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#SDNY close the door on #NYCHA activists seeking last-resort help to stop unlawful #RAD conversions

The U.S. Attorney’s Office oversees the NYCHA Settlement Agreement that was supposed to save NYCHA — not sell it out.

Security guards at the U.S. Attorney’s Office turned away NYCHA activists who had showed up at their doorstep on Wednesday, denying them a requested meeting with Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss. The activists included Melanie Aucello, the president of the resident association of the NYCHA public housing apartment building at 344 East 28th Street in Manhattan.

Residents at NYCHA apartment buildings have been being pressured into signing leases with private sector landlords under a neoliberal Federal scheme known as Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD, that has been shown to lead to evictions and other civil rights violations. At one Kips Bay apartment building, where Ms. Aucello lives, the lease signings have been taking place without translated documents for some residents, who only speak foreign languages, and the residents have been denied the benefit of a full review of lease documents by their counsel, Manhattan Legal Services.

Speaking of RAD conversions, Ms. Aucello said, “We demand a moratorium.”

The exchange between the activists and security guards for the U.S. Attorney’s Office became heated at times. “Please don’t turn us away,” Ms. Aucello said. A member of Fight For NYCHA added, “We’ve been turned away and ignored by the Mayor, by Gale Brewer, by everybody. Even AOC threw us under the bus.”

One security guard provided blank complaint forms to Ms. Aucello. Ultimately, the security guards closed their door to the activists.

Is Acting U.S. Attorney Strauss a cold-hearted functionary ?

On Tuesday, the activists were interviewed by WBAI about a protest that took place at the Kips Bay apartment building on Monday. The Kips Bay apartment building is one of 16 apartment complexes that faces almost imminent RAD conversion. In total, Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) plans to put 60,000 public housing apartments into the RAD scheme, dealing a severe blow to the future of Section 9 public housing. So far, many so-called “progressive” groups have refused to express any criticism of Mayor de Blasio’s dangerous bid to end public housing as we know it.

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Sleep-out protest announced to highlight ongoing and continuing breach by the de Blasio administration of NYCHA-HUD Settlement Agreement

Join NYCHA tenants and activists, who are protesting Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey (the “Queen of Mean”) Strauss, who is countenancing the horrifying conditions at NYCHA. Even though Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) has breached the HUD Settlement Agreement, Audrey Strauss does nothing about it.

Well, not anymore.

We will be sleeping for one night outside of the do-nothing Acting U.S. Attorney’s office. During the night, we will plan how to participate in a #GeneralStrike. We hope our actions will compel Audrey Strauss to do the right thing and to force the mayor to begin depositing money with the U.S. District Court that will begin to pay for long-over due repairs at NYCHA, beginning with a plan to upgrade all heat this winter.

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara began the Federal investigation in NYCHA to bring about justice for public housing residents. And here comes along Audrey Strauss, and she’s willing to let Preet Bharara’s work lapse under more neglect. This represents a breach of public trust.

For our protest, not everybody needs to sleep outside with us. Anybody can join us for a meeting beginning that evening at 6 pm.

For those willing to spend the night with us outside, please bring a sleeping bag, some toiletries, and whatever food or water you may need.

Join us for a planning meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 9, so we can prepare for our sleep-out protest.

R.S.V.P. to our Sleep-out Protest

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VIDEO : Harlem public housing residents forced to use fire hydrant after water main break left thousands of NYCHA residents without water

NYCHA officials set up a water station connected to fire hydrants, so Harlem residents could collect water to flush their toilets.

New York City Housing Authority officials blamed a water main break in East Harlem for a water outage that left approx. 3,000 Taft Houses public housing residents without water service, beginning on Sunday, and reportedly continuing into Tuesday morning.

The water outage forced Harlem residents to use one of two reported water stations connected to fire hydrants for water that had to be carried back to their apartments to use to flush their indoor plumbing. Video showed tenants using water jugs, pans, and bag-lined push carts as make shift containers to transport water indoors.

An inspection conducted by a member of Fight For NYCHA NYCHA on Tuesday morning did not reveal any streets flooded out or collapsed by a water main break. However, across the street from 1694 Madison Ave., the site of one such water station set-up, was a construction site, where a new luxury apartment building was going up. It is not known if any private landlords requested a shutting of water main service in order to connect that building to the area’s water main.

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Mayor’s NYCHA Working Group holds another meeting at Hudson Guild

RAD disparate impact discrimination

The resident meeting of the Mayor’s NYCHA Working Group was called after Fight For NYCHA announced its town hall meeting.

