Management by Crisis

W
hoops.
Tums out that the city's welfare plan isn't such a great idea after all. Infact,
it's apparently illegal.
Ever since the city began recasting welfare offices as job centers last year,
potential recipients and advocates have been hollering that the city denies benefits to
deserving people with an obstacle course of delays and troublesome
, ....... ,. ...... __ .. '''._ regulations.
That's the idea, the administration countered. Mayor Giuliani
and welfare chief Jason Turner had a grand plan. Make it so hard to
get benefits-or keep them-that no one would take the task lightly.
Human Resources Administration officials repeatedly, patiently
E D ITO R I A L explained that by making public benefits less appealing than finding
a job, they were forcing people out of a life of dependency. The city
needs to create "a personal crisis in individuals' lives," Turner told
a conference audience in Albany at the end of last year.
That hasn't gone over well with the federal government, which blasted the state in
January for not keeping closer tabs on how well Turner's agency was handling food stamp
applications. By the end of the month, HRA 'representatives were standing abashed in front
of a federal judge, admitting that some front-line workers were taking the idea of making it
tough on applicants a little too far.
Like most ideologies, Turner's comes with a big assumption: Poor people choose to be
on welfare, and a good kick in the butt can push them into work instead. The corollary
assumption is that there are enough jobs out there to employ all those lazy bastards.
It never seems to have occurred to Giuliani, Turner et al. that making life harder on
welfare applicants might accomplish only that-making life harder-and nothing more.
Take away the assumption that a good job awaits when that personal crisis arrives and all
you have is a lot of people with a personal crisis added to all their other problems.
Anyone who is sincere about helping people off welfare will tell you that the first rule is
that one option doesn't work for everyone. Some people need training. Some have disabili-
ties. Some are hooked on drugs or alcohol. Some have never worked and are scared.
People on welfare come in every variety available, just like any other population.
If Jason Turner's HRA really wants to move people off welfare and into better lives-
and not just save a buck-they'll use this institutional moment of reflection to enact a sys-
tem that provides a range of options for recipients, that can move people off welfare by
giving them a hand, not a shove.
Cover photo by Steve Macauley
/J 1/ //1 C,dlVg<i
(;a/I II 11/ &hI"
City Limits relies on the generous support of its readers and advertisers, as well as the following funders: The
Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, The Edna McConnell
Clark Foundation, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, The North Star Fund, J.P.
Morgan & Co. Incorporated, The Booth Ferris Foundation, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The New York Community
Trust. The New York Foundation, The Taconic Foundation, M& T Bank, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan Bank.
City Limits
Volume XXIV Number 3
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CITY LIMITS
..
MARCH 1999
FEATURES
The Promised Land
Newfound professionalism is fmally helping the program that manages
run-down tax-delinquent buildings reach its potential. Just in time for the
city to overhaul the system. By Kathleen McGowan and Philip Shishkin
Holy Owned Subsidiaries
Harlem Congregations for Community Improvement has become
a north central Harlem powerhouse by running local housing and
social service programs. It's now poised to hand down power to its
96 member churches. It just needs to figure out how. By Matthew Strozier
Riis' Peace
Five residents reflect on 50 years of life in the New York City Housing
Jacob Riis Houses. By Annia Cie;.adlo and Mayita Mendez
PIPELINES
Falling Fortress
The race is on to get the city to save the decayed, sprawling
Kingsbridge Armory before it falls down.
Painted Into a Corner
The mayor, city councilmembers, children's advocates and landlords
By Jordan Moss
all agree that the city needs a new lead paint law. They just can't decide
what it should say. By Leon Lazaroff
COMMENTARY
Cityview 128
Challenging the Authority By David R. Jones
Spare Change 134
Ask Martha By Carl Vogel
DEPARTMENTS
Editorial 2 Ammo 27
Letters 4
Job Ads 30
Briefs 5
Professional
Directory 30

Richmond Hili ContlnuN
Please have Mr. [Glenn] Thrush write a
follow-up article to "The Battle of
Richmond Hill," (December 1998) regard-
I ing the proposal to legalize basement
apartments (compartments). As an archi-
LETTERS :. tect, I am very interested as to how we as
........ IWiI..l' a modem society are now proposing to
solve a housing shortage by subverting
zoning laws and re-writing building codes
to justify cramming families into dank
basement spaces. Tuberculosis and attor-
neys would have a field day.
These newly legalized apartments,
with their questionable air quality, would
soon fill up, and the next logical place to
squeeze more income from the house
would be to load the attic and then the
garage. Sound familiar? Are there propos-
als to legalize this activity as well? To
legalize such squalor would require us to
sell our souls.
To those who cry that they purchased
their homes in ignorance of the codes and
laws of this city: I advise them, if they feel
they've been wronged, to band together,
hire a lawyer to fIle a class action suit
against the real estate corporations and
franchises which from their boiler-room-
like operations convinced them to pur-
chase something larger than they could
afford based on tacit promotion of illegal
conversion.
Also, with a little bit of careful
research, your readers could have been
informed that the house photographed and
featured in the article does not belong to an
immigrant. Indeed, the house belongs to
an American, one who has chosen to
exploit the Section 8 program by cram-
ming and warehousing as many families as
he can into that one-family house. I pro-
pose you interview the gentleman, an
absentee landlord currently living in Rego
Park and ask him what he thinks about
Richmond Hill.
So you see that this battle has little to
do with national origin and everything to
do with greed and ignorance of human
decency.
Ivan Mrakovcic
President
Richmond Hill Historical Society
Housing of First R.sort
I was delighted to see a long-overdue
in-depth article about the Tenant Interim
Lease program, "TIL's ills" (February
1999). But when I read the article, I was
disappointed. City Limits regularly wins
awards for its insightful, thorough policy
analysis articles, but in this instance you
Bankers Trust
Architects of Value
underplayed an important part of the story.
The article rightfully devotes space to
the tax issues raised in the comptroller's
reports and the program's history of under-
funding. Yet it fails to document the con-
siderable evidence that despite these set-
backs, the Tenant Interim Lease program is
more successful at providing decent hous-
ing than other programs for centrally man-
aged buildings and, more importantly,
leads to mUltiple benefits for residents and
neighborhoods. The article quotes resi-
dents who mention these benefits, but it
doesn't clarify whether these benefits are
simply anecdotal or have been document-
ed on a larger scale. In fact, they have, and
the article should have noted this.
During the 199Os, I oversaw two large-
scale surveys that encompassed about 6,000
households in currently or formerly city-
owned buildings. These buildings spanned
five ownership types: tenant co-operative
ownership, community group ownership,
private ownership, city ownership or trans-
fer to Housing Authority ownership.
Here was my central finding, docu-
mented in the 1996 report, "No More
Housing of Last Resort". ''The program
that performed the best was tenant co-oper-
ative ownership. It was head and shoulders
above the others in (continued on page 29)
Community Development Group
M
A resource for the non,profit
development community

Gary Hattem, Managing Director
130 Liberty Street
10th Floor
New York, New York 10006
Tel: 2 1 2 ~ 2 5 0 ~ 7 1 1 8 Fax: 2 1 2 ~ 2 5 0 ~ 8 5 5 2
CITY LIMITS
Academia
Actions, Ligbts, Camera
D
on't worry. That guy with a video
camera who you may have seen
carefully recording local protests
isn't with the FBI.
He's a drama critic.
Jeff Goodwin is a professor of sociology at New
York University, and for the last few years he and
graduate student Susan Rakosi Rosenbloom have
been building a video library of dozens of political
protests. It's an ongoing project that he discussed at
a sociology conference in San Francisco last year
under the title "The Presentation of Selves in
Everyday Protest: Exploring the Dramaturgy of
Dissent Through Video."
"It's a fun project," says Goodwin, who teach-
MARCH 1999
es classes in revolutions and social movements, a
subject he began studying as an undergraduate in
the late 1970s at Harvard College. "One frustra-
tion I have with academic literature on movements
is that they're kind of secondhand and dry and a
little removed. They fail to capture the excitement
of protests."
Goodwin's tapes include footage of New York
City events ranging from a march against the
death penalty to gay and lesbian activists at the St.
Patrick's Day parade, from a rally supporting
immigrants' rights to that collector's must-have,
the Brooklyn Bridge Louima March. As the title of
his presentation suggests, he doesn't judge if an
action was politically effective. Rather, he's look-
ing to see how the event got the audience and
actors involved-to see how good of a show it
was.
Having watched so many protests, does he
have any tips for event organizers? "I'm not sure
size is as important as you might think-a small
group that's fired up and vocal can make quite an
impression," he says. "Organization is big. And if
people know each other, if they're more tight knit,
then they're more energized."
The bad news for New York's activist commu-
nity is that they don't get a very good grade from
their unofficial drama coach. "I'm surprised I have
to say that activists aren't being creative. There's a
set number of protests," Goodwin says, rattling off
the most popular types: Gathering with Chanting
and Singing, Candlelight Vigil, March with
Chanting, Entertainment with Speaker and Signs.
"Looking back at this, I guess I am a little sur-
prised that more thought isn't put into these
events," Goodwin says. "Some are dreadful per-
formances."
-Carl Vogel

Briem .......... ------.......... -------------=
c
Child Welfare
I .......... ----'S Main Man
Steven Cohen may not be much of a politician-but that's part of what got
him his new job.
The master bureaucrat-a veteran of several children's service organiza-
tions and the city's child welfare agency-was hired in January as staff direc-
tor for a new panel charged with overseeing reform at the city's Administration
for Children's Services (ACS). According to advocates, Cohen's reputation as a
smart, dedicated administrator makes him the right person for the job.
The panel was fonned out of December's settlement of the Marisol case, a
lawsuit that originally sought a court takeover of ACS. The four-member panel
is charged with analyzing the agency from top to bottom in fIVe areas, then
recommending reforms. Since none of the appointees live in New York City,
Cohen will be their local eyes and ears.
"For him, it's not about politics, it's about results," says Gail Nayowith,
executive director of the Citizens' Committee for Children, who has used Cohen
as a consultant. "He's a trusted advisor."
j The panel has already come up with one draft report and plans to have a
~ study of foster care placements done by April. Then, says panelist John
j Mattingly, the group will produce three more reports, one every six to eight
weeks. In 2000, the group will evaluate how well the agency has been imple-
menting their suggestions. The panel will either give the agency a clean bill of
health or turn over its analysis to Children's Rights, Inc., the group that filed
the Marisol suit.
Cohen predicts the hardest part of his job will be keeping ACS and children's
advocates, who are often harsh opponents, communicating with each other.
"It's not so much politics as diplomacy," he says. "It's hard to be looked at by
an outside monitor." -Kemba Johnson
Public Schools
Underbooked
4.
fier ei'ght years of tutoring in the
city's public schools, Cecelia Caruso
became fed up watching students
from Harlem's District 5 and
Fordham's District 10 bringing pho-
tocopied worksheets to her sessions. Kids from
well-off Queens districts 25 and 26 came in with
textbooks, and they generally had better grades.
So last summer she created a new organization,
Fighters for EqUality in the Allocation of
Textbooks. In January she started writing to high-
ranking officials at the Board of Education and the
City Comptroller's office, citing a dozen schools
citywide that didn't have enough books.
Caruso's crusade isn't a new one. In 1996, the
advocacy group Education Priorities Panel (EPP)
found that one-third oC-the New York City school
teachers surveyed felt that they didn't have enough
textbooks to teach effectively. That year, the Board of
Education allocated only $40 per student for text-
booJcs..--of which $35 was state money.
In November 1996, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
announced an election-year education dividend-a
one-time $70 million allocation for textbooks to add
to $37.8 million from the state and $10 million from
the City Council.
"At this point there should be no excuse for a
school to not have textbooks," says Noreen Connell,
EPP executive director.
But advocates say the problem persists. Diane
Lowman, a board member of the Bronx activists
Mothers on the Move, says the $2.4 million bud-
geted to District 8 for textbooks last year has done
little good-her 8-year-old son had no books to
take home. She had her son transferred to District
7 because she felt helpless when his grades began
to drop. "That money should have put textbooks
in the hands of every student in the district,"
Lowman says. "I tried to give him the one-on-one
attention that he wasn't getting at school, but
when I had no reference for the material, how
could I help him?"
In 1997, Lowman's group tried to document the
scope of the problem by surveying District 8 princi-
pals, only to be rebuffed. So they lobbied the City
Comptroller's office to investigate. According to
office spokesperson David Neustadt, the comptroller
will soon release an audit on how the Board of
Education has spent textbook money in the Bronx.
When questioned on the topic, Steven
Newman, the city's ftrst deputy comptroller, told
City Limits to call Board of Education Deputy
Chancellor Harry Spence and he would explain
that "there was a textbook problem at one point,
but it doesn't exist anymore." Spence did not
return City Limits' calls.
-Suzanne Boothby
CITVLlMITS
...... ----------.... ----------------Briem
Housing
Stall in the
Family
L
et's hope housing agency boss
. Richard Roberts got a Franklin plan-
ner for Christmas. From hot-appetizer
lectures to deliveries of cold cash, the
city's Department of Housing
Preservation and Development is seriously behind
schedule.
In January, Roberts was supposed to host a
soiree to introduce a newly restructured HPD. But
he called off the speech at the last minute-just as
he did for the original date in December. Now it
looks like it might never happen. "If he is going to
give the talk, it hasn't yet been replanned," his
office explains.
But it's not just the commish's lecture sched-
ule running late at HPD. The agency's
Neighborhood Preservation Consultant money
has been stuck in limbo since last July, when 30
groups were chosen for the latest round of con-
tracts. NPC, the city's chief anti-abandonment
strategy, pays nonprofits to act as go-betweens for
tenants and landlords and keep an eye out for
problem buildings.
MARCH 1999
DOMELESS
PLEASE
HELp ;'
/;;
The new $80,000 contracts have suffered seri-
al delays, and the money has yet to appear.
Without the funding, the new contracts can't go
into effect, leaving the old contract agencies run-
ning the programs month to month. "Our contract
should have been up on July 30. Instead, I got a
call saying our contract has been extended to
September," says Judy Orlando, executive direc-
tor of the Astella Development Corporation, a
Coney Island-based community development
People Watching
"

