Marilyn Mullins

Zacca Thomaz: Today is April 18, 2023. This is Diana Zacca Thomaz from The New School. I’m interviewing Marilyn Mullins from CASA in Mount Eden, in the Bronx. This interview is for the Parsons Housing Justice Lab’s Oral History Project. Marilyn, let’s start from the very beginning. Tell me a little bit about where you were born and raised. What was it like being born and raised there?

Mullins: Okay. I was born in North Carolina, a little town called Hillsborough, North Carolina. It’s so small, it’s not even on the map. But I was raised in a house. We had gardens. We could go to the pond to fish. It was just a beautiful place to grow up in. But I transgressioned [sic] from the Carolina to New York City at the age of twelve. My whole family did not come, just part of my family. I had the pleasure of growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, Bronx, New York, and North Carolina. During the summer, my family would send us to the Carolinas or New Haven, Connecticut. And as I got older, I also started working in North Carolina with the summer youth job. But by North Carolina not having a high state and gross income, I found out that during the summertime I get more from the youth jobs in the city. So, I started doing the youth jobs in the city, but I still went back and forth. Back and forth.

Zacca Thomaz: And what brought you and part of your family to New York from North Carolina in the first place?

Mullins: Well, I’m from a very large family and we just have family all over. And one day my mother asked if I would want to come to New York City. I said yes. But I had older sisters that was here, sisters and brothers here in New York City. And I decided I just want to change at an early age.

Zacca Thomaz: So, it was only a few years after first arriving in New York that you really settled here and started working here and being here all year long?

Mullins: Well, actually it took me a little longer than a few years because I had to maneuver. I had to get to know the city, grow with the city, just feel my way around the city and go places. When you go to new places, you have to go out and discover what this new place is like. And that’s what I did.

Zacca Thomaz: And when was that then that you settled in New York? Do you remember the year?

Mullins: No. Oh my goodness, it’s been over fifty some years that I came to New York. So, I don’t even remember the year.

Zacca Thomaz: Okay. But you were twelve the first time you came, and then when you settled, you were—

Mullins: Once I came, I stayed—my family put me in school and, you know, I started going to school.

Zacca Thomaz: And where was that in New York that you first lived?

Mullins: Oh, it was Jefferson Place, Boston Road, 169th Street. I think that’s School District 9.

Zacca Thomaz: And what was it like living there?

Mullins: Well, for me, being fresh out of the country, this was something new to me. It was amazing. I loved it. I made friends. And it was just an amazing time, because the city was different. The city was still growing. The community was lovely. Every mother looked out for other mothers’ children. It was like, how do you say it? “It takes some village to raise a child.” That’s the way it was. I was so awesome.

Zacca Thomaz: Currently where do you live?

Mullins: Um, okay. I live in a hybrid section of the Bronx. But when I came to New York and I was on Jefferson Place, we stayed there for a minute. We stayed because, at that time, the rent was so cheap, but it’s not like it is now. We could afford to pay it. And by being able to afford to pay it, we stayed where we was at, because the rooms was much bigger than what they are right now. The building that I first moved in when I came to New York is still there.

Zacca Thomaz: What made you move from there?

Mullins: Well, the family started growing. I had two older sisters and a bunch of older brothers, but my two older sisters had the apartment together and they started having children. So, once they started having children, they decided to branch out. They had one apartment even though it was like four bedrooms, but each of them had two children. And then it was me and two more of my sisters. So my sisters moved not on the West Side, but pretty close to the West Side. Matter of fact, 1027 Walton Avenue, 165th Street. Each of them got an apartment and the apartment was like, three rooms. My oldest sister lived on the second floor, and she had an apartment that was divided. It was two apartments turned into one. So, her and her children, and then she had me, and two of my other sisters. And I had my second oldest sister lived on the fourth floor. And she had, I think it was a four room bedroom apartment also. So, they started growing, and as we got older, we started getting our own place. Forty years ago, I left Walton Avenue and moved to the West Side. And I’m still in that same apartment—not the same apartment, the same building right now.

Zacca Thomaz: The west side here of the Bronx?

Mullins: Yes.

Zacca Thomaz: For you, since you moved here till now, how do you think it has changed, the neighborhood?

Mullins: It has changed a whole lot. It goes for the better, then it goes to the worst. So right now, I say it’s the worst with the landlords and everything. Because when I first moved in, I thought it was so hard to pay the rent. And right now, my rent is high. When I first moved in, I moved in to one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor—and I have one child—and that one-bedroom apartment was $183. Yes. I stayed there for eighteen years, and when I had my second child, I moved to the second floor in the same building, in a two-bedroom apartment, and that apartment was $805. Right now, it is by me being in a rent-stabilized apartment, I don’t have to pay that $3,200, I only pay like $1,000.

Zacca Thomaz: What else do you think has changed in the neighborhood?

Mullins: The people. We have more people of different races. When I first moved in my neighborhood, in my building it was one Jew lady and everybody loved her. It was mostly Blacks and Puerto Rican. Right now, it’s a mixture of everything. I like the diversity of my building, and we are neighbors, and I firmly believe in “love thy neighbor.”

Zacca Thomaz: So now you have people from where?

Mullins: All walks of life. I got people from Africa, DR [Dominican Republic], France. We even had a young man from Japan.

Zacca Thomaz: And do you remember when was it exactly that you moved to the West Side?

Mullins: Yes, June of this year will be forty-two years for me in the same building. [She moved in in 1982.]

Zacca Thomaz: Wow, okay. So, you're saying it fluctuated a lot? Sometimes it was better, sometimes it was worse?

