Caring for a child with special needs requires a lot of attention. Add a second child and the work multiplies. Add living on the third floor of a building with a broken elevator, inside an apartment with a roach and rodent infestation, and it is enough to drive a tenant to protest her living conditions.

 

These are the conditions Daisy Reyes faces on a daily basis. Reyes, mother of a two-year-old and a 12-year-old who uses a wheelchair, was one of about a half dozen tenants who took to the street on Saturday, March 20, in front of the entrance of 2770-2780 Kingsbridge Terrace, a multi-building housing complex in Kingsbridge Heights, to bring attention to the tenants’ complaints.

 

The rally, entitled “Tenants Rally for Repairs and Respect,” was organized by tenant association president for Reyes’ building, Juan Nuñez, and Adolfo Abreu, candidate for the District 14 City Council seat. Abreu, whose candidacy has previously been profiled by Norwood News, sought to give voice to the affected residents who said they felt neglected by their landlord, the management office, and the super. They also called on New York State officials to cancel rent amid the ongoing pandemic.

Abreu, a long-time tenant advocate and organizer, knows and has worked with Nuñez in the past. Both are members of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), a group who, just a few days later, together with other protestors, had organized a separate rally outside the constituency office of State Assembly Speaker, Carl Heastie. There, they raised various matters of public concern to Bronxites, among them, the cancellation of rent amid the ongoing pandemic.

 

Meanwhile, speaking in Spanish to the Norwood News, Reyes said at the March 20 rally, “My rent is up to date and now, through some neighbors, we’ve heard that we’ll be without an elevator for three months.” She added, “I’ve been told by the [management] office that I can break the lease and move whenever I want.” She said the office won’t help her find another apartment, however, because “she calls 311 too much.”

 

Nuñez described the management office’s response to Reyes’ concerns as “a form of harassment.” The long-time activist and community organizer has led the tenants’ association at the location for about ten years, having taken over the role from his mother. They originally moved into the building in 2005.

 

Since then, he has seen ownership of the building change from Florida-based, LNR Property, to its current owner, Steve Finkelstein. In 2011, Crain’s New York Business reported that the 2770-2780 building complex was part of “a nearly $28 million deal to buy 10 rundown Bronx buildings.”

 

According to the State’s Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), in addition to the annual increases approved by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (NYCRGB) on rent-stabilized apartments, landlords are also allowed to raise rents when they make “building-wide improvements to systems such as boilers, windows, electrical rewiring, plumbing and roofs.”

These are classified as Major Capital Improvements (MCIs). In 2019, MCI-related rent increases were capped at 2 percent per year. However, if the cost of an improvement exceeds 2 percent, the landlord is allowed to phase in the required rent increases over a period of years until the entire cost of the improvement is recouped. As reported by Norwood News, it is not the first time tenants have challenged such increases.

 

In an interview with Norwood News, Nuñez explained the cause of contention with the current landlord. “In 2018, MCIs were approved [for the landlord] and that’s when we started fighting back,” he said. “The repairs [and] improvements were terrible. We ended up with worse conditions.”

 

Finkelstein, the landlord and president of Finkelstein Timberger East Real Estate, disputes the claims made by Nuñez and other residents. In a phone interview with the Norwood News, he describes a different situation pertaining to the approved MCIs at the 2770-2780 housing complex. “I just feel like we want to run the best buildings we can run,” Finkelstein said. “I’ve gotten a lot of criticism about it [MCIs], but to me, I just want my buildings [to be] nicer than most people’s, and our rents are all 100 percent affordable.”

 

As for offering Reyes the option of breaking her lease without penalty, he does not see any issue with it. “What we did say to the tenant [is] that if they want to break the lease, we won’t hold them to it,” he said. As for her two special needs children he said, “They’re disabled; we got to help her. So, we’re trying to find an apartment on the first floor that’ll work for them in one of our other buildings.”

Meanwhile, Abreu sees the current owner’s practices as part of a pattern of abuse in his portfolio of Bronx buildings, and said he wanted to help the tenants get their complaints resolved. “This current landlord, Steven Finkelstein, is one of the worst evictors in the Bronx,” Abreu said. In 2019, Finkelstein was listed as the eighth worst evictor on one citywide compiled list of worst evictors. Abreu added, “[I’m] lending my voice to support Juan [Nuñez] and their organizing struggle to remove the MCI, [and] improve the living conditions in their building.”

 

Meanwhile, Reyes did not mince her words when asked what she most wanted the public to know about her plight. “In this building … there is no respect for the tenant. It doesn’t matter if you owe [rent] or don’t owe,” she said. “We are alone and without help. We are filled with a plague. We are accompanied with a plague and filth.”

 

Editor’s Note: The print version and an earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed certain quotes from Mr Nuñez to Mr Abreu. For this, we apologize.