BW08162020 - Page 4

4 BROOKLYN WEEKLY, AUGUST 16, 2020 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 demonstrations began 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 longerterm 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 pandemic-related 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 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. Protesters march in Downtown Brooklyn during the multi-day protest. Photo by Paul Frangipane ��