Mayor Bloomberg has announced a correction of the budget. Five hundred city workers are being laid off immediately. Up to another 1,500 could follow. Budgets will be cut across-the-board 2.5% now, with another 5% to come next year.
New York City is facing a four billion* (yes, billion) dollar budget hole.
And this is what is happening to our fellow citizens:
Evictions soar as banks foreclose on landlords during credit crisis
The staggering rise in foreclosures and home evictions across the outer boroughs has created a new group of innocent victims - renters.
A Daily News investigation shows that from Staten Island to South Jamaica, renters have been given just weeks to find new digs, while unscrupulous landlords collect rents for homes they no longer own.
"There are a lot of innocent people being hurt by the foreclosure crisis," said Vicki Been, director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University.
The center analyzed 2007 foreclosure numbers and estimated at least 38,000 people in foreclosed homes were renters.
These are people who, unlike their landlords, didn't get in over their heads by taking out loans they couldn't repay.
Housing Court calendars - especially in Queens - are clogged with eviction petitions from banks on foreclosed properties.
Alarmed by the ever-increasing number of foreclosures, court officials last spring began counting evictions - tallying 1,538 since mid-April in the outer boroughs. Manhattan only has a few.
Emphasis added by me.
And you wonder why I've called New York City landlords the scum of the earth?
Welcome to Pottersville:
These days the term "eviction" comes up frequently in Queens Housing Court. The other day, Deutsche Bank moved to evict tenants of four apartments at a foreclosed building on Astoria Blvd.
When the case was called, the occupants of three of the apartments stood up. They included two couples, two brothers and three small children.
Tenant Maria Perez, 34, told the judge she and the others weren't aware the house was in foreclosure or that Maria Inga no longer owned it.
She said they paid $1,700 rent for September to Inga, who told them she would keep their security deposits as payment for October rent.
The judge instructed them not to give Inga any more money.
Outside of court, Deutsche Bank lawyer Eileen Lin told Perez the bank had bought the house at auction and was selling it to recoup its money. To do that, they needed it to be empty.
"You're pretty much the innocent people here," Lin told them.
Perez's husband, Carlos Hernandez, 34, said he did not know what they would do. "We have two children," he said. "I don't want to lose my apartment."
Emphasis added by me.
And more:
New Yorkers just trying to get by during eviction epidemic
The eviction epidemic is afflicting real New Yorkers just trying to get by. Patanjali Nath, 52, is one of those people.
In April, he was served with eviction papers from Wells Fargo Bank. Nath rented a second-floor apartment at 97-12 77th St. in Ozone Park and Wells Fargo had acquired the property at a February foreclosure sale.
Nath, a security guard, went to Queens Housing Court and was given two months to leave. In June, he moved into a basement apartment in Richmond Hill with his wife and two children, 13 and 14.
"I no happy," said Nath, a Bangladesh national. He has struggled to pay the rent, which nearly doubled from $625 to $1,100.
"Now, I spend my saving money," he said.
Emphasis added by me.
As usual, renters get screwed.
*corrected number!
Previously here:
The Man Is Wise. Listen!
Chronicles Of Depression 2.0: #120
NYC Rent Insanity
A World Without Slack
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