Meet the lone tenants’ rights attorney on the NYC Planning Commission

By Brian Braiker

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Leah Goodridge is a tenants’ rights attorney who has served on the New York City Planning Commission since 2021, where she was appointed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. She is the first and only tenants’ rights attorney on the planning commission. Born and raised in Brownsville, she lives in Bed-Stuy where, like anyone else in Brooklyn can tell you, the rent is too damn high — and newcomers are consistently pushing historic, legacy families out.

“The main thing that’s missing is a tenant voice,” she says. “I think that a lot of the narratives are from the perspective of either landlords or developers.”

Goodridge, who is also the Managing Attorney for Housing Policy at Mobilization for Justice, where she oversees a team that provides legal representation to tenants in eviction proceedings, is this week’s guest on “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast.”

Today we’re going to talk about the rent, development and how these topics get framed in the media. On June 21, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rents on New York City’s rent-stabilized apartments — Goodrige herself has been a member of the rent guidelines board — and early in her career was motivated by her own struggles in finding affordable housing.

“I actually failed the bar more than once and took a little bit of a detour,” she says. “The detour had my own housing instability issues, trying to find housing, trying to find something that was affordable. And then it hit me, ‘Oh my God, in the three years that I was away in law school, coming back, this place is like woefully unaffordable’.”

We’ll discuss what the planning commission does and what she sees as her role on that body. And we’ll talk about the idea of professionalism. Goodridge wrote a widely read essay for the UCLA Law Review — her alma mater’s law journal — called
“Professionalism as a Racial Construct” that tackles the cultural obstacles facing Black attorneys.

This interview has been edited for concision and clarity. You can listen to it in its entirety in the player above or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Planning Commission concerns itself with all things land use, the majority of which I’m guessing has to do with housing, and also other things like sidewalk sheds. What is the mandate of the commission, for the lay person who has heard of it but probably couldn’t tell you what they do?
The commission is a body of 13 commissioners appointed by various elected officials. I was appointed by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and we basically vote on land use issues. I’ll give some examples of some of the things that we voted on, and then I’ll tell you what happens after the vote.  That controversial housing project in Harlem, One45, was in the news a lot. It was a large development. We had to vote on whether to approve that. We also had to vote on what was called Innovation Queens, another very large five-block housing development in Queens, in Astoria.

And then non-housing, funny you bring up the sidewalk because I voted on that. The commission had already voted on it before I came on, and then we had another vote and I didn’t realize how big that issue was, so we voted on it, and then I went online and everyone was fussing over it. So that’s a land use issue as well. So housing and commercial, as well as anything to do with land. And then typically after the commission votes on it, it goes to the city council and then they vote to whether approve or pass or deny that proposal.

I believe you’re the first legal services tenant’s rights attorney on the commission, which to me says a lot about the commission.
I know, this is the grievance a lot of … I mean, the first thing I hear from folks is that, “Oh, I don’t think that people on this commission even listen, because gentrification has been on the rise now for years in New York City and clearly we’re seeing the effects of it today. Luxury housing is what’s being built. Everyday New Yorkers cannot afford $4,000 studios, and so what are you guys doing? Are you guys even listening?”

You’re not accountable to the public either because you’re all appointees.
If you want to just go to work, go to the commission and go to meetings and stick your head down, you don’t really have to come outside and be like, “Hey guys, I made this vote. What do you think?” I have to say, for me, because I have been in the social justice world for so long, this was quite a change for me because I am very accustomed to being held accountable to tenants and to everyday New Yorkers, and so I’ve made myself accountable by being more in the public realm with this position. So here we are.

Yeah, you take your knocks on Twitter. 
I certainly take my knocks on Twitter, but I won’t get off. And I don’t have any regrets because a lot of people find that my presence and platform on Twitter helps to demystify housing, and helps to validate a lot of what they’re seeing. You can say, “Oh, I see these buildings going up. It feels like New York City is changing.” But then when you have a planning commissioner come on and say, “Yes, it is changing, we need to talk more about how some of those buildings can be more affordable.” I think that it says a lot too, and it means a lot to New Yorkers.

