Fernando Betancourt has two months looking for where to move.
And although he has budgeted twelve hundred dollars for a study, that amount is not enough to find a place to live in Williamsburg.
“The prices are high, everything is very expensive. An apartment costs more than two thousand dollars… I want a room, it costs me more than one thousand one hundred and the work situation is really scarce, ”explained a frustrated Betancourt.
Fernando says that initially he paid $ 800 rent for a room in an apartment with other tenants, but when he decides to live only what he has budgeted, he is not enough to pay the rents in Williansburg.
His option will be to find another place to live further away even if he has to travel every day to Williamsburg where he works … The money that Fernando earns simply does not give him to live here.
“The rent, a deposit and now they ask for another rent: there are three rents. Imagine how much money is a lot to collect three rents … This area is very expensive because I don’t know now if where I can find an apartment according to my possibilities,” added Betancourt.
Like Fernando, many others are also struggling to find a home.
Last August, one-bedroom apartment rental prices across the city had soared 36 percent since August 2020 according to Apartment Guide data.
Neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Long Island City, the East Village among others have seen an increase in rent.
Pro-tenant activists say there must be affordable housing for the working class … who need to live in the neighborhoods where they work.
“We say that New York is a place for everyone, that everyone can live and can work but every year more and more it is seen that it is for the rich to live. And our people, our immigrants, have to live elsewhere to work here, it’s not fair, ”said Rob Solano, executive director of Iglesias United for Fair Housing.
Activists believe that the rent increase is due to more people returning to the city in search of housing … and they worry that this will displace those who earn less so they ask for laws that guarantee housing.
“Affordable apartments or lotteries have to be for New York immigrants, they have to be for our people. There must be a preference for that, workers who worked all that time, “added the activist.
Beyond if one day the city creates more affordable housing programs, which in any case would take years to materialize, Fernando’s problem is immediate. How do you find a place to live – and that can pay – close to where you worked?
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