‘IT’S AFFECTING EVERYONE’
March and sleep-out event in Ridgewood demonstrates potential of mass evictions
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Hundreds of people marched from
Glendale to Bushwick, and back to
Ridgewood where they held a sleepout
to demand an eviction-free New
York on Saturday, Aug. 1.
“Today is the day to pay rent,
unfortunately, more than 1 million
people have lost their income and
haven’t been able to pay rent,” said
Raquel Namuche, an organizer with
the Ridgewood Tenants Union (RTU).
“That’s why we’re here demonstrating
to tell Gov. Andrew Cuomo …
we need ‘universal rent relief, the
actual cancellation of rent.'”
While the city has entered phased
opening and hundreds of thousands
returned to work, the city has 1.3 million
workers out of work with the unemployment
rate at about 20 percent
as of July — “a figure not seen since
the Great Depression,” according to
The New York Times.
The demonstration, organized by
RTU with support from Mi Casa No
Es Su Casa and various other tenants
associations representing Queens
and Brooklyn, began at the Glendale
Veterans Triangle on Myrtle Avenue
and Cooper Avenue with some English
and Spanish speeches.
Throughout the introduction, protesters
were repeatedly heckled by a
group of people and passersby watching
the event.
The event was one of many eviction
protests held throughout the city
during the months of the COVID-19
pandemic lockdown, as advocates fear
for the safety of tenants at risk of eviction
once Cuomo’s eviction moratorium
expires entirely on Aug. 20. NYC
Housing Court began accepting new
eviction filings on June 20.
Caty Seger, a lifelong resident of
Glendale, called out Cuomo as well
as Councilman Robert Holden and
Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan for not
doing enough to protect tenants.
“Bob Holden has spent his time in
office being anti-homeless and racist,”
Seger said. “He’s spent more time
fighting a homeless shelter than he’s
actually spent guaranteeing housing
for all.”
Seger, a member of RTU, told QNS
that in the 11385 ZIP code, tenants are
not the majority and very little live in
rent-regulated buildings.
“Most of the time they’re in private
houses where a family will just
rent out the second floor, and there’s
usually no lease, no protections. It’s
actually, most of the time not legal,
so because of that we’re particularly
vulnerable to eviction,” she said.
After some speakers, the march
began toward Ridgewood on Myrtle
Avenue, with a fleet of bicyclists acting
as barriers and traffic guards.
Tenants in Queens and Brooklyn marched to demand an “eviction-free New York” in Ridgewood on Saturday, Aug. 1.
Several police cars followed them
throughout the route from behind.
The chants ranged from, “Get up,
get down, there’s a housing crisis in
this town” to “I said once I pay my
rent, damn all my money is spent.”
Once the march reached the Myrtle
Wyckoff Avenues train station,
they turned onto Knickerbocker Avenue
TIMESLEDGER | 10 QNS.COM | AUG. 7-13, 2020
toward Starr Street, receiving
cheers from bystanders throughout
the route. Once they reached Starr
Street and Wyckoff Avenue, organizers
paused in front of what they said
is notorious landlord Deodat Lowtan’s
home. Lowtan was number 19 on Public
Advocate Jumaane Williams’ list
of the city’s “Worst Landlords” last
year, with about 583 Housing Preservation
and Development violations
and 17 Department of Buildings violations.
One person trying to organize tenants
of Lowtan’s 39 buildings took to
the mic to talk a bit about his buildings.
“I wish we had more of his tenants
to tell y’all but … there’s so many stories
of the b——- that this guy does,”
he said. “He’s a big fat wart in this
neighborhood and we’re really trying
to hold him accountable because he’s
been doing it for a long time.”
By 9:30 p.m., they returned to the
Myrtle-Wyckoff Avenues train station
plaza, which they turned into the
“people’s plaza” for the sleep out.
Several dozen protesters set up
camp by the station’s triangle that’s
closed off to traffic. Organizers
gathered bedding and pizza, set up
a projector, and had music playing
throughout the night.
The sleep out was meant to demonstrate
what could happen if families
were to get evicted because of an inability
to pay rent due to a lack of income
as a result of job loss.
Maria Gil, a resident of Bushwick,
thought of this idea when commuting
to work in Brooklyn and watching unhoused
people make the streets their
home.
“This is just a reflection of what
may happen if the governor doesn’t
do anything to cancel rent,” she said
in Spanish.
Gil talked about some friends who
were too afraid to join the demonstration,
but have been struggling to
pay rent since March. She said she’s
friends with one family with a disabled
child that had a parent temporarily
out of work from his restaurant
that closed in March. Once they reopened
a few months ago, he was not
asked to return and don’t qualify for
government benefits. Their rent is
$2,500 and they have only been able to
pay for food with their savings.
“I know many families like that,”
Gil said, adding that they wanted
to ask Cuomo how he’d feel being in
their shoes.
Photo by Angélica Acevedo
Ana Gil, one of Maria’s daughters
who helped organize the event, said
they were there marching for those
who feel they can’t speak up in fear of
retaliation.
“We planned this because a lot of
what’s happening right now, it’s affecting
everyone, not just the poor,”
she said.
Ana said that even before the pandemic,
families have experienced
landlords trying to price them out or
employ other measures to get them to
leave. She said their own family experienced
this after almost 22 years
of living in the same home when
their landlord offered them money to
leave.
“We used to fight our landlord, and
still to this day we do, to fix our building
… but ever since people started
gentrifying Bushwick or Ridgewood,
they’re like, ‘Oh wait, these people
could pay more,'” she said.
But Maria added that in their
building, there have been vacant
apartments for some time now.
“We want to represent those who
have been evicted from communities
to bring in people who could pay
higher prices of luxury buildings that
weren’t built for people like my family,
low-income families, families with
a lot of kids,” Ana said. “It’s been very
devastating to see so many people and
so many of my neighbors getting high
amount of rent for such a tiny space.”
/QNS.COM