It’s interesting that you made a point of saying that you were appointed by Jumaane Williams. I actually had the occasion to speak with the borough president, Antonio Reynoso, yesterday. We were talking a bit about the commission. My understanding from him is that having been appointed by Jumaane Williams, you have a little bit more maybe flexibility and independence than perhaps some of the mayoral appointees. The majority of the commission is mayoral appointees and they tend to vote lockstep with the mayor. Is that a fair assessment?
I used to think that, but a lot of the mayoral appointees tend to ask a lot of questions. They’re not just, “Oh, I’m just going to sit down and vote.” And I have found that listening, especially to a lot of the commissioners, it helps gain a lot of knowledge. I will say this, because I don’t know if it happens to other commissioners, when we have controversial votes, I don’t get any calls from Jumaane, “This is how I want you to vote.” Having been on the Rent Guidelines Board before, and not being naive about politics, yeah, you do get calls before the vote, “What are you planning on voting and why?” I’ll just say there are calls.

Jumaane’s pretty hands off. I’ve gotten into some dust-ups and Jumaane does not care. And that that’s really helpful because if I had been appointed by someone who was like, “You got to really be nice to everyone, including developers,” then we would probably butt heads. He’s just, “Whatever, get in there and shake it up.” The funny part was his hesitation when we interviewed, was that I was an attorney and he wasn’t sure if I was going to shake things up, and so I had to let him know, “Actually, I’m one of the people who will shake some shit up, so you don’t have to worry about that with me.”

You’re a year-and-a-half in now. Do you feel like you’ve carved out a space for someone like you? Did you pay much attention to the commission before your appointment? You were sought out for this. Were you aware of the ins and outs of the commission, or did you really have a steep learning curve?
I was aware of the commission but didn’t pay much attention to it. I, to be honest, was one of those critical people. It was like, “Other than passing luxury housing, what do they do?” And so the learning curve for me was understanding the politics, and like you just said, something like the appointees being affected by who they’re appointed by, and that framing the culture, that’s something that I had to learn. I think that that is true to some extent, but I also think that everyone asks questions.

I also had a learning curve in terms of figuring out who to give my time and energy to. You can be a public official and just go to meetings and nobody knows who you are. Or you can be a public official and really be out in the public and talking, and people get to know who you are. But that also comes with trolls. So that’s the part I had to figure out, who to give my actual attention to, whether it’s worth it to be out in the public.

You did say the G word earlier, gentrification. We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, it’s a gentrification crisis in some neighborhoods. What role, if any, can or should the planning commission play on those issues?
One of the areas that definitely needed some improvement was that there were not enough discussions about racial equity and racial justice and how that framed the work of the commission. What I specifically mean is that we’re having these projects, and when people talk about luxury development, they don’t just talk about it like, “Oh yeah, I can’t afford them.” They also talk about it within the context of the fact that Central Brooklyn has lost a sizable amount of Black residents. I think it’s about 22,000 in the last two decades, which is a large amount, and then also gained a large number of white residents. And someone’s first question might be like, “Well, what does it matter? Oh, it’s a neighborhood. People move in and people move out.”

It matters because a lot of those Black residents are leaving due to housing affordability. The fact that you can’t buy one of these Bed-Stuy brownstones, the fact that you can’t rent because a one-bedroom is upwards of $3,000, and if you’re making $70,000, that’s tough to afford. So gentrification is a huge issue that needs to be talked about, also within the context of racialized displacement.

Yeah, because you have historical legacy residents being pushed out because they can’t afford it anymore. It changes the culture of the neighborhood, changes who feels safe in a neighborhood, it changes a lot. And as more resources come in, the residents who have been pushed out are wondering where those resources were when they were living there. So how do you as a commissioner address these systemic inequities?
The actual purpose of the commission isn’t necessarily to address the systemic inequities. Where that would fall are legislators, lawmakers, city council members, assembly members, state senators to make laws about the affordability piece of housing and other types of measures. And so the commission just votes on these very narrow questions. Because I voted no on a lot of projects because of gentrification, because I feel like it’s going to probably produce more harm than benefit to a neighborhood, it’s helpful for us to—