Mullins: Yes. And my building has changed a lot. When I moved in, my building was horrible. But at the time, it was what it was. When I moved in my building, we didn’t have windows like this; we had windows with panes, the individual pane. If the wind blew too hard, the pane would fall out. I’m in a six-story building. The elevator was out for years. We had no security on the door. We had wood doors, so every time they would swing, every time somebody go out the door, you could hear the door go “bang, bang, bang.” At that time, the landlord just didn’t care: all the landlord wanted was money. He didn’t care about no repairs. So after a while, the City took the building from the landlord. And I think that was during the time when the City had this Article 8-A Loan [Program]. So, I had this landlord—after the City took the building—this man, he didn’t buy the building. I think it was like he managed the building, and, after a certain amount of time, he gets to buy the building, and that’s what he did. When he bought the building, he upgraded the building. He put in new doors for the lobby. He painted the lobby. And my building have marble foundation. It was graffiti all over the walls. So when the new landlord came in, he washed all that down and we didn’t know that it was marble. He cleaned up the hallway, took all the graffiti out, he gave everybody a new window, and he started doing the repairs. But at that time, I didn’t know anything about MCIs [Major Capital Improvements], but he didn’t hit us with MCIs at the moment. That came later on.

Zacca Thomaz: And how was it when he introduced that extra cost?

Mullins: Well, actually he didn’t do it. He had the building for maybe ten years. After that, he sold it to somebody else. When the next management came in, they did not repair anything at all. All they wanted was money, money, money. And during that time, they would knock on your door to get your rent. But I didn’t give them my rent. I always brought a money order and held it. But after they left, we got the new landlord that we have now and out of all the landlords before, this management is the worst.

Zacca Thomaz: Why is that?

Mullins: Well, I say he’s the worst, but I thank him for introducing me to CASA.  Because once he came in, he started renovating empty apartments, not caring about the old-time tenants. And what he did was, he renovated two apartments at the same time, and I’m in between these apartments. He’s taking floors up and breaking walls down. Once he’s taken floors up, and New York City is infested with mice and rats, so they all started running to my place. A tenant in my building brought CASA. I’d never heard of CASA. The tenant did the tenant organizing and had all of us come to the tenant meeting because the landlord really did not care about the old tenants. He was fixing up all the vacancies and we had major issues in our apartment. And our words was going unheard. So, we got together, and we invited the landlord to come to our meeting. Even though he came to our meetings and whatnot, he didn’t give us what we asked for. But with CASA’s help, we sued the landlord, and we won.

Oh, I was going to say: when the landlord came into our building, he took our gas, and we had to cook on hot plates. And right now, even though he took our gas, we got electric stove. And I and also other tenants in the building says, “These electric stoves are horrible.” They horrible. They are nothing but hot plates, large hot plates. It cuts off at nighttime. I’d be sleeping and I hear it beeping. That means it shuts off, so I have to pull the stove out and plug it back up. The thing about this landlord is that he will not return your calls. My apartment was so messed up. He’s the reason why I walk with a cane. I kept writing: whenever I sent my money order in, I would write down what’s wrong with my apartment. The threshold–that’s what I call it, the threshold–that separates the room and the bathroom was broken. I tripped and I hurt myself. I called my landlord, they never write this—this is going on for three years—they never returned my call. But I had to have an operation on my right ankle and my left knee. I’m still in therapy for this now. My landlord never, ever, ever called me. Never. And right to this day, we tenants call the landlord, they will not call you back.

Zacca Thomaz: That’s terrible. Tell me about you getting together with your neighbors to sue the landlord with CASA. How was that?

Mullins: Oh, that was so amazing when CASA came in, and they told us everything about what we could do. We did give the landlord the chance to answer us, and I found out that landlords are afraid of CASA. The lawyers came and they told us everything. We filled out all the paperwork. When the landlord came, what he said that he was going to do, he took our gas, but he was going to charge us for the stoves, the electric stove. We took it to court, and we won. A lot of tenants don’t have the patience, but I’m one of the person that has patience. A lot of people do not like to give out information. But I say, “You know what? This is a good cause, these are lawyers. I don’t have anything. What can they do to me? Nothing but help me.” So, every time they called, they said, “Oh, Miss Mullins, we need this, we need that, we need this.” I had no problem with that. The young lady’s name was Johanna [phonetic] and she was the best. Everything she asked me for, I gave it to her. And as we have meetings now, I talks about this—I never knew it—that I was the only one that got the rent reduction for a whole year. I paid $99 a month for rent because the landlord had open violations, and they never tried to fix my apartment. My hallway, I can look downstairs and see my neighbors. My bathroom, water came out of a switch. When you turn it on, you can see water coming out. And I’m constantly calling and saying, “I have a grandson, he don’t know not to turn this light on.” It was like rain, when I say rain, and it was just coming out of the light switch, the rain was pouring. I had to put buckets, and I had to keep emptying the water out. Also, when it snowed or rained, it was coming on the inside of my windows.

Zacca Thomaz: Did the landlord fix all these problems?

Mullins: With CASA, yes. I got new windows and also my door. I got a new entrance door and a new refrigerator. I was in my apartment for eighteen years and I had the same refrigerator for eighteen years. Three times, they’ve sent a repairman out, and the next day it wasn’t working. My meat was soft, and it shouldn’t be like that. I had to throw it out [the meat] because it keeps breaking down [the refrigerator] and I’m not knowing that the refrigerator is not working. So, I go in my freezer and my meat is mushy and this went on for weeks. And they say, “Oh, Miss Mullins, we sent a repairman out.” “Don’t send another repairman out, because it’s been eighteen years that I’ve had this refrigerator. It’s time for a new one.” Eventually, I got the new refrigerator, put there by CASA.

