Amy Collado

Lloyd: Thank you for being here with us this morning. So yeah, first we'll just start with some, like, background information. So, um, where were you born and where is your family from?

Collado: I was born in Brooklyn Hospital and my family is from DR, Dominican Republic. I believe my mom may have migrated here when she was like 7, 8 years old, so like early 70s. Yeah, from Brooklyn.

Lloyd: What language do you speak at home?

Collado: English, and because of work is when I get to speak Spanish.

Lloyd: Gotcha. Um, and how would you say you and your family celebrate y'all's culture in Bushwick?

Collado: Oh. Um. What an interesting question. I don't know. Um, I don't know. Just existing. It's weird.

Lloyd: Yeah, maybe not even celebrating just like participating like…

Collado: Just sort of, I don't know. Just like culturally, [I] would like whatever my family has always done, which is like, you know, cook our foods, play our music, a lot of family gatherings.

We settled in Bushwick, on Decatur [Street], between Cooper [Street]  and Knickerbocker [Avenue]. I say it's important because that area completely changed from when we moved there. And at, like, the beginning of 2005, it was actually my aunt. You know how you always have like favorite cousins that you're super close to? So she was like my second mom, so, you know. I would always be with them. So I feel like, like their story is kind of like I'm included in it. So I'm speaking from the perspective of like the cousin that was tagging along with the aunt. So that's the family that moved.

At the time, my mom and I, we were in Queens and we were displaced. So I just so happened to move in with my aunt and cousins at a time where they were also, in a sense, getting displaced. Um, so they actually lived in Williamsburg when they came from DR in the 90s. So although my aunt came with my grandmother and all the 11 kids and they grew up here, when she had started her family, she took her family back to DR 'cause she wanted her kids to be born there. And so when they finally settled back in New York, they settled in Williamsburg and specifically they settled on Metropolitan [Avenue] and Lorimer [Street]. Are y'all familiar?

Lloyd: Mm-Hmm. .

Collado: All good. So, um. When they moved in, to the time we moved out, the rent like skyrocketed. I'm talking about like they moved in and paying maybe about 300 and change.

Um, and at the time, the idea of like paying for this tiny, like match box of an apartment, I think it went up a little over a thousand dollars at that point. My aunt was like, “You know what? We could probably get —paying that amount—we can get a bigger space in Bushwick. And that's basically what happened. So fast forward, 2005, um, we all moved to Decatur [Street] at the start of the year, and she was right. It was a huge apartment. The living room was probably like five times the size of what it was in Williamsburg. And yeah, we moved to Bushwick. That part of Bushwick was, uh, really, really rough, I would say, because like, I remember feeling, like, it wasn't really safe for us as girls to be outside.Um, So to see what it is now is just like it bugs me the hell out because I remember we couldn't even walk to the train, which was like the Wilson Avenue stop. Um, yeah.

Like initially we were really shocked about the change from like the Williamsburg and sort of the culture and you know, versus that part of Bushwick that was closer to East New York. It was like day and night. Although we're from East New York too, but that's a whole nother story.

Lloyd: How would you describe that culture change?

Collado: I would say that that culture change was first, it was like environmentally very, very different. Um, it was, I would describe it as a bit more quiet, but not because it was calm.

It was just, just structurally it was very different. So, um, you're familiar with like Metropolitan [Avenue]  being very hustle and bustle. A lot of, I guess you would call it tenement buildings. So, you know, four or five walk-ups. A lot more congested, but it still had a feeling of community. And I would say that, being fresh to that particular block, it felt very desolate. It was very quiet. We were like, it was, I remember across the street were homes, private homes, and the building we moved into only had about two units.

