EDITORIAL

THROWING BRICKS
NATURALLY, IT TOOK an ugly outright crisis before
the people who could do anything about it
could be bothered. It took nearly a year and a
half after &rnily homelessness hit record levels
before the Bloomberg administration or the
City Council even began to speak publicly
about what to do about it. And so far, the "what
to do" has been distressingly narrow.
In late September, the City Council Gener-
al Welfare Committee held an oversight hear-
ing of the Department of Homeless Services,
which sheltered about 8,800 families that
month and turned away perhaps 1,200 more.
Committee chair Bill deBlasio ralked about
increasing rental subsidies-an important
interim measure, and one that the agency in
question could conceivably administer.
Jiggetts, Section 8, new and untried subsi-
dies-all of it was up for discussion.
And yet in a housing market as tight as New
York's, subsidies are at best a supplemental
measure. Hundreds of subsidy vouchers go
unused because landlords don't want to wait
for bureaucrats to process the paperwork. And
Corer art by Noah Scalin, ALR Design.
Centel for an
even if the city were to sjgnicantly improve
and expand subsidy programs, that may only
make it harder for those who lack them to find
an affordable place to live. The way out of this
bind is the obvious one: New York City must
develop more affordable housing.
And yet this most essential measure of all is
just not on the agenda for the City Council or
City Hall. General Welfare Committee chair Bill
deBiasio knows plenty about building and reha-
bilitating housing for the poor, from his experi-
ence as the New York point man for former
HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo. At the hearing,
he acknowledged the importance of construc-
tion by inviting the Housing First coalition to
testify. But deBiasio so far has not appeared will-
ing or able to push the council further. When is
Speaker Gifford Miller going to rake a stand?
When is Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, who
oversees the city's housing development agencies,
going to draft and deliver a development plan
that acrua1ly makes it happen?
But then none of us should be surprised
that elected officials aren't making specific
commitments. They are entrenched in a brural
zero-sum budget game, where every dollar
spent on housing is one that cannot go to
schools, police and other agencies that have
more influential constituencies.
So far, the public debate on family homeless-
ness has been driven almost exclusively by the
McCain v. Giuliani lawsuit filed by Legal Aid,
and the skill of attorney Steve Banks and his
allies in getting media coverage for the plight of
families at the Emergency Assistance Unit. The
role of Legal Aid is essential, bringing urgently
needed attention to intolerable conditions and
policies. But that court case has a very specific
objective: to ensure that children and families
who have no place to live can exercise their legal
right to appropriate shelter.
Let Legal Aid be a model for what must
corne next. Elected officials only got involved
when contempt hearings forced them to reck-
on with the EAU. Now advocates for new
development need to play hardball, too. Throw
some bricks-sooner or later, they'll land the
way you want them to.
-Alyssa Katz
Editor
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CONTENTS
14 PINS CITY
There's little that judges can do to rein in young people who run
wild and talk back, but a new law could double the number of
troubled teens stuck in the court of last resort.
By Wendy Davis
18 WRETCHED REFUSE
New York City's garbage wars have been fought over who bears the
biggest burden within the five boroughs. But the Pennsylvania towns
that are a final resting place for our trash have their own point of
view on environmental justice.
By Keith Kloor
25 BRIEF RELIEF
Tens of millions of September 11 relief dollars have flowed into
New York non profits, with little planning for how organizations will
carry on essential work when the money runs out.
By Miriam Axel-Lute
5 FRONTLINES: NEXT STOP, BRONX. NOT!. .. LEGAL SERVICES SQUABBLES .. .
A TENANT SUPERHERO ... REBUILDING FOR THE RICH ... HOMELESS KIDS SPEAK OUT .. .
CITY CLEANS CLEANERS ... REMEMBERING A GUIDING LIGHT
12 SHAKY CREDIT
A depressed economy and harsh new rules are putting the
squeeze on the city's small credit unions.
By Matt Pacenza
28 THE BIG IDEA
Buried in Bush's welfare reform plan is a clause that would
let states cripple social programs.
By Neil deMause
30 CITY LIT
Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of a Disaster in Chicago,
by Eric Klinenberg.
Reviewed by David Jason Fischer
NOVEMBER 2002
32 MAKING CHANGE
Is it too late to stop Governor Pataki's plan to blow a
billion dollars in health care money?
By Neil F. Carlson
34 NYC INC.
Guess what has helped preserve Philadelphia's low-income
neighborhoods? Small community arts groups.
By Mark J. Stern
2 EDITORIAL
41 JOB ADS
46 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
54 OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
3
LETTERS
BIASED BUREAUCRATS
In your article on teacher testing "Pass Dis-
crimination" [June 2002], you quote state edu-
cation official Edith Hunsberger saying that
"the qualities the Liberal Arts and Science Test
measures are vital classroom requirements."
I would challenge Hunsberger to produce
any evidence that the LAST has been shown,
through "scientific research," to have any rela-
tionship to effective teaching. The best data they
have available is the rating of LAST items by a
committee of "experts." Such ratings are what
we usually call "opinions," not solid evidence of
the importance of the test to any actual measure
of teaching effectiveness or student learning.
There is no scientific evidence, as defined by
the federal No Child Left Behind Bill, to sup-
port the use of the LAST instrument to evalu-
ate the quality of teaching. Both the feds and
the New York State Education Department are
making up the rules as they go, in whatever
way best fits their bias.
Dick Allington
Irving and Rose Fien Distinguished Professor of
Elementary and Special Education
University of Florida
A SQUAT SUGGESTION
I just read "Squatters' Rites" [September!
October 2002] about the buildings being
turned over to squatters, with the proviso that
they upgrade the buildings to code. I under-
stand many of the squatters will be doing this
work themselves.
There are many buildings where new owners
are renovating and the stuff they are getting rid of
(sinks, toilets, etc.) are in perfectly good condition
and could be reused by the homesteaders. This
would entail meeting with building superintend-
ents and renovation companies (who would prob-
ably be happy to have less garbage to dispose of).
Good luck.
WANT
ONE
OF THESE?
4
Shauna Tarshis Denkensohn
Upper East Side
A MODEST PROPOSAL
The article "The Welfare Reform No One
Talks About," [July/August, 2002] by Matt
Pacenza, tells of three single mothers: 39- and
24-year-old mothers of three, and a 31-year-
old mother of four. But nowhere in the article
are we told how these three women reached
this unhappy condition. Are they divorced,
widowed, or never married?
I would propose a welfare reform that is a
meaningful way to benefit everybody. Any
woman (or man) on welfare who consents to
be sterilized would be awarded a $1,000
bonus. I would even extend the program to
people who are contemplating going
on welfare.
Some might object that this program would
be too costly. I admit that this would be expen-
sive at first but the eventual savings would be
phenomenal.
Matt Pacenza replies:
Izzy Siev
Ozone Park
I wouldn't describe any of the women profiled
in the story as being in an "unhappy condition. "
They agonize over how to simultaneously care for
their children, meet the city's weLfare rules, and
make every dollar stretch, but 1 hope that Mr.
Siev or others didn't get the impression their lives
were defined by despair.
CORRECTION
In the article "Dov Tales" [September!October
2002], we erroneously reported that state
Comptroller H. Carl McCall made donations
of $2,500 and $3,000 to Assemblymember
Dov Hikind's political committee. McCall was
present at two fundraisers but did not pay to
attend.
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CITY LIMITS
Volume XXVII Number 9
City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except bi-
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CITY LIMITS
FRONT LINES
A Train Runs Through It
EVERY DAY, RESIDENTS OF HUNTS POINT, Parkchester and Co-op City
watch trains roar right through their neighborhoods. Then they travel for
miles to get aboard.
It wasn't always that way. From 1872 to the 1930s, the New York,
New Haven and Hartford Railroad made Bronx stops on their way
downtown or upstate. Today, there are alternatives, bur the subway cars
are jam-packed and the highways are parking lots. With unemployment
in their borough at 9.3 percent, East Bronx residents are left with no con-
venient way to get to the suburbs, where many of the jobs are.
So it was no surprise that a few years ago, when Metro North asked
area residents if they would use the company's trains if it revived the old
stations, the overwhelming answer was, "Yes." Transit officials figured
building new stations in the three Bronx communities, as well as in two
spars on the West Side of Manhattan, would add another three million
riders. Metro North plans to submit an environmental impact sratement
by January to the federal Department of Transportation.
But Bronx residents will have to wait for the platforms to open-for at
least another decade. Metro North says the delay comes down ro simple
logistics. The Long Island Rail Road plans ro redirect some of its trains from
Penn Sration to Grand Central. At that point, Metro North hopes to change
its New Haven Line-shifting the trains so that they run through, and
could stop at, Hunts Point, Co-Op City and Parkchester-inro Penn Sra-
NOVEMBER 2002
tion. But, says Metro North spokesperson Dan Brucker, LIRR does not plan
to budge until 2011.
Bronx residents say they can't wait that long. "I don't want to have to
go to that sration in a wheelchair, " says Arthur Taub, 68, chair of the
Coalition of Residents and Merchants of Co-op City.
Along with residents of Hunts Point and Parkchester, he and some of
his neighbors are waging a campaign: Build platforms in the three East
Bronx neighborhoods now, and run trains north, starting at Hunts Point.
This summer, Taub's group hired Dan Gallo, a railroad consultant and
former planner for the Westchester County Department of Planning, to
argue their case. He points to the booming use of the Fordham station in
the middle of the borough as proof that reverse commuting to Westch-
ester and Connecticut is on the rise: Between 1995 and 2001, north-
bound ridership from Fordham grew by 90 percent.
The project is still too costly to start now, says Brucker: It will cost an
estimated $10 million to build each platform, and more on top of that
to buy rights-of-way from Amtrak.
Assemblymember Stephen Kaufman, who represents Co-op City, has
been pushing for a train sration in his district-which doesn't even have
access to the subway-for the last 30 years. He says he intends to push
Metro North to speed up its schedule. "These people shouldn't be denied
another 10 years," he says. -Elizabeth Olsson
5
FRONT LINES
Legal Services
consolidates-
and feuds.
By Jill Grossman
OVER THE LAST couple of years, neighborhood
legal service programs across the country have
begun consolidating operations, shutting down
offices and moving their home bases out of the
communities that founded them. In most
cases, they haven't had a choice: In 1996, Con-
gress cut millions of dollars from federal legal
services programs, forcing the national Legal
Services Corporation (LSC) to push states to
figure out how to do more with less.
New York City's Legal Services umbrella
group, however, has come up with a different
solution, one that it says will let its local offices in
four of the five boroughs (it does not operate in
Staten Island) continue to run under the advice
of their own neighborhood boards. Legal Services
for New York City (LSNY) has had to make one
compromise, though, to appease federal head-
quarters. If LSC approves the plan-they've
given the preliminary thumbs-up to the con-
6
Breaking the Law
cept-LSNY will create a centrally controlled
system whose main Manhattan-based board of
directors has ultimate say over how local offices
spend money, and staff and run their programs.
It is, says LSNY Executive Director Andrew
Scherer, the best possible compromise. "It
retains autonomy at the local level but gives the
center the tools to assure accountability," he says.
As City Limits went to press in late September,
the LSNY board awaited final approval of its
plan from the Legal Services Corporation.
But as it looks toward a January 1 start for the
new strucrure, the central board still has a lot of
convincing to do among their community
lawyers and staff across the city who make its pro-
grams run. As many local project directors see it,
centralizing power really means the beginning of
the end of35 years of community legal services.
"What the LSC and the LSNY board have
proposed undermines the community that
receives the direct legal services," says Ronald
Rosello, chair of Bronx Legal Services and a 23-
year activist in the Bronx. "We fear that as they
progress, they will phase out the local boards
and just have one citywide board."
Scherer wants to assure the groups that such
fears are unfounded. "This was a way to protect
local control," he says. And he hopes the new
setup, which aims to coordinate legislative and
fundraising activities, create a uniform case man-
agement system- including centralized intake
through an 800 number- and upgrade technol-
ogy for better fiscal management and budgeting,
will actually give the program more cohesion
and allow the offices to serve more than the
25,000 poor New Yorkers they reach now. New
York's legal services "have a record of aggressive
advocacy on behalf of the clients," Scherer adds.
"We're looking to foster that."
Yet a quick glance around the country does
litrle to boost confidence among New York's
legal services attorneys. In southwestern Vir-
ginia, LSC forced three legal service offices to
consolidate into one central office. Client Cen-
tered Legal Services of Southwest Virginia sued
the Legal Services Corporation, claiming that
the feds acted outside of their authority and vio-
lated competitive bidding laws. (A federal judge
dismissed the case.) Legal service attorneys filed
a similar lawsuit in California, where the LSC
mandated a merger of several local offices, but
were also unsuccessful.
Today, the results have been mixed. In some
places, says Don Saunders of the National Legal
Aid and Defender Trade Association, a lobbying
group, mergers have strengthened poorly per-
forming programs, and technology has helped
streamline administrative work and give senior
lawyers more time to practice law. In other
places, however, restrucruring has pushed out
some longtime advocates, according to Saunders.
In its defense, the Legal Services Corpora-
tion, established by federal legislation in 1974,
says it has not had a choice. In 1996, Congress
cut the agency's funds by 31 percent, to about
$280 million, and required LSC to start using
competitive bidding for its contracts. Struggling
to continue its mission of serving the poor, LSC
ordered each of the state legal service groups it
finances to find new funding resources and to
coordinate services better in order to reach more
people. According to LSC, only 20 percent of
the 43 million potential clients eligible for fed-
erally funded legal assistance nationwide actual-
ly get help when legal trouble strikes.
Like its counterparrs in other states, Legal
Services for New York City did not embrace the
idea at first. But recognizing that its own fund-
ing could be jeopardized if it did not follow
LSC's orders, LSNY embarked on a year-long
planning process that brought attorneys, legal
experts, union reps and community residents to
the table, and in March 2001 its board of direc-
tors released the current proposal. (The LSNY
board rejected a recommendation from the plan-
CITY LIMITS
ning committee that called for consolidating services with-
in each borough rather than citywide.)
Now, Bronx Legal Services is not letting Virginia and
California's failure in the COuItS deter it. On August 5, in
an attempt to preserve the status quo, Bronx Legal Ser-
vices flied a lawsuit against LSNY and the Legal Services
Corporation charging them with violating their contract
as well as federal antitrust laws. For 28 years, Bronx Legal
Services has contracted with LSNY to provide legal assis-
tance to Bronx residents who earn up to 125 percent of
the borough's median income.
Under the proposed new structure, the Bronx leadership
fear they would lose control of how they run their programs
and how they handle their cases and assets. (The group owns
two buildings.) Bronx Executive Director Walker Thomp-
son worries that his lawyers might be forced to answer to
LSNY's funders rather than focus exclusively on their clients'
interests. The plan, Thompson explains, "enhances the like-
lihood of the lawyer having to look over his shoulder."
While he hopes in the end to work out a senlement,
Thompson has studied his $4.6 rnillion budget and deter-
mined that his office can run on its own in two years, ifhe
starts fundraising now. Currently, about 40 percent of his
funding comes directly from LSNY, with the rest from city
and state grants, charitable contributions and other sources.
In late September, LSNY was negotiating with other
local offices to iron out details of the-restructuring plan. Per-
haps the biggest issue among legal service organizations
across the country right now is their inability to handle class
action cases or represent undocumented immigrants. In
1996, Congress passed a law, approved by President Bill
Clinton, forbidding the use of federal funding for those
kinds of legal assistance. Last December, attorney David
Dobbins filed a lawsuit against the Legal Services Corpora-
tion on behalf oflegal services operations actoss the country,
including LSNY, calling those limitations unconstitutional.
LSNY's restructuring plan steers clear of Dobbins v.
Legal Services Corporation. For fear oflosing LSC's support
of its plan, and with that its $12.1 million federal grant,
LSNY did not include in its proposed new bylaws accom-
modations for those limitations, such as the ability to set
up a separate entity to handle restricted cases using private
funding. Scherer says that the board is now discussing
how to do exactly that.
In weighing its support for the new citywide system,
Manhattan-based MFY Legal Services is making it clear
that it intends to keep pressing LSNY to create an inde-
pendently funded group for banned cases. With the Dob-
bins case barely inching along, says MFY Chair David
Keyko, "one of our principal goals for the restructuring is
making sure it results in some affiliate organization to do
unrestricted work. That has not seemed to be as much of
a priority for LSNY."
Scherer understands that it is impossible to please
everyone, but hopes that in the end these changes will be
for the better. And if, after his tenure, a LSNY director
does try to make radical changes to the local offices? "I
think it will be the obligation of the advocates to push to
make sure that those kinds of changes-don't take place."
NOVEMBER 2002
FRONT LINES
URBAN LEGEND
Rent Wars' Masked Man
A LOT OF NEW YORKERS have gotten to know Rent Wars. Roughly 30,000 people watch the
cable show or check out the web site each week. But the program's creator, Ronin Amano, a
quirky tenant activist, lurks stealthily behind the scenes. The burly man from Brooklyn won't
reveal his age, his birth name, or his educational background, or even let his picture be taken.
"It's part of the mystique," says the dark-eyed Amano. But then his seeming paranoia
disappears in an instant with a hearty laugh and a reference to a childhood cartoon icon.
(One of his favorites is Space Ghost.)
Despite the mystery, New Yorkers have plenty of chances to see the work of Amano, an
eccentric filmmaker and webmaster dedicated to promoting tenants' rights. His main creation,
Rent Wars News, a local cable access show, chronicles tenants fighting evictions and rent
hikes. While Amano never appears on camera, his cartoon alter ego [above] appears in Rent
Wars Ronin, an animated film he created about fighting the forces of evil, a.k.a. slumlords.
And his ideas are very much present in his web forum, www.rentwars.com. Heated
debates have recently included Amano's proposal that non lawyers such as paralegals
should be able to represent tenants in Housing Court. Dismayed that so few tenants are rep-
resented because of high attorney fees and a limited number of Legal Aid lawyers, Amano
is convinced that any representation is better than none: Even an "inert potato would help,
if all it knew how to do is complain about judges and attorneys. "
This fall Amano will expand his tenant outreach, teaching free one-day seminars on how
to research legal precedents and properly read legal documents.
With his classes, video production, animation and website all in full swing, Amano still has
time for a few other projects. Currently he says he's investigating Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia, a case he says he's under strict orders not to speak about.
With so much left unanswered, who is Ronin Amano? "He's a real sweet fellow," says
Dave Powell, an organizer at Met Council whose tenant activism has been covered on Rent
Wars News. But having seen Ronin stand up to landlords while the cameras roll, Powell
adds, "He's not one to back down." -Helen Matatov
7
FRONT LINES
-=====:fl=O W J;Q1WfF:=:=:I
A Housing Bond-Doggie
WHILE MAYOR BLOOMBERG has talked up the
need for housing downtown, the mechanisms
his administration has put in place for making
some of the new apartments affordable closely
resemble a decades-old plan that by many
accounts never quite worked-at Ground
Zero's neighbor, Battery Park City.
Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg
announced on August 7 that the state and city
will evenly split $8 billion from the feds to
rebuild downtown under the New York Liberty
Bond Program. These funds, which officials hope
investors will help supplement, are slated to go
toward commercial ($2 billion), retail ($800 mil-
lion) and residential ($1.6 billion) development.
Since that announcement, the state's Housing
Finance Agency has come under fire for planning
to put most of its $800 million in housing funds
toward market-rate apartments. Albany's program
requires developers to dedicate only 5 percent of
their new units for low- and moderate-income
tenants, despite the fact that most tax-exempt
bonds mandate 20 percent.
So far, the city's plan is no more generous.
Tracy Paurowski, a spokesperson for the Hous-
ing Development Corporation (HDC) , the
city's bond issuer, says the administration plans
to give preferential treatment to developers
who agree to construct some affordable hous-
ing near the Trade Center site, but it is not
mandating such a commitment. Instead, HDC
will charge each developer a 3 percent fee on
the bonds, which will then be put into a hous-
ing fund. The city expects to pool up to $25
million for 2,500 units of affordable housing to
be built throughout the boroughs.
How and when that money will be spent,
however, has not been decided, says Paurowski.
Without these details outlined up front, hous-
ing and budget watchdogs fear the promise of
affordable apartments will be lost, much as it was
at Battery Park City. In 1989, then-Mayor Ed
Koch signed an agreement to funnel up to $1 bil-
OPEN CITY
Brendan Bannon
lion of Battery Park City's revenue for the devel-
opment of affordable housing. According to a
study by the watchdog group City Project, the
city had invested only $143 million of those
funds into affordable housing as of 2000. The
rest went to plug the city's budget gaps.
"We've had 20 years of broken promises. We
shouldn't have another 20," says Bonnie Brow-
er of City Project.
The City Council has proposed guidelines
requiring that 35 percent of the units built with
Liberty Bond money be reserved for middle
income families, and an additional 20 percent for
low-income families. The council does not get an
official vote on this matter, however.
Some housing advocates are not ready to give
up on Bloomberg. "The Mayor is strongly con-
sidering the plan," says Ronald Shiffinan, director
of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and
Environmental Development and an author of
the council's proposal. Afrer all, he adds, "how are
we going to talk about rebuilding Lower Manhat-
tan when the heroes in the days afrer the attacks
can't afford to live there?" -Socheata Poeuv
January 2000, Buffalo Federal Detention Facility. INS detainees watch the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft.
8
CITY LIMITS
= = = = ~ : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ = = ~
Wish We Weren't Here
IT'S A CRISIS OF MISPERCEPTION. New Yorkers tend to see
the homeless as a bunch of older men, Kim Berrios says,
scruffY guys walking around with shopping carts and
burping up booze from cardboard boxes. "People don't
realize-the majority of homeless are kids," says Berrios,
a homeless mother of three.
She should know. During the past few months, Kim
and her husband, Julius Cabbrera, and their children,
Jonathan, 7, Sunsarei, 5, and Jeremiah, 16 months, have
been shuttling in and out of the Emergency Assistance
Unit in the Bronx, the city's entry point for families look-
ing to enter the shelter system.
The number of homeless children is now the highest
in city history-more than 15,800 strong-and most are
under age 10, according to Ann Duggan, a policy analyst
for the Coalition for the Homeless.
While Berrios' family settles into a temporary shelter,
where they can stay for several months, she and Cabbrera
have teamed up with other homeless families and the
Coalition for the Homeless to organize and jumpstart
New York Kids Need Housing, a multi-tentacled public
education campaign. "For the first time, the city will be
able to hear the voices of the kids," says Duggan.
To start, in mid-September, they began going shelter
to shelter, passing out postcards for homeless children to
send to City Hall. "Dear Mayor Bloomberg," one reads,
"I need your help ... "
Later this fall, the mayor will get a delivery of model
houses crafted by campers at Homeward Bound, the
Coalition's sleepaway camp for homeless and formerly
homeless kids. A documentary film-featuring children
speaking out on their experiences in the city shelter sys-
tem-is also in the works.
The goal, Duggan says, is to give homeless children the
opportunity to educate the public, and-fingers crossed-
win over the sympathy of elected officials and sway them
to invest more public money in affordable housing. It's also
designed to teach young teenagers leadership skills.
Yet many families have been reluctant to participate,
says Berrios. The prospect of spending money on stamps is
daunting to some, she says, even though the Coalition has
offered to mail the postcards. And to others, the cards seem
gimmicky. "The people in the shelters have been through
so much," she says, "they don't want to be educated. "
As for her children, they all agree: they hate being
homeless, and they hate the EAU. "There was roaches
and stuff, " Jonathan says. "Once we ate the food and we
was vomiting. It was nasty. " Says little sister Sunsarei:
"The rats were big and they were biting everyone, so we
had to stay in a tree house in the park. "
New York Kids Need Housing officially kicks off at an
October 20 public forum at the Jan Hus Presbyterian
Church, 351 East 74th Street, from 2 to 5 p.m.
-Geoffrey Gray
NOVEMBER 2002
FRONT llNES
FIRSTHAND
Breaking Free
It's another day trapped inside this hellhole they call the EAU, the Emergency Assistance
Unit. The date, June 9, 2002, might as well be stamped onto my tombstone because when I
walked in here with my father, I died. I finally realized that I was homeless. I was forced to
accept the fact that I will be pushed through the system.
My blood went cold when I heard a rumor of a baby's death about a week after I got here.
I heard he threw up his insides and his mother could do nothing but stand by and cry as she
watched her baby die before her eyes. It was just another day trapped inside the EAU.
There've been several cases of food poisoning. I've spent so much money on food at
McDonald's that I am completely broke. When I didn't have money, I took a chance eating
here; the next day, I was throwing up water all day.
The workers and guards let all the "clients" know that they are not welcome. The guards
threaten to take away people's children if they do not do what they are told, threaten to log
people out if you talk back, or ask questions, or report anything that goes on inside.
One time, I was standing in the hallway, just talking, and a guard tells me to move. I
said wait a minute, and he threatens to take me to the Administration for Children's Ser-
vices, because I wasn't with my father. As I walked away he grabbed me and pushed me
against the wall. I only got a scratch, but was this justified?
