A new report from New York Communities for Change shows that affordable housing units in the Bedford Armory development in Brooklyn are only affordable if you’re white.
The report, titled “The Whitening of Crown Heights: How the Bedford Armory Development Shuts Out Residents of Color,” outlines how the price ranges of the affordable housing units leave nonwhite Brooklynites out in the virtual cold.
“A straightforward analysis of census data on Brooklyn’s racial and income demographics confirms that the Bedford Courts Development, proposed by BFC Partners, will not serve the neighborhood’s African-American and Latino resident,” read the report. “Rather, the Bedford Courts development will accelerate the whitening of Crown Heights, with fewer affordable apartments available for residents of color who earn lower incomes, and more apartments geared toward whiter, wealthier newcomers to the neighborhood.”
“The defense of gentrification as not being racist is founded on the premise of affordability not being a racial issue but simply based on one’s ability to pay,” declared December 12th Movement activist Omowale Clay.
He added, “However, the economic status of Black people was long ago consolidated under chattel slavery, which continues as African-Americans economic deprivation under America’s colonial domination. Therefore, there are no rules that America has that Black people are bound to respect [Sound familiar?].”
Protestors include Crown Heights residents, housing advocates, members of New York Communities for Change, the Crown Heights Tenants Union, the Black Institute, the Democratic Socialists of America, Picture the Homeless and Laborers Local 79. In attendance at several rallies were Assembly members Walter Mosley and Diana Richardson, State Senator Jesse Hamilton, Crown Heights residents, housing advocates, members of New York Communities for Change, the Crown Heights Tenants Union, the Black Institute, VOCAL-NY, Community Voices Heard, the Democratic Socialists of America and Laborers Local 79. They, along with community activists and elected officials opposing the Bedford Armory development, are calling for the “project to be killed and for the land to be placed into a community land trust.”
A statement from the group said, “Citing a lack of affordability and job standards, local residents and union workers will expose how the project is failing Crown Heights while proposing a new solution that would maximize affordability and protections on the public land.”
Tenants from across the city have called the Armory-CLT plan to be used as a citywide model for public land.
Those opposing the new move say that City Hall and BFC Partners are planning to build 330 luxury units at the public site that most Crown Heights residents cannot afford. They stated, “The highly controversial project has been the source of fierce opposition for a year. In August of last year tenants and housing advocates successfully pressured the city to drop Slate Property Group from the project, the same shady firm involved in a scam to turn the former Rivington House nursing home into luxury condos.”
According to the report, using analysis based on details provided by the Economic Development Corporation in the Draft Scope of Work for an Environmental Impact Statement, if the proposed redevelopment project is completed, 83 percent of the total units would cost tenants or homeowners more than $2,200 (depending on down-payment for homeowners).
“In Brooklyn, white families are much more likely to earn enough to afford one of the $2,200+ apartments than African-American or Latino families,” read the report. “About 58 percent of families who earn more than $75,000 are white, while only 26 percent are African-American and just 12 percent are Latino. That means white Brooklyn families are more than twice as likely as African-Americans to be able to afford the vast majority of Bedford Armory apartments, and more than 4.5 times more likely than Latino families.”
From the American Community Survey’s 2015 5-Year Estimates of income and household demographics in Brooklyn, 307,085 residents in the borough make $75,000 or more a year.
The median income in Brooklyn’s Community Board 9, where Bedford Armory is being constructed, is $42,773. Affordable rent, by NYCC’s standards, is $1,069. Recent reports from the Independent Budget Office state that more families enter shelters from Crown Heights than almost any other neighborhood in the five boroughs (more than 2,000 between 2002 and 2012). According to the report, in 2016, more than 57 percent of families that entered the shelter system were Black.
That fact has led activists to take to the streets, voicing their displeasure.
Activists around the city, not just Brooklyn, have been railing against the raise in rents and gentrification overall. Last week, clergy people, tenants and housing organizations rallied outside of a private meeting of real estate developers during the Real Estate Board of New York members’ luncheon at the Hilton of New York in Midtown Manhattan. Citing neighborhoods such as Crown Heights, Harlem, East New York, the South Bronx, Washington Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, fake pallbearers carried caskets with the words “RIP Affordable Housing” and “Save New York” written on them.
“Who are we building this city for?” questioned the Rev. Emily Scott, of St. Lydia’s Dinner Church in Gowanus, at the rally. “The newer buildings going up will not house our teachers, our cab drivers or any other hard-working, middle or low income residents. God calls us to do better: to build a city for all New Yorkers.”