City College Student Changes One Home At A Time
Words by Krystal Suriel
Edited by Kazi Maisha
In 2018, Emely Rodriguez spent the summer learning about community organizing around the issues of gentrification and housing rights through the grassroots organization, Churches United For Fair Housing (CUFFH). Then in the fall of 2018, Rodriguez, age 17, was stunned to learn her father was losing his business due to gentrification.
“My dad told me they were not renewing the lease for his 20-year old business because of gentrification, and it fueled something in me to cause change,” says Rodriguez, who was then employed at CUFFH through New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program. “It’s not fair for my dad to own his business my entire life, just to have it taken away.”
She feared how this loss of income would affect her family, and the housing rights movement became personal at that moment. She envisioned how many people were evicted––not from a business, but instead their homes due to unaffordable rising rents.
Rodriguez, with the help of her co-founder, Lauriana Beras, began the volunteer sub-group CUFFH Youth. Women-run, it is composed of young people of color affected by changes occurring in the quickly-gentrifying neighborhood of Bushwick in Brooklyn. Through the group, Rodriguez was able to gain media exposure, increase social media engagements, and most importantly, influence change toward New York’s housing laws.
Before working at CUFFH and while growing up in another gentrifying neighborhood, South Williamsburg in Brooklyn, Rodriguez had always been interested in activism but didn’t know where to begin. “The opportunity of working at CUFFH really made it easier for me to get involved.” she says. “I realized that I really liked organizing and speaking at rallies. I realized this was my passion and my destiny.”
2019 proved to be a big year for Rodriguez. She was graduating high school, beginning the college process, running a youth group, and working a part-time job. It was also the year New York State laws regarding rent-regulated apartments expired. That created the opportunity for her to attend rallies and express the need for universal rent control. “The more rallies I went to, the more interviews I was having for articles and smaller news outlets,” says Rodriguez. “Through those interviews Fox 5 NY heard about us and reached out to our mentor.”
On April 15th, Rodriguez and Beras were interviewed live by Ernie Anastos to discuss the housing crisis in New York. “I was nervous,” she recalls. “But I knew how important it was for the youth’s perspective on housing to be heard.”
All of her hard work brought her ambitions to fruition. The following June, Rodriguez was informed that a landmark bill was passed across New York State that established rent regulation. Most importantly, the legislation no longer allowed certain loopholes or reasonings as excuses for landlords to evict tenants from their homes. It was the most significant change these laws had seen in nearly a century. “I was in shock because housing activism had been going on for a long time,” says Rodriguez. “I couldn’t believe I was a part of when the change actually happened. The youth’s voice brought a different perspective to the movement. I felt really proud of myself and CUFFH youth because we really helped the tenants.”
Since then, Rodriguez’s father has become a taxi driver for a local car service and occasionally works for Lyft. Rodriguez, 19, is now a junior at CCNY, majoring in sociology. After over a year of taking a leave of absence from CUFFH to pick up a job during the pandemic to help her family financially, she’s back as a paid employee. “My job now is being a Hurricane Ida organizer,” she says. “It’s still about housing and this time I help people whose homes were affected by the storm by connecting them to resources for relief.”