a
rn
c
=
group. "Then they called up and said it was
extended to December, then at a meeting they said
it was extended until February."
Nonprofits theorize that city officials fell
behind in developing a way to handle the new
contracting process, which has more stringent
reporting requirements. Groups waiting for the
checks hope that the new contracts will be avail-
able March 1, when the last round of extensions is
due to expire. -Kathleen McGowan
Careful. If your career in the Giuliani administra-
tion moves too fast, you may never leave a trace. Just
ask Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, whose stints as commis-
sioner of the Human Resources Administration and
LOST FOR
ALL TIME
head of the Lincoln Medical Center in the Bronx were never recorded in the
Green Book, the official Who's Who of city government. The latest edition
was issued in December. Thanks to the two-year gap between Green Books,
it was like Barrios-Paoli's tortuous career path never existed.
There are plenty of other moves that have been lost to all time. When
last seen in the Green Book's pages, Elisa Parrish was deputy director at the
city's budget office. Her stint as chief of staff for former Deputy Mayor
Randy Mastro was duly forgotten. But strangely, there is no explanation for
her current disappearing act. She is now deputy commissioner in charge of
foster care at the Administration for Children's Services. But in the Green
Book, she's persona non grata. . -Kemba Johnson
Parents like Isabel
Colon hope to use
part of the massive
Bronx armory for
a school.
Falling Fortress
All plans to recommission the abandoned Kingsbridge
Armory have been shelved. Now the mayor won't even keep
the rooffromfalling in. By Jordan Moss
T
he mothers of the Bronx are
still waiting for their peace
dividend.
They see it on Kingsbridge
Road, looming over their over-
crowded schools, in the unlikely form of
the virtually deserted Kingsbridge Armory.
The unschooled eye sees a leaking,
cracked, graffiti-scarred colossus that has
been abandoned since 1994. Parents like
Kingsbridge Heights resident Isabel Colon
see a school.
Last year, Colon's son shared a fourth
grade classroom with 50 students and two
teachers at PS 86, a badly overcrowded
elementary school just behind the armory.
Conditions have improved a little this
year, and much of the school's student
body has been farmed out to a hodgepodge
of annexes and leased facilities. But she
says he still has a hard time concentrating
because of all the noise and movement in
class.
The space shortage is a familiar story in
District 10, the second most crowded dis-
trict in the city. So a coalition of parents
and residents posed a simple question:
Why not just use the armory?
Ask the politicians.
For years, every plan to turn the armory
into something useful has been ignored,
shot down or delayed to death.
Hatching plans for the building has
become a local obsession in the neigh-
borhood, thanks to the Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition, whose
members have kept doggedly bringing
the subject up. Ideas have included
schools, a bookstore, a restaurant, a the-
ater, youth programs-even a Krispy
Kreme donut shop.
The planning process really got serious
last summer when the coalition teamed up
with Brooklyn's Pratt Institute Center for
Community and Environmental
Development (PICCED). Pratt architects
drafted some initial renderings that tucked
three 800-seat schools around a central
athletic space. The plan also included a
community center, greenmarket and space
for commercial ventures like a restaurant
and bookstore.
"The thing that's so appealing and fas-
cinating about the armory is that the more
you look at i ~ the more different benefits
you get out of the same space," says Joan
CITVLlMITS
Byron, PICCED's architectural director.
The estimated price tag: $100 million.
But there's not yet a peony allocated to
the project, and even small attempts to
keep the building from collapsing are fail-
ing for lack of money. Funding to keep the
roof from caving in has been stalled indef-
initely by the Giuliani administration,
which is withholding $30 million that the
87-year-old building needs for temporary
repairs.
Time may be running out. Urgent
repairs are being made, but the place will
need a far more intensive renovation to
remain open. Meanwhile the site's vast
potential taunts local parents like Colon.
"It's right there where there are schools
that need the space the most," she says. "I
believe it's the perfect solution."
T
he armory, opened in 1917 for the
258th Coast Artillery Unit of the
National Guard, is the largest of its
kind in the world. There's a reason why it
looks like a castle. It was designed not
only to drill troops for foreign wars but to
also withstand attacks from domestic dis-
turbances, although so far it hasn't had to
resist any insurrections.
The massive l20-foot-high drill shed
was "the largest free-standing space in the
western world from the time of the
Pantheon in Rome to the Vehicular
Assembly building at Cape Canaveral,"
according to Major Robert von Hasseln, a
National Guardsman and amateur histori-
an who served at Kingsbridge in the
1980s.
Before the guard decamped and handed
the facility over to the city, the armory was
used for a variety of community events,
including the occasional rodeo or track
meet. Now the roof is slowly disintegrat-
ing, its planks falling onto the puddled
floor. Rainwater has also devastated the
armory's remarkable underground
labyrinth, which once included a parking
garage, theater and bowling alley. Outside,
coursing cracks and huge holes where
there once were bricks undermine the
building's stability.
Yet there are still signs of viability. In
the majestic block-long building that
fronts the armory, the empty classrooms
and offices are largely intact.
For six years, the school district has
been pushing a couple of different propos-
als, albeit without seed money or official
sponsorship. Another plan that would have
turned the armory into an arena for ama-
teur athletic events was championed by
then-Assemblyman Oliver Koppell, but
went nowhere fast. Even a state-funded
MARCH 1999
Sander's Castle
M
orbert Sander's fnt-place finish in the 1974 New York CiQ Marathon was paved
by his days nDlning high school track at the Fort Washington Annory on East
168th Street in Washington Heights.
"I remember the work my coach had done for me," says Sander, now a sports medicine
doctor. His coach at Fordham Prep, Joe Fox, toiled at the annory in his spare time to make
the cavemous building usable for his students. After Fox died In 1990, Sander decided he
would adopt Fox's mantle and renovate the annory so a new generation of kids coold use it.

But there were two problems. rnt, the building was in terrible shape. Second, thanks to a
1984 coort order, the place was being used u a homeless shelter.
Sander had to push three years for his chance. By 1993, the city fMd another shelter site
and Sander, with some friends, fonned the Annory Sports Foundation. The foundation
secured about 87 million in city money and S3 million more from foundations and corporate
sponsors to fIX up the place.
Topping it otT was a grant of more than $400,000 in confISCated drug money from the New
York/New Jersey High Intansity Drug Trafficking Area, a branch of the 0If1Cl of National Drug
Control Policy. The HIDYl funding helped renovate the annory's atrium and two floors of .
rooms in the front of the building that IMJW are home to a range of youth programs, including
the Police Athletic League, Stanley Kaplan test prep and a computer center.
The clubs and school teams that use the track at the annory ~ a fee, subsidizing the
youth programs which don't ~ rent
"We always wanted to have groups or agencies there who would complement what's being
done with the track, " Sander says.
Chauncey Parker, HIDYl's executive director, says Fort Washington is a model for how his
agency can participate in the re-creation of other annories, including, perhaps, the
Kingsbrldge Annory in the Bronx. "That was the idea," Parker says. "You pick one, use it u
a model, show it u a model, and then propose to convert others."
The model seems to be popular: Thin. thousand kids used Sander's facilities in one
recent week.
"You just open the door and it's flooded with people," he says.-JM
feasi bility study, with a $100,000 price
tag, died at the hands of the Pataki admin-
istration.
In 1996, to make up for nixing Bronx
Borough President Fernando Ferrer's
plan to build a Police
Academy in the South
Bronx, Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani al located $30
million to patch up the
armory. The sum would
have been enough to at
least repair the roof and
stabilize the building.
But like the previous
attempts, even this mod-
est effort was scuttled.
Two years ago the admin-
istration shifted the
money originally ear-
marked for the armory to
the general pool of funding labeled "recon-
struction of buildings citywide," according
to Denise Collins, a spokeswoman for the
Department of Citywide Administrative
Services. More ominously. that money has
Todd Bruce--l'ratt Planning and Architectural Collaborative
The community's
Kingsbridge
Armory pwn
includes three
schools, a commu-
nity center and
commerical ven-
tures.
M

been pushed into the budget "out years,"
and isn't slated to be spent until 2002.
A spokeswoman for the mayor's office
wouldn't explain why the money was
moved but did say that "we don't have any
immediate plans for the armory right
now."
City Councilmember Adolfo Carrion, a
rookie Democrat whose district includes
the armory, has been meeting with
Giuliani administration officials to try to
broker a release of the money.
''We're about to go through our budget
exercise now, and this is going to be on the
table again," Carrion says. "We're going to
make sure that we get to the bottom line
here, which is that we need to spend the
money in this budget year before the build-
ing falls."
T
he Northwest Bronx coalition has
set up meetings on the issue with
federal officials, including
Education Secretary Richard Riley.
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Building a Better New York
Visiting a PS 86 classroom in November,
Riley promised those gathered that he'd
write letters of support in their efforts to
get grantmakers to fund a feasibility study.
But his office is unable to give direct
financial support.
The group recruited another ally in the
New YorklNew Jersey High Intensity
Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), a branch
of the federal drug czar's office. To give
local kids a recreational option outside of
drugs and gangs, HIDTA helped tum
Manhattan's East 168th Street Armory in
Washington Heights into a center for
youth athletics and after-school programs
(see "Sander's Castle") by contributing
more than $400,000 seized from drug traf-
fickers. Now the agency is in the process
of proposing similar reinventions of other
city armories.
But since this armory is in such bad
shape, the feds may have to hold off until
some initial renovation is completed. ''We
try to find unused armories that are in rel-
atively good physical condition and then
make the proposal to the city or the state,"
says Chauncey Parker, HIDTA's executive
director.
If and when some real funding options
begin to materialize, a vigorous debate
will likely emerge over whether the
armory should be controlled by public or
private interests.
Carrion says private developers have
approached him and the Bronx Overall
Economic Development Corporation
regarding the armory. But he's mum on the
details, and nothing concrete has been pro-
posed. For his part, the councilman seems
to believe that some element of commer-
cial development may be necessary.
''We're going to need to put some money
in there from the taxpayers, and there
should be a significant return on that tax-
payer dollar. But we have to be realistic
[about the] long-term financial viability,"
Carrion says.
PICCED's Byron and others worry that
commercial developers may get the upper
hand, and emphasize that planners need to
keep their eyes on the prize: addressing the
community's needs.
Isabel Colon, who plans to organize
and promote the schools plan, agrees. "If
I'm going to invest my tax dollars into
anything, it would only make sense to
invest in education," she says. "Without
educating our children, nothing is going to
function in the future."
Jordan Moss is editor o/the Norwood
News, a Bronx community newspaper.
CITY LIMITS
Painted into a Corner
The city has refused to enforce its tough lead paint laws. A new
law could prevent future cases of lead poisoning-if the politi-
cians can get it right. By Leon Lazaroff
F
or Megan Charlop, who runs
New York City's only lead safe
house, the solution is obvious:
Pass a new lead paint law,
enforce it and save children's
lives. Period.
Nearly 17 years ago, the city passed a
landmark lead poisoning prevention act.
But the law has yet to do what its supposed
to do: keep kids from getting sick.
Advocates had hoped that 1982's
aggressive Local Law I-which requires
landlords to strip, replaster and repaint all
walls painted before 196O-would prevent
lead poisoning, which results in permanent
brain damage for thousands of New York
City children each year.
But almost since the day the law
passed, successive city administrations
have argued that it is excessive, expensive
and therefore unenforceable. The city has
ignored the law whenever possible and
fought lead paint prevention activists in
court to keep from having to enforce it.
"The law isn't respected, the city
skimps on the health code, and landlords
aren't taken to task if they fail to follow
regulations," Charlop says. "Right now, it
doesn't work."
This year, the city ran out of stalling
tactics and dodges. Faced with a fourth
citation for contempt of court and possible
jail terms for non-compliance, city hous-
ing and health officials have finally devel-
oped regulations to enforce the law. They
are rules that, if followed, would require
landlords to de-lead every building in the
city--even ones that pose no immediate
threat to children.
On the eve of the passage of these new
regulations, advocates on all sides concede
that the law is probably too tough. A most
unlikely coalition-including Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, the landlord lobby and
environmental and children's advocates-
agree that the city needs a new lead paint
law. They just can't agree on what it
should require.
I
n old, poorly maintained apartments,
lead paint doesn't stay on the walls. The
paint tastes sweet, so toddlers are drawn
to suck on paint chips on window sills and
MA.RCH 1999
floors. Water damage makes the paint
crumble into a fine powder that kids inhale.
Once in the bloodstream, the metal
causes serious nervous system problems
for young children. Lead-poisoned kids
have trouble learning and concentrating,
and the impact on their gastrointestinal
tract can be severe. Almost immediately
after ingesting lead, children begin to act
differently. Some become lethargic, others
become hyperactive. This is why lead-
based paints have been outlawed for
decades.
When her 3-year-old son Gary got poi-
soned, says Glenda Newton, his behavior
changed dramatically. "He was acting
crazy, hitting himself, having temper
tantrums. He'd never done that before,"
she says. He was later diagnosed with a
blood lead level of more than 45 micro-
grams per deciliter, more than four times
the Centers for Disease Control's thresh-
old for lead poisoning.
Newton's landlord had refused to fix a
hole in her roof, so lead paint chips rained
down from the ceiling onto the floor of her
apartment. "He gave me every excuse in
the book," she says. "All he did was put up
a plastic sheet. When it rained, the sheet
would faIl down." Gary had to have five
days of intravenous chelation therapy in .
Jamaica .Hospital to clear the lead from
his blood.
When the hospital released Gary, they
told Glenda not to take him home again,
sending the family to Charlop's lead safe
house until they could find a new apart-
ment. The house, run by Montefiore hospi-
tal, takes up two floors of a neat brick
building across from Van Cortl.andt Park in
the Norwood section of the Bronx. It pro-
vides a handful of families with a clean
place to live for one to two months, until
they fmd a new home or their apartments
can be cleared of lead by the landlord or
city.
According to the city Department of
Health, between 1,500 and 2,000 kids
under age 6 are newly diagnosed with lead
poisoning each year (although last year's
tally of 1,049 cases was considerably
lower). These statistics may understate the
problem, since the city uses a higher
threshold to measure lead poisoning than
the feds recommend. Public Advocate
Mark Green's staff has found that about
two-thirds of all New York City apart-
ments and houses have lead paint, and
more than 30,000 children in New York
City have had elevated lead levels in the
blood-81 percent of them Latino or
African-American.
The solution seems simple: Write and
pass a law that requires landlords to clean
up dangerous peeling paint. But there's too
much money at stake for lead paint laws to

