Suddenly, Vito Lopez wants to help “newcomers.” — Photos by Aaron Short

State Assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic Boss Vito J. Lopez and RBSCC, the social-service organization allied with him, are extending a hand to yet another demographic — the “newcomers” Lopez heretofore shunned, but who in the wake of a City Council race are now seen as politically important. Is this an attempt to stay relevant, and will it work?

Don’t let the name fool you. The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC) has its hands in a lot of different places, from economic development and streetscape improvements, providing seniors with hot meals during the holidays, and youth services, to developing new low-income housing throughout North Brooklyn, and of course, volunteering off the clock on local political campaigns.

But the organization’s bread and butter is housing services, including assisting tenants paying higher-than-legal rent or being harassed by their landlords.

And so it went at a tenant rights workshop, which was conducted in the cozy basement den at Northeast Kingdom Monday night, where fifteen people gathered in an intimate setting to learn more about housing law from about half a dozen housing attorneys and organizers.

RBSCC was not mentioned on any of the flyers or emails that went out to the community; instead the focus was on the name "Bushwick Housing and Legal Assistance," a division within Ridgewood Bushwick. Housing Director Angela Battaglia explained the services the non-profit offered and the reasons behind targeting workshops toward new Bushwick residents.

 
Sally Robinson and Sergio, new housing lawyers at RBSCC.

"We have found several people coming to our office, newcomers who are being taken advantage of," said Battaglia. "We’re trying to bring people together to fight for your rights for you."

Dressed in a cream blazer with black piping and lapels, Battaglia made personal appeals to the individuals who attended, asking their names and addresses, while Sally Robinson, a new attorney with RBSCC, stuck to the basics of rent stabilization laws and tenant’s rights.

"There’s a difference between improvements and repairs," said Robinson, referring to Major Capital Improvements, one legal reason landlords may raise the rent on a unit. "In general, getting apartments painted every two to three years, fixing the stove or the fridge, dealing with infestations, these are repairs that the landlord must pay on his own dime" without raising the rent.

For buildings with six units or more, built before 1974, the laws of rent stabilization apply, chiefly among them that landlords cannot raise the rent more than a percentage decided upon each year by the Rent Guidelines Board, a city authority. RBSCC organizers maintain Bushwick rents are higher than they should be almost across the board, based on these modest yearly adjustments to previously very low rent amounts. The flier posted for the event claimed that $1200 might be an illegal rate for a two-bedroom apartment.

"Bushwick is a sexy place and the landlords know that. Every time one of you moves out, landlords get a 17 to 20 percent vacancy allowance," said Battaglia, referring to a between-tenant price hike allowed by rent regulations. Once legal rent reaches $2000, a unit may be removed from rent regulation.

Robinson and the other attorneys urged tenants who believe they are paying too much in rent to visit the Dept. of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), the state housing department, to determine their building’s rental history. If the rents have been rising beyond the rates allowed by the Rent Guidelines Board, Robinson encouraged tenants to visit the RBSCC offices at 217 Wyckoff Avenue for a free consultation (all of RBSCC’s housing services are free). If the landlord is harassing tenants in the building and threatening eviction, RBSCC lawyers promised to help with legal representation.

Throughout the evening, it became clear that RBSCC organizers and attorneys had a deep knowledge of the neighborhood’s building stock and landlord-tenant law.

"Our office is there, they’re smart, they’re good, and they fight to the death for you," said Battaglia.

Near the end of the workshop, one participant asked how RBSCC received its funding. Battaglia mentioned several grants, state and city agencies, including the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance and the Department of Homeless Services, and discretionary funding from City Council members.

As the attorneys and organizers eagerly dispensed advice throughout the evening, one question lingered. What does RBSCC have to gain?

Just before the City Council primary showdown between Diana Reyna and Maritza Davila, a number of Bushwick residents living in loft buildings found a letter slipped under their door addressed to them and signed by State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez. The letter urged registered voters to support Davila in the primary while reminding them that Lopez continued to fight for tenant rights in Albany.

Davila lost by a mere 251 votes, but the impact of the newcomers’ voting bloc, which Arts in Bushwick’s Laura Braslow labeled the "creative community" and detailed in a September BushwickBK column, was not lost on Lopez or RBSCC, the organization founded by the assemblyman in 1973 and to which he remains inexorably tied.

In January 2010, Lopez hired Serena Blanchard, the new Kings County Democrats Executive Director, to reach out to "hipsters," as Lopez specifically labeled the demographic in a City Hall News cover profile. One month later, Robinson was given a new title at RBSCC to reach out to Bushwick’s relative newcomers. (Blanchard attended the tenant workshop at Northeast Kingdom but did not participate beyond introducing herself at the end.)

RBSCC’s other constituencies — the elderly, low-income families — participate in the organization and Lopez’s unofficially affiliated political machine in an obvious, if convoluted, quid pro quo system. This process is well-documented by Professor Nicole Marwell in her book Bargaining for Brooklyn. It’s not clear if "fighting to the death" to help a handful of "newcomers" shave money off their rent is a winning move for the multigenerational community-based organization.

Arts in Bushwick’s Braslow maintains that the recent election proved to local politicos like Lopez and Reyna the value of this new community as a voting bloc. She posits that Lopez assumes that the "hipsters" will respond to his and RBSCC’s overtures just like other groups; it’s just a matter of identifying what the new demographic needs.

"This is the way machine politics is played in NYC today," added Braslow, "and Vito and Ridgewood Bushwick are some of the best at it in the city."

The lessons of the hard-fought political campaign of 2009 may be playing out in the policy realm, as two political leaders seek to appeal to a constituency that is worried about rising rents and finding affordable live/work spaces in Bushwick.

As it happens, Lopez’s record on loft dwellers in illegally-converted warehouses is better than Council member Diana Reyna’s. Reyna has made overtures to young people in Bushwick during campaign season and afterward regarding health care, but ultimately is more concerned with protecting the industrial business zone — and her main (ethnic) constituency’s job base – than accomodating loft-dwellers. Lopez, as Assembly Housing Chair, may be in a better position to help loft tenants by extending loft laws provisions. The Loft Law governs the conversion of manufacturing properties to residential use, and extends legal protections for tenants to these properties.

A workshop concerning loft dwellers has been scheduled for mid-March (location TBD) and Robinson hopes to repeat the tenant workshop to reach out to other local residents who suspect their rent is too high.

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