Pedro does his livelihood with Delivery services. With the bicycle he moves through the streets of Northern Manhattan to deliver goods. Pedro sends part of his income home to the Dominican Republic to support his family.
At 175th Street, at the Washington Heights, there’s still a piece of old, non-gentrified Manhattan. Pedro lives here with other immigrants in an apartment for which $ 500 a month would be adequate. The landlord squeezed 2000 dollars from him. For years.
Pedro is not an isolated incident. For more than 150 years New York a haven of hope for the poor and one Mecca for the rich. The city is growing steadily, housing is in short supply, and billionaires from around the world are driving prices up to obscene levels. The super-rich shed a hundred million dollars for a luxury apartment in one of the new ones Glass towers in Midtown Manhattan hin.
In the shadow of the Glass towers are far more uncomfortable. “We’ve seen a lot of terrible things,” said Mark, an attorney with an agency that looks after low-income tenants. Because enough people are willing to put $ 3,000 to $ 4,000 on the table for an apartment that’s actually only worth $ 700 rent, the pressure on poor tenants is enormous. And the arsenal of greedy homeowners to pull poor tenants out is diverse. Rats are placed in the houses, tenants are threatened with fighting dogs, the electricity is turned off, or the houses are simply left to rot.
Three or four agencies take care of the rights of those affected New York, one is the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation with a team of ten lawyers.
New York has a Tenancy lawthat should guarantee affordable living. However, the law is sketchy, very complicated and difficult to understand for non-lawyers. This opens the door to fraud.
If a property in the area changes hands at an inflated price, the lawyers know about it Northern Manhattan that work is coming their way. The most common way to get rid of tenants is to sue them for a flimsy. Then an unequal fight begins: the lawyers of rich homeowners against tenants who cannot afford legal assistance. When a tenant loses in court and is evicted, the problems really start. “If you lose an apartment, it is hardly possible to find a new, affordable apartment nearby. You have to go there Leave the Bronx or the city and lose your entire network, “the lawyers describe the drama of their clients.
The law firm is made up of state and city public funds New York financed. The idea came about in the 1980s as a group of lawyers at the Constitutional Court of New York won a ruling that poor families have the right to shelter. Back then there were an enormous number of homeless people and children lived in the streets. After this knowledge they got shelter. Although the accommodations were horrible, they cost the city a huge amount of money because there was simply no room for these people. Around 1990 someone came up with the idea and said: If we prevent people from being evicted, we won’t have the problem with the accommodations. It would cost the city less to pay lawyers to represent these people than it would to finance housing.
Since then, service agencies like Northern Manhattan promoted. mayor Bill de Blasio wants to extend the service of poor families to the poor in general. Analogous to the right to a criminal defense attorney, a right to assistance in civil law matters should be introduced.
It turned out well for Pedro. The attorneys won his case and fought for $ 200,000.
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