Research Memo

My group and I will be presenting high rent as our topic of discussion for community problems. It is a known fact that New York  City’s rent is extremely high. Rent throughout the 5 boroughs generally fluctuates, but the average price for a one bedroom in NYC is typically $2000. Each one of my group members researched different aspects of high rent, such as gentrification or where all of this extra money we pay for rent is even going.  I researched ways young adults can budget their money to afford the high rented apartments in NYC. However, budgeting isn’t as easy as it seems.

According to my research, one way to budget your money as someone finding it hard to live in NYC is the 50-20-30 rule. The 50-20-3o rule is a budgeting tool designed to help people budget their weekly, bi-weekly, monthly etc income. 50% of your income goes to your needs, which is considered to be your rent, transportation and food. 20% goes to your savings. So this category includes your student loans, debts, 401k, IRA payments, and general savings. The remaining 30% would go to your wants. This can be new shoes, your phone bill, etc.

However, this might not be ideal for a young adult from the ages of 20 to 26. However, this may vary because everyone’s lives is different. 20% isn’t nearly enough to put into savings with NYC and its high living expenses. Also, it might be hard to save even 20% with the extreme rent prices. According to my article, people generally recommend saving 10% to 15% to put away that extra money for the rent. As I previously stated, this might not work for everyone.

For this reason, I believe the 50-20-30 rule should be 60-20-20 for people living in NYC, especially young adults. I think it is a good idea to balance  your savings and spendings on wants. Overall, I think the 50-20-30 rule is a great template to budget your money. This would be a great way to  help young adults or anyone with troubling rent prices in New York City.

Dear Mayor De Blasio,

 

First and foremost, we would like to say thank you for taking time off from your schedule to listen to what we have to say. As concerned citizens of New York City, one of the many issues and I can’t stress this enough is HIGH RENT. As citizens of New York City, rent prices are extremely ridiculous. We can’t get a decent apartment for an affordable price and the apartments that are affordable are not sanitary or big enough for families. A lot of these buildings are heavy populated with rodents such as rats, mice and roaches. Not to mention that the ceiling is broken, there’s no heat or any hot water. All of these factors included, and we still have to pay close to $2000 in rent and that’s just Queens, which is the cheaper price. In other boroughs like Brooklyn and Manhattan the same apartment goes for $2500 which is the Brooklyn and the Manhattan which is completely a different story: rent is already over $3000. This is Ludicrous. For a one-bedroom apartment it’s $2100 and for a two bedroom it’s $2500. The reason why this is an issue is because citizens aren’t paid enough to keep up with the rapid increase each year. I earn $15 an hour and after my check 25% goes to taxes. Also, did you know that depending on your lease your rent increases by a certain percent. For one year leases your rent will increase by 1.5% while two year leases increase by 2.5%, that means that each year or two that rent goes up more and more and moving is a hassle because it’s nearly impossible to find a much more affordable apartment with enough space to hold our families. When my parents first came here from Haiti, the rent in our apartment was $500. Now it’s 2100. Some families double up in a small apartment, meaning that there’s 3-4 people sleeping on one bed. Some families work more than one job just so that they can pay rent and not to mention have enough money to pay bills. Statistics show that rent rates are increasing twice as fast as the income of workers. In other words, the rent rates are increasing so fast that citizens aren’t able to keep up with it since their income isn’t increasing as a fast which could result in homelessness or moving to another state. Another issue that affects the rent rates is gentrification. There are areas that used to be majority African American but due to high construction costs which apparently affects the amount of Rent you pay in New York are causing them to move out the high-class citizens to move in and take over and make changes within the neighborhood. Gentrification brings a lot of social problems and discomfort to communities. Residents move into populated areas without knowing the community and then begin to make changes that other do not agree with. That is not the only problem with gentrification; it has been a constant issue which builds a lot of financial conflict within urban communities. One example is the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush.  According to other citizens it’s is dramatically gentrified. Residents shouldn’t have to leave their neighborhood just because the government feel they can “recycle” the neighborhood. Currently we are at the point where rent is almost tripled compared to the old days and it is only impacting all the communities in a negative way. We do not know what can be done to resolve this issue, but we do hope that you are able to come up with something to lessen the burden on the citizens of New York.