So, just like immediately, it felt like, kind of like, in the middle of nowhere, because we also moved around January. So [it] felt very like we were kind of like dropped into a whole new neighborhood, which we were, but it really did feel different. Just a few stops away on the train. I would say that, that was the first thing. The second thing would be like access. There weren't as many stores. We went from having if we're on Metropolitan [Avenue] and Lorimer [Street], we went from having, I'm about to age myself, a video store right across the street, we had a ton of restaurants. I would say the neighborhood in Williamsburg was predominantly Italian, and then we moved to a neighborhood that kind of only had a bodega, like one or two bodegas, a chicken spot, that's kind of it, within walking distance.There may have been like a Spanish restaurant, but that was it. You know, it just was really, really different.

And then being a teenager wasn't like we could just hop on the train without permission. So it's like, what was around our neighborhood was really important to us, in terms of socially. Another thing that I'll name that was really different, I'm a library kid. And so, um, where we lived, like there was a library right around the corner in Williamsburg and in Bushwick, I can't even tell you where it was. It was just completely different.

Lloyd: Do you have, like, any particular memories that you'd like to share that you would associate with, like, those special spots that you found?

Collado: Yeah. Um, the special spots that I found in—

Lloyd: —in Bushwick. So, like, the library or anything else that, like, maybe you guys just kind of like, made do, with what you had.

Collado: Totally. That's essentially what happened with, more space meant, we could invite more family over. And that's basically what that house became, was just like the spot, like every Sunday, or maybe for somebody's birthday, we would host, during the summertime, we started to do things like barbecuing in front, because, again it was just like two apartments and the block was pretty empty, so we really didn't have to compete for space.

I'll just describe a little more of like our particular block. We were right next door to a garage. So it was like we kind of had the freedom to just like post up and hang out. I would say that the fondest memories that I have of Bushwick is, I felt that we were able to reconnect. Because we have more space to do that. So, yeah, I got to hang out with way more cousins, aunts, uncles, to see the siblings interact. So for me Bushwick really represented like family and unity, in ways that I hadn't seen before.

And it could have just been the excitement of my aunt being like, oh, I got a new spot. Let me just do a ton of housewarmings. And then it just became like a norm of just her, just like, hosting lots of people, just like foods and drinks and just like, yeah. And we haven't had that since, ever since leaving Bushwick.

Lloyd: What about neighbors? Would you guys ever have these sorts of interactions with neighbors as well?

Collado: Oh. No.

Lloyd: Really?

Collado: I would say when we first moved in, it was really interesting. That garage that was next door. That was the home of…that was a home of Dogs for Life. Dogs for Life was a crew. It was the worst thing ever. Yo, it used to be hundreds. I mean, in retrospect, it's fire now to think that there were clubs and it was a motorcycle club or a motor club. And, uh, you know, as an adult that probably would have participated in the club now, I'm like, damn, that's tight that they had their headquarters right there for us.

It was a nightmare. It would be like, we weren’t sleeping for two nights or for the whole night because the party was bumping. It would be hundreds of motorcycle sounds and dogs and that. Outside of that, like, we really didn't engage with our neighbors too much, we kind of didn't have to. I feel like a lot of my memory in the building itself, although it was like very intimate, meaning like, it was just us, another tenant on our floor, and then maybe who would have been the super in the basement.

There was hardly anyone ever living on the actual first floor. So we really didn't talk to anybody. I can't even, I mean, I can count on my hand how often I've seen the super at the time, but it really did kind of feel like it was just like our place, like our big old building, our big home. But I will say that, you know, that's not like a special experience for me as a New Yorker.

Like, It's pretty common to live in a place and you don't know your neighbors. You might, maybe through time, or if I were older, then maybe the neighbors who lived across the street, um, I'm pretty sure they had some kind of relationship with my aunt, right? Because like, you had to have  an understanding if you were going to host barbecues, right? Because loudness would affect other people. So I'm pretty sure she had to engage with them. But as a teen and as a young adult, we really didn't, we didn't need to. I would say who we had probably the most relationship with was probably the bodega across the street just because you have to talk to them. You go there often, you know each other. If, you know, if you're a couple of dollars short, they'll understand. But I think, you know, if I'm, I'm speaking from eyes. Bushwick just felt like, it just felt like a freedom that was about me and sort of where I was in my growth and it meant family, uh, it meant no drama.

