For more information on the Metropolitan Council on Housing, go to:
or follow #1millionhomes
June 15th, 2015 – Rent Laws will Expire
Whose Streets?! Not Mine.
A fellow queer community member told me this summer that friends of hers bought the house on my block in Brooklyn. Yes, they were white, twenty and thirty-something queers, female bodied, professional. They were also a collective of 8 women who decided to purchase a place together. Friends on a deed – a breeding ground for disaster!
I was heart-broken, since I have lived in East Flatbush my entire life and couldn’t afford to live here. What to do, now that the housing market has pushed me north (or out of state) and let in comrades to reap the benefits of what my grandparents and parents have sowed?
(CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by Atomische * Tom Giebel
My mom moved out of Brooklyn in 2014. My dad is selling his Bedstuy building after 20 years of expense, hopefully walking away with a profit. My grandparents who owned retired in Florida, while my grandparents who didn’t own never made it out of the projects.
And now I’ve purchased a house – but not in my hometown, and reconciling.
You can imagine my inner evil rise when I heard from the fellow community member recently that the collective owners have turned on each other. Serves them right! – I thought (initially).
Now I see that there is so much madness involved in being on the other end of the renter/landlord spectrum. Renting?!?!?!?! Aaack!.
More on that soon!
Large 3-bdrms for Sublet | Sunday Open House | Feb 1st move-in
As you know – I am obsessed with housing and I happily purchased my first home…somewhere in NYC.
Although I am all ready to move into it, I still have a lease and am seeking some awesome queers to live it out! I’ve been in this apartment for five years and am so sad to leave. I want to gift it to the right person. So, here goes!
Where:
East Flatbush (aka) my hometown that I can no longer afford:
It’s on the 2/5 train to Church Ave. Only a couple of blocks from the train -literally a 4-5min walk. You can also walk 10 minutes to the Q train to Church.
The streets are littered with eateries and 24 hour laundry and vegetable stand, Caribbean Cuisine, ital/natural juice bar, health food store, duane reade, rite aid, traditional doughnut shop, plenty of Trini, Jamaican, and Haitian spots to indulge. A very lovely five minute bike ride to Prospect Park, and off of Bedford Avenue bike lane.
PRICE (utilities included):
Per month – three bedrooms $750, $850, and $950 for the rooms if three separate people.
Or entire apartment $2400 (“entire apartment” means if I have to correspond with only one person as opposed to three, so for a couple or a coven of witches or an independent artist or something similar.)
Or $5800 for ten weeks for the entire apartment flat – no questions asked – that’s as low as I can go!
WHY SO CHEAP?
Here is the caveat. There is a noisy and hostile neighbor downstairs that plays loud music at random moments of the night, and although you can hear it throughout the apartment, you can feel it in the master room (which is being rented for $750, even though it is the best room with two built in closets (not pictured here)…
I am a librarian; I like quiet. But if you are into it, noise doesn’t bother you, you actually love loud music playing, then enjoy.
I’ve lived here for five years… It’s not the worst thing in the world. Ideal for someone with a partner and you can stay with her/him, someone who is hardly home, someone who is hard of hearing, or who will rent the entire apartment and travel to the other side when the music plays.
Dates:
Feb 1st – April 15th [flexible]
Feb 1st – April 15th [flexible]
Will it be furnished?
Not entirely. More empty than not. But we can arrange to leave things comfy for you.
What if you want to stay longer?
This is a definite possibility, and I can connect you with the management company to arrange your paperwork. They will need your proof of employment or other income verification, and you will have to sign a lease. Since it is at their discretion all sublets should be prepared to leave on the April 15th or before.
Queer Housing Out of this World
When I looked through my contacts list to find friends to revisit for the holidays, I realized that many are going home to family in the many small towns of the States. It reminded me that so much of our personal identities are culturally landscaped; we are the geographies of our mother’s home cooking.
What would the mapping of NYC’s bustling queer community measure? How would we plot the points of our friends and how far do we stretch?
One friend I asked as she arrived just yesterday, how is it being in the middle of the country?
“It’s Country and backwards…home regardless…it’s actually hilarious.”
I wish I understood what she meant. Could it be anymore backwards that the spaces we exist in today? Harlem streets where just this week, as I saw her off, we bumped into the standard occurrence of a black man being pinned down by eight officers, because of a fist-fight – the other of the pair, the younger one who was bullied, also pulled off in cuffs. Passers by watched with their cell phones. I chose not to take part in the masquerade but did implore why the young man who was the “victim” had to be put into the van?”Everyone goes to the precinct!” The officer responded. “He’s not goin to jail, just the precinct. And this was my one-day in Harlem experience.
This of course was before we were asked to stop marching because of the death of two fallen soldiers. I must say that although it is all a trajedy, the death of two officers cannot make up for the death of young black and brown men throughout the country. I see these officers as victims of this same war. I hope that no one feels avenged here. War is not the subject of this blog post though.
Housing is the subject!
Stay tuned for more on Housing, and welcome.
Queer Housing in NYC and Beyond 