Tenant activists hit 22 cities with protests against devastating housing cuts
Source: Think Progress
Judy Montanez has lived in the rent-subsidized units of Staten Island’s Castleton Park development since they opened in the mid-1970s. She’s been fighting to keep the apartments there affordable almost that whole time.
Throughout her first decade in Castleton Park, Montanez could afford to pay fair-market rent for a three-bedroom unit. When she divorced and lost her job in the 1980s, she was able to downsize and keep her kids in the building thanks to federal renter support programs. She got back to work, helping with New York City’s youth services programs until an accident in 1995 left her permanently disabled and eligible once again for rent subsidies.
“I was always involved in the community, always giving back,” Montanez said. Since her injuries ended her working career, giving back has meant fighting to protect Castleton Park tenants from private developers eager to convert the lot into full market-rate housing.
Read more: https://thinkprogress.org/tenants-protest-hud-cuts-87e36d9de37d
And the country has a brain surgeon, and wedding planner, deciding on who lives in a "home" or who lives in a cardboard box
