Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
61
housing still makes a large share of the housing stock in Harlem.
4
However, with subsidy
restrictions phasing out throughout the city, it is questionable whether a substantial number of
low- and moderate-income families in Harlem will manage to remain in their gentrifying
community in the coming years. Only in 2005, New York lost a record 5,518 rent-protected
apartments whose landlords opted out of subsidy programs; nearly 80 percent of the units lost
were in the South Bronx and especially in Harlem, where the landlords of three large housing
complexes (Riverside Park Community, Schomburg Towers, and Metro North Houses)
decided to opt out of the Mitchell-Lama program (Jones 2006). Most of the renters living in
those units were low-income families of colour. In many cases, the weakening of rent
regulation laws, combined with the overheated Harlem property market, has encouraged the
proliferation of ‘predatory equity’ schemes, a form of real estate speculation whereby private
equity firms purchase apartment buildings with rent-regulated units in gentrifying
neighbourhoods and promise their investors very high returns that can only be achieved by
aggressively driving out existing tenants
—
primarily through harassment or lack of
maintenance.
5
Accounts of tenants displaced because of abusive landlords’ tactics have
increased as the Harlem real estate market boomed in the mid-2000s (Del Signore 2008,
Lowery 2011). Another threat to subsidized housing is caused by landlord mismanagement or
neglect. Sometimes landlords can keep their apartments in such bad conditions that tenants
are forced out by city authorities because of structural damages or health hazards (see
Chiaramonte 2007, Suh 2012). In the Bloomberg years, there have been innumerable
outrageous cases of landlords’ violations, including violations for not providing heat, hot
water, maintenance and repairs to tenants in Harlem (Trymaine 2011).
Obviously, homeownership can be an effective antidote against displacement. In fact,
in gentrifying neighbourhoods, homeowners generally may stand to benefit from the increase
in home values. This is not the case of the majority of existing Harlem residents, however.
According to the 2000 Census, 93.4 percent of Central Harlem (District 10) residents were
renters, with a paltry 6.6 of homeowners. West Harlem (CD 9) had a 90.3 percent of renters
and a 9.7 of homeowners. East Harlem (CD 11) had a 93.6 percent of renters and a 6.4
percent of homeowners (US Census 2000).
6
The reasons for the overall limited share of
homeownership in Harlem can be attributed to a long history of redlining, which for decades
has made it impossible for residents of black neighbourhoods to receive loans and mortgages
by private banks.
4
In 2006, the districts of East, West and Central Harlem had a total of 145,368 housing units, of which
51,216 were designated as ‘affordable’ and reserved for people of moderate and low income. A further
24,207 were public housing projects for low-income households (Trotta 2006).
5
Many landlords employ illegal tactics in an effort to drive rent-regulated tenants out. Often, they
neglect maintenance works or intimidate tenants with unsubstantiated legal proceedings; over the last
years, there have been innumerable cases of tenants being baselessly sued by their landlords for unpaid
rent or for alleged illegal sublets (Morgenson 2008).
6
Things did change, although not remarkably, by 2010, presumably as a result of the increase of
recent purchases by new in-movers (US Census 2010).