 

Thank you,

Sincerely the citizens of New York City.

 

Essay Orchestrated By Jay and Stanley

RENT

Hend Elwahwah

Dr. Hall

4-1-2019

 

Research memos:

 

What I have researched about my topic Rent, I had learned a lot about budgeting and gentrification and overall where does the money go? What I have found so far is Mortgage, Utilities, Insurance, Maintenance and Repairs and much more. Many of us think like where does the money go? And me myself, I used to think rent is way too high especially for what you’re getting in new york and prices differ depending where you go in new york. But for an example, we could start off with mortgage. If the landlord owns the property you’re living at he  has to pay mortgage and somewhat needs to make a little bit of profit it so he/she could make a living as well. There are pros and cons but I feel like its more cons than pros because the landlord is most definitely well off. Especially compared to low–middle class people renting out your apartments. These low–middle class people probably have a minimum wage job that cant really cover much of their needs and wants. Lets say they pay the rent thats $2,200. Thatll almost be what they make a month and they will probably only have about $200 left for their own wants. That is not okay especially for the only one bedroom — one bathroom apartment. Let alone they have to pay electrical and water bills and much more bills that rent does not cover. Its a two way sorta thing but i think sadly, the cons outweigh the pros.

 

Stanley Desir                                                                                                04//04/19

ENG 1121                                                                                          Research Memo

 

Throughout my research I learned a lot about gentrification. I learned that it’s happening all around me and in front of me in my whole community. I believe it’s one of the main catalyst in the reason why rent is rising in new york city. In my opinion, it’s government invasion. Dramatic changes are playing out across parts of urban America, making many neighborhoods hardly recognizable from a relatively short time ago. A new class of more affluent residents(Rich white people) are moving into once underinvested and predominantly-poor communities. Development has followed, typically accompanied by sharp increases in housing prices that can displace a neighborhood’s longtime residents. Here are some stats I picked up about gentrification. Nearly 20 percent of neighborhoods with lower incomes and home values have experienced gentrification since 2000, compared to only 9 percent during the 1990s.

  • Gentrification still remains rare nationally, with only 8 percent of all neighborhoods reviewed experiencing gentrification since the 2000 Census.
  • Compared to lower-income areas that failed to gentrify, gentrifying Census tracts recorded increases in the non-Hispanic white population and declines in the poverty rate.

In Nyc, As for racial and ethnic changes, the report shows that gentrifying neighborhoods saw an increase in white population, despite a citywide decrease. Gentrifying neighborhoods also saw a larger decrease in the black population through 2014 than the city as a whole. The report also compares income changes across neighborhoods. Between 1990 and 2014, average household income in gentrifying neighborhoods rose by 14 percent. By contrast, average household income in non-gentrifying neighborhoods declined by eight percent while average income remained steady in higher-income neighborhoods. The rent in New York City is too damn high—with a median rent above $3,000/month, this is an undeniable fact but the biggest increases have largely been concentrated in areas that have historically been considered lower-income to gentrification. The real estate website mined its data from 2010 to 2018, looking at more than one million listings, and found that New York City rents have increased by 31 percent in those eight years. But the biggest jumps were found in neighborhoods that are considered gentrifying: Ditmas Park, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, and Bedford-Stuyvesant all experienced rent increases of more than 40 percent, while other areas with increases of more than 35 percent include Inwood, Washington Heights, and Crown Heights.

Below is a link to a chart which has to do with statistics involving gentrification. https://communityindicators.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/2016_Rosoff_Measuring_Gentrification_NYC-1.pdf

For Thursday: Research Memos due

Hey everyone! For Tuesday, please post your research memo on OpenLab and also bring in a copy for EACH MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP.

The research memo is just 1.5-2 pages in which you summarize what you learned in your research. I’m not grading you on grammar or anything. Remember! Extra credit for groups that have interviews in their research.

For the memo please click two categories: “Community Problems” AND your group’s category

GROUPS:

  • Preventing college date rape (category: “preventing rape”)
  • Noise Pollution
  • On My Block
  • MTA: System fighters (category: “system fighters”– this is Shauntai, Ife and Josh.)
  • Living in NYC
  • Saviors of the MTA (category: “saviors” David, Pavel, Eric)
  • Homelessness