The current state of the economy is affecting people from all areas of life, even for those people who have jobs. “I just took a pay cut at work recently. There was nothing I could have done. It was either I took a pay cut or someone else would get fired. I would not want that happening to anyone,” Susan Lee said. Rising rents and maintenance fees are a concern for many. The decrease in income has led many residents to look towards affordable housing and federally subsidized buildings.
Condo located on Baxter & Hester Street (Photo: Courtesy of Kushner Studios Architecture + Design, P.C.)
The fight for affordable housing is on the rise in Chinatown. Many old buildings are being renovated and turned into condos. This has led to an uproar among residents. Rent-stabilized apartments are in demand more than ever. An article in Downtown Express, “Tenants hope win won’t be demolished on appeal,” discusses the problems of tenants being kicked out of their homes. The issue is not only about rising rents. The problem is that tenants are not given new leases because the owner wants to build a condo in place of the old building. Local residents are often unable to pay such high prices for condos. New condos in Chinatown often cost up to $1,000.000.
In the Upper West Side, the same type of problem was occurring, where the tenants were being kicked out of their apartments, especially in the building I was living in. There were many rent stabilized apartments and the rent was always trying to be raised. Many of the tenants in my old building were not given new leases, my family included, but not because the owner wanted to build a condo. They wanted to get new tenants that would eagerly pay $2000-$3000 a month for the studios and the 1-bedrooms. This was more than triple the amount that the rent-stabilized tenants were paying. I don’t think that it’s fair that the owner of the building in Chinatown wants to build a condo, knowing that the local residents can’t really afford it.