And that also includes no drama of neighbors, it's just like kind of just you got to chill. You got to do what you wanted to do. I will say there was an understanding. Puerto Rican day: you left. Because it was the Puerto Rican’s block, they were gonna party as long as they needed to. It was a heavily Puerto Rican neighborhood. I will say that particular part of Bushwick. So yeah…it's just like I don't know. It's just unspoken rules of just… okay, here we're gonna do this for the day because this is going on.

And if we're doing our thing like, you know, we're mindful of other people we end it early. But yeah, Bushwick was very different from any other experience I had. Had this conversation been about— I don't know—our upbringing in Williamsburg or in East New York… all different types of stories. But our particular weird little block —that was right next to a school and I think we had like a family dollar— outside of that, it was like…we kind of had our own little world, our own little block where we didn't really engage too much with the neighborhood, but it felt safe over time.

Once we got to know, right. It was just, it was one thing like a culture shock, I guess you can call. We moved to the block, but then after it's just like…I don't know, it was just really, it was really beautiful. It was very like…once I left my aunt's house, if I were to, it was the house to go to if you were like going through a breakup because it was just so airy and bright, a lot of like natural sunlight comes in, you have family, cousins, it was just, I don't know, it was a very healing kind of home  and experience and being a Bushwick.

Yeah, I actually kept that address on my ID for a very long time. Like, I moved to other places, it was so irresponsible, but I couldn't let go of the address and the zip code, and I left it on. That was, just like, my only way of wanting to stay connected to the neighborhood.

Lloyd: I gotcha. So, where, where are you at like right now? And, Would you say that now that you're older, you do kind of find yourself having, I guess, that more interaction with your community? Especially now that you're further from family, or would you say things are kind of the same?

Collado: I would say, no. I would say that Bushwick was the last time that there was a real sense of family because of, again, the space, the actual space itself to host people, to have family come over, to spend the night to have cousin night like that's one of the places, that place in my grandma's place in Williamsburg, which was not nowhere near the same size, but we made it work.

Since we moved, you know, my family kind of spread out so my aunt and cousins moved to Atlanta. My sister moved to Atlanta, so I feel like Bushwick was one of the last places where we could all be together like that particular side of my family. Did that answer the question? I don't remember.

Lloyd: Would you say that you were able to fill that with like community connections or would you say that now that kind of connection is still like with your family with your memories of them?

Collado: No, I would say that, through organizing is where  I've been able to connect with community in ways that I didn't on a personal level. So like, as a Bushwick resident, you know, I didn't engage with the community, but ever since doing organizing work I had to engage with the community, right? Part of organizing is creating those relationships that I didn't have. I was forced to essentially create relationships with folks that were my neighbors.

So now, sort of through BHIP’s work, I feel a sense of duty to connect people in that way that maybe we missed out on…whether it's like getting to know each other, learning their rights, empowering people, but just like that social fabric that  you can't avoid when you're organizing, like you need that to build trust and power. So I feel like my experience now is a lot more in touch with Bushwick as a whole, versus just being a resident in Bushwick, if that makes sense. Yeah, like the community center. I didn't even know that existed. And, I lived in Bushwick, right? And I would go shopping there…

So, where El Puente is, close to Knickerbocker, which is like a main avenue for shopping. And I would go there all the time, but I never knew about access to resources, or to even think to hang out at an after school program. I was a little bit older, but I mean they've been around since the 90s so like. In theory, I should have….

I would have grown up to be a very different person had I known that that center and those resources were open to me um, so now as an adult, it's like really just trying to bring people together and giving them reason to come together. I guess to fill…I guess fill in that void of not having  family and that camaraderie with like, you know, different generations and aunts and uncles and grandmas. I do get that through organizing.

