Metropolitan Council on Housing

The Metropolitan Council on Housing (also referred to as Met Council) is a tenant rights organization in New York City founded in 1959.[1] As the oldest and largest tenants' organization in the city,"[2][3] it has focused on issues including rent regulation and affordable public housing.[4]

Metropolitan Council on Housing

Abbreviation	Met Council
Formation	1959
Type	501(c) organization
Legal status	Active
Headquarters	New York City
Region served	New York City
Executive Director	Ava Farkas

Founding

The Met Council came together in 1959 as a coalition of twenty tenant councils.[5] The initial founders of the Met Council included Jane Benedict, who had been involved with her neighborhood housing organization, Yorkville Save Our Homes Committee. In response to a need for low-cost, integrated public housing, the Committee organized in their own neighborhood and then merged with other neighborhood-based tenant organizations to form the Metropolitan Council on Housing.[4]

Diversity in early leadership

The housing movement in New York City was noted in this era for the prevalence of women in leadership, including at the Met Council;[6] in addition to Jane Benedict, other founders included Esther T. Rand[7] and Frances Goldin,[1] and other women in leadership roles early in the organization's existence included Mrs. Juan Sanchez[8] and Marie Runyon.[1] Leadership was also integrated at the Council's founding; Brooklyn Congress of Racial Equality Director and later congressman Major Owens noted that he had learned much from his organizing work with Met Council.[1]

Founder Jane Benedict continued to work for forty years in various capacities with the Met Council; she fought for broader implementation of rent control and rent stabilization, and for the preservation of low income housing units.[9]

Location

The initial headquarters of the Met Council were at 2050 2nd Avenue, New York.[8] Council offices later moved to 339 Lafayette Street, also known as the Peace Pentagon.[10][11]

Tenant Organizing Work

1950s

Early work by the newly-formed Met Council included a 1959 campaign to remove Robert Moses from his position with the Committee on Slum Clearance. They distributed 100,000 leaflets detailing Moses' failure to appropriately administer the Title 1 program.[8]

1960s

Work against slum clearance continued into the following decade and included publication of the 1964 report, A Citizen's Survey of Available Land, which detailed space in New York City available for the construction of low-rent housing without clearing existing housing.[12] Met Council put pressure on the city to take ownership of abandoned buildings, rather than just knock them down.[1]

Throughout the 1960s, the Met Council lobbied to keep rent increases low on rent controlled units. This work included the publication of a 1961 report, The Harmful Effects of a Rent Increase, which detailed how increased rents could in fact increase vacancy rates as a result of increased cohabitation, while current rent controlled units provided landlords with a good return on their investment. This came in the face of lobbies from real estate interests for a 15 percent increase on the cost of rent controlled units.[13] They continued to campaign in 1963 for more low-rent housing, instead of rent increases, as a solution to housing shortages in New York City.[5] In 1968, they published The Case for Overall Rent Control.[14] Work of the Met Council during this era was noted for its efforts to ensure low-cost housing for minority groups.[12]

1970s

Met Council's work in the 1970s also included support of squatter-led actions through Operation Move-In, which continued the Council's earlier work against slum clearance and in advocacy for rehabilitation of abandoned buildings.[1] It then took part, alongside representatives from the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords, and I Wor Kuen, in hosting a Peoples' Court Housing Crimes Trial, which famously put the city on trial for the affordable housing crisis, with representatives from each organization presenting witness testimonials.[1][15][16][17] This action was noted for its use of performative aspects of protest, and the way it successfully attracted media attention.[18]

This work on the Housing Crimes Trial showcased general improvements in the Metropolitan Council on Housing's use of media in its organizing work; the Council began to also hold workshops for tenant organizations on how to garner publicity and present their concerns in the media, and published Techniques and Devices to Get Your Press Release into Print.[19]

After Mayor Lindsay and Governor Rockefeller enacted a 1971 law that put rent regulation under state control and would remove apartments from rent control as tenants moved out of them, the Met Council issued a call for widespread rent strikes and hosted workshops for tenants on how they could organize rent strikes in their own buildings.[20] Jane Benedict and the Met Council had fought this move, and its subsequent management of rent controlled units through a computer system that was designed to manage rent increases; they called instead for Federal rent control legislation that would have a national scope and broader tenant protections.[21]

