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Objectives

The Tenant and Community Organizing Program is rooted in CSC’s longstanding mission to work with area residents to preserve affordable housing. Through this program, CSC works with tenants in its primary service area in order to carry out the following objectives:

1. Reverse building deterioration.
2. Deter illegal/abusive landlord practices that lead to the displacement of tenants and the deregulation of the housing stock.
3. Maintain active tenant associations, both in buildings owned by private for-profit landlords and buildings owned/managed by the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association (CSMHA).
4. Increase Cooper Square area resident involvement in new housing development and community issues that impact on the housing environment.
5. Train a new generation of tenant and community activists.

Strategies

The housing objectives defined by CSC will be carried out through a number of strategies:

1. Organize tenants in distressed privately owned housing.
2. Organize tenants in CSMHA owned/managed housing.
3. Facilitate planning meetings.
4. Strengthen the community's capacity to organize itself effectively.
5. Nurture leadership, volunteerism and activism among area residents.

Programs and Services

Building Wide Inspections: CSC's housing staff inspects buildings on the Lower East Side to assess whether they are in need of tenant organizing intervention. CSC maintains a database of dozens of buildings that are being monitored for potential signs of distressed housing conditions, as well as signs of illegal and abusive landlord practices. CSC staff will inspect buildings upon request by tenants. If you are concerned about unsafe conditions, or declining services, contact us at (212) 228-8210 to schedule a building-wide inspection. If your building is not within our service area, we will refer you to the appropriate neighborhood preservation organization. After inspecting your building, our staff will forward the inspection results to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD). We will ask HPD to send an inspector from their Code Enforcement Unit to the building to officially document the violations. HPD will then contact the owner and ask him/her to sign a Voluntary Repair Agreement (VRA). If the owner refuses to cooperate, or fails to comply with the VRA, HPD is authorize to bring comprehensive litigation against the owner. CSC staff is available to assist in monitoring this process and assisting the tenants in making sure remedial action is taken.

Housing Organizing Assistance

The Cooper Square Committee assists tenants interested in forming a Tenant Association. Since housing problems are often systemic and building-wide, we strongly encourage tenants to work together to resolve them rather than trying to negotiate with their landlord one on one. Tenants can achieve significant positive results by working together to deal with a range of issues. The most common issues on the Lower East Side include the following

1. Housing code violations: These may range from sporadic heat and hot water, poor maintenance, poor quality renovation or renovation taking place without building permits. Renovation done without taking proper measures to minimize hazardous conditions during renovation can cause significant health risks to tenants (landlords are required to use procedures to minimize the risk of exposing tenants to asbestos and lead paint dust during renovation).


2. Rent Overcharges: CSC estimates that more than 40% of East Village/Lower East Side tenants who have moved into their apartment since 1997 are being overcharged. Some are being overcharged substantially, and are entitled to rent roll backs and repayment of the overcharged amount. To find out if you are being overcharged, you should contact the NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) and obtain a copy of the rent history for your apartment. Some building owners have not even registered the rents for their building(s) with DHCR, and are not entitled to any rent increases until after registering their apartment.


3. Illegal building alterations: CSC has found that many building owners are taking advantage of the overheated rental market by creating new housing units in basements, creating bump-ups (adding more apartment space by breaking through the roof to create duplexes), and generally carrying out renovations not in compliance with you suspect your landlord is doing illegal renovation work, contact us and we will inspect the conditions in your building.

Once our Housing Organizing staff has assessed conditions in your building, they can advise you about the following:

• How to have productive communication and negotiations with your landlord.
• How to take your landlord to court (ie., HP Actions, 7A proceedings) if necessary, to get repairs.
• How to conduct a legal rent strike, if other actions have not been effective, to ensure that tenants don't place themselves at risk of eviction.
• How to file complaints with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal if you believe you are being overcharged, harassed, experiencing declining building services, etc.

Housing Counseling
Due to an overheated real estate market and an affordable housing crisis, many rent regulated tenants, particularly those paying below market rents, are at risk of being targeted by landlords seeking to vacate the apartment. As a tenant, you need to know how to legally sublet your apartment, how to protect the succession rights of a family member or domestic partner, and how to ensure that you do not sign away your rights because of landlord intimidation. Our housing staff can provide you with accurate information to help safeguard your statutory rights.

Community Organizing
CSC organizes residents in the community around issues that impact on the health and vitality of the community. We work in coalition with other Lower East Side organizations regarding a variety of issues. The following are some examples:

MTA Fan Plant Expansion: CSC has worked in coalition with GOLES and CAAV to assist the residents of 10 Stanton St. in their struggle to get the MTA to relocate the site of a proposed subway fan plant near their building. This effort is still in progress, and community support is needed. Salvation Army Foster Care Facility: CSC organized residents to demand that the Salvation Army form an Advisory Board when it opened an all boy foster care facility on E. 3rd St. and the Bowery. The Advisory Committee informs the Salvation Army about incidents and problems that may have occurred, and discusses after school programming and ways to foster integration of the residents into the community.

Noisy bars: We organized a meeting with a local bar that played loud music without adequately sound proofing the establishment, and whose patrons were vandalizing local businesses and housing. Our discussions with the business owner have resulted in the sound proofing of the bar, and the hiring of an additional bouncer to ensure that patrons don't linger in the area making noise and damaging property.

Con Edison Plant Expansion: CSC is working in support of organization's opposing Con Edison's plans to expand its plant on 14th Street and Avenue D. We flier the community and contact residents to alert them to negative health impacts due to the vast increase in particulate matter that will result from Con Ed's expansion.

Additional Information

Housing Preservation
Housing Services

To find a housing and community development organization near you, visit the ANHD website or read Brooklyn South Legal Services's Tenant's Guide to Housing Court.

If you are going to housing court, we recommend you reading NYC Housing Court Information prepared by Brooklyn South Legal Services.

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