PIPEliNE ~
,
Gary Newton was
moved to the lead
safe house because
he had four times
the "dangerous"
level of lead in his
blood.
5
be simple. Department of Housing
Preservation and Development
Commissioner Richard Roberts has said
that enforcing Local Law 1 will cost the
city $100 million annually and cost land-
lords-including the city itself-an aver-
age of $15,000 to clean each unit.
So the history of lead paint legislation
in New York City has been a story of stall
tactics. Prior to the early 1980s, landlords
were forced to remove the lead from their
apartments only after a kid had been poi-
soned . . City Councilmember Stanley
Michels passed Local Law 1 in 1982 to
avert lead poisoning tragedies, but the city
ignored the law. Three years later, the New
York City Coalition to End Lead Poisoning
(NYCCELP) sued to make the city enforce
the law. In 1989, the New York State
Supreme Court held the city in contempt of
court for failing to enforce Local Law 1.
The city lost its appeal two years later.
In 1994 the Giuliani administration
was held in contempt of court for the same
problem, and the next year the court
increased the pressure by ruling that the
matter could be considered a class action
lawsuit. The city was held in contempt a
third time on April 30, 1997. Last March
the city lost another appeal.
This time, the judge issued a court order
that demanded the city write rules that fol-
low directly from Local Law 1. Last fall, in
response to this explicit order-and the
judge's threat to throw HPD's Richard
Roberts in jail-HPD and the Health
Department produced regulations that
would fInally give teeth to the 1982 law.
I
ronically, today everyone recognizes
that Local Law 1 should never have
been enforced. Removing intact lead
paint generates more toxic dust than leav-
ing it alone. Advocates also concede that
requiring complete abatements could push
landlords in low-income neighborhoods
into bankruptcy. But now, the only thing
that could prevent the city from enforcing
the onerous old law is a new law.
There's already one waiting in the
wings. Two years ago, Councilmember
Michels produced Intro 205, which focuses
on peeling paint and window sills rather
than insisting that all apartments be stripped
of their lead paint. The bill's sponsors say
that under this law, clean-up costs could be
as low as $450 per occupied apartment.
However, landlord advocates like the
Rent Stabilization Association argue that
even this more moderate bill would encour-
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-
age owners to abandon housing rather than
pay the costs of abatement. They say that the
clean-up requirements, like relocating ten-
ants during partial abatements and requiring
windows to be completely replaced, are too
tough and would end up benefIting lawyers
more than tenants or landlords.
The Giuliani administration doesn't like
the bill either. Health and housing officials
refuse to consider the bill, or even admit
that it exists. Michels tried during a con-
tentious December City Council hearing to
get Roberts to say the words "Intro 205."
Roberts refused. 'They're simply not tak-
ing this seriously," Michels said afterward.
Attorneys with NYCCELP want the
city administration to give Intro 205 a
chance. They've offered a deal: If the city
agrees to consider the bill, they promise
not to push the courts to enforce the most
recent contempt order. Assistant
Corporation Counsel Daniel M. Richmond
wrote back on January 6 that the city
would not concede to "any parameters or
requirements" concerning new legislation.
So Intro 205 is unlikely to ever get to
the City Council floor for a vote-or even
to the housing committee for a formal
hearing. Instead, Housing Committee
Chairman Archie Spigner may push his
own legislation. He acknowledged in mid-
January that "there is a draft of a bill that
bas been circulated and is being dis-
cussed." A spokesperson for Council
Speaker Peter Vallone has conflrmed that
discussions on an alternative bill are
underway between Spigner, the council
and the mayor's office.
Lead paint activists assume that Spigner
will push a landlord-friendly bill on the
council-as he has done twice before. But
this time, they may be in for a surprise.
Spigner told City Limits in early January
that Intro 205 has "elements that can be the
basis of a negotiated consensus bill."
Charlop remains suspicious of a last-
minute political deal between Giuliani,
Vallone and the landlord lobby that would
critically weaken lead paint laws.
'These are scary times," she says, as
she slices up an apple for one of the kids
staying at the home. "Suddenly, after all
these court cases and all these years of dis-
cussion, it's as if something has to happen
very quickly. I'm afraid a good piece of
legislation won't get passed .... We're talk-
ing about poor families in old and decay-
ing buildings. Unless the city puts real
pressure on landlords, children will contin-
ue to get very sick." .
Leon Lazaroff is a Manhattan-based free-
lance writer.
CITY LIMITS
4RRBSTBD DBVBLOPMBHT: SECOND IN A SERIES ON CITY HOUSING POLICY IN RETREAT
TIle city has finally started its Dew program for dealing with some
of the worst apartmeDt buildings iD the city-just wheD they fiDally
got the last ODe right. By Bathleell McQowall alld Philip Shishkill
O
n the brick building on Saint Ann's Avenue, under
the red f a ~ a d e with bas-relief lions, Julio Roman has
put up a board with this message: "Keep off, stupid."
Getting title to this decaying Bronx apartment
building has become an issue of life and death for
Roman. "I have nine children," he says. "Six of them were born
here. It's a part of my life." He's been managing the building since
1988, when the owner, a friend of his named Noel Martinez,
moved to California and left the building in his care. He hasn't
heard from the landlord since. Roman thinks he might be dead.
Roman's been fIxing up the 12-uoit building-repainting,
making small repairs, installing a new boiler. But last year, a fIre
ravaged the top floor, damaging the roof and support beams. After
that, the tenants moved out. Roman estimates that he needs about
$150,000 to put it back in shape, install new plumbing and fix the
MARCH 1999
electrical wiring. It also carries about $100,000 in back taxes.
But Roman may have to fIght to keep it. Because of those
debts, the city is getting ready to seize this building and turn it
over to an experienced nonprofIt or independent property manag-
er. So lately Roman has become suspicious of visitors, thinking
they may be sniffing out information to use against him in the title
battle. He's preparing for some serious competition.
"Nobody takes this building away from me," he yells. "I'll
blow it up."
T
here's no keeping the trespassers out. Modest as
it may be, Roman's building represents the future
of New York City's low-income housing policy,
and everybody wants a piece.
Roman's building, along with 43 other tax-
The Bronx
building that
Francisco Perez
is organizing
comes complete
with drug deal-
ers and rats.
-
The St. Clair
had a $1.5 mil-
lion gut rehab
through 7a-
then became
the Americana
Inn, a tourist
hotel.
-
MANHATTAN TRANSPBR
The most important influ-
ence on both third party
transfer and the 7a program
is bigger than the housing
department or the mayor.
It's the economy.
A thriving real estate mar-
ket in gentrifying neighbor-
hoods like Harlem, Crown
Heights, Fort Greene and
Hell's Kitchen may wind up
doing what 7a never could:
provide a big incentive for
owners to reclaim their
buildings. 7a administrators
across the city report a swell
of landlords trying to get
their buildings back, paying
off their tax debts and fixing
up or selling long-neglected
properties.
Unfortunately, that means
the buildings may also be lost
to low-income tenants.
Housing Conservation
Coordinators, a nonprofit
that works on Manhattan's
West Side, had eight 7a build-
ings last year; now they're
left with two. One that was
formerly stocked with low-
income tenants has been con-
verted into a tourist hotel.
When the city used to rou-
tinely seize tax-delinquent
buildings, it had an excellent
property tax compliance
rate-only about 5 percent of
all buildings were in serious
arrears. Since the policy was
dropped in 1995, there's been
no credible threat against tax
cheat landlords. Now, third
party transfer provides that
big stick.
It's already working. The
city's housing agency initially .
slated 174 Bronx buildings for
the first round of third party
transfer. By the fall of last
year, when the city finished
with its seizure process, land-
lords had redeemed all but 44
of the buildings. The remaining
landlords have until March to
reclaim their property.-.DI'
delinquent South Bronx properties, is slated for an experimental
property transfer program getting underway this winter. The new
program fulfills a 4-year-old push by Giuliani administration
officials to get the city out of the housing management business
for good. They see this new "third party transfer" system as a
way to maintain debt-laden, dilapidated buildings in poor neigh-
borhoods without getting directly involved.
the city is scrambling to qualify; about 200 managers applied in
January to be one of the three to five groups that will take own-
ership of the 44 Bronx buildings.
The city officially dropped its policy of seizing tax -delinquent
property in 1995, when a study revealed that the buildings lin-
gered in the city's hands an average of 19 years before being sold,
costing about $2 million each in management, legal and repair
fees.
Now, third party transfer is set to privatize the business of sta-
bilizing low-income housing. The program targets run-down
buildings with large liens from tax, water or emergency repair
bills. If the landlord won't set up a payment arrangement-or if
the building has simply been abandoned-the city will seize it.
Then, instead of adding to the city's stock of 19,000 apart-
ments units, the building will be passed off to a nonprofit or pri-
vate "third party," which will take ownership and start fixing up
the building. Nonprofit loan intermediaries Local Initiatives
Support Corporation and the Enterprise Foundation, through a
collaborative spin-off organization called Neighborhood
Restore, will manage the program. Every big housing group in
The Bronx cluster-all the seriously tax-delinquent buildings
in two tax districts-is the programs' trial run. If it works out, the
city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development
will start funneling buildings citywide into third party transfer.
The agency plans to focus on some of the city's worst buildings:
those with court-appointed 7a administrators.
The 7a program, where judges put legal custodians in charge
of dangerously decrepit private buildings, is like an index of
decay. These buildings are by defmition the worst in the city.
And they will be the real test of third party transfer.
The Bronx 44 are, on the whole, a sorry lot. But, as one
administrator close to the program put it, it's not in HPD's inter-
est to let the pilot project fail. The agency will likely make sure
the project succeeds by providing rehab money and help.
After that, all bets are off.
The transfer process wipes out most tax and repair liens on a
building, but the city won't insure any special access to loan money
for rehab---or any future tax breaks, which developers usually rely
on to make their low-income housing viable. And it's under a strict
mandate: If the transfer doesn't happen within the tight timetable of
nine and a half months, the whole process has to start over.
CITV Ll MITS
''There are so many unknowns," says one housing policy
expert, who asked not to be identified. ''There's liability involved
in taking over ownership, and people don't know that much about
the buildings. If it's privately owned, how do you know what the
actual rent roll is? Does HPD know if any of these buildings are
on rent strike?"
It's the first new development in housing in years, and right
now it's just about the only way for nonprofit housing groups to
grow. It also comes with no guarantees.
U
nfortunately, the new policy might finish off 7a
just when it fInally started to work.
In order to get into the 7a program, a building
must have big problems, like a lack of heat and
hot water, structural problems, resident drug
dealers, torrential leaks-and a thoroughly negligent landlord.
The tenants, working with an HPD or Legal Aid attorney, con-
vince a housing court judge to appoint an independent adminis-
trator. The owner technically still holds title to the building, but
the 7a collects rent and plows the money into rehabbing the
building. The salary: 5 percent of the rent rolls.
It's a simple idea, a quick way to pump cash and resources
into dangerously run-down buildings.
But it has a spotty history. In past years, judges would hand
big buildings over to well-meaning but inexperienced tenants,
overburdened small nonprofits or to building managers just look-
ing to make a quick buck.
Restoring bad buildings in bad neighborhoods-which usu-
ally includes dealing with long-suffering, suspicious tenants on
rent strike-requires someone who can act as a general con-
tractor, politician, accountant and lawyer all at once. The
monthly reporting requirements are onerous. The buildings are
often practically vacant, and a 5 percent take of nothing is no
way to make a living.
Harvey McClelland, an independent 7a administrator since
1992, describes one Bushwick building he managed: "The first
floor had been sold to drug dealers by my predecessor 7a. The
second floor was for prostitutes. On the 3rd floor was the smoke
shop-where people consumed their drugs and used prostitutes.
On the 4th floor was the madam of the building. In my idiocy, I
said I'd take it." On something close to a personal crusade, he got
the dealers cleaned out (he says there were 200 arrests in the
building alone) and the property fIxed up and sold. His initial
monthly take: $32.
Lisette Mendez, a tenant organizer at the nonprofit Good Old
Lower East Side, took her flfst 7a appointment in 1992 with the
hopes of becoming a full-time property manager. After two years,
she left the building with new refrigerators, new plumbing, newly
pointed bricks, a gate to keep the drug dealers out and $6,000 in
its bank account. She also left burnt out.
"I was so stressed out and tired," she laughs. "I spent half my
tiIDe on that building, between calls to HPD, contractors, talking
to tenants, dealing with emergencies."
Not every 7a could handle the job. A 1992 Newsday series of
articles on one ravaged Brooklyn 7a building made the program
a public embarrassment for the housing agency. In addition, some
buildings lingered in the program for years, essentially becoming
the city's responsibility.
So in recent years, the housing agency reined the program in,
accepting only sure-fue buildings and using only the most trust-
ed administrators. The few administrators that still take on new
buildings either head big, competent housing groups that bring
other money and expertise to their 7a appointments, or they're
skilled, politically connected private managers who know how to
MARCH 1999
work the system for rehab money.
"I do think there's been an effort to make the unit more pro-
fessional," says Housing Conservation Coordinators' Nancy
Kyriacou, who has been a 7a for more than 10 years. "That goes
hand in hand with getting rid of buildings as quickly as possible."
And although HPD did not respond to our queries, three dif-
ferent sources-an agency attorney, a nonprofit housing director
and a landlord who'd been through the program-said that the
agency has been training a group of small landlords in the art of
managing and taking over tax-delinquent buildings. The goal is
to make sure each building has a dedicated godparent willing to
permanently adopt the building.
I
t took the housing agency close to 15 years to get the 7a
program to work properly. Now, it has only one year to
get the third party transfer program up and running and
coping with properties like 770 Faile Street, another of
the Bronx buildings scheduled to go through the pro-
gram this year.
In this shabby Hunts Point building, life has turned into a
daily battle against rats. Jeanette Perez says they boldly trot
along her kitchen counters and make themselves comfortable on
the beds in her small apartment. Her five kids are all asthmatic,
but Perez had to get a cat just to scare the rats away. It was little
match for it. "I had rats this big," Perez says, holding her palms
about 12 inches apart. ''They were bigger than my cat."
The housing agency will require the new owner to have a
detailed plan of action for those rats and a multitude of other
problems-including gaping holes in the walls and gas leaks.
Third party transfer is supposed to provide a permanent reso-
lution for buildings like this one, which has been traded around
for years by a succession of deadbeat owners, absentee landlords
and court-appointed receivers. But HPD won't make any guaran-
tees that the new owners will have access to anything more than
the same oversubscribed rehab loan programs available to other
landlords and housing groups.
To repair the building's most serious problems, the tenants
may have to temporarily move out, and third party transfer also
doesn't promise much in this department. LISC and Enterprise
say they'll help with the logistics, but not with the money, or with
the search for equivalent apartments.
The new owner might also have some trouble getting paying
tenants. In Perez's building, drug dealers and prostitutes now pay
nightly visits to a vacant apartment right above hers. The apart-
ment has all the trappings of a drug den-small packages used to
store crack cocaine, a used condom floating amid ashes in the toi-
let bowl, a cluster of bullet holes in the window. A woman sits on
the stairs leading to the attic, her face buried in her arms. A used
syringe lies nearby.
But ultimately, the building might not ever make it to a third
party. The mortgage is held by Houlihan-Parnes Realtors, who
will probably foreclose on the property and keep it out of the
city's hands. Representative Jim Coleman says that the company
has no intention of letting the city confiscate the building.
The tenants doubt that the real estate company will do much
better by them. They say they don't even care who owns the
building, as long as somebody fixes it up. To that end they've
been working with Mothers on the Move and Francisco Perez,
an energetic tenant organizer who has family in the building, to
figure out how to buy the building themselves. With no guaran-
tees on third party transfer, it may be the closest thing they've
got to a solution .
Philip Shishkin is a Manhattan-based freelance writer.
-
Harlem Congregations for Community
Improvement is looking to help its member
churches help themselves. It's a big change for
one of the city's most successful community
developers-and a risky one. By Matthew Strozier
--
y last June, Rev. Mary Kendricks
knew the drill at the monthly general
assembly meetings of Harlem
Congregations for Community
Improvement. As a representative
from one of the 96 member churches
and mosques, she would come to hear
about upcoming events, new housing
developments, expanded social ser-
vices. Someone might mention a .
training program for the unemployed.
It was all interesting, but for Kendricks it wasn't enough.
She had more immediate needs. The 50-member congregation
of her First Grace Baptist Church, located in the Bradhurst section
of north central Harlem, was looking to buy the storefront build-
ing they rented from the city. And Kendricks, whose husband is
the church's pastor, had visions of turning a nearby vacant lot into
a community center to provide child care and after-school pro-
grams for the neighborhood.
When discussion at the meeting turned to an upcoming tour of
newly developed HCCl apartments, Kendricks grew exasperated.
"I didn't want to see a building. I wanted a building of my own,"
she says now, with a slight laugh. So she spoke up and told the 20
assembled members that the needs of small churches like hers
were being overlooked. ''The churches are hurting," she said.
''They need help."
She found a receptive audience. HCCl was formed 12 years
ago by 40 Harlem clergy with an ambition to bring back
Bradhurst, a particularly devastated stretch of Central Harlem.
Under the leadership of the forceful Rev. Preston Washington,
HCCl had become a "superchurch" itself, running 1,300 housing
units, a $1.7 million HIV / AIDS education and housing program
and an array of other services on a multimillion-dollar budget. It
had become a powerhouse in Harlem, and a growing number of
HCCl's pastors, eyeing the explosive growth, were wondering
what exactly they were getting for their time, volunteers and
fundraising.
Kendricks didn't know it that morning, but the organization
had already begun struggling with this question. HCCl's board of
directors, working with Washington, had just started a two-year
strategic planning process that many expect will change the very
nature of the organization.
CITY LIMITS