It's been like this for three months. Me and my father have been found ineligible for hous-
ing eight times. That's because the city says we have to stay with grandmother. She lives in
public housing. But if we stay there, the housing authority said she might get kicked out.
Then my grandmother would end up at the EAU along with us. How much proof does a per-
son need to be declared homeless?
Being here this summer, I think I can truly say I know now why the caged bird sings. He
sings because he sees a vision of finally being set free, but he knows that vision is just a
dream. I may be trapped here behind these bars, but they are not my fate. I am slowly but
surely chipping my way out.
- Herbert R. Bennett if.
9
FRONTllNES
= ==IENVtR8tW
1
:fitft==
City Covers
Superfund Costs
ANXIOUS ABOUT CONTINUING water shortages in
New York City, and uncertain when Albany
legisla(Ors will renew the state superfund pro-
gram, city environmental officials have agreed
(0 foot the bill (0 clean up a contaminated site
in Jamaica. The deal, reached in mid-Septem-
ber, marks the first time that a New York State
municipality has agreed (0 pay for a cleanup
since the $l.1 billion state superfund ran dry
18 months ago.
From 1969 (0 1992, the West Side Corpo-
ration operated a dry cleaning chemicals distri-
bution center at the heart ofJamaica's working-
class and industrial community. With time,
one of the chemicals the company handled-
perchloroethylene, or PERC-made its way
into the soil and contaminated nearby drinking
water wells. After Albany officials tried unsuc-
cessfully (0 force West Side (0 pay for the
cleanup, the state in 1997 declared the 4.5-acre
site a "class II" superfund site, posing a "signif-
ican t" threat.
Since then, the state Department of Envi-
ronmental Conservation determined that the
contamination has uaveled more than a half
mile from its source. But plans (0 actually
remove the PERC have stalled at the design
phase because of political infighting in Albany.
Created in 1986 (0 pay for cleanups when
property owners refused (0 pay, the superfund
has financed the cleanup of 364 (Oxic sites
around the state. But ever since the program
expired in April 2001, state legislators have
been sharply divided over cleanup standards
and who should pay how much. For the past
three years, Governor Pataki has submitted a
bill that sets different cleanup standards
depending on the future use of contaminated
sites, and maintains that taxpayers and pol-
luters should split the bill evenly. The Assem-
bly, on the other hand, wants one cleanup stan-
dard for all sites and to make polluters pay for
75 percent of decontamination.
Meanwhile, the city faces its own pressures
(0 find new sources of drinking water. This
year's drought has left the reservoirs that serve
the city up (0 50 percent below normal levels.
To get things moving with the Queens
wells, DEP last year agreed (0 pay $6.5 mil-
lion (0 clean up Jamaica's groundwater, leav-
ing the soil cleanup (0 the state. And in Sep-
tember, DEP Commissioner Christopher
Ward said his agency will kick in another $4.5
million (0 get the entire project underway.
"DEC does not have the funds, " says DEP
spokesperson Geoffrey Ryan. "We are funding
it to keep the process going and take care of
this headache."
State environmental officials admit this
arrangement is "unusual." According (0 state
DEC spokesperson Jennifer Post, her agency
will reimburse the city once a legal case against
the West Side Corporation forces the company
(0 pay for the cleanup.
While local environmentalists are glad that
progress will soon be made on this one super-
fund site, they say that does not improve the
situation elsewhere. Says Mike Livermore, an
environmental campaign direc(Or for New York
Public Interest Research Group, "It's really a
s(Opgap measure, and it's kind of pathetic that
the city has (0 pony up money because the state
can't get its act (Ogether. "
-Daniel Hendrick
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CITY LIMITS
Betty Kapetanakis
1952-2002
VASILIKI "BETIY" KAPETANAKIS, executive direc-
tor of the North Star Fund, died on Monday,
July 29, after a garbage truck hit her as she
crossed the intersection of 23rd Sueet and Sixth
Avenue in Manhartan. She was 50 years old.
During her seven years at the helm of North
Star, Kapetanakis raised millions of dollars for
thousands of small nonprofit organizations
throughout the city. The foundation, started in
1979 to promote social change, awards granrs li;
to new grassroots groups that otherwise suug- !
gle for funding. Kapetanakis' colleagues credit ~
her with expanding North Star's mission. "She ~
nurtured a lot of organizations that someone 1
who had a narrower vision wouldn't have been ~
able to help," says Lucy Grugett, a former <>.
FRONT llNES
American Indian Law Alliance, a legal advoca-
cy organization and North Star grantee.
Kapetanakis planted her roors in social jus-
tice long before getting to North Star. Born in
Greece, she moved with her family to New Jer-
sey in 1955. While studying literature and
communications at Antioch College in Ohio,
she spent time in Oakland, California, organiz-
ing field hands with the United Farm Workers
Union.
After graduating, she moved to Dayton,
where she joined the local chapter of the New
American Movement. There, she pushed for
the public ownership of utilities as well as for
equal employment for women and minorities
with Dayton Women's Liberation.
board member. Educators for Social Responsibility, and the
In the mid-1980s, she moved to New York
and in 1987 started as a program associate at
North Star. Her friends and colleagues say her
efforrs will never end. "Betty was such an
extraordinary executive director that the work
of North Star will continue," says Barbara
Winslow, a friend and coworker. "If she has to
leave, one way or another, the organization will
go on. It can, and it will." Under her watch, the foundation supported Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. North Star
the Center for Anti-Violence Education, which has also conuibuted money to City Limits.
teaches self-defense to women and children, "Betty had activism in her blood, " says
and the Association for Union Democracy, Tonya Gonnella Frichner, president of the
Kapetanakis is survived by her sisters Geor-
gia and Natalia, her brother, Dino, and her
mother, Constantina. - Elizabeth Olsson
Commitment is
NOVEMBER 2002
Tomorrovv starts today
leading to results TM
Deutsche Bank's commitment to
global corporate citizenship recognizes a
responsibility to improve and enrich the com-
munities throughout the world in
which we conduct business.
With a focused strategy of support for com-
munity development, the arts and the envi-
ronment, Deutsche Bank partners with local
organizations to build a brighter future.
Our commitment to a better tomorrow
sta rts today.
Deutsche Bank
11
INSIDE TRACK
Shaky Credit
Between a recession and regulators, can small
credit unions survive? By Matt Pacenza
Small community credit unions bring banking to poor neighborhoods, but they must
play by the same unforgiving rules as giant employee-based ones.
JUSTINE ZENKIN AND CARL Honegger have a
tough job. As directors of the Neighborhood
Trust Federal Credit Union, they are under pres-
sure to improve the ftnancial health of their five-
year-old institution, which serves 4,100 mem-
bers in Washington Heights and West Harlem.
After a few years of steady gtowth, Neighbor-
hood Trust, located in the George Washington
Bridge bus terminal, has hit a rough patch late-
ly. "We struggle to have enough income, " says
Honegger. "We struggle to offer better products
and services so we can reach more people."
The economics of low-income credit unions
like Neighborhood Trust are inherently precari-
ous. Their mission is to offer low-cost services to
communities that lack financial resources. At
the same time, they're under the constant watch
of federal regulators, who scrutinize every cred-
it union's books to make sure they stay healthy.
Credit unions earn much of their income
from loan interest. But members in places like
Washington Heights typically seek small loans,
like $500 to fix up a car, or $1,000 to buy new
furnirure, that just aren't very profitable. In fact,
12
small loans often lose credit unions money. On
a $500 loan, their profit is a mere $39. Factor in
the staff time required to help a member who
has no credit report fill out paperwork, plus the
cost of computer systems, and it's clear that
small loans just aren't worth it.
But low-income credit unions are not
banks; every day, they make decisions based on
factors that go beyond dollars and cents.
Nonetheless, at the end of each quarter, the
long lines of figures have to add up-or else.
"There's a real tension between our bottom line
and our social mission," says Zenkin. That ten-
sion is more explicit these days, as Neighbor-
hood Trust straddles a line that could cause reg-
ulators to impose harsh sanctions. Over the
past year, the ratio of the income it keeps from
loans, investments and grants to its total assets
has been hovering between 6 and 7 percent. If
it falls below 6 percent, federal regulators from
the National Credit Union Administration
(NCUA) step in and enforce strict rules limit-
ing the institution's investments and loans.
It's not just Neighborhood Trust that's facing
tough choices. The twin threats of the strict fed-
eral capital mandates and a depressed local econ-
omy are forcing all local low income credit
unions to take a deep breath before they invest
resources and expand their services. That's
because the sources of money they count on to
increase their income-and keep it above the 6
percent minimum mandated by the regulators-
are shriveling. With interest rates at historic lows,
investment income is way down-in just the past
few years, money market interest rates have
dropped by about two-thirds, from 6 or 7 per-
cent to 2 or 3 percent. Meanwhile, loan delin-
quencies are rising as the economy sinks.
But these credit unions can't just sit around
and wait for the economy to improve, or for reg-
ulators and funders to recognize their plight.
Their members, both current and potential,
demand that they add new services, like debit
cards and ATMs, business loans and credit cards.
But those services, which ultimately would spur
credit union growth and income, are costly in the
short term. It's a classic Catch-22. Low-income
credit unions have to grow or die. Yet if they grow
too rashly, they might die anyway.
NEW YORK CITY HAS 30 low-income credit
unions, with 40,000 members and $40 million
in assets. These credit unions are a tiny segment
of a much larger industry. Of the more than
10,000 credit unions nationwide-with more
than 80 million members-only 887 are classi-
fied as explicitly serving poor people.
Despite their relatively limited scale, these
credit unions fill a critical niche. In many neigh-
borhoods, they are the only alternative to check
cashers, payday lenders and outright loan-shark-
ing. Bushwick, home to the Bushwick Coopera-
tive Federal Credit Union, has only two bank
branches for 104,358 people, according to the
Neighborhood Economic Development Advo-
cacy Project. "With the expansion we've seen in
the last 10 years of predatory banking services,"
says Sarah Ludwig, the group's executive direc-
tor, "we have every policy reason to bolster these
credit unions to counter those forces."
The late 1990s were a period of substantial
growth for many credit unions, thanks in part
CITY LIMITS
co "community charters." Previously, credit
unions could only serve members associated
with a particular employer, union or church.
But over the last few years, the NCUA has
allowed credit unions co add members in any
geographic area that is underserved by other
financial institutions. The result is that credit
unions across the country are growing at a
dizzying clip. Since 2001 the NCUA has
approved expansions into areas with more than
30 million potential new members.
But when Congress formalized the right to
add new members in 1998, it also approved the
strict capital limits that Neighborhood Trust and
other small credit unions are struggling with. Fed-
eral standards, and specifically their requirement
that the institutions hold 6 percent of their assets
in what is in effect a reserve fund, mandate that a
credit union with low capiral reserves might not
be able co cover losses if members don't pay back
loans. Then the NCUA would have
co bail the credi t
union out.
Low-income credit
tion. It had grown since its founding in 1986 co
about 3,000 members and $1 million in assets.
But with the city mired in a recession, the cred-
it union's manager and board found that with-
out additional outside capiral, they couldn't add
services like ATMs or offer big loans that would
artract new members.
So Lower East Side turned co outside granrs
co spur growth. It aggressively sought what's
called secondary capital, in which an outside
institution, like a major bank, will deposit
$100,000 in a credit union for three years. The
bank earns just 1 percent interest from the
credit union, which then turns around
and loans that money out, hoping co earn a
higher interest.
That's exactly what Lower East Side did.
Beginning in 1994, its assets grew steadily, from
$2 million co $10 million today. In recent years,
its biggest backer has been the Community
Development Financial Institutions Fund,
which President Clin-
con created co expand
economic activity in
unions support the
wisdom of conserva-
tive financial planning,
but they argue that
coo-cough standards
can be a cure worse
than the disease. Small
credit unions that want
co get bigger can't sim-
Federal aid to credit
unions for the poor
has plummeted.
poor neighborhoods.
Unlike secondary cap-
ital, which functions
like a series of low-
interest loans, CDFI
money is literally free.
The Lower East
Side credit union has
received more than $1
mi ll ion from the
CDFI Fund since
ply keep taking new
deposits, because that
won't do anything co increase their income quick-
ly enough co satisfy regu/acors. Some that are
unable co generate sufficient income have acrual-
ly had co refuse new members, like one in West
Vlfginia that suspended advertising in August in
order co ward off new deposits. That's evidence,
say the credit unions, that the NCUA standards
are effectively serving co put a stranglehold on the
very growth that would allow them co build up
enough income co ward off cough times.
These issues aren't academic. According to a
recent report from the Woodscock Institute, an
economic research group in Chicago, one in five
low-income credit unions has capital ratios below
6 percent, which means they are subject to the
NCUAS strict mandates. Every small credit union
has co worry about it. "The least little thing can
send you below 6 percent," says Lillian Bent,
manager of the Union Settlement Credit Union,
which currently is at 8.5 percent. "It's terrifying."
BY 1994, THE LOWER EAST Side People's Feder-
al Credit Union had reached a period of stagna-
NOVEMBER 2002
1995. That money "changed how the neigh-
borhood sees us, " says manager Pablo DeFilip-
pi, pointing to the four ATMs and improved
signage that attracted new members-and
loans-to the Lower East Side's fold. The
CDFI money also has significant leverage with
other funders. Adds DeFilippi, "It allows us to
go to the private secror and ask for the rest of
the money we need."
The city's other low-income credit unions
have similar histories with the federal fund.
Says Cliff Rosenthal, the executive director of
the National Federation of Community Devel-
opment Credit Unions, "CDFI money is
responsible for much of the quantum leap in
growth we saw in the late 1990s."
The Bushwick credit union, founded less
than two years ago, is using secondary capital
and CDFI money to carty out a unique growth
suategy: It is trying to build up substantial
reserves before expanding membership or
adding expensive services like checking
accounts or an ATM. As a result, its capital
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Building a Better New York
ratio is way above what the NCUA requires, at
nearly 15 percent. "Grants give us lots of room
to grow," says Bushwick's manager, Jack Lawson.
In today's tough times, credit unions are look-
ing to the CDFI money just to help them main-
tain fiscal health. Bur they might not be able to
count on it for much longer. In his first budget,
President Bush cur the CDFI Fund from $118
million to $68 million. One CDFI insider, who
asked not to be named, says it could have been
worse. "When the new administration took over,
there was real concern that we would no longer be
in existence," the source says. Congress did restore
2002 funding to $80 million, and the 2003 fund-
ing, though nor yet complete, is currently bud-
geted at $68 million.
UNION SETTLEMENT FEDERAL Credit Union knows
what it means to recover from the brink of col-
lapse. In 1992, New York City's struggling econ-
omy had lefr the credit union with bad loans and
only $60,000 in capital on hand. Regulators told
Union Serrlement it had three to five years to
build up those reserves, or else.
Afrer a series of difficult decisions, Union Set-
tlement returned to financial health, says Bent,
who has worked at the 4, lOO-member instirution
since 1991. Through curring staff, charging small
fees for certain transactions, limiting dividends
and giving our only the safest loans, Union Serue-
ment built up enough capital to please regulators;
today, it has $660,000. Those actions didn't make
members happy. "We weren't giving our money as
freely as before, " Bent recalls. "Members were
angry with us for a period of time."
At least one local credit union has seen the price
of making risky loans with inadequate reserves. In
August, the Central Brooklyn Federal Credit
Union was dissolved mer its loan delinquency rate
reached an astronomical 27 percent. With almost
no reserves, and plagued by management difficul-
ties, Central Brooklyn was forced to shut its doors.
That's an extreme example, bur not every credit
union that's on shaky footing today will be able to
sidestep such troubles. Union Seruement gor better
during the late 1990s economy. Such growth, and
the demand for income-generating loans that
comes with it, cant be counted on anytime soon by
those credit unions having trouble today.
The mission of serving members with little
formal financial experience is inherently expen-
sive, and the profitable payoffs are few, especially
during a recession. Something has to give, either
the stringent regulations that constrain growth,
or Washington's decimation of the CDFI Fund.
"We all strive for self-sufficiency, " says Lawson,
"while also accepting that the work we do can't
survive without some subsidy."
CITY LIMITS
There's a court where
can go to scare their teenage'rs
straight. NOU1 tell to a kid
on the street.
By Wendy Davis
NOVEMBER 2002
THE VERY LAST THING Family
Coun's overworked judges wanted to see
was more parents filing cases against
their wayward teenagers.
Parents.wbDse children play hooky, or
or -stay out past curfew, can
accusing them of
in Need of Supervision. "
kids," some as young as age
9, have been pan of the city's landscape
ever since the early 1960s, the golden age
law reform in New York.
Nearly everyone in the Family Court
acknowledges that in the face of
of family dysfunction-so bad that
,. _ .. _--- have decided that only the law
resolve their personal crises-a judge
accomplish much. "Parents have
Uji!:l=lq>ectallon that we're going to be
force this kid to come home and
" says Family Coun Judge
Townsend, who has presided in
BUffaJaior 11 years. They hope. she says,
that "I'll wave my magic wand and fix
the problem."
Instead. the best Judge Townsend can
usually do is refer the family to social ser-
vice agencies for counseling. She can send
teens to live in a group home run by the
Administration for Children's ServiS or
one of its private conuaaors. Bui:super-
vision at many of those is
notoriously lax. TecBS ia p!Up hOmes
routinely run away, anti more than a few
of those who nights
force a child to come home on time, start
attending school, or stop seeing her
boyfriend. Nor can she force parents to
take care of their own problems-be
they drug use, domestic violence or unre-
alistic rules--even though they may have
a lot to do with why their child has gone
out of control. Under PINS, the young
person is by definition the problem; the
parent, the beleaguered supplicant seek-
ing warrants from the courts.
For all these reasons, Townsend, as
well as Family Coun Judges Ruth Jane
Zuckerman, then sitting in the Bronx
and president of the New York City Fam-
ily Court Judges Association, and Joan
Kohout of Monroe County spoke out
during legislative hearings three years ago
against a plan to expand the reach of
New York State's PINS law.
"As I talk to judges across the state,
there are few cases that they repqn to me
are more challenging than the cases involv
ing Persons in Need of Supcrvisien. These
are social problems dIat oCtm don't lend
themselves to easy resolution in OUI' court
settings," testified Kohout. "The tools we
have and our dillIs sufficient to end
up with good.tSJlts for most of the young
peoJ!It: who come in befoIe us. "
ButiD the end, the ork state
Governor Pataki __ ...
to the jadp aiiclsOcial WOIlp,.MlioII);t::I
15
law applies to anyone younger than 18.
The Vera Institute of Justice, which has
studied the change closely, predicts it will dou-
ble the number of PINS cases that end up in
Family Court, from about 2,500 to 5,000
statewide. In New York City, more than one in
five of these kids will end up in group homes,
at a cost of $170 a day.
The city's social service system will not have
any easier a time handling these older teens than
their parents did. Counseling, mediation and
other alternatives to court are woefully under-
funded, forcing families to wait anywhere from
30 days to three months for an initial appoint-
ment, according to Vera researcher Ajay Khashu.
Now add to that the lunacy that is late teen
life under the best of circumstances-and these
are the worst. These adolescents have had their
problems for a longer time than their younger
peers, and they're the most likely to abuse drugs
or alcohol. Many older teens are basically living
on their own and fending for themselves, and
they are unlikely submit to a court's authority.
"We know their needs are different," says Phil
Coltoff, CEO of the Children's Aid Society,
which has a city contract to provide assessment
services to families in Brooklyn and Manhattan
to prevent them from ending up as PINS
cases in court. "We are likely to see more aggra-
vated cases."
Whether the allegations are "keeps late
hours" or "uses physical force," the ritual in
Family Court leads to the same dead end. On
a Thursday in mid-September, Rosnay, a quiet
and somewhat shy 16-year-old, sat in the hall-
way of Manhattan Family Court. Bored afrer
waiting half a day for her case to be called, Ros-
nay rests her head on her mom's shoulder,
while Maria puts her arm around her daughter.
But their coziness belies bitter conflict
between the two of them. In August 2001,
Rosnay discovered she was pregnant. She ran
away from home, and though she won't say
where she went, it was most likely to her
boyfriend's place.
"She didn't want to live with me. She didn't
want to hear that I wanted her to come back,"
says Maria afrer the hearing. "I hoped they
would put in some sort of legal agreement so
that she had to be here, so that she would know
she couldn't leave. I thought maybe a little bit
of pressure would work, maybe it would help if
she could hear it from another authority."
Maria is typical of the parents whose chil-
dren end up in PINS. "They file as a last
resort," says Coltoff. "They are frightened,
scared, angry, looking for some sort of magical
16
solution, and hoping that a man or woman in
a black robe will give it to them."
PINS IS DEEPLY INGRAINED in social
service lore. Parents learn about it from
schools, police, and social service agencies, and
most of all from friends and neighbors. Asked
how she heard about PINS, Maria, who
moved to the U.S. from the Dominican
Republic 20 years ago, says simply, "Every-
body knows about the court."
Typically brought by a mother, complaints
cover the whole wild spectrum of teenage
behavior, from staying out past curfew and
talking back to potentially serious problems,
such as chronic truancy, gang membership and
drug use.
Beleaguered moms
are "looking for
some sort of magical
solution and hope
that a man or
woman in a black
robe will give it
to them."
For girls, who constitute the majority of
PINS cases brought to court, mothers ofren
have an additional complaint: sexual activity.
"Parents, especially single moms, tend to be
more watchful over the girls' sexual behavior
than the boys," observes Sonia Smith of the
East New York Family Center, which works
with troubled families. Some mothers fear that
a teen pregnancy will saddle them with a new
baby in the house. Many, afraid their daughters
are following in their footsteps, will say, "I don't
want my child to go this way, because I went
this way," according to Smith.
Almost unavoidably, however, PINS cannot
deliver on parents' hopes. They end up disap-
pointed. Judges end up frustrated. And the kids
remain stressed and adrifr.
Last August, Family Court granted Maria a
warrant to retrieve Rosnay and bring her to the
courthouse. The police carried it out and took
Rosnay away under arrest. The court sent her
to a group home in Corona, where she lived
with a dozen other girls. But afrer twO weeks,
Rosnay's mother decided to retrieve her. "The
group homes aren't so great," says Maria now.
"They let them go out at night and stay out
until 1 in the morning. My daughter will take
advantage of that."
Maria's concerns are well placed. Youngsters
who weren't doing well at home don't exactly
thrive in group homes, where supervision and
structure are almost nonexistent. For instance,
although truancy is a common reason why par-
ents bring PINS petitions, school attendance
actually decreases afrer teens enter group homes
on these cases, according to a joint study by the
Vera Institute and ACS.
But Rosnay's current living situation is not
exactly acceptable, either: She has been living
with her 16-year-old boyfriend and his mother.
Rosnay's boyfriend happened to have a hearing
in the same court that day, charged with steal-
ing Maria's credit card and spending $500 on it.
When Judge Mary Bednar finally hears the
case, she's apoplectic about Rosnay's living
arrangement. "They're 16 years old!" she
exclaims. ''I'm not gonna let them live under
the same roof!" Judge Bednar asks Maria if
she'll take Rosnay back; Maria says yes. Rosnay
says she won't go. And the judge adjourns the
case for three weeks.
A VERY DIFFERENT KIND of scenario
was envisioned by the parents who mounted
the high-energy lobbying campaign to expand
PINS in New York. From upstate, the suburbs
and Staten Island, these parents asked for the
revision to the law in the hope that it would
help them control their 16- and 17-year-old
children, who were on the cusp of drug addic-
tion or running away. Courts may not have
power to control PINS kids, but these parents
felt that simply having the law on their side
would carry moral weight with their chil-
dren-and they say their own experiences
prove them right.
Dawn Balak, a parent from Schodack Land-
ing whose lobbying efforts included staking
out the Capitol Building in Albany with 15
balloons-"each one represented a kid I knew
who was out on the street"-says she cam-
paigned for the law afrer filing a petition
against her own daughter.
"I had trouble with my 15-year-old and
found out there was very little I could do once
CITY LIMITS
she was 16, " says Schodack, who accused her
daughter of dating a 20-year-old drug addict.
Schodack didn't know where to turn, until she
heard from other parents about PINS peti-
tions. "I was lucky enough to meet the right
people, and I PINSed her."
They saw a judge who ordered family coun-
seling-"the best thing that could have hap-
pened to us ever," Schodack now
says. Like many parents in these
cases, Schodack needed counseling
herself as well. "My parenting skills
weren't the best," she admits, adding
that an argument with her daughter
had escalated into a physical con-
frontation before going to court. "I
learned how not to put the fuel in
the fire and learned to walk away."
As for her daughter, the mere
threat of going to a group home was
enough to keep her in line: "It was
kind of like an out for her, " says
Schodack. "It was like, 'Oh my God,
this is it. I don't want to go away. I
don't want to go to a home.' ... Just
the scare would have saved her."
