75 MacD St. Tenants Union Emergency Relief Fund

Photo; A few of the 75 MacD Tenant Union members on our stoop who weren’t working that Saturday

     I'm Wade, an elected tenant leader and public interest attorney who’s lived in my apartment in BedStuy for eleven years. For nine of those, my neighbors and I have been organizing in the 75 MacD Tenant Union. We are a tiny but mighty force against predatory real estate interests, and offer each other true mutual aid when we’re in need.
We urgently need funds to stop a long term resident family’s eviction due to a COVID related temporary loss of income.

     After 2+ years of the pandemic’s effects, we are in dire financial need to raise money for the union’s emergency tenant relief fund (which we haven’t done since 2017). The emergency relief fund has provided a critical lifeline for the tenants most drastically affected by institutionalized racism, ableism, ageism, and poverty here. 

 

     Before the matriarch of the Fenty* family, V. Fenty, passed in 2018, she had lived in our building since 1969. Her daughter, K. Fenty has lived here for 46 years, and her children and grandchild have lived here all their lives too. K supports them through work as a home care aide, but her long term client passed away from COVID-19. While she’s been trying to find new work, one of her neighbors stepped up to pay back two late rent payments, your donation will get K current to keep her out of court. We need to bail out K's neighbor ASAP since they used a credit card and banks don’t play with compound interest!  *“Fenty” in honor of the musical diva whose art K admires.* 

 

     We are low on funds because this February, the roof failed due to negligent maintenance. Contaminated rain water flooded the building, flowing through walls and down into two of the apartments. The water damage caused a mold bloom everyone could smell, and two tenants got extremely sick. Neither could use their bedrooms for over two months while the Tenant Union obtained roof repairs and worked to secure high safety standards in a proper mold remediation. The tenants displaced by this disaster have not received a rent abatement or relocation stipend from the landlord, and they lived without bedrooms for months - emergency fund money covered part of their rent payments and for lab fees from testing. 
We will have post remediation lab tests in 7-10 days.  (Scroll down for photos of the remediation.)

 

We need your help! Please consider contributing and/or sharing with your networks of friends and colleagues who believe that all of us deserve safe and affordable housing.

 

 

Photo caption: Neighbors in October 2020 going to the polls to vote!




Since 2017 the emergency fund: 

 

-Stopped the eviction and stabilized the housing of one of our vulnerable fixed income seniors. “Jane X”

-Stopped utility shutoffs.

-Paid a tenant’s emergency medical bills.

-Prefunded and paid the administrative fees for a disabled tenant’s Special Needs Trust.

-Paid for professional mold testing and safety recommendations for remediation.

-Paid the upfront costs of rent abatement for displaced tenants. 

Love and many thanks! 



Wade Rosenthal



Tenant Union Legal Coordinator

 

DAMAGE & MOLD REMEDIATION

before remediation

during remediation

 

*More About the 75 MacDonough St. Tenants Union*

The 75 MacD Tenant Union was founded in 2013,  and since we started organizing together, the building was sold four times and three of the eight units were gut renovated. We have managed to fight off multiple attempts to evict low and fixed income folks, long term tenants of color, including some of advanced age, and queer, trans, and low income tenants who live in the unrenovated units.   

The TU welcomes new tenants but our core group includes one southern Black family living four generations under the same roof (until very recently), two West Indian emigrees over 80, labor organizers from the south, and this white queer/trans guy from Detroit (hi). We were founded by a biracial, gay couple in 2013 who have since moved out.

As the pro bono legal coordinator, I donate all my legal services and organizing hours, advise and represent tenants, and negotiate with management on behalf of our union. Since we operate on a volunteer basis with no general operating budget, we’ve worked with several public service providers, such as Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, Crown Heights Tenants Union, UrbanJusticeCenter/TakeRootJustice, New York Legal Assistance Group Evelyn Frank Legal Resources Project, the LAS Elder Law Project, The Independent Consumer Advocacy Network, and Medicaid Rights Center to provide the highest quality advocacy services for our people.

We established the emergency fund in 2017 to successfully prevent the eviction of one of our disabled fixed income seniors who has lived here since the late seventies. We are proud to have stabilized Jane's housing and with your support we will be able to ensure that it continues.