East to West
It's a beautiful world. Go. Explore.Archive for January, 2012
Home, Sweet Home
Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;
A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne’er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
There’s no place like home, oh, there’s no place like home!
-John Howard Payne, 1791-1852 (first stanza from “Home, Sweet Home”)
Last year, I did a friend a favor by renewing my lease for my apartment in Midwood, Brooklyn, so she could sublet it from me at a decent price. I had lived in that 1-bedroom apartment for four years at that point, but I was ready to move to Washington, DC, to search for work. After finishing my graduate program, my student employment at school was over. I had no job, the rent was too high, and I had a mountain of student loan repayments looming in the near future. The best chance I had of finding work with an international NGO or a policy think tank was Washington, DC (or Geneva, depending on who you ask). The market value for my apartment was around $1,200, but since I lived in a rent-controlled building, my rent had only gone up from $900 to $1,070 over four years. Sure, why not help a friend out?
Caitlin* promised to stay until the end of my one-year lease, April 2012, so I drafted a sloppy sublease agreement. Lo and behold, three months after moving into my apartment, when I was happily settled in DC, Caitlin texted me to say she had to move out in December 2011. I scrambled to find new subtenants and even new tenants so I could get out of my current lease. I posted ads on Craig’s List, eBay Classified, AirBnB, various rental sites, gave the listing to two different brokers, flooded my friends with mass emails, and dominated my Facebook wall, Twitter feed, and Skype updates asking if anyone knew anyone who needed an apartment in Brooklyn.
For those who have experience moving around big cities, it’s common knowledge that the real estate market is slow between October and April–it’s cold, moving is more of a hassle in snow, and college students are settled in. Between May and September, that’s when people are moving again, students are coming into town for school and internships, and vacationers are looking for short-term housing. Long story short: It did not look good for me. My apartment remained empty.
Two weeks ago, I was contacted by a woman who found my ad on AirBnB. Nicki was a single mom with a 16-year old and two cats. She had been laid off over a year ago, lost her apartment in the city after her savings ran out, and was living in a run-down private home in Queens with a hostile landlord. She told me she would work with the NYC Coalition for the Homeless to pay me the security deposit and first month’s rent. Her hope was to sublet the apartment until my lease ended and then sign a new lease under her name. I drafted the sublease agreement, emailed it to Nicki, and told my property management company (PMC) that I had found a new subtenant. “No,” I was told, “We have to run a credit check on her first.” I told them upfront that Nicki was unemployed. I explained that she was desparate to find a private apartment just for her and her daughter so that she can focus on her job search. I sent them Nicki’s full name and social security number.
A week goes by and the PMC sends me a form for Nicki to fill out. They couldn’t move forward with the credit check until she fills out the form. Another week goes by… Throughout all of this, Nicki and her daughter had moved out of the house in Queens to a hotel room to a week-long sublet in Brooklyn. All the while, anxiously waiting to move into my apartment–my empty apartment that I was still paying for. She kept me updated almost every day on her living situation and job search, thanking me profusely every single time.
Today, I received an email from the PMC saying that they would not approve of the sublet due to Nicki’s unemployment. I had no idea how to break this news to Nicki. I was upset: 1) about losing more money as each day goes by and my apartment remains empty, 2) it took them over two weeks to reach this decision, and 3) that I couldn’t help Nicki out. I knew she was going feel a hundred times worse than I did.
I’ve never met this woman in person before, but I feel overwhelmingly compelled to help her. She’s one of many victims of the Great Recession. Even though I’m not in a great financial situation either and I was burned before by helping someone out, my heart goes out to her. Every time I speak to Nicki, I hear the desperation in her voice. She’s trying so hard to stay positive and hold it together. She’s fighting to NOT become another person who bounces from shelter to shelter, or living on the streets. More importantly, she’s trying to make sure her daughter doesn’t become homeless. She just wants a stable living situation so she can begin to rebuild a normal life for her family.
If you’re reading this, imagine not knowing where you will be sleeping tonight. You want to find a job and a steady source of income, but all your time and energy is spent on finding a safe place for your daughter to sleep. You have to rely on the kindness of strangers. If you have ever been stigmatized for something that was out of your control, you can already understand the emotional burden. If you have a room in your home within the five boroughs or know of someone who has a short-term sublet and can take Nicki in, please contact me. Nicki receives an unemployment check of approximately $400 each month and is willing to relinquish some of it in exchange for a roof over her head. If you can help, please email me: amychin227 (at) msn (dot) com.
*Name has been changed to maintain privacy.