Gerald Grayson of Melville,
another parent who lobbied for the
law, says he became convinced of the
need to give courts jurisdiction over
16- and 17 -year-olds based on com-
plaints he heard from other parents in
the "tough love" group he runs. "The
kids just pretty much did what they
wanted to do," says Grayson. "Young
girls were living with drug pushers,
things like that." The constraints on
law enforcement, he adds, were
immensely frustrating. "The cops'
hands were tied. They couldn't bring
back runaways if they were over 16."
Grayson acknowledges that a
PINS case only serves as leverage if a
child does not want to go to a group
home, or will not be dissuaded from
running away from wherever the
court sends her. He still believes this is
the rare case. "If they're so hell-bent
on destroying themselves," he says,
"there's probably not a lot that can be done."
PARENTS USUALLY DON'T bring a case
until there's a crisis. They discover a child's tru-
ancy, or a youngster runs away, or a girl's preg-
nancy becomes obvious. Beyond the immedi-
ate problem, however, big trouble has likely
been brewing in the family for years.
NOVEMBER 2002
"In at least half the cases, the problems
referred to in the petition belong to the parent,
not just the kid," notes Coltoff of the Chil-
dren's Aid Society. Parents might themselves
use drugs, allow unsavory adults into the home
or use corporal punishment against their chil-
dren-activity that under other circumstances
the very same judges would rule as neglect or
even abuse by the parents. (In a sample of 200
PINS cases in Brooklyn and Queens, the Vera
Institute found that ACS had open neglect or
abuse files for 18 percent of the youngsters;
counselors subsequently referred an additional
21 percent to ACS for investigation.)
As for the kids, Coltoff estimates that one-
third are severely depressed. Many, he says,
have already experienced the death of a close
friend or family member.
What these young people urgently need, say
service providers, is intensive psychiatric thera-
py. While they might get referred for family
counseling or mediation through a PINS case,
few youngsters with psychiatric issues receive
adequate help. If adolescents go to a group
home, the chances of receiving good
mental health services are extremely
remote. A much-repeated refrain is
that teens need services located in
their neighborhoods, including
counseling, mentoring and afrer-
school programs. Without these
programs, courts can offer no solu-
tions. They may even be making
problems worse when they send kids
to group homes.
Sometimes, these adolescents'
family lives are so chaotic that going
to a group home is a welcome relieE
(Some arrive at the court house cart-
ing an extra set of clothes.) But even
when teens are okay with being in a
group home, they ofren object to
being placed on the defensive in
court. When the adults in the home
fLie a PINS case, the kids rightly feel
they are being scapegoated for the
family's problems.
"Getting a PINS taken out on
you makes you feel like garbage,
plain and simple," wrote Alene Tay-
lor about her experience in Family
Court in the pages of the magazine
Foster Care Youth United. Taylor,
who was being mistreated at home,
ultimately decided that going into
ACS care was for the best, but she
bitterly resented the accusation that
she was at fault. "My mother took
out the PINS on me because she
claimed I was running away and
causing problems at home. Really
there was a lot more going on. I was
being abused at home and when I
told my mother, she said that it was
my fault," wrote Taylor.
PINS cases are, by definition, litigation, pit-
ting parents against children in an adversarial
role. That situation can in itself be an impedi-
ment to solving the family's problems. "Pan of
the issue is getting parents to be involved and
not just pointing the finger at the kid," says
Judge Townsend. What's more, some parents
continued on page 36
17
We don't want it. They have to take it.
The truth about where your garbage goes.
By Keith Kloor
Photographs by Gregory P. Mango
WHERE DOES IT GO? That's all I wanted to find out.
Earlier this year, Mayor Bloomberg and I embarked on a mutual
odyssey of sorts. While he went looking for a new place to put the city's
garbage, I went chasing after mine.
On any given day, I throw out candy wrappers, coffee mters, old pasta
sauce, light bulbs, old barreries, toenail clippings, ant traps, dust. A few
times a week, I cinch up the kitchen trash bag and put it out on my
Brooklyn curb. Like most everyone else, I do this without giving it a sec-
ond thought. The latest federal statistics say I generate 4.46 pounds of
household trash every day. Added to every other New Yorker's residential
garbage, that comes to 13,000 tons. Figuring out whether to burn it,
bury it or recycle it has been New York's most toxic political debate since
the days when farmers threw dead horses in the rivers to rot.
So when Bloomberg unveiled his plan for the city's garbage in late
July, environmentalists and community activists across the city
cheered. After briefly considering incineration, he proposed exactly
what they had been advocating for years: Retrofit eight dormant water-
front stations around the city---<mce used to barge trash to Fresh
Kills-to containerize New York City's residential garbage and ship it
to out-of state landfills via land or water. "We won! " exulted Brooklyn
environmental activist Tina Filiato to fellow organizer Sal Cantelmi
shortly after the mayor's announcement. Eddie Bautista, co-founder of
the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods, hailed the Mayor's
plan as "the biggest victory in environmenral justice in the history of
New York City."
But was it? The plan, which will take at least two years to implement,
solves two urban environmental problems. By exchanging trucks for
barges, it will get many diesel-spewing trucks off the city's streets. It will
also distribute the city's garbage burden more equitably, with each bor-
ough becoming responsible for its own trash.
NOVEMBER 2002
Beyond New York's borders, however, the mayor's plan hardly looks
like a victory for anyone-except, perhaps, garbage hauling companies.
Outside the city limits, the new plan is essentially the same as the old
plan: ship it, by train or by truck, to out-of-state landfills. "Is it our right
to dump trash from eight million people into our next door neighbor's
backyards in West Virginia or Pennsylvania- to put it in landfills that
will eventually leach into the surrounding groundwater?" asks Steven
Cohen, an environmental policy analyst who favors incineration.
"Landfill ing is not an ideal technology, but compared to incinera-
tion in densely populated places, it's preferable in the short term," says
Bautista, adding, "I'm not saying it's right, but a lot of these commu-
nities accept it to receive extra benefits." Bautista is referring to "host
community" agreements, in which garbage companies pay fees ro local
governments in exchange for the right to operate a dump.
And the towns that host the landfills? "With all due respect, they're
reaping the consequences of what they sowed," says Allen Her-
shkowitz, a senior scientist and solid waste expert for the Natural
Resources Defense Council. "They allowed that to happen. Maybe
they bought into the host community benefits. They got a new school.
They got a new library. They got lower taxes. So now they're reaping
what they sowed."
Because their Greenpoint-Williamsburg neighborhood takes in more
garbage than any other area of the city, I asked Filiato and Cantelmi, a
few weeks before the plan was released, where they thought it ended up
after leaving Brooklyn. Filiato said she thought it was going to "rural
landfills" in Pennsylvania, what Cantelmi referred to as the "outskirts,"
where not many people lived. But neither knew for sure. None of the
activists awaiting the mayor's decision had been to any of these landfills.
That's when I realized I had to find out for myself, and there was only
one way: Follow the garbage.
19
WHEN I CONTACTED
the city's Department of San-
itation last April, saying I
wanted to follow my 4.46
daily pounds of garbage from
my Brooklyn home to its
final destination, the depart-
ment pledged full coopera-
tion. But by June, as the
deadline for the mayor's
long-awaited garbage plan
drew near, it had stopped
responding to my calls alto-
gether. If I was going to fol-
low the garbage, I would
have to do it on my own.
After studying the depart-
ment's vendor contracts, I
calculated that Waste Man-
A three-hour tour: The garbage starts out from this waste transfer
station, one of 16 in Sal Cantelmi's Brooklyn neighborhood. ..
make to cut through
Greenpoint's residential
blocks. "The police were
out there this morning
wrIting violations," he
reports gruffly, with little
satisfaction, at a meeting of
Organizations United for
Trash Reduction and
Garbage Equity (OUT-
RAGE), a Brooklyn coali-
tion of community groups
that banded together in the
summer of 1999 to fight
the steady influx of waste
transfer stations into their
neighborhoods. A lifelong
Greenpoint resident whose
agement, Inc., disposes about 7,500 tons of the city's household waste
every day in 16 jumbo Pennsylvania landfills, all of which the company
owns. One landfill outside Scranton gets the most-more than 10 per-
cent of our total garbage a year. But first, 1,400 tons a day makes its first
stop at a mammoth transfer station on Varick Avenue in Cantelmi and
Filiato's backyard-Green point, Brooklyn.
Transfer stations are the hubs where the city's household trash joins
the commercial garbage generated every day by restaurants, office build-
ings and construction sites. Of the city's total 28,000 daily tons of trash,
about 40 percent is trucked into 16 waste transfer stations in Green-
point-Williamsburg every day, where it is compressed and then loaded
onto tractor-trailers bound for out-of-state landfills.
Like an invading army, hundreds of monster-size garbage trucks rum-
ble through Cantelmi's streets every day, belching exhaust fumes, rattling
sewer grates and shaking apartment walls. Since the waste transfer sta-
tions began sprouting in the working-class community a decade ago,
Greenpoint has gained the
city's highest concentration
of airborne lead, and asthma
rates have shot up to the sec-
ond-highest in the city.
(Hunts Point, with another
concentration of transfer sta-
tions, has the highest.)
Before the trash onslaught,
rats were never a problem;
now they feast openly
around the clock. And the
foul odors-a weird mixture
of sour food and the cheap
cologne used as a masking
chemical agent by the trans-
fer stations-seem to have
no expiration date.
Cantelmi, a n-year old
retired sanitation worker, is
tormented by the daily con-
voy of trucks and the illegal
shortcuts many of them
20
old trash route included his
own neighborhood, Cantelmi is wearing yellow-tinted glasses and a
t-shirt sporting a picture ofJohn Muir, the 19th-century environmen-
talist who founded the Sierra Club.
When asked to describe what bothered them the most about the daily
garbage bombardment, several of the others talked angrily about the ter-
rible odors, and not being able to sit outside on summer nights-"not
because you're going to get mugged," said Marie Leanza, a 60-year-old
grandmother, "but because the rats are going to. get you."
They had gathered at a senior citizens center to discuss Waste Man-
agement's pending application to process an additional 600 daily tons
of "putrescible waste" (the official term for wet garbage) at the Varick
Avenue transfer station. "That's a little amount in the scheme of
things," says Filiato, who is lobbying elected and sanitation officials to
reject the permit. "But if you let this pass, then they want more tomor-
row, and as you can see, it all adds up."
The VarickAvenue transfer station looks more like a military installation
than a garbage processing
plant. Although the sign on
the green facade says "Wel-
come to Waste Manage-
ment," the corporate office in
Houston rejected my request
for a tour. So I found my own
tour guide: a former mafia
driver who knows the garbage
route well.
Michael Daubert is the
former personal driver and
bodyguard to Sal Franco,
who, with his brother
Carmine, controlled north-
ern New Jersey's garbage
business from the mid-
1970s to the 1990s. New
Jersey and New York law
enforcement agencies have
long accused the Francos of
being associated with orga-
nized crime; In 1998,
CITY LIMITS
Carmine Franco and two of his sons pleaded guilty to corruption and
fraud charges, and agreed to fines totaling $16.5 million. The settle-
ment also permanently barred the Franco family from participating in
New Jersey's solid waste industry. Several months after the plea, the
Francos sold their four crash companies in Hillsdale, New Jersey,
including a recycling facility and transfer sration, to Waste Management
for $46 million.
Half Italian, half Irish, Daubert insists that he is not a mobster. "I had
my chances to go in, but I didn't want to," he says to me, as we sit in a
car across the screet from the sprawling transfer sration on an unseason-
ably cold and rainy mid-June morning. Back in the late 1980s and early
1990s, Daubert made regular trips down I-78-the "garbage interstate"
that cuts across the center of Pennsylvania, where many of the state's 51
landfills are located-taking the Francos to various landfills the family
had business with.
In a blinding rain, Daubert keeps pace with 18-wheelers veering in
functions and events," he says, shaking his head. "We went to Christie
Todd Whitman's inauguration, to Bill Bradley fundraisers, and lots of
Republican events."
They also spent a lot of time with Angelo Ponte, the New York City
garbage hauler who ran one of the city's biggest mob-connecred commer-
cial cartels before being sentenced to a two-to-six-year jail term in 1997.
"The day the Pennsylvania organized crime commission books carne out,
which were that thick," he says to me, raking his hands off the wheel for a
second and spreading his palms about eight inches apart to illustrate, "we
just happen to have them. How does that happen?" he says in mock sur-
prise. "So in my spare time, I'm looking up who's who. My boss and his
brother are in there as the biggest money earners for the Genovese family."
Before a bad car accident sidelined him in 1994, Daubert chauffeured
Sal Franco everywhere for 10 years. But after Daubert's back worsened,
forcing him into a lengthy hospital sray, the family cut him loose.
Since then, his life has unraveled. His wife has divorced him, he's on
disability, and he's convinced that the town landfill behind
his house in Haverstraw, New York, has made him sick with
asthma and other respiratory ailments. (Once a notorious
illicit "midnight" dumping site for toxic waste in the 1970s
and 1980s, the landfill has been closed since 1996; it was
"/ would love to become an
environmental advocate/' the
former mob driver says. II/, m
pissed the way they're treating us.
Theylre destroying the earth-
they're all being paid off"
Michael Daubert is convinced that the landfill behind his house, once
a well-known illegal dumping site for toxic waste, has made him sick.
during this same period that authorities repeatedly accused
Carmine Franco of illegal dumping at various area landfills,
though Daubert says he's not aware of any such activity dur-
ing his tenure with the Francos.)
and out of lanes on 1-80, which we picked up shortly after exiting the
Holland Tunnel in New Jersey. In the three-plus hours it takes us to drive
from Waste Management's Greenpoint transfer sration to Waste Man-
agement's Alliance Sanirary Landfill outside Scranton, we ride alongside
dozens of the 450 tractor-trailers that make this trip daily, each one
loaded with 20 tons of garbage bound for landfills in Pennsylvania and
Virginia. Combined, the 300-mile round trips of these 450 trucks add
up to approximately 135,000 miles. About a thousand lO-ton New York
City Department of Sanitation trucks carty waste to various transfer sta-
tions in New Jersey each working day, traveling a total of 40,000 miles.
All told, garbage trucks burn 33,700 gallons of diesel fuel while carrying
9,000 tons of city trash a day to Pennsylvania and Virginia landfills. The
emissions from these trucks, incinerator advocates say, are one of the
worst environmental costs of landfilling.
To pass the time, Daubert talks about his days shepherding Sal Fran-
co around to mob meetings, charity dinners with sports celebrities, and
political fundraisers. "I brought my boss to all the New Jersey political
NOVEMBER 2002
His experiences have left him scornful of government and
conflicted about his former employers. "When I did all this, I learned
how the law doesn't work around these people, you know, the mob and
politicians," he says. "Am I disgruntled? No. I love the family. They were
good to me in a lot of ways, but did they do right by me? Absolutely not.
Not for what I did. Garbage men made more than I did. "
At 44, Daubert has had his nose busted eight times, and been arrest-
ed several times for fighting. Six-foot-four and 275 pounds, he still
sports a lineman's build, despite a series of recent back operations that
force him to move gingerly. But the former bar bouncer and mob body-
guard now dreams of a fresh start by going green. He speaks of going
back to school-he has a high school equivalency diploma-to learn
about law or ecology. "I would love to become an environmental advo-
cate," he says. ''I'm pissed the way they're treating us. They're destroying
the earth-they're all being paid off "
CONVENIENTLY, the Alliance landfill is located right off the interstate.
But instead of driving straight there, I have Daubert drop me off at the next
21
town over, Old Forge. There, I join a local resident, Mark Matylewicz, who
has arranged an official tour for the three of us-me, him and his 9-year-
old daughter, Kelsi-<lf what locals call "Mount Trashmore. "
Halfway up the 250-foot-high mountain that is now a 600-acre land-
fill sits a small, bland visitors center. Alliance's community affairs coor-
dinator, John Hambrose, meets us there. At once jokey and authorita-
tive, Hambrose's spiel seems tailored to win Kelsi over. Several times
throughout the one-hour tour, he will remind her to tell all her friends
that they can visit the landfill anytime. "Kelsi," he asks, just before we
walk out the door, "do you like trucks? Because we have lots of trucks."
His ploy is a smart one, because most adults in the surrounding com-
munity hate the landfill. One vocal and well-organized group in Old Forge
helped defeat Alliance's application last year for a 150-acre expansion that
would have extended the life of the landfill another 25 years. To turn the
tide, Waste Management's response has been twofold: appeal the decision,
which was handed down by Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental
Protection last May, and apply a full-court public relations press. A big part
of the latter strategy involves Hambrose, a droopy, mild-mannered John
McEnroe look-alike, sweet-talking residents at town meetings
and events, and even going door-to-door. He offers free meals
at the luncheonette located next door to the visitors center,
along with a tour of the landfill it's perched on.
It doesn't take much to buy off
a small Pennsylvania town,
says one local activist:
"These places are sold out by
their leaders, and they're sold
out for pittances. II
makes landfills one of the nation's leading emitters of methane.
Aside from being a potent greenhouse gas, methane can be a serious
health hazard for people living near landfills. Filtered through a landfill,
it can pick up the volatile organic compounds that abound there--car-
cinogens like acetone, benzene, ethyl benzene, toluene, xylenes,
trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride-and carry them into nearby homes and
lungs. In 1984, authorities in West Covina, California, evacuated 19
homes near a landfill after finding explosive levels of methane and con-
centrations of other carcinogenic gases, including vinyl chloride, at up to
900 times government safety levels. In 1998, the New York State Depart-
ment of Health published a study of 38 upstate landfills finding that
women who lived within 250 feet of them had a four times greater chance
of getting bladder cancers or leukemia than the rest of the population.
Blessedly, Hambrose doesn't linger long outside the leachate treat-
ment center, where runoff garbage juices are stored and treated. The gag-
inducing smell-imagine a hog farm overrun with sewage sludge-easi-
Iy penetrates the car, even with the windows rolled up. Heading up the
terraced mountainside on a narrow road, we see black turkey vultures
A former reporter for the Scranton Times, Hambrose first
shows us a video that explains the "environmentally sound"
operations of landfilling. After that, he pulls out several
strips of rubber, each several inches thick, and has us tug on
them to show how durable and strong they are. The mate-
This deal stinks: Getting paid to live near a landfill isn't worth it,
say residents of Taylor; Pennsylvania.
rials constitute the three different landfill liners used to keep
garbage juices from running down the mountain. Federal law required
landfills in the early 1990s to start using high-density polyethylene,
because landfills leaking toxic substances into the groundwater of sur-
rounding communities. Environmentalists, however, point out that even
the tough new plastic liners can be eaten away by common household
chemicals found in trash: mothballs, polish, vinegar, alcohol.
When we step outside the visitor's center-the bathroom, I can't help
noticing before we leave, has a shower stall-there's a fog rolling off the
mountains, partially shrouding the landfill. Bulldozers and garbage trucks
appear and disappear at higher elevations, in an ethereal procession. We
pause momentarily at the methane recovery center, where gases emitted
as the garbage breaks down are collected and converted to energy. Ham-
brose turns to me and says confidentially, "We get the gas out of the land-
fill, unlike a lot of other landfills. " He's right: Many landfills don't capture
any of the methane they generate. Of those that do, they only capture
about 60 percent of it. As incinerator advocates like to point out, that
22
loitering on the barren ground. "When they spread those wings, they
look like 747s," Hambrose marvels. Staying on-message, he reminds
Kelsi: "Don't forget, bring your friends anytime, and tell your teacher to
bring the class. We have lots of wildlife-like foxes, birds, coyotes. "
After cutting across one dusty road, we come to the current work
spot, a stripped, muddy patch of earth, where incoming garbage is being
mashed into the ground by bulldozers. Hambrose pauses at the site and
we all watch in respectful silence for a few minutes. It is only when we
head back down the mountain that I first notice all the houses in the dis-
tance below. To our immediate right, off to the side, I also see a line of
sprinkler guns, shooting a fine mist. Hambrose tells me they are the odor
neutralizers, spraying various chemical scents.
Before we leave, Hambrose hands us plastic gift bags containing a
Waste Management coloring book, a set of Waste Management crayons
and a pair of plastic Waste Management sunglasses. "Call me anytime
you want to come back," Hambrose says, clasping my hand before I
CITY LIMITS
climb into Matylewicz' car.
"Next time we can have
lunch," he says, smiling,
pointing to the small diner
on the hill.
heed Martin plant who grew
up in the area. Even ifhe and
his family can stomach the
odors, the landfill's resident
birds-flocks of black,
screeching starlings-often
crash the party, sending
evetyone scurrying for cover.
"I don't see any benefirs," he
says, estimating that the
landfill had saved him
maybe $3,000 over 14 years.
"People spend more than
that on coffee."
NOTHING MAKES Doug
Pinnell madder than waking
up to the smell of bub-
blegum. Or roses. Or lilac.
Sure, he hates it when the
fetid odors blow off the
mountain behind his house,
in the town of Taylor, a bed-
room suburb just outside
Scranton. Sometimes the
stench is so overpowering
that his two kids are driven
out of the backyard on sum-
There's lots of wildlife on the Alliance landfill, says a Waste
Management tour guide-like these black turkey vultures.
Over the last year, the
Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection
(PDEP) fined the landfill
mer days. But it is the manufactured, force-fed scents that are the most
insulting reminder of his powerlessness. "We don't get to choose what we
want to smell," says Pinnell, who owns a mortgage company. "We have
to smell what they want us to smell. What if 1 don't like bubblegum or
lilac? What's wrong with the cut grass 1 just mowed?"
They, of course, are the owners of the landfill 1 just visited, which
towers over Taylor and the neighboring township of Ransom. Alliance
has a host community agreement with Taylor, giving it a minimum of
$1.5 million a year (which helps keep taxes down), and a lump sum pay-
ment of $900,000 to pay for a new library and senior center. While the
landfill has a similar agreement with Ransom, it has none with the
neighboring township of Old Forge. "Most of the host communities give
landfills space right on the border, so adjoining communities that get no
benefits are the ones that have to deal with it, " says AI Wurth, a ptofes-
sor of political science at Lehigh College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
who chairs his state Sierra Club's solid waste committee. "These people
have to look at the landfill
and smell it every day, but
they have no governing
authority over it."
$115,000 for odor and litter
violations. Two years before that, PDEP fined the landfill's previous
owner $3.7 million for taking in, during the mid-1990s, 36,000 tons
more garbage than it was permitted to. The Center for Disease Control's
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has opened a prelim-
inary investigation into the landfill's gas emissions.
Cherundolo and Pinnell's complaints sound a lot like Cantelmi and
Filiato's. "The most frustrating thing about this is knowing that the
hundreds of trucks coming through here everyday are not even our
garbage," says Pinnell, referring to the daily average of 5,000 tons of
trash disposed of at the landfill. As the nation's number-one trash
importer, Pennsylvania took in 12.4 million tons of trash last year, 92
percent of it from other states. (West Virginia runs a distant second,
with 4.8 millions tons.)
Some states, including Pennsylvania, began imposing stricter environ-
mental regulations on landfills and limirs on furure capacity in the late
1990s. But states' attempts to restrict garbage have run afoul of the con-
stitution's interstate com-
merce clause; any restrictions
controlling the flow of out-
of-state garbage would take
an act of Congress. Growing
outrage ftom communities
like Taylor has prompted
members of Congress from
Pennsylvania and West Vir-
ginia to submit numerous
bills in Washington that
would allow states to limit
out-of-state trash.
Even those who do get
the benefirs say it's not worth
it. Pinnell and a half dozen
other Taylor residents have
gathered on Jimmy Cherun-
dolo's doorstep to talk about
the landfill that they say is
ruining their lives. The hulk-
ing dump-which has
reduced a large swath of the
revegetated mountainside
into a brown stump-is, lit-
erally, right in their back-
yards. "We can't have barbe-
cues anymore-the smell
comes down off the moun-
tain and chases everybody
inside," says Cherundolo, an
engineer at the nearby Lock-
Follow that truck: Diesel emissions are one of the
hidden enviromental costs of landfilling.
But in trash politics, if
you want to know who's
really calling the shots, you
follow the money. Since
1990, the waste industry has
given more than $13 mil-
lion in soft money and indi-
vidual contributions to
members of Congress and
presidential candidates,
NOVEMBER 2002
23
according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Waste Management
alone gave $359,200 to Democrars and $1,086,495 to Republicans
berween 1995 and 2001-and that's not including contributions to
governors and state legislators.
Sometimes the campaign contributions came in kickbacks straight
from the landfill. In 1999, former Pennsylvania state representative Frank
Serafini pleaded guilty to illegally fwmeling $129,000 from landfill
employees at Alliance (then known as Empire) to Bob Dole's 1996 presi-
dential campaign. Serafini's family, which once owned the property the
landfill was built on, still receives trash royalties from Waste Management.
Unlike kickbacks, host community agreements are perfectly legal.