Zacca Thomaz: So, before CASA, when you had problems with the landlord, what would you do?

Mullins: Call 311. It’s a process with 311. They have changed. They’re a little better, but not that much better than what it was when I was calling 311. I mean, they would come out and they would inspect. It’s a fifty-fifty chance that you get a good inspector. A couple of times I got a nasty inspector, but I had to let him know that he works for me. “I don’t work for you. I’m calling you for help.” What he did was, this nasty inspector, when he came, he would stop and get the super. All my calls are going unheard until the 311 inspector comes. “Now the super help her,” everybody wants to come into my apartment. I’ve been with CASA, I praise CASA. I told them [the super], “No, this is not your time, it’s the inspector’s time.” When the inspector comes in, he’s looking around and he’s telling me, “Oh, well, you know, it’s a lot of old buildings in this city.” And I’m explaining to him, “Sir, I’m not talking about these other buildings. I’m talking about this building. If I can see down in my neighbor’s apartment, what makes you think I wants to live like that?” “Well, you know, it takes—” I say, “Mister. I’m not trying to be no disrespectful or anything. You are here to write down what’s wrong with my apartment.” I don’t think that he wrote it down, because a week later I got a letter saying that all the repairs was done. So I called 311 again and told them, “No, the repairs are not done.” They sent another inspector out. He was a very nice man. At the time he came in, our front door had a snag. So when he opened the building door, he snagged his hand and it was bleeding. He came to me, and I said, “Oh sir, what happened?” He say, “I hurt my hand on the door.” So I said, “I got something for you.” I’m a plant person. I got [laughs] aloe. I broke a piece of aloe off and let him put it on his cut and he said, “Oh, that’s amazing, it stopped hurting!” And I gave him a piece to take with him. I was fortunate enough that the next time that I call, I got the same inspector, and he did write it up. So 311—it’s a process to go to, but I continue to call.

Zacca Thomaz: And what new strategies did you learn with CASA in addition to calling 311?

Mullins: Oh my goodness! I learned that the landlords are afraid of CASA. That’s where that “CASA power” come from. Once my landlord started renovating and not doing the old tenants, and when CASA came up in here and he got on the ball. Right now, my apartment don’t need no work. None whatsoever. I can call, even if they don’t call me back, they’ll come and do my repairs. CASA is a lifesaver.

Zacca Thomaz: When was it that you learned about them? Do you remember the year?

Mullins: Oh, it’s going on six years for me. It seems like I’ve been with CASA forever. I never heard anything about CASA, until CASA came into my building for the tenants. And by me speaking, the organizer—he’s no longer here—his name was David [Figueroa], and he pulled me aside and he said, “You know, I’m listening to the way you talk, and I think you will be a good team leader.” He said, “Come to our classes, they started this month.” He said, “For the next five Mondays, from six to eight [p.m.], we’re having classes.” And I joined those classes. And once I got up in there, I’ve learned so much. Every time I walks through the door of CASA, I’m learning something for CASA. And even though it was five weeks, I felt like I didn’t learn enough. So two years later, I took the class again. I took the class again, and also I had the pleasure to facilitate two of the classes.

Zacca Thomaz: Are those the leadership building [classes]?

Mullins: Yes. As a matter of fact, we just finished one. Yeah, this Wednesday, tomorrow I think it was about, maybe, eleven, twelve, could be thirteen people that’s going to get their award tomorrow. No, not award: certificates. They get their certificates that they are leaders.

Zacca Thomaz: What were the main things that you learned in those classes and that you also teach people?

Mullins: I’ve learned in those classes that the landlord is always coming up with new ways to go after the tenants. I never knew that landlord could harass people, I never knew that landlords don’t care about us. I’ve learned that it’s not just happening here in New York; it’s happening all over the world. I learned with CASA that some people are afraid to come out when you’re door knocking, because most of the people in my building, they don’t speak English. And even though CASA is bilingual [English and Spanish], they won’t come out. They’re afraid that they will lose their apartment. With CASA, I’ve learned how they go after the politicians. How they go after the landlord to make them—and it’s a shame we have to get a group of people to go after the landlord, which we are paying rent, so we are entitled to the service. The landlord just want you to pay. They don’t care about no repairs. All they want is their money. And as soon as we try to solve this problem, they go around the bend and they come up with something else, another way to not do the work that the tenant need. And they say, “Oh, well, since we doing this, we’re gonna have to take the rent up more.”

I’m so ashamed, the way that the Rent Guidelines Board took the rent up during the pandemic. That really hurts me how a lot of people lost their jobs—they was working under the table. When these offices and restaurants, whatever, when they shut down, the people had no way to get no income. So why would you want to take the rent up like that? And then the government said it’s a bailout, but it really wasn’t a bailout when they gave those stimulus checks, because when they gave those stimulus checks, a lot of people was already in debt. That little $600, $1,200, it didn’t help the people come out of the rent debt. And then the landlord came up with this thing, where, if you’re behind in your rent, you signed this paper saying that even if you move out, you’ll be able to pay the rent. But if I’m moving out, I’m moving out because I can’t pay the rent. So if I get a new place, how can I pay you rent and pay the rent that I’m living in the apartment? I really couldn’t get with that, how they took the rent up so high.

Zacca Thomaz: Were you part of the campaign, the hearings?

Mullins: Oh, yes. I testify, yes. I was part of it, yes. But I never got the chance to go to Albany, though. That’s one of the things I regret. I never got the chance to go.

Zacca Thomaz: To go where?

Mullins: Albany. When CASA go to Albany, that’s when they go to fight for bills. The bills, I never got a chance to go.