Can you give an example of a Brooklyn project or two that you may have voted on, if it’s the question of not enough affordable housing that came along with the developments. What locally, that someone might, who lives here, know what you’re talking about?
There was an Atlantic Avenue rezoning one that we heard a lot of testimony from residents. And it was a large luxury rezoning, and I believe that I voted that one down. Just to be clear, this is how it works: The commission votes on it, it goes to the city council, they wrestle and tussle over it, and then sometimes they decide, “Well, you know what? We would vote for it with these changes.” And sometimes the changes are more affordable housing, less, or some other changes. And so then it comes back to the commission, so then we have to vote on it again because of the modifications. For example, in Queens, initially for Innovation Queens, I had voted no because I didn’t feel like there was enough affordable housing.

We have what’s called mandatory inclusion, not to get too deep into the weeds, but the long and short of it is, that’s only 30 percent [affordable housing is required per development], and I don’t think the 30 percent is enough for the housing crisis that we’re experiencing of affordable housing. Specifically because some of the actual affordable housing is literally, we’re talking like the income is $80,000. That to me is not really affordable housing. None of my clients can afford a lot of them if it’s not what’s called deep affordability. And so I voted it down, then they went and hashed it out in the city council. It came back, and then I voted yes. That’s an example, it’s not in Brooklyn, but it’s in Queens and it was a big one.

You’re a former Rent Guidelines Board member, which you said earlier. A little over a week ago, June 21st, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rents in New York City’s rent stabilized apartments. An increase for one year leases will be 3 percent, two year leases go up by 2.75 percent, et cetera, et cetera. What is going on there? What goes into a decision like this, as a former guidelines board member?
Here was my steep learning curve on the Rent Guidelines Board. I went in very lawyer-like, like, “Oh, we’re just going to look at the data in front of us. Those are the reports by the Rent Guidelines Board, and then we’ll make a decision.” My steep learning curve was, A) learning that it’s a very political board, and B) learning that the media shapes a lot of the decisions. So in the media, there has been a lot of fanfare about small landlords, providing this vision of the New York City landlord as this small mom and pop landlord. And so if you freeze rents or have low rent increases, what’s going to happen to them and their American dream? That took over a lot, and it’s not even accurate of the New York City landlord. Most New York City landlords are not small landlords.

Do you know what percentage?
I don’t remember the exact percentage, but it’s a very small percentage. Sometimes people come and testify too. I’ve had a couple of times when I was on the board and someone say they’re a small landlord, and then we say, “Well, how many buildings do you own?” And they say, “I own 10 buildings.” Ten buildings, that’s not a small landlord. And mind you, for rent stabilized, it needs to have six units or more. So a lot of these buildings, they can be six units, they can be a 100 units, but if you own 10 buildings, you’re not a small landlord.

Let me just take a quick detour and say there are nine members of the Rent Guidelines Board. Two of them are tenant representatives, two of them are landlord representatives, and five of them are what’s called public members. All are appointed by the mayor. I had been appointed by de Blasio. When we would vote, this small landlord business would come up consistently. And in June 2020 when George Floyd was murdered, and everywhere, all workplaces were suddenly talking about anti-racism, that also manifested on the board. So the way it would come out is, “Well, you know what? There are also a lot of these small landlords are Black and brown, so therefore we shouldn’t have any rent freeze. We should have something as high as possible.”

When I was prepping for this interview, I obviously Googled you and one of the top hits is a piece in the New York Post from last December where you were “accused of abusing power” in a “bizarre Twitter rant.” It’s an interesting example of how media and certain media outlets — this is the Post after all — pick what they want to cover and how they want to cover it. I’m wondering how that experience was for you with this. It seems like things were taken out of context. Maybe you did shoot from the hip, but you are inadvertently or maybe advertently feeding the trolls. What happened there? 
That was one instance where I learned that Twitter is a very black-and-white place. It’s not a place where you should give the benefit of the doubt if people want to debate, because there are a lot of people, and when I say people, I mean developers, developer allies, who aren’t really there to have some intellectual debate. They’re there to troll, swarm, harass. One of the things that I learned is, it’s helpful not even to engage.