"Many of these townships have three rural, not terribly educated supervi-
sors, and what it takes to turn the head of rwo out of three of these super-
visors-well, it wouldn't be New York City standards, let me put it that
way," says Wurth. ''These places are sold out by their leaders, and they're
sold out for pinances. We've seen a lot of communities where they vote to
ed to everything else, and 2) Everything must go somewhere. This is
where my garbage goes, I thought-not all of it, but surely some of it.
I told the Taylor residenrs that their counterparrs in Greenpoint and
Williamsburg experienced a parallel indignity by living near a concentration
of transfer stations, but that they thought the garbage was ending up far
from a populated area. "I was thinking about that last night," Pinnell says.
"Do the people of New York know that their garbage is going to our back-
yard? Maybe they should. Maybe we should ship ours to their backyard."
A HUNDRED years ago, political cartoons in the New York Herald fea-
tured the character "King Garbage," to illustrate what a mess the city faced
with irs voluminous trash. Until 1934, New York simply dumped much of
it in the Atlantic Ocean. Since then, most of our garbage has been buried
in large pirs and swamps around the city-hence the term "landfill."
At the time, burning trash was a widespread practice, with nearly 30
incinerators operating around the city. Fresh Kills opened in 1948 as a
"temporary" solution; it was to serve as a provisional measure
for a few years, until newer and bigger incinerators were built.
By the 1960s, there were 11 municipal incinerators as well as
basement unirs in more than 17,000 apartment buildings.
In those days, incinerators spewed a toxic brew of heavy
"Yes, I'm quite aware of how bad
landfills can be," says incinerator
opponent Leslie Lowe. "Yet they
don't produce the most toxic
substance known to man on a
daily basis."
The incinerator turns all this trash into highly toxic ash-
which then has to be landfilled.
metals and ash into the air, and burning soon fell out of favor.
In any case, incineration at irs peak took care of only 39 per-
cent of the city's garbage. So Fresh Kills remained open for
another 50 years, ultimately growing to rwo-and-a-half times
allow one, and the next year, [the townspeople] unelected them-but it's
too late, and the newly elected people have their hands tied. " Wurth's
example is anything but theoretical: In Bethlehem, where he lives, the
five-member community council voted 3-2 to privatize the town dump.
One of the agreement's terms was that the community could not oppose
any expansion of the landfill--ever. Although the deal's three champions
have since been voted out of office, the town still can't challenge the land-
fill's expansion without risking a lawsuit.
For Cherundolo, the only hope now is the courrs: With 14 of his
neighbors, he's suing Alliance over their compromised quality of life. "I
can probably forgive them for what they did in my lifetime," he says. "But
I can't forgive them for what they're going to do to my children's lifetime,
or my grandchildren's lifetime. What they did here is already done, but it
has to be stopped from getting any worse."
Listening to Cherundolo and looking at the mammoth mountain of
garbage behind us made me think of the first rwo axioms in Barry
Commoner's 1971 book The Closing Circle: 1) Everything is connect-
24
the size of Central Park and 225 feet high. By the early 1990s,
anger on Staten Island began to boil over.
Then, in perfect storm fashion, rwo developmenrs converged, leaving
Mayor Bloomberg with the biggest waste disposal crisis in the city's history.
First, Mayor Giuliani decreed the closing of Fresh Kills and banned any
new landfills or incinerators from being built within the city. Around the
same time, afrer breaking the Mafia's iron-clad, decades-long control of the
city's commercial garbage market, Giuliani contracted with Waste Manage-
ment and other corporations to haul off residential garbage, giving them an
ideal foothold for moving into the city's newly de-mobbed commercial
market. Combined with overall consolidation in the garbage industry; the
resulting wave of buyours led to toclay's monopolistic system-and sky-
rocketing cosrs. Over the past six years, the Sanitation Department's bud-
get has nearly doubled, from $631 million to about $1 billion.
Last April, a few policy wonks, editorialists, and engineers posed
incineration-also called waste-to-energy, because today's breed of incin-
erators generates electricity-as the way out of this impasse. Headed by
continued on page 40
CITY LIMITS
NOVEMBER 2002
Brief
Relief
In the past year, some New York City nonprofits saw an
unprecedented outpouring of philanthropy. Now how are they
going to finish the job? By Miriam Axel-Lute
II Everyone felt the need to send their
kids to something this summer,"
explains Annetta Seecharran, execu-
tive director of South Asian Youth Action
(SAYA). She picks up a toy from the floor, here
. a room outfitted with child-sized table and
chairs, an old piano, filing cabinets, and stacks
of toys. This nook is the only space in SAYN.s
church basement digs that's not in use at this
particular moment.
While the focus for much of the city is
rebuilding and moving on, SAYA, and the
25
South Asian youth it serves, are still coping
with the backlash. Though the verbal and
physical attacks from their peers have
decreased, the psychological effects are just set-
tling in. ''They are aware of the arrests, the
raids, the erosion of rights. They don't feel that
this is their country, even though many of
them know nothing else. They don't feel wel-
come," says Seecharran. "Once that feeling gets
started, it's really had to turn it back. 9/11 real-
ly opened up a can of worms about race rela-
tions." That sense of alienation has serious
effects on everything from academic achieve-
ment to how they understand their own place
in the world.
For SAYA-a youth development organiza-
tion that for five years has been offering sum-
mer camps, counseling, academic support, and
after-school programs focusing on self-
esteem-these new challenges facing South
Asian youth have meant a dramatic increase in
demand for its existing services, as well as the
need to add some new ones, under the
umbrella of a Peace and Unity Initiative. Since
last fall, SAYA has held conferences, forums and
speak-outs for teenagers and young adults,
beefed up counseling outreach in schools,
helped create a paid summer internship for
teens from different ethnic groups to create a
theater project together, and even run a few self-
defense workshops.
As SAYA put together this wide-ranging
response to 9/11, several new supporters came
to its aid. The Rockefeller Foundation, Ameri-
can Jewish World Service, Global Fund for
Children, and New York Women's Foundation
all chipped in, bringing the group $237,500 in
funds specific to September II-nearly twice
the size of its budget for the previous year.
Theoretically, the group could have gotten
even more, but Seecharran repeatedly turned
away funders who approached her with "outra-
geous" ideas that would have taken her group
far off its mission-like providing counseling
to the entire population of Elmhurst.
Luckily, much of the funding she did accept
was quite flexible, allowing her to allocate it
where it was needed as she went along. She was
even able to hold over the American Jewish
World Service grant for this coming school year
instead of the last.
But there's one piece of business on which
nearly all the charities are holding firm. Almost
none of them will be renewing their contribu-
tions to SAYA and its programs.
The need for SAYNB services seems to show
no sign of slacking off. Its expanded programs
26
have brought the organization in touch with a
much bigger universe of kids. Last summer,
SAYPi.s summer program served 15 young peo-
ple. This year, the number is 100, which Seechar-
ran attributes to much wider public familiarity
with SAYA. "We extended our services because
we knew the needs were there," she says. "As a
result, so many more people are aware of our ser-
vices. We created a demand, indirectly."
Will the fledgling organization be able to
build on the work it has done over the past
year? Or will the emergency funding that
brought it here disappear before SAYA gains a
solid footing?
These are the kind of questions a lot of non-
profits are asking these days. In the aftermath
of September 11, New York City saw an
unprecedented outpouring of aid from private
Asked about what it
took to coordinate
9/11 programs, the
operations director
of one aid group
just groans:
"I'm about ready
to jump off a cliff."
sources: more than $2 billion donated by indi-
viduals and institutions to disaster relief The
vast majority of that money-75 to 85 percent,
depending on who's counting-has gone to, or
is slated for, cash assistance to families of vic-
tims of the attacks and displaced workers.
But a significant amount of relief money-
at least $170 million-went instead to organi-
zations providing a wide range of social and
other services to New Yorkers. Nonprofit
groups that work with hard-hit constitutencies,
or claimed the capacity to launch casework
operations very quickly, became vital players in
recovery efforts. A year later, the impact of that
flood of relief efforts is now becoming clearer
(see sidebar).
The bulk of cash assistance to victims and
their families was distributed through major
social service organizations like Safe Horizon,
which also received a large chunk of the grants
made to provide support services. But they
didn't get it all. As it became clear that individ-
ual donations were being heavily targeted for
families of victims, many funders began to ask
who was being left out. They heard calls for aid
for displaced workers and support services for
tolerance initiatives, and proceeded to seek out
social service organizations with access to specif-
ic immigrant populations-from Yugoslavian to
Filipino-knowing that many immigrants,
especially undocumented ones, were hesitant to
approach the major disaster relief agencies.
For the groups selected for this flood of new
funding, it's been a year of explosive and chal-
lenging growth. Many had been just blips on
the radar of mainstream foundations. Others
had no experience in systematic service provi-
sion. After some chaos, many find themselves
serving a bigger population in a broader way.
September 11 put a lot of people with a wide
range of needs in contact with service organiza-
tions that could help them.
In a tragic way, the attacks functioned as an
incredibly effective outreach program. That
was especially true in communities that ordi-
narily shy away from seeking help from institu-
tions, or face language barriers if they try. But
has the outreach drawn people into programs
that will only disappear out from under them
as the tide of funding recedes?
F
or service agencies, it's been a year without
time to ask many questions. From the
foundations, "We get a lot of heads up
about funding, but they don't know what
they're doing either," says David Chen, execu-
tive director at the Chinese-American Planning
Council (CPC), the city's largest agency serving
Chinese-Americans. "Once you get the money
you should have started last month."
Steven Yip, CPC's director of operations,
just groans when he's asked about coordinating
September 11 programming. "I'm about ready
to jump off a cliff," he says.
It's not that he's not interested in providing
the services. He talks long and well about the
needs in Chinatown. But "we were already
making do with duct tape and safety pins," he
says. "One percent overhead. Absorbing all
these [new] funds and turning them around,
without any administrative funding... . It's a
headache." It's especially a headache for Yip,
who is very concerned with the ethical ques-
tions underlying job training, for example.
What industries to train people for that will be
CITY LIMITS
best for them long and short term? What level
of language skills should they aim for? He
knows that these big picture issues need to be
dealt with, but his energy for the past year has
been focused on the minutiae.
Chinatown, adjacem to the area of the
attacks but largely not included in the first map
of areas eligible for governmem aid, has suf-
fered dramatically. The garmem industry,
which provided much of the employment for
the area, was devastated. "Sixty percem of the
youth [in our programs] have parems in the
garmem industry, " says Chen. "Layoffs lead to
family issues, which come back to us through
the youth."
Since September 11 , CPC has distributed
direct relief, provided referrals, given technical
assistance to small businesses, and beefed up its
ESL and job training programs. The group is
currently about to implemem more job train-
ing and a longer-term case managemem pro-
gram through the September 11 Fund.
Speed and uncertainty have put a strain on
an 18-year-old organization that is accustomed
to moving incrememally. Finding qualified
social workers, always a challenge given the
organization's modest salaries, became even
more difficult as a premium on bilingual social
workers created citywide wage inflation. In
order to staff CPC's 9/11 programs in time,
Yip had to hire a mix of more-or-less monolin-
gual Chinese speakets and English speakers
and have them work in pairs.
If CPC, a multimillion-dollar service
agency with dozens of locations, is struggling
with the increased expectations, it's no surprise
that Asociaci6n Tepeyac has hit some rough
patches. Before September 11, Tepeyac was a
largely volunteer-run agency that provided
administrative support to 40 small local orga-
nizations in New York's Mexican community,
as well as some social services to members of
those groups. It had two fi.Jl-time staff, a few
imerns, and dozens of volunteers. In 1999 it
had income of just $11,000. Its fundraisers
doubled as cultural evems and ways of bringing
the community together.
But as an organization that undocumented
Latino immigrants could trust, after 9/11 Tepey-
ac soon found itself acting as a major agency
dispersing aid to workers and their families.
Over the course of the year Tepeyac got
$770,000 in grants and individual donations,
and it distributed an additional $611,000 as
cash assistance. Most of the grant money wem
to hire 16 new staff members--caseworkers, a
continued on page 37
NOVEMBER 2002
WHERE THE DOLLARS WENT
City Limits surveyed 26 major foundations and relief funds that
put significant amounts of money into grants for
9/11-related projects and services in New York City. The findings
show most of their $170 million in funding going into two types of
efforts: general support dollars for organizations that suffered
financial setbacks, and new initiatives intended to directly address
the social and economic impacts of the attack on individuals.
By far the biggest investment went not into social initiatives, but
culture. Thanks to large grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation
and Carnegie Corporation, more than $62 million, or 37 percent of
the total, went to arts groups, which reported serious deficits
last fall.
(clockwise according to size)
Arts- 36.8%
D Jobs - 20.6%
Mental & Health - 12.9%
Org. Assistance - 6.9%
Youth - 6.0%
Social Services - 4.8%
Immigrants - 4.5%
Legal - 3.9%
Research & Education - 1.7%
D Ground Zero - 1.8%
Efforts to address the economic impact of the attacks account-
ed for about 21 percent of grants, which went to programs for job
placement and training, business development and other efforts to
ensure employment for workers who lost their jobs following the
disaster. Support for mental health programs amounted to about
$15 million. And a significant amount of funding, nearly $12 mil-
lion, went to help nonprofit organizations that had lost office
space or revenue.
Smaller amounts, from $2 to $10 mi llion, went to research and
public educat ion, immigrant advocacy, legal services, and programs
for young people.
Just $40,000, from the Tides Foundation, went to community
organizing efforts.
-MA-L
27
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
No Strings Attached
Washington's newest poverty
plan: end government aid as
we know it.
By Neil deMause
TALK TO AN ADVOCATE for the poor for long
enough these days, and you'll likely hear an
unexpected admission. "It's strange to say it, "
they will begin, "but states now almost seem
like our friends."
After years of fearing a "race to the bottom"
if states were given more leeway over how to
spend federal welfare funds, the reality is that
local governments have proven more respon-
sive and less onerous than many had feared.
With the White House focusing its energies on
being a kinder, gentler Jerry Falwell (would
you like some pro-marriage counseling with
your faith-based services?), state agencies seem
28
benign by comparison: willing to experiment
with progressive reforms while opposing new
federal work requirements.
Any sympathy for increasing state control,
however, ends with the latest attempt at
detaching federal strings from social service
funds: the "superwaiver." First proposed by
the Bush administration last February as an
amendment to the House bill reauthorizing
federal welfare programs, the superwaiver
would grant sweeping authority to the White
House to exempt states from federal rules gov-
erning almost all of the basic federal benefit
programs assisting low-income people: Food
stamps, Merlicaid, child care, public housing,
adult education and of course welfare. Cur-
rently most of these programs remain entitle-
ments, with states that receive these federal
dollars obligated to provide services to anyone
eligible under federal law. With superwaivers,
all bets would be off.
If the proposed legislation passes, governors
would be able to spend money designated for
these benefit programs accorrling to their own
design. They could ignore federal eligibility
requirements, or impose new ones. States
could create time limits for benefits that cur-
rently have none, or tie them to participation
in mandatory programs. And under some cir-
cumstances, money designated for one pro-
gram could be used to fund another. With
many states now suffering crushing deficits,
the prospect of replacing their own spenrling
with federal dollars may prove too tempting to
pass up. "The superwaiver would really allow
states and the executive branch to completely
rework the fundamental nature of programs-
and to do it in closed-door negotiations," says
Shawn Fremstad, a senior policy analyst at the
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The superwaiver, or State Flex as the GOP
belatedly attempted to rename it, passed the
House in May with minor modifications. Under
the legislation, states and federal agencies would
only be obligated to follow labor law, civil rights
protections and environmental standards (thus
dashing the hopes of the Heritage Foundation,
which has long advocated "state flexibility" to
evade minimum-wage laws). While it's yet to be
introduced in the Senate, that's still too close for
comfort for many Beltway observers. Critics are
labeling the law a thinly veiled attempt to effec-
tively eliminate entitlements of all kinds.
Its proponents like to paint superwaivers as a
means of encouraging innovation, by allowing
states to coordinate policies across different pro-
grams. But opponents of waivers point out that
most programs are already flexible enough to
allow plenty of wiggle room: When HHS Secre-
tary Tommy Thompson suggested the benefits of
a superwaiver would include the ability to put
food stamps and cash grants on the same elec-
tronic benefits card, he failed to note that several
states already do this under current law.
The fear is that the sweeping new powers
could affect not just details like EBT cards, but
what till now have been the untouchable core
of entitlement programs: funding levels and
eligibility rules. "The food stamp program is
the one remaining basic safety net program,"
says Fremstad. Under a superwaiver, he says,
"states could cut food stamp benefits by as
much as they wanted, for as many low-income
families as they wanted. Right now federal law
is pretty restrictive for adults without children,
but states could say, 'We're not going to cover
them at all. Too much hassle.'"
THOUGH WAIVERS WERE FIRST authorized by
Congress in 1962, they rlidn't surface in a big
way until the 1980s. With AFDC entrenched
CITY LIMITS
as a federal entitlement to all eligible, the Rea-
gan administration concocted a workaround:
hand out state-by-state "waivers" allowing state
governments to evade federal law under the
guise of experimentation.
The years that followed were the heyday of
welfare as behavior modification: Learnfare,
Bridefare, and other 'fares attempted to tie bene-
fits to marriage, school attendance, or whatever
else lawmakers felt like promoting via cash
bribes. Waivers also introduced the "f.unily cap"
that limited benefits regardless of household size,
and governors took their fust steps toward the
time limits and work requirements that would
later be the centerpiece of federal welfare reform.
From 1992 to 1996, all but six states asked for
waivers from federal weJu-e regulations, and
none more than Wisconsin under Governor
Tommy Thompson. With the 1996 welfare law,
which gave wide discretion to states to shape their
own programs, waivers
gave way to a law that
Food stamps may prove a particularly tempting
target. Under the proposed law, money desig-
nated for that program could be used to support
any initiative that would benefit eligible fami-
lies, even if it had nothing to do with nutrition.
"Especially with the budget crisis mode that you
see in states with the economic downturn,
there'd be a real temptation to divert food stamp
funds to plug a budget gap," says Fremstad.
Mark Greenberg of the Center for Law and
Social Policy sees troubling precedent in the ways
states have already taken advantage of flexibility
in welfare spending. "States would fmd some-
thing that was an allowable use of [welfare cash]
but for which the state was currently spending
state dollars, use the federal funds to pay for it,
and free up the state dollars for other purposes,"
he notes. "So it looked like the federal money
was going to a low-income benefit or service, but
the practical reality was that it was being used to
fund tax cuts or state
spending unrelated to
low-income assistance." accomplished the same
thing. But many governors
continued to push for legis-
lation that would allow
them even more leeway.
Their moment came with
Thompson's ascension to
HHS secretary last year.
The superwaiver
Whether the welfare
law is renewed this year or
next, the Bush adminis-
tration is likely to make a
big push for superwaivers
in 2003. D.C. observers
point out that waivers
could make inroads in the
Senate even if Democrats
hold onto their majority
this fall, because several
conservative Democrats
.
gives governors
The superwaiver
would reach further than
Thompson's agency. Pub-
lic housing authorities,
for instance, freed from
federal minimums on
power to say who
gets federal aid,
and how much.
how many units must go
to low-income people, might be tempted to
ditch problematic poor tenants for handpicked
higher-income ones on a far larger scale than
they can now. Time limits on public housing,
briefly tried in Delaware and a few other juris-
dictions, are another possibility.
But as Barbara Sard of CBPP points out, in
practice sloughing off federal requirements can
end up being deeply impractical. Housing
authorities have been slow to take advantage of
waivers under the 1998 Moving to Work demon-
stration project, which allow the imposition of
time limits on subsidized housing. "One of the
things they are learning is that time limits are
much easier to say than to do in any kind of &ir
marmer," she explains. They're forced to confront
reality: These renters can't afford their housing
without aid, nor will their landlords be pleased
when good tenants get arbitrarily evicted.
A stronger concern is that states will raid
entitlement funds to balance their budgets.
NOVEMBER 2002
there are former gover-
nors themselves.
The irony is that even proponents of
stronger government support for the poor see
positives in some degree of state flexibility-
when coupled with federal standards. "On the
state level, they've come to a more realistic view
of welfare, and a more real impression of the
human beings that we're talking about," notes
Maureen Lane of the Welfare Rights Initiative,
pointing to such programs like Maine's Parents-
As-Scholars, which served as a model for educa-
tion and training options added to the Senate
Finance Committee's welfare bill this year.
Still, it's likely to be a whole other story
when budgets are on the line. If superwaivers
come to pass, warns Fremstad, "the food stamp
program could turn into a cash cow for states."
If so, it's going to be the poor who end up get-
ting milked .
Neil deMause is editor of Here magazine and
writes frequently for Extra! and In These Times.
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
NEW REPORTS
New York's corporate campaign funders are
certainly getting their money's worth, accord-
ing to this report by the research wing of Citi-
zen Action. It shows that companies and exec-
utives that are slated to receive about $3 bil-
lion in state tax breaks between 2001 and
2005 gave $13.l million in campaign contri-
butions during the period that Albany's policy-
makers created the tax breaks, 1999 to 2001.
If you do the math, that's a 22,000 percent rate
of return, or as this gem of a report so snidely
notes, in Albany, "Business is receiving an
outstanding return on investment."
"Capital Investments, Capital Returns"
Public Policy and Education Fund
518-465-4600 or www.citizenactionny.org
Hopefully, Joel Klein has read this report, since
its mission is a critical Question for the newly
settled workers at Tweed Courthouse: Identify
struggling urban school districts that have
improved, and figure out why and how. The
conclusions won't shock anyone, but they bear
noting: Struggling districts improve when they
have specific and clear standards and report
directly to central offices, without layers of
competing bureaucracy. Another winning strat-
egy: put the most effort into improving the
worst schools, as opposed to bumping up the
merely mediocre.
"Foundations for Success: How Urban School
Systems Improve Student Achievement"
Manpower Demonstration Research Corp
212-532-3200 or www.mdrc.org
Between 1996 and 2000, the employment rate
for New York City's single mothers rose 17 per-
cent, double the national increase, and sur-
passing the rate for married moms! It's well
known that hundreds of thousands of new
.,.,'orkers-many of them single moms-
entered the economy in the late 1990s due to
strict welfare policies and an expanding econ-
omy. But employment has not solved the prob-
lems of New York's working single mothers.
This report calls for increased wages, skills
training and child care to fight their families'
persistent poverty.
"Mothers' Work"
Community Service Society of New York
212-614-5425 or www.cssny.org
29
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
Summer in the City
By David Jason Fischer
Heat Wave by Eric K1inenberg
University of Chicago Press, $27.50, 305 pages
AMONG THE SIZABLE PORTION of media of the book-a case that
observers and academics who viewed the
1990s as a time of renewal for major U.S.
cities, it's a matter of gospel that greater
emphasis on downtown development, fighting
crime and "reinventing" government service
provision all contributed decisively to the
urban comeback. Cities like Philadelphia,
Chicago and New York zealously pursued
these strategies, and enjoyed benefits ranging
from lower crime rates to disappearing deficits
to corporate reinvestment. Mayors like
Philadelphia's Ed Rendell, New York's Rudy
Giuliani and Chicago's Richard M. Daley were
quickly lionized as can-do technocrats who
had risen above the traditional, dysfunctional
paradigms of urban governance.
But the broad consensus that the gains of
1990s urban America came without a high
price is sharply challenged by Eric Klinen-
berg's Heat wave, a sociological examination of
how one week of extremely hot weather in
Chicago in July 1995 left over 700 dead.
While middle- and upper-class Chicagoans
turned up the air conditioner or headed for
the pool, low-income city-dwellers died, alone
and helpless, in staggering numbers. Klinen-
berg's hypothesis, developed with painstaking
care over the course of the book, is that the
week of 1 DO-plus degree temperatures only
served to push the city's most marginalized
and solitary residents through the bottom of a
safety net that city officials, with the con-
nivance of Chicago voters, had knowingly left
threadbare.
Offering his research as a "social autopsy" of
the disaster, Klinenberg examines the heat wave
through the prisms of race and location, social
capital, government services, public relations
and media coverage. Too often, Heat wave
reads like the doctoral dissertation it initially
was: While Klinenberg's methodology is quite
admirable, his description of it is belabored and
frequently blunts the power of his fmdings.
Worse, several of his sections, most notably the
discussion of how the media framed the story
of the heat wave, offer plenty of academic cita-
tions but little insight. Still, these flaws stand
out only because the case he builds in the rest
30
soon begins to look like an
indictment of Chicago's
government in general, and
spin-obsessed Mayor Daley
in particular-is so devas-
tating.
Klinenberg compares
North Lawndale and Little
Village. Two adjacent
Chicago neighborhoods of
roughly equal size, they
have similar numbers and
proportions of senior citi-
zens living alone and in
poverty-the strongest
indicators of mortality. Yet
the two communities expe-
rienced very different out-
comes during the heat
wave: While North Lawn-
dale endured 19 fatalities,
Little Village suffered only
three deaths.