Zacca Thomaz: So, the RGB meeting you were talking about, was it last year, the 2022, where you testified?

Mullins: No, no, the one before that.

Zacca Thomaz: 2021… and was that the first time you participated that way?

Mullins: Yes, it was. Well, actually it was the first time that I testified, but I was on the front line with the marching and the protests and all of that in previous years.

Zacca Thomaz: And what was it like for you to join those marches and later testify? Describe to me what was that like, what you felt.

Mullins: Just to see the people. Me and all the other people. We are trying to make a statement. This is our home. We have to do this to stay in our home and just see all the people, the senior citizens, even the young people, coming out to testify, to talk about “This ain’t right, what y’all doing.” And I just felt overwhelmed to be part of something this large. I had my grandson, he was out there on the front line with me. And after a while, my daughter, she became a leader. Then I got my son’s godmother. She became a leader.

Zacca Thomaz: The whole family?

Mullins: Yeah.

Zacca Thomaz: And how did you get them to join too?

Mullins: Well, actually, by them living in the building and seeing what’s going on, they felt like, “Oh, the more the merrier,” because we’re fighting for something that should be ours. We’re paying this rent. We shouldn’t have to fight, because we are paying you. My daughter—she’s a young lady—at the time, she was staying with me, but after a while she got her own place. And when she got her place, the landlord—it was these people, New Settlement Houses. The apartment, I had to get a lawyer for them to treat my daughter right in her apartment. They gave her apartment with no peephole, no glass in the peephole. So I ran her doorbell and she go to look at the doorbell, the peephole, they could poke her in the eye. They gave her apartment, and she still have the apartment, but she put in for a transfer with a toilet that was lopsided. They gave her apartment with the windows, they are so dirty you can’t even wash them. And it looks like if you lift them up, they’ll fall out. One window wouldn’t open. The light switch, she was missing a light switch. The globe that covered the bulb was full of insects. Her floor was coming out. When the manager came out, he talked down to my daughter so bad until she was in tears, and she had to call me. My daughter went through something. The apartment building she’s in, it’s a shelter building. So, what I noticed about some people when they found out that you from the shelter, they don’t respect you.

But he didn’t know that I was a CASA leader. When he came up in there, he tried to talk down to me. I had to put him in his place. I said, “Listen, sir.”—What he said was, “She should’ve looked at the apartment before she came up in here.” And I told him that my daughter came out of the shelter. Coming out of the shelter, you don’t get a chance to say, “No, I don’t want this apartment.” They gave this apartment to her. But I tell him, “I don’t care if she came from under a rock. She have rights. Nobody should’ve been rented this apartment.” Nobody, I mean, the apartment was horrible. They had a hole in the kitchen floor. The kitchen sink, it was not connected. It was not connected. They had at the bottom of the door, glue traps on the door. No safety chain. In the kitchen, the same thing: at the bottom of the kitchen sink, they had glue traps. So, I’m thinking that they are going to give her a new sink [laughs]. This part of the sink was coming up. They took hammers and nails [laughs]—it’s not funny—[laughs] but they took hammers and nails to make it hold together. And her floor is coming up. And I asked them to do her floor, do the tiles on her floor. The tiles are so old. When she mop her floor, they comes up. So she put in for a transfer. New Settlement Houses own her apartment building. I see New Settlement, that 35 Marcy Place, they are fighting. They’re talking about going on a rent strike, which they should. Because I feel some type of way, if I’m paying you for service, I want your service, okay? What I’m paying you is mine. I mean, I might not need it all the time, but when I do need it, please give it to me. So, things have changed a lot.

Zacca Thomaz: And it’s interesting because CASA is a project of New Settlement, right? But it doesn’t mean that they are dependent in the sense that you’re saying, they can fight against problems when things are wrong in their buildings still.

Mullins: Yes. CASA is a godsend for me, and anytime they call me to ask me to do something, if I’m available, I’ll do it.

Zacca Thomaz: Tell me more about your time at CASA. I mean, since you joined, you were telling me, you organized or helped organize your neighbors in your building. You were part of the RGB campaigns. You’re being part of the classes and contributing to the workshops.

Mullins: Yes, and I also was part of the MCI campaign and the rezoning of Jerome Avenue.

Zacca Thomaz: Tell me about those campaigns.

Mullins: Well, the MCI campaign, MCI stands for Major Capital Improvement, and my building is going through that right now. That means that when the landlord—well, what my landlord did was he gave us not a new elevator, he just did the inside, he put paneling, whatever, on the inside. They said they gave us a new roof; I don’t know, because I don’t go up there. And they smear paint on the wall. They say they gave us new mailbox. But no, they smear paint on the mailboxes. They gave us light fixtures in the hallway, new boiler. They upgrade our electricity because we had so many fires, because the building was old, and we really did need to upgrade the electricity. Some of the apartments still had fuse boxes, and we couldn’t plug up anything like a dryer, because the wires would get hot, and it would start a fire in the wall. So, the landlord, he did all of that, and after he did all of that, he slapped the MCI on us. It was twenty-six dollars per room. So, by me having two bedrooms, I was charged twenty-six dollars–no, I’m sorry—twenty-one dollars and change. I was charged twenty-one dollars each bedroom, which was two bedrooms, and the living room and the kitchen. I was not charged for the hallway or the bathroom. So, they slapped the MCI on us. We tried to fight it, but you know what? It went through anyway. It went through anyway. With this MCI, a lot of people couldn’t afford it, so they left. They moved out. But that don’t solve the problem, right? Even though the landlord did the elevators for us—and this is something that the tenants on the first floor, and I can identify with them, are saying, “I live on the first floor. Why do I have to pay for this elevator? I don’t go upstairs; I just live on the first floor.” I agree with them.