You don’t want to feed the trolls.
As a lawyer I’m really accustomed to people who have a different viewpoint, and then we’re debating. Being a Black woman, tenant’s rights attorney, and advocating a point, and then being on Twitter, and then know the other side is talking about development, most of these things, they’re not like debates. We have a running joke in these circles where every other week there’s a new target. People used to confuse me with [City Councilmember] Kristin Richardson Jordan. It could be me, it could be her, it could be a Black tenant organizer, which at one point it was, in that instance. Could be [Queens City Councilmember] Julie Won, it could be [Brooklyn City Councilmember] Shahana Hanif, all of whom are women of color.

Urban planning in and of itself is often seen, especially by Black and brown residents, as an inaccessible white-led field. And so when we’re talking about the so-called reclaiming cities, which has come up as, like, a slogan, the question becomes, “Well, who exactly are we reclaiming cities, and from whom?”

This is an urban planner slogan, “reclaiming cities?” That sounds like coded language.
Well, that’s exactly what I was saying. So who was in the cities, and who’s being reclaimed? Because there are a lot of questions about, now suburbs have become diverse, and so when we were just talking about change, even in Bed-Stuy, there are a lot of questions about, okay, so places like Long Island have become more racially diverse, and so now cities are becoming whiter. The Washington Post did an exclusive article about this. And so that was a question that I was asking, and then I specifically said, “Well, how do we make sure that everyone, instead of framing urban planning as preparing for white residents coming back, how do we look at this in a way that everyone has an equal stake?”

And then a bunch of these accounts ran with that and said that I’m asking for a Chinese hukou system, which is like a system of segregation. It’s just so disingenuous. And so, one of the folks that I had responded to was an actual planner who said, “Oh, well, a leftist commissioner is now asking for this Chinese hukou system.” At that point, I had got frustrated and said, “You know what? Engaging in defamation isn’t cute. Because I’m actually asking for racial equity, and then you’re turning it around and saying I’m asking for some system of segregation.” I had said, “Engaging in defamation isn’t cute.”

And people latched onto that “defamation.”
And people latched onto that, and then they were like, “Oh my God, you’re fishing and you’re threatening a lawsuit with these poor online trolls.” So that’s how it came about. It was frustrating because you want to be able to get your points across. You want to be able to talk through, because these are lots of questions that a lot of people have.

What do you think is missing then in the conversation around the housing crisis?
I know it sounds basic, almost too basic to say, but I honestly think that the main thing that’s missing is a tenant voice. I think that a lot of the narratives are from the perspective of either landlords or developers. So you have, anytime you want to bring up any nuances, people sort of robotically have these narratives, “There’s a housing shortage.” And it’s like, “Okay, but let’s talk about the fact that when we’re building that housing that there shouldn’t be six-figure income requirements, and so then taxi drivers can’t get in. Let’s talk about that.” It’s really difficult. And so, one of the things missing is a tenant voice, and that’s something that I seek to fill that gap.

This year’s rent increase on rent-stabilized units was the biggest increase since 2013. So they do keep going up almost aggressively. This is probably an obvious question: What does this mean for your clients? What does this mean for tenants?
One of the things you learn very quickly by being a tenant’s rights attorney is, you learn that $50 increases can literally be the make or break between someone being able to keep up and someone landing in housing court for eviction. One of the problems with New York City rent being so high is that even a minor increase can literally put a family over the edge. They just don’t have enough. And when you have an apartment that’s, say, $2,500 for a one bedroom, if you can find one, then an increase, and then it’s $2,550, and then you want to move out and find something that’s $2,000 for a one bedroom, that’s going to be really difficult to do. This is how it plays out, this is how the housing crunch plays out. It’s hard to find something cheaper that’s for the same bedroom size. So then you’re stuck at that price, and then when it goes up, even slightly, drastic changes in your life can happen, like you not being able to afford it. And then lending in housing court.

Is building not the way out? Or is building intentionally the way out?
I think that we do need to build more housing. My talking point from the beginning to the end of time has always been that housing needs to be affordable. We don’t need to have every single nickel and dime of it being affordable, but certainly the ones that we’re building, the 30 percent is not enough, and then we need to build more affordable housing. And then the actual affordable housing that we’re building, the income requirements need to be more flexible. It can’t just be moderate income because most of my clients cannot afford these affordable housing [units]. Anyone can tell you going on Housing Connect, trying to find an apartment, it’s hard.