Fight For NYCHA protested outside of Hudson Guild as a resident meeting of the Mayor’s NYCHA Working Group took place inside on Thursday evening, Feb. 6.

The meeting did not discuss anything material, except that it was reportedly alluded to that no agreement has been reached on the RAD conversion of Fulton Houses, according to information obtained by Fight For NYCHA.

Another meeting of the Mayor’s NYCHA Working Group is expected to take place on Monday, Feb. 24, according to a source.

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NYCHA RAD lease reveals that tenants legally accept Section 8 apartments “as is,” potentially precluding complaints about conditions, compensation over injuries

Landlords argue that when tenants accepted apartments “as is,” tenants accept dangerous conditions on the property and are thus precluded from suing landlords over dangerous conditions.

After the New York City Housing Authority (“NYCHA”) canceled without any advance notice a 18 Dec. 2019, meeting between tenants of 572 Warren Street and their new RAD Landlord, NYCHA ultimately rescheduled that meeting for 21 Jan. 2020, at the Wyckoff Community Center in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

At last night’s meeting, NYCHA pro-RAD functionary Leroy Williams, who has run afoul of Government transparency advocates, conducted the meeting. Members of Fight For NYCHA were there and were able to obtain several documents that show for the first time that NYCHA considers RAD to be “partial privatization,” a term that the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio (WFP-New York City) had previously rejected. A representative of Arker Companies, the RAD Landlord, addressed the tenants.

RAD stands for Rental Assistance Demonstration, an Orwellian name given to an Obama administration housing program that turns public housing into one of those nightmarish “public-private partnerships.” RAD has been shown to lead to higher rents, an increased incidence of landlord harassment, and upward spikes in evictions.

Reference Documents

Most problematic is that the new RAD Lease that public housing residents are being forced to sign under duress of displacement strong-arms tenants into accepting the uninhabitable conditions of their apartments “as is.”

The Form of the RAD Lease negotiated by NYCHA and the Legal Aid Society contains language that bankers acting as lenders to RAD structured finance transactions had requested or required, according to one RAD Landlord. Whenever an “as is” provision such as this has been written into residential apartment leases, such language has been called an illegal attempt to waive the implied warranty of habitability.

NYCHA residents have been forced to live in uninhabitable apartments with non-working elevators, broken boilers, poisonous lead in drinking water and in household paint, leaks, and toxic mold. The latest crisis public housing residents face are the risks of RAD.

Given that NYCHA residents have been forced to live in public housing apartments that violated Federal regulations for physical condition standards, NYCHA is forcing tenants to accept express waivers of the implied warranty of habitability that case law establishes for residential apartment leases.

A 2015 discussion paper by Harvard Law School student Meirav Furth-Matzkin described “as is” language in residential leases as an example of an “unenforceable disclaimer of the warranty.”

According to the presentation at last night’s meeting at the Wyckoff Community Center, a representative of the new RAD Landlord for 572 Warren Street admitted that NYCHA worked in conjunction with the Legal Aid Society to draft the Form of the RAD Lease, adding that some of the language was requested or required by the RAD bankers acting as lenders to the structured finance transaction.

Rent hikes coming in six months.

An agent of the RAD Landlord also mentioned that the RAD conversion of 572 Warren Street is expected to take place in February 2020. Generally, public housing tenants get recertified for a new lease every 12 months. During recertification, the local public housing authority audits residents’ income in order to claim 30 per cent. of residents’ income as rent. However, the new RAD Landlord at 572 Warren Street is expected to begin recertification process only six months into the RAD conversion, meaning tenants face an accelerated rent increase in 2020.

Defenders of RAD conversions have long claimed that RAD Landlords only profit from tax credit provided for in structured finance transactions. Critics of RAD point to the accelerated rent increases coming to 572 Warren Street residents as an example of RAD Landlords seeking to profit from rent increases extracted from residents living on fixed incomes or very low incomes. Tenants also face a phase-out of services or utilities, which will transfer opportunity costs or expenses directly to residents, thus adding to their rent burden.

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Bill de Blasio agrees to meeting with Fight For NYCHA, Fulton tenants, and U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez

de Blasio agrees to meet with Fight For NYCHA

Bill de Blasio was confronted with two options to fully-fund NYCHA : (i). The People’s Budget, and (ii). the Public Housing Emergency Response Act (H.R.4546)

At Mayor Bill de Blasio’s disastrous NYCHA town hall in Chelsea on Thursday, 19 déc 2019, the Mayor was confronted with two options to fully-fund NYCHA : (i) the People’s Budget that proposes new taxes on the rich to fund new Government policy on housing, justice, and dignity for all New Yorkers, and (ii). U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez’s bill, the Public Housing Emergency Response Act (H.R.4546).