Lloyd: Over the years, how have you seen the neighborhood change? And I'd also be curious if, you know, your work through organizing kind of like, also made you notice different kinds of changes, you know, as well.

Collado: So, I think the obvious, right? Like, you can see obvious changes, and by that I mean, I'll start with development, right? New buildings, buildings that were in lots that, sometimes I'm standing on a block and I'm like, how the fuck is this, you know, how is this that neighborhood? The place that I was, that we moved to on Decatur looks… it looks so different. There's a cafe downstairs. How? I don't know. I think what was the garage was turned into a cafe. So it's all fancy glass windows. What was a bodega is now like this wine store which in my head I'm like how? Like genuinely…how does that serve the community?

Because it's like, in order to go to a bodega now, you would have to go further, right? You would go around the block, which is a really long fucking block. You'd go around the block, you'd go down the block, you go up two blocks. But to have that, like central place, that was served for so many years as a bodega to be like an alcohol’s place…

I'm like, whatever.

Our old building looks very different too.So they made a bunch of changes when we lived there. It was not, it was not in good conditions for them. For the most part, we hardly ever knew who was the landlord. We didn't engage with them that much. We wouldn't have heat sometimes. Um, yeah, so just like… visually it changed a lot, but then demographically it did change a whole lot.

When I went to the community board meeting, because I'm totally a geek. I used to go there for fun. And I was telling Rossy, the apprentice, that she's like, oh, that's different. I'm like, damn, I didn't think it was that different, but it's true. Like, I would just go to the community board meeting because, I felt so strong to Bushwick. But when my family moved away, I'm like, well, how the hell do I engage with Bushwick? How do I support Bushwick?

So I started going to the community meetings just to be nosy in 2014, 2015. And…when I went this year, in January, the room was very different. And the board looked really different. There were a lot younger, whiter folks. And that took me by surprise. When I used to go there, in 2014, the board was made up mainly of older black women, so it just felt…it just felt different. 
Um, granted the work was still important. They were doing awesome work, like no shade to like what, like how the meeting was ran. I just think that I…I wasn't used to seeing the chairperson not be an older black woman. And what that meant for where it's headed, right, where the neighborhood is headed.

So, yeah, it's changed in some ways, but then now, as a housing rights organizer and just the period that we're in, it's interesting to see that there is the legacy of Bushwick being an immigrant community still thriving. So, last Saturday, really affirmed that for me, at the immigrant fair to see how many people came out to it, how many of them —even though they're unhoused— you know, might be seeking shelter in Bushwick. So, I was like, okay, there's two…there's almost like two worlds that's happening at the same time, this hyper gentrification, but also this still being kind of a safe haven for people.So it's it's...it's weird. It's weird to be kind of in this space where there are two different types of groups that need to know their rights and their rights look very different. And then how to get them to sort of work together. It's,it's, I got my work cut out for me for sure, so. Sorry my pants are unbuttoned.

Lloyd: So have these changes in the community affected your own personal sense of belonging in the community?

Collado: Oh yeah, I would say, totally. That's one of the reasons why I became an organizer. So, as somebody who grew up in Williamsburg, and East New York, and Bushwick, it's just…it's really interesting to have the experience of living down that line. So if you were to …Sometimes I describe my identity in terms of, you know, being a tenant, it's like all down the J or L line, right?

So, yeah, it's been, it's been crazy. I started to notice the change around high school when we still lived in, I mean, honestly, I will say after 9/11. So we experienced 9/11 in Williamsburg. So if you, if you don't know sort of —geographically— what it looks like in Williamsburg, it's like the Twin Towers were right there, if that makes sense. The way that our block was, on Metropolitan [Avenue] and…and… and Lorimer [Street], it was almost kind of a hill. So what it would do is just made the towers tall, very prominent. It was like a clear vision to it. So, it's important to know that, and how  it affected sort of our family's migration to Bushwick, because my high school was also in Williamsburg. So when the towers were going down, it was…it was literally right in front of us, so much so that our teachers didn't want us to look out the window.