If I, for whatever reason, had to suddenly move, I don’t know that I could stay in my neighborhood, honestly.
Same here. I live in Brooklyn. I’m from Brownsville, and I live in Bed-Stuy now. I’ve been here for, I want to say, 12 years.

A lot of changes in Bed-Stuy.
Yeah, a lot of changes. And so the whole moving on and finding something the same rent price, yeah, no.

So let’s get a little more specific. In Brooklyn. I know that there’s been a lot of conversation around a proposed casino in Coney Island, for example. And is this something that the Planning Commission weighs in on? The developers obviously are pro casino, some of the locals are pretty vocal about not wanting a casino built there. What is happening with things like building casinos in Brooklyn?
People should know that there is a City Planning Commission, and then there is also a government agency called the Department of City Planning, and they are two separate entities. So the [planning] commission is just a body of the 13 commissioners who come and vote, and then Department of City Planning, their staff often meets with developers to talk through their process and talk through their proposal. And so they have a lot more interaction with developers. When it comes to the commissioners, we simply hear from them when they come for the review or the public hearing process. We don’t really get to talk in depth with developers other than at those public meetings. I can’t give any confidential information about pending projects, but I can say that the community boards tends to play a very vital role in shaping how the commission is going to think about a project.

So, for example, if we have a project where the community board has unanimously or overwhelmingly voted no, it’s a red flag for a lot of commissioners, where we say, “Huh.” And just to paint a picture, even when you just said the project, my mind just went to, “Which one is this?” We literally have so many before us that we never vote on just one project. We’re literally voting every couple of weeks on at least five, to paint a picture. And every meeting, we have to sift through, it’s at least seven different proposals. There’re a lot. The way that things often get red-flagged for a commissioner is that the board, the community board, has really signaled that they are against a project.

So what you’re saying is if you live in a neighborhood and there’s talk of development or a history of development, you should get involved with your community board and you should go to those meetings?
You should go to those meetings. Another way is through media, if there are media articles about it. We get sent around a number of news articles about housing and development-related issues, and so even apart from that, a lot of commissioners end up doing our own research to find out what’s in the media or what may not be in the media about a particular project. And so if there’s some article in Patch, they tend to do a lot of articles on very local projects, then a lot of commissioners will read through what the community is saying as to why they don’t want a project. And that, for many commissioners, it bears a lot of impact.

Does the media tend to get it right?
There are some that, clearly, their beat is developer, landlord, and so that’s the lens that they’re looking through as opposed to just providing a neutral story. They’ll add in some things of, “This wild city council member has the nerve to vote against…” And it’s like, okay, that’s not a neutral story. As opposed to, “The city council member voted against this project.” So that was also my learning curve. That was actually a very big learning curve for me, because I’ve worked with journalists as a tenant’s rights attorney for years. It’s one thing if you’re a staff attorney or an attorney and you’re providing clients to talk to a journalist, and you’re giving quotes, it’s another thing where you get to see another aspect: there’s housing and then there’s real estate. And I think that that has a different tenor. And there are some, not all, there are some who’ve added their little razzle-dazzle to a story. They’re clearly against whatever is happening. And so they’ll add that in, and that’ll be the sense of the story.

But I like the stories. I like the articles. There are a number, I named the Patch, that they provide more information about what a community is saying. Because you got to remember, most New Yorkers, we don’t visit and go to every single neighborhood in New York City. And so sometimes it’ll be a neighborhood that I’ve never been to, that I don’t know that much about, and then when I read an article, I’m like, “Oh.” And residents are saying something that provides a little bit more context.

Got it. A shout-out to the Patch, by the way. I do check them. So you grew up in Brownsville, same neighborhood as our mayor. You’re a different generation, but talk about growing up in Brownsville.
[Laughs.] Yeah, I grew up in Brownsville for all of my childhood until I went to college. And I got to say, I don’t really think I fully understood until I went to college, which was upstate, Vassar, that I was what was considered low to semi-moderate income. And then I was like, “Oh, I’m from Brownsville and my family does this.” And they were like, “What?” That was funny. I grew up in a Mitchell-Lama, and so there was a huge sense of community. Everyone knew each other with a very large development. Security guards knew my family, and then we knew our neighbors. We knew our neighbors’ business. It was a huge sense of community.