Even though they did all these repairs, right now, our door, it won’t stay locked. I mean, I think it’s a safety hazard for us, by being the only building in the community that don’t have security. By us not having security, that means everybody in the neighborhood—and I live in a rough neighborhood, okay? I’m not going to color it. I do live in a rough neighborhood. All the druggies comes in our building to do—they go to the roof. The roof is supposed to be locked. So, I don’t know what’s going on with that. They sleeps in the hallway. In my area, we had about, I think, like thirteen homeless shelters in our area. They have to leave the shelter a certain time in the morning. So, you know, they are in the building getting high and having sex and everything. We are complaining to the landlord, but he’s not listening to us.

Zacca Thomaz: And this campaign against MCI was, you know, partly it was about your building, but it was also just about MCI in general, right?

Mullins: Yes, it was. Yes. Yes, just that was our first MCI, with all the other landlords before him, he was the one that put in the MCI. We’re still going through it. It’s a process. It’s a process. And that’s not just in our building. I’ve learned from CASA: anytime you see scaffolds going up on the building, that’s an MCI. And I used to walk down the street, and I would say to my daughter, “Look, baby, that’s an MCI.” But even though we got the MCI, we never got the scaffold.

Zacca Thomaz: Or a lot of the benefits that should come from it, it sounds like.

Mullins: Yes.

Zacca Thomaz: Tell me about the activities that you were doing at the time as part of this campaign. What were you doing?

Mullins: We was protesting. We was calling politicians. They took it to Albany. With the MCI, we didn’t win what we want, but we won something. They took away the preferential? Am I saying that right, preferential rent? I’m probably saying it wrong, but what that was, was the landlord would offer you for a year, a set price a month for your apartment. Now when that year is up, he can take that rent up as high as he want to. So, CASA got rid of that. With the no vacancy, it’s like the landlord will have an apartment that sits there for a certain amount of time, is vacant. So, he let it sit there for a certain amount of time. And then after it sits there, he would do the market value rent. CASA got rid of that. [Mullins is referring to the regulatory changes for rent-stabilized apartments introduced by the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019.]

Zacca Thomaz: So that was all part of the organizing that you were also doing?

Mullins: Yes.

Zacca Thomaz: Amazing. What about the Jerome [Avenue] rezoning campaign?

Mullins: Oh, well the Jerome. Oh, wow, that was a mess. They was supposed to take a certain amount of block, but they took more than what they said it was going to take. They took a lot of mom-and-pop stores. And with that, I couldn’t understand how you take these stores and these people, where are they going to go? They don’t have a job no more, because you took it. And Vanessa Gibson [member of the New York City Council at the time of the rezoning], she was on board, but in some type of way, somewhere down the line, she flipped the switch. It happened. Jerome Avenue was rezoned. And they put in all of these high rises, not just on Jerome, all over New York City. But the thing about that is, if you’re not making $70,000 to $80,000 a year, you can’t get into those buildings. My area, it seems like every other block you have them going up. And they’re putting them up so fast, and they’re putting people in there that you never seen. They’re supposed to set a certain amount aside for Section 8, the veterans, the homeless, and the domestic violence, but they don’t do that. That was just a way of getting money from the government. The government’s gonna give it to them because they say, “Oh, we need this for this and that,” but these buildings going up. I said, “It’s supposed to be affordable housing, but affordable for whom?” That’s what I said, because we can’t get in.

And my daughter, she’s thirty-two years-old and she had to work two jobs just to pay rent. The thing about, when you come out of a shelter—and I learned this from CASA—my daughter came out of a shelter. When she came out of a shelter, they gave her a voucher, and a year later they took her voucher. So that means she would have to start all over again, but—thank you to CASA again—she got her voucher back. The voucher that they gave her, landlords didn’t want to take it. CityFHEPS [City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement], landlords they don’t like that, because CityFHEPS don’t pay on time. They don’t pay on time. My daughter had to fight to get her voucher back, and this is another thing that I learned from CASA. The shelters are not owned by the city, the state. They are privately owned. The shelter will spend more money to keep you in there, than to set you up in an apartment. My daughter had to fight. It was her and her son. She had to fight to get out of there. When she went to the shelter, they did not help her with anything because she had a job. They made it so hard for her. My daughter could not get no assistance from the city. She couldn’t get no food stamps. They gave her food stamps for a minute, but they took ‘em. But she’s a trooper, she’s holding her own.

Zacca Thomaz: Like you it sounds like.

Mullins: Thank you.

Zacca Thomaz: But you were saying that in the campaign you pushed for the rezoning to be more inclusive, to make sure that people who live here could still stay in the area and not be replaced by—

Mullins: Yeah, but that was a lost cause. I noticed what they did with people who wants to stay in the area, we have been pushed out: gentrification. We are going to other places. They don’t care that I raise my children here and my children want to stay here. They don’t care about that. What they do is they send them to Queens, Brooklyn. My daughter had to fight. They wanted to send her—the first place was Brooklyn. She said no. The second place was Staten Island. She said no. She’s like, “Let me explain to y’all: I’m my mother only child. My son still goes to school in the neighborhood that my mother lives in. And if I go to Queens or Brooklyn, if my son gets sick, my mother can’t go and get him, and she’s a senior citizen. He’s of age where he can do for himself, but he still needs supervision. It’s just that my mother is just there to supervise him.” So, she’s still in the area. And matter of fact, my daughter apartment is right here on the [Grand] Concourse, 170th Street. She don’t stay here. It’s horrible, it’s really horrible. When I tell you it’s horrible, I got pictures. Oh my God, it’s horrible. Yes. So, she did put in for transfer. We are waiting for the transfer.