And so when you ask me sort of the change of Bushwick, I have to start at the change of Williamsburg because it was a trickle down effect that still spread into other neighborhoods, like East New York and Brownsville, right?

So, the changes that were—that I was seeing happening in Bushwick as a young adult were already changes and sort of anxieties that I had already been building up from seeing the change happened in Williamsburg. So it's almost like a tidal wave. Like, oh, it's only a matter of time until it comes. And then when it did come, kind of the anger that came out of that displacement, and going to places like the community board meetings. And then hearing about all of the problems that's happening all over Bushwick, to me, all you had to do was change the name of the neighborhood, and…and it was the same thing. So if I'm hearing, you know, people in Bushwick complain about rent gouging, living in squalor, having the neighbors call the cops on them because of noise complaints. If you were to just switch the name with Williamsburg, East New York, Brownsville, Bed-Stuy, and then eventually places in Queens like Flushing, Sunnyside.

It just all felt all the same, like to me, it's just all one big mess of gentrification. The difference is that Bushwick started to be marketed in a way that upset me? Like in a different way because it was really pumped to be like this really cool artsy place and, as a creative, it was really rough because it's like, I'm a creative, this should technically be something good for me, but it really represented erasure. And that's why this project or projects like this is so important and timely because again, like Williamsburg, Bushwick has a long history of community, of family, of people doing the best they can with the very little. And I genuinely mean very little, that they have whether it's just being thankful for having a roof over their head,

even if they're living with roaches, mice, landlords not fixing anything. But then you have people like a tenant last night who came to a community meeting which she's like: “ I live with an infestation of  mice. I live on the first floor. The landlord doesn't clean our basement. So, you know, if anything, they come to my apartment, but all the other apartments are really beautifully renovated.” So how do you…how do you not feel like an alien in your own neighborhood, in your own building, right? So, to me, that's…that's basically been my experience of just  this constant having to move because change doesn't mean something positive.

So, you know, yeah, it's been, it's been really interesting to experience the Bushwick change just because of that —that creative portion— of just  I'm really angry that this is happening. But I really like to go to that art gallery, right?

It's just…it's such a… it's weird living in that paradox of the two changes. And also having to organize against those things that I like, right? Like, Bushwick, the Bushwick Collective being this, you know, cool as group that does these beautiful murals, right? Like, I love graffiti. I love looking at murals. Murals has…you know…has been ingrained as a fabric— in how we express ourselves— you know, in urban settings, right? A loved one passes away, we put up a big beautiful mural and people want to take photos and then that's kind of like how they live on in the neighborhood. So to see a group like Bushwick Collective do these humongous total building makeovers was dope until I realized how that was affecting that particular block and how real estate people were using, you know, those unveilings

or those neighborhood tours as a way to, you know, have a faster turnaround.  They would schedule most of their open houses when those art shows were happening. So it was really difficult to find a place in that, and not wanting to participate in something that was displacing people. But then, sort of not honoring my inner child that really loves, you know, art and art making and creation and celebrating local artists that probably didn't get paid, very much to do. Or at least, in the beginning, they didn't get paid to do much of that. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't know where else the question was going, but that's what came to me.

Lloyd: Yeah. So zooming on your own personal housing situation, how do you feel about your own housing conditions and also the cost of rent?

Collado: Um, so I actually live in Ridgewood, which is ironic that it's so close to Bushwick. I'm like, always like, damn.

I guess I'm really supposed to give a lot of myself to the neighborhood of Bushwick, no matter how far I go. My particular living situation is in Ridgewood—since literally I am one or two blocks away from Bushwick— it's…it's weird because I live on a historical block, right? So in theory, it's meant to protect us from change. But instead, like, although Ridgewood is going through its own version of gentrification, and that's been happening even faster after 2020. Our landlord uses it—who's a new landlord as of January 2020—he uses it as an excuse to not make any repairs. Oh, this is a landmark, we're not allowed to make any changes, and let’s everything go to hell. It's difficult to have to accept that as my norm because I'm an organizer and not being able to organize my building is really rough.