Klinenberg illustrates how the vibrant
street life and plentiful commercial activity of
Little Village contributed to the safety of the
elderly residents who matched the general
profile of heat wave victims. Not only were
low-income senior citizens in Little Village
more likely to receive visits from concerned
friends and neighbors than their counterparts
in North Lawndale; even those seniors with-
out social networks were more likely to ven-
ture out to air-conditioned stores or other
public places, thanks to the busy streets and a
greater sense of safety. In North Lawndale, by
contrast, the rampant crime, proliferation of
vacant lots and abandoned buildings-and
general absence of any activities indicating a
functional, safe community-imposed upon
area seniors the brutal choice between staying
inside to face the heat alone or going out to
risk intimidation, robbery or worse.
"During the heat wave, as in their everyday
lives, older North Lawndale residents had few
incentives to leave their homes and seek relief
or social contact in public places," writes Kli-
nenberg. "The area lacked the social and com-
mercial attractions that draw people--especial-
ly the elderly--outdoors."
THE ABSENCE OF "social capital" in dysfunc-
tional neighborhoods like North Lawndale
makes it all the more important for govern-
ment to step in when needed. Unfortunately,
systematic cuts in budget and personnel for
social service-providing city agencies like
Health, Human Services and Housing increas-
ingly left service and crisis response to one of
the few city services that saw its budget grow:
the Chicago Police Department.
With a substantial police presence in North
Lawndale, the city should have known in
advance that the crime-ridden neighborhood's
most vulnerable residents-including thou-
sands of isolated seniors-would need more
help, not less, in the event of a crisis. Under
Chicago's extensive community policing pro-
gram, officers were supposed to act as liaisons
to other city agencies and services.
But the "organizational mismatch," as Kli-
nenberg calls it, between the police and the
social service tasks they are now asked to per-
CITY LIMITS
"0
form, has resulted in dramatically worse ser-
vice provision in communities that were
already underserved. Referring to the wide-
spread resistance among cops on the street to
the responsibilities of community policing,
Klinenberg quotes a police official who
explains: "Officers [don't] want to be 'pooper
scooper police. '"
The reappropriation of city funds from
social services to more police was only part of
a larger, more pervasive trend. The failure of
city government to devise and implement an
effective response during the heat wave had
causes stretching back years before the mercury
rose. The cultural and political climate of the
heat wave, writes Klinenberg, was created by
"the collective refusal to address poverty
and isolation in
Chicago during the
prosperous 1990s. "
dispatch in discussing cuts to the federal Low
Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
Combined with a market-based managerial
model that shut off utilities, imposing revenue-
generating fines on people who couldn't pay
their bills, the cuts made it all but impossible
for poor seniors to enjoy climate controls that
their wealthier neighbors took for granted.
Centers for Disease Control researchers esti-
mated that more than half the deaths during
the heat wave could have been prevented if the
deceased had working air conditioners. Yet
poor seniors, reports Klinenberg, "understood
that their utility costs in the summer would be
unaffordable if they had air conditioners." Even
poor people who get free air conditioners
through pilot programs often sell them, he
notes, because they
would not be able to
Implicit in that
refusal was the con-
scious decision of
the prosperous to toler-
ate poverty and isola-
tion in their midst.
This played out in
Chicagoans' daily
interactions with their
government: Klinen-
berg shows how the
much-celebrated "rein-
vention" of city gov-
ernments has left dis-
tressed communities-
lacking strong ties
between residents,
organic institutions for
How the
much-celebrated
afford the electricity.
While deeper-pocket-
ed and better-orga-
nized groups doubt-
less would have politi-
cized the issue, Chica-
go's poor seniors
had scant political
resources-and could
offer little resistance
to the political choic-
es implicit in their
deprivation. "Fear of
losing their energy
altogether if they
failed to pay the
bills," writes Klinen-
berg, "has relegated
"reinvention" of
city governments
helped a
heat wave
kill hundreds.
mutual aid and, usual-
ly, strong and effective
politicalleadership--worse off than ever.
Those who most need assistance from local
government-the poorest, the oldest, the most
helpless-are exactly the people least likely to
assert themselves in the new model of govern-
ment services, where "empowered consumers"
engage the bureaucracy to get the help they
need. Elite constituents are far more likely to
find government, and the organizations it hires
to provide services, responsive to their
demands. "Underservice of Chicago's poor
elderly is a structural certainty and an everyday
norm," Klinenberg writes. "The competitive
market for gaining city contracts provides per-
verse incentives for agencies to underestimate
the costs of services and overestimate their
capacity to provide them. "
The author demonstrates this with brutal
NOVEMBER 2002
these seniors to regu-
lar forms of insecurity
and duress so funda-
mental, and yet so difficult for policy makers
and the public to see, that their daily crisis goes
unnoticed. "
Heat wave offers not only a sober post-
mortem on how a city failed its most vulnera-
ble citizens, but an urgent warning as well. The
convergence of two powerful trends-the
aging of America's population and the steady
rise in temperatures-strongly suggests the
likelihood that America's cities will face this
challenge again. Unfortunately, Klinenberg's
demonstration that this tragedy was a result of
structural forces, and political choices, leaves
the reader without much hope that we will fare
better next time.
David Jason Fischer is a policy analyst with the
Center for an Urban Future.
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
NOW READ THIS
A New Deal for New York
By Mike Wallace,
Gotham Center Books, $18.95
Much of what's in this slender prospectus has
been argued before, but no previous effort has
matched Wallace's sheer eloquence. Deftly and
succinctly, he identifies lower Manhattan's recon-
struction as an historic opportunity to transform
the city's development strategy, away from suck-
ing up to financial conglomerates and towards
embracing an array of job-creating sectors. A
bonus: in reviewing the first New Deal , Wallace
provides a sneak preview of his next book on New
York, coming in a few years when he finishes his
20th-century follow-up to the awesome Gotham.
New York City: A Short History
By George 1. Lankevich,
NYU Press, $17.95
Cramming four centuries of the city's history into
one modest volume is an exercise certain to be
defined by its inherent shortcomings. Nonethe-
less, this effort by one of New York's most prolific
historians succeeds admirably, with an easily
accessible writing style and a focus that suc-
ceeds best when discussing political intrigues.
Inevitably, at its center are the Great Men of New
York's history, but this volume is, at a minimum,
a handy reference guide.
Journalism After September 11
Edited by Barbie Zelizer and Stuart Allan,
Routledge, $21.95
These 13 wide-ranging essays should be subti-
tled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Now that
we're back to Atkins diet and Lizzie-obsessed
days, it's easy to forget how remarkable, yet
careful, most local news reporting was immedi -
ately after last fall's terrorist attacks (a personal
favorite was the emotive but unflappable Vince
DeMentri of Channel 7). Praise for such amazing
work is here, but so is a critique of media blind-
ness, its failure to situate Sept. 11 within a his-
torical analysis, and refusal to probe the
impacts of American foreign policy on the Arab
and Muslim worlds.
31
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
If We Had
a Billion Dollars
What New York could buy with
its Blue Cross bonanza.
By Neil F. Carlson
SIX YEARS AGO, when Empire Blue Cross and
Blue Shield, New York's largest nonprofit
insurer, announced its intention to convert to
a for-profit, publicly traded company, con-
sumer and health care advocates lined up to
make the best of a bad situation. Sure, the state
would be losing the insurer of last resort for
the poor and uninsured, bur consumers and
state residents would be compensated for the
loss. State law required that Empire's assets
continue being applied toward its original mis-
sion-improving the availability and accessi-
32
bility of health care to New Yorkers. Following
the national trend in so-called "health care
conversions," Empire promised to create a
foundation. With over $1 billion in assets and
an independent board of directors, the foun-
dation would pur nearly $50 million each year
into programs aimed at helping the poor and
uninsured across the state.
"A foundation is a good mechanism for
using converted nonprofit assets," explains
Phillip Gonzalez, Philanthropy Project director
for Community Catalyst, a Boston-based
health care advocacy group, whose report
"Building Strong Foundations" is the bible of
best-practices in health care conversions. "You
can do a lot of specific things within a broad
mandate, and it's a good way to monetize the
assets"-that is, get the proceeds from the sale
circulating for the public good. The key ro cre-
ating a responsive foundation, Gonzalez says, is
an inclusive planning process and governance
and organizational structures that are transpar-
ent and accountable to the public. "It's got to be
an open and accountable process."
Yet the process in New York has been any-
thing but open and transparent. After numer-
ous public hearings, Attorney General Elliot
Spitzer and Insurance Superintendent Gregory
Serio had signed off on the conversion: Empire
would get access ro public equity markets and
shed some of its regularory burdens, and New
York would get a $1 billion conversion founda-
tion. This past January, however, Governor
Pataki announced a new deal with Dennis
Rivera, head of 1199/SEIU, the state's largest
union. Instead of a foundation, Empire's assets
will underwrite raises for health care workers
across the state. (The union has since endorsed
Pakaki's reelection bid.) After some public
wrangling, the legislature amended the plan,
promising 5 percent, roughly $55 million, for
a health care conversion foundation. The deal,
negotiated in secret, sailed through the state
legislature on a midnight vote.
"To us, this feels like a bait-and-switch
transaction," says Chuck Bell, program direc-
ror of Consumers Union. "If the state brought
this plan ro the table in the hearings held in
1997 and 1999, it would have been a non-
starter." In August, Consumers Union and
other public interest and health groups filed a
lawsuit ro block the conversion, challenging
the legislation's constitutionality on the
grounds that it impairs an implicit contract
between Empire and its subscribers vis-a.-vis
the organization's charitable mission; that it
takes a charitable organization's property with-
out a proper government purpose; and that it
usurps the New York State Supreme Court's
prescribed role in reviewing and approving a
conversion. "The state cannot simply take $1
billion of charitable assets that were dedicated
ro increasing New Yorkers' access to health care
and divert those funds ro other purposes," says
Mark Scherzer, attorney for the plaintiffs.
Few observers expect Serio, a Pataki
appointee, to reject the plan. But if the court
overturns the legislation, Empire officials and
state legislarors will have ro go back ro the
drawing board. Meanwhile, the tussle over
Empire's assets leaves important questions
unanswered, ones that will become pressing as
other nonprofit health care organizations,
including HIP, weigh whether to follow
Empire's precedent. What is the best use of a
health care nonprofit's assets following a con-
version? Is a foundation the best mechanism
for dispensing those assets and securing the
public's interest? And what exactly could you
do if you had a billion dollars?
ONE THING IS FOR SURE: If the current plan is
allowed to stand, New York will be an igno-
CITY LIMITS
minious exception to a national trend. Over
the past 30 years, 166 nonprofit health care
organizations-hospitals, insurance plans and
HMOs-have merged with or been converted
to for-profit companies. According to a 2001
survey by Grantmakers in Health, health care
conversions in 33 states and Washington,
D.C., have created 139 new foundations with
combined assets of $15.3 billion. Of these, six
transactions have involved Blue Cross plans.
In the most successful cases, conversion
foundations have bankrolled a broad range of
activities-insurance pilot programs, commu-
nity education, drug treatment, neighborhood
clinics, technology, Medicaid advocacy, hand-
gun control-aimed at creating structural
reforms in health care systems, improving
access, and expanding coverage. The Califor-
nia Healthcare Foundation provided $2.5 mil-
lion to support subsidized health insurance
through the state's high risk pool, which pro-
vides health insurance to people who can't get
private coverage because of disability or chron-
ic health conditions. Closer to home, the
Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey provides
almost $1 million per year to support five
school-based health care centers in low-
income communities. Last year, the clinics,
which provide medical exams, prescriptions,
immunization and oral health services, had
more than 10,000 visirs.
But Denise Soffel, senior policy analyst at
the Community Service Society of New York,
notes that even the largest foundation couldn't
begin to address New York's health care needs.
"A billion dollars doesn't buy you universal cov-
erage forever. So the question becomes, How
can we leverage those dollars?"
California, which is home to the nation's
three largest conversion foundations, provides
some ideas. Throughout the 1990s, the Cali-
fornia Endowment and the California Wellness
Foundation emerged as statewide leaders for
improved public health programs and expand-
ed access-and as national models for conver-
sion foundations.
In 1992, the California Wellness Foundation
launched the Violence Prevention Initiative, a
major initiative aimed at reducing youth access
to firearms, increasing public support for youth
violence prevention programs, and reducing
youth access to alcohol and other drugs. The
foundation invested $14 million in a public
education campaign and in irs first decade
helped boost state funding for violence preven-
tion from $8 million to $390 million. Wellness
grantees formed the backbone of coalitions that
led at least 60 cities to enact firearms regulations.
NOVEMBER 2002
"There are rwo things that we can do that
government can't do," explains Dr. Robert
Ross, president and CEO of the California
Endowment. "First, we can focus our advoca-
cy on the truly marginalized and voiceless
populations. Second, we can take the long
view: It's not in the physiology of elected offi-
cials to look past the next election. These are
not rwo- to three-year projecrs. We are in this
for the long haul."
Since its inception in 1996, the $3.4 billion
California Endowment has focused on preven-
tion and access for California's increasingly
diverse population. This past April, the founda-
tion announced a five-year, $20 million pro-
gram to increase health coverage among the 1.7
million residents of Los Angeles County who
"We can focus on
the marginalized,"
says the CEO of
a California
health care
foundation.
"We can take the
long view."
are eligible for public insurance but not
enrolled. The grant included $9 million for
community-based organizations to improve
outreach and enrollment; $3 million for local
policy and advocacy work; and $1.5 million for
a public awareness campaign. Over the next five
years the California Endowment, in coalition
with other nonprofirs and foundations, hopes
to achieve 100 percent coverage for children
and their families throughout the state.
AN EMPIRE CONVERSION would give New York
the second-largest health care conversion foun-
dation in the country, slightly larger than the
California Well ness Foundation. Still, it's not
the size of a foundation's assets that matters,
but what it does with them.
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
By and large, health care advocates would like
to see those funds channeled into rwo issue areas:
insurance and access. According to a 2001 study
by the United Hospital Fund, 19 percent of all
New Yorkers, and one in four New York City res-
idenrs, lack health insurance. Of the rhree mil-
lion statewide without health insurance, the
report estimates, fully half are eligible for Medic-
aid, Family Health Plus or Child Health Plus.
State officials say they are doing enough to
meet insurance needs. "New York has, more
than any other state, I believe, already created
programs to address the problems of the unin-
sured," Robert Hinckley, the state health
department's director of operations, told the
New York Times. "Funding for these programs is
sufficient and solid."
Health care advocates, on the other hand,
argue that the gap is a sign that the state could
be doing more to ensure low-income residents
take advantage of public insurance programs.
In the four months following the World Trade
Center attacks, 350,000 uninsured New York-
ers signed up for Disaster Relief Medicaid-l 0
times the usual enrollment rate. The jump was
largely due to simplicity: the application was
one page, and the only documentation
required was proof of identity. As those bene-
fits run out, however, 30 to 50 percent of the
new beneficiaries may be kicked off because
even though they are eligible, they can't navi-
gate the Byzantine regular enrollment process.
A conversion foundation, advocates argue,
would be perfectly suited to funding the out-
reach and advocacy necessary to bridge these
gaps. For example, if more than 1 percent of
residenrs in a hospital's community speak a lan-
guage other than English, the state hospital
code and federal law require the hospital to
provide interpreters and translated documents
in the language. The last time the state health
department publicized that requirement-
much less enforced it-was 1988. "This
money could go towards improving health care
or expanding insurance coverage," says Judy
Wessler, executive director of the Commission
on the Public's Health System. "But instead the
money is going to be pissed away."
ON THE OTHER HAND, some critics contend, con-
version foundations are equally capable of piss-
ing money away. "Conversion foundations are
a mixed bag, " says Lance Lindblom, president
of the Nathan Cummings Foundation. The
same independence that gives foundations the
ability to fund advocacy and public health
activities that might not receive public dollars
continued on page 38
33
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
Performing
Miracles
When it comes to neighborhood
revitalization, community arts
groups have a thing or two
to show business.
By Mark J. Stern
AS AN ECONOMIC TOOL, culture is a hot ticket.
Across the nation, cities have turned to the
arts as an economic development strategy. At
last count, no fewer than 90 U.S. cities had
put forward plans to use culture to revitalize
distressed areas. For the most part, such plans
focus on the direct economic impact of large-
scale institutions and planned cultural dis-
tricts. In New York, for example, the Brooklyn
Academy of Music LDC is developing a 14-
block, $560 million "cultural district" in
Brooklyn's Fort Greene.
But what if a handful of homegrown, com-
munity-based arts groups could have just as dra-
matic an effect on a neighborhood as a planned
cultural district or major arts institution? What
if a church-basement theater troupe were actu-
ally just as important for a Struggling area as a
MOMA or a Lincoln Center?
Over the past eight years, the University of
Pennsylvania Social Impact of the Arts Project
has studied the ways in which the arts and cul-
ture influence Philadelphia's neighborhoods.
We learned that culture does have a powerful
effect on neighborhood revitalization-but it is
one that has litcle to do with tourists, jobs or
even revenue. In Philadelphia, the average com-
munity arts group had only a few hundred peo-
ple register for its classes per year; the average
annual budget of a cultural organization in a
low-income neighborhood was $150,000; the
average group employed no more than two or
three full-time employees. In short, even when
considered as a sector, whatever direct contribu-
tion these groups were making to their local
economies was quite small. Nonetheless, these
same community cultural programs seemed to
have a substantial impact on the economic for-
tunes of their respective neighborhoods.
During the 1980s, for example, Philadel-
phia neighborhoods with an active arts scene
34
(measured by the number of cultural providers
within one-half mile) were nearly three times
more likely to see their poverty rates decline
and their populations increase.
The connection between culture and com-
munity vitality continued into the 1990s. Dur-
ing that decade, the city of Philadelphia lost
over 65,000 residents-a decline of 37 people
per "block group" (approximately six city
blocks). The results, however, varied widely
from one neighborhood to another, and these
variations were strongly linked to cultural par-
ticipation. In the quarter of census block groups
with the lowest cultural participation rate, the
numbers were far worse than those for the city
overall; these areas lost an average of 90 resi-
dents during the decade. Among block groups
with higher-than-average cultural participation
rates, the news was much better; these neigh-
borhoods gained population, an average of near-
ly 20 residents per block group.
The impact of culture on population
change was not restricted to well-off neighbor-
hoods. A low-income neighborhood's chance
of experiencing population growth more than
doubled if it had a higher-than-average cultur-
al participation rate. The results also held
across ethnic lines: Older white ethnic neigh-
borhoods such as Fishtown, established
African-American neighborhoods such as Ger-
mantown and East Oak Lane, and emerging
Latino areas such as Oxford Circle all used high
levels of cultural engagement as one way of
attracting new residents.
Culture had a positive impact on housing
prices as well. Between 1995 and 2000, the
average sale price of a home in Philadelphia
increased from around $49,000 to $59,000. In
neighborhoods with few cultural organizations,
the increase was much smaller-only about
$3,000. By comparison, in neighborhoods
with many cultural organizations, the average
price increase was nearly $30,000.
What's more, these boosts in neighborhood
economic fortune generally occurred without
substantial gentrification. Certainly, in some
neighborhoods the speculative housing market
was so strong that neighborhood revitalization
quickly became wholesale displacement, but
for every "hot" neighborhood there were, and
still are, dozens of communities eager to attract
new residents and new investment. Here,
urbanist Jane Jacobs' classic distinction
between "cataclysmic money" and "gradual
money" makes all the difference. Although we
can point to some neighborhoods where a
flood of speculative money pushed longtime
residents out, a lively cultural scene was more
likely to attract smaller and slower redevelop-
ment efforts. Fishtown, for example, continues
to attract new development gradually. It has
also emerged as a diverse area with people of
different economic and ethnic backgrounds
living together as neighbors.
The connection between diversity and cul-
ture is one of the keys that explains the impact
the arts have on neighborhood revitalization.
We've discovered that neighborhoods that are
economically and ethnically diverse are most
likely to have high levels of cultural engage-
ment. Neighborhoods that have higher-than-
average poverty rates and large numbers of
professionals living in them-what we call
pov-prof neighborhoods-consistently have
more cultural organizations and high partici-
pation rates. The cultural institutions in these
neighborhoods serve as anchors, preventing
diversity from becoming a transient state.
That is why economically and ethnically
diverse neighborhoods with high levels of cul-
tural engagement were much more likely to
remain diverse over time. Cultural organiza-
tions simultaneously stimulate population
growth in and the stabilization of diverse
neighborhoods.
How do small, perennially cash-strapped
local arts and cultural programs perform all this
magic? The answer is simple: Culture stimu-
lates revitalization not through direct econom-
ic impact, but by building the social connec-
tions between people.
A lively cultural scene appears to contribute
to neighborhood vitality in two important
ways: It increases the inclination and ability of
residents to make positive changes in their
community, and it increases the connections
CITY LIMITS
between neighborhoods of different ethnic and
economic compositions.
Culture and other forms of civic engage-
ment increase "collective efficacy"-the will-
ingness of neighborhood residents to protect
their local quality of life. The trust and com-
mitment that flow from community involve-
ment lead to this sense of efficacy, even in
neighborhoods in which poverty and unem-
ployment are common.
Engaged citizens not only help neighbor-
hoods thrive, they also create a more positive
social environment. Take for example delin-
quency and truancy rates. If we look only at
the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in
Philadelphia-those with the highest poverty
and unemployment rates-communities with
high levels of cultural participation have much
lower rates of delinquency and truancy than
other disadvantaged neighborhoods. For
example, only about 5 percent of all disadvan-
taged neighborhoods
in Philadelphia have
Strong communities with a sense of "collec-
tive efficacy" that are linked to one another
through the regional audience for community
arts are the foundation for local economic revi-
talization. In other words, even though the
community cultural sector has a small direct
impact on neighborhood economics, it helps
put the conditions in place that make that revi-
talization possible.
What are the implications of this for policy?
First, stop trying to turn community cultural
providers into flawed copies of larger cultural
institutions. Because fUnders tend to measure a
group's "success" by its fiscal and organizational
capacity, cultural groups that do a wonderful job
of engaging their communities and providing
cultural opportunities are likely to get overlooked
unless they also build new facilities and expand
their programs. But even large cultural organiza-
tions that do this often find themselves caught
on a treadmill: They build new facilities to attract
larger audiences, and
then must work hard-
er to increase their very low delinquency
rates. However, disad-
vantaged neighbor-
hoods with high cul-
tural participation
were four times more
likely than average
to have low delin-
quency rates.
This is not all. Cul-
tural participation also
builds bridges across
the city's ethnic and
Could homegrown
arts groups be a
force that heals
neighborhoods?
earned income to pay
for the new facilities.
Some large institu-
tions have the capacity
to pursue a number of
goals at once, but oth-
ers soon find them-
selves spending more
effort building mu-
seum shops than wor-
rying about their
class divides. Approxi-
mately 80 percent of community cultural par-
ticipants travel outside their own neighbor-
hoods to attend cultural events--a fact that sep-
arates culture from other forms of civic engage-
ment. Neighborhood improvement groups,
town watches, home and school associations,
and youth groups draw a lot of volunteers, but
generally people contribute their time to such
organizations in their own neighborhoods.
Because innovation and excellence are the foun-
dations of cultural expression, however, people
are often willing to leave the confines of their
neighborhoods to search out new and stimulat-
ing cultural experiences.
This regional audience for community
arts reduces social isolation and builds con-
nections across divides of ethnicity and social
class. This combination of a strong local pres-
ence and a regional profile is a unique contri-
bution of arts and cultural organizations to a
region's quality of life.
NOVEMBER 2002
programs.
When small com-
munity cultural providers are pushed onto the
treadmill, however, they quickly deplete any
resources they have for other activities, and
inevitably must run harder. As they spend more
time worrying about their fiscal health, they are
ftequently forced to spend less time responding
to the needs of their neighborhoods.
If you're a community artist who has spent
his or her life working in a church basement,
for example, the lure of a new space can be
overwhelming. But once in the new space,
you're less likely to give an unknown play-
wright a chance to stage her play; better to put
on a crowd-pleaser that will fill the seats. And
if you're worried about making your mortgage
payments, you're less willing to provide free
space to a youth group or town watch that
needs performance or meeting space.
In the end, a small organization using an
old church or a rowhouse can have a larger
impact than one that spends its energy build-
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
ing a shiny new theater or exhibition space.
Second, recognize that the major way in
which small community cultutal providers
contribute to the economic development of
neighborhoods and cities has nothing to do
with them as businesses. Community arts
organizations are "successes" when they stim-
ulate broader civic engagement, expand resi-
dents' sense of collective efficacy, and
strengthen the bridges between neighbor-
hoods. These activities are not only good in
themselves, but they lay the groundwork for
community revitalization.
Communiry cultural providers make a
tremendous contribution to the revitalization
of urban neighborhoods, even though the
organizations themselves are not the direct
source of economic growth. To treat these
groups as lesser versions of larger institutions is
to miss the point, and to trade their achieve-
ments for mixed-use development projects is a
bad bargain indeed.