Fight For NYCHA have reached out to the office of U.S. Rep. Velázquez to schedule a meeting with Mayor de Blasio.

Read the People’s Budget

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AOC threw NYCHA tenants under the bus. The Movement School is implicated. Now comes the Movement School, claiming they can organise NYCHA.

The failure to introduce a Federal budget resolution requesting $32 billion for NYCHA represents both a lack of moral clarity, and a policy failure.

During her campaign for Congress, and after her election, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY 14) portrayed herself as the antidote to corporate Democrats, who had gone tone-deaf to the suffering of average people. For decades, New Yorkers had been enduring horrifying Government policies set by neoliberalism and austerity. By running for office with help from the Democratic Socialists of America, U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez invoked her subscription to socialist ideology as a primary qualification for public office. Her campaign win was credited to Justice Democrats, a new political committee. Veterans of her campaign reportedly formed an outreach and get-out-the-vote arm of Justice Democrats, known as Movement School. That outreach arm is now engaged in dishonestly organising public housing tenants after U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez turned down a request in March to sponsor a budget resolution to fully-fund the local public housing authority.

Early in 2019, members of Fight For NYCHA approached U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office with an opportunity for her to show leadership on the need to fully-fund the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, as the local public housing authority is known. Members of Fight For NYCHA had e-mail exchanges and several calls with staff, as well as in-office meeting with staff and with U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself. At first, Fight For NYCHA was requesting that U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez sponsor a budget resolution for the 2019-2020 Federal Budget in the full amount of NYCHA’s capital budget deficit, estimated to be $32 billion. Members of Fight For NYCHA described the Government’s divestment and neglect of public housing, and members of Fight For NYCHA noted that, as a result, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-New York City) was proposing to privatise public housing. Despite the dangerous conditions facing public housing tenants, the office of U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez turned down the funding request. After that request was turned down, members of Fight For NYCHA requested that U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez sponsor a budget resolution for only half the amount, and Fight For NYCHA members said that they would organise NYCHA tenants and request the remainder of the funding from City and State Governments. But that second request was also turned down.

On top of feeling betrayed by AOC, as the U.S. Representative is known, members of Fight For NYCHA sensed that AOC’s own political apparatus was going to take advantage of public housing tenants, who had been left unfunded by the socialist political superstar. The telephone discussions about the funding requests took place with Randy Abreu, an AOC Congressional staffer, who was a co-founder of Movement School. What members of Fight For NYCHA found troubling was that, on two occasions, Abreu said that, in the wake of U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez turning down the funding requests, Movement School would organise NYCHA public housing tenants. After AOC consulted with her staff on the budget resolution request, and after they made a decision to turn down the budget resolution request, Movement School was going to use the decision of their own making (the refusal to sponsor a budget resolution to fully-fund NYCHA) as a pretext to do outreach and recruiting for Justice Democrats.

Does Movement School have to lie to NYCHA tenants before Movement School can gain their trust ?

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY 14) has turned her back on NYCHA.

Before negotiations began with the co-founder of Movement School, AOC’s senior counsel, Dan Riffle, announced that U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was co-sponsoring emergency funding for NYCHA that never materialised. Riffle next promised that U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office would never support any plan that would “privatize NYCHA.” Since AOC would later refuse to denounce the mayor’s privatisation plan for NYCHA, she would betray her promise to oppose any privatisation of NYCHA.

These discussions took place in March. One month later, Mayor de Blasio announced a plan that would include the first-of-its-kind demolition of public housing and the scaling up of the use of a controversial programme known as Rental Assistance Demonstration, or RAD. Under RAD, the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development approves the transfer of management of public housing developments to private landlords. As Fight For NYCHA has argued, RAD leads to rent hikes, increased allegations of tenant harassment and discrimination, and higher eviction rates. With 90 per cent. of NYCHA tenants being people of colour, these changes to public housing policies would disproportionately affect people based on race. Under the disparate-impact rule of the Fair Housing Act, any housing policy that leads to a disparate-impact based on race is discriminatory and, as a consequence, unlawful. Despite this unlawfulness, nobody with Movement School, not even Abreu, who was a co-founder, saw anything wrong with the decision by U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office to refuse to sponsor a budget resolution for NYCHA funding, because their decision to keep NYCHA defunded left a fiscal vacuum seized by Mayor de Blasio as the reason to demolish and privatise public housing.