Zacca Thomaz: It’s complicated. You’re fighting for people to be able to stay but stay in good conditions.

Mullins: Yes, and when my daughter was in the shelter–I love her so much, I’m not bragging on her because she’s my daughter, but she’ an amazing young lady–when she was in the shelter, she still came out and protested. She still came out and fought for the people, and she still do it.

Zacca Thomaz: How has it been having you and your daughter as leaders at the same time?

Mullins: Oh, my goodness, it’s amazing. And I found out that we are the first mother-and-daughter. Once she started working—once you get a new job, you don’t have time, you just got to work, work, work, work. At the last leaders’ meeting, she got to facilitate two classes because she was off those two days and like right now, I forgot my glasses. And she said, “Mommy, don’t worry about it. I got this.” And I’m saying, “Oh, that’s right, my daughter’s a leader. She can do this!”

Zacca Thomaz: That’s very sweet. When did she join?

Mullins: Well, she joined four years ago.

Zacca Thomaz: About three years after you. What’s her name?

Mullins: Miranda.

Zacca Thomaz: Have you been part of campaigns together since she joined?

Mullins: Oh, yes. She was on the front line. We went to City Hall. We used to go to City Hall. We goes to buildings when people have problems in their building and CASA, she goes with us. And we support people, mother and daughter. And also my grandson. My grandson is a trooper. Because she works, I gotta take care of him. When I go to the classes, he comes to the classes.

Zacca Thomaz: What does he think of CASA?

Mullins: I’d say he likes CASA. He likes the people. He likes being here.

Zacca Thomaz: It kind of reminds me of when you were talking about where you were living before, before you moved  here, when you were living in Jefferson Place. I think you were saying that there it felt like a village.

Mullins: Oh, yes! That’s the same way with CASA. Once he come up in CASA, everybody knows him because he’s been here for going on six years. He’s been up in and here, all the staff know him, and they know he’s like a fake vegetarian. He just don’t like meat. Meat, chicken, and stuff, he don’t eat it. So, everybody knows, “Oh, we got to order pizza for V.” We get some beans and rice; he’ll eat up your beans and rice. But they know him. He grew up. He just turned twelve, so been coming here for a minute.

Zacca Thomaz: And what is his name?

Mullins: V. Aden [phonetic].

Zacca Thomaz: So the whole family?

Mullins: Yes. Might as well say the whole family. Also, I used to bring my great-nephew [laughs]. It was a family thing. They know him too. My great nephew, he’s part Dominican and when he come up in here, they’d be so amazed at him because he’d be talking to them in Spanish.

Zacca Thomaz: That’s so cool. In all these years with CASA, is there a particular moment or a story of a time when you felt really proud to be part of CASA, to be doing the work that you’re doing?

Mullins: Yes! With the MCI and with the Right to Counsel. I’m very proud of CASA for doing the Right to Counsel. That means when people go to [housing] court, they have a lawyer, they got the Right to Counsel. And I am so proud of CASA with that. Also, when they got the rent freeze.

Zacca Thomaz: Yeah, back in 2015, 2016.

Mullins: Yes. I was just coming in then. I came in on the end of that when they got that.

Zacca Thomaz: And you were part of the Right to Counsel campaign? Were you involved?

Mullins: Yes. Yeah. Well, I came in on the end of that and they—I did some campaigning. I facilitated. But since my fall, I don’t protest. I’m behind the scenes. I facilitate.

Zacca Thomaz: How do you think the fact that [since] Right to Counsel passed, how do you think that has changed housing court and the situation?

Mullins: Oh, wow, it has changed a lot of things. For instance, people gets the right to stay in their home. Also, CASA does court watch. That means when they go up in there and they watch the judges and whatnot. But it was a time where the landlord lawyers would get to the tenants before their lawyer get to them and have them sign this piece of paper saying that they’re going to pay this rent. But they don’t know not to sign this. And a lot of them don’t speak English, they don’t understand. I think it was a good thing, that Right to Counsel.

Zacca Thomaz: Amazing. Was there a particular moment while you were working with CASA that you thought was really challenging or frustrating, or something that was difficult to deal with?

Mullins: Well, the only thing I say, it’s kind of difficult to deal with, and I’m still doing it: getting people to come out door-knocking. To me, that’s the most difficult part: door-knocking. Because people are afraid, people don’t want to come out. In my building, I have listened to this excuse over and over again: “I’m on a program.” Some people on program feel that just because they’re on a program, that if they do anything, they will lose their program. I’m trying to tell people, “I’m on a program too. I’m out here on the frontline, okay? Listen, these programs is to pay for you to stay in your apartment, but it’s up to you to make the landlord respect you and do the repairs.” “I’m on a program, I don’t want to do that.” I’m saying, “No. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a program.”

Zacca Thomaz: And do you think that over the years it has changed how difficult or how easy it is to get people to join?

Mullins: I think right now it’s harder than what it was before, because right now with the rent situation so high, and people can barely afford to pay the rent, and they are doubling up. So, I think they are afraid to come out, because they’re thinking like, “The landlord don’t know I got all these people living here.” They’re just afraid. It’s hard to get them out. And my building is two-sided, forty-eight units, and in my building, we are lucky to get twenty-five. We started with thirty-strong, but right now it’s just five of us.

Zacca Thomaz: In the tenant association?

