"They're destroying people's lives right now. They have made a lot of people homeless and they have a lot of people paying over 50% of their budget in rent. That has to stop."
My daughter lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Queens, NY. She is a professional employee of the state, but she says if she loses her 250' square apartment, she will need to move out of the city and commute up to two hours each way to find affordable housing. She currently pays 40% of her take-home pay in rent (includes heat, but not electricity). At least she knows the maximum her rent will increase and is able to sign two-year leases.
Providence needs rent stabilization. One friend's rent went up 17%; one went up 35%. On the first, I checked the records, and those real estate taxes did not go up. I don't know why a 17% increase was necessary--no major repairs were done on the building. This is a self-employed professional with a master's degree who also doesn't know what will happen if the rent continues to increase like this. She is here in Providence to provide support for an ailing mother (in elderly housing), and does not want to have to leave the city.
This is not the world I want to live in. Everyone deserves to be able to live in safe, clean, affordable housing.
wow, thas indeed shows how tough it is for loqwe income people to afford a place to lice and they have a right to be outraged by our system.
We are developing a country with two classes - those who havwe hpusing thwy own (coulsd be condos) and those tha do not.
The former group generally sees an slelf-interest in not having any husing bulrt nearby, espcially multifamily housing, as they understandably see it as lowering ther wuality of life (more noise, trfdfic, pavement, school taxes...) and this is true virtualy everywhere - Fox Point, Summit, North rovidence, Narrgansett., the MBTA suburbs all resisting density. What dfoes get built is disproportionately for the already well to do in sprawl locations that pave over more of the countryside and boost emissions including greenhosue gases.
For DARE and allies, beyond taking on greedy landlords, maybe they need to be more prominent in efforts to boost density and increase housing supply, a neccessity for a real long-term solution
My daughter lives in a rent-stabilized apartment in Queens, NY. She is a professional employee of the state, but she says if she loses her 250' square apartment, she will need to move out of the city and commute up to two hours each way to find affordable housing. She currently pays 40% of her take-home pay in rent (includes heat, but not electricity). At least she knows the maximum her rent will increase and is able to sign two-year leases.
Providence needs rent stabilization. One friend's rent went up 17%; one went up 35%. On the first, I checked the records, and those real estate taxes did not go up. I don't know why a 17% increase was necessary--no major repairs were done on the building. This is a self-employed professional with a master's degree who also doesn't know what will happen if the rent continues to increase like this. She is here in Providence to provide support for an ailing mother (in elderly housing), and does not want to have to leave the city.
This is not the world I want to live in. Everyone deserves to be able to live in safe, clean, affordable housing.
wow, thas indeed shows how tough it is for loqwe income people to afford a place to lice and they have a right to be outraged by our system.
We are developing a country with two classes - those who havwe hpusing thwy own (coulsd be condos) and those tha do not.
The former group generally sees an slelf-interest in not having any husing bulrt nearby, espcially multifamily housing, as they understandably see it as lowering ther wuality of life (more noise, trfdfic, pavement, school taxes...) and this is true virtualy everywhere - Fox Point, Summit, North rovidence, Narrgansett., the MBTA suburbs all resisting density. What dfoes get built is disproportionately for the already well to do in sprawl locations that pave over more of the countryside and boost emissions including greenhosue gases.
For DARE and allies, beyond taking on greedy landlords, maybe they need to be more prominent in efforts to boost density and increase housing supply, a neccessity for a real long-term solution