Give me shelter
Piderit, John J.
efforts that are urgently needed to rebuild our economy, our businesses, and our cities. Getting our priorities straight means recognizing what we can and cannot afford. We cannot afford the toll...
...C's case, HPD chose either to ignore or to declare void the valid complaints of the tenants...
...In today's modem cities, the price mechanism and the adversarial legal process guarantee that justice will not be served...
...Roy has inherited his youthful mother's instinct for larceny...
...In deciding whether to designate a 7A administrator, the judge must determine whether apartment con- ditions are hazardous to human health and safety, that is, the situation is sufficiently serious to warrant a direct intrusion into an owner's control of his or her property...
...Bening would steal the movie but for the formidable presence ofAnjelica Huston, who wears her own, more harrowing desperation...
...All rent revenues must be used to repair and maintain the building, not to pay off the mortgage or taxes...
...We cannot afford the toll that poverty is taking on our families, the effects of bad schools, bad housing, poor nutrition and health care, lack of jobs, low pay and little opportunity at what jobs are offered, denial of funds for treatment of drug addiction and other remedial programs, and all the other conditions that impact most directly on the poorest but are rapidly spreading upward through the working and middle classes...
...in this way, livable and affordable housing is made available to working families...
...Roy is resentful and antagonistic toward Lilly's attempts to reclaim a measure of affection...
...An elderly person, whose aparlment is rent controlled, has less ability to move...
...Or is it just Annette Bening who does ~w" j that...
...This is especially true if the landlord suspects that the aggrieved petitioner is likely to find support among other tenants in the building...
...The primary respon- sibility of a 7A administrator is to insure that all serious code violations are eliminated...
...One-third of the tenants qualify for Section 8 housing supplements (under this federal subsidy program, severely curtailed since the Reagan administration, tenants pay a fixed percentage, 33 percent, of their monthly income for rent, even if their wages are modest...
...As such, it tells ~us something significant about housing structures in our society...
...Where HPD can cooperate with landlords, it should...
...Instinctively, one's empathy is with the rejected mother trying to atone for her sins and reclaim her offspring...
...Unless the plaintiff and respondent have legal counsel of approximately equal talent and loyalty to their clients, the would-be plaintiffs (the poor) will, on average, fare poorly in a court of law...
...There are few other places of refuge...
...JOHN J. PIDERIT, S.J., was for many years the president of a housing corporation in the Bronx...
...Despite the good intentions of individuals, the system itself is unfair and unjust...
...Once the costs of inaction are seen, it becomes instantly clear that we can afford to invest in opportunity, productivity, and fairness...
...The following story of one group of tenants in a building located in the Fordhum-Bedford section of the Bronx (the North Bronx, not the much maligned South Bronx), New York, reveals the difficulties that plague poor and low-income tenants who live in urban areas, especially an area where real estate speculation is rife...
...Ira city cannot offer sufficient choice in housing to its dwellers, or cannot provide quality legal counsel for those with legitimate housing grievances, the system itself is not structurally just...
...Bening is a brave actress, and she almost gives depravity a good name...
...SCREEN CALIFORNIA DREAMING 'GRIFTERS,' 'L.A...
...Facing on distinguished St...
...Even if the landlord does not provide hot water, they would rather fight than flee...
...But HPD should act decisively when landlords abuse tenants...
...In a place like New York City, the problem is particularly acute because the vacancy rate is only 2 percent...
...It is the safest of predictions: We will pay now, or we will pay later, at a far higher cost in dollars and in human lives...
...In many cases, a middle-class family needs only to threaten legal action in order to get results from a landlord...
...GIVE ME SHELTER JOHN J. PIDERIT PROFITS & CODE VIOLATIONS IN THE BRONX he average homeowner considers hot water an amenity over which she has complete control...
...The reason is that safe housing and good public schools in poor neighborhoods are in short supply...
...My infor- mation about the saga of its residents comes from an officer of its tenants' association, a person who has also been active in promoting decent housing in the area...
...Her seduction of a weak-willed landlord is a little piece of comic perfection, as indeed is her entire giggling, bouncing, ever-eager presence...
...In too many instances, city, state, and federal housing agencies, and occasionally the court system itself, do not mediate claims fairly...
...Bening plays the wanton Myra, a con artist of limited range but unyielding ambition...
...the rising burden of new jails, prisons, prosecutors, judges...
...The building's thirty apartments are occupied largely by working- class families and are predominantly Puerto Rican...
...The poor, however, cannot exercise this type of leverage...
...The poor and the working class are more likely to live in rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments...
...Their threat to sue is not credible, either because they cannot afford a quality lawyer or because the lawyers provided to the poor through various city organizations are also directed to coop- erate with landlords...
...256: Commonweal This story is all the more poignant because the tenants have been organized for ten years working to secure reasonable housing conditions...
...He makes a modest living bilking strangers of petty cash, or outwitting other small-time gamblers...
...In short, the poor are not only financially restricted but also lack legal resources...
...In addition to their limited options for housing, the poor and working classes do not have recourse to effective legal counsel when a dispute arises...
...Under circumstances of poverty and inadequate supply, justice can only be achieved if everyone---landlords, tenants, and lawyers--agrees to certain common standards or values...
...Even if it sells for only $550,000, he will have secured a gross rate of return of 150 percent over three years...
...If only in our own interest, we cannot afford to write off generations of young people to poverty, hopelessness, drugs, and crime...
...A combination of progressive tax reform and cuts in military spending can provide the resources needed to start the job, and the return on investment that will follow out of economic recovery will more than suffice to sustain the effort...
...If the hot water heater does not work, she gets it repaired immediately...
...The president of the tenants' association is a black mother in her thirties with four children...
...Grifters concerns the precarious schemes of Huston, her son Roy, played by John Cusack, and Bening, as Cusack's calculating love interest...
...The pool of available buildings is smaller for the poor than for the middle and upper classes...
...In New York City, HPD has an interest in working construc- tively with landlords, since landlords make housing available to residents whom the HPD serves...
...An economist, he is currently corporate vice-president at Marquette University in Milwaukee...
...In their appeal for a 7A administrator, the Morris Avenue tenants' organization contacted the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), New York City's housing put the building on the market for $650,000...
...She worked for the Northwest Bronx Coalition, with which I have had a close work- ing relationship...
...Such problems are less likely to arise in apartment buildings occupied by middle-class and upper middle-class tenants, unless the buildings are rent controlled or stabilized...
...James Park and opposite the Jerome Avenue elevated train, the building on Morris Avenue is the only multifamily dwelling on a block of row houses...
...Indeed, she can move quickly if she is really perturbed at the management...
...STORY'& 'MALL' irector Stephen Frears's The Grifters is a magi~,~ nificent slice of sleaze...
...Instead, in Mr...
...The tenants in those buildings have a choice, which exerts pressure on the land- lord to maintain a building so that people are willing to rent...
...Someone who rents an apartment and is without hot water, how- ever, has two problems: the lack of hot water and the need to deal with an intermediary, the landlord, who may not be concerned about the provision of hot water, or any number of other amenities...
...A person with financial means can move if she dislikes the service in her building...
...In 1984 the building had so many violations of city housing codes that the tenants requested that a 7A administrator (the name derives from the pertinent code in housing law) be appointed to oversee the building...
...We cannot afford the consequences: burgeoning costs for treatment of preventable health problems...
...Only as the film reaches its chilling climax does it become apparent how sound her son's suspicions were...
...But, provided she has adequate resources, she too can move...
...Happenstance brings him and his estranged mother Lilly together again when she arrives in Southern California to work the local race track for her Mafia bosses...
...C to comply, even if previously he had a reputation for being a "reasonable" landlord...
...Those needs often dictate relocating to a building with Section 8 subsidies (harder than ever to procure), one that is close to public transportation for work and shopping...
...In the end, it is always real people who suffer the consequences...
...HPD had a responsibility to force Mr...
...It will surely make you D smile...
...Similarly, the owner of a condominium or cooperative expects any inter- ruptions in the provision of hot water to be brief and infrequent...
...They are not an aimless and disparate group...
...She may not like paying the rent in the new apartment building, but she can obtain reasonable housing...
...business failures rising out of the shrinking of the average customer's disposable income, the impact of crime, the absence of trained or trainable workers, the effects of poor or no maintenance on roads, highways, bridges, and other public facilities, the indispensable foundation of a flour- ishing commerce...
...When an urban family of moderate means finds a safe building and a good school, they have unearthed pearls of great price...
...r. C's case is illustrative of a widespread gen- eral pattern that prevails in many U.S...
...the vice-president is a Puerto Rican gentleman in his fifties...
...And if one is restricted to nonluxury rental housing, the vacancy rate is close to 0 percent...
...19 April 1991:259...
...Some of the movie's most electric scenes take place early on as Huston and Cusack spar mercilessly, using every immediate grievance to avenge old and abiding injuries...
...Myra has the frank sexuality of a barnyard animal, and ingratiates herself with the favor of sex the way most people use a smile...
...For them, to leave one building means that they will have to find another that suits their needs...
...A few families are on welfare...
...The poor and working class will continue to face serious obsta- cles in procuring adequate housing...
Vol. 118 • April 1991 • No. 8
