken
out of the protection of rent regulations forever
when the rent reaches a certain threshold.
After State legislators allowed the laws
to expire, he organized an all-night sleep-in
protest with dozens of Brooklynites outside of
Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Manhattan office
to demand swift action.
“As tenants and I camped outside Governor
Cuomo’s office in protest of the continued
inaction on strengthening our city’s rent
laws, my appreciation only grew for the constant
challenge and fear facing New Yorkers
who sleep on our streets every night,” said
Borough President Adams. “As a city, we
cannot morally or economically afford to put
more of our people out of their homes.”
Much of his work over the past year has
been focused on advancing affordable housing
in the borough. Additionally, he submitted
testimony to the Rent Guidelines Board at a
public hearing inside Brooklyn Borough Hall
which called for a rent freeze for the one
million-plus rent-regulated households in
New York City.
“I know firsthand that a rent freeze is
manageable for small property owners and
landlords, because I have managed to provide
it for years to the tenants in my own
building,” said Borough President Adams.
“Rent burden is a chronic illness in New
York City, and the only cure is relief for wallets
that have been stretched beyond their
limitations.”
Other affordable housing initiatives were
included in November’s release of his report
titled Housing Brooklyn: A Road Map to
Real Affordability for Brooklynites. Borough
President Adams’ ideas include partnering
with the City and faith-based institutions
to construct affordable housing on underdeveloped
properties, push for permanent
affordability of housing units through his role
in the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure
(ULURP), as well as improving access to
affordable housing lotteries through better
education and outreach.
One of the greatest threats to affordable
housing, according to Borough President
Adams, is tenant harassment. This spurred
his announcement, in conjunction with civil
rights attorney Norman Siegel and tenant
advocates, of a series of town halls he will
host in July that would investigate egregious
cases throughout Brooklyn. His findings will
help determine the potential for lawsuits he
plans to initiate against landlords who shut
off utilities, threaten or intimidate tenants,
and remove boilers and venting systems,
among other unpleasantries.
“We’re changing our approach to tenant
harassment in Brooklyn,” announced
Borough President Adams. “We are not waiting
for tenants to reach the end of their rope.
We’re getting proactive. Harmful landlords
are playing games with the health and safety
of their tenants, and they think that fines
are just a cost of doing business. Denying
someone heat, hot water, sanitation or other
basic services is not a negotiation tactic; it’s
a crime.”
Beyond affordability, he and his
Constituent Assistance Center, has worked
on issues focused on improving the quality
of life for Brooklynites in their homes.
For example, he announced a partnership
last October between Heat Seek NYC—the
winner of the NYC BigApps 2014 contest—
and housing advocates to bring new technology,
which uses sensor hardware and
web applications, to help building
owners and tenants monitor
heating during the winter
months. In March, he demonstrated
FireSonar, a new companion
app for smoke detectors
that allows users to be remotely
notified, wherever they are, if
their home or a neighbor’s may
potentially be on fire; through
a partnership with his office,
the developers offered the first
100,000 downloads free.
More recently, Borough
President Adams stood atop
the damaged roof at the
Borinquen Plaza II development
in Williamsburg in June
as he urged Governor Andrew
Cuomo to restore $100 million
in state funding for critical New
York City Housing Authority
(NYCHA) roof repairs.
“Diverting resources from
critical roof repairs to playgrounds
and landscaping is like trying cosmetic
surgery to fix a patient who is bleeding
out on the operating table; it’s foolish
and it won’t work,” he. “You can’t repair a
playground when your roof is not on solid
ground. Whatever reason the state had to
divert this money, it doesn’t matter. Health
and safety matter, and common sense matters.
I am urging Governor Cuomo to restore
the $100 million in state funding to critical
roof repairs across our NYCHA system.”
Through his efforts, Borough President
Adams has expressed his hope that
Brooklyn can be a safe, affordable home to
everyone from everywhere.
Housing Broklyn
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