Daily Gotham 5/20/2007

From the Daily Gotham:

Affordable Housing Rally; Wednesday, May 23, 5-7PM

The punch line of this post is that you should attend the rally and demonstration on Wednesday May 23, 2007 which begins in front of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village (1th Ave. & 14th St.) at 5PM and is scheduled to last till 7PM (but as you know, the events sometimes run longer.) If you can stand reading post-jump part of the post, I ask you to send Governor Spitzer a letter. If you can't weave your way through the twists, flip to the end and send the letter without reading it.

The demonstration, called to kick off a campaign to protect and extend rent regulation in NYC has been called by a broad coalition of labor unions, community organizations, churches and political groups including the Working Families Party and many Democratic clubs including the one to which I belong. The full, huge, list of coalition members is at the New York Is Our Home website.

The demonstration focuses on six demands on state government:
End Vacancy Decontrol
Home rule for NYC rent regulation
Preserve Mitchell Lama & Section 8 Housing
End unfair rent increase & harassment
State funding for NYC public housing
Limit rental payments for indigent people with HIV/AIDS to 30% of income.
The issues around affordable housing are so complex, it makes me wilt to try to write about them. At the same time, they are extremely simple. Affordable housing is disappearing in NYC. Burning hot real estate values prompt owners seeking windfall profits to deregulate rental units.

[post edited for length; read the rest here]