So we do live in bad conditions. Or it could be better, is what I'll say. But our rent has been pretty good. This landlord revealed early on that he's not too smart, and so I think he's kind of afraid of being assertive, and like raising our rent, and following the rules, and stuff like that. I'm not really sure why he hasn't, but our rent hasn't increased in a while. But the other part of that is that we also haven't gotten really major repairs, right? We have a terrible leak in the roof. Yeah, like our steps are falling apart. The block itself has been going through a really bad, like, rat infestation. I'm thankful that it hasn't hit our building, but we're seeing signs of it, like, invading buildings. So you know how sometimes you have trees and you have dirt in front of the building?

There's been like these two buildings coming one, two, three, four buildings away where the rats have been borrowing from the tree to the apartment or into the building and you'll see the neighbors figuring out how to block it. So you'll see a ton of fucking cinder blocks or whatever they can find to try to cover it but it's just like, you know, this feeling of like if…if newer, younger, whiter folks moved in, we wouldn't live in this situation because we've seen other buildings be renovated and made beautiful after other folks move in. So yeah, it's,.. it's rough to have to accept these things as a norm. But at the same time, I get a lot of—I get a lot of purpose and fulfillment and being able to take that anger and the energy, bring it to tenants in Bushwick who are living in far worse conditions.

And hopefully just, you know, get them to improve their quality of life and maybe not…not have those feelings of acceptance. Right. Yeah. When we lived in Bushwick, we lived in a rundown ass building but we have freedom. It could be on the roof. We could sunbathe, if we wanted to have a party until 4 am, you know, we did that. So, it was really interesting and I know that that's the norm for a lot of…a lot of people who live in Bushwick is a sense of family. And a lot of us come from not having much anyway. But it is really rough seeing the possibility that something could be improved. It's just not improved for us, you know.

Lloyd: What would you say are the most challenging issues around Bushwick and their relation to housing?

Collado: I think, I think money. Again, I think unlike a lot of other neighborhoods, Bushwick went through this really, really weird marketing campaign. It just…it was just made very attractive. It was made very cool. Literally, 2014 Vogue put in their fucking magazine that Bushwick was a cool neighborhood. What? Like, not just what, because it's not that, it wasn't the case. But that in itself, that's promotion, right? Like that's an invitation to come. It invites tourism, and tourism means Airbnb. Airbnbs means we're testing out what it feels like to live here. And it's just this weird, just this tidal wave, this, this trickle effect that, yeah. This is really hard. I mean, I remember right before getting into organizing or even before I knew what organizing was…

So, in Bushwick, there's a neighborhood, another shopping district called Graham. That's what we called it, but it's Graham. And Graham had like this sub…this sub street name called the Avenue of Puerto Rico. And I remember in 2014, there was a petition that started to remove that sign. And it infuriated people because it's like, who the fuck started this? One. Two, who the fuck is signing this like what is happening? And I remember it staying dormant, right? Like everybody was really mad in 2014, people forgot about it, 2023 rolls around and all of a sudden we see a crane. They are taking it down, first thing in the morning. And everybody was like, how the fuck did this happen? Why did this happen? And they organized around that. I wasn't part of that organizing because I was organizing in Queens. I'm like, it's very overwhelming.

But I remember that it's just like this quiet battle of actively changing the community and why, right? Why would that sign bother anybody? Like Grand Avenue of the Puerto Rico's. It was put up for a reason, but the need to take it down means you want to keep cleaning. I don't want to use the term ethnically cleaning because I would be so irresponsible to compare, you know, to other thing that's happening in the world. But yeah, it's just Bushwick had such a Latino—Black and Latino—you see that it's not only being…not just erasure in the everyday culture, but it's almost like absorbing the culture and flipping it into something that it's not, right? So again, Bushwick Collective —majority white folks—but we would get locked up for doing graffiti. And yet, here these guys are doing a block party with Fat Joe and Slick Rick.