Mark J Stern is Professor of Social Welfare and
History at the University of Pennsylvania School
of Social WOrk, and co-directs the Urban Studies
program. The Social Impact of the Arts Project's
research is available on its web site:
http://www.ssw.upenn.edu/SIAP
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PINS
CITY
continued ftvm page 17
see the PINS law as an easy way to have the
government take a troubled child off their
hands. "Courts become a dumping ground, "
adds Townsend, with parents effectively saying,
'''I can't handle this kid. You take him.'"
Although parents can arrange to have their
children go into a group home simply by sign-
ing a voluntary placement agreement with
ACS, many would rather go to the courts for a
PINS. "ACS, for a lot of parents, is not a posi-
tive place to go for help, " says Smith of the
East New York center. ''ACS blames the par-
ents," she notes, whereas in a PINS case it's the
child who's on the defensive.
In the last year or so, some Family Court
judges have tried to up the ante. In the past
two years, Judges Myrna Martinez-Perez and
Paula J. Hepner of Brooklyn and Judge Ettore
Simeone of Suffolk County have held young
people in contempt of court for running away
from group homes. Appellate courts have over-
turned the orders-but they've also begged the
state legislature to modifY a 1975 law that pro-
hibits courts from sending youngsters in PINS
cases to locked facilities.
The idea behind the 1975 law was that
youngsters shouldn't be sent to jail for behavior
that isn't criminal. Skipping school, staying out
late or running away, no matter how self-
destructive, is not a crime in New York.
Not every state uses such a punitive model
as even the one New York has now. Louisiana
and Florida, for instance, employ the concept
of "Families in Need of Services," or "Chil-
dren in Need of Services. " Rather than con-
demning the teens for all that is wrong in the
home, those models acknowledge that young
people don't run away, or stop going to
school, in a vacuum. The distinction is not
simply semantic: A judge who has jurisdic-
tion over the entire family can order parents
to comply with services; currently, parents'
participation in counseling or mediation is
completely voluntary.
Alene Taylor, for one, thinks a broader
approach makes sense. "Lots of times the situ-
ation is a lot more complicated than that you're
a bad kid (that you're a person in need of
supervision)," wrote Taylor. "Often it's your
entire family that really needs help. But when
they take a PINS out on you, it makes you feel
like you're the only one to blame."
Additional reporting by Hilary Russ.
CITY LIMITS
Brief
Relief
continued jivm page 27
psychologist and support staff: Tepeyac has
served atound 900 displaced workers and 100
families of victims.
The organization's profile grew so dramati-
cally that it was not only aiding people who
were directly affected by September 11, but also
others who began to heat by word of mouth
how helpful the organization was in general.
"We served these victims," says Teresa Gatcia,
the group's development director, "and now
everyone wants to come here and get services."
She isn't sure how many new folks have come
independently- all their reporting systems ate
new as of this yeat, and Gatcia can't even say for
sure how many volunteers the organization has.
This summer, Asociaci6n Tepeyac received a
grant rrom the September 11 Fund- to hire a
receptionist. Though Tepeyac had become a
major center for distributing benefits, its rapid
growth had taxed it so much that no one at the
Fund or the other relief agencies could ever reach
anyone there. For weeks afTer it put in a new
voice mail system, no one could leave messages
because the mailboxes hadn't been activated.
Funders and colleagues ate universally
admiring of the incredible amount of work
Tepeyac has done. But the rapid growth has
also forced some big changes in this formerly
bottom-up organization. Though created by
and for its member community groups, Tepey-
ac suspended its work with them from Sep-
tember to February as it attempted to handle
the operation of its social services. "The people
in the neighborhoods were missing our work,"
says Tepeyac director Brother Joel Magallan.
"During that time we lost some leaders." But,
he says, they just didn't have the staff to do
both things until they received $180,000 from
the Robin Hood Foundation.
It used to be that most clients came as refer-
rals rrom Tepeyac's member groups, and they
were orren encouraged to become volunteers
who supported both the local groups and
Tepeyac. Now many more people ate finding
Tepeyac on their own. Staff ate doing their best
to connect clients who come in on their own to
the local social nerworks of its grassroots
base-so essential for immigrants who are here
without family-but they operate more like
one agency making a referral to another, rather
than a patmer in an ongoing relationship with
both the client and the local group.
Still, Tepeyac is not looking back. While it
has gotten the work with the local groups going
NOVEMBER 2002
again, and that continues to be a priority, the
group is developing new business, too, in social
services. Even in this uncertain climate, Tepey-
ac is "experimenting," Gatcia says, with ways to
fill other needs: medical, child care. And yet she
still muses about going to back to relying on
volunteers if the funding goes away.
9
/11 grant-making isn't entirely finished.
The Robin Hood Relief Fund has said it
will be giving "as long as the need exists."
And the September 11 Fund has announced
that it will be distributing its remaining $200
million in an Ongoing Recovery Program over
the next five yeats. Much of that will be going
to more cash assisrance, health insurance, and
individualized mental health benefits for fami-
lies and continued support for affected small
businesses and nonprofits.
Nonprofits and schools will be receiving
approximately $50 million rrom the September
11 Fund in the coming year for case manage-
ment, job training, work with school children
and legal assisrance-actually rwice what the
fund gave to nonprofits for actual programming
in the past year. Most of these programs will be
funded for a year and a half to three years.
Nonetheless, the pool of 9/11 money is
statting to recede. Most funders that collected
individual donations for special relief funds-
including the September 11 Fund, Tides Foun-
dation and McCormick Tribune Foundation-
have stopped doing so. The Robin Hood Relief
Fund is still accepting donations but not
actively soliciting them.
Among foundations that diverted funds or
increased their payout rate, many, including
the Open Society Institute and the American
Jewish World Service, considered them explic-
itly one-time pots of money, and the grants
tended to be for one yeat. Others, like Rocke-
feller, were undecided as of early September
whether they would renew September
II-specific grantmaking, but they have told at
least some of their grantees that the funds were
one-time shots.
"Most people understand they're expected to
perform like an accordion--expand dramatical-
ly when the need is there, and contract afTer-
watds," says Matgie McHugh, of the New York
Immigration Coalition. Still, as McHugh notes,
the shirr will likely hit some organizations hatd.
Four of her new funders told SAYXs Seechatran
that their grants-totaling $222,500-were
explicitly one-shot deals, since SAYA didn't fit
in their regulat funding guidelines. "That was
half of our budget," says Seechatran. So fat she
has gotten one grant for this coming year,
$20,000 from the Sponsors for Educational
Opportunity Community Assistance Fund.
Tepeyac's Gatcia doesn't know what she's going
to do next yeat when the emergency money is
gone, if in fact it does disappear. She's hopeful
for renewals but isn't confident of them.
Individual support has faded, too. Emira
Habiby Browne, Director of the Arab-American
Family Support Center, a social services center
in Brooklyn, says that while the problems in the
Arab community with detentions, raids, and
hatassment have increased every day since Sep-
tember 11, pro bono legal aid for people
detained by the INS has fallen off dramatically.
When news of the detentions began, there was a
spike of offers of pro bono representation, says
Habiby Browne, and her organization was able
to connect them with those in need. AfTer a few
months, though, attorneys began asking for fees.
Meanwhile, city contract cuts and the reces-
sion have been gathering on the horiwn. This
spring and summer it became appatent that
many United Way chapters, including New York
City's, were experiencing a 50 percent drop in
the regulat funding they distribute to member
agencies, because so many individual donations
had been earmatked for September 11 victims.
While the United Way is making concerted
effortS to fundraise for its Community Fund, this
year atound 90 percent of United Way-funded
organizations will see some decreases in support.
Many of the organizations that have
expanded in the last yeat express hope that
their new funders, having learned about their
good work, will stick atound. It's not impossi-
ble. Tepeyac, for one, has moved into the
"core" funding program of the Robin Hood
Foundation, with a grant for its arrer-school
program. But that hope can't be counted on as
a fundraising strategy.
Batbata Bryan, president of the New York
Regional Association of Grantmakers, says that
there is talk of how to take persisting needs-
especially mental health and economic uncer-
tainty-into consideration in their regulat
philanthropic work. One of the recommenda-
tions from a meeting held by NYRAG in July
was that funders check in with their current
grantees to see if they needed any additional
capacity-building help.
They might want to add strategic planning
to the list. In a yeat chatacterized by crises and
tatgeted project funding, few of these organiza-
tions have done the planning and prepatation
that would usually go into implementing and
funding the new programs they've already
statted, let alone into finding entirely new
sources of support.
It's pattly that the situation has been so sen-
sitive. Universally, organizations ate hesitant to
admit that such a big tragedy has in any way
been an opportunity for them. McHugh was
reluctant to even talk about the immigrant
groups that got increased funding, when so
many others ate struggling. Yip and Chen at
CPC would not disclose the total funding they'd
37
received to provide post-9111 services, saying
they feared it would be divisive to associate a
dollar amount with a specific organization.
Grantees of the Robin Hood Relief Fund
have been put through their strategic paces
with hefty donations of consultant time and
energy to do everything from setting up
accounting systems to helping grassroots staff
get used to keeping track of numbers. But other
organizations may not be so lucky. Because
individual donors were very concerned that all
their money go directly to victims, September
11 funding tended to be even less likely than
standard foundation grants to allow for any
administrative or overhead expenses.
New York's nonprofits and funders rose to
the occasion after September 11 in an incredi-
bly inspiring and effective way. But like every-
one else, they've been changed by the process.
Quick contractions could mean the loss of pro-
grams that have proven their effectiveness-
and that would take large new infusions of
resources, and time, to repeat. As with Ground
Zero, rebuilding will mean more than return-
ing to how it was before.
Miriam Axel-Lute is a Manhattan-based free-
lance writer. Research assistance by Helen
Matatov.
If We Had
a Billion Dollars
continued.fum page 33
can also lead to a lack of public oversight and
accountability. A billion-dollar foundation will
tie up 95 percent of its assets in an endowment,
and while it will payout $50 million per year,
a significant portion of that goes toward expen-
sive staff and asset managers. And while some
foundations have funded aggressive advocacy
and efforts to expand access, many others have
been content to fund medical research and aca-
demic papers. "Ultimately, a foundation's effec-
tiveness depends on where the money will go
and who controls it, " says Lindblom-making
community oversight and board governance
paramount issues.
On that front, New York's plans portend
badly. Under the current plan, the new mini-
foundation would be governed by a nine-mem-
ber board of directors-three voting members
and six nonvoting members. The governor, the
president of the State Senate, and the speaker
of the Assembly each get to appoint a voting
member and two nonvoting members. Con-
"Superb ... "-Edward I. Koch
SOUTH BRONX RISING
The rise, jall, and resurrection oj an American city
Jill Jonnes
, With new photographs by Camilo Jose Vergara
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death of the South Bronx from crime, poverty, drugs, and greed.
Today the Bronx is on the way back, and Jonnes brings a classic
story up to date with a new chapter and photographs.
"The definitive account ... Jill Jonnes tells us how the epidemic was con-
tained and the Bronx was in large measure rebuilt."-Nathan Glazer
"Jonnes is the chronicler par excellence of the South Bronx ... [and] of
the gripping stories of the people who have helped bring it back."
-Alexander von Hoffman, Harvard University
38
At bookstores.
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www.fordhampress.com 800-347-6553
sumer activists managed to squeeze in some
feel-good language about the board including
representatives from consumer groups,
patients, and public health experts, but the
governance structure virtually guarantees at
best a bland mission, and, at worst, a grist mill
for political patronage. Although the founda-
tion's mission will include expansion of access
to care, better delivery of care and health edu-
cation, the three voting members must agree
unanimously to every grant, rendering the
foundation as decisive and audacious as the
U.N. Security Council.
What's more, Empire's conversion will set a
precedent for future conversions. If the state is
allowed to expropriate charitable assets to plug
its budget gaps, what's to stop state officials
from siphoning off nonprofit assets from else-
where-hospitals, museums, public parks?
"The whole idea of [the Pataki deal] was that
the government could accomplish many of its
budgetary priorities with very little concessions
in the way of taxes or spending cuts, " suggests
plaintiffs' attorney Mark Scherzer. "That's what
made it such an attractive plum to pick off the
tree. But unfortunately, you can't go around
picking other people's plums. " And once the
low-hanging fruit is gone, what will be left of
the public's assets?
476 pages, illustrated
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One City.
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39
WRETCHED REFUSE
continued Jivm page 24
Cohen, who is the director of Columbia University's graduate program
in earth systems, science policy and management, they argue that the
city's solid waste management should have its own municipal infrastruc-
ture, like the ones that exist for water and sewage treatment. "It's crazy
that something this big should be held hostage to market forces," says
Cohen. "Imagine if we had to rely on Perrier to get our water?"
But it's not just about the money. Cohen and others are arguing that
incineration is also the more environmentally sound option. In Decem-
ber 2001, Cohen issued a report describing incineration as "environ-
mentally preferable to landfilling." Mayor Bloomberg made it the basis
of his short-lived incineration plans.
To Nickolas Themelis, director of Columbia University's Earth Engi-
neering center and coauthor of the Columbia report with Cohen, it's a
no-brailler: If you compare landfills with waste-to-energy from an envi-
ronmental perspective, incinerators win, hands down. "For people that
are environmentally conscious," he says, "I don't understand why they
have aligned themselves against waste-to-energy."
Themelis points to a relatively new facility ten miles outside Cape
Cod, Massachusetts, operated by American Ref-Fuel, to make his case.
"There are no birds, no smell, and 50 landfills have been replaced by it,"
he says. "There is no question that waste-to-energy is the ptoper tool.
Japan is using it. European nations are using it. Why is it that we are not?"
To some extent, we are. Though it's a small amount of the total, the
city already sends 1,600 tons of its garbage every day to incinerators in
Hempstead, Long Island, and Newark, New Jersey. On a typical day,
400 trucks come through the Newark facility's gates, dumping anywhere
between 2,000 and 4,000 tons of trash. Of that total, 170 trucks, bear-
ing 1,400 tons, come from Manhattan.
I arrive at Newark's American Ref-Fuel Incinerator on a typical week-
day morning. If not for the dozens of garbage trucks stacked half a mile
deep down the long driveway, you could easily confuse it for a convention
center. Themelis and other advocates like to tout such pleasant architec-
ture and snazzy landscaping as one of the industry's redeeming features.
"It's the morning rush," Jim White, the plant manager, yells to me over
the rumble of bulldozers out on the "tipping floor. " After coming across
the weigh scales, trucks enter a 40-foot-high hangar, about the length of a
football field, and "tip" their load onto the middle of a concrete floor. Bull-
dozers rush in and push the garbage into large piles, separating out the
"bulkies," like the two ripped mattresses I see lying off to the side. White
tells me the plant incinerates moscly household trash and "whatever gets
thrown out in restaurants." Sticking out from the mound closest to us,
which is about 15 feet high, I glimpse McDonald's wrappers. "We're look-
ing at about SOO to 1,000 tons on the floor right now," White says.
"Which isn't a lot, considering we take in a million tons a year."
From Alex Ingram's "crane cab," a booth with three big bay windows
that look out onto a 95-foot high garbage pit, I watch the stacking, fluff-
ing, and feeding of five days' worth of garbage into a boiler. Ingram tells
me there's about 20 tons of garbage currencly in the pit, and that the
grappler can pick up to 10 tons at one time. An identical 12-ton grap-
pler is operating on the other side of the pit, about a hundred yards away.
Crane cab operators work 12-hour shifts; the three boilers get fed 24
hours a day. In terms of raw electricity, this means that the Newark facility
burns enough trash to power 60,000 homes at any given time. According
to the Integrated Waste Services Association, a waste-to-energy trade group,
the industry meets the trash disposal needs of more than 37 million people
and produces enough electricity to power 2.5 million homes. "One way to
think of waste-to-energy is in terms of how much power is produced," sug-
gests Scott Cunningham, the plant's business manager. "The general rule of
thumb is that for every ton of trash we burn, we're saving a barrel of oil."
40
Aside from generating electricity, one of the obvious advantages of incin-
eration over sending trash straight to a landfill is the immediate SO percent
reduction in mass, and thus the reduced need for land to bury it. But it's
that remaining 20 percem-consisting of highly toxic ash, loaded with
heavy metals like lead and cadmium-that even advocates like Themelis
admit is a problem. One reason why incineration works well for Europe
and Japan (besides that they don't have much choice, owing to land short-
age) is that they do a much bener job of recycling than Americans. "Right
now, 70 percent of the ash coming out of U.S incinerators is glass and
metal," points out the NRDC's Hershkowitz. Plastics, he adds, are saturat-
ed with heavy metals and chloride. Aren't these the three recyclables, he
observes, that Bloomberg wanted to suspend from the city's recycling pro-
gram to save money? (During last-minute budget negotiations, Bloomberg
agreed not to cut metal recycling; the Sanitation department promises to
resume recycling of plastic in July of next year, and glass the year afrer that.)
Many of those who champion incineration agree that the debate
would be much less toxic if America emulated Europe and Japan and
took the recyclables out of its waste scream. Japan may burn 74.5 per-
cent of its waste, but we generate almost twice as much garbage as it
does-about .S tons per capita every year.
But if the toxins don't end up in the ash, it means there's an even worse
problem: emissions. Stricter air pollution comrols result in a more toxic
ash, which then has to be landfilled-and which can then blowout into
the air or leak into the water like any other toxic substance in a landfill.
Cohen and others argue that the emissions from American incinerators
have dropped significancly in recent years. The latest EPA measurements
on incineration show that some of the worst toxic emissions from inciner-
ators--dioxin and mercury, for example-have fallen by more than 95
percent since 1990, when higher pollution controls were put in place.
"There's no question that the technology is better than 10 or 20 years
ago, but it's more complicated than that," says Marjorie Clarke, an envi-
ronmental consultant and scientist in residence at Lehman College. For
starters, Europe and Japan have much better standards for air emissions
and ash management than the U.S., she says, adding that the EPA's stan-
dards of measurement make it hard to accurately gauge the actual emis-
sions output from U.S.-operated incinerators. "The EPA doesn't measure
the emissions during startup, shutdown, and malfunction," says Clarke.
"And this is precisely when the worst emissions of dioxin and mercury
occur." A 2000 report by the National Research Council, which Clarke
worked on, cautioned that more research was needed to evaluate the pub-
lic health risks of incinerators. It also cited studies that showed workers at
municipal waste incinerators had been exposed to high concentrations of
dioxins and toxic metals, particularly lead, cadmium, and mercury.
Some of the strongest statements against municipal incinerators come
from the very people who are fighting landfills. "Yes, I'm quite aware of
how bad landfills can be," says Leslie Lowe, an attorney who specializes
in environmental law and is fighting the development of a landfill in
Throgs Neck. "Yet they don't produce the most toxic substance known
to man on a daily basis. Yes, methane is bad. But that's a small problem
compared to the mountain of dioxins that we'd be creating every single
day of every single year that New York City produces garbage."
EVEN IN PENNSYLVANIA, Wurth has "uner disdain" for the idea that
incinerators can solve New York's trash inequities. ''As much as I hate you
guys dumping the trash in the ground," he says, "if the two choices are
the very unsatisfactory landfill, or the even more unsatisfactory inciner-
ator, then I guess that's what you do."
But he also calls the choice between burning or burying a "bogus
argument." Wurth and other environmentalists recommend the kind of
prevention-based solutions to reduce trash that are widely used in Euro-
pean countries. Those include separation of trash by consumers, legisla-
tion requiring manufacturers to pay for recycling their products, and
"closed-loop systems" that return toxic materials to manufacturers.
CITY LIMITS
On the local front, some suggest pay-to-throw systems, where residents
would be charged by the bag in much the same way that businesses are.
Others recommend bans on certain items that take up space in landfills. In
a recent report, the New York Ciry Waste Prevention Coalition calculated
that the ciry could save $10 million simply by prohibiting grass clippings.
"I think the first thing the mayor should do tomorrow morning, just
to show that we're serious, is sign an executive order saying, 'We're not
going to pick up grass clippings anymore,'" said Benjamin Miller, author
of the local trash history Fat of the Land, at a recent forum at the Milano
Graduate School on New York's garbage crisis. Once the director of pol-
icy planning for the New York Ciry Department of Sanitation, Miller is
now a research consultant for Themelis' program at Columbia Univer-
siry (and also a proponent of incineration) .
Ciry officials claim-with much justification-that it would be hard
to get elected officials to line up behind such regulations. "The realiry of
it is there are problems: A lot of people like a nice green lawn, " respond-
ed Sanitation Commissioner John Doherry at the same forum, pointing
out that green alternatives like mulching mowers might not satisfY sin-
gle-family homeowners. "So there are issues there. What do the people
really want to do? The politicians reflect what their constituents say. "
Tma Filiato is hoping to convince local pols that in north Brooklyn, at
least, people do want to cut down on what they throw away. "We under-
stand why we need to use less garbage," she says. "We have a different per-
spective than other parts of the city." Filiato has applied for grant money to
fund a small-scale waste prevention and education program within
Williamsburg, focusing on glass recycling, composting, and disposal of
goods like clothing and furnirure through charmels outside the waste
stream. Filiato is hoping it can influence ciry policy: If the project is suc-
cessful, her group intends to take it to ciry officials as proof that there's
political will to reduce and recycle.
If they're wrong, and New York's garbage keeps mounting, the future
may well lead to the maws of incinerators. Both Bloomberg and Doher-
ry have suggested that New York's reprieve from incinerators is only tem-
porary. "Waste-to-energy is still a vision for the furure of solid waste, and
yes, in a non-election year, I can see it being put forward," says Vito
Turso, a spokesman for the Department of Sanitation.
In August, Cohen wrote an editorial in the New }Ork Times advocating
that New York Ciry and state offer host-communiry-sryle economic deals to
"depressed localities" upstate that agree to host incinerators. It's not unprece-
dented: Economically devastated Niagara Falls now has one of the the
biggest waste-to-energy incinerators in the country. At the end of the day,
maintains Cohen, "waste-to-energy will happen. It's only a matter of time. "
Maybe, maybe not. There is one thing that Mayor Bloomberg said
about New York's little garbage disposal problem last spring-before he set-
tled on his marine transfer station plan-that sticks with me to this day: "It
is controversial no matter how you send it, no matter whether you get it
onto barges or onto trains or incinerators, whatever you decide to do with
it. There's no good solution to the solid waste problem we have today."
Now that I've followed my garbage to its final resting place, I might
amend that and say that there seems to be "no good solution" that is fair
to everyone. Pick your poison: burn it or bury it. I think I'm going to
hold off until someone can convince me of the fairest solution. Not the
most economical, or convenient, or practical, but the fairest. "There's
got to be a better way," says Wurth, "than dumping landfills on poor
rural people or incinerators on poor urban people. "
In the meantime, I can't bring myself to throwaway the plastic gift
bag that Hambrose gave me. It's not that I consider the Waste Manage-
ment sunglasses and coloring book too amusing to part with; there's a
part of me that would like nothing more than to see them mashed to
pulp and buried deep in the earth. But I just don't have the heart to put
them out with my trash. I know where they would end up .
Keith Kloor is a senior editor at Audubon magazine.
NOVEMBER 2002
ADVERTISE IN
CITY
LIMITS!
To place a classified ad in
City Limits, e-mail your ad to
advertise@citylimits.org or fax
your ad to 212-479-3339. The
ad will run in the City Limits
Weekly and City Limits mag-
azine and on the City Limits
web site. Rates are $1.46 per
word, minimum 40 words.
Special event and professional
directory advertising rates are
also available. For more infor-
mation, check out the Jobs
section of www.citylimits.org
or call Associate Publisher
Susan Harris at
212-479-3345.
ANNOUNCEMENT
The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School
of Law is conducting a survey to document
whether New York provides an adequate safety
net for displaced workers and their families. If
you are currently unemployed, working reduced
hours, or have been unemployed at some point
during the past two years, please take 10 to 15
minutes to fill out this survey online at
httpj/www.brennancenter.org/programs/uU
urvey.html. The results of the survey will be
used to help identify ways to improve New
York's unemployment insurance system.
RFPs
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL - The Faith Fund
for Community Development is a $1 million
dollar loan pool available to fund certain pre-
development and initial capital needs for pro-
jects undertaken by faith-based Community
Development Corporations (CDCs) . Funds are
available at an interest rate of 6%. If you are
contemplating a real estate development pro-
ject, but are in need of funds for land acquisi-
tion, appraisals, attorney's fee, market, envi-
ronmental or feasibility studies or other pre-
development needs, we would like to talk to
you. Applications are accepted on a rolling
basis, as funds are available. Applications
received by October 15 and approved by
November 15, would be eligible to close by
December 31, 2002. To receive a copy of the
RFP, which provides more detail about the
fund, the sponsors and eligibil ity requirement ,
please call Sondra Ford, Faith Center For Com-
munity Development 212-785-2782 or email
at sford@fccd.org
JOBADS
RENTALSPACE
OFFICE SPACE - Non-profit service agency
seeks non-profit partner to share or sublet
excellent Office Space in downtowniWall Street
area. 3,000 - 5,000 sq. ft. available, 24n
building with lobby attendant, close to all
major subways, rent very reasonable, wrc relo-
cation grant may be available. Interested
agencies please call 212-349-6009, ext.