-
"" .,"' .. !'i. ',..0

"We were like a big
gangling adoles-
cent, .. says Canon
Frederick Williams,
the chair of HCCI's
board.
--
HeCI is not expected to shrink in any way. The goal is to help
member churches do their own social service and development
work: Call it the community development version of devolution.
But just like federal devolution, the implications are unclear.
Some funders have cast doubts on their willingness to support
HCCl's new order, and just how HCCl plans to share its
resources-in other words, money-with the member churches is
still very much in question, Washington says.
"If push comes to shove and at the end of the day-after this
two-year strategic plan is due-tbey come back with, 'Let's throw
the money back at the churches,' l'm out of here, because I know
what that is going to mean," he says. It would mean HCCl would
be moving out of the development business and, essentially, into
the funding business. The logistics would be a nightmare.
"Who do you give it to? How do you create the criteria?
You're talking about 90 churches," Washington says. "I would
have to make up my mind if I want to be around for that because
I will not sit here and watch the demise of this agency. Not that it
is going to happen. But it is a possibility."
A
lthough HCCI boasts that it is not dominated by one
church or pastor, Washington is the organization's
public face and has been since its founding. His
leadership has helped build HCCI into one of the
largest organizations of its kind in the city-and
made him one of Harlem's most recognizable and busiest men.
"Someone said to me recently, 'Preston, remember that you work
for God. When did you ever think you'd replace God from his
throne?'" he says ruefully.
Washington grew up on East 99th Street in El Barrio and
attended a storefront church as a child, one that he says was
demolished in an urban renewal project pushed by nearby Mt.
Sinai Medical Center. He earned a doctorate in education from
Columbia University's Teachers College, and since 1976, he has
been Senior Pastor at Memorial Baptist Church on 116th Street, a
church he runs with his wife, Rev. Renee Frances Washington. A
founder of HCCI, he became chairman of the board of directors in
1988. In 1991 he became president and CEO.
From the beginning, HCCI had a guiding star in the Bradhurst
plan, an ambitious blueprint for redeveloping a 32-square-block
section of north central Harlem that was home to one of the largest
concentrations of abandoned city-owned buildings in New York.
The plan called for the creation of 2,000 housing units-half for
low- and moderate-income residents and half to bring in new mid-
dle-income residents-as well as new social services and eco-
nomic development programs.
Initially, former Mayor Edward Koch was lukewarm on the
idea. Only after HCCI joined with six other local groups to create
a new Harlem housing developer, the Consortium for Central
Harlem Development (COID), did he consider it. Koch okayed
the plan as one of his last official acts.
Then David Dinkins took office. The city backed the plan to
the hilt under the administration of Harlem's favorite son, paying
the entire $24 million bill for the first building phase and chipping
in 70 percent of the second phase's $30 million price tag. (The
remainder was made up through bank financing and low-income
tax credit deals.)
Today, HCCI runs the buildings CCHD built or rehabbed under
the Bradhurst plan alongside an impressive range of service pro-
grams, including Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, an extensive
after-school program, workshops for youth, and computer training,
English as a Second Language and GED classes. From a staff of
two with a budget of $100,000 less than eight years ago, HCCI
now has 90 full- and part-time employees and a $3.5 million annu-
al budget. And that is up from $2.4 million as recently as 1996.
As HCCl's projects grew, so did its membership, a collection
of congregations that ranges from famous Harlem institutions like
Wyatt Tee Walker's Canaan Baptist Church of Christ-a manda-
tory Sunday morning stop for aspiring local politicians-to tiny
storefront operations that don't even own a fax machine. Despite
a few high-profile congregations, the majority of HCCl's mem-
bers are small and mid-sized churches with tight budgets. But as
HCCI grew bigger and more successful, members big and small
began to wonder if it was also growing out of control.
I
t's a cold December morning and Paul Dunn, HCCl's vice
president for health and human services, is taking a group
of clergymen and women down memory lane at their
monthly general assembly meeting. Having been bumped
out of their usual meeting space by construction expanding
the HCCI Family Life Center on 153rd Street, they are finishing
their breakfast of eggs, grits, sausage and potatoes in the cafeteria
of St. Matthew's Baptist Church.
''This is where we got started, 12 years ago. We have now
come full circle," Dunn says, ebullient. "HCCI has been very
good at building. HCCI needs to do more in terms of empowering
member congregations to provide services." The crowd of 20
members eagerly take it all in. Mter all, this is what many of them
had been lobbying for.
For the last two years, the board brought the topic up regular-
ly. "I think that this is going back to the roots of HCCI," says
Rev. Robert Castle of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, a founding
CITY LIMITS
member of the board. "And unless [HCCI] does keep its roots
and is supportive of the local congregations, it's hard for it to jus-
tify its role."
After years of low-level grumbling, the issue boiled over at the
summer 1997 board meeting. "We had grown like Topsy," main-
tains Canon Frederick WIlliams, chair of HCCl's board since
1988 and rector of the Church of the Intercession at 155th and
Broadway. "We were like a big gangling adolescent-all hands
and feet. People were beginning to throw money at us. Finally, the
board had to say to Dr. Washington, you may not accept any more
grants until you are clear about what you are able to do."
Washington was initially taken aback by the demand. "My
reaction was that it was an absurdity," he says. 'They had to real-
ly pull my coat, as the kids say in the street, and say, listen,
Preston, this is not the way you want to go."
Washington says the group's explosive growth was fueled in
part by financial concerns. Late payments to their housing pro-
gram repeatedly jeopardized the group's ability to make payroll
and continue its social service programs. "It was a long process of
drawing down the money," he says, "and a few times we almost
didn't survive."
To keep cash flowing, HCCI began to apply for more and more
grants-each with their own projects and paperwork. They were
providing all sorts of services to the community, but the internal
infrastructure couldn't handle the unchecked growth. Payroll was
still done manually, and staff was having trouble keeping up with
so many competing demands.
Outside forces were also pushing for change. The Bradhurst
plan was no longer bringing in the same level of support under
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who initially committed only $5 mil-
lion to the $13.5 million third phase-largely middle-income
condominiums. The administration has since reduced that com-
mitment to $2.6 million. Moreover, HCCI is no longer working
with-{)r, reportedly, even communicating with-its develop-
ment partner, CCHO (see "Unsettling Developments").
And the housing business in general is much tougher these
days. Good city-owned land is getting scarce, and HCCI must
now compete with well-funded private developers. 'There is only
so much more housing that we can do here in Harlem," says Greg
Watson, the group's vice president for real estate. "It's just a mat-
ter of time before [no] more land will be available."
As housing opportunities diminish, HCCI will have to scram-
ble for funding. Until now, it has raised most of its budget through
development projects; even $800,000 of the social services bud-
get comes linked to the Bradhurst plan. HCCI officials say there's
no crisis-the group has $5 million in project reserves to fund
social service initiatives and other reserves to maintain its build-
ings-but clearly budget meetings have a new urgency.
A plan to give more responsibility to HCCl's church members
could help both sides of the ledger. HCCI, presumably, would be
running fewer programs in-house, reducing costs. And banks and
foundations could support HCCl's new work. Faith-based devel-
opment and organizing is one of the latest trends in the foundation
world, and Washington observes that others have already started
to cash in on the trend. 'They are all saying that they are working
with the independent black church and that is bullcrab. They're
using the names of these churches because they know the founda-
tions are looking for broad-based coalitions," he says. 'There's no
meaningful participation in any of it."
At the end of 1997, facing shrinking resources and an agitat-
ed board, Washington applied for a $150,000 strategic planning
grant from the Neighborhood 2000 initiative, a $10 million fund
run by a coalition of 35 community development grantors.
"HCCl's hodgepodge of service delivery programs, a sprawling
MARCH 1999
staff growth, and a general 'stop gap'
approach to social engineering is no
longer an acceptable efficient model,"
the group's proposal read in part.
"SOMEONE
SAID TO ME:=: , ==::i
The money came through last
spring, and HCCI immediately began
a two-year planning phase. They've
hired a prominent strategic planning
firm, Dudley Hamilton Associates,
and convened a 17-member commit-
tee of board members, staff, tenants,
churches and program participants.
Washington characterizes the process
as something that he "cannot control,"
and indeed, neither he nor board chair
Williams is on the committee.
As the word spreads in Harlem
about HCCl's new direction, the atti-
tude is wait-and-see, even among
observers that hold the group in high
regard. 'The cynical view is that this
is just a showcase to put people in
place so the group can look good,"
says one veteran Harlem activist, who
asked not to be identified. "A more
'PRESTON,
REMEMBE
THAT YOU
WORK FOR
GOD.

