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NEW YORK - Congressman Rangel joined New York Senator Charles Schumer, New York State Assemblyman Keith Wright, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB), Tenants and Neighbors and Northern Manhattan-based group Harlem Tenants United in urging landlords to help maintain the city's Section 8 housing projects.
"You can't ask people who have spent their lives in this beautiful community, to move merely because the real estate market has changed," Rangel told the crowd of local tenants and housing advocates. "You can't say that people have to be put out in the street. It's just not going to happen."
Congressman Charles B. Rangel answers questions from reporters
as a coalition of community groups rally to save Section 8 housing in Upper Manhattan.
The advocates made their voices heard Sunday, March 2 outside of the Mother Zion apartments (2640 Frederick Douglas Blvd.), one of six housing units occupied by 551 families whose Section 8 contracts are due to expire. Although Congressman Rangel's office has been successful in helping tenants secure one-year Section 8 contract renewals since 2006, local landlord Irving Langer is looking to opt out of the program all together. He has also rejected repeated attempts by advocates and Congressman's office to meet with tenants on the issue or even consider selling the apartments to a local non-profit like the Abyssinian Development Corporation.
Its a crisis that Sen. Schumer said needed to be met head on.
Once these affordable buildings are converted to market-rents, they are lost forever," said Sen. Schumer, Chairman of the Senate's Finance Committee. "These properties are built on the backs of government subsidies to serve hard working families and seniors struggling to get by. I urge these landlords to come to the table to hammer out a deal that gives them fair market value for the buildings while ensuring that the properties remain an oasis for New York's hard-pressed middle class and working families."
TURNING BACK THE GREED
Rangel said that it was both in the real estate industry and city's best interest to resist the urge to take advantage of everyday hardworking New Yorkers who sometimes pay more in rent than luxury co-op owners and developers because of tax breaks.
"Property values may have soared, but at the same time, many people across this city and nation live on fixed incomes or have not seen their salaries increase," said Rangel. "A community - an industry -- has to have compassion. If you can allow people tax breaks to live in luxury, you can allow other people tax breaks to live a moderate life."
Rangel promised to use his position as Chairman of the House's Ways and Means committee to push for legislation in Washington to help tenants. He also said that he would continue to work with Sen. Schumer, Wright and other city, state and federal officials to find a way to maintain and build housing "not just for the rich and famous, but for the often nameless low-income and middle class New Yorkers that help make this city great."
"Places like Mother Zion are full of hardworking families that have deep roots here and who help to keep the social and economic fabric of our village whole," said Rangel." We are not going to have people pushed out. We are not going to see our community die just because of the greed of the real estate industry."
Assemblyman Wright, Chairman of the Assembly's Social Services Committee, said that at the heart of the fight was the very meaning of the word community.
"What makes the character of a neighborhood? It not includes those people with money, but also those people of middle income, those people of lower income," said Wright. "It is the blending of all these groups that creates our great neighborhoods - the Harlems, the Chelseas, and the Washington Heights' of this city."
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