Housing Advocates To March Through Lower Manhattan Thursday

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Housing advocates will march on Lower Manhattan Thursday evening to demand rent relief for New Yorkers across the state.

Affordable housing advocates, tenants and homeless New Yorkers from the five boroughs will gather at the National Museum of the American Indian at 4:30 p.m. demanding state legislators pass "universal rent control" laws to beef up rent regulations and protections for tenants.

Advocates pointed to Amazon's plans to bring half of its second headquarters to Long Island City, Queens — bringing 25,000 high-paying jobs to the industrial neighborhood — as a move that will ramp up housing costs and highlights the need to strengthening existing rent laws, organizers said in a statement.

"The Amazon deal just announced is bringing even more urgency to the need to expand rent regulation as it will fuel landlord harassment and accelerate gentrification," read the statement by Housing Justice for All, a state-wide housing advocacy group that is organizing the Thursday march.

"Tenants and their allies are marching to end landlord dominance in Albany and to demand that Governor Cuomo and the state legislature pass a universal rent control package in the next legislative session that will protect all tenants across the state."

Advocates call for a package that would reinforce rent laws by closing loopholes. For instance, vacancy decontrol removes some restrictions on rent increases and vacancy bonuses allow landlords to raise rents by a certain percentage every time an apartment becomes vacant.

Preferential rent is another controversial mechanism that allows landlords to set a rent lower than the law regulates, leaving room to raise that rent to the market average. Those increases typically come at a greater percentage than what the rent guideline board allows.

The march kicks off at the National Museum of the American Indian at 1 Bowling Green at 4:30 p.m. and will snake across the Financial District until 7:30 p.m.

Housing activists marching in Lower Manhattan to demand more affordable housing options for the homeless and poor (Photo courtesy of Andrew Burton/Getty Images)