On a recent Monday afternoon, the vice chancellor of Austria, Andreas Babler, peered up at a hole in the sagging ceiling of a dark, unrented South Williamsburg apartment crowded with abandoned furniture and dusty suitcases.
Los Sures tenant advocate Lina Renique-Poole was telling Babler about the landlord's warehousing of more than 20 rent-stabilized units in the building—like the one they were standing in—and the lack of repairs in occupied units, as well as the wave of evictions, the dire need for affordable housing, and the real estate money influencing politics in New York City.
Babler, who wore a tailored blue suit and gleaming leather oxfords, listened with a furrowed brow.
"But what is the political strategy here?" he asked. "What are you going to do?"
"Well, we're going to get a new mayor," Renique-Poole replied.
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