By now you have heard about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to enact the most sweeping expansion of tenant protections in decades for the city’s one million rent-regulated apartments. Part of the mayor’s plan calls for an end to a law that allows landlords to charge a tenant market rates once a rent-regulated unit passes a monthly threshold of $2,500.
Over the past 20 years, more than 250,000 rent-controlled apartments have been deregulated in the city, many in gentrifying neighborhoods. On May 23rd students and housing justice organizers will be coming together at the New School for a Renters’ Assembly to forge connections and build activist momentum leading up to the June rent laws vote. The NYC Renters’ Assembly is part of a national campaign by the Right to the City Alliance to strengthen tenant organizing and community controlled housing.
The event will include speakers, workshops, breakout groups, and culminate in a direct action at a building in the Lower East Side occupied by students and other renters that is currently experiencing harassment or a Save Our City rally at Union Square.
On the Friday edition of the Morning Show, host Mario A. Murillo was joined by Lenina Nadal, Communications Director of the Right To The City Alliance, and an instructor at Parsons The New School, as well as Masoom Moitra, a student in the Urban ecology program at Parsons, to discuss the Assembly and rent laws under Mayor DiBlasio.