THINK YOU'D
REPLACE GOD
FROM HIS
THRONE?'"
generous idea is that they've gone back to their roots and are
working with people that they always should have been helping."
T
he Faith Pentecostal Apostolic Healing Temple
occupies a storefront painted white with red trim, a
bit of color on an otherwise nondescript block of
White Plains Road in the Gun Hill section of the
Bronx. Inside, Rev. S.A. Banton welcomes the con-
gregation for the daily "fasting service" into the sanctuary,
where 100 or so wooden chairs, a drum set, a few guitars and a
pulpit await. In the comer, the U.S. and Jamaican flags stand
side by side.
A few dozen boxes of food---everything from canned fruit to
pasta sauce-sit downstairs in the hall by Banton's office, a
reminder that the church's Christmas dinner for more than 200
local homeless families is a week away. In addition to providing
spiritual guidance, Banton and his wife oversee the church's food
pantry, soup kitchen and clothing drives.
One of 23 small churches that signed on with HCCr in the last
six months, Banton's ministry joined in October at the suggestion
of a minister-friend from Harlem. "He [thought] that HCCr would
be able to help me to obtain a bigger space," Banton says. He's
hoping to fmd money for a larger kitchen, an expanded dining
room for the soup kitchen, and space for a day care program.
Faith Pentecostal funds its services mostly through Sunday
collections. Banton set up a nonprofit corporation last year but so
far he has received only one grant-$800 from the United Way for
supplies for the soup kitchen. The city and United Way gave a
total of about $14,000 in food donations last year, but Banton says
those programs are year to year. The church takes in between
$4,000 and $5,000 a month in collections. About $1,500 goes to
rent and utilities, another $2,000 pays for Banton's weekly
Christian radio show. "We struggle," he says.
Faith Pentecostal is the rule rather than the exception when it
comes to New York City's small churches, observers say. 'Their
biggest need is financial," says Dr. Roy Bryant, founder and pres-
ident of Christian Federation, Inc., a coalition of 15 small church-
es and Christian ministries in the Bronx and Harlem that joined
HCCr last year. 'They need to house themselves; their rent is
-
UNSETTLING
DE LOPMENTS
T
he Consortium for Central Harlem
Development, created in 1991 to
build the housing that HCCI over-
sees, is also being forced to change
how it does business. Without the
confidence of the city's housing
department and split from their part-
ner HCCI, the group has connected
, with a Canadian outfit to finish the
last phase of the Bradhurst plan.
After investing a total of more than
S50 million for the plan's first two
phases, the city's
Department of Housing
Preservation and
Development (HPO) had low-
ered its stake in the $13.5
million Phase III to $5 million.
According to lanette Burkley,
director of business and
marketing development for
CCHO, the city then halved
that commitment in 1997.
at one 121-unit site with shoddy con-
stnIction, and threw other prqiects and
funding off schedule with late paper-
work. A "construction loan closing was
delayed 2 years due to CCHO's _
response time and the inability of CCHO
and HCCI to agree on the stncture of
their partnership," the memo notes.
"Delays is such a strong word,"
Burkley says. "I don't want to blame
[HPO] or us. But given the delays that
we may or may not be guilty of, we
piece of city-owned property on
145th Street, Site 17, for a compre-
hensive prqiect that will include
housing, commercial space for small
businesses, and a large supermarket.
Even if CCHO loses out on Site 17,
the organization and a private
Canadian company called the Kerble
Group are scheduled to break ground
in July on their nagship prqiect, an
11-story building of full-amenity con-
dominiums on 145th Street called
Bradhurst Gardens. Perks
include concierge service,
private parking, and dish-
washers and washer/dryers
units in every condo. "A
building like this has never
been seen before in Harlem,"
Burkley says. Market studies
are still being prepared to
determine how much it will
cost to move in.
Of course, housing pro-
grams have been reduced
citywide. In fISCal year 1990-
the heart of the Koch lO-year
UonelMclntyre, director
In October, HCCI and CCHD finished their last collabora- of the Urban Technical
housing pIan-HPO did a complete
rehab on 6,610 units. By 1996, that
number had fallen to 1,955-in part
due to cutbacks in federal housing
money. And politically, it's no surprise
that MQOI' Rudolph Giuliani hasn't
supported Harlem development as
much as his predecessor, David Dinkins.
But CCHO shares some of the blame.
According to a July 1998 HPO memo
obtained by CiI;y Limits, the group took
three years to finish 16 units at one
Bradhurst site, caused heating troubles
and water damage in some apartments
tiOll, the 67-unit Frederick Douglass Arms. Assistance Program at
have still aIfected real change in our
community. "
Sources knowledgeable about the
plan say that in October, HPD sent a
letter retracting the consortium's
exclusive right to city support on
Bradhurst prqiects. An HPO spokes-
woman declined repeated requests for
comment.
HCCI, which in October ended a
reportedly stormy relationship with
CCHO, is now in competition with its
former partner. Both groups have bid
for the right to develop the same
Columbia University and
author of the original Bradhurst plan,
says he envisioned more moderate
condominiums for Phase III. "I'm not
sure how luxury condos are going to
fly [in Harlem]," he says.
But Burkley insists that the building
will add variety to Harlem's housing.
"I think it's ridiculous that a commu-
nity like Harlem should have only one
type of housing. You need variety,"
she says. "That's how you create a
community, not a ghetto."
- SuzanntJ IJotJtlIby
and Matthew Strozier
CITY LIMITS
expensive. Some would like to
buy buildings or to renovate or
to build a food pantry."
Many of the larger HCCI
institutions, like the Canaan
Baptist Church of Christ, have
technically skilled middle-class
members and up-and-running
housing projects and social ser-
vice programs. But the smaller
congregations dominate HCCl's
membership, and these are, by
and large, independent Baptist
and Pentecostal churches with-
out a religious network to pro-
vide resources or give advice.
''These pastors have been pas-
tors for 20 years, and they have
never done any adnllrUstrative
work," First Grace Baptist's
Mary Kendricks says. "A lot of
them don' t even know what tax-
exempt is."
The larger churches say they
are committed to helping out
their struggling brethren. ''Those
that have ought to help those
who do not," says Rev. Lenton Gunn, pastor of St. James
Presbyterian Church, a stately, mostly middle-class church near
City College. "It makes us all stronger. If the smaller churches can
grow and become providers, then it means that our communities
are better."
The need is clear. Small churches are on the first line of social
service for much of Harlem. "When we give out food, the line goes
out around the comer. When we give away clothes, people fill the
place up," says Kendricks. "We do a lot in that little church."
A
lthough the strategic plan is still a year and a half
away from completion, HCCI has begun to find new
ways to serve its members. Since last spring, the
group has held three workshops on grant-writing for
its clergy and helped more' than a dozen congrega-
tions apply for grants. And in September, HCCI hired Kendricks
to reach out to pastors and figure out what they need.
As new churches like Banton's join HCCI looking for help, the
enormity of the job ahead is becoming clear. "We are being inun-
dated with requests for help," admits Watson. "But we don't have
the capacity to assist at the level that is probably required at this
time. We are now in the process of identifying funding that is nec-
essary to do that."
"It's an enormous task," says Gary Hattem, managing director
in the community development group at Bankers Trust, a lead
sponsor of the Neighborhood 2000 fund. "Whether resources can
be galvanized to do that job, I don't know. You have to make sure
you are not just providing technical assistance, but are enabling
people to do this on their own."
HCCl's brass recognizes that finding new funding sources for
small churches will be a major task in the coming years. Many
funders have grown comfortable with HCCI as a centralized
agency. "Ultimately, it is up to HCCI to do what they want," says
James Shipp, an assistant program officer at the Local Initiatives
Support Corporation (LISC), which has given nearly half a mil-
lion dollars to the group in grants and lines of credit. ''We have
had a great success with HCCI, and we hope that it continues. We
obviously cannot provide the same funding to 20 or 30 churches."
MARCH 1999
He adds that, given the choice, LISC would prefer to work with Rev. Mary
one entity. Kendricks hopes
Washington doesn't argue the point. "That is a legitimate, cen- to buy the city-
tral concern of this strategic plan," he says. "God knows, we don' t owned storefront
need a million and one organizations with limited capacity or that houses the
none competing for limited dollars. The real trick to this whole First Grace
thing, so to speak, is how do we convince all the players that this Baptist Church.
may not be your time for this thing? Or maybe you should do this ~
in collaboration? And HCCI may need to take a back seat for get- ~
ting funding for itself to help another congregation." :::E
Washington and his lieutenants have one ace in the hole-the ~
funders that increasingly recognize and underwrite the growing
movement toward faith-based organizing and development.
Certainly the success of time-tested programs at institutions like
Rev. Calvin Butts' Abyssinian Baptist Church in Manhattan and
former Congressman Floyd Flake's Allen AME in Queens have
convinced more banks and funders to invest in church work. "We
think that faith-based institutions playa central role in the com-
munity and want to help build that potential out there," says Mark
Willis, president of the Chase Manhattan Foundation, which has
committed $1 million in $25,000 faith-based community devel-
opment grants over three years.
Even so, HCCl's leadership suspects that this will not be
enough, and is trying to come up with new ways to raise cash out-
side the foundation world. Watson suggests that the agency may
need to create for-profit businesses, like a supply company or a
property management finn, to meet the financial needs of the
organization in the corning years.
No one denies the task ahead is a big one. Washington is rest-
ed-in January he completed a two-month sabbatical from the
agency-and says he is ready for anything. "Most agencies
wouldn't bother with this," he asserts. "Most agencies would say,
'Let's make our agency stronger. Let's build an empire.'
"We didn't take that route. We took the more altruistic route,"
he says. But he adds that the strategy is not without risk. "We may
be opening up a Pandora's box."
Matthew Strozier is a Brooklyn-basedfreelance writer.
-
-
Interviews and Introduction
By Annia C i e ~ d l o
Photos By Mayita Mendez,
CITY LIMITS
MARCH 1999
brick towers of the Jacob Riis Houses lining
Avenue D look much as they did when they
opened in 1949. Many families have come and
gone in the 1,768 apartments, but 13 of the
original families are still there.
Immediately after World War n, returning
GIs and soaring construction costs created a
housing shortage, and NYCHA gave preference
to the veterans. When Jacob Riis Houses
opened, the tenants reflected both the racial
composition of the surrounding neighborhood-
white ethnic immigrant families-and the more
integrated makeup of the United States Army.
The buildings' site was once the home of
some of the most infamous of the tenement com-
munities that Jacob Riis himself documented,
eventually inspiring the housing movement that
spurred Mayor Fiorello laGuardia to create the
New York City Housing Authority in 1934.
By 1938 NYCHAhad 36,000 applications
for 13,000 apartments. Tenants were selected
according to a rigorous point system, requiring
bank accounts, insurance and citizenship.
Housing officials chose residents according to
the race of the surrounding neighborhood. The
policy continued until the civil rights move-
ment forced NYCHA to establish an office to
"assure a fully integrated tenant body" in 1958.
Although Alphabet City was one of the
country's toughest neighborhoods during the
1970s and 1980s, five of these original tenants
also remember a neighborhood of community
gardens, jazz clubs, and families that looked
out for each other's children.
THEY WERE TAKING veterans first, they
had preference, so we got in right away.
~ i t e a few Jewish people on this loor.
They all moved away in drifts and drafts.
There were a lot of Irish people hYing
here, too. I was the only Italian and my
husband was Russian. I imagine he was
the only Russian.
-
CYN-THIA
wilhams
My HUSBAND WAS BORN IN THIS APARTMENT. I per-
sonally came here at the age of 4. I started out in the
Lillian Wald Houses. I had to travel from 6th Street all the
way to 9th Street to go to school. That's where I met my
husband, I was about 10 then. But I didn't like him at that
time. He became the resident cook of all the parties. Yeah,
everybody called him the Duke of Barbecue. The com-
munity garden on 8th Street, he helped them build it up.
That's where my husband spent most of his time, they'd
play dominoes and checkers. That's where they'd chew the
fat with the guys, they all end up there after work.
ROBERT
turner
You SEE THAT PARK WITH THE BASES AND ALL?
That wasn't like that. They only had a couple of swings
out there, wasn't no grass or nothing. We signed a peti-
tion for them to make the East River Park look pretty,
something for the kids to play ball. And they fixed the
playground ~ p and all, but it didn't change the neigh-
borhood at aU. If we coulda kept it funded, it wouldn't
have been like that.
--
CITY LIMITS
-
BARBARA
datTey
My DAUGHTER'S BEEN TO COLLEGE; I made sure my son did too. Those are two things I'm proud of. My
son, I got him out of here when he was 14 years old. And he lived in Maine and come home on Thanksgiving,
Christmas, summers and things like that. I wanted him to .have the best chance possible, 'cause most of the
kids coming up here were getting killed, getting busted, in and out of all kinds of trouble. I got to the point
I didn't want him to come home. I missed him, but at the same time-it was dangerous out here.
CITY LIMITS
Misstep Fathers
........... _...-:.' .... -
AMMO
W
ith so much emphasis on stretching the welfare dollar
these days, policymakers have been searching for
techniques to get non-custodial parents-usually, that
means fathers-to do better by their children. A fIrst peek at one
such project shows just how hard that can be.
Disability Check ~ ...... I I I ! ! ! J ! ! I I ! ! ~ ~
O
ne of the most difficult groups to move off welfare are
people with mental health and physical disabilities and
their caregivers--estimated at 10 to 30 percent of wel-
fare recipients nationwide.
Since 1994, the nonprofIt Manpower Demonstration
Research Corporation, the federal Health and Human Services
and Labor departments, and a foundation consortium including
Ford and Annie E Casey have been funding a seven-city
demonstration project that's designed to get dads to pay up.
Although the Parents' Fair Share demonstration project man-
aged to increase the child support paid out by its 2,600 partici-
pants-largely by keeping an eye out for unreported income-it
failed in its central aim to help fathers raise incomes and get
more stable jobs. Most men distrusted the child support system,
which often used their garnished wages to offset state welfare
costs rather than passing the extra money on to their kids.
Typically, the fathers worked only occasionally and for
cheap: Only 28 percent of them made more than $3,500 during
one tracked nine-month period. Never did the fathers in the pro-
gram earn more, or have a higher employment rate, than those
in a control group who weren't being helped.
The authors give a few overarching explanations. Many
contracted job placement centers were afraid to push the appli-
cants on local employers for fear the businesses would stop
using their other clients. Half of the dads lacked a high school
diploma and 70 percent had a criminal record.
MDRC also found that the job search centers and peer sup-
port weren't well suited for the dads who need permanent work
and higher wages. The report suggests that future programs
should fund job retention services and short-term subsidized
jobs in the nonprofIt sector instead.
"Building Opportunities, Enforcing Obligations:
Implementation and Interim Impacts of Parents' Fair Share, "
free, MDRC, 415-781-3800, www.mdrc.org.
Since federal welfare reform was enacted in 1996,30 states
have started moving people with disabilities into work or other
activities, according to an Urban Institute study. Seventeen of
these states, like New York, have removed some exemptions, or
review medical evidence more strictly. The other states have
essentially eliminated work exemptions,
Researchers worry that states may skimp on necessary ser-
vices and caseworker education, and caution states to think
about how these policies may brush up against discrimination
laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act.
"State Welfare-to- Work Policies for People with
Disabilities: Changes Since Welfare Reform," free, The Urban
Institute, 202-833-7200, www.urban.org.
Keep in Touch
N
othing gets a New York welfare advocate fuming faster
than talking about how the city has failed to track welfare
recipients who've left the rolls. A new publication lays out
everything the city hasn't been doing.
The paper details the benefits and shortcomings of surveys,
data from other agencies and home visits. It stresses the impor-
tance of getting a credible survey size-South Carolina's phone
survey, for example, questioned enough former recipients to
equal a population about one-tenth the size of the current rolls. It
even lists what questions to ask. The report emphasizes the need
to track not only the employment prospects but the overall well-
being of families newly off welfare ..
"Tracking Welfare Reform: Designing Followup Studies of
Recipients Who Leave Welfare," free, National Governors '
Association, 202-624-5300, www.nga.org.
Hardships in families on and recently off welfare
Went without food for a day or
more for lack of money
Heat was cut oft'
25%
27%
38%
Seven nonproflts from different
states, including New York's
Citizens Advice Bureau, surveyed
more than 670 single parents on
and recentJy off welfare. Parents
off welfare had a harder time
paying rent, buying food and
getting child care. Nearly half
believed that their lives had got-
ten worse in the last six months,
compared with a third of those
still on welfare.
Moved because could not pay rent
iii 23%
Get Welfare now
Stopped in last 6
months
Doubled up to save money
_.25%
It's harder to pay for child care
It's harder to get health care
8%
In the last 30 days. (Al l oth.er questions refer to last 6 months.) for themselves.
Source: Children's Defense Fund Community Monitoring Project PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS
MARCH.999
-
CITYVIEW
ingness to even use the word "public" in dealing with public
housing, and the emphasis on responsibility implies that in the
past public housing residents haven't been responsible mem-
bers of the community. This bias echoes the personal respon-
sibility theme in the recent welfare reform law where reduc-
ing welfare rolls-not creating jobs-has been the primary
outcome.
The theme of responsibility goes beyond the law's title.
Unless they're in school or participating in a recognized job
training or work-related program, all unemployed able-bodied
adults living in public housing are now required to contribute
eight hours a month to "voluntary" community services.
Challenging
the Authority
NYCHA is obliged under the law to evict residents who
fail to meet this requirement. Let's see the authority show
some responsibility of its own by challenging the provision.
There is no parallel requirement of forced labor in any other
federal housing policy, including mortgages subsidized
through income-tax deductions.
With these changes on the horizon, it's imperative that
there be a structure for direct resident involvement-beyond
the usual public hearings-in decisions affecting tenants'
lives and homes.
David R.
Jones is presi-
dent of the
Community
Service Society
of New York, a
nonprofit
research, advo-
cacyand
social service
organization.
Research for
this article was
provided by
Victor Bach,
CSS director of
housing policy
and research.
By David R. Jones
H
istoric changes in federal law from the
new Quality Housing and Work
Responsibility Act, together with the
recent departure of New York City
Housing Authority head Ruben
Franco, leave the 700,000 residents of the city's
federally funded public housing facing an uncer-
tain future.
It is inevitable that the mayor's new chair-
person will want to change things, and he or
she will have a lot of opportunity to do so.
Under the new law, the federal
NYCHA has a recent history of frustrating resident partic-
ipation and withholding vital information. As a new leader
takes over, the agency should move toward basic institutional
changes in how it relates to its residents and the wider com-
munity. At the same time, the agency must perform a balanc-
ing act by involving residents in its plans and decisions while
continuing to maintain the quality of its housing and its finan-
cial position.
A good start would be forming a citywide Resident
Advisory Board. Thanks to lobbying by the New York City
Public Housing Resident Alliance, the new law has kept intact
current federal Department of Housing and Urban
Development regulations granting residents the right to orga-
government turns over unprece-
dented powers to local housing
authorities. But along with the new flexibili-
ty comes federal budget limits that will sorely test
the agency.
NYCHA will be under growing pressure to
make up the shortfall by raising rents and/or
widening the income range of residents by pro-
viding fewer units for the very poor. The
The federal government turns over
unprecedented powers to local authori-
ties-and sets federal budget limits.
agency will also have the authority to sell, convert or
demolish existing public housing, or use its funds to sup-
port private development and leasing. Taken together, these
options could very well leave even fewer housing units
available for the very poor, pushing some families into
homelessness.
Local housing authorities are increasingly being asked to
come to grips with terms like "entrepreneurial" and "asset
management," but they cannot be viewed primarily as a busi-
ness-people's lives and the city's affordable housing pro-
grams are profoundly affected by their actions.
The very title of the federal law shows Congress' unwill-
nize development by development. These elected resident
associations are supposed to be the building blocks for form-
ing a citywide advisory board to plan and work with NYCHA
on policy issues.
New York's public housing system has been a model for the
nation. If this success is to continue, NYCHA's 60-year mis-
sion and role as the primary source of decent affordable hous-
ing for the city's poor must be maintained. The fate of
NYCHA's tenants-a population about the size of San
Francisco's-is connected to every resident of this city, rich or
poor. If new, restrictive policies close NYCHA's doors to the
very poorest New Yorkers, all of us will feel the effects .
CITY LIMITS
(continued from page 4)
tenns of management quality and building services,
had many fewer problems with drugs and crime,
showed the greatest tenant satisfaction and was com-
parable to other sales programs in tenns of preserv-
ing rent affordability."
The surveys also documented important addi-
tional benefits from the co-op housing that emerges
from the Tenant Interim Lease program. Residents
from low-income co-ops had by far the highest level
of civic participation in institutions including
churches, schools and block associations. Their
incomes were also slightly higher than residents in
other programs. They had the highest levels of lead-
ership, "help giving" among neighbors and tenant
association involvement, all basic currency of social
capital.
These results could indicate that the most
involved, community-minded residents with the
best jobs are the ones that opt for resident owner-
ship, but a deeper look at the data counters this
view. In fact, the residents who enter the Tenant
Interim Lease program are similar in these indices
to the residents in centrally-managed buildings. It's
only after the buildings have spent time in TIL and
then become established co-ops that help-giving,
participation and incomes rise.
This infonnation is a powerful indication of the
success of TIL, and I wish it had been included in
your article. Your readers would have also benefited
from my exploration, together with Gary Wrnk.el, of
the positive implications of social capital in co-op
housing, which was the lead article in a recent issue
of Housing Policy Debate. If your reporter had done
in-depth research, he would have also found useful
infonnation in recent research by Dr. Gerald Sazama
and Dr. Roger Willcox. They have analyzed the con-
siderable body of academic literature on co-ops and
found consensus on the fact that resident participa-
tion in housing reduces operating costs and residents
living in co-ops gain numerous benefits from co-
operation.
Dr. Susan Saegert
Housing Environments Research Group
City University of New York Graduate School
and Research Center
Glenn Thrush replies:
Contrary to Dr. Saegert's assertion, we were
familiar with her research-<md it informed our
story. In retrospect, we probably should have men-
tioned it, but there can be no mistaking the fact
that we recognized the study's underlying conclu-
sion: TIL, when it works, is the most valuable of
the city's low-income housing programs because it
confers the benefits of home ownership on low-
income tenants.
The article's conclusion puts it succinctly: "It is
likely that TIL will always be one of the city's most
chaotic housing programs, simply because it is the
most ambitious. "
MARCH.999
Specializing in
Community Development Groups,
HDFCs and Non,Profits
Low .. Cost Insurance and Quality Service.
NANCY HARDY
Insurance Broker
Over 20 Years of Experience.
270 North Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 10801

