The morning after the fire.

Fireproofing Society

from disasters and disenfranchisement

Last night, the 100 year old building across the street from our apartment and home office went up in flames. It’s an eerie thing, in the light of day, to look up through the windows of the top floor and see the sky.

This building will be a total loss. I don’t see how it couldn’t. 46 apartments, a local deli bodega, and a newly-remodeled clothing store are shuttered, destined for demolition.

A small crevice in the back of my mind was rethinking my dinner plans — no deli wrap tonight — while the rest of my heart scolded these supremely selfish thoughts that I could not turn off.

Damn it, think of the people, Conrad. Don’t succumb to the desensitization at which our country has become so adept, the temporary shock followed by the immediate distraction in one’s own daily concerns. Don’t let that shit in!

22 families are being helped by the Red Cross, a report reads. Were the other 24 apartments empty then? Are there families and individuals still struggling to find help? How much assistance is the Red Cross able to provide? How soon? How many of these people didn’t have renter’s insurance? How many were on the top two floors and lost everything?

Man, I’ll miss those guys at the Majestic Deli. Mostly from Yemen, working insane hours to save up and make something happen in this adopted home, they always had a smile and a tease when I ordered my obnoxious egg white wrap and refused the plastic bag. “Oh yeah. You saving the world, right? One bag at a time!”

“Yeah. You got me. That’s me.”

As I’m staring into the flames last night, a man taps me on the shoulder. “That there’s what you call ‘Urban Removal.’” It makes me think of the Bronx burning decades ago. I can’t help but acknowledge that this was an old building full of poor people in rent stabilized housing in one of the fastest gentrifying neighborhoods in Manhattan. I couldn’t afford to live in this neighborhood without rent stabilization. I wonder in which neighborhoods the residents of 565 W 144th will live in a year. Tonight, many of them are in the gym of a school a few blocks away.

I can’t help but wonder if there’s a businessman or corporation somewhere who already knows what building will go in there next and how much more rent he’ll be able to charge. Hell, half the mom and pop stores and restaurants on the block have folded and been replaced by newer, shinier, trendier ones in the last year or two, making way for pubs, coffee shops, banks, and sushi restaurants. Is this hypothetical businessman trying to gauge just how long he should wait before demolition and construction so that it won’t look too shady?

I think back to when I lived in Brooklyn, and another building across the street from my then home took a lightning hit and the top two floors burned very similarly. I visited the neighborhood again, years later, and that building still stood vacant, abandoned, a mausoleum to the displaced lives long relocated to who knows where. That was a very poor neighborhood with less artists and students and other words for mostly white folk moving in. A neighborhood with, I assume, less real estate incentive to develop.

I don’t expect this smoking building to remain standing for long at all. They’ll say this one is too unsafe to leave up. Maybe it’s the truth. In any case, this neighborhood has got too much going for it now, you see.

While Hamilton Heights already starts preparing to move on, I think about the victims, and I have so many questions.

How long until they can recover their lives, if at all? How much will we as a society help them, in the end?

How many of these people are going to try to somehow make it in to work today?

I wonder what a society that truly protects its people would look like, and I come back, as always, to universal basic income. Given a reliable heartbeat of security, some cash coming in every week or month no matter what, how much faster could these struggling souls rebuild their lives? What would they be empowered to do beyond waiting for the Red Cross and insurance companies to do their best to assist and evade them, respectively?

How much could people fortify themselves against disaster in the first place if they had a little breathing room in life?

What would the people of Houston and Puerto Rico be doing differently right now if they all had a little extra coming in, regardless of work, demonstrated level of need, or any other conditions? What if those affected by wildfires, tornadoes, floods, illness, injury, disability, trauma, poverty, gentrification, sexism, abuse, layoffs, or any other of life’s daily disasters didn’t have to apply and wait for someone to decide that their suffering is qualifiable for aid from some institution of government, commerce, or charity before the clumsy, paternalistic wheels started grinding into motion? How much more effective could those institutions be if the people who they sought to help could largely help themselves from the get go?

Reason #(insert large number here) for basic income: UBI is the ultimate insurance and the most effective individual and community empowerment tool.

If you’re already on board with basic income, then that’s fantastic. Stay alert and active. If you’re on the fence or against the idea, that’s perfectly fair. Keep open and keep looking into it. If you’re hearing about this concept for the first time, I’m glad I reached you! Read more!

Because basic income is the next big fight in human rights history, and we’re going to need everybody’s help to make it happen.