CALLS TO CANCEL RENT BECOMES PLEA TO PREVENT
MASS EVICTIONS AT JACKSON HEIGHTS PROTEST
Photo by Angélica Acevedo
TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | JULY 17-JULY 23, 2020 3
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
The movement to cancel rent
has shifted to demands for a
stop to all residential evictions
and a pause on housing courts
proceedings as New York’s
eviction moratorium nears its
deadline.
Woodside on the Move, a
grassroots advocacy organization
based in western Queens,
and the 89th Street Tenants
Union led a protest in Jackson
Heights on Tuesday, July 7, to
demand Gov. Andrew Cuomo
pass legislation that would
prevent renters impacted by
COVID-19 from getting displaced.
“We’re not going to allow
a person to be thrown on the
street because they can’t afford
to pay rent,” said Iván Contreras,
an organizer with Woodside
on the Move. “Even if we
have to chain ourselves to the
apartment of someone who’s
at risk, we won’t let them kick
them out of their home. Kicking
you out of your home now
would be the same as sending
you to a hospital in the time
that we’re living.”
More than 50 residents of
Jackson Heights and Woodside
joined the march, which began
at 89th Street and 34th Avenue
and ended at Travers Park,
where community leaders
spoke about the “wave of evictions”
predicted to take place
once the state’s eviction moratorium
fully ends on Aug. 20.
The eviction moratorium
ended on June 20, but was extended
to August for those who
are eligible for unemployment
and can prove financial hardship
according to Cuomo’s executive
order.
Housing rights advocates
predict up to 50,000 new eviction
cases might be filed in
New York’s housing courts
once they reopen. With courts
opening last week, the Right
to Counsel NYC Coalition set
a list of demands for housing
courts that includes an extension
to the universal eviction
moratorium and a slow down of
case proceedings.
The protest in Jackson
Heights was one of several that
took place on Tuesday throughout
the city.
At Travers Park, Maria Segura,
a member of Woodside
on the Move, spoke in Spanish
about Cuomo’s refusal to cancel
rent.
“I feel desperate. I feel sad
because we see how Governor
Cuomo is acting in an inhumane
way, almost irrational.
I feel desperate because I see a
wave of evictions for the whole
community, a working community
that has helped this city
move forward,” Segura said.
“We’re here to tell the courts to
not dare receive cases to evict
the community.”
Segura lives in Cosmopolitan
Houses, where tenants
staged a strike months ago to
pressure officials to cancel rent
so those who can’t afford to pay
their bills as a result of job loss
wouldn’t be faced with eviction
notices from their landlords.
Andrew Sokolof Diaz, cofounder
of the 89th Street Tenants
Union, said an unclear path
forward has made it harder for
folks living in uncertainty.
“We’re tired of this,” Sokolof
Diaz said. “Week after week,
we hear of delays and deadlines
extended and moratoriums and
we’re being thrown scraps, like
we’re supposed to be grateful
for this. That’s not right. It’s
criminal.”
Sokolof Diaz said they have
tenants who have been on rent
strike since April.
State Senator Jessica Ramos
joined the march as a “tenant
and neighbor,” she said. She
addressed protesters first in
Spanish then in English, saying
her and other colleagues
in the Senate sent Cuomo a letter
asking him to reconsider
opening the courts.
“Even though we passed
some reform last year, we
weren’t prepared for this,”
Ramos said. “We’re expecting
20 million to be essentially
eligible for eviction by September
30 in the United States of
America, the richest country
in the world, in the state where
the income inequality is the
greatest.”
Ramos then mentioned
her excluded workers bill that
would tax New York’s billionaires
— which she said there
are more of now than there
were before the pandemic — in
order to create a fund for folks
who didn’t qualify for federal or
state COVID-19 stimulus.
“This is money that can
go to pay for rent, to buying
food, to getting medicine that
perhaps your family needs, to
buying your own PPE because
your employer doesn’t provide
it for you,” she said.
A study by the Center for an
Urban Future found that half of
New York City’s immigrants,
many of whom are essential
workers, are suffering the
deepest economic losses from
the pandemic but have benefited
the least from government
relief efforts.
Assembly candidate Jessica
González-Rojas also attended
the protest, and noted that 66
percent of District 34 (which
encompasses Jackson Heights,
East Elmhurst, and parts of
Woodside and Corona) are
“worried about putting food on
the table for their families, jobs
and earning money.”
“And yet they have to think
about whether they’re going to
have a roof over their heads at
night,” González-Rojas said.
“That is unacceptable in this
moment, in this country.”
There are several bills introduced
on all levels of government
to address rent and
mortgage fears as a result of
the pandemic, but they are still
waiting to be signed into law.
Cuomo recently signed the
Emergency Rent Relief Act of
2020, introduced by Manhattan
Senator Brian Kavanagh,
which would provide rental assistance
vouchers to landlords
on behalf of tenants who experienced
an increase in rent burden
because of a loss of income
as a result of the pandemic. But
supporters of Queens Senator
Michael Gianaris’ bill to cancel
rent altogether for residential
and commercial tenants say
the bill is a modest version of
what tenants need.
Advocates say it’s ultimately
up to Cuomo to stop evictions
from taking place en masse
come August.
“I laugh when they say we
want hand outs,” Contreras
said. “We have two, three and
sometimes four jobs to be able
to live in this nation. Nobody
wants handouts; we want fair
distribution of wealth. It’s not
fair that we work, but in the
time of a pandemic they turn
their backs on us.”
/QNS.COM
