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QUEENS WEEKLY, MAY 10, 2020
Tenants in 17 buildings throughout
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Guadalupe Paleta created
a petition in April with
her neighbors, who reside in
a six-floor building in Woodside,
asking their landlord
to cancel rent and utilities
for the next three months.
“We explained we don’t
have jobs, and despite that,
we are living through a psychologically
difficult time,”
said Paleta in Spanish, who
is 42 years old and worked as
a nanny before the COVID-
19 pandemic began to take
hold of New York City.
Paleta, an organizer
with Woodside on the Move
and Make the Road NY, said
her landlord denied the petition
and told them they must
pay the rent when it’s due on
May 1.
“He said they have utilities
and payments to make,
but they don’t understand
that we have the same needs
as them,” Paleta said in
Spanish.
Paleta’s building was one
of 17 buildings in Woodside
to go on strike on May 1, according
to Woodside on the
Move community leader and
organizer Iván Contreras.
“They’re not canceling
the rent, they’re not freezing
it — but we’re in a pandemic,”
Contreras said, pointing
out that the rent strike
is out of necessity for many,
especially the Latin and immigrant
communities in
Queens. “The more people
who strike, the harder it’ll
be for landlords to take them
to court,”
But the movement to
“Cancel Rent” extends far
beyond Queens and even
New York state — it’s a national
movement that many
are calling the largest rent
strike in almost 100 years.
“We’re asking Gov.
Andrew Cuomo to join
the cause,” Paleta said in
Spanish. “Cuomo, listen to
your people who are asking
you to cancel rent in this
difficult time.”
Call to ‘Cancel Rent’
on May Day
The Cancel Rent movement
in New York is largely
spearheaded by the influential
Upstate Downstate
A tenant goes on a rent strike at the Cosmopolitan Houses in Woodside. Courtesy of Woodside on the Move
Housing Alliance, a coalition
of more than 70 grassroots
groups, including
Housing Justice for All, advocating
for tenants and the
homeless across New York
City and State.
Housing Justice for All
want Gov. Cuomo to execute
his executive order powers
to cancel rent for four
months or for the duration
of the public health crisis,
freeze rents and offer every
tenant the right to renew
their lease, urgently and
permanently rehouse all
New Yorkers experiencing
homelessness and invest in
public and social housing.
For weeks, hyperlocal
groups like Woodside on the
Move have mobilized tenants
across Queens to not
pay rent, even if they can,
in order to show solidarity
with those who can’t afford
to during the COVID-19 crisis.
CAAAV: Organizing
Asian Communities’ Asian
Tenants Union, who advocate
for Bangladeshi,
Chinese, and Korean immigrants
living in public housing,
demand Cuomo, Senators
Chuck Schumer and
Kirsten Gillibrans as well
as New York’s Congressional
delegation to cancel rent
for NYCHA residents.
“Nearly 15,000 tenants
across New York State are
unable to pay their rent. The
situation in New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA)
housing is even more
dire. Despite living in public
housing, tenants who have
lost their jobs are in crisis,”
according to a CAAAV
statement.
“Despite living in a state
with the best tenant protection,
the government fails to
see that working-class communities
and low-income
communities now need
stronger tenant protections
by cancelling rent,” said Mohammed
Hasan, a CAAAV
member living in the Ravenswood
Houses in Astoria.
“There is a pandemic going
on outside, everything is on
stop, how are we supposed
to pay our rent? Most of us,
tenants, are living on paycheck
to paycheck, how can
we continue to pay for rent
when we barely have enough
to cover food on the table?
Taxi workers are afraid of
leaving their home because
there is no real protection
to continue to work, without
risking the exposure to us
or our families.”
City, state and federal
response
New York City is home to
5.4 million renters, or twothirds
of the population.
According to a survey conducted
by Property Nest in
March, 39 percent of New
Yorkers would not be able
to pay rent if they’re out of
work due to the COVID-19
outbreak.
Unemployment rates
in New York state are at
the highest level since the
Great Depression, according
to Forbes. They found
data from the New York
Department of Labor that
shows the total number of
New Yorkers filing new jobless
claims has reached 1.4
million — which doesn’t account
for self-employed, gig,
or part-time workers.
Mayor Bill de Blasio
doesn’t agree with a rent
strike, but he has called for
security deposits to be used
in lieu of rent, deferment of
rents for tenants and asked
the Rent Guidelines Board
to initiate a rent freeze during
the state of emergency
for the city’s rent-stabilized
apartments (more than one
million). The board is set
to decide during their June
meeting.
Contreras said housing
advocates worry they’ll
make a decision that doesn’t
benefit tenants if there
aren’t people there advocating
for them during public
hearings.
In mid-March, Cuomo
implemented a 90-day moratorium
on mortgages and
evictions, which he said