CORD FOUNDATION SEEKS LEADERS OF TOMORROW
Want to become part of the solution in New York City? Leadership New York seeks
mid-career executives from the private, public, and non-profit sectors who are committed
to strengthening New York City.
You will gain hands-on experience learning about the City's most pressing issues:
economic development, education, race relations, public safety and more. Meet with city
leaders, develop new skills, work with individuals from diverse backgrounds and become
part of a network that is making change happen! e
The program involves one full day and one - C
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* Special Events * Small Businesses
* Books and Journals * Non-Profits
Jerry Graham: (212) 260-0894
Box 214, 70A Greenwich Ave, NYC 10011

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PROGRAM ASSISTANT. BASS and HOWES, a public policy and public affairs
consulting firm with a focus on the concerns of women and families, seeks
a program assistant to provide programmatic and logistical assistance on
client projects. BASS and HOWES works with nonprofit advocacy groups,
foundations, professional associations and private sector companies. In
addition to client assistance, the Program Assistant will provide office and
administrative support. Candidates should have flexibility and excellent
organizational, written and oral communication skills. A capacity to work
independently, juggle multiple tasks and meet sudden deadlines is a must.
Requirements include: a college degree; experience in a busy, fast-paced
environment; and proficiency with Windows, WordPerfect and on-line ser-
vices. An interest in health issues is desirable. Cover letter, resume to:
Lisa Cowan, BASS and HOWES, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1905, New
York, NY 10107.
FULL-TIME WRITERIEDITOR. Working Today is a national nonprofit member-
ship organization that promotes the interests of people who work on their
own, including freelancers, independent contractors, temps, part-timers
and contingent workers. Working Today is looking for a full-time writer/edi-
tor with excellent research, writing and analytical skills. The writer/editor
will have significant responsibility for Working Today's communications
activities. The writer/editor will help staff develop arguments and position
ideas. Familiarity with policy jargon and political code words will be useful,
especially when it comes to knowing how to write around them to present
Working Today' s ideas in a novel way. The kinds of assignments the
writer/editor will typically handle include: op.eds in the executive director's
JCCGCI MANAGEMENT SUPPORT SYSTEMS
I HI "1l2llliLSS' f-OR \1 I ) ()l R emllll II R \!-LDS
INSTAUATION AND TRAINING IN SPECIALIZED
NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS
LAWRENCE H. McGAUGHEY
Attorney at Law
Meeting the challenges of affordable housing for 20 years.
Providing legal services in the areas of General Real Estate,
Business, Trust & Estates, and Elder Law.
217 Broadway, Suite 610
New York, NY 10007
(212) 513-0981
COMPUTER SERVICES
Hardware Sales:
IBM Compatible Computers
Oladata Printers
Lantastic Networks
Software Sales:
NetworkslDatabase
Accounting
Suites! Applications
Services: NetworkIHardwareiSoftware Installation,
Training, Custom Software, Hand Holding
Morris Kornbluth 718-857-9157
voice; short survey reports, analysis of pending legislation, and other mod-
est research efforts; project descriptions and funding proposals; policy
papers for legislative staff and other advocates on the rationale behind
Working Today's proposals; and popular articles on useful resources and
information for individual members. The writer/editor will also edit contri-
butions to a new website project and marketing materials for Working
Today's services. The best candidate for the job will be resourceful, collab-
orative, deadline-conscious, and comfortable with criticism. The writer/edi-
tor will also coordinate the day-to-day tasks connected with communications
projects, and so must be prepared for some fairly mundane work. Familiarity
with an area of public policy, or experience with marketing or fundraising
would be a plus. Master' s degree not required if bachelor's is comple-
mented by relevant experience. Quality health insurance, a portable pen-
sion, salary of $38,000. Potential for advancement is excellent. Send let-
ter, resume and short writing samples to the attention of Julia Rabig, the
executive director's assistant. Working Today, P.O. Box 1261, Old Chelsea
Box Station, New York, NY 10113.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETlNG. Bring your sales, marketing and
communication skills to a growing progressive research and education non-
profit, in Essex County, NJ. We publish a national magazine, hold symposia
and conduct research on community revitalization issues. You'll be responsi-
ble for all income-generating activities-including foundation and corporate
fundraising, circulation and advertising revenue, and ancillary profit centers-
and assist with public relations and board activities. Must show 5+ years of
increasing success in nonprofit or for-profit development. Competitive salary
and benefits. EOE. Fax resume to: 973-678-8437, or e-mail: hs@nhLorg.
DEBRA BECHTEL - Attorney
Concentrating in Real Estate & Non-profit Law
Title and loan closings 0 All city housing programs
Mutual housing associations 0 Cooperative conversions
Advice to low income co-op boards of directors
313 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201,
(718) 780-7994 (718) 624-6850
F &; I> Co:nSu.lt:i:ng
Specializing in Organizing Tenant Associations
eDoes your apartment or building need repairs?
eAre you being overcharged rent?
e Are you paying unlawful fees?
For $4 per person, per meeting, we conduct informative monthly meetings,
produce newsletters, write correspondence, complete complaint forms and help
you improve the quality of your tenancy.
(Also, ask about our Eldercare Planning homevisits)
For Information: 212.591.1167
NesoH Associates
management solutions for non-profits
Providing a full range of management support se",ices for
non-profit organizations
management development & strategic planning
board and staff development & training
program design, implementation & evaluation
proposal and report writing
Box 130 75A Lake Road Congers, NY 109200 tel/fax (914) 2686315
CITY LIMITS
SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
J-51 Tax Abatement / Exemption. 421A and 421B
Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All forms
of government-assisted housing, including LISC/ Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Bronx, N. Y.
(718) 585-3187
New York, N.Y.
(212) 551-7809
IMl 6>tmrfkD!p