240,243 or email: bruce@sffny.org.
OFFICE SPACE - non-profit social service
agency seeks partner to share office space in
Wall Street area; 24n lobby. close to all major
subways, $16-$20 per sq.foot, up to 6,000 sq.
feet. If interested, please email to
BAlieborn@sffny.org.
OFFICE SPACE - Downtown Brooklyn Avail-
able Immediately. Over 8,000 square feet St.
Ann and the Holy Trinity Parish House, 157 Mon-
tague St. Bus. Dist. Subdividable; Nonprofit
only. suitable for classrooms, conference center,
administrative offices; Access from all major
subways; Term: 2 to 3 years; Rent: $15-$20 per
sq ft, net Contact: Gregory Eaton 718-875-6960
SPACE WANTED - NYUP & JWJ seek a short-
term lease or sublease in Manhattan or Brook-
lyn. Willing to share or take on temporary
space. Contact Jonathan Rosen at
jdr241@nyu.edu or 212-625-0288.
JOBADS
AMERICORPSVISTA - Bronx CDC specializ-
ing in affordable housing, employment ser-
vices, youth programs, real estate develop-
ment & asset building programs seeks 3 vista
members. Vista compensation includes a liv-
ing stipend & education award to be used for
student loans or post-secondary education.
other benefits included. Please call Brenda D.
Jones, VISTA Coordinator, at 718-294-4319, ext
12 for more information about the VISTA pro-
gram & job descriptions for the Work Internship
& Community Development Coordinators as
well as Youth Outreach & Resource Specialist.
ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER - Queens eco-
nomic development organization. Professional
management experience (2 years, some col-
lege), multiple tasks in setting with diverse
staff & program. Handles office, customer ser-
vice, events, accounts payable. Attention to
detail, organized, sets own priorities. Bi-lin-
gual ability an asset. Salary commensurate
with experience. Good benefits. Send resume,
cover letter by fax to: Director 718-263-0594 or
e-mail mn@queensny.org.
ASSOCIATE PROGRAM DIRECTOR - to imple-
ment programs and to oversee the CHOICES
College & Career Counseling Program. A col-
lege degree (BA or BS) is mandatory; a mas-
ter's degree is preferred. Experience in educa-
tion, social services, and/or community devel-
opment is necessary. Candidate must have
familiarity with the college application and
financial aid process. Salaries are competi-
tive, commensurate with experience. Excellent
41
JOB ADS
opportunities for ambitious sel f-starters.
SRCO is an equal opportunity employer. Please
fax or mail a cover letter and resume to St.
Raymond Community Outreach, Inc., 1720
Metropolitan Avenue, Bronx, NY 10462. Fax
718-824-0532 *No phone calls, please!! *
ASSOCIATE DIVISION DIRECTOR - SRO Expe-
rienced professional needed for the position of
Associate Division Director for Single Room
Occupancies Residences in the Housing Divi-
sion. We provide permanent and transitional
housing with comprehensive services to home-
less and formerly homeless persons, with the
goal of achieving greater independence and
reintegration into the community. The Associ-
ate Division Director is responsible for manag-
ing the coordination of 5 supportive housing
residences in Manhattan and the Bronx and a
Supportive Employment program. Serves on
committees, oversees rental collection, bud-
gets and spending plans, supervises program
directors and advises them on management
issues, assists in wri ting RFP's and developing
funding, manages program services, facilities
and personnel, fiscal operations, community
and governmental relations develops and mar-
kets program services. Requirements include
Bachelor's degree with minimum of five years
experience with at least two years supervisory
capacity. Masters degree in related field
strongly preferred. Must have excellent com-
munications skills, and ability to work with
others on group tasks. Must be creative in
developing strategies, highly organized and
responsive to work deadlines. Must have
strong supervisory and budget oversight expe-
rience and be familiar with principles of hous-
ing, homeless ness, HIVIAIDS, substance abuse
and mental illness. E-Mail resume to
voa@rezkeeper.com.
ASSISTANT EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Chal-
lenging opportunity for creative & dedicated
professional to be involved in management of
daily operations for transitional housing facil-
ity for homeless families loc in Brooklyn.
Supervision of all program services include
contracted service providers. Successful can-
didate will handle program development,
quality assurance & ensuring compliance
w/city & state regulatory agency requirements.
MSW preferred, MA in related field necessary.
Five (5) yrs mgmt exp preferably in residential
setting. Must be computer lit. Bilingual H.
Salary starts low $50's. Resumes for Asst Exec
Dir. should be forwarded to: Nancy Nunziata,
Executive Director at fax 718-485-5916. EOE.
A drug-free workplace.
ACCOUNTANT - Latino NYC non-profit seeks
Accountant to assist Comptroller. Minimum 3-
5 years hands-on experience in both the non-
profit and for-profit areas. Must be familiar
with Fund EZ. Salary flexible depending upon
experience. Excellent fringe benefit package.
Fax resume to 212-685-2349 or 212-689-
5034 or mail to: NPRF, 31 East 32nd Street, 4th
FI , NYC 10016.
ACCOUNTANT - Not-far-Profit organization is
seeking an experienced Accountant with
accounting degree BBA or BS with experience
with NY State & NYC Funded Programs,
42
monthly vouchering, and budget variances,
bank Recs. Knowledge a must. Computer liter-
ate with Fund "E-Z" software knowledge a
plus. Working experience with Excel and Lotus
1-2-3 essential. Salary commensurate with
experience. Fax resume to 718-852-0706 or
mail to: BVSJ, Inc., 665 Willoughby Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11206.
ASST. BOOKKEEPERIFINANCE CLERK - Not-
for-Profit organization is seeking an experience
Asst. BookkeeperlFinance Clerk. with experi-
ence of finance clerical job, filing, cali/mes-
sage receiving knowledge a must. Computer
literate with Fund "E_Z" software knowledge a
plus. Working experience with MS Word, Excel
and Lotus 1-2-3 essential. Salary commensu-
rate with experience. Fax resume to 718-852-
0706 or mail to: BVSJ, Inc., 665 Willoughby
Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - Small non-
profit needs Administrative Assistant for cor-
porate office. Some knowledge of finance,
insurance, payroll and benefits required. Must
possess excellent written and oral communi-
cation skills. Strong Word, Excel & Access. Col-
lege preferred. Fax cover letter, resume and
salary requirements to 646-742-1468.
ADVOCATE/ORGANIZER - DIHR is seeking a
militant, activist advocate/organizer who will
strengthen and expand our work to build part-
nerships and coalitions with parents/parent
groups, providers of services, community
groups, legal organizations, concerned profes-
sionals, and disenfranchised and minority
communities. Objectives: social change, social
justice, equity and empowerment of adults
with developmental disabilities and their fam-
ilies. Qualifications: 1-2 years in community
organizing; coalition building and outreach
skills; ability to communicate in Spanish and
English is desirable; knowledge of the develop-
mentally disabled social service system is
helpful. Contact person: Dr. Robert Schwartz,
Email dihrny@aol.com or mail to: DIHR, 891
Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10025. Fax
212-665-7104.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - Non-profit
organization seeks Administrative Assistant
for after school program at a 1200-student
junior high school. Qualifications: Must pos-
sess excellent written and oral communication
skills. Strong Word, Excel & Publisher. College
education. Bilingual: English and fluent Span-
ish preferred. 2yr. office experience and work-
ing with children. Fax resume to 212-420-
0085 or e-mail toconnelycaraballo@aol.com.
AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAM DIRECTOR -
Oversee all aspects of after-school program
serving over 200 elementary school children.
Recruit, hire and supervise staff wIProgram
Asst. (FIT). Insure staff training. Program Site:
Ave D & E. Houston Res: Dev & Plan curricu-
lum/activities and budget; reporting require-
ments; program compliance. Serve as liaison
w/principal and partnering agencies. Qual :
BAIMA and related experience with public
school population a must. Arts in Ed back-
ground; understanding of multi-cultural
issues; bil-spanish preferred. Sal : BOE / EOE
Fax/Email Resume Attn: Rachel Breitman. E-
mail :gladysrosenblum@aol.com. Fax 212-
473-5462
ACCOUNTING COORDINATOR - Supervise
staff accounting activities and oversight of
program compliance with accounting policies
and procedures. This individual is also
responsible for monthly, quarterly and annual
contract vouchering, completing monthly bank
reconCiliations, performing and oversight of
internal audit program. Reqs: BA in Account-
ing, Business Administration, Finance or relat-
ed field. A minimum of 3 years experience in
non-profit accounting, budgeting or finance
required. Thorough knowledge of GAAP;
demonstrated skills in and experience with,
database and spreadsheet software as well as
automated accounting software. Salary:
$46,459. Benefits: Compo bnfts incl
$65/month in transit checks. Send resumes
and cover letters ASAP' to: Kathleen McDer-
matt, CUCS Administrative Offices, 120 Wall
Street, 25IFL, New York, NY 10005. Fax 212-
801-2356. The Center for Urban Community
Services (CUCS) is a nationally recognized not-
for-profit providing services to homeless and
special needs individuals. CUCS is committed
to workforce diversity. EEO
ACCOUNTING MANAGER - Supervise all
accounting functions for the agency including
accounts payable and receivable, audits, and
contract vouchering activity. Develop and
implement accounting policies and procedure.
Ensure compliance with GAAP and FASB
requirements. Maintain agency's general
ledger and automated accounting software.
Reqs: Masters degree or CPA preferred. Bach-
elors degree in Accounting, Finance, Business
Administration or related field required. Mini-
mum of 7 years direct experience (5 years must
be post-masters exp) in area of non-profit
accounting. Knowledge of accounting soft-
ware required; knowledge of American Fund-
ware required. Demonstrated analytic and
problem solving skills. Salary: $70,000. Ben-
efits: camp. bnfts incl $65/month in transit
checks. Send resumes and cover letters ASAP
to: Kathleen McDermott, CUCS Administrative
Offices, 120 Wall Street, 25/FL, New York, NY
10005. Fax 212-801-2356. The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS) is a nation-
ally recognized not-far-profit providing ser-
vices to homeless and special needs individu-
als. CUCS is committed to workforce diversity.
EEO
ASSISTANT TO DIRECTOR - Fifth Avenue
Committee, a leading Brooklyn CDC, seeks FIT
individual to assist executive director with a
range of managerial , programmatic, and
administrative tasks. Responsibilities:
Research, writing, and special projects. Coor-
dinate meetings and follow-up. Enhance inte-
gration through tracking organizational perfor-
mance, joint program planning, communi ca-
tions, and mgt systems. Qualifications: Pro-
ject mgt experience in related field. Excellent
communication and research skills. Self-
starter. Exp. w/not-for-profit organizational
development. Strong commitment to FAC's
mission. Salary commensurate w/experience.
AAlEOE. Letter, salary req's, & resume to Brad
Lander, FAC, 141 Fifth Ave, Bklyn, NY 11217,
blander@fifthave.org, or fax to 718-857-4322.
More info at www.fifthave.org
ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, ADVOCACY -
Planned Parenthood of New York City, Inc, a
leader in reproductive health care, domestic
and international education programs and
advocacy, for over 84 years, seeks an Associate
Vice President, Advocacy. Reporting to the Vice
President, Public Affairs, directs and supports
the Policy development staff in identifying
public and private policy issues that impact on
reproductive freedom and health care; and
developing plans to activate a grassroots con-
stituency, educate opinion leaders and lobby,
monitor and influence such policies. Responsi-
ble for the day-to-day operations of the Advo-
cacy Division of the Public Affairs Department
including developing the division's yearly busi-
ness plan and budget and overseeing the
implementation of such plan. The ideal appli-
cant must have a strong commitment to
PPNYC's mission, a demonstrated capacity to
affect public policy and be a strong manager
with excellent human relations and communi-
cation ski ll s. Also requires a track record of
accomplishments in advocacy, lobbying or
political communications and requires excel-
lent writing skills. Knowledge of reproductive
health care preferred. Master's Degree or JD
preferred with 5 - 7 year's experience in a
senior management position is also required.
Candidates should be motivated by and enjoy
working in a fast-paced and fluid environ-
ment. Applicants should fax cover letter and
resume to Assistant Director, Human
Resources at 212-274-7243. Planned Parent-
hood of NYC, Inc is committed to a diverse
workforce: women and minorities are encour-
aged to apply. For more information on our pro-
grams and services, please visit us on the web
at www.ppnyc.org
ASSISTANT WEEKDAY COORDINATOR -
Yorkville Common Pantry seeks staff for our
new 24 hour 7 day week East Harlem based
emergency food program. We value & seek a
diverse workforce for: Assistant Weekday Coor-
dinator. Assists the Project Coordinator with
the above-mentioned duties. In addition this
person will be the intake point for all evening
referrals. EOE. Resumes: Hester Old Sullivan,
Deputy Executive Director for Programs, YCP, 8
East lO9th Street, NY, NY 10029.
ASSI STANT DI RECTOR - City Wide Task Force
on Housing Court is a nonprofit organization
providing legal information and referrals to
unrepresented litigants with landlordltenant
issues at information tables in NYC's Housing
Courts and through a telephone hotline, train-
ings to community organizations and advocat-
ing on issues related to justice in Housing
Court. Assistant Director responsibil ities:
Supervise staff of 14 at 7 locations throughout
the city, assist with preparing programmatic
and grant reports, and other administrative
documents. Assist with developing policy pro-
posals and implementation of citywide orga-
nizing efforts related to the Task Force mission
of justice for unrepresented litigants in Hous-
ing Court. Requires regular travel within all
five boroughs. Minimum requirements: Mas-
CITY LIMITS
ter's degree and one year supervisory experi-
ence or BA and 4 years supervisory experience.
Knowledge of NYC housing issues important.
Excellent written and verbal communication
skills and ability to work in a team atmos-
phere. Salary: $35,000 - $40,000 based on
experience, with excellent benefits. Non-union
position. To apply, send resume and cover let-
ter to City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court,
29 John Street, Suite 1004, New York, NY
10038. Att: HR Department, Fax 212-962-
4799, email info@CWTFHC.org.
BOOKKEEPER - EI Puente, a not-for-profit
CBO located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is seek-
ing a full time Bookkeeper to join their fiscal
office. The position involves the day-to day
allocation and tracking of programmatic and
core expenses using spreadsheet and Fund EZ
accounting software under the supervision of
the Fiscal Director. The position includes the
processing of all GJ, GIL and TIB transactions,
monthly bank reconciliation's and the prepara-
tion of source documents for funding agency
audits. In Addition The Bookkeeper is responsi-
ble for the preparation of monthly and quarter-
ly expense reports to funding agencies. Ideal
candidates should have completed at least 2
years of Accounting coursework, have two
years or more of not-for-profit Fund Accounting
experience and well versed in Microsoft Excel
and Microsoft Word. Attention to details, abili-
ty to organize and problem solve is Necessary.
The salary range is from high 20K to mid 30K
commensurate upon experience with health
(including dental) and life insurance benefits.
Individuals with Spanish proficiency strongly
urged to apply. Interested candidates should
send a resume with cover letter to EL Puente
attention Joe Colon, Fiscal Director at 211
South 4th St, Brooklyn NY 11211 or email at
eerf02@aol.com or fax 718-387-6816.
BUSINESS COUNSELOR AND TRAINER - The
Hunts Point EDC's Women Business Resource
Center is a Non-Profit providing technical sup-
port and assistance to small businesses. The
Business Counselor and Trainer will report to
the Director of the Women's Business Resource
Center. Responsible for providing business
counseling, technical assistance and entre-
preneurial training to those looking to start or
expand their own business, one-on-one busi-
ness counseling. BAIBS and 3 years experience
as a business counselor in an economic devel-
opment program. Varied background in busi-
ness, economic development, business train-
ing, marketing or community development
required. Must be bilingual in English and
Spanish. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence. Health benefits available. Mail resume
and cover letter to Hunts Point Economic
Development 355 Food Center Drive, C-104
Bronx, New York 10474 Attn: Josephine Infante.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - SAGE (Senior
Action in a Gay Environment), the nation's
largest/oldest community based service and
advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexu-
al and transgender seniors, seeks a Communi-
ty Organizer for community building work to
expand our services into Upper Manhattan,
Harlem and the Bronx. The work includes
developing strategies to increase participation
NOVEMBER 2002
of LGBT people of color and women in SAGE
and in building neighborhood-based projects.
Excellent verbal, written, computer skills,
dynamic self starter, broad experience in out-
reach and community organizing and working
in diverse communities. Desirable: Spanish
speaker, experience working with older LGBT
communities, being an older LGBT person.
Send resume and cover letter to SAGE, 305 7th
Avenue, NYC, 10001, att: Sandy Kern, or fax to
212-366-1947. No calls please.
CENTER DIRECTORS - Responsibilities:
mgmt, coordination of all clinical operational
functions. Min BAIBS in public health admin-
istration or related field; 3 yrs expo in primary
cared admin; strong verbal/written communi -
cation skills & managerial bkgrnd req'd Knowl-
edge of Spanish a +. Position avail. in our
Bronx center We offer competitive salaries and
bnfts. package Please send resume to VP of
Human Resources, Community Healthcare
Network 184th Avenue 2nd fir. NY, NY 10010,
Fax 212-807-0250. www.chnnyc.org EOE
MfF/DNlM. No phone calls please.
CASE MANAGER - Social services agency
looking for bilingual Case Manager to assist
women to various appointments and translate
for them. Also assist with community educa-
tion and provide office coverage. Proficient in
Mandarin and/or Cantonese. Fax resume to
212-587-5731 or email to
Julian_nyawc@yahoo.com.
COMMUNITY LIAISON - Councilman G. Oliver
Koppell (D-Bronx) is seeking to hire a Commu-
nity liaison to handle constituent cases, com-
munity outreach- particularly in the Hispanic
community, and related duties in a fast-paced
office. Responsibilities are as follows: help
process incoming constituent correspondence
and phone calls; compose letters to con-
stituents; do follow-up casework; and repre-
sent the interests of the Councilman through
interaction with community leaders and par-
ticipation in community boards and other local
groups. Bronx resident preferred. Casework
experience is preferred, but not required. Flu-
ency in Spanish is required. Looking for cre-
ativity, excellent communication skills, and an
ability to work under pressure. Salary: $33,000.
If interested, please send cover letter, resume
and writing sample via fax to 718-549-9945,
or email tom11frank@council.nyc.ny.us
CASE MANAGER - The Center for Urban Com-
munity Services (CUCS) is recruiting for the
following position at the Transitional living
Community, a successful mental health and
housing placement program in SoHo. Respon-
sibilites: case management; individual &
group services; & crisis intervention. Reqs: HS
or equivalent. 1 year direct experience in men-
tal health or housing placement; & good verbal
and written communication skills; & computer
literacy. BA, Bilingual Spanish/English pre-
ferred. Salary: $25,644. Benefits: compo Bene-
fits include $65/month in transit checks. Send
resumes and cover letters to: Trace Rosel ,
CUCS/350 Lafayette TLC, 350 Lafayette St. ,
New York, NY 10012. Fax 212-674-6540,
Email: tlchire@cucs.org. CUCS is committed
to workforce diversity. EEO.
CLINICAL COORDINATOR - The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS) is recruit-
ing for the following position at the Transition-
al living Community, a model housing place-
ment program for homeless women with men-
tal illness. Services include shelter for 40
women, comprehensive case management,
group treatment, on-site psychiatric and med-
ical services, and housing placement. Rep:
Supervise day team, provide clinical services
to individuals, crisis intervention, oversee
group treatment activities, and participate in
program development and quality assurance
activities. Reqs: CSW; 3 years post-masters
direct service experience with the populations
served by the program, 1 year supervisory
experience, good written and verbal communi-
cation skills, and computer literacy. Bilingual
SpanishlEnglish preferred. Salary: $46,459.
Benefits: compo Bnfts incl $65/month in tran-
sit checks. Send resumes and cover letters to:
Julie Lorenzo, CUCS/350 Lafayette TLC, 350
Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012. Fax: 212-
674-6540, Email: tlchire@cucs.org. CUCS is
committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
CONTRACT ADMINISTRATORS - Doctors
Council , SEIU Local 10MD, has 2 openings for
Contract Administrators. Doctors Council,
established in 1973, affiliated with SEIU in
1999. Represents approximately 2,500 Attend-
ing Doctors in collective bargaining in both the
public and private sectors in and around the
New York City region. The duties of the Contract
Administrator include handling grievances,
arbitration and negotiation preparation, and
all aspects of membership development.
Excellent verbal and written communication
skills are required. Ability to work in a team
atmosphere. Minimum of 3 years experience in
the labor movement is preferred. Salary is
commensurate with experience. Excellent ben-
efits including paid health insurance and pen-
sion. Send Cover Letter, Resume and Salary
Requirements to Renee Campion, Director of
Contract Administration at 21 East
40th Street, 8th floor, NYC 10016,
fax 212-481-4137 or e-mail to
rcampion@doctorscouncil.com
CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER - Early Childhood
Program. Coordinate & process intakes for our
ACD funded program as well as submit the
required paperwork. Organize & run the Parent
Advisory Committee. Establish & maintain an
ongoing relationship w/parents. Coordinate
trips & make unit visits as nec' Maintain close
relationships with staff & children & assist the
Director as needed. Requirements: Bachelor's
degree in Social Work nec' Must have exp in
processing Agency for Child Development
(ACD) paperwork. Previous exp working
w/adults & children req'd. Salary starts in low
$20's, but is based on education & expo Send
resumes to: Ruth Freeman, HELP Bronx Morris,
285 East 171 St. Bronx, NY 10457, via fax
at 718-583-9085 or via email at
rfreeman@helpusa.org.
COMMUNITY COORDINATOR - local govern-
ment agency seeks liaison to community
JOBADS
boards and community organizations. Respon-
sibilities include effective outreach, technical
assistance, monitoring of local issues, and
participation in public events. NYC residency,
excellent writing, interpersonal and public
speaking skills, BAIBS degree, three years of
community affairs experience and drivers
license required. Knowledge of city govern-
ment, community boards and neighborhoods
in the borough of Brooklyn a plus. Salary mid to
high 30's. Send resume, writing sample and
salary history fax 718-802-2655
CASE MANAGER - MSWIBSW with Human
Services & Exp with seniors preferred.
Assess/plan & coordinate services to home-
bound elderly in community-based agency.
Challenging, rewarding work. Salary
$30,000+. Resume to: Betsy Tuft, Director, Pro-
ject life, 312 E. 109th St. New York, NY 10029
CASE MANAGERS - Candidates should have
a Bachelors degree in Human Services or a
Human Service related field: including Social
Work, Psychology, Nursing, Community Mental
Health or Child and Family Services with two
years of experience in providing direct services
to homeless, mentally ill clients with sub-
stance abuse problems, or in linking mentally
ill clients to a broad range of services. Must be
computer literate. Fax resume to BVSJ 718-
935-1629.
COMMUNITY MAPPING AND TRANSPORTATION
ADVOCATE - NYCEJA, New York's foremost
citywide environmental justice nonprofit, seeks
community-oriented advocate for
GeographylTransportation position. Tasks:
assist CBOs to map environmental concerns,
land use, etc.; advocate for cleaner public and
freight transportation; work with CBOs and
staff to advocate for environment in low-
income NYC areas. Qual ifications: organizing
experience; familiarity with GIS software, NYC
politics, strong written and oral communica-
tion skills preferred; Spanish helpful. $35k
plus benefits. Email resume and letter to
jobs@nyceja.org; fax to 212-239-2838; or mail
to GeographylTransport, NYCEJA, 115 W 30 St.,
#709, NY NY 10001.
CANVASS DIRECTOR - Salt Lake City based
SUWA seeks a full-time Canvass Director for its
campaign to protect America's Redrock Wilder-
ness. Canvass management experience
required. Base salary plus fund raising bonus-
es. Good benefits. Travel required. Start date
Fall 2002. Send resume & cover letter to Dave
Pacheco, c/o SUWA, 122 C Street NW #240,
Washington, DC 20001 or dave@suwa.org.
Deadline ASAP.
COORDINATOR - NYC Child Care Resource
and Referral Consortium seeking a Coordinator
for InfantIToddlerTech. Ass. Res. Center: a pro-
gram of 5 NYC based CCR&R agencies - at
Child Care, Inc. , Fall 2002. Infantltoddler
training 3-5 days per week. Excellent writing
and communication skills, experience manag-
ing complex projects with multiple partners,
demonstrated expertise in infantltoddler dev,
project management and program dev, docu-
mented experience in design and delivery of
43
JOB ADS
training to early chi ldhood service providers-
including those serving infants, toddlers,
home-based providers. Master's Degree -
Early Childhood or related field. Send resume
to Child Care, Inc., 275 7th Ave. 15th FI., N.Y. ,
N.Y. 10001 Fax 212-929-5785 attn: ED. Email:
i nfo@childcareinc.org.
