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He’s been fighting for better housing conditions for decades, asking for repairs and that more attention be paid to the rat population and trash problem. He feels the main problem is that there’s a high turnover of property management companies, as well as the building owner,. Streicker’s company, Newcastle Realty Services LLC, has been hit with multiple lawsuits alleging illegal tactics to deregulate rent-stabilized buildings. “The service has always been horrible,” said Simon.
Mitaynes now focuses on equity housing organizing and tenants’ rights legislation. She said that landlords continue to “over-leverage” their buildings during a sale to make more money. These “bad actors” tend to punish current tenants by making living conditions uncomfortable, such as cutting back on maintenance and sanitation, or not making repairs. “What that means is they’re trying to get people pay a low amount of rent out so that they can bring in people can pay more rent,” said Mitaynes.
Those tenants began organizing against rising rents and eventually formed a tenant association. They reached out to housing advocate groups like TakeRoot Justice and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board , a nonprofit focused on maintaining resident-controlled housing, for help in 2018. UHAB bought the building temporarily and it was then converted into a Housing Development Fund Corporation for the tenants in 2022.
The current housing market, he said, is far too reliant on liens and bank seizures rather than being characterized by landlord abandonment. There are also housing programs, likeTOPA would provide tenants with an important intervention point when their building is up for sale, said Stein. Under the bill, a building for sale would be appraised for “fair market value” and the tenants would have the right of “first refusal.