From: Jeff Kahana, Queens
Your article on rent control in New York ["Rent Asunder," by Alex Williams,
June 17] points to the illogic of a system that neither protects the poor
nor serves to promote efficiency and improvement in the real-estate market.
It would be much wiser if the state provided vouchers for those with incomes
below a certain level that could be used to defray the costs of renting.
Under the current system, rent control is a selective tax on property
owners, one that progressive New Yorkers may favor in principle but is
patently unfair and breeds resentment and hostility among neighbors. New
York should follow the example of Massachusetts, which eliminated rent
control about eight years ago.
From: Jane Robinson, Manhattan
Alex Williams unfairly implies that all rent-stabilized tenants are wealthy,
selfish system abusers with second homes. In fact, many of us are in
unrenovated studios and one-bedrooms with decrepit, wood-rotted windows,
intermittent hot water, and poorly lit hallways. We may have affordable
rents, but we have lousy services.
From: Jason Andra, Manhattan
Rent control and rent stabilization are often demonized for artificially
inflating New York real-estate prices, yet the real problem is with
landlords. Landlords insist they need high rents to make up for being forced
to keep some rents abnormally low, and yet, even without rent control,
landlords would continue to charge extremely high prices for spaces barely
worth anything.
From: Katie Bowen-Kosh, Manhattan
I am a shareholder in a Washington Heights co-op, and many of my neighbors
living in apartments identical to mine are protected by rent control. I have
never felt anything but neighborly toward them, and there is no feeling in
the buildings of "us vs. them." This leads me to believe that the problem
lies with the new breed of spoiled and overindulged owners and renters, such
as the ones interviewed in Alex Williams's article.
From: Jeffrey Gross, Brooklyn
I couldn't help being amused by one rent-controlled tenant's contention
("Without rent control, it would be a city of bland, boring rich people")
that being impecunious somehow makes one interesting. Really, what could be
less interesting than the lockstep "nonconformity" of New York's pseudo-boho
types?
From: Miriam Sarzin, Manhattan
How irresponsible of you to incite people to blame their neighbors for their
landlords' greed. Most of the rent-stabilized and rent-controlled tenants
where I live are retired persons living on fixed incomes, and many of them
are active in local issues. It is these old-timers, not the self-absorbed
newcomers obsessed with having a "hot" address, who make a neighborhood a
community.
From: Debra Cardona, Manhattan
The first person to agree to pay $6,000 a month for an apartment worth only
$800 was a fool. If no one had ever agreed to pay these inflated prices in
the first place, no landlord would ever have charged so much. Resentment and
envy are getting in the way of the real issue. Rent-stabilized tenants are
not the problem. It is the landlords, who have wanted to do away with all
rent regulations so that they can be free to charge whatever they wish.
From: Larissa Kebuz, Maplewood, N.J.
Oh, how my heart bled for all those beleaguered apartment-dwellers who
weren't lucky enough to fall into a rent-control situation. And you really
wrenched my heart when you wrote about that poor family that had to suffer
the horrible indignity of moving to (of all places) New Jersey!
From: Norma Hutman, Oneonta, N.Y.
For those hoping their elderly neighbors with rent-controlled apartments
might die: My aunt moved into such a situation when widowed in 1961, her
living room commanding a view of the park and swallowing two nine-by-twelve
rugs. She was paying less than $300 a month when she died 40 years later at
103.
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