For the listeners though, who may not know what a Mitchell-Lama is, it’s an affordable cooperative housing for middle income families.
Low to middle income families. Yes.

Not a lot of Vassar kids came out of those.
I’m meeting other Black kids and they’re like, “I grew up in a house with a garden.” I was like, “What?” So stuff like that. There was a sense of community where there’re also gunshots at midnight that we all laugh about. I don’t remember who it was, a while ago, the coworker of mine, she was talking about going to Brownsville. It was some community event, and it was for December 31st when it was going to be January 1st. And I remember we were in a group, it was me and it was someone else from East New York, and then she was talking, and she was not from even Brooklyn, and she was like, “Yeah, I’m going to go to this community event to celebrate the New Year.” And me and the East New York person just looked at each other, “She doesn’t know that there’re going to be bullets.” This is how Brownsville celebrates the New Year. There’re bullets at 11:59, and she had no idea.

Did she go? How did it work out for her?
We told her, and I don’t know that she went. We were like, “Girl, do you understand? You can go, but most Brownsville people, they make sure to be inside. You can be outside, but until about 11:30, and then you go inside, and then come out the next day.” So I lived very close to the 3 Rockaway Avenue train stop, and the big deal was these Nehemiah houses. You could get a Nehemiah house, then you were akin to being untouchable or something. So we never got one.

Do you have a place when you go back to Brownsville, like a favorite restaurant, bar, bakery, or something like, “I got to hit this place up.”
They moved, but when I was growing up, we used to go to Carolina Country Kitchen, which is on the border, it’s not quite in Brownsville, but it was a place that was close by. Oh man, that was some good soul food. People talk a lot about Harlem, but that was some good soul food. I don’t eat meat anymore, but my goodness, I mean, even to this day, sometimes I still think about those ribs. I used to go to the BRC, it’s just being outside and talking to people. The area where I lived, the Mitchell-Lama, it had terraces, so that was really cool.

I was always out on the terrace, we were on the fifth floor. And then there was a huge outdoor garden or park, if you will. And so I was always out there. Even to this day, I really love being in those types of parks because I grew up being outside a lot, playing double Dutch. Although I don’t see double Dutch often anymore. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it’s because Bed-Stuy is too gentrified. I don’t know. But I don’t see anyone playing double Dutch anymore. I don’t know. Listeners can tell me.

There’s a Brownsville crew, the Jazzy Jumpers, they’re still going.
Oh, all right, cool. Well look at me. I feel like I lost a card just now.

No, no, no, no. So you go to Vassar and then you go to UCLA Law school. My dad went to UCLA. I grew up in LA, I’ve been here for longer than I was in LA growing up. But what a big difference, Brownsville to Poughkeepsie to Westwood. What was the UCLA law experience? How did you get into tenant’s rights work as an attorney?
I went to UCLA and studied under the amazing professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who is the feminist known for amplifying and creating and talking about the concept of intersectionality. And so when I went to UCLA, I was just very happy to work with her. I was in what’s called the Critical Race Studies Program, which, back then, I would tell people I graduated with a specialization in Critical Race Theory and they would be like, “What the fuck is that? That’s some bullshit topic.” And then, now everyone knows what Critical Race Theory is because, of course—

Well, they know how the right has twisted the notion of CRT.
I had a specialization in that, and that was really cool. And I think that it really informed when I became an attorney. After law school, I took a quick detour and I actually started a project at Medgar Evers College, which is part of City University of New York, CUNY, in Brooklyn. That’s where I got to know another side of Brooklyn too, but I’ll get back to that. I graduated somewhere in the recession. I actually failed the bar more than once and took a little bit of a detour. The detour had my own housing instability issues, trying to find housing, trying to find something that was affordable. And then it hit me, “Oh my God, in the three years that I was away in law school, coming back, this place is like woefully unaffordable.” I definitely wanted to be a social justice attorney, but there’s so many different areas, and so one job popped up as a tenant’s rights attorney. I took it. The end. It’s history.

