Right to the City – March In Miami

On June 20th, CAAAV joined the Right To The City Alliance in a BIG march in Miami. As a youth organizer of CAAAV, I also joined the march. One of the goals of the march, was to show the mayors from all the major cities around the country, that we, as the people in the community, care about what is happening to the community. We want to present our own ideas to the government, and let them know that the residents in the community should be the ones that is using the space, not the private developers. And also, to tell them to stop gentrification and give housing to ALL.

The day before the march, a lot folks from different organizations came together to work on the props for the march. We made skeletons, banners, and we also painted lots of umbrellas for the march too. We put much effort in the work, and I think was all worth it. On the day of the march we started with a sunny day, but when we started marching, it began to rain. As we continued marching, the rain kept getting bigger. I think that even the gods above were cheering for us with the roars of the thunder and the warmth of the lighting. It made us the storm of the city that day.

East River Waterfalls

Have you noticed the four waterfalls around East River Waterfront? The waterfalls were up since June 26th, 2008. These four waterfalls cost 15.5 million dollars. The money could have been put towards education, housing or other things. From my own perspertive, the private corporations that spent 15.5 million on the waterfall was such a waste. First of all, the waterfalls are ugly. Secondly, the water in the East Waterfront is dirty. Third, the waterfall is just around for three months.

The purpose of the waterfront is to appreciate the art. I do not understand which part illustrates the art. More money should instead be used for housing, for education, for health care, for the environment, instead of the waterfall.

RGB meeting

The Chinatown Tenants Union went to the Rent Guidelines Board meeting on May 26 around 6pm. We saw a lot of people saying they want higher rent and higher costs. This year, they decided that rent will increase 4% for one year leases, and two year leases would be increased by 8%. Plus, if you’ve lived in your apartment for more than 6 years, you would have to pay $40 extra. We saw a lot of people asking for minus 10%. I think if there were more people who came out to raise their voice, the result will be different…

Exchange in San Francisco

We had a great time doing an exchange with other organizations from different parts of the country. These organizations are all doing organizing work in various Asian communities. During the exchange, we learned about the structure of each organization and came up with some possible solutions to address the problems that we faced. We broke into small groups to learn more about each program. It was helpful for us to work in a small group. We worked out things and got feedback from the group. In addition, these ideas would help us work better in the future.

Each of us knows that organizing work is difficult. We want to get experience from each other in order to build our base and improve our leadership development.

May 25 – Family Day on the East River Waterfront^_^

The Chinatown Tenants Union brings you….

Chinatown and LES
Family Day
On the Waterfront!

Sunday, May 25, 2008
12 noon to 4 p.m.

At the Amphitheater on the East River Waterfront
Across the footbridge by Cherry Street over the FDR Drive

Join us for fishing, food, and to learn about our waterfront campaign!

The event is free!  Bring your family, friends and a dish to share!

To walk over together, meet at 11:30 a.m. at Gouverneur Hospital,
227 Madison St. (at Jefferson St.)

For more info, contact: Laurel Mei Turbin of CAAAV at (212) 473-6485 or LMTurbin@caaav.org

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Co-sponsored By O.U.R. WATERFRONT: Organizing & Uniting Residents on the Waterfront
Asian Americans for Equality, the Chinatown Tenants Union of CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, Good Old Lower East Side, Hester Street Collaborative, Lower East Side Ecology Center, Public Housing Residents of the Lower East Side, Urban Justice Center

Our Event Last Summer

Gentrification is growing bigger and bigger in Chinatown each and every day, and most of the tenants in Chinatown don’t even know, so as an community organization in Chinatown, we try to educate people about their own rights and let them know more about gentrification. So last summer our youth decided to make a event and invite low-income tenants and show them about gentrification.

As you can see, here is the map of Chinatown, and on both sides of the map are some locations that we think are important to point out — to show where gentrification has already impacted the community. But that’s not all; there are still countless more. As gentrification increases and enters a community, cultural spaces and low-income tenants are being pushed out from the community. And what’s left are just signs of gentrification. As a tenant myself, i don’t want this to happen to my community, and i think, not just me but everyone who lives in the community doesn’t want this to happen either. So i’m doing my part to prevent gentrification from displacing tenants and taking over my community. I hope all you people-especially young people, can do the same too…

Gentrification!!

By walking down in almost every block in Chinatown, you will see a luxury condo is building up. What does this image tell you? From my perspective, Chinatown is being gentrified. The picture (Hester Garden) on the right is a great example of what’s going on in Chinatown. Because of these luxury condos being built in Chinatown, we need to pay more rent. A lot of low-income tenants are being pushed out of their community. We need to stop gentrification by protecting our community!

Who i am

Welcome to our website!! My name is Sally Lee. I am a youth member of Chinatown Youth Project and Chinatown Tenants Union/CAAAV. I was a member since 2006 summer. I enjoyed working with people around housing issue. Sometimes, i would feel disappointed about how useless i am. Even though I saw the problems, I could not do anything about it. In addition, a lot of tenants lived a very bad condition, some landlords still kick them out of their home. A lot of these things happened not only in Chinatown and as well as other places in New York City. I believe People is power. One day, all of us get together and could fight against gentrification!!

welcome to our blog.