Jimmy "Rent Is Too Damn High" McMillan Faces Eviction From Rent-Stabilized East Village Apartment

Jimmy McMillan, wearing his summer gloves (Tien Mao/Gothamist)

Jimmy McMillan may have captured the hearts and minds of New Yorkers with his "Rent Is Too Damn High" platform during last year's gubernatorial election, but his rent for a one-bedroom in the East Village is actually a Damn Sweet $872/month, thanks to rent stabilization. Now, the colorful candidate may be evicted, because his landlord wants to make the rent DAMN HIGH.

Last year, it was revealed that McMillan had a one-bedroom in the East Village where his son lived as well as a one-bedroom in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. But McMillan's East Village landlord wants him out: The Daily News reports that at the Manhattan housing court appearance, "McMillan — his distinctive white hair combed back — insisted he was living at the Manhattan apartment while using a second address in Brooklyn as an office. But his landlord countered that McMillan is improperly using the Manhattan apartment as an inexpensive residence for his 32-year-old son, Jimmy McMillan IV. Estimates are that the landlord could rent the apartment for nearly three times as much as McMillan pays."

McMillan explained he got the Brooklyn apartment (a place McMillan doesn't like talking about) through doing some odd jobs; the News also reports, "Although he even registered to vote using the Brooklyn address, McMillan insisted that he always lived in Manhattan — and produced a driver’s license featuring his St. Mark’s Place address." And there's a simple reason why McMillan allowed his son to live in the apartment: "I want a grandkid. I stayed away so he could bring a young lady over."

A judge ordered that McMillan must turn over financial documents to his landlord.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in News on November 24, 2011 9:33 AM

Comments [rss]

Flat Rent Jesmond

Vacation rentals can range from budget studio apartments to lavish,
expensive private villas in the world's most desirable locations, some
with pricetags of many thousands per night and all the amenities you
would find in any luxury accommodation (fully staffed, private beaches,
boats, chefs, cooking lessons, etc.) to cater to the guests.

chris8lee

Get rid of the poor for good and rents will go down. Reasonable law abiding people will pay ANYTHING to live in a half way decent neighborhood without crime..they will even stoop to trying to tuff it out in bad nabes.

ohgodkillmenow

Who cares? Real estate is just as illegitimate an industry as finance.

klaus_doll

so a building full of tenants who can just afford to pay their rent, should also be responsible to pay water/sewer, RE taxes, common area electric, repair and replacement?

real estate is exactly the same as any other business, i own a building which is my wares and service, you buy that service from me. which is living in my building, in turn i provide many things for you.

you're just greedy that's all

Blibs

On the subject of supply and demand, the Times had an article recently looking at the surprisingly common completely empty buildings inHarlem.
"In 2007, the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, released a survey of Manhattan’s buildings that found 1,723 were significantly vacant, with three-fourths north of 96th Street. A 1998 survey by Civitas, a nonprofit group concerned with development on the East Side, found that one of four low-rise residential buildings on avenues or major cross streets in East Harlem had open stores but sealed-up residential floors."

Even if we assume these aren't high density buildings, but smaller five to six story pre-war buildings, you're still talking somewhere between eight and 20 units a piece, for a broad guesstimate of between 13,000 and 35,000 documentable empty apartments in a city with tremendous demand for housing, even at ridiculously inflated rates. I wonder how the supply and demand situation that keeps rent so high would be effected if the warehoused units weren't artificially choked off by the glorious free market?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10...

rnrnys

I mean we all knew this guy was a scam artist, right?

Barry Bliss

I work in Manhattan and I would not be able to afford $872 a month.

Angel Love

If people would just live their lives honestly, you wouldn't bring negative attention to yourself. Lies have short legs Mr. McMillan.

Tony

This negrotic libtard cant cough up $800 bucks a MONTH to live in luxury?! UNREAL! Meanwhile us workin class blue collar americans are paying twice this to live in a crack den out in the bronx where we get raped by wild AIDS monkeys every time we step out of our apartments!

Spirit of 76

Man does too damn lie, and if Jimmy thinks I'm buying his story, the man is too damn high.

MordridTheGreat

OWS WAS BENT OVER AND GIVEN THE STIFF ROD OF CAPITALISM!.....LOL!

Theodore Wirth

The shills for the 1% and Bloomie oughta start worrying about bigger things, like how much incentives they pay the 1% to keep them from fleeing elsewhere.

Guest

Rent stabilization allows the landlord to reset the rent to market prices when taking on a new tenant.

Greg Froober

you are not correct

AaronRed99

No it doesn't.

redo_undo

nvm, just realized you were the someone else I said that too.

redo_undo

Yes it does. I work in real estate. I'm going to repeat my previous comment to someone else.

They can triple the rent. They just have to de-stabilize it. They get a vacancy increase, a longevity increase and when they renovate the apartment they get another increase. If all of those increases get the apartment rent up to $2,500, the apartment is de-regulated. It's more complicated than what I'm explaining here, but there's a formula to it. It can be done, my boss does it all the time.

klaus_doll

you are wrong, it would take yrs to do it as you suggested, and you cannot refuse to renew a rent stabilized tenant. so the next person may stay for 12 years, with just 4% annual increases.

Guest

I never said you can refuse to renew a current tenant. If someone has a rent stabilized or rent controlled apartment, I suggest they hold on to it for dear life, never let it go. It's very hard for a landlord to legally evict a rent stabilized tenant.

However, once a rent stabilized tenant leaves an apt, the landlord is free to deregulate it based on the guidelines. And it is very easy, I work in real estate, like I said before, we do it all the time. You just have to have the money to spend to renovate.

You have whatever the initial rent is.
Plus a 16.5% or 20% vacancy increase
Another increase for longevity, which is 8.4%
Then add to that 1/40 of whatever the cost of a renovation is. Which is usually around 60k to 70k so that's at least 1,500 on top of whatever the rent already is. They'll add more to the renovation if they have to just to get the rent up to the amount they need.

It's very easy.

Read up: http://www.housingnyc.com/html...

redo_undo

I never said you can refuse to renew a current tenant. If someone has a rent stabilized or rent controlled apartment, I suggest they hold on to it for dear life, never let it go. It's very hard for a landlord to legally evict a rent stabilized tenant.

However, once a rent stabilized tenant leaves an apt, the landlord is free to deregulate it based on the guidelines. And it is very easy, I work in real estate, like I said before, we do it all the time. You just have to have the money to spend to renovate.

You have whatever the initial rent is.
Plus a 16.5% or 20% vacancy increase
Another increase for longevity, which is 8.4%
Then add to that 1/40 of whatever the cost of a renovation is. Which is usually around 60k to 70k so that's at least 1,500 on top of whatever the rent already is. They'll add more to the renovation if they have to just to get the rent up to the amount they need.

It's very easy.

Read up: http://www.housingnyc.com/html...