NEW YORK, CMC – Caribbean-American New York Metropolis Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams was arrested on Thursday by officers from the New York Police Division (NYPD) alongside over a dozen tenants and advocates partaking in civil disobedience outdoors the midtown Manhattan places of work of the Actual Property Board of New York (REBNY).
Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, informed the Caribbean Media Company (CMC) that the activists from the non-profit group Housing Justice for All had been talking out towards REBNY’s marketing campaign to guard dangerous landlords and forestall tenant protections from being enacted statewide when NYPD officers took them into custody for obstructing the constructing’s entrance.
The Public Advocate mentioned he and others “face arrest on behalf of tenants throughout New York dealing with eviction as rents rise and landlords proceed to place revenue over individuals.”
He mentioned they had been blocking the doorway to REBNY “simply as they’ve blocked actual tenant protections from being enacted in Albany,” New York State capital, “by their disingenuous lobbying and spending.”
“At this significant second of the housing and homelessness disaster in New York, we have to not solely shield the progress we have now fought for over time however march ahead, enshrining Good Trigger eviction protections into state regulation and increasing entry to deeply inexpensive, income-targeted housing,” Williams mentioned. “Steady housing is crucial to public security. But, when New Yorkers ask for this sort of assist, these pleas are not often heard by these in energy.
He famous that the town’s worst landlord was arrested final month for negligence in harming his tenants.
“[On Thursday], we had been arrested for protesting REBNY’s lively marketing campaign to hurt tenants statewide, to induce state lawmakers to reject huge actual property’s affect, and to go the protections New Yorkers desperately want lastly,” Williams mentioned.
With housing prices hovering and plenty of New Yorkers being pressured from their properties, he mentioned REBNY has “continued to foyer towards the passing of Good Trigger eviction protections and different efforts to increase entry to inexpensive housing.”
“Donations and lobbying efforts from the true property business have exacerbated the housing and homelessness disaster in New York Metropolis and statewide,” Williams mentioned.
Following the arrest, the general public advocate mentioned he was taken to the seventh Police Precinct in Manhattan.
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