Friend,

When Dawn Miller was looking for help with her landlord, someone told her to go to a meeting of the local NYCC chapter in her neighborhood. That was great advice.

Our members in Flatbush are expert tenant advocates. They’ve had to be. In a gentrifying neighborhood with lots of rent stabilized housing, they’ve spent years fighting to protect their homes from greedy landlords looking to take advantage of loopholes in the rent laws and raise rents.

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From our leaders and organizers, Dawn learned about her rights. She organized an “each one, teach one” event to spread that knowledge to her neighbors. Together, they formed tenants association and held rallies and press conferences in front of their building. Dawn even recruited some of her neighbors to join NYCC.

They knew that change wouldn’t happen overnight. They joined with tenants from across the state, demanding sweeping reforms to tenant protections across New York and traveled to Albany again and again to fight back.

Click here to support our neighborhood organizing and help us find more leaders like Dawn.

At her first visit to an NYCC chapter meeting, Dawn had no idea that it would lead her to rallying, lobbying her elected officials and demanding that the state do a better job protecting tenants. But, in June of 2019, as a result of the hard work of people like Dawn from all corners of the state, the NYS legislature passed the strongest package of rent protections our state has seen in decades.

These newly won protections meant that Dawn no longer had to worry that her preferential rent would go away at the end of her lease, making her apartment unaffordable.

Winning tangible victories in the lives of our members takes resources. Click here to support our organizing in 2020.

The new rent laws will protect thousands of New Yorkers who were at risk of being displaced. But they don’t undo decades of gentrification, evictions and abuse of the system by landlords. 90,000 people in our state are currently homeless. Nearly 600,000 NYCHA residents live with leaks and mold and routinely go without heat and cooking gas for weeks at a time.

In 2020, we’re demanding a massive investment in housing as a human right. For far too long, the real estate industry made billions of dollars exploiting and evicting tenants and driving gentrification and displacement. The real estate industry's greed created the housing crisis we find ourselves in, and it’s time to make them pay for the solutions.

Support our campaign to make 2020 the year we make billionaires pay. Click here to make a contribution.

Best,

Jonathan Westin, NYCC