Heads Up! Chinatown Tenants/Residents On the Move

By Michael Liu
February 2001

Tenants at 26 Elizabeth Street, New York Chinatown, some of whom "hot bed" in rooms, face rent hikes from $800 to as high as $2800. Around Boston Chinatown, a one bedroom condo above a restaurant sells for $300,000, and a market-rate unit in a low-income elderly housing development rents for $1650.

Progressive organizers have launched new efforts to organize Chinatown residents on the East Coast, who are experiencing the efforts of gentrification.

The Chinese Progressive Association (CPA), the Campaign to Protect Chinatown (CPC) in Boston and Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAV) in New York are aggressively organizing residents and tenants. The population, who are generally working class and immigrant, represents the lower stratum of the Chinese American population and are the most vulnerable to exploitation by developers and landlords. The survival of these Chinatown communities is in question, under pressure from new development and beset with the continuous pressures from the renewed interest in city living.

Boston Organizing
The organizing work of CPA and CPC in Boston, built on the successful struggle against a proposed parking garage in the residential area, has resulted in the formation of a community-wide Chinatown Residents Association (CRA). The CRA has an elected steering committee, representing all the distinct areas of Chinatown, and played a major role in a community planning process. CPA has also been able to work with HUD tenants to organize for long-term affordable housing contracts as major projects have been sold or faced the threat of going market-rate.

New York Organizing
Manhattan has also seen similar gentrification pressures, where most of Chinatown's housing is privately owned and unregulated. Younger, white professionals are encroaching along the northern and western borders of Chinatown. CAAV is presently focused on organizing tenants in the Elizabeth Street apartment house, in the heart of Chinatown and recently sold to a white landlord. The case is presently in court. CAAV has conducted a survey of tenants impacted by gentrification and wants to form a larger resident association in New York.

Hot Spring
This February, CAAV meet with the CRA, CPA, and CPC to discuss experiences and lessons to better carry out resident and tenant organizing. In order to protect tenants' own homes, and to preserve the Chinatown communities overall, activists from both Chinatowns agreed that a stronger resident voice is needed.
"Having a resident association is important, because the government needs to hear from us," said Henry Yee of the Boston-based CRA. "We need affordable housing to keep our Chinese residents living in Chinatown."