Besieged by Gentrification, Defending Her Castle
By Christopher Crosby, Mike Garofalo and Zac Howard
N o one can attest to how much Crown Heights has changed more than Cassandra Warren. The 34-year old single mother has lived in a six-story brick apartment building on Crown Street in this neighborhood since 1995, back when it was plagued by crime and better known for clashes between blacks and Hasidic Jews, long before anyone thought to deem it “up and coming.”
But the neighborhood, once a thriving community of African Americans, Hasidic Jews and Caribbean blacks, is changing. Attracted by low rents, Crown Heights, like so many areas in Brooklyn, is gentrifying as an influx of young, single students and professionals take note. With it, the nail salons, $.99 stores and local bodegas of her childhood are gradually falling away to upscale restaurants and bars.
With growing opportunity for landlords to cash in, longtime residents are seeing their rents spike, sometimes even double. Investment has grown in the neighborhood and average rent prices jumped 30 percent between 2011 and 2015, from $1,758 on average to $2,323, according to real-estate tracker Zillow.
While some move voluntarily, for low-income renters like Warren who are protected by fixed rents held below market value, there’s increasing pressure to relocate. Some are being offered buyouts, while others become the target of illegal tactics designed to harass and intimidate.
The tension in Crown Heights and other communities across the city has led to tenant rallies, promises from Mayor Bill de Blasio to reverse the trend of rent regulated apartments disappearing and publicized arrests of landlords accused of coercing tenants.
But some say their efforts fail to address the problem. An outspoken opponent of landlord’s tactics — from turning off the water and heat, to basic repairs going ignored — Warren has worked to rally the community, but fears losing the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her 17-year-old daughter Elizabeth and mother.
The apartment is more than a place to live; it’s Warren’s home. A St. Vincent native, when she first moved to the U.S. in 1989, it was to a basement apartment — a room, really — that she and her mother shared with her cousin. After years of hard work and savings, they were able to move into their own place.
During an often troubled childhood, the apartment was a source of stability. Now an adult, she’s raising her own daughter in the same apartment she grew up in, making new memories even as she holds on to the importance of the old. For Cassandra, her daughter and mother, the apartment holds cherished family memories — it represents so much more than what a real estate agent might see as an underperforming asset.
Cassandra continues to be active in community board meetings, working with nonprofits and public officials alike to hold her ground. She says she’s not looking for special treatment, just respect.
It’s her home, and she’s not leaving without a fight.