Urban Planning

DIMIIoprw1teor.&n
_1'I'oIped PIKe ... 84
BrooIIIyn, NY 11m
718.78U7 .... voa & (III[
--_...-n
Housing & Community Development
Economic Analysis Public Relations
Special Events
Marketing Plans
Media Relations
ProgramlProposal
Design & Implementation
Capacity Building
CoNSULTANT SnMCfS
Propouls/Grant Writing
HUD Granu/Govt. RFP.
MI(HA(L 6. 8U((1
CONSULTANT
Hoosing/Program Development
Real Estate Salet/Rentals
Technical Assistance
Employment Proerams
Capacity Bulldmg
Community RClatiOlli
HOUSING, DEVELOPMENT Be FUNDRAISING
212-765-7123
212-397.e238
nJCbucclOaol.com
451 WEST 48th STREET, SUITE 2E
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 1003(>,1298
Does your nonprofit need corporate, real estate,
tax or other business legal services?
Lawyers Alliance for New York has a staff of skilled lawyers
and a roster of 400 volunteer attorneys from leading NY firms.
We specialize in providing free or low-cost legal services to
nonprofit corporations. We also offer helpful publications and
workshops on many nonprofit legal issues.
To find out if we can help your nonprofit, call 212 219-1800
Lawyers Alliance
99 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013 for New York
Committed to the development of affordable housing
GEORGE C. DELLAPA, ATTORNEY AT LAW
15 Maiden lane, Suite 1800
New York, NY 10038
212-732-2700 FAX: 212-732-2m
Low-income housing tax credit syndication. Public and private
financing. HDFCs and not-for-profit corporations. Condos and co-ops.
1-5/ Tax abatement/exemptions. Lending for Historic Properties.
MARCH 1999
STAfF ATTORNEY. South Brooklyn Legal Services' Foreclosure Prevention
Project seeks staff attorney to represent low income seniors victimized by
predatory lenders. Will involve extensive state and federal lit igation, and
community outreach/education. Send resume to John C. Gray, South
Brooklyn Legal Services, 105 Court Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201.
PROJECT COORDINATOR. Community Food Resource Center (CFRC) is an advo-
cacy organization that addresses food, hunger, nutrition and income support
issues in New York City. CFRC has a twelve-month immediate opening for a
professional to design and implement several pilot projects that would inte-
grate the federal Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) with informal
day care homes. Responsible for conducting a needs assessment that
guides the design of this work and an evaluation that describes it. Requires
the ability and "drive" to track information from multiple sources and orga-
nize it in a meaningful way, strong interview/writing skills, interest in and/or
knowledge about child care issues, and a MS degree or equivalent experi-
ence in public policy, social work/community organizing, early childhood
development, or related field. Depending on experience, we offer a salary of
$40,000 and a comprehensive benefits package. Please mail/fax resume
to: Community Food Resources Center, 90 Washington Street, NY, NY
10006, AnN: Toni Liquori. Fax: 212-344-1422.
EWVIDCO seeks an INDUSlRIAL DEVD.OPMENT MANAGER to provide ombuds-
man assistance to industrial park businesses, serve as a liaison to local
government agencies, manage marketing and promotional activities and
development of industrial park BID. Successful candidate will have related
experience, and strong writing and public speaking skills, and be energetic
and outgoing. Fax or mail resume to: J. Leon, EWVIDCO, 11-29 Catherine
St. , Brooklyn, NY 11211. Fax: 718-963-1905.
The New York Industrial Retention Network (NYIRN) seeks to hire an
individual for the position of PROJECT MANAGER. NYIRN is a not-for-
profit organization dedicated to strengthening New York' s manufac-
turing sector, retaining manufacturing jobs and building the capacity
of local development corporations, community-based organizations,
labor unions and others to engage in economic development.
The Project Manager will work with network partiCipants to identify
companies that are at risk, to assess their needs and develop and
implement remediation strategies. In addition to individual business
assistance, the Project Manager will seek to expand the network,
build strategiC relationships and foster collaboration between net-
work partiCipants. For example, NYIRN is seeking to develop a high-
ly interactive website that will be used by network participants to post
information about real estate, training programs and other time-sen-
sitive information that should be shared on a citywide basis.
Rnally, the Project Manager will assist the Executive Director to
research and develop policy, and to draft fundraising proposals.
NYIRN is undertaking a number of industry-specific initiatives to
assess the economic impact, needs and service delivery mecha-
nisms of certain key sectors.
Applicants should have a background in economic development, com-
munity development or community organizing. Applicants should
have strong research, communications and interpersonal skills, and
be well organized. Applicants who are multi-lingual are preferred.
NYIRN is an equal opportunity employer.
Applicants should send a resume and cover letter to: NYIRN, 30
Ratbush Ave., Suite 420, Brooklyn, NY 11217. Fax: 718-624-8618.
POLICY ASSOCIATE for Economic Development. The Center for an Urban
Future, a New York-based policy think tank (the sister organization of City
Umits magazine), seeks a policy associate to work on job creation and pub-
lic higher education issues. Duties include research, writing, government rela-
tions and some community outreach. Candidates must have strong writing
and interpersonal skills. CUF fosters an entrepreneurial , creative and neigh-
borhood approach to policy development and seeks like-minded candidates.
Please visit our web site at www.cityl imits.orgjcuf before applying.
Compensation: $28,000 - $32,000 (depending on experience) plus benefits.
Send resume and two brief writing samples to Neil Scott Kleiman at 120 Wall
Street, 20th Roor, 10005. Fax: 212-344B457. (continued on page32)
-
(continued from page 31)
NYC Community and Housing Development Organization seeks a dedicated indi-
vidual to work as DIRECTOR OF HOUSING DEVElOPMENT. Responsibilities: Project
planning, underwriting, financing, construction oversight, project administration
and compliance, managing tenant relocation, Low Income Housing Tax Credit
(LlHTC) and tenant income certification process with staff as well as city and
private funders. Requirements: college degree and a minimum of five years
experience in affordable housing finance and LlHTC. Ability to coordinate multi-
family development projects, negotiate with contractors and lenders, analyze
financial projections and budgets. Excellent verbal and .written skills (Bilingual
preferred). Salary: commensurate with experience. Send or fax resume to: Ms.
Stennett, 500 West 159th Street, New York, NY 10032. Fax: 212-74Q.5037.
JOB DEVB.OPERIEMPlOYMENT MANAGER. Innovative 20-year-<>ld nonprofit
seeks creative individual to develop employment opportunities for diverse
student body. Candidate will teach job readiness and do outreach to unions
and employers. Knowledge of construction trades a plus. Salary: $30s
plus. Fax resume/cover to NEW: 212-255-8021.
FREELANCE PROGRESSIVE AC11VISTIORGANIZER. No problem to large/small.
References, wide range of experience. Sliding Scale. Consultations or
hourly. Kenneth Toglia 718-302-9556.
Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, a NYc.based progressive education and
social change organization, seeks new DIRECTOR. Fundraising; administration;
oversight of programs, including coalition-building, anti-bias education, social
justice campaigns; community outreach. Work with small staff, board and vol-
unteers. Knowledge of NYC politics, Jewish community issues and/or media
a plus. Fax by Feb. 15 to: Search Committee, JFREJ, 212-647-7124.
DEVElOPMENT ASSOCIATE. Growth opportunity in aggressive public interest
law office. Major foundations, law firms, donors, cultivation events. Report
to Executive Director. 2-4 years experience, computer-literate, highly orga-
nized, excellent writing. Salary to $40K plus benefits. Resume, cover letter,
writing sample, salary history to: Welfare Law Center, 275 Seventh Ave.,
Suite 1205, NY, NY 10001. EOE. On web at www.welfarelaw.org.
MANAGED CARE ASSOCIATE. The Puerto Rican Family Institute, the largest
Latino social service provider in New York City, is seeking a managed care
associate to work under the Director of Managed Care Operations. This
individual will generate data reports, including analyses of client satisfac-
tion, outcomes measurement, and level of service reports relating to
Where Two Worlds Collide ....
Join the New York State Banking Department
where the exciting worlds of Banking & Regulation meet. / / I
We are the primary regulator for banks in NY State, supervising institutions with
assets in excess of $1.7 trillion.
A unique opportunity exists for a eRA ANALYST to work in our Community
Affairs Unit. Use your expertise to evaluate CRA performance of supervised insti-
tutions, set up conferences, organize special events, and engage in outreach to
community-based organizations and financial service providers. Involves some
travel within NYS. Strong writing and computer skills required. CRA experience
preferred. Minimum qualifications:
*BAlBS degree with 24 credits in Urban Planning, City & Regional
Planning, Economics, Public Administration, Business Administration, or
Political Science; and
*2 yrs of post BAIBS expo in a State/municipally supported community-
based organization performing research, planning, administration, or
analysis of community preservation and economic development programs
focusing on the preservation, revitalization, and development of low to
moderate income areas.
To apply, send your resume to: Joan Sullivan by Fax to: 212-618-6948 or E-mail
to: joan.sullivan@banking.state.ny.us or mail to:
--
NEW YORK STATE BANKING DEPARTMENT,
2 Rector Street, New York, NY 10006-1894
http://www.banking.state.ny.us
agency activities in its mental health and child abuse preventive services
programs. Further, this individual will partiCipate in substantive analyses of
operations at all service sites. MA/MPA/MPH and strong analytiC skills
needed, a working knowledge of SPSS a plus. Spanish language ability high-
ly desirable. Send resume to Julia Stewart, PRFI , 826 Broadway, 9th R., rm
924, New York, NY 10003. Fax: 212-253-1455.
AMERICORPS VISTA VOlUNTEERS. Seeking 2 VISTA volunteers to work in com-
munity outreach. Emphasis on employment initiatives and Welfare to Work
in New York City. Community organizing, business experience and knowl-
edge of computer preferred. Receive stipend, medical benefits and educa-
tional reward. Send cover letter and resume to: Supportive Housing
Network of New York, 475 Riverside Dr., Suite 250, New York, NY 10015.
Or fax to 212-870-3334. attn: Carolyn MacLaury.
STAFF ASSOCIATE. Community Training and Resource Center is a housing
preservation organization that provides information, training and technical
assistance to housing groups, neighborhood associations and social service
agencies. CTRC seeks a well-<>rganized college graduate with excellent writing
and communications skills to manage our Landlord Training Program. This
program targets Brooklyn and Manhattan landlords who are first-time offend-
ers of New York heat and hot water codes. Working knowledge of WordPerfect
for Windows, Excel and Microsoft Office required. Experience with nonprofit
social service group preferred. Salary: $30,000. Send resume and cover let-
ter to: Kevin Ryan, Community Training and Resource Center, 90 William St.,
Suite 1200, NY, NY 10038. Fax: 212-227-1125.
CON1ROU.ER, large philanthropic foundation. Our client, a grant-making foun-
dation based in midtown New York City, seeks a controller to provide the
foundation with financial and accounting records management, revenue and
expense analysis and forecasting, and office management. This is a hands-
on financial position for a person with facilities' management expertise and
experience implementing an integrated MIS system. The foundation has
been operating with funds from a family with a long-standing philanthropic
history. To date its grant-making activities have been focused on the New
York City school system and education programs. The foundation is cur-
rently receiving a large influx of assets that will increase its value to approx-
imately $300 million. Qualifications include: Bachelor' s degree in account-
ing or finance (CPA or MBA preferred); a minimum 5 years experience man-
aging a finance department with broad accounting, budgeting, cash man-
agement and reporting responsibilities; expertise in implementing controls
and procedures; and the ability to review and analyze investment state-
ments (monthly), interact with investment advisors and monitor investment
allocation changes. Contact: Ellen Bodow, Executive RecrUiter, The
Development Resource Group, 104 East 40th Street, Suite 304, NY, NY
10016. Fax: 212-983-1687. E-mail:ebodow@drgnyc.com.
EXECUT1VE DIRECTOR OF ASPHA. New organization of nonprofit agencies servic-
ing homeless adults (ASPHA) has opportunity for creative, energetiC, bright
organizer with strong writing, speaking and analytical skills. Good administra-
tor to handle details, committees, budget and planning. Responsibilities
include development of strategiC plan, fundraising advocacy and policy
opment, preparation of reports, and support of board and committees.
Minimum 2 years administration or organizing experience in programs for poor,
homeless and/ or mentally ill or in similar setting. Salary up to $35,000
depending on experience, either or part-time. Good benefits. Cover let-
ter and resume to Urban Pathways, 575 Eighth Ave., 9th Roar, NY, NY 10018.
Manhattan-based Energy/Real Estate consulting firm seeks RECENT MA
GRADUATES for full-time employment with knowledge of city tax incentive pro-
grams and state housing agencies. Must have math and computer skills
along with the ability to produce a comprehensive writing piece. Please fax
resume to EIS: 212-36&5557. Or e-mail: EISINCORP@aol.com.
Growing, Brooklyn-based, community development corporation seeks
dynamic individual to serve as EXECUTlVE DIRECTOR. Requires experience in
economic development, youth and immigration services. Requires bache-
lor's degree and five years related experience. competitive salary and ben-
efits. Reply to GFSC, 1 Hillel Place, 3rd R., Brooklyn, NY 11210.
SENIOR ASSOCIATE, Rnancial Services. Nonprofit Facilities Fund, 20-year-<>ld
national community development financial institution, seeks individual to
analyze, close and monitor loans to nonprofits. As needed, will provide tech-
nical assistance and work on special projects. Candidates should have:
bachelor' s (master's preferred) in business, public administration or related
field; 2-4 years in financial services (preferably lending); nonprofitjcommu-
CITY LIMITS
nity development experience; strong writing and presentation skills, and
experience with Excel and MS Word. Salary commensurate with experience.
Send letter and resume to: Norah McVeigh, Director, Financial Services,
Nonprofit Facilities Fund, 70 West 36th St., 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.
EXECUTlVE DIRECTOR. South Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation, a
progressive not-for-profit promoting economic development and industrial
retention in Sunset Park, seeks a new executive director to manage a grow-
ing menu of programs and services, develop linkages with other service
providers, and diversify government and private funding. Specific areas of
involvement include employment, training, business consulting, advocacy,
special events and new program development. Director supervises a staff
of five and reports to a 24-member board of directors. Qualifications:
Degree in planning, economics, business or related field and at least three
years of senior project management experience. Master' s degree and expe-
rience as executive director preferred. Excellent communication, analytical
and computer skills, including Internet required. Salary commensurate with
experience. Fax cover letter and resume to Victor Vientos, Search
Committee, at 718-982-8497 by February 15. For more information visit
www.swbidc.org.
EXECUTlVE DIRECTOR. Neighbors Together, a CBO nonprofit, operates the
second largest soup kitchen in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Seeking director to
manage multi-service agency. Candidate must evidence strong administra-
tive, grant writing, public relations, fiscal and personnel management.
Ability to work with Board of Directors, volunteers, community members and
government entities. Must possess a minimum BA/BS with 3 years experi-
ence in supervisory poSition. Master's in Business or Social Work a plus.
Position is extremely challenging and rewarding. Salary mid $30s range, 4
weeks' vacation and full benefits. Please send resume to Neighbors
Together, P.O. Box 330-562, Brooklyn, NY 11233.
PARALEGALS. Two immediate paralegal pOSitions with the Legal Aid
SOCiety' s Homeless Rights Project. Responsibilities include providing emer-
gency legal assistance to homeless families w/children through a toll-free
hotline and outreach in shelters as part of a class action litigation team.
Spanish-speakers, women, people of color; gays, lesbians and people with
disabilities are especially encouraged to apply. Send cover letter, resume
and writing sample to: Steven Banks, The Legal Aid Society, 90 Church St.,
NY, NY 10007. Fax: 212-577-7966.
COMMUNnY ORGANIZING & DEVD.OPMENT TRAINER. The Affordable Housing
Network of New Jersey seeks a highly qualified person for our Community
Building Support Initiative which provides training and TA to CDCs in com-
prehensive, resident and stakeholder driven community revitalization. Key
