Posted on July 6, 2016 by Cezary Podkul in ProPublica ProPublica, By Cezary Podkul In February of 2015, Lilian Piedra received a letter with devastating news: Her landlord was jacking up the rent for her four-bedroom apartment in Manhattan’s Washington Heights from $2,100 a month to $3,500. The notice did not say she faced eviction, but Piedra immediately understood that’s what it meant. She and her husband were already struggling to raise three young children on her salary as a bank customer service representative and his as a parking garage manager. “As soon as I received that letter I was crying for a whole week. Every single day I was crying, even at work,” she recalled.
