Tenants Demand Affordable Housing

WNYC News | Jul 12, 2010

New York, NY —

Fed up with rising rents, thousands of tenants and housing activists took to the streets to demand more affordable housing. The group gathered at Stuyvesant Town and marched to Union Square.

REPORTER: Last year, the middle-income housing complex sold for over $5 billion and since then, its tenants have worried about being displaced. Colleen Lott lives in the Bronx. She says her landlord wants to turn her subsidized housing complex into market rate apartments and she's worried her rent will rise. Right now, she pays just over $1200 for a 2 bedroom apartment.

LOTT: I'm a single mother of two. I'm a caseworker. I don't make that much money and I will not be able to afford to live there anymore.

REPORTER: Lott says hip-hop originated in her Bronx building and that its tenants are trying to make it a landmark to protect it. Many of those who attended the rally demanded that the government do more to preserve housing for low and middle income New Yorkers.

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