duties: providing on-site training and TA in community organizing, communi-
ty planning and organizational development. Requirements: minimum of 5
years experience and professional preparation in grassroots organizing,
community-based planning and community education. North Jersey is pri-
mary focus. Bilingual (Spanish) skills a plus. Resume: Affordable Housing
Network, CBSI Search, PO Box 1746, Trenton, NJ 08607.
ADVOCACY DAY COORDINATORITEMP. Citywide advocacy organization seeks a
coordinator for its State Advocacy Day to work full-time, February i-March
12. Arrange legislative appointments and organize senior citizen delega-
tions to meet with legislators. Organizational and telephone skills impor-
tant. Fax resume: Bobbie Sackman, Council of Senior Centers and
Services, 212-398-8398.
The South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SOBRO), one of
NYC's largest economic and community development corporations is seeking
energetic, entrepreneurial persons for the following positions: DlEIOR OF COM-
MERCIAL REVmII..Il.CI1O. Responsible for overseeing and managing SOBRO' s
Commercial Revitalization initiatives including: providing technical assistance to
merchants and merchant associations; development of promotional initiatives
to strengthen commercial districts; establishment of innovative programs to
help businesses increase sales; and management of capital improvement pro-
jects. Salary mid $30s. COMMUNnY LIASION, TENANT SERVICES. Responsible for
providing tenant support to the residents of Mott Haven, including employment
linkages, training programs and negotiation/mediation assistance with land-
lords. Mid to high $20s. Please send resume and cover letter to: Ms. Karen Hill ,
SaBRa, 370 East 149th Street, Bronx, NY 10455.
EMPLOYMENT ASSISTANCE COORDINATOR. Common Ground, a housing and
economic development agency, seeks Employment Assistance Coordinator
to oversee job hunt efforts for job training program. Responsibilities include
facilitation of weekly job-seeking workshops, career development counsel-
MARCH 1999
ing, and management of Job Center services. Experience with job training
programs for homeless and low-income adults preferred. Send resume to:
Justine Zinkin, Common Ground, 225 West 43rd Street, New York, NY
10036. Fax: 212-768-8748.
EXECl1T1VE DIRECTOR. The New Party, which has emerged as one of the more
exciting and serious independent, progressive, political organizing efforts in
America, seeks a new director. The New Party has elected more than 200
people to local school boards, city councils, county boards and state legis-
latures, and has worked with those officials to pass living wage laws,
increase funding for affordable housing, control urban sprawl, and improve
schools in poor neighborhoods. With close to 20,000 members and a grow-
ing staff (now 25), the organization is poised to elect progressive majorities
in cities across the country. Duties include: fundraising, administration, out-
reach, strategiC planning. Proven fundraising and organizational manage-
ment experience required. Send resume, references, letter to: New Party,
88 Third Avenue, Ste. 313, Brooklyn, NY 11217.
ORGANIZERS WANTID FOR NYC TRANSIT RIDERS. Want to help New Yorkers
fight for better subways and buses? NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign is
looking for full-time organizers to recruit transit activists; build coalitions;
and oversee surveys of service. NYPIRG is an equal opportunity employer.
Salary commensurate with experience. Send resume to: Gene Russianoff,
9 Murray Street, NY, NY 10007. Or fax 212-349-1366. E-mail: gruss-
ian@nypirg.org.
The Center for Court Innovation, an award-winning public-private partnership
dedicated to improving public confidence in justice, seeks three people. The
SENIOR EDITOR will be responsible for ensuring that the Center stays abreast
of best practices in community justice and overseeing the editorial content
and production of publications and a web site. Editing and publishing expe-
rience required. The SENIOR CONSULTANT will provide hands.<Jn assistance
and information on community justice by leading site visits, developing work-
shops, managing a toll-free help line, and coordinating partnerships with
model community justice programs. Experience in government, law, politics
or nonprofit, as well as instruction and/or facilitation experience preferred.
We also seek a PROJECT COORDINATOR for Project Tech Help, a technical
assistance effort designed to teach drug courts how to build innovative infor-
mation systems. A background in government, law, politics or nonprofit,
experience with instruction, as well as ease with management information
systems and the Internet is preferred. Resume to: Center for Court
Innovation, 351 W. 54th Street, New York, NY 10019. Fax: 212-397.Q985.
ADVOCACY DIRECTOR. Responsibilities: develop and implement strategies to
change policies affecting immigrants and refugees; oversee internal staff to
coordinate activities, meetings, and public events; track and analyze relevant
policy and legislation; research and develop policy positions; maintain ties
with local and national advocates; write reports and testimony, and coordi-
nate responses to emergency issues. JD, MPA or equivalent experience. 5+
years experience with public interest, nonprofit organization preferred. Fax
resume, cover letter and salary history to 212-627-9314. No phone calls.
DEVD.OPMENT DIRECTOR. Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), a
dynamic, growing gay and lesbian senior social service and advocacy orga-
nization seeks person to manage fundraising and marketing program, includ-
ing major gifts, foundation grants, direct marketing, budget planning, mem-
bership and special events. Minimum four years experience. Experience with
gay or senior community preferred. Excellent salary and benefits. Resume to
Sandy Kern, SAGE, 305 7th Avenue, NYC 10001. Or fax to 212-366-1947.
DEVElOPMENT ASSOCUO'E. West Side settlement house serving youth, elderty
and homeless seeks highly organized associate to manage donor database,
appeals and acknowledgments, assist with special events and communica-
tions. Strong interpersonal, writing and computer skills required, raiser's edge
a plus. Salary commensurate with experience, excellent benefits. Fax resume,
cover letter to: Development Director, Goddard Riverside, 212-873-1276.
EXECl1T1VE ASSISTANT. West Side settlement house with a wide array of com-
munity programs seeks highly organized individual to work directly with
executive director and senior management to handle variety of administra-
tive tasks: coordinate activities of Board of Directors, organize meetings
and special events, maintain corporate records, draft correspondence, han-
dle calendars, respond to general inquiries, assist with government con-
tracts, etc. Strong writing, oral and interpersonal skills required; ability to
be flexible and work as part of a team; salary commensurate with experi-
ence, excellent benefits. Fax resume with cover letter to: Executive Director,
Goddard Community Center, 212-595-6498. (continued 011 page 35)
-
askMartha
ACCENTING
Dear Martha,
I live in an apartment building that has
rats, broken windows, no locks on the
doors and intermittent heat. The pipes are
busted, the ceiling has water damage and
there are holes in the walls that let the
wind in. My question is: What would be a
nice centerpiece for the dining room?
- Brenda DeMario, the Bronx
Nothing says spring like tulips! These
indefatigable flowers cheer up any room. I
always try to create a mix of colors and
stem heights to produce an informal,
comfy feel. Use an antique pewter pitcher
or some of your most cherished crystal for
the vase, and remember to put a little
aspirin in the water to make the blooms
last and last.
Add in a little baby's breath, and you've
got a marvelous way of saying, ''I'm gonna
sue the pants off that damn landlord."
PERFECT PALETTE
Dear Martha,
My office walls are so dreary! Any sugges-
tions on how to cheer up a nonprofit space
where I spend 12-hour days?
- Dylan Boolde, Brooklyn
Think red! Drab institutional white walls
cry out for a splash of color, and what bet-
34
ANSWERS TO QUERIES ABOUT HOUSING
ter color than revolutionary red? Invest in bags-I prefer Earl Gray-and let natural
some vintage Mao prints or a stylish Che sunshine do the rest. Don't forget to get a
Guevera beret to hang on those walls. permit!
If red is too pinko, you can create a
wonderful bas relief wall sculpture out of COL L E C T I B L E S
the take-out coffee cups that no doubt litter Dear Martha,
your desktop. With their folk art version of I collect old eviction notices from the
a classic Greek motif, these blue-and- 1970s; I'm particularly interested in "ille-
white treasures don't have to end up in the gal " notices. Any suggestions for where to
trash. Just dry out the week-old coffee and find these treasures?
let your imagination run wild. - Kelly O'Pucker; Jamaica, Queens
LIBERAL LIBATION
Dear Martha,
Whats a delicious summer drink for a
protest?
- Tori Warnipple, via e-mail
I always enjoy sipping an ice-cold gin and
tonic while looking over my yard after a
long but satisfying day of gardening. But
providing well-mixed (don't forget that
perfect slice of lime!) G&Ts for a large
crowd outside of City Hall can be a logis-
tical nightmare. Not to mention the conse-
quences of getting a few thousand angry
protesters drunk.
So I recommend refreshing iced tea
with just a hint of lemon. Since the best
iced tea is sun-brewed, show up at the site
a few hours before the event with a
10,000-gallon glass vat. Mix in 8,000
lemons cut into quarters, 50,000 tea
New York City'S wild ride through the
'70s produced a cornucopia of interesting
and quite collectable legal documents.
These historic reminders of Gotham in a
wholesale housing crisis also make fasci-
nating placemats, heirlooms or even party
favors. When adding to your set, be on the
lookout for orders to vacate from actual
condemned buildings-they're much
more valuable.
illegal notices, by their very nature, are
harder to come by. You can try trading on
the World Wide Web, or combing the flea
markets. Of course, nothing beats asking
friends and associates if they have any
notices of their own. You'll be surprised
at who says yes. For example, I was evict-
ed from a 100-acre Hamptons estate I was
summering at last season because of a
rent strike I engineered over substandard
living conditions .
CITY LIMITS LIVING
lOAkdA
(continued from page 33)
TINANT RElATIONS SPECIALIST ITRSI. Cooper Square Mutual Housing
Association, manager of low-income housing, seeks TRS to manage build-
ings, coordinate tenant relocation, prepare tenants for cooperative owner-
ship. Requirement: 2-3 years organizing or housing management experi-
ence. Bilingual (Spanish/English), computer literate preferred. Salary: Mid
to high $20s. Resume: Cooper Square MHA, 59-61 East 4th St., 3rd Floor,
New York, NY 10003. Fax: 212477-9328.
PROJECT DIRECTOR. ANHD seeks a Project Director for CHAMP, our CDC
trade association. The CHAMP Director will work with NYC-based CDCs to
coordinate affordable housing advocacy; develop and facilitate workshops
and trainings, and increase access to resources that support our members'
housing development and management activities. Seeking a high-energy
self-starter with experience in housing development and management,
housing finance and/or training and technical assistance. Salary: $35,00()'
$45,000. Send resume and cover letter to: Irene Baldwin, ANHD, 305
Seventh Avenue, Suite 2001, New York, NY 10001. Fax: 212463-9606.
The Pratt Area Community Council (PACC), a growing nonprofit organiza-
tion committed to improving the Brooklyn communities of Ft. Greene,
Clinton Hill, and Bedford Stuyvesant, is seeking: A TENANT ORGANIZER to
work with tenants and community associations to address building and
community-wide issues. Knowledge of housing laws and regulations, ten-
ant rights and HPD programs helpful. Candidate will be a community-mind-
ed, high-energy self-starter, willing to be part of an organizing team.
Bilingual English/Spanish a plus. Women and minorities are strongly
encouraged to apply. Salary commensurate with experience. ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR to implement ambitious economic development
strategy. Develop and oversee commercial revitalization activities includ-
ing creation of a job and resource center. Candidate will have business or
community development experience and possess excellent communica-
tion and organizational skills. PC literate. Women and minorities strongly
encouraged to apply. Competitive salary. PROPERTY MANAGER. Bright, PC
literate, organized individual with problem-solving skills to work with low-
income apartment rentals and collections. Hands-on building mainte-
nance/field experience required. Knowledge of rental subsidies helpful.
Opportunity for advancement. Women and minorities strongly encouraged
to apply. Competitive salary and benefits. Fax cover letter and resume to:
PACC, 718-522-2604.
A full-time position is available at the Police Athletic League for a PROJECT
COORDINATOR. This person will be responsible for supervising and manag-
ing the daily operations of the newly created Pregnancy and Prevention
Program for adolescent girls in the Bronx, including the coordination and
delivery of educational workshops with topics on abstinence, human sexu-
ality, puberty, relationship skills, dating, birth control, contraception,
Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV /AIDS, decision making, Choice, and
self esteem. The candidate must have a BS degree and five years of expe-
rience or a MS degree and two years of experience. Contact Charlene
Semancik at 212477-9450 extension 332. Or fax resume to 212477-
8511. Salary in low $30s. Future Quest is tentatively going to start around
February 10th.
COMMUNnY ORGANIZER, CVH, a member organization of low-income women
on welfare, is seeking a community organizer to build organizing commit-
tees of workfare workers, welfare recipients and other low-wage workers in
Northern Manhattan and the South Bronx. The ideal candidate will have 2-
3 years experience in direct action membership building or issue-based
campaign work. Salary is $24-$30k depending on experience. Please send
resume and cover letter to: CVH, 173 E. 116th St., 2nd Fl., NY, NY 10029.
Fax: 212-996-9481.
WORKERS CENTER DIRECTOR. CVH, a membership organization of low-income
women on welfare, is seeking an experienced individual to develop and
manage programs of the CVH Workers Action Center, including a member
hiring hall, Worker's Rights Clinic, ESL and citizenship classes, Women's
Group and other membership benefit programs. The ideal candidate will
possess at least 6 years experience in organizing, program development,
management, administration and fundraising. We strongly encourage
women, people of color, and lesbians and gays to apply for this position.
Salary is mid-upper $30s. Please fax resume and cover letter to: CVH, 173
E. 116th St., 2nd Fl . NY, NY 10029. Fax: 212-996-9481.
P/r VOlUNTEER COORDINATOR for mentor program. MSW required. Spanish
bilingual preferred. Previous volunteer program, individual/group work expe-
rience necessary. Lower East Side community/school based agency. Fax
resumes to: 212-3494403.
OUTREACH PROGRAM MANAGER for cancer support community. Hard-working
experienced certified/licensed mental health professional (bilingual pre-
ferred) for innovative support community. Must have excellent outreach
(communicati on, public speaking, written, interpersonal skills), clinical and
administrative skills. Must be open to learning new clinical perspectives.
Must be flexible to work varied hours/some evenings. Send resume
w/cover letter and salary history to: Harriet Mannheim, CSW, Director of
Program Administration, Gilda's Club, 195 West Houston Street, NY, NY
10014. No phone calls, please.
OFFlCE SPACE. 61 Broadway, 12th Floor, Wall St. area, newly built space. 8
windowed offices, approx. 4,000 sq. ft. Available immediately. Contact E.
Fernandez, 212-51()'o900.
LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION
OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
MARCH 1999
We have been providing low-cost insurance programs and
quality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
and other NONPROFIT organizations for over 15 years.
We Offer:
SPECIAL BUILDING PACKAGES
FIRE LIABILITY BONDS
DIRECTOR'S & OFFICERS' L1ABILTY
GROUP LIFE & HEALTH
"Tailored Payment Plans"
ASHKAR CORPORATION
146 West 29th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001
(212) 279-8300 FAX 714-2161 Ask for: Bala Ramanathan
I
-
t
Dolores (Dee) Solomon in her
newly renovated shop,
Dee's Cards N Wedding Service.
CALL: CHASE COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT COMMERCIAL
LENDING 212-622-4248
Mo g in the right direction
HapPl" Renovation Dee!

:
When Dolores (Dee) Solomon went after a much need-
ed loanJo keep her struggling small business compet-
itive, she thought it was a "mission impossible." And it
was. Russell, tJer long-time branch man-
ager afTheChase Manhattan Bank branch at 125th
Street, :,ponnected her to the . .(ight people.
Thelma personally introduced Dolores to the business
lending officers of the Chase Community Development
Group. Working one-on-one as a team, they cus-
tomized a loan package for'Dolores. They did it with
Chase's flexible "CAN*DO" lending program which
makes special allowances for the credit challenges
facing many community-based businesses.
Dolores got her loan and business has never been bet-
ter. Stop by her shop at 480 Lenox Avenue and see for
yourself, or call her at 212-281-5125. It just goes to
show you: success is still all about making the right
relationships.
: ........................... Community Development Group
CHASE. The right relationship is everything.
sM
C 1997 The Chase Manhat1an Bank. Member FDIC.