Dear Editor
To Mayor Russo and residents:
I am going to try to make this quick and short. I have known Mayor Russo personally since I was in high school (he was a teacher in Hoboken High for a while and I graduated with his son). When Mayor Russo decided to run for Mayor, I was more than glad to give him the positive support that he needed. But as the years passed us by, I have to admit that my point of view does not agree with Mayor Russo anymore. Years ago the idea of Russo developing Hoboken sounded like a good idea. But as a result, it was never a good idea. Hoboken is over-crowded.
After I graduated college, I started to work five minutes away from my Hoboken home. Due to the over-crowded town, it has taken me up to 50 minutes just to get over the 16th Street bridge. Parking is another issue. If you are not parked by 7 p.m. then it will take up to one hour to find parking. And if you park illegally due to the fact that there is no parking available, you also get summoned for it. But as long as Mayor Russo has his own parking space, he won’t do anything about it.
But the issue that really bothers me is the fact that I have lived here all of my life, and I am being forced to move out of my own town because of the all-time high rent/lease and the over-rated expensive condos. I am 25 years old, and after graduating college, I have not been able to move out of my parents’ home. Why? Well, because the low-income housing authority in Hoboken claims that I do not qualify due to the fact that I am a high-paid employee (which actually I am not). So I am forced to search for other apartments that in turn are too ridiculously expensive for me to afford. So what choice do I have? I am denied a one bedroom home in the low-rent housing authority and I cannot afford the all time high rent, so I am forced to move out of a town in which all of my family have lived in and built for years. I think it is disgusting how this town has literally kicked out the Spanish community because we cannot afford the high rents and because we are “also denied” low-income housing authority.
Mayor Russo has mentioned in the past that the over-development will not affect the low-income families. If that is true, then why am I being forced to move out of Hoboken? And “until” Mayor Russo could prove me wrong, I will no longer support him.
Name withheld