SAFE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING?!
There’s no bigger tragedy than a lesson learned through misfortune. The details behind the recent building fire in the Bronx that killed 17 people (some were children) provide a sad forensic summary that raises all the right questions about how and why the fire happened.
Alexis Okeowo’s article in The New Yorker about the fire which can be read here takes a look into the immigrant and low-income experience in New York, particularly as those populations are impacted by a lack of affordable housing.
Sadly, the lesson seems to have not been learned as this fire is not the first of its kind. Whether in a residential building, or in the workplace (Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911), New York has a history of allowing these tragedies to happen: they are, after all, avoidable.
On a local level, CRC is still working with families who were displaced by Hurricane Ida flooding.
Many of them lived in basement apartments because those are the cheapest, and are often illegally rented in cash with no recourse for the renters when they are being taking advantage of. There simply is no other housing available to them so they take their lives into their own hands in frequently substandard conditions in order to have a place to sleep and to have shelter so they can work in low-paying jobs where they also experience occasional wage theft.
Immigrants and low-income workers are the backbone of New York. They built it. They service it. They show up when no one else wants to or can. They deserve better.
We, united as the Mamaroneck Coalition for Affordable Housing, mourn for all those lost, and the ones left to grieve, as a result of January’s Bronx fire.
We call for our elected officials to commit to tangible efforts to provide affordable housing that is safe and where residents are treated with the dignity we all deserve so that this tragedy doesn’t happen again.
We need our elected officials to look at the systemic flaws that make these tragedies inevitable, and to correct the problems.
We need our local officials, and local communities, to make affordable housing a reality and not a talking point.
Alexis Okeowo’s article in The New Yorker about the fire which can be read here takes a look into the immigrant and low-income experience in New York, particularly as those populations are impacted by a lack of affordable housing.
Sadly, the lesson seems to have not been learned as this fire is not the first of its kind. Whether in a residential building, or in the workplace (Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911), New York has a history of allowing these tragedies to happen: they are, after all, avoidable.
On a local level, CRC is still working with families who were displaced by Hurricane Ida flooding.
Many of them lived in basement apartments because those are the cheapest, and are often illegally rented in cash with no recourse for the renters when they are being taking advantage of. There simply is no other housing available to them so they take their lives into their own hands in frequently substandard conditions in order to have a place to sleep and to have shelter so they can work in low-paying jobs where they also experience occasional wage theft.
Immigrants and low-income workers are the backbone of New York. They built it. They service it. They show up when no one else wants to or can. They deserve better.
We, united as the Mamaroneck Coalition for Affordable Housing, mourn for all those lost, and the ones left to grieve, as a result of January’s Bronx fire.
We call for our elected officials to commit to tangible efforts to provide affordable housing that is safe and where residents are treated with the dignity we all deserve so that this tragedy doesn’t happen again.
We need our elected officials to look at the systemic flaws that make these tragedies inevitable, and to correct the problems.
We need our local officials, and local communities, to make affordable housing a reality and not a talking point.
This statement is supported by the Mamaroneck Coalition for Affordable Housing.
Jirandy Martinez
Executive Director
Executive Director