Aaron Carr

Americans Are Stuck. Who’s to Blame? Yoni Appelbaum on his new book, Stuck: How the Privileged and the Propertied Broke the Engine of American Opportunity

Article: www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...

Few studies capture the brutality of NYC’s housing crisis better than this one: back in the day, countless working-class people benefited from New York’s wage premium. But, now, that same wage premium gets sucked into the black hole of our self-made housing shortage. Tragic.

Back in the day, the working class did better in places like New York/California: wage premium plus comparatively low housing costs.

That has now changed — by policy, by design, by NIMBYism.

It’s really f-ing immoral and sad, and we should do something about it!

To put this another way, states like New York are still extremely desirable as evidenced by the continuous in-flow of wealthy people.

And they are also extremely expensive as evidenced by the outflow of poorer people.

Housing costs = #1 expense

Solution = fix housing

“Something something something taxes and crime”

If you look at the data, states like New York continue to attract wealthy people while seeing an outflow of lower income people.

It’s (primarily) the housing costs stupid.

A perfect illustration of how the progressive project is destined to fail unless blue states get their shit together on housing costs

Undercover sting exposes rampant housing discrimination across Chicago area, watchdog group says Real estate agents, brokerage firms and landlords routinely violated state law by rejecting renters who sought to use housing vouchers, the Housing Rights Initiative claimed in a slew of complaints fi...

Non-paywalled:

Undercover sting exposes rampant housing discrimination across Chicago area, watchdog group says Real estate agents, brokerage firms and landlords routinely violated state law by rejecting renters who sought to use housing vouchers, the Housing Rights Initiative claimed in a slew of complaints fi...

Article:

Today, on a day in which a notorious landlord got inaugurated into the White House, we filed the largest housing discrimination complaint in Illinois history against 165 real estate entities for housing discrimination.

This is just the beginning.

And that’s because less traffic for drivers, less pollution for society, and more funding for transit are generally good and popular things.

Subway, bus ridership ticks up on heels of congestion pricing A bare Midtown road within the congestion pricing zone.

Like every other place that has done it, congestion pricing in NYC will get significantly more popular over time: www.crainsnewyork.com/transportati...

One of the many benefits of doing congestion pricing in a city that has one of the most expansive public transportation systems in the Western Hemisphere is that you are just going to end up with a lot of banal stories like this:

Pleasure working with you!

2. Buttoned up the second episode of a show I'm making with @aaronacarr.bsky.social – it's not directly related to Housing Rights, but it's also not *not* related to housing rights.

Also forthcoming, tk tk and so on

Everything you think you know about homelessness is wrong A guest post by Aaron Carr.

One of the best pieces I’ve read on homelessness is by @aaronacarr.bsky.social. Mandatory reading for anyone planning to vote: www.noahpinion.blog/p/everything...

DONATE | HRI Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) is a national non-profit watchdog group that investigates real estate fraud, connects tenants to legal services, and promotes tenants' rights to fair and affordable hou...

Anyway, if you like our work, you can support our impact here: www.housingrightsus.org/donate

Thousands upon thousands of companies across the city are running the same scheme. This is a nightmare ruling for unscrupulous real estate companies.

Kushner tenants could score years of free rent after class action win Kushner Companies’ Charlie Kushner and 329-335 East 9th Street (Google Maps)The East Village tenants who took on Kushner Companies, claiming the landlord illegally collected rents while putting their ...

Back in 2020, our watchdog group investigated Kushner for filing fraudulent paperwork that allowed it to collect rent without meeting safety requirements, to which they responded by accusing us of “politically motivated harassment” (lol).

Welp, the case was just granted class certification.

lfg @aaronacarr.bsky.social

DONATE | HRI Housing Rights Initiative (HRI) is a national non-profit watchdog group that investigates real estate fraud, connects tenants to legal services, and promotes tenants' rights to fair and affordable hou...

Find our work impactful? Make a tax-deductible donation here.

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This number is projected to increase into the hundreds of millions.

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Our watchdog has now gotten back over $30 million in rent refunds (and tens of millions of dollars more in rent reductions) for taxpayers and tenants to date, and given that over 90% of the class actions in which we have generated with our law firm partners are ongoing...

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While I’m truly proud of our work, the government should never be relying on non-profits like ours for housing enforcement. Whatever we can do, the government could do better, if it had the political will to do much of anything at all.

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Meaning this one settlement with Blackstone exceeds 5-years worth of enforcement work from an entire state housing enforcement agency. That’s very unfortunate, ineffective, and depressing!

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If you want a window into New York State's broken housing enforcement system, consider the fact that the State housing enforcement agency has only gotten back $13.2 million in rent refunds for tenants over a 5-year period.

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Blackstone Renters Said They Were Overcharged. Now They’re Getting $15 Million. Dozens of New York City renters are receiving payoffs from Blackstone in a settlement of a case that accused the previous landlord of violating rent-stabilization rules.

Today we are announcing a $15.9 million settlement with Blackstone in a rent fraud class action.

This is one of the largest settlements in New York City rent stabilization history and just the tip of the iceberg of the rampant rent fraud problem plaguing New Yorkers.

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