Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) is an organization based in Chinatown, Manhattan that advocates for civil rights and affordable housing, which it is also involved in developing. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Asian Americans for Equal Employment was formed in 1974 after a successful fight to include Chinese American workers in the construction of Confucius Plaza. It was involved in protests the following year after Peter Yew, an engineer, was beaten by police in Chinatown. [6] 20,000 picketers went to the New York City Hall under AAFE's leadership. [7] Again in 1982 after the Killing of Vincent Chin in Detroit. AAFE was involved in protesting prison construction and the Special Manhattan Bridge District. The group also gradually became involved in housing issues with programs such as protecting tenants against "negligent and predatory landlords" through lawsuits and helping people learn their rights as tenants. [6]
In January 1985 a building at 54 Eldridge Street caught fire and burned down, killing two tenants and leaving a further 125 homeless. The fire was caused by wiring and the landlord had previously shut off heat and hot water, leaving residents to use electric heaters. The American Red Cross asked AAFE's executive director at the time, Doris Koo, to translate victims. Koo resolved to shift the organizations focus to building housing. AAFE worked to create Equality Houses with Enterprise Community Partners, two low-income tenements, for a total of 59 units. Thirty percent of units were reserved for homeless people. The project was successful and AAFE continued similar efforts through the 1990s. They were involved in developing "several hundred affordable units in rehabilitated buildings in Chinatown and the Lower East Side." AAFE were also involved in the construction of several new buildings. In those decades the organization saw much growth, spinning off two corporations and becoming a prominent landlord as well as advocate, a shift for which it attracted criticism. [6] In 1997 the organisation said it had 3,000 "dues paying members". [7]
The organization has since sought to present itself as "a cultural broker for new immigrants", helping them navigate the housing process in New York. In 2016 AAFE was described as "the largest developer of affordable housing in Lower Manhattan, having preserved or developed eighty-six buildings with more than seven hundred apartments since 1989." [6]
In the United States, rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the rent of residential housing to function as a price ceiling. More loosely, "rent control" describes several types of price control:
A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Typically housing cooperatives are owned by shareholders but in some cases they can be owned by a non-profit organization. They are a distinctive form of home ownership that have many characteristics that differ from other residential arrangements such as single family home ownership, condominiums and renting.
Section 8 of the Housing Act of 1937, often called Section 8, as repeatedly amended, authorizes the payment of rental housing assistance to private landlords on behalf of low-income households in the United States. Fort Lauderdale, Florida Housing Authority Director William H. Lindsey, upon the advice of Housing Authority attorney J. Richard Smith, initially developed 11(b) financing in the early 1970s to accommodate a local savings and loan interested in assisting with urban renewal projects Lindsey eventually brought to fruition. This was the initial impetus for the subsequent development of the now well known Section 8 Program. 68% of total rental assistance in the United States goes to seniors, children, and those with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development manages Section 8 programs.
Single room occupancy is a form of housing that is typically aimed at residents with low or minimal incomes who rent small, furnished single rooms with a bed, chair, and sometimes a small desk. SRO units are rented out as permanent residence and/or primary residence to individuals, within a multi-tenant building where tenants share a kitchen, toilets or bathrooms. SRO units range from 7 to 13 square metres. In some instances, contemporary units may have a small refrigerator, microwave, or sink.
Chinatown, Boston is a neighborhood located in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only surviving historic ethnic Chinese enclave in New England since the demise of the Chinatowns in Providence, Rhode Island and Portland, Maine after the 1950s. Because of the high population of Asians and Asian Americans living in this area of Boston, there is an abundance of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants located in Chinatown. It is one of the most densely populated residential areas in Boston and serves as the largest center of its East Asian and Southeast Asian cultural life.
Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and a number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency homeless shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental, to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership.
The Mitchell–Lama Housing Program is a non-subsidy governmental housing guarantee in the state of New York. It was sponsored by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell and Assemblyman Alfred Lama. It was signed into law in 1955 as The Limited-Profit Housing Companies Act.
Confucius Plaza Apartments is a limited-equity housing cooperative in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City. The 44-story brown brick tower block complex with 762 apartments was constructed in 1975 at a cost of $38.387 million. The building was the first major public-funded housing project built for almost exclusively Chinese Americans.
Little Fuzhou is a neighborhood in the Two Bridges and Lower East Side areas of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, United States. Little Fuzhou constitutes a portion of the greater Manhattan Chinatown, home to the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere. Manhattan's Chinatown is also one of the oldest Chinese ethnic enclaves.
Knickerbocker Village Limited is a housing development situated between the Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge, in the Two Bridges section of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Although the location was generally considered to fall in the Lower East Side, it has come to be thought of as part of Chinatown in recent years and the majority of residents are Chinese. It is located a short distance from New York City Hall, Civic Center, and the South Street Seaport. The complex consists of 1,590 apartments in twelve 13-story brick buildings surrounding two courtyards at 10-12-14-16-18-20 Monroe Street and 30-32-34-36-38-40 Monroe Street on the Lower East Side, taking up two whole city blocks and bounded by Catherine Street, Monroe Street, Market Street, and Cherry Street. Knickerboker Village is in ZIP Code 10002.
