Vito Lopez’s Grab to Retain Power Intensifies
The curve on that chart is so high I can fit a pic of Vito under it!
(Chart from Federal Reserve paper on demographic shifts in wealth [pdf])
Your moron State Assemblyman and local political boss Vito Lopez has a bill currently rotting in Albany that would extend rent stabilization from buildings with a minimum of six units to those with three, but just for tenants over 62. It has no co-sponsors, of course, because the other Assemblypeople aren’t retarded and/or don’t have any interest in helping Vito cement in his constituency of poor people that he can whip into a hysteria and then lead to the voting booths.
Here’s the, um, eloquent “justification” of the bill:
“Senior citizens need to be protected from landlords who increase their rent to proportions beyond their financial means. The elderly should not be penalized for living in dwellings, which consist of six units, or less. Presently, the law stipulates that rent stabilization may be granted to senior citizens residing in dwellings containing more than six units. Most senior citizens are presently sustaining themselves on a fixed income. This bill would prevent excessive rent increases and harassment about eviction from landlords because the tax rebate acts as an incentive.”
Vito. Did you plagiarize this from someone’s ninth-grade civics class paper? That’s not nice.
But seriously, it’s 2008 and the government is still pitting the various (somewhat arbitrarily defined) classes against each other? I understand divide and conquer, I just think it’s vulgar and out of place in a liberal democracy.
Some facts:
*When prices rise, it is not a punishment. In fact, it is a mechanism by which scarce resources are more efficiently allocated. I’d be interested to find out whose moral compass is used to determine “excessive” rises in rent.
*More senior citizens may have a fixed income, but that does not mean it’s a low one or that they are not wealthy. In fact, senior citizens are the wealthiest segment of society. It would be rather perverse to transfer yet more wealth from a less-wealthy demographic to a wealthier one.
Why is an overly complicated regime involving tax breaks and more regulation being proposed when the government could just subsidize the rent of the seniors instead of — oh wait, I forgot to put on my scheming power-hungry politician thinking cap on. More employees to run more bureaucracy means more voters and political machine cogs for Vito!
You got it all squared away, huh, Boss?
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Hey Jeremy,
You need to be a little bit more professional and not call any of our ELECTED officials names like retarted or moron. This is very insensitive on your part specially on an official who has brought Bushwick from a 30% populated rate to about 90%. Before you attack anyone (to gain political points) learn your facts!
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
If prices rise it can be due to various reasons. One example is inflation when real wages do not rise as fast as price.
Considering that we are in a state of inflation and that prices for necessities are rising because of transportation, fixed incomes are tremendously effected. Also, the older one gets, the more medical expenses one faces. Therefore, they are facing increasing costs not only because of prices but of deteriorating health (which our wonderful government does not provide as a right). Thus, senior citizens face tighter budget constraints and some that are on the brink of poverty are pushed down.
I would like to know what percentage of wealth senior citizens own in relation to each other. I imagine that 20 percent of the senior citizen segment owns most of the wealth among other senior citizens. The real question is how many senior citizen are in poverty (which actually adds up to quite a bit).
Furthermore (a minor point), when one is over the age of 62, I can not imagine them willingly move. It is a hassle and at such an age one may want to settle and retire. One may ponder over such psychological affects. Also, searching for a new apartment is a very physical activity that for those that are unhealthy will not be able to do.
Having a rent controlled apartment is important because it guarantees the renter that he/she has a place to live where a subsidize may not adequately catch up to rising prices or inflation. It saves the elderly a lot of paperwork and stress/worry from eviction.
The tax code is actually already pretty complicated. It is the biggest source of revenue for the government. Perhaps we should use this institution that is already in place and change the structure to properly distribute needed money to public goods. The problem with the tax system is not that it is supposedly too complicated, but that we are not taxing the right people. Less taxes on the poor so they may have quick accessibility to money and more taxes on extremely wealthy individuals and luxury consumption.
One last note, Classes exist. The government isn’t placing anything new in society(so this is not about “divide and conquer”). There are racial/gender/economic distinctions that one must realize when making effective public policy.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:28 am
aj: I don’t need to be professional because I am not professional. I can say whatever the fuck I want and if you don’t like it, you can choose to not read it. But you’re right, nobody ever accused me of being sensitive. I don’t have any idea why Vito being ELECTED makes him above reproach — if anything, it should expose him to scrutiny. Being elected doesn’t make someone magical or royal.