And you know what I'm saying? It was just like a, you know, a reminder that what's ours is not good until it's someone else's and can be marketed and can make money off of it. So yeah, those are the those are the toughest parts about the change that's been happening in Bushwick. And it's been happening for a while. But yeah, Bushwick specifically is… it definitely went through this…this phase of just, you know, this is a new frontier. If you are not even a starving artist, it was like it wasn't the opposite way. Like if you had money, you should move here, right? Because this is cool. This is hip. Everybody's doing their own thing.
And so it wasn't like we had other poor people moving in. It was just, it was money that was moving in and it really did change—a whole lot.

And now these new developments are so damn ugly. It's like, who is designing this stuff? Why? I mean, because it's like, could you maybe consider making buildings that kind of make sense for the neighborhood? It's not going to take away the what behind it, but yeah. It's just like this infestation of like this…It's just this reminder that like, there's other being preferred and being added, regardless as to who likes it or not, because they could blend in and we would never notice. But it's almost like it's intentionally bad to make people feel like, oof, there was a neighborhood. I probably should start thinking about moving on or moving out.

Lloyd: What goals do you have for BHIP and how BHIP will help to address these issues going on in Bushwick?

Collado: Yeah, so BHIP has always had the legacy of keeping Bushwick affordable and preserving Bushwick culture, but through a very specific lens, right? Because BHIP has had ties to the church. The church has always been a safe haven for, you know, refugees, migrants, folks who are down and out. It's always been a way for people who are looking for help and support to tap into. And so a lot of times, also culturally, Latinos tend to, you know, um, use the church as that space, right?

So we would have majority Spanish speaking folks, right? Not all, but that's who we served.

The goal for BHIP is to rise to the occasion for that same community because as I mentioned before, we are seeing a lot of migrants moving into the neighborhood. We're seeing a lot of folks who are coming from…shelters, that are getting access to city programs moving into these buildings that are still not being maintained. But now the landlords are getting even more money for housing them. So, you know, we're talking about people who are paying almost 2,000 dollars for an apartment that is  infested or [has] leaks, mold. So, the goal for BHIP is to let as many people know what their rights are, and encourage them to take action,  to not only improve their living conditions, but to stay. Because the risk is that people continue to leave and it turns into a completely different neighborhood, like it turns into some place out here, downtown Manhattan,

where, there are people, there are residents, but there is no community here. Right? Unless you know each other, I would say like, you know, how you define community is subjective. But, it is a very different experience than when you leave Manhattan, or certain parts of Manhattan that you do see are okay. Quality of life is different. There's a lot more personal relationships. You might be close to the people that serve you the coffee, but most of the time that's as far as it goes. It's not like I can knock on your door and ask you for some sugar, right?

So yeah, so the goal of BHIP is to preserve affordable apartments and to build a network of smart people—people that know the deal. They know—they have the options to stand up for whatever it is that's important to them. Maybe they just want the landlord to, you know, replace the front door and that's it.

To give them the options and the tools and the encouragement to do it. Because the flip side is that they don't, and then the landlord takes more and more advantage of folks and they leave. And they experience what I've experienced, which is constant displacement, which has an effect on people—mentally, emotionally, spiritually—and it just, you know, it stays with us and, you know, preserving affordable apartments and empowering people is healing. The goal for Bushwick, for BHIP is to, in a sense, pick up where we left off.

Lloyd: Since picking up, do you have any stories, any accomplishments that you guys have managed since starting back up?

Collado: Oh my god, so sweet. I will say, for what it's worth, having community meetings. I know people have responded really well to it.