Breaking Ground, formerly Common Ground, is a nonprofit social services organization in New York City whose goal is to create high-quality permanent and transitional housing for the homeless. Its philosophy holds that supportive housing costs substantially less than homeless shelters — and many times less than jail cells or hospital rooms, and that people with psychiatric and other problems can better manage them once they are permanently housed and provided with services. Since its founding in 1990 by Rosanne Haggerty, the organization has created more than 5,000 units of housing for the homeless. "This is about creating a small town, rather than just a building," according to Haggerty. "It's about a real mixed society, working with many different people." Haggerty left the organization in 2011 to found Community Solutions, Inc. Brenda Rosen was promoted from Director, Housing Operations and Programs to Executive Director, and has led the organization since.
The first Brooklyn Chinatown, was originally established in the Sunset Park area of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is one of the largest and fastest growing ethnic Chinese enclaves outside of Asia, as well as within New York City itself. Because this Chinatown is rapidly evolving into an enclave predominantly of Fuzhou immigrants from Fujian Province in China, it is now increasingly common to refer to it as the Little Fuzhou or Fuzhou Town of the Western Hemisphere; as well as the largest Fuzhou enclave of New York City.
Margaret S. Chin is a Hong Kong American politician who served as a council member for the 1st district of the New York City Council. A Democrat, she and Queens Council member Peter Koo comprised the Asian American delegation of the city council.
Picture the Homeless (PTH) is an American homeless person–led rights organization founded in 1999 by Lewis Haggins and Anthony Williams. It focuses on human rights, housing, police violence and other social justice issues. It was housed originally in Judson Memorial Church, which still hosts its Longest Night of the Year memorial event, and was located for a time in El Barrio and 2427 Morris Avenue in the Bronx. It is currently based at 104B E 126th Street in Manhattan.
East Broadway is a two-way east–west street in the Chinatown, Two Bridges, and Lower East Side neighborhoods of the New York City borough of Manhattan in the U.S. state of New York.
Janet Freeman was an American community organizer and activist for tenant's rights in New York City's lower Manhattan. On June 20, 2013, the corner of Elizabeth Street and Kenmare Street was co-named "Janet Freeman Way" by the New York City Council in her memory and to commemorate her activism on behalf of the community. According to NYC Streets in its listing of street names and their honorees, "Janet Freeman was a community organizer and tenant advocate. She founded the Croman Tenants Association; the Coalition to Protect Public Housing and Section 8; and Co-op Watch, to prevent evictions through phony conversions. She started campaigns to organize tenants against aggressive landlords, phony demolitions, and harassment in and around Chinatown and Little Italy."
The gentrification of San Francisco has been an ongoing source of tension between renters and working people who live in the city as well as real estate interests. A result of this conflict has been an emerging antagonism between longtime working-class residents of the city and the influx of new tech workers. A major increase of gentrification in San Francisco has been attributed to the Dot-Com Boom in the 1990s, creating a strong demand for skilled tech workers from local startups and close by Silicon Valley businesses leading to rising standards of living. As a result, a large influx of new workers in the internet and technology sector began to contribute to the gentrification of historically poor immigrant neighborhoods such as the Mission District. During this time San Francisco began a transformation eventually culminating in it becoming the most expensive city to live in the United States.
The 421-a tax exemption is a property tax exemption in the U.S. state of New York that is given to real-estate developers for building new multifamily residential housing buildings in New York City. As currently written, the program also focuses on promoting affordable housing in the most densely populated areas of New York City. The exemption is granted for any buildings that add multiple new residential units, and typically lasts for 15 to 25 years after the building is completed. Longer exemption periods apply in less densely populated areas of the outer boroughs and upper Manhattan.
Affordable housing is housing that is deemed affordable to those with a median household income as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. A general rule is no more than 30% of gross monthly income should be spent on housing, to be considered affordable for the challenges of promoting affordable housing varies by location.
Cancel rent is a slogan and tenant rights movement in the United States, which advocates for the cancellation of rental payments and suspension of mortgage payments during the coronavirus pandemic. Activists and organizations have also presented other demands, which include the cancellation of housing-related expenses, cancellation of late fees for housing payments, the establishment of a landlord hardship fund, an increase in emergency housing, and an eviction moratorium. The movement was triggered by the economic impact of the pandemic, in which mass business closures and employee layoffs resulted in financial insecurity for many Americans. Tenants faced a range of issues, including the inability to pay rent, harassment or intimidation from landlords, and potential eviction. This situation put tenants at risk of damaged credit ratings, food insecurity, and homelessness. Consequently, activists, tenants rights organizations, and some politicians have called for the cancellation of rent.