Comments on: Bushwick Clicks 11/17/08

By: Reid

Reid — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:46:17 +0000

Illegal evictions happen more frequently than you might imagine in NYC. People come home and their locks are changed and they become homeless. While that article does not criticize ghetto landlords taking advantage of less-educated and vulnerable populations as harshly as it should, it makes sense.

By: JJ

JJ — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:19:41 +0000

So steal lawfully owned land in order to help the community with affordable housing? Sure, only the ads will be written in Hebrew and will read “For Rent Only If You’re Hasidic”.

By: ricmac01

ricmac01 — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:30:02 +0000

Gosh, once upon a time nobody wanted to come anywhere NEAR Phizer’s facility – especially their employees!

By: petebfd

petebfd — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:33:25 +0000

i’m totally for stealing pfizer’s property. how can we steal more?

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:25:09 +0000

That’s a good point, Justin. Some of these landlords are real hardasses but you don’t just get booted because you miss one payment, especially one from a govt agency. I assumed it was a full month late, but even then… something isn’t right here.

By: Justin

Justin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:22:17 +0000

That NYT article makes absolutely no sense. When tenants miss one rent payment, the owner can’t just put their stuff on the street. In reality, there will be up to a year of court appearances before any sort of eviction in Brooklyn…. I think NY Times got played, didn’t check the facts on this one.

By: Jeremy Sapienza

Jeremy Sapienza — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:09:55 +0000

At least there’s some incentive to get back on track, even if it’s in a rather luxurious amount of time. It seems risky for the landlord to toss out a tenant whose existence the City is quite aware of outside of the proper eviction process. Maybe there’s something we’re missing here?

By: Jimmy Legs

Jimmy Legs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:00:56 +0000

okay i looked it up, the Housing Stability Plus program is a temporary (max 5 yr) program to help homeless people into permanent housing. a family of 3 starts with $925/mo for the first year, so they just managed to find a place with the same rent. the subsidy goes down 20% every year so they will gradually have to pay more and more.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dhs/html/press/pr121004.shtml

By: Jimmy Legs

Jimmy Legs — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:49:01 +0000

i’m sort of surprised the article doesn’t raise the notion that what the lanlord did is super illegal, especially in this town. you don’t just throw somebody’s stuff on the street. i dunno, something’s missing from this story, why isn’t the woman complaining about the theft of her personal property? i kind of hate to defend her, since it certainly sounds like she was living in a $925/mo apt for free for some reason, but the eviction laws are pretty clear and generally known around here.

By: Ingo Hart

Ingo Hart — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:57:30 +0000

Wow I didn’t know people could have their WHOLE rent subsidised.

I know it was just a turn of phrase but the Balkan war comment made me wince.