Mullins: Mm-hm [affirmatively]. People, they just afraid, and I’m trying to explain, “The more of us that get on this tenant association, the more powerful it will be.” A group of us got the landlord to come out when he took our gas. We stayed on him, and we got the stove for free. We invited him. And another thing was: when we invited him, when we started having those meetings, he tried to harass us, for us not to come. He would have his workers do things like—I was one of the ones that put the fliers on the door. His workers would come behind me and take them off. So, I learned from CASA: I will get up at five o’clock in the morning and go put them on the door. And the workers doesn’t come in until like eight, nine o’clock. So, when people going to work, when they come out in the morning, they will see them. Or I will do a Sunday morning because they don’t work on Sundays. So that way people was aware that we’re having a tenant association meeting. But the landlords, they will try and harass you. I have one landlord tells me not to call 311, because he wasn’t giving us heat and hot water. I tell him, “You know what? This is my phone. I call who I want to call on my phone. If you don’t want me to call, give me heat and hot water.” It’s Thanksgiving Day. Why we don’t have heat and hot water? It’s raining, and it seems like every year they would do that to us.

Zacca Thomaz: That’s terrible. What was it like during the pandemic, for your work with CASA and the way you were organizing?

Mullins: Well, okay. The thing during the pandemic was—it was cool because we were Zooming. CASA shut down the office, but they came up with the Zoom. And we still Zoom every now and then, so now they are slowly open back up for us to come to the general meeting and all of that, but we still be masking up. But it was a trying time. We got through this pandemic. We got through it. I’m giving it another minute, something else gonna come, the city gonna come up with another disease. I hope not, but it looks like it. Because at one time I thought with this monkeypox, we don’t even hear about monkeypox no more. Now they got something else. I just go, “La, la, la, la, la,” [laughs] because I don’t want to hear no more about it.

Zacca Thomaz: And as you were meeting on Zoom, what kind of things were you concerned with? What were you talking about, trying to push?

Mullins: Yeah, okay. We on Zoom, we was actually doing the same thing we was doing in person. They say, “Call and call the politicians and do the e-mails.” And that’s the way they did it on Zoom. We still doing it like calling the politicians and stuff like that.

Zacca Thomaz: You were trying to stop eviction court from working, right?

Mullins: Yes, because they was still, they still are throwing people out like crazy. The Bronx has the highest eviction rate in the city. That’s sad. So sad.

Zacca Thomaz: And why do you think that is, that the Bronx is the one with the highest rate?

Mullins: Because they are rezoning the Bronx. The Bronx is the last—we are the last one. They already did Queens. They already did Brooklyn. They already did Manhattan. And when they did all of those boroughs, everybody from there started running to the Bronx. Since everybody is running to the Bronx, this is the last stop, so the rents going up. Back in the days, when I was coming up, the Bronx was the worst place to be. There’s this movie called–what is it, _House of Fires _[sic]–about the Bronx? About how the landlord would pay the young kids to burn down the building, and people never knew whether or not they was going to sleep through the whole night because the building was burning. You had to jump up and run. But when this was happening, it wasn’t happening in my area where I lived at, but it was in the vicinity.

Zacca Thomaz: Was it the documentary Decade of Fire?

Mullins: Decade of Fire, yes. It amazed me how, when they were setting [fire]—they got the young kids. During that time, these young children, they needed money to help mamma do whatever they wanted to do. But when they got caught, the landlords was never held responsible. After that, it was so much heat on that, so the landlords started abandoning buildings. Leaving the buildings, going to Florida. By the people in the neighborhood needing a place to live, they started renovating those buildings. Whatever apartment you work on, that’s your apartment. So they got together and they did apartment by apartment until they got the building back to normal. Now, the landlords wanted to come back to get the buildings. Banana Kelly was formed, and they took it to court. So, they couldn’t get those buildings back, because you abandoned us! You gone. You in Florida. You’re living your life! So now you wants to come back because you see that the building is perfect. It was a shame the way they burnt New York down. They took the fire houses, they shut them down. And one of the game, I think it was the 1969 World Series [sic; 1977] at Yankee Stadium, when the announcer was announcing the game, he said, “Oh wow. Look at that fire. The Bronx is burning!” It used to be called “Boogie down Bronx,” but they switched it to “Burn it down Bronx.”

Zacca Thomaz: Marilyn, a few times I think you mentioned landlords being afraid of CASA.

Mullins: Yes, I never knew that.

Zacca Thomaz: And there’s also this expression, “CASA power,” right? What do you think is behind CASA’s power and the fear—?

Mullins: I think what’s behind CASA power—and I just learned this because I never knew the history of CASA, I just dive in, I never thought about finding out how CASA got started. It got started with tenants like me, where the landlord wasn’t doing what they supposed to do. Tenants got together, and they started taking landlords to court. I think with that, CASA came to power. So that’s why they do the “CASA power” thing. And landlords are very afraid of CASA once they found out that CASA was in my building. By the people, not really coming out—but I’m one that’s gonna call you, I’m gonna call you, and I’m gonna call you, and I’m gonna call you, and I’m gonna call you! So, by me calling, I went through the building, and I got signatures for the landlord to fix the doors and do this and do that. I signed my name, and I sent it certified. When I sent it certified one week later—my name was the only name on there to send it to them, but the building has signed, we told them what we expected of them. One week later, my landlord sent me a letter saying that I owe $2,246, okay? I had to pay all of that. That’s what they thought. So, I’m thinking, “Maybe Section 8 didn’t pay no money.” I called Section 8, Section 8 saying, “No Miss Mullins, we don’t owe no money.” I said, “I got my rent receipts, so I don’t understand where all this is coming from.” When I send my rent in, I always keep copies. Whenever I send my rent in and whatever I write to my landlord. I asked them, “Please show me where I owe this money at.” They sent me a breakdown and they took a yellow marker and went for certain months where they felt like I owe them money. They went so far back to where they didn’t even own the building. They went back as far as 2010. They also added late fee. But–I love CASA–I do know if you are on a fixed income, you’re not supposed to be charged late fee. I told them, “I don’t owe you this money and I’m not paying it.” By me being a senior citizen, I could have went anywhere and anybody probably, if they wouldn’t have paid it all, they would’ve paid some. But I feel like if I don’t owe this money, I’m not paying this money. And all those months they marked off, I have rent receipts. They don’t say anything about me owing this money no more. But that was a form of harassment, because I set that paperwork in. And yeah, that’s “CASA power.” Because I took it to CASA. They looked at it. They said, “Don’t even worry about it.’