Months after declining to sponsor a NYCHA budget resolution in Congress, AOC refuses to denounce RAD.

Five months after public housing funding discussions broke down between Fight For NYCHA and U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office, AOC spearheaded a Bronx townhall dedicated to NYCHA. AOC’s staff went through the motions of inviting Fight For NYCHA members, but members would only be tolerated as guests, and would not be given any dedicated speaking time. Under such conditions, members of Fight For NYCHA refused to attend, fearing that attendance would only be used to validate unknown policy positions.

True to those concerns, U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez refused to address at her NYCHA townhall whether she supported Mayor de Blasio’s embrace of RAD to privatize NYCHA public housing, according to a tweet posted by a reporter for the New York Times.

U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s refusal to denounce RAD was seen by many as an abdication of leadership, at best, or complicity with the privatisation of NYCHA public housing, at worst.

AOC’s refusal to provide crucial, early support to the idea that NYCHA needed to be fully-funded represented a betrayal of her socialist ideology. Because NYCHA public housing is social housing, U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s refusal to support the full-funding of social housing meant that the private sector would begin to transform both the rent paid by public housing tenants and the value of strategic public assets into sources of profit for certain participants of the real estate industry. It is not known if that was the transformation AOC sought to bring about whilst in office.

AOC uses her office to protect party leaders, not to fight for the people.

AOC and Movement School turn blind eyes to repeated press reports, alleging corruption of Mayor de Blasio’s housing policies, including the disposition of public housing assets.

Relentless press reports make showings that Mayor de Blasio’s housing policies have been allegedly encumbered by conflicts of interest, appearances of pay-to-play corruption, and favours to campaign donors. In response, U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Movement School have remained mum. Their silence in the face of questionable changes in City housing policy and the possible disposition of public housing assets casts doubt on their judgment and intentions, particularly in respect of NYCHA’s future.

NYCHA tenants are living in uninhabitable conditions — with lead paint that is poisoning, and impeding the development of, children ; toxic mold and mildew ; broken elevators ; heat and hot water outages ; and other building or code violations — and the only solution is the provision of full-funding to make the capital repairs to public housing to restore humane living conditions to NYCHA tenants.

What is true that U.S. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign overlapped with Movement School, and that one of her policy advisors in New York was a co-founder of Movement School, and that policy advisor relayed the decision not to support a budget resolution seeking to fully-fund NYCHA this Fiscal Year before announcing that Movement School would, in that vacuum, organise public housing tenants. It is clear that, in dealing with AOC, one is facing an intertwined campaign-Congressional office-outreach arm of Justice Democrats apparatus. How can NYCHA tenants trust this apparatus to organise public housing tenants in New York when, in their judgement, there was nothing wrong in throwing NYCHA tenants under the bus ?

When Movement School recruits NYCHA tenants as outreach for Justice Democratis, it is not known if Movement School admits to the truth about how it was involved in AOC’s decision to turn down the funding request for NYCHA, or if Movement School has to lie about its role.

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Press Conference and Protest of NYCHA Working Group at PS 33

The NYCHA Working Group is corrupt !

Please join us for a press conference and protest outside the next NYCHA Working Group.

Mayor de Blasio has empaneled a rigged and stacked NYCHA working group to determine the future of Fulton, Chelsea, and Elliott Houses. But this working group has purposely excluded tenants from Holmes Towers, Cooper Park, Wyckoff Gardens, LGA Houses, and Harborview — even though infill has been planned at those developments.

Date : Tues., 29-Oct-2019
Time : 5:30 pm
Place : PS 33, 281 9th Ave., Manhattan
RSVP : Press Conference and Protest of NYCHA Working Group [Facebook]

What is more, Fight For NYCHA has discovered that Mayor de Blasio has instituted a gag rule, meaning that the discussions of the NYCHA working group will be kept secret. This is a violation of Government transparency. It also violates the First Amendment rights of tenants to be able to speak in informed discussions about their own future. The gag rule and the restrictions in attendance also violate the State’s open meetings law.

Fight For NYCHA raised the issue of legality to these proceedings at first working group, since any disposition of City real property must be subject to the ULURP process.

Please join Fight For NYCHA in demanding to attend and be heard at the second meeting of the NYCHA working group.