And I laugh at the idea that one man — especially this one — single-handedly repopulated Bushwick. How ridiculous.
Marysia: yes, it is a pain to move, even for young people. It must really suck when you’re older. None of this has anything to do with whether or not certain laws should be passed granting old people rights — especially after they already live there under a different regulatory regime — in someone else’s property. Laws in a modern country shouldn’t be passed as a salve for hurt feelings or to avoid inconvenience for a certain group.
I advocate a reasonable amount of help for all people who are in a jam, but the way it’s gone about in this city is wrong.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
i disagree too. i think rent stabilization is important, especially anticipating a rapid east williamsburg style gentrification of the area and the money signs that are lighting up in landlords’/real estate developers’ eyes. and extending it to three unit dwellings makes perfect sense as that tends to be the size of a large percentage of the dwellings in bushwick, especially the further east you go. the only thing i would disagree with is that it only applies to senior citizens. i would like to see it extended to families with children as well, for whom being displaced by outlandish rents can be as debilitating or more so.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
while we’re at it, why not make housing free for everyone! plus a pony.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
What the fuck, so I just bought a bunch of crappy three family houses and fixed them up into livable condition so I can subsidize someone else’s living expenses until they die? Oh yeah that’s right, I just do all this for fun. Cheers!
April 24th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Well, Andrew, of course you’ll do the rational thing and not rent to seniors. Unintended consequences, anyone?
Ooh, JL, I wanna pony!
April 24th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
@andrew
your hypothetical doesn’t apply because your uninhabited apartments don’t have senior citizens living in them.
@ jimmy legs
why don’t we make housing free for everyone? you really think housing should be denied someone because they can’t afford it?
April 24th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Pete, except in extreme cases, everyone can afford housing. It may not be in every fabulous place they WANT it to be, but there is housing, and much of it is quite affordable even for the poor. In fact, it can only be thus — housing is a product and it could only be produced if people can pay for it. Unless you’re now going to claim that most people are homeless, and then I’ll have to go *plonk*
All of this is beside the point that making housing free for everyone is impossible. Things have to be paid for by someone, and unless you’re going to enlist slave labor to manufacture materials and build housing for all of us, you should just put the very idea out of your mind.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
So, are we sure that homeowners with a house/building/etc with three units can actually afford to have an elderly person live below-market at their property? Think about it, these aren’t huge multi-apartment properties we’re talking about here..
I’d think the net-effect of that legislation (if it passed) would be that elderly individuals would find it even harder to find a place to live, especially at smaller residences.
April 24th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Rent stabilization makes a huge difference to senior citizens who don’t own their own places (and aren’t wealthy). They can stay in the area where they know people and can get the help and care they need.
I have known several retired people who rent in areas where rents have skyrocketed. One of them worked at a nursery school well into her 80s (despite frail health) and paid 75 percent of her income in rent for ten years until she was able to get into a one-room apartment provided by the government. She barely had enough money for groceries.
As long as rents keep pace with inflation, can increase freely when the tenant changes, and taxes do not go up (all of this is the case in San Francisco but not New York), rent control for the elderly is not a hardship for the landlord, since the apartment rents at market rate after the mortgage is created — so won’t be less than the mortgage can support. In other words, if I buy a building tomorrow and rent it out and after that the rents increase 1 to 5 percent or so a year, I will still be able to make my mortgage payment.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Jeremy - do you even know what rent stabilization consists of? If you did, you’ll notice that Lopez’s proposal is much more moderate than you make it out to be. And with talk of the STAR exemption being scrapped, perhaps Lopez’s proposal is something that should be given more serious attention, rather than a personal attack. However, numerous studies have shown that rent stabilization really doesn’t work to preserve low income tenancy (that’s not even its aim), and New York has enough loopholes in the rent stab regulations to make the whole process something of a joke. Further, it is truly wishful thinking to even imagine REBNY’s or RGB’s assembly constituency even remotely considering Lopez’s bill, which leads credence to your argument that Lopez is baiting his constituency. Although, if you studied your history, you’d know that all citizens of Bushwick in general, and seniors in particular, are fully justified in praising Lopez - his contributions to the community, and ot the City as a whole, are truly exemplary, not withstanding his often unsavory tactics (i.e. opening WB for gentrification, appointment scandals).