In 1979, in the face of tenants losing apartments because of landlords who wished to enforce roommate occupancy violations, the Met Council spoke up about the need for rent laws to change along with changing living customs in New York City.[22]

1980s

Metropolitan Council on Housing joined with other local organizations, including New York Public Interest Group and the Sierra Club, in 1985 to form the New York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning, specifically to target lead poisoning but more broadly to tackle problems at the intersection of environmental issues and population health.[23]

In 1988, the organization's Co-Chairwoman, Susan Radosh, spoke up against Governor Mario Cuomo's proposal to combine rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments into a single regulation system.[24]

2010s

After four decades of work the Metropolitan Council on Housing needed to shift some of its campaigning in response to new issues in New York City's affordable rental landscape, including organizing against rezoning that would impact low cost housing availability. However, the Council's main focus has remained supporting tenant organizations.[25]

The Council is a partner in the Real Rent Reform Campaign.[26][27][28] In 2016, Ava Farkas, Executive Director of the Met Council,[29] spoke out against New York City's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing policies rolled out by Mayor Bill de Blasio, linking this policy to increases in gentrification in New York City.[30]

The Council currently provides advice to tenants on their legal rights through online resources, a telephone hotline,[31] a walk-in clinic,[32] and a free, bilingual newspaper,Tenant/Inquilino.[33] It also provides data related to tenant practices and behavior in New York City.[34]

2020s

During the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City, the Council joined a group called Housing Justice for All, which included various organizations and tenant organizers. The group called for an eviction moratorium in New York,[35] and they helped train tenants who wanted to organize rent strikes.[36] On March 20, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a 90-day moratorium on evictions.[35]

Other Organizing Work

Early activism of the Metropolitan Council on Housing was noted for its intersectionality; in the 1960s it advocated for an end to the Vietnam War, and leadership was invited to testify at a 1970 state commission hearing on women's rights.[1]

References

1. Gold, Roberta (2009). "'I Had Not Seen Women like That Before': Intergenerational Feminism in New York City's Tenant Movement". Feminist Studies. 35 (2): 387–415. JSTOR 40607974. ProQuest 89186279.
2. Mishler, Paul (1988). "Review of The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984". Science & Society. 52 (4): 493–495. JSTOR 40402921.
3. Scherer, Andrew (1 January 1995). "Is there Life after Abandonment? The Key Role of New York City's in Rem Housing in Establishing an Entitlement to Decent, Affordable Housing". New York University Review of Law & Social Change. 13 (4): 953–974.
4. Fox, Margalit (24 June 2005). "Jane Benedict, 93, Unionist and Public Housing Advocate, Dies". The New York Times.
5. Levenson, Richard L. (1 June 1963). "Views on Rent Control; Shortage of Low-Rent Housing Controls as Cause of Slums Catering to Majority Blow to Pensioners Demand Said to Exceed Supply Politics Behind Controls Total Decontrol Wanted Subsidy to Owners Seen HENRY RUDIN. New York, May 29, 1963. ARNOLD S. GREENSPAN. Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., May 29, 1963. JOSEPH SCHLESINGER. New York, May 29, 1963. ESTHER T. RAND. New York, May 29, 1963. MAX G. KOENIG, Executive Secretary, Building Industry League, Inc.New York, May 29, 1963". The New York Times. ProQuest 116452575.
6. Lawson, Ronald; Barton, Stephen E. (December 1980). "Sex Roles in Social Movements: A Case Study of the Tenant Movement in New York City" (PDF). Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. 6 (2): 230–247. doi:10.1086/493794. JSTOR 3173924.
7. "Obituary 3 -- No Title". New York Times. 26 July 1981. p. 28. ProQuest 121758184.
8. "OUST-MOSES DRIVE ON; Citizen Housing Group Asks Mayor to Drop Slum Chief". The New York Times. 17 October 1959. ProQuest 114872837.
9. "GALLERY: Old Soldiers' New Haunts Jane Benedict, 88 40 Years of Housing Help Alan Berkman, 54 Rebel With a New Cause Lewis Cole, 53 Became What He Beheld Storme DeLarverie, 79 Taking a Stand Florynce Kennedy, 84 'Out of the Streets, Into the Suites' David Rothenberg, 66 From Politics to P.R.". New York Times. 2 April 2000. p. CY15. ProQuest 91710077.
10. Moynihan, Colin (4 September 2007). "Structural Flaws Found in a Building That's Known as the Peace Pentagon". The New York Times. ProQuest 848065351.
11. Kane, Alex (4 June 2009). "'Peace Pentagon' Faces Uncertain Future". The Indypendent.
12. "Citizen Participation in Urban Renewal". Columbia Law Review. 66 (3): 485–607. March 1966. doi:10.2307/1120961. JSTOR 1120961.
13. "Rentals Pay Good Yield Here, Report by Tenants' Group Says". New York Times. 28 February 1961. p. 38. ProQuest 115378814.
14. "The New York Rent Stabilization Law of 1969". Columbia Law Review. 70 (1): 156–177. January 1970. doi:10.2307/1121210. JSTOR 1121210.
15. Watts, Rob (2019). Criminalizing Dissent: The Liberal State and the Problem of Legitimacy. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-03956-7.
16. Tutor Anton, Aritz (22 January 2019). "Vasudevan, Alexander (2017). The Autonomous City: A History of Urban Squatting". Documents d'Anàlisi Geogràfica. 65 (1): 199–201. doi:10.5565/rev/dag.538.
17. Gold, Roberta (2014). "'Territorio Libre': Upheaval in the Vietnam War Era". When Tenants Claimed the City. 1. University of Illinois Press. pp. 169–210. doi:10.5406/illinois/9780252038181.003.0007. ISBN 978-0-252-03818-1.
18. Kaun, Anne (2015). "'This Space Belongs to Us!': Protest Spaces in Times of Accelerating Capitalism". In Dencik, Lina; Leistert, Oliver (eds.). Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest: Between Control and Emancipation. Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 89–106. ISBN 978-1-78348-335-8.
19. Kaun, Anne (21 April 2016). "'Our time to act has come': desynchronization, social media time and protest movements". Media, Culture & Society. 39 (4): 469–486. doi:10.1177/0163443716646178. S2CID 147615850.
20. Schumach, Murray (13 June 1971). "Rent Strikes Here Are Urged As Means of Reviving Controls". New York Times. ProQuest 119307717.
21. Shipler, David K. (16 October 1971). "Tenant's Group Charts Fight Against City Rent Control Law". New York Times. p. 11. ProQuest 119241787.
22. Stackel, Leslie N. (2 December 1979). "Illegal Tenants Fought; Illegal Tenants Are Drawing Lawsuits". The New York Times. ProQuest 123902158.
23. Nicholson, Lisa M.; Schwirian, Kent P.; Schwirian, Patricia M. (2010). "Childhood Lead Poisoning Laws in New York City: Environment, Politics and Social Action". Children, Youth and Environments. 20 (1): 178–199. JSTOR 10.7721/chilyoutenvi.20.1.0178.
24. Radosh, Susan (12 February 1988). "Not All Tenants Praise Cuomo Proposals on Rent Regulation". The New York Times. ProQuest 110600337.
25. Mironova, Oksana (September 2019). "Defensive and expansionist struggles for housing justice: 120 years of community rights in New York City". Radical Housing Journal. 1 (2): 137–152.
26. "About R3". Retrieved 2019-11-16.
27. "real rent reform campaign". Town & Village. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
28. staff/elizabeth-kim (2019-05-31). "AOC Gives NY Rent Reform A Boost At Bronx Town Hall: 'We All Have A Right To Dignified Housing'". Gothamist. Archived from the original on 2019-11-16. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
29. "Our Staff & Board". Met Council on Housing. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
30. Stein, Samuel (13 December 2017). "Progress for whom, toward what? Progressive politics and New York City's Mandatory Inclusionary Housing". Journal of Urban Affairs. 40 (6): 770–781. doi:10.1080/07352166.2017.1403854. S2CID 158961520.
31. "Tenants' Rights Telephone Hotline". Met Council on Housing. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
32. "Weekly Tenants' Rights Walk-In Clinic". Met Council on Housing. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
33. "The Tenant's Voice: Indy Readers Fight Back". Retrieved 2019-11-16.
34. Durkin, Kathy (2018-05-03). "New York tenants shut down rent board meeting". Workers World. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
35. Spivack, Caroline (2020-03-12). "New York lawmakers move to ban evictions during the coronavirus outbreak". Curbed NY. Retrieved 2020-04-13.
36. Spivack, Caroline (2020-04-03). "Do I pay rent or do I have money to live?". Curbed NY. Retrieved 2020-04-13.