You know, it's been, it's always…it had always been a resource for people to come to express themselves to, you know, let out their frustrations. But more importantly to learn. So I'm really proud that even with my limited capacity as an organizing consultant last year, I was able to, you know, slowly let people know that BHIP exists again. And sharing, you know, really important information with the community. Now in a very short time, I'm really proud of that work, being able to give the organization a foundation to apply for grants to keep growing. So that was something that I know that they were struggling with. Because…in order to get funding, you need an organizer. And in order to get an organizer, you need funding.

So I'm really proud of being able to support the community's growth in that. And, even taking it a step further with, you know, with pushing them to get an apprentice. Like these are all big victories for an organization that had been dormant for a while and, you know, couldn't progress. Um, there was still work that was happening, you know. Raquel [Namuche], shout out to her. She's one of the board members and, you know, she did a really good job at doing the best she could with keeping BHIP going. But the way that BHIP used to serve the community had a lot of support—a lot of support.

There would be no way that one person would be able to do all the things that BHIP was known to do. And so, it feels like we're good, going at a good pace, that we're getting back to that, to be that resource for folks. But also, the Immigrant Fair reminded me or showed me that there are a lot of other organizations too, that organize in Bushwick.

Really cool groups like mutual aids, so that there—those are like grassroots groups. So I'm also really excited to get to see who else is in the neighborhood, just, you know, to spark collaboration, which is really inspiring.

Lloyd: One last question. What are your hopes for the future of Bushwick and community organizing within?

Collado: Yeah. My hopes is that we can, we can build something that can sustain itself regardless as to who's running it. So, a goal of mine is that we build a strong base of people who are committed to the work.

And, in the long term, a goal of mine —or a dream of mine— would be to get a tenant leader become an organizer and sort of have that as a foundation in how we build BHIP. In the past BHIP was known for two main people. Once those people were gone, it was very evident that BHIP wasn't an org [organization]. BHIP was a specific person, right? So it'd be really nice to help create a foundation that, you know, organizing can continue to happen regardless as to who's leading it.

And in terms of my goal for Bushwick is that, it's just like being able to see more tenants take action and not live in really bad conditions. When I went out the other night to do an outreach blitz, we were going to target about four or five buildings that are part of this list called the Alternative Emergency Program.

It's part of HPD's [NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development], you know, worst condition buildings, you know, with the most violations. And even though we couldn't get into all of them, we were able to, at least, see the conditions of the lobby. And, I was like damn, this is why it's important that there are on the ground—like boots on the ground—organizers going onto these buildings because people have been living in such bad conditions for so long.

We were able to get into one building and it really broke my heart. It broke my heart to see, you know, this pregnant mother with her five year old son, you know, who was fed up. You know, who came from the shelter system, who is living in the smallest apartment, I think, I have ever seen. It's so clear that the landlord—a greedy landlord—chopped up their apartment. So, essentially like a real world apartment. And, and it didn't even feel like it was chopped up in half. That shit felt like it was chopped in thirds.

That's how tiny it was. And I remember the bathroom had so much mold. I didn't even know mold could grow to that degree. And it was actually growing in the vent. So like the one source of air, right? It's just…and it's in the middle of the bathroom. And she saw my reaction. You know, I try my best not to like, pass judgment because I don't want to affirm, oh you're living in this…But I was just really shocked to see she was like fully blown pregnant and she's got a five year old kid, and she's living with that and…They had like three different landlords in two years.

So it's like really being able to connect with people like that, to let them know that they don't have to accept that. They have options. They have rights. Let's talk about that, let's talk about what you can do to make this better, and to hold your landlord accountable.

Because landlords really are just doing whatever they want and just making, just profiting off of poverty. And it's really hard to see. So I'm hoping that with BHIP, we can connect people to taking action, so that that doesn't keep happening.

Lloyd: Thank you so much. Thank you. That was amazing.

Collado: Thank you so much.