March/April 1997

Shelter Shorts / Short Takes

Rent War Rages in New York City

A pitched battle is underway in New York State, as landlord and tenant advocates square off over the expiration of rent regulations this June 15. Republican State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno has vowed to let rent protections "sunset" if leadership reaches no deal with Assembly Democrats. But tenant advocates are fighting back vigorously, organizing a massive statewide field campaign to preserve New York's 50-year history of rent regulation.

New York's rent regulations cover over one million apartments in New York City, Westchester, and Nassau County, and thousands in upstate regions, giving tenants a rent break totaling nearly a billion dollars a year. With the vacancy rate in New York City just edging over four percent and the rate among units affordable to very low-income families dwindling to nearly zero, rent regulations provide needed relief to low- and moderate-income renters.

From 1974 (when the laws were last overhauled) to 1993, the regulations did not allow any vacancy decontrol. In addition, tax incentives helped convince many New York City developers to accept rent regulation on new buildings, which would otherwise have been exempt. This helped to offset losses due to co-op and condo conversions and kept the overall stock of regulated apartments relatively stable.

But in recent years landlords have mounted a campaign to whittle down rent laws and the broad constituency that supports them. Three years ago, regulation opponents added weakening amendments to renewal legislation, decontrolling apartments with rents over $2,000 and where the household income is at least $250,000. Now, Bruno and others want luxury decontrol expanded until regulations protect only the lowest income families and senior citizens.

Recent polls, however, show rent regulation enjoys solid support among voters. The New York Times has speculated that Republican Governor George Pataki, who is on the record supporting vacancy deregulation, is a likely "target of tenants' wrath if rent laws lapse or are severely weakened." Tenant advocates, led by the Showdown '97 and the New York State Tenant and Neighbors Coalition (NYSTNC), have threatened election day retaliation against anyone who votes to hike rents. They argue that reducing the universe of protected apartments could eliminate the broad political constituency that has kept the regulations largely intact.

Advocates have alerted tenants to the risk of deregulation, using nightly phone banks to contact over 600,000 households and a door-to-door campaign to reach another 150,000. NYSTNC's paid membership has swelled to over 20,000 people.

Housing activists are encouraged by voters' favorable response. And reinforcement of their message has come from some unlikely places: in midtown Manhattan last week, a counterperson at Starbucks urged customers to support the rent laws as she passed their cappuccinos over the counter.

By Thomas Kamber, Project Director at the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board in  New York City. For more information, call NYSTNC at 212-695-8922.

(Read about what happened.)

NJ Fair Housing Win

The Planning Board of Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, ended a 26-year legal battle in April by unanimously approving construction of 140 townhouses for low- and moderate-income renters. Under a state court order, the board was to evaluate the project solely on whether it complied with local ordinances, The New York Times reported.

The vote allowed Fair Share Housing Development Inc., a nonprofit developer, to meet the April 31 deadline to apply for federal tax credits for the $15 million project. The project will be built on 63 acres of farmland and named after Ethel R. Lawrence, who originally brought the complaint after township officials rejected a proposal to build federally-subsidized garden apartments.

At the heart of this milestone ruling is the concept that suburban towns should shoulder a fair share of regional housing needs. A series of Mt. Laurel rulings oblige municipalities to "affirmatively provide for the construction of affordable housing and prohibit the use of zoning to block low- and moderate-income housing plans," the Times reported. The Mt. Laurel rulings have also led to New Jersey's Fair Housing Act, which prescribed local housing goals but has drawn criticism for failing to set a realistic level of need and creating loopholes that allow communities to avoid or limit construction to single-family homes.

While legal commentators called this most recent ruling a "significant development," according to the Times, the hostile climate in most state legislatures makes the ruling less likely to have measurable effects on the creation of affordable housing.

Ricanne A. Hadrian, deputy director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC), passed away on October 26, 1996, following a long bout with breast cancer. She was 36. Throughout her illness, she continued to approach her work with the same vigor, commitment, excitement and talent she displayed during her entire career, the MACDC annual report says. Last year, she negotiated a ground-breaking agreement with the Bank of Boston while spearheading a major new community organizing initiative at MACDC. Three days before her death, Hadrian won the Community Service Award at the annual meeting of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association. A poem by Marge Piercy, read at the meeting on Hadrian's behalf, contains the following passage:

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again.

"Her courage was an inspiration to everyone who knew her," the tribute to Hadrian in MACDC's report also says.

The Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), a 55-church affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation, has won a struggle with D.C. city officials to build housing for working-class residents on city-owned land. The group pledged $2.5 million to build 240 Nehemiah houses in the city's Fort Lincoln section, which Mayor Marion Barry had suggested as a site. But city housing officials and a local developer who controlled rights to the land resisted. Now the developer has apparently agreed, according to The Washington Post, to relinquish her rights to the land in exchange for a fee from WIN. Though John Moore, a WIN member who negotiated with the city, credited the mayor for the agreement, he told the Post a day earlier, "In DC, an official saying yes is just the beginning of the bargaining."


Four of the nation's largest nonprofit developers – Habitat for Humanity, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), The Enterprise Foundation, and the National NeighborWorks Network – have announced that they will spend $13 billion to develop hundreds of thousands of homes and apartments and create jobs in low-income communities. Meeting to announce "The Community Compact," in March, representatives of these organizations challenged Congress and the nation to match their commitment. For more information, contact Marilyn Katz or Tom Warnke at LISC, 202-786-2908.

A bipartisan coalition of housing advocates, labor, local governments, and businesses in California are pressing the state legislature to designate a total of $30 million to six housing programs for working families, seniors, disabled, and homeless. The coalition is seeking $15 million more for State Low Income Housing Tax Credits; $5 million for the Farmworker Housing Grant Program; $5 million for a welfare-to-work, Family Housing Demonstration Program, combining housing with child care and job training; $1 million for Self-Help Housing; $2 million more for Emergency Housing Assistance; and a $4.5 million augmentation for Farmworker Housing Tax Credits. While advocates say it's unlikely that the legislature will allocate this entire amount, the coalition maintains that a coordinated, focused campaign could win a sizable portion. Information: Capital Gains, a newsletter on housing-related legislation in California, 916-446-7904.

Minnesota's state legislature will revisit a low-income rental housing tax proposal introduced by Representative Ann Rest in 1996, according to the Minnesota Housing Partnership. Rest's bill proposed a new approach to taxing affordable rental property – a single low-income rental tax rate of 1.5 percent. The bill covered both publicly subsidized housing and unsubsidized rental housing that meets required income and quality standards. The plan could lead to either a 50 percent decline in taxes for those property owners who qualify, or a 50 to 70 percent increase for those who don't. Properties that lose favorable tax treatment, however, have a six year transition up to the higher, ordinary rental housing rate. The proposal ended up in an omnibus tax bill that died in conference committee. This year, Tax Committee Chair Doug Johnson will serve as Senate lead author of the bill, along with Rest in the House. Information: Minnesota Housing Partnership, 612-874-0112.

Negotiations with the Department of Justice have led to a plan for Nationwide Insurance to provide underserved communities with greater access to homeowner's insurance. Nationwide has agreed to take several steps to expand its presence in urban markets, including eliminating age and minimum value guidelines; providing $13.2 million in grants during the next six years to help low- and moderate-income people purchase or repair homes in minority neighborhoods; and notifying customers whose homes have been rejected that if their home is properly repaired they will have a chance to reapply. The company says it will work with local housing groups to create insurance education programs and with police and fire departments to inform residents of ways to reduce crime and fire hazards and promote neighborhood safety. Information: Nationwide Insurance, Bob Sohovich 614-249-6356 or John Millen 614-249-6348.

HUD recently announced $31 million in grants to 45 public housing developments for welfare-to-work programs. The grants will fund supportive services and economic development assistance, including employment training and counseling, child care, computer training, homeownership counseling, basic education courses, transportation, and health care. Each eligible housing authority's grant can be as high as $1 million, and all have established partnerships with local non-profit agencies or private sector businesses that will assist in carrying out proposed activities. Information: 202-708-0685.

Under the Department of Veteran's Affairs' (DVA) first agreement to offer social services outside government-owned property, the Westside Residence in Inglewood, Ca., will house homeless veterans moving from welfare to work. Westside Residence's welfare-to-work program requires residents to hold a job, pay rent, and stay sober while receiving on-site drug counseling, job training, and social skills development, offered by the DVA and the National Service Corporation (Americorps). The residence is run by LA Vets, an organization with a for-profit subsidiary that received rental income and manages the property, and a nonprofit that oversees social services. Americorp will conduct a similar roll-out of a veterans' support program in 30 other cities.

Each December for the past 10 years, San Francisco advocates for the homeless have released a report on deaths of homeless people, which has helped lead to a city-wide death prevention team to provide street outreach and service coordination. San Francisco homeless advocates hope to coordinate with activists in other cities on ways to count and review homeless deaths each year. The National Coalition for the Homeless suggests this as a summer project for students in preparation for National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day, held annually on the first day of winter. Information: Michael Stoops, NCH, 202-775-1322; e-mail: hn0055@handsnet.org.

Copyright 1997

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