Views from the Northwest Bronx

UNHP is sharing the northwest Bronx views of neighborhood residents, community leaders, Bronx community development professionals and UNHP board members.

UNHP is sharing the northwest Bronx views of neighborhood residents, community leaders, Bronx community development professionals and UNHP board members.

Views from the Northwest Bronx is a blog series aimed at framing an inclusive and informed discussion on issues affecting the affordability and viability of Northwest Bronx neighborhoods today. While the topics addressed in the series are by no means exhaustive, the data presented and analysis offered sheds light on many of the key issues.

The use of preferential rents—negotiated rents that are less than the legal rent— has become more prominent recently as an issue for tenants, in the news and in Bronx set-up sheets for multifamily building sales. In this piece, UNHP aims to discuss how preferential rents, once considered a benefit to tenants, could undermine the financial stability of multifamily buildings and its lenders as well as threaten the tenancy of Bronx residents - 70 percent of whom are already vulnerable to displacement.

The Bronx is under construction: cranes, excavators, scaffolding, and green demolition fences are everywhere. For long-time community staffers and residents in the northwest Bronx, the building and demolition we see as we walk to work, lunch, or the train is unprecedented.

The UNHP Building Indicator Project (BIP) is a database that leverages public data to gauge distress; it currently captures demographic data, housing and building code violations, and several city liens from municipal agencies for over 62,000 properties with five units or more in all five boroughs; amounting to a staggering 6.2 million data points. Still, more information is needed to ensure distressed buildings are identified and improved.

​Judi Kende, Vice President and New York Market Leader for Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., authored this post. Enterprise creates and preserves quality affordable homes, incubates programs, and scales these solutions through policy change.

Sheila Garcia, Deputy Director at Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA), authored this post, with contributions from UNHP staff. CASA’s mission is to protect and maintain affordable and safe housing through collective action. The Bronx Coalition for a Community Vision believes rezoning and development on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx is possible without displacement, if guided by four principles: real affordable housing, real community engagement, union jobs and local hire, and strong anti-harassment and anti-displacement policies.

​“Why here? Why not in your neighborhood?” Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan or the Bronx, the anger over the opening of homeless shelters in communities is in part related to the lack of transparency from the City, questions about the equitable placement of homeless shelters, and the role of communities in the placement of shelters.

Mayor Bill de Blasio recently released a plan for tackling the rise in homelessness in New York City. While the City’s shift in approach may manage to reset expectations and encourage communities to shoulder their fair share of shelter housing, it glosses over the high concentration of homeless housing in low-income communities, especially in the northwest Bronx.