On a recent rainy Sunday, I bundled up and hustled across Bushwick. I was coming from a meeting with the owner of Bootleg Bar, which just opened up on Myrtle and Bleeker, and I was rushing to a panel on affordable housing being held at Radio Bushwick.

The panel was organized by Arts in Bushwick, a group that is best known for putting on Bushwick Open Studios, although they’ve set out to accomplish quite a bit more. Last weekend, AiB brought together five prominent community members, including feisty and spirited councilman Antonio Reynoso, to address an issue that was by no means unexamined: affordable housing in Bushwick. How can we preserve affordability in a neighborhood that is as trendy as a cronut? Is it possible to stop the rapid displacement of the working poor? And how can we retain the culture and vibrance that make Bushwick so desirable without turning that desirability into a commodity for developers and landlords to exploit?

Affordable housing is the issue facing New York, and the United States, right now, and Bushwick is at the crux of these questions. And the lack of affordable housing is symptomatic of the apocalyptic state of income inequality in America, which means that whether or not you, personally, have a good living situation going on, this is something that affects all of us and will do so to an even greater degree in years to come.