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First meeting of NYCHA Working Group reveals lies, betrayals, and Electeds and police conspire to keep secret proceedings that will determine the future of public housing in New York City

Bill de Blasio’s NYCHA Working Group is a sham !

AFTER THE SUCCESSFUL FIGHT FOR NYCHA TOWN HALL, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D-New York City) reportedly freaked out. Two news articles planted in POLITICO New York reported that U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY 10) opposed the demolition of public housing and was calling for a delay on the Request for Proposal for demolition and RAD conversion of Fulton Houses in Cheslea. One report, in particular, had noted that, in his desperation, U.S. Rep. Nadler had allegedly called on Comptroller Scott Stringer (D-New York City) and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams (D-New York City) to show up to community meetings about the future of public housing. The move to include Stringer and Williams was seen as a political threat to New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Chelsea), in whose Council district the four public housing developments are located, which face some degree of privatisation.

But at the first meeting of the working group empaneled by Mayor de Blasio and other Electeds, tasked with determining the future of the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, Deputy Mayor Vicki Been revealed that demolition remained on the table, despite private assurances allegedly made by U.S. Rep. Nadler and others following the Fight For NYCHA town hall.

Vicki Been presentation for Demolition, Infill, RAD, MIH, and Air Rights Sale at NYCHA Working Group

In order to get video of Deputy Mayor Vicki Been’s presentation about NYCHA’s future, a member of Fight For NYCHA had to risk arrest.

A member of Fight For NYCHA had to risk arrest in order to crash the secret first meeting of the NYCHA Working Group. Please advance to 2:00 to hear audio (and video later) of NYPD Inspector Howard Redmond and, later, other NYPD officers, threaten the Fight For NYCHA member with arrest for demanding to bear witness to the NYCHA Working Group meeting.

NYPD threaten Fight For NYCHA member with arrest at Bill de Blasio’s NYCHA Working Group

Did Robert Atterbury violate New York’s open meetings law ?

Before police showed up to menace the Fight For NYCHA member, U.S. Rep. Nadler’s aide, Robert Atterbury, made deceptive statements by materially misrepresenting the proceedings of the NYCHA Working Group as a secret meeting that was closed to the public. In New York State, Government meetings are open meetings. Yet, Mr. Atterbury repeatedly indicated that a meeting that would discuss the disposition of NYCHA public assets and City real property was not a public meeting and that, improbably, the NYCHA Working Group was not a “civic group.” Under New York State penal code, obstructing Government administration is a class A misdemeanor in the second degree. See § 195.05.

Fight For NYCHA calls on U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler to fire his aide, Robert Atterbury, for violating democracy, transparency.

Please join us for a press conference and protest outside the next NYCHA Working Group.

Mayor de Blasio has empaneled a rigged and stacked NYCHA Working Group to determine the future of Fulton, Chelsea, and Elliott Houses. But this working group has purposely excluded tenants from Holmes Towers, Cooper Park, Wyckoff Gardens, LGA Houses, and Harborview — even though infill has been planned at those developments.

Date : Tues., 29-Oct-2019
Time : 5:30 pm
Place : PS 33, 281 9th Ave., Manhattan
RSVP : Press Conference and Protest of NYCHA Working Group [Facebook]

What is more, Fight For NYCHA has discovered that Mayor de Blasio has instituted a gag rule, meaning that the discussions of the NYCHA Working Group will be kept secret. This is a violation of Government transparency. It also violates the First Amendment rights of tenants to be able to speak in informed discussions about their own future. The gag rule and the restrictions in attendance also violate the State’s open meetings law.

Fight For NYCHA raised the issue of legality to these proceedings at first working group, since any disposition of City real property must be subject to the ULURP process.

Please join Fight For NYCHA in demanding to attend and be heard at the second meeting of the NYCHA Working Group.

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Union Square Rally to build public support for a People’s Budget approach to fully-fund NYCHA

This is a City-wide rally to demonstrate support for a grassroots approach to fully-funding the New York City Hosing Authority, or NYCHA. Fight For NYCHA consulted with tenants and passed the People’s Budget for Housing, Justice, and Dignity during a Town Hall meeting at P.S. 33 in Chelsea on Sept. 18. The People’s Budget demonstrates that funding for public housing is reasonable, within reach, and some of these ideas are legislation-ready.

DATE : Sunday, Oct 6, 2019
TIME : 1 pm
PLACE : Union Square Park, Manhattan
RSVP : Stop the War on the Poor [Facebook]

The immediate emergency is to take $10 billion that Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to use to build new jails and, instead, to redirect that money to public housing.

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