The Bronx Apartment Fire Was a Product of New York’s Out-of-Control Housing Market
The Bronx apartment fire that recently killed 17 people was a devastating tragedy. It is also the entirely predictable outcome of a housing market that forces tenants to grovel for basic repairs while landlords rule as something close to kings.
The Bronx apartment building stands a day after a fire swept through the complex, killing at least seventeen people and injuring dozens of others, many of them seriously, on January 10, 2022 in New York City. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)
You’re cold. Your apartment is poorly heated and poorly insulated. You wear your coat inside, and you’ve used the oven to heat your living room before. You have a right to heat and hot water, so you complain to your landlord. But your landlord is three different real estate investment groups, from three different states, who openly brag about how many low-income housing units they own, and whose leadership does not look like you.
Your complaint gets added to a list in a city database to be rectified — sometime. You want to be warm now, so you run a space heater, just like everyone else in your building. Yours is defective and catches fire.
The fire alarm goes off, as it has falsely countless times before. When you realize that it’s real this time, you gather your family and run for your life.
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