And when the pandemic first started, when they shut down everything, I got direct deposit. I did not know that the bank was closed, so I went to go get my money and the bank was closed. And I didn’t know that they was open at a certain time and certain branches was open. For two months, I didn’t pay my rent. So, my landlord sent me a letter telling me that I had two weeks to pay my rent in full or either leave the premises. But by me being a CASA person, I didn’t pay them no mind. I didn’t even regard that. And they didn’t send it through the mail; they put it on my door. They had one of the workers put it on my door. I know by being with CASA, I know what the eviction process is. The marshal had to come first, and I would not let them harass me like that. So right now, to this day, anything I need done in my apartment, they’ll do it no problem. Because I got CASA behind me.

But in my building it’s a lot of tenants’ apartments that’s horrible. With the new apartments, they renovated, they broke down wall and did the open space, flood lights and whatnot. I have the older version of the apartment. One of the new tenants, she said now she got water running out of her light switch. Another tenant had the toilet overflow. When I say overflow, it comes out of the bathroom to the kitchen and the living room. Yeah. I say, “Y’all need to come to these meetings. Y’all need to get behind CASA and CASA have the legal clinics.” But people are just afraid. Just listen, “I’m gonna fight to keep a roof on my head because I have nowhere to go.” I mean, I got family in the Carolina, but I’m afraid of snakes [laughs]. That’s why I left the Carolinas. I mean, I go and visit, but I don’t think I’ll go back and stay. So, New York, I mean, the Bronx, my home. I love the Bronx.

Zacca Thomaz: Amazing. With all your experience living here, participating in CASA, what are your hopes for the future of the Bronx?

Mullins: That goes back to that campaign: no more evictions. Rent free. Eviction-free Bronx. That would be amazing. And I learned from CASA, when CASA starts something, other cities follow CASA.

Zacca Thomaz: What would it be like to live in the Bronx without evictions? What do you think needs to be put in place for that to happen?

Mullins: New RGB [laughs], a new Rent Guidelines Board, somebody who understand what it is to live the life like we are living: being afraid that you’re going to lose your apartment. To understand what that feeling is about. Because I know, when I couldn’t pay my rent for them two months, I tossed and turned, how I felt. Somebody need to understand that to be on that board.

Zacca Thomaz: When you think about the future of the Bronx, that is the hopeful side, right?

Mullins: Yes.

Zacca Thomaz: What are your concerns for the future of the Bronx?

Mullins: My concern is, this Rent Guidelines Board, they got something up their sleeves for this year, something. I’m really afraid of what they’re going to do this time. I’m really afraid because people can barely pay the rent now. And if you did that to us during the pandemic and the pandemic is over, I’m scared of what you’re going to do now. You got so many young kids still living at home with their parents, because they cannot afford to pay the rent. It’s sad. Young people, I know young people wants to leave home, because most young people do not want to make their life in the place that they was raised. They wants to spread their wings. And even with my daughter, even though she got her place, she still stay with me and my grandson. That’s the only home he knows. And I mean, they go home, but then they come right back. But I don’t mind, because I only have one child, one grandson. And I have a two-bedroom apartment. It’s lonely, it’s quiet when they’re not there. Just to have my grandson walking around, knowing he’s there, either when he get out of school, he come home, you know. Just having family—family is everything. To me, if you don’t have family, you’re lonely.

Zacca Thomaz: In your case, not only sometimes they stay with you, they also participate in CASA.

Mullins: Yes! Yes!

Zacca Thomaz: That’s wonderful. Was there anything about your story, your time with CASA, that we didn’t talk about and that you think needs to be mentioned?

Mullins: Only that when I got there, the original staff, they are slowly leaving, and it’s a painful experience. The new staff is good, and I’m sorry to see the older staff go, but I understand they’re going to spread their wings. It won’t be the same. I’m going to miss them. Matter of fact, I just talked to one of the other staff that left, Jordan [Cooper, former CASA co-director]. I keep in touch with them, so it’s not the same. And every time I walk up in that place, I feel some type of way by her not being there. And also the first one to leave was Pablo [Estupiñan, former CASA director]. I feel some type of way about Pablo, because he was the one that taught me. I bounced around from when Pablo left, then I went to Jordan, and then I went to Yeraldi [Perez, CASA director at the time of the interview]. To me, it’s a hurtful thing that they’re leaving. But I’m still going to be part of CASA.

Zacca Thomaz: Because when you joined Jordan and Yeraldi were already the directors?

Mullins: No, no, they was there. The director was Sheila [Garcia]. Then she passed it over to Pablo, and then when he left, it was Jordan and Yeraldi.

Zacca Thomaz: I see, it’s been changing.

Mullins: Yes. Well, change is always going to come.

Zacca Thomaz: Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Marilyn.

Mullins: Oh, thank you for letting me tell my story.

Zacca Thomaz: It was really my pleasure, I really appreciate your time.