Opinion: Housing is a human right — let’s make sure everyone has access to it

Nick Roloson is a candidate for Council District 22 in Western Queens. Photo courtesy of Roloson.

By Nick Roloson

Special to the Eagle

Nothing could have prepared me for when my phone rang on Oct. 15. My wife and I were living on a month-to-month lease and we were expecting our first child in 3 months. The management company that owned the building where we lived cooly said: You need to move out as soon as possible because we have decided to sell your unit. Please let us know how much time you need.

I’ve been through a lot. I survived being born with a brain condition that could’ve killed me. I’ve run campaigns against the establishment when people said doing so ruins your career. And I’ve confronted some of the most important people in city government about our lackluster housing policies.

But nothing can ever prepare you from the potential of being homeless with a baby coming in three months.

This is sadly something that happens every day in parts of New York City. Rents in Queens have skyrocketed by 30 percent since the Great Recession, with median asking prices at $2,217 per month. Evictions may be in decline, but private landlords in 2017 filed to toss people from their homes 176,590 times. The City has not built publicly owned housing in decades, nor has it been able to do much to quell rental increases.

Housing should be at the will of the tenant, but generations worth of campaign contributions and lobbying made it at the will of landlords. While that’s thankfully changed with some excellent new rent laws coming from Albany, quality housing in the City of New York is still lacking. We need to do more at every level of government.

I realized that in the month it took my wife and I to find a new apartment. We were lucky in that we had people to call for advice, but even then our prospects of staying in our apartment were impossible. Despite both of us working steady jobs, there was no way we could afford to buy the apartment where we had already laid out what our daughter’s room would look like.

The time I’ve spent in government has pushed the ball forward in securing better housing that’s affordable for those who need it the most. But it’s going to take a generation to undo the hold that big real estate put on New York City. Which is why we have to capitalize on this moment in which the City and the State legislatures are ready to work for tenants.

Something we must expand are community land trusts, which empowers a neighborhood to chart its own future. Last year, the Council began a citywide Community Land Trust pilot program that supported dozens of Land Trust projects throughout the City. The entire borough of Queens only received one project. We must also start conversations around upzoning commercial strips to allow more residential units, because too many small businesses are shutting down and too many families are struggling under the current zoning. And we have to get creative about underused City property to create deeply affordable units for the people in our neighborhoods who are most at-risk of getting pushed out. Other cities around the world, like Vienna and Singapore, have proven models of social housing that the City of New York should be able to duplicate.

My tumultuous childhood made me grateful for every morning I wake up. I’ve been especially thankful for every day since Nov. 15, however, when we were blessed to find somewhere else to live. When our daughter surprised us with an early delivery on New Year’s Eve, we were able to bring her back to a safe home.

Safe and affordable housing is a human right, let’s make sure everyone has access to it.

Nick Roloson is the chief of staff for Councilmember Costa Constantinides and a candidate for Council District 22 in Western Queens.