Failing the bar is much more common than people realize. At least the first time out. Still probably pretty dispiriting, I would imagine.
I say it because back then it was such a source of shame for me, and now I honestly feel like it was part of my life path.

You mentioned studying Critical Race Theory. Last March, you wrote a piece for the UCLA Law Review called Professionalism as a Racial Construct, which contains a stunning stat: only 4.7 percent of attorneys in the U.S. are Black. You talk about the obstacles that Black attorneys face in law-firm and courtroom culture. I wonder if you can unpack that a little bit.
Let me just provide a brief example. I, as an attorney, go to court often, and sometimes when I go to court, my adversary who is a landlord’s attorney is oftentimes a white male, or could be a white woman. And we go before the judge and sometimes I’m over-talked, something might come up, they might make a snide comment about Section 8. This is what I am coming to court to basically fight for tenants and fight for tenants to stay in their home. And so basically, it might be all types of disrespect and sometimes that is looked upon as just, “Oh, lawyers being lawyers.” And then when I respond and say, “Don’t speak to me that way,” or “This is disrespectful,” or “Don’t talk to me,” more times than one, the response might be, from the judge, “Wait a minute, hold on.”

And so that’s to say that unfortunately what is actually considered unprofessional behavior, which is talking over someone, which is being rude, which is calling them out their name, none of that is often considered unprofessional because of the race of the person engaging in it. But when you actually fight back or do anything, that’s considered somehow unprofessional. So I began to question, what is the purpose of professionalism? Is it so that people of color need to just remain in their place? Because a lot of people will say, “Oh, well, take the hits. Endure the toxicity.”

Even when you’re in a workplace, forget the legal field, if you’re just in a workplace and you’re enduring transphobia, racism, I’ll stick to racism, a lot of people will tell you, “Go high. Be polished. Be unbothered.” And part of that is what we have come to consider what professionalism is, this is how a true professional is, but are we really nitpicking and scrutinizing the behavior of those people who are forcing us to “go high”? No. And so for me, I really began to question what is the purpose of professionalism if it doesn’t apply to everyone, and in fact, in some instances, is weaponized against people under the guise of going high.

It’s the concept of professionalism that’s used as a tool to subjugate.
I would really urge folks to read the piece before they go off on, “What do you mean now we can’t wear a suit anymore?” Yeah, no.

This is maybe a statewide question, so I don’t know if this is your jurisdiction, but Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposed New York Housing Compact is apparently dead in the state legislature for 2023. The initiatives were largely in keeping with pro-housing and land use regulatory reforms that have been enacted in other states. Why can’t New York get it together the way other states have? You rolled your eyes. People can’t see you, but that was a big eye roll. 
I know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m rolling my eyes along with tenants waiting for… I don’t know. It’s a big sigh for me. People should know that it’s a time of high anxiety because housing right now, I would consider it, the phrase, under attack, is not too dramatic. Coming to some kind of agreement on housing is important in this time. Rent stabilization is up for grabs, in New York, possibly at the Supreme Court. The right to counsel, which provides free attorneys for New Yorkers who are income eligible, that is underfunded. The shelter right, now the mayor is looking to change. Some of that provides unhoused people with a bed and a shelter. The mayor is looking to curtail some of that.

All of these things produce a lot of anxiety for people who want to have something done about it. And so I think that it’s a huge disappointment, the fact that lawmakers could not get this, not to say agree with everything in the housing compact. I just want to make it clear, I don’t agree with everything, but the point that I’m saying is that we need it to be able to have a housing deal pass the threshold.

We’re not ending on the happiest of notes. Is there a hopeful note anywhere in the landscape?
I want people to know that there are people out here fighting. There are people out here you may not see all the time or hear on the news, but there are a lot of tenant organizers who are fighting for justice for tenants in New York City, and in Brooklyn especially. Crown Heights Tenants Union has played a major role in Brooklyn and has fought a lot of the good fights, their tenants’ rights attorneys. I mean, there’s just a whole slew of people who are in the movement who are fighting for justice for tenants. So I think that people should know that.

Check out this episode of “Brooklyn Magazine: The Podcast” for more. Subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.