CASE MANAGER - FOIA provides transitional
services to youth coming out of Riker's Island
and Juvenile Detention. A Case Management
position is available with our Adolescent Link
Program. Responsibilities: Assessment, refer-
rals and monitoring youth with MH needs ages
11-17. Requirements: BA & 3 years in the field;
knowledge of MH system; bi-lingual a must.
salary low-mid 30's. Fax resume, cover letter to
212-760-0766, ATTN: Laura Clift
CASEWORKER - The Bridge Fund of New York
City seeks experienced caseworker for unique
eviction program. A good understanding of
housing court proceedings and government
benefits is required. Also, strong writing and
computer skills and Bachelor's degree. Salary
commensurate with experience. Fax cover let-
ter and resume to 212-674-0542.
CAMPAIGN MANAGER - Tenants & Neighbors
seeks full-time staff person to manage cam-
paign to renew state rent laws in June 2003.
Ideal candidate is an experienced organizer
with good understanding of state and local
politics. Salary commensurate with experience.
Send orfax resume / cover letter to: Joe Heaphy,
Tenants & Neighbors, 105 Washington Street,
NYC 10006. Fax: 212-619-7476.
CLIENT ADVOCATE - Little Sisters of the
Assumption Family Health Service, a multi-
service community-based agency, seeks a full-
time Client Advocate for Advocacy
ProgramlFood Pantry. Conduct intake inter-
views, assess clients' needs, distribute gro-
ceries from food pantry, educate and advocate
for clients regarding benefits and entitle-
ments, make referrals for necessary services.
Some administrative duties. Challenging, var-
ied, rewarding work with families of East
Harlem in supportive environment. Bachelor's
degree preferred; bilingual (SpanishlEnglish)
required. Also necessary: excellent interperson-
al skills, basic computer literacy, good writing
skills and passion for social justice. Salary
starts in high $20's, good benefits. Send
resume and cover letter to: Lucia Russett,
LSAFHS, 417 E. 119th St., New York, NY 10035;
fax 212-987-4430.
COORDINATOR OF WORKFORCE DEVELOP-
MENT - Midtown Community Court. BA and
organizational skills required. Experience with
the ex-offender population, workforce develop-
ment, and management preferred. Start ASAP.
Responsibilities include but are not limited to:
oversee and meet the goals of limes Square
Ink, the innovative on-site employment and
placement program; implement performance-
based contracts (from City, State and private
foundations) ; develop job development strate-
gies and new employer contacts; coordinate
retention activities; report program's outcomes
to funding agencies; and supervise and hire
44
program staff. See www.courtinnovation.org
for more information. Email resume and cover
letter to atolosa@courts.state.ny.us or fax to
212-586-1144. DOE.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER TRAINEE - Grass-
roots membership organization seeks individ-
ual committed to social and economic change.
Participants are required to recruit members,
register people to vote and complete surveys at
welfare centers and shelters. Must be willi ng to
travel around the city and work collectively and
independently. Bi-lingual Spanish speakers,
Women, young people of color, and GLBT com-
munity members strongly encouraged to apply.
Please fax resume, three (3) references and
cover letter to Community Voices Heard 170 E.
116th St. Suite IE, NY NY 10029 or Fax 212-
996-9481.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT - Join staff of Parent Action
Committee, an innovative grassroots organiz-
ing project in Southwest Bronx, focused on
improving failing schools of District 9. Salary:
High 20s - low 30s, DOE. FT, comprehensive
benefits. Requirements: 2 years' experience as
C.O. B.A. or M.S.w. preferred. More info:!new
settlement. Send letter, resume and list of 3
references to Job Search, New Settlement
Apartments, 1512 Townsend Avenue, Bronx, NY
10452. Fax: 718-294-4085. EEO/M.
CoNSULTANTSITRAINERS - needed to work
with non-profit organizations throughout the
Metropolitan Area. Experience conducting
workshops a plus. Full-time availability a
must. MSW or equivalent required. Men and
Women encourage to apply. Please call 917-
815-0679 or email todyconr@aol.com.
COMPUTER LAB FACILITATOR - EI Puente, a
holistic learning and development institution,
is looking for a Computer Lab Facilitator for its
Bushwick Center. The organization's mission is
to inspire and nurture leadership for peace and
justice. The Computer Lab Facilitator is
responsible for management and coordination
of our computer lab, including, but not limited
to, program planning and design, acquisition
of appropriate software and hardware, as well
as basic and advanced computer training.
Qualifications: Knowledge of Internet technolo-
gies, PC hardware and software, peripheral
devices, graphic applications, and networking.
Position requires: Two years experience in com-
munity youth organizing and/or other related
fields; demonstrated commitment to and expe-
rience in community youth development,
human rights, and social justice issues; bilin-
gual (English and Spanish); Bachelor degree
preferred. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence. Please send resume to: Arnalda Sim6,
Co-Director, EI Puente Bushwick, 311 Central
Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11221 Fax (718) 919-
7586 Email aresimo@aol.com.
CASE MANAGERS - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit serving the Bronx for 30 years. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. The Jackson Family Res-
idence, a tier II shelter for homeless families,
seeks 3 Case Managers. The positions requi re
a B.S. degree. Responsibilities include case
management, advocacy, knowledge of entitle-
ments, referrals, good communication, organi-
zation, time management and computer skills.
Fax credentials to B. Lewis at 718-993-1249 or
email blewis@cabny.org. CAB is an equal
opportunity/affirmative action employer.
CHIEF OF STAFF - NYC Council Member with
offices in Queens and City Hall seeks Chief of
Staff with superior organizational , communi-
cation & computer skills. Experience in press
relations & legislation. Knowledge of environ-
mental issues a plus. BAIBS & 6 years experi-
ence or JD & 3 years experience. NYC residency
required. Include cover letter, resume & salary
history. Email application to:
Search66770@hotmail.com
CASE MANAGER - Case Manager for upper
Eastside settlement house. BAlBSW preferred
to work with homebound seniors. Salary high
$20s, good benefits. EOE. Resumes and cover
to Ms. W. Zinman, Lenox Hill Neighborhood
House, 331 East 70 Street, NYC 10021.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING & OUTREACH
COORDINATOR - West Harlem Environmental
Action (WE ACn is a dynamic non- profit envi-
ronmental justice organization that works to
improve environmental health and quality of
life in communities of color. WE ACT seeks a
strong organizer to be our Community Organiz-
ing & Outreach Coordinator. He/she will be
responsible for developing, organizing cam-
paigns with Northern Manhattan residents to
improve neighborhood environmental quality,
safeguard community health, and impact pub-
lic policy. Applicants should have a commit-
ment to improving the environment and to
issues of social and environmental justice. A
BAIBS degree or an equivalent of two (2) years
of organizing experience required, familiarity
with Northern Manhattan communities and
organizations, strong written and oral commu-
nication skills, bilingual (English & Spanish) is
a plus. Salary from $30,000 to $37,000 annu-
ally with paid medical and dental benefits and
pension plan. Only persons with serious orga-
nizing experience will be interviewed. To apply,
fax resume and cover letter to 212-961-1015
or e-mail Berlinda@weact.org. People of color
and Northern Manhattan residents are strong-
ly encouraged to apply. WE ACT is an equal
opportunity employer.
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR - West Harlem
Environmental Action, Inc. (WE ACn is a
dynamic non-profit organization based in
Northern Manhattan. Founded in 1988, WE ACT
works to improve environmental health and
quality of life and to secure environmental jus-
tice in communities of color. WE ACT seeks a
full-time creative, deadline-oriented develop-
ment director to work with the executive and
program directors in the planning, implemen-
tation and diversification of all aspects of
fundraising, including coordinating a Capital
Building Campaign, developing a donor base
and special events. The candidate must
demonstrate a track record with grant writing
for foundations, government, and corporate
funding sources, have a minimum of two years
experience in grant writing, and have knowl-
edge of local/national philanthropic communi-
ties. Knowledge of environmental or health
grant making preferred. Excellent, research,
writing, and organizational skills are required.
Facility with grants management software a
plus. Salary will commensurate with experi-
ence. Paid benefits. Submit resume, cover let-
ter, salary requirements plus two writing sam-
ples to Berlinda@weact.org or fax: to 212-
961-1015. WE ACT is an equal opportunity
employer.
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND PLANNING
DIRECTOR, CHOICES CAREER COUNSELING
PROGRAM - SRCO, a dynamic, growing orga-
nization in the Parkchester section of the
Bronx, is developing educational and youth-
focused programs. We seek a seasoned Direc-
tor of Programs and Planning to work with the
Executive Director to build organizational
capacity, oversee and implement programs,
and manage a growing professional staff.
Qualifications: College degree (BA or BS) is
mandatory; a master's degree or PhD is a plus.
Candidate must have substantial experience
in managing professional staff and experience
in one or more of the following fields: educa-
tion, youth leadership, community develop-
ment, philanthropy, or social services.
DIRECTOR, CHOICES CAREER COUNSELING
PROGRAM - SRCO, a dynamic, growing
organization in the Parkchester section of the
Bronx, is developing educational and youth-
focused programs. We seek a Director, Choic-
es Career Counseling Program to oversee and
expand this exciting new initiative. A college
degree (BA or BS) is mandatory; a master's
degree is preferred. Experience in education,
social services, and/or community develop-
ment is necessary. Candidate must have
familiarity in the college application and
financial aid process. Excellent interpersonal ,
oral , and communication skills are essential
for either position. Salaries are competitive.
Excellent opportunities for ambitious self-
starters. Please submit a cover letter and
resume to St. Raymond Community Outreach,
Inc. via fax 718-824-0532 or e- mail
SRCOCenter@aol.com. No Phone Calls, Please.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT - Brooklyn
Legal Services Corporation A (Brooklyn A) is
seeking a Director of Development to design,
expand and maintain fund raising and commu-
nications activities. Brooklyn A provides neigh-
borhood-based civil legal services to low-
income individuals, families, and community-
based organizations throughout North and
East Brooklyn. Its community-based programs
focus upon economic development, welfare
education and poverty law, homeless ness pre-
vention, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, senior
citizens, and more. The candidate will: Expand
Annual Fund giving; Research and write corpo-
rate and foundation grant proposals in con-
junction with program staff, and develop and
implement outreach plans in support of these
efforts; Manage the existing donor database
and maintain all donor-related communica-
tions; Work to enhance the organization's com-
munications and media efforts; Work closely
with the Board of Directors and the Advisory
CITY LIMITS
Committee; Ensure the best possible public
image of Brooklyn A is cultivated and main-
tained, and that the organization's goals are
realized through the implementation of a 3-
year development and communications plan.
Knowledge and skills: Excellent writing skills
as well as strong research capabilities are
required. Ability to manage ongoing, multiple
initiatives and prioritize them as may be
required to meet deadlines and maximize
development opportunities. Ability to work in
collaborative and creative ways with Brooklyn
A staff; with colleagues from the non-profit,
community-based groups supported by Brook-
lyn A; and with law firm, corporate, foundation,
individual, and government supporters. Ability
to use computer software programs to
enhance overall development and institutional
objectives and to monitor performance. Quali-
fications: Three years of previous fundraising
experience is preferred but other applicants
will be considered. Familiarity with WordPer-
fect 8.0, database management systems, and
the Internet. Salary and Benefits: Commensu-
rate with experience. To apply for the position,
please send a cover letter with your resume to:
Martin S. Needelman, Project Director & Chief
Counsel , Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation
A, 256 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Brooklyn
Legal Services Corporation A is an affirmative
action, equal opportunity employer.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT -
Manages general support, supports categori-
cal fund raising, and coordinates strategic
planning and communications for dynamic
nonprofit community development corporation
in Williamsburg-Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Excel-
lent benefits and compensation. Reports to
Executive Director. Should have interest and
experience in community development, be a
strong writer, and able to work independently.
Submit resume and cover letter to: Michael
Rochford, Executive Director, SNNPC, 11
Catherine Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211,
e-mail: mortiz@stnicksnpc.com website:
www.stnicksnpc.org.
DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR - Lenox Hill Neigh-
borhood House seeks Department Director for
Homeless Services. Duties include overall
responsibility for five service programs, super-
vision, program development, personnel, man-
aging $5 mil budget, and serving as part of
executive staff of agency. Generous leave time,
benefits, staff devel, free use of fitness center
and indoor pool make LHNH the place to work.
ReQ: MSW or equivalent degree plus min. 8 yrs
reI. expo which must include clinical , supervi-
sory and administrative experience. We
seek and value a diverse workforce.
EOE. Resumes to: Lynn Appelbaum, Deputy
Executive Director for Programs, LHNH 331 E.
70th St. NY, NY 10021.
DIRECTORS - Candidates must oversee pro-
gram implementation, coordinate relation-
ships between referral sources and program
and lead training classes. Must have the fol-
lowing skills: managerial, administrative,
budgeting and supervisory. Requirements: BA
or BS w/a minimum of two years working expe-
rience within the Human Service Field (mental-
ly disabled, ex-offenders, homeless). Salary
NOVEMBER 2002
commensurate with experience. Women and
Veterans are encouraged to apply. Fax resume
to BVSJ 718-935-1629. Attn: Human
Resources.
DESK CLERK - Center and East Harlem area
position: Desk Clerk (Part-time). Monitor
entrance and egress to the building. Monitor
and control visitor access. Maintain daily log of
all activities. Patrol building during night shift.
Respond to security emergencies. Report all
incidents. Answer telephone.
Experience/requirements: High School Diplo-
ma, good references. Preferred Skills: Ability to
read and write in English, preferably bi-lin-
gual. Contact H. Martinez. Fax: 212-426-6315.
Mail to: PO Box 6385, NY, NY 10128.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SERVICES -
Search re-opened - The Salvation Army's
Social Services for Families and Adults Depart-
ment has newly created position for dynamic
MSW manager with minimum 10 years experi-
ence to establish new department. Must have
experience in managerial supervision; budget
development and monitoring; multi-site
administration; program development; mental
health laws; and Community Capacity Build-
ing. Responsibilities include direct supervision
of 3 program directors, development of full-
scale mental health program in 9 counties,
oversight of provision of WTC social services,
oversight of community service department
which includes 29 Social Workers, and admin-
istration of $5 million budget. Manhattan
based. Travel required to the 13 lower counties
of New York State. Computer literacy and
excellent communication skills a must.
Salary $68 - $72 dep. upon exp +
benefits. Fax 212-337-7279 or e-mail
Alfred_Peck@use.salvationarmy.org resumes.
DIRECTOR OF ASSESSMENT - The Salvation
Army of Greater New York is seeking candi-
dates for the following position: Director of
Assesment. Responsible for management,
administrative oversight, supervision and
coordination of existing and future
shelters/programs for adult populations.
Responsibilities include direct supervision of
program directors, grant writing, fiscal admin-
istration, and community relations. Experience
in program service for the homeless and multi-
site administration necessary. MAIMS degree,
computer literacy and excellent communica-
tion skills a must. Sal $68+ benefits. Fax
resume to Dan Lockspeiser at 212-337-7279.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT - Non-profit
seeks PIT Director of Development in Bed-Stuy,
Brooklyn to assist organization in fundraising
& grant writing activities. Min. BA, track record
as professional fundraiser, expo working with
no-profit & faith-based org. Responsibilities
include working with Board of Directors &
Executive Director to cultivate. donor base.
Sal. Comm. With expo Mail/fax resume to Diane
Brown, Concord Comm. Develop. Corp., 291
Madison St., Bklyn, NY 11216. Fax # 718-638-
7804. No calls
DIRECTOR - The Director, Entrepreneurial
Development Programs, is an exciting position
with a leading economic development organi-
zation. Responsibility in planning & delivering
innovative business assistance programs for
the Bronx community as well as management
of new business membership association. Pro-
grams incl. training, technical assistance, &
resource development for local entrepreneurs,
small businesses, and members of small busi -
ness incubator. Qualifications: The Director's
position requires an entrepreneurial individual
with 5 years of business and/or nonprofit man-
agement experience and Bachelor's degree.
The ideal candidate will possess experience in
marketing to small businesses, will possess
strong communication skills, the ability to lead
teams, knowledge of business financing, &
experience in coordinating or delivering group
seminars or training programs. Salary com-
mensurate w/ experience. Competitive benefits
package. Please forward resumes to:
LZPerez@SoBro.org or by mail to SoBRO, 555
Bergen Avenue Bronx, NY 10451, Attn. Ms. L.
Zapata-Perez. **No calls please **
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit serving the Bronx for 30 years. CAB
provides excellent benefits and offers opportu-
nities for advancement. The Nelson Avenue
Family Residence, a tier II shelter for homeless
families, seeks a Director of Operations. The
position requires a bachelor'S degree, five
years operations experience, a New York state
security guard license, and a New York city fire
department certificate of fire safety coordina-
tor. Responsibilities include planning and
supervising budgets and maintenance. Fax
credentials to M. Jeannot at 718-299-1361, e-
mail mjeannot@cabny.org, or candidates can
mail resume with cover letter to 2054 Morris
Av. , Bronx, NY 10453. CAB is an equal oppor-
tunity/affirmative action employer.
DIRECTOR - The Hunts Point EDC's Women
Business Resource Center is a Non-Profit pro-
viding technical support and assistance to
Small businesses. The Director of the
Women's Business Resource Center will report
to the President of the HPEDC. The Director will
be responsible for planning and managing the
overall operation and day-to-day activities of
the WBRC. The Director will develop and exe-
cute initiatives to encourage women's econom-
ic development in the South Bronx and Wash-
ington Heights. MBA with at least 1 year in the
field or BAIBS and 3 years management expe-
rience as a business counselor in an economic
Development program. Varied background in
business and economic development, busi-
ness training, marketing or community devel-
opment. Bi-lingual verbal and written Spanish
and English. Salary commensurate with expe-
rience. Health Benefits available. Mail Resume
and cover letter to Hunts Point Economic
Development 355 Food Center Drive, C-I04
Bronx, New York 10474 Attn: Josephine Infante.
DEPUTY VICE PRESIDENT - SEEDCO seeks a
Deputy Vice President to refine strategies for
technical assistance and program designs
that advance homeownership and community
development. The Deputy will also strengthen
the delivery of services and programs to clients
nationally. The Deputy will lead and direct a
team of talented professionals who deliver ser-
JOBADS
vices and programs through partnerships with
nonprofit organizations and institutions, gov-
ernment agencies, foundations, corporate
entities and intermediaries in selected US
cities. Please respond to: Monroe "Bud" Mose-
ley Isaacson, Miller 334 Boylston Street, Suite
500 Boston, MA 02116 617.262.6500v
617.262.6509fx BMoseley@imsearch.com
DRAMA FACILITATOR - EI Puente, a holistic
learning and development institution, is look-
ing for a Drama Facilitator for its Bushwick
Center. The organization's mission is to inspire
and nurture leadership for peace and justice.
Drama Facilitator responsibilities include cre-
ating and implementing creative curriculums
involving theatre, assess students growth in
theatre performances, mentors youth, and aids
in coordinating special events. Position
requires: Two years experience in community
youth organizing and/or other related fields;
demonstrated commitment to and experience
in community youth development, human
rights, and social justice issues; bilingual
(English and Spanish) ; Bachelor degree pre-
ferred. Salary commensurate with experience.
Please send resume to: Arnaldo Sima, Co-
Director, EI Puente Bushwick, 311 Central
Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11221 Fax (718) 919-
7586 Email aresimo@aol.com.
DIRECTOR - Sunnyside Community Services
Senior Center (SCS) seeks an MSW (or related
degree), bilingual (Spanish) preferred, to man-
age a large and growing, comprehensive
senior adult program including a DFTA-funded
Senior Center serving 2,000 active members
with 40 activities a week and serving up to 200
congregate meals a day, adult day services,
transportation, Meals on Wheels, Access to
Benefits, and geriatric mental health services.
The Senior Center is expanding into a new
facility in the spring of 2003. The candidate
should demonstrate excellent administrative
skills, people and program skills, and a strong
belief in advocacy. Salary competitive; excel-
lent benefits. EOE Resume to David Whyne,
Sunnyside Community Services, 43-31 39th
Street, Sunnyside, NY, 1ll04.
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES -
Community Food Resource Center (CFRC)
offers the position of Director of Educational
Initiatives available in its Food and Nutrition
Services unit. Lead staff in ongoing develop-
ment of cooking-based community education
programs aimed at increasing access to and
consumption of plant foods among low-income
New Yorkers. Requires graduate degree, mini-
mum of 5 years management experience,
superior verbal/written communication skills,
and supervisory, strategic planning, and pro-
ject management capabilities. We strongly
encourage people of color to apply.
Resume/cover letter with salary reQs to:
Human Resources Department, Fax 212-616-
4990 or cfrcjobs@yahoo.com. No calls please.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT - Plan
and implement annual individual giving cam-
paign to support LGBT/AIDS work; Develop and
implement individual donor CUltivation and
stewardship strategies in conSUltation with
programmatic stall. At least four years
45
JOB ADS
fund raising experience with some managerial
or supervisory experience; major gifts experi-
ence preferred. Reply to: Matthew Coles, Attn:
Dpty Dev Dir, LGRp, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-
18th Floor, NY, NY 10004.
EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST - University Set-
tlement / Project Home seeks a committed per-
son for our comprehensive, growing Lower East
Side program. We combine excellent direct ser-
vices for families, youth and individuals with
economic security / employment assistance
and community organizing. The full-time Bilin-
gual (Spanish) Employment Specialist will pro-
vide employment and case management ser-
vices, develop job readiness activities, and do
job development. Salary low 30s with excellent
benefits. Send cover letter, resume
to S. Kinglsand, fax 212-614-0597 or
skingsland@universitysettlement.org
ENROLLMENT COUNSELOR - Conduct out-
reach and enrollment activities for community-
based health insurance enrollment program.
Screen applicants for eligibility, assist with
collection of documentation, complete forms;
and troubleshoot problem cases. Qualifica-
tions: college degree, Spanish fluency, atten-
tion to detail, direct service and public benefits
experience. Fax resume and cover letter to 212-
681-6315. Attn: Enrollment.
EDUCATION SPECIALIST - Leading advocacy
and direct service organization is seeking a
creative individual to help build and launch
our newest initiative - an educational advoca-
cy project that will empower homeless parents
to become more effectively involved in their
children'S education and that will directly
address the complex educational issues faced
by homeless children. The Education Specialist
will be part of a multidisciplinary team that
will assess children'S educational needs and
ensure that they receive immediate and appro-
priate services, facilitate workshops for par-
ents, provide short-term counseling to children
and parents, assist with children's transition
between schools, and work with school person-
nel and administrators to increase their
capacity to address the needs of homeless
children and their families. Candidates must
have at least two years experience working
with children and families, providing individ-
ual and group counseling and establishing
and running support groups. MSW degree
required. Bilingual preferred. Excellent salary
and benefits. Resume with cover letter and
salary requirements to: Director, Human
Resources, The Partnership for the Homeless,
305 Seventh Avenue, Box SW-1, NY, NY 10001.
AAlEEO MlF /DfVlSO
EVENTS COORDINATOR - Center for an Urban
Future, an independent NYC think tank and
sister organization of City Limits magazine, is
seeking an events coordinator for two major
policy forums this fall. Hours are part time
between now and December 2002. Looking for
very organized and professional individual
with some background in events planning and
an interest in policy issues. The Events Coordi-
nator will manage all logistics for conference
including lining up speakers, inviting partici-
pants, planning schedule for the conference,
coordinating all materials for conference, set-
ting up the space, managing the registration
and follow up. This position requires great peo-
ple skills, time management, attention to
detail, and persistence. Please send a resume
to rkeegan@nycfuture.org or fax R.Keegan at
212-344-6457.
EVENING COORDINATOR, Education Program
- Answer phones, interact with diverse stu-
dent population, maintain waiting list, con-
duct registration, keep records and coordinate
with instructors and supportive services. Four
nights/week, 18-20hrs/wk. Seeking individual
with patience and a pleasant phone manner.
Bilingual a plus: Spanish, Arabic, Russian or
Chinese. Resume/letter: Stacie Evans, Sunset
Park Adult and Family Education Center, 414
80th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209, Fax 718-491-
5060.
EVENT PLANNER/OFFICE ASSISTANT - The
New York State Association for Affordable
Housing is a trade association for the for-prof-
it affordable housing development community
state-wide. Our activities include lobbying for
affordable housing programs and a variety of
networking events. We are looking for part-
time help to assist with event planning and
office work. Duties include organizing meet-
ings and networking events, maintaining data
base, general office duties. Hours are flexible
(15-20 weekly). Please fax a resume to Bernie
Carr at 718-432-2400 or e-mail it to
bernie@nysafah.org
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - The Central Brooklyn
Partnership (CBP) is a neighborhood-based,
membership organization that believes in the
capacity of low-income people to become
financially independent and change the bal-
ance of economic power in the Bedford-
Stuyