Make the Road New York seeks to forge alliances between New York City communities that – while diverse – face shared hardships and injustices. All of the communities in which we work are predominantly populated by poor and working class Latinos and African Americans, including many immigrants. MRNY’s 5,000+ members come from over 20 different countries and have a wide range of experiences and backgrounds.
MRNY has centers in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Elmhurst, Queens, and Port Richmond, Staten Island, and our membership also draws from the surrounding neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ridgewood, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, and Sunnyside. Our advocacy and litigation work affect millions of other low-income and immigrant New Yorkers on the citywide level and increasingly at the state level.
Bushwick, Brooklyn
The half-million-plus residents of Bushwick, Brooklyn are among the poorest in the City. The average per capita income is $11,871 – less than half the City average. Fifty-four percent of Bushwick households earn less than $33,000; another 27% earn less than $16,000. Bushwick is also an immigrant neighborhood: 40% of households are made up of foreign-born immigrants, three quarters of whom are from Latin America. According to the most recent Census, only eight percent of residents 25 and older in Bushwick have graduated from college, while 50% never graduated from high school.
Over 86% of Bushwick residents are renters – and nearly a quarter of Bushwick households spend more than 50% of their income on rent. As gentrification spreads east from Williamsburg, MRNY members report an upsurge in harassment by landlords, neglect of the housing stock, demands for illegal rent increases, and fraudulent eviction proceedings to force tenants from their rent stabilized apartments. Bushwick’s rate of serious housing code violations is among the highest in the city and 72% higher than the next highest neighborhood.
Bushwick is also home to a public health crisis. The City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene ranks Bushwick below average on virtually every health indicator, as compared to the 41 other City neighborhoods. The asthma rate in Bushwick is four times the City average, exacerbated by the epidemic of asthma triggers in residential housing. Obesity, heart disease, and diabetes are rampant. Bushwick is located in the heart of NYC’s so-called “lead belt,” and is consistently reported to have the greatest incidence of childhood lead poisoning in the city. The neighborhood also has high levels of rodent infestation and the second-lowest amount of park space of any NYC neighborhood.
The job picture in Bushwick is troubling as well. Garment factory jobs have largely fled the neighborhood for other countries; but sweatshop conditions predominate in the industries that remain. Restaurants, retail, small-scale construction, and food wholesalers employ large portions of MRNY’s membership. More often than not, these employers violate the law by paying sub-minimum wage or by forcing employees to work as many as seventy to eighty hours per week without proper overtime pay. Employees who complain are routinely threatened or simply fired on the spot.
Poverty in Western Queens is on the rise, and a full 20% of families are considered poor, even by national government standards. As in Bushwick, problems of noncompliance with basic minimum wage and overtime laws are the norm, not the exception. There is also a growing trend of rampant abuse by employment agencies.
Western Queens has been an epicenter of the growing mortgage foreclosure crisis, which hits renters being evicted from foreclosed buildings and immigrant residents who invested their life savings to buy a home. In Elmhurst/Corona, 77% of residents rent – typically in buildings not covered by rent stabilization protections. In another disturbing trend, private equity firms, such as Vantage Properties, are buying Queens’ stock of rent-stabilized housing then mounting aggressive campaigns to force long-term residents from their homes to re-let apartments at illegally high rents. Within the 2,100 apartments housed in its Queens properties, Vantage initiated nearly one thousand eviction proceedings during the first five months of 2008 alone.
Health access is another critical issue for residents. Western Queens has the highest percentage of adults without health insurance of any NYC region. One third of adults in Western Queens lack a primary health care provider, and women in Western Queens are less likely to get regular pap tests than women in the rest of Queens or New York City as a whole.
In contrast, the small enclave of Port Richmond on Staten Island’s North Shore is home to the City’s fastest growing immigrant population. Between the 1990 and 2000 census, Port Richmond’s Latino population grew by an incredible 87%, compared to an 18% increase in the Island’s population as a whole, and since 2000, the Island’s Asian and Latino populations have both increased by more than thirty-three percent. MRNY members in Port Richmond typically speak little English and have no familiarity with legal protections or benefits to which they are entitled. Neighborhood incomes average below $19,000 for a family of three.
Like those in Elmhurst and Bushwick, the poor and immigrant residents of Port Richmond face exploitive labor conditions, often in poorly regulated sectors, and also have minimal access to government services and low levels of educational attainment. Half of North Shore residents rent and the percentage of renters in Port Richmond is even higher. MRNY members often live in illegal basement apartments without the protection of rent stabilization.
Day labor work in construction is typical of Port Richmond residents, who get picked up by contractors for jobs in New Jersey or Long Island. The industry is notorious for nonpayment of wages, a trend likely to accelerate as construction slows and employers attempt to cut costs. MRNY’s Port Richmond members confirm the trend noted by the Centers for Disease Control: foreign-born Latino workers face disproportionate and increasing rates of work-related injury, particularly among those working in construction. Employers intimidate workers, especially undocumented workers, from securing the workers’ compensation benefits to which they are entitled, leaving immigrant families with staggering hospital bills and placing increasing strain on public hospitals.
