COURIER L 12 IFE, AUGUST 14-20, 2020
Dozens of demonstrators protested in Downtown Brooklyn on August 5 to demand help for
struggling renters. Photo by Paul Frangipane
Brooklynites push
for rent relief
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Dozens of Brooklynites took to the
streets of Downtown Brooklyn this
week for a multi-day demonstration calling
on the state to provide more relief to
renters struggling amid the COVID-19
pandemic.
The rally came just one day before
Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive
order Aug. 5 giving New York’s Offi
ce of Court Administration leeway to
extend the state’s eviction moratorium
— which Chief Administrative Judge
Lawrence K. Marks did the following
week, halting all post-pandemic evictions
until at least Oct. 1 in a guidance
passed down on Aug. 12.
Activists at the week’s various rallies,
however, lamented those actions as
half-measures, and urged the state to institute
longer-term fi xes — pointing out
that, while residents may not yet be removed
from their homes, they may still
be on the hook for past-due rents when
the moratorium does end.
“If I don’t have the means to pay for
rent, what happens next,” said Starr
Sanford, a Bushwick renter at an Aug. 6
demonstration. “Will I be evicted? Will I
be forcibly removed if I’m unable to pay?
It’s a lot of fear.”
Cuomo did sign the “Tenant Safe
Harbor Act” in June, which gives tenants
who have “suffered a fi nancial
hardship during the COVID-19 covered
period” a legal excuse to potentially
avoid evictions because of pandemicrelated
rents — although critics have
charged that the law is too vague about
how tenants can prove that those guidelines
apply to them, and too much onus
is placed on renters who often lack adequate
legal representation.
Cuomo, along with real estate groups
and some politicians, have pointed out
that many landlords rely on rent to
pay mortgages and other necessary expenses,
making it diffi cult to forgive
owed-rent across the board without also
implementing some relief for homeowners
as well.
On Aug. 6, the protestors took their
march to the lobby of real estate attorneys
Balsamo, Rosenblatt, and Hall,
where they engaged in chants like “No
landlords. No cops. All evictions gotta
stop.”
During the morning’s demonstration
at the law fi rm’s Schermerhorn
Street headquarters, attorneys and
staff mostly milled about in their overcrowded
offi ce — although one legal eagle
later reached out by phone to say the
protesters’ anger was misdirected, and
argued that half of their work is on behalf
of tenants facing evictions.
“Besides the Legal Aid offi ces, there’s
not a bigger law fi rm in Brooklyn that
serves tenants,” said Robert Rosenblatt,
a partner with the company. “Half of my
calendar is tenant work that we’re working
with clients to prevent evictions.”
The attorney conceded that the other
50 percent of their workload is for landlords,
including eviction cases, before
denouncing the protesters’ tactics —
saying the crowd intimidated his staff,
vandalized desks and walls with sharpies,
poured water on documents, and
stole postage and notary stamps.
“I’m in support of the movement
but this is not the way to protest, to
be violent and to do misdemeanors. If
they came in and asked for a dialogue,
I would have shown them the thousands
of thousands of tenants I’ve represented,”
he said. “As the great civil
rights leader John Lewis once said,
‘protest, but do it peacefully.’”
The previous day, protesters gathered
inside two Court Street law fi rms,
before blowing past security guards and
into Borough Hall across the street.
“We refuse to accept a month, we refuse
to accept half measures,” said Ali,
an organizer with the Bushwick Bed-
Stuy Tenants Coalition who declined to
give his last name.