DOWNTOWN
BROOKLYN — The Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), based
in Brooklyn, plans to rally at Albee Square Mall at 4 p.m. today, Oct. 27, to
encourage the conversion of vacant condos in Brooklyn and elsewhere for use by
low-income residents.

The
organization is joining with the Right to the City (RTTC), a
coalition of New York City community organizations**, and several elected
officials — Council Members Melissa Mark Viverito, Leticia James and Maria del
Carmen Arroyo and Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries — at a press conference to
release preliminary data from a count of vacant condominiums in the city.

The
research, which found 600 buildings with vacant condos in the city, is the
result of a citywide canvass of 290 census tracts in nine community districts
conducted by RTTC members over the
last three months.

The groups
will also launch a new campaign urging the city to convert these vacant condos
into deeply and permanently affordable housing for low-income New Yorkers. RTTC members will call attention to the
proliferation of vacant luxury condos and stalled construction sites in
low-income neighborhoods across the city at a time when homeless rates are the
highest in decades and low-income housing is increasingly unavailable.

They say
the city has lost more than 200,000 apartments that were affordable to
low-income renters during the last eight years. Consequently, as luxury units
sit vacant, the need for affordable housing is more acute than ever.

City
Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation
and Development have already allocated $20 million to convert some condos into
moderate-income housing through the Housing Asset Renewal program (HARP). RTTC members say that HARP will not do
enough to ease the housing crisis facing low-income New Yorkers because it will
not create housing that is permanently or truly affordable for low-income
people.

The Albee Square rally
site is at 286 Flatbush Ave.
Ext., corner of Fleet Street on the west side of Flatbush Avenue Extension in
Downtown Brooklyn.

**Including Make the Road
New York