The banner says "We don't want NRP (Neighborhood Redevelopment Program ) we want co-op!" once in English and once in Spanish.

I'm so impressed with the people in this building down the street from me. Their landlord has let the place get all run down in order to try to get them to move out. Now they are calling for forced evictions so they can renovate.

Here is how the housing market works in the NYC. Many apartments are "rent controlled" or "rent stabilized" -- That means land lords can only raise the rent by about 5 percent a year OR if they make major renovations.

One strategy for raising rents is to do a total overhaul of the building. The renovations aren't anything the residents want-- they just let the landlord raise the rent-- often displacing poor residents. Quite often the renovations are hasty "fudge jobs" that only appear on paper.

Well, the people in this building are united and demanding a co-op. They are refusing to move out even as the jack hammers gut the neighboring building were residents were evicted and displaced.

This isn't just "free-enterprise" at work city has program to HELP landlords do this. It's Bloombergs fault. I hate him. He said "poor people should just leave the city." once -- the man has issues!

Here is a link to the tax dollar sponsored program that helps landlords kick poor people out of the city:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/hpd/html/for-developers/nrp.html

NRP Renovation: NRP conveys clusters of occupied and nearby vacant City-owned buildings to selected community based not-for-profit organizations for rehabilitation and operation as rental housing.

I photograph empty buildings-- many are already owned by the city-- why the hell do they need to kick people out of their homes when there are PLENTY of empty buildings they could make into open market rental housing?


Oh yeah... that might leave us with "income integrated" neighborhoods.

Can have the poor brown people mixing with the rich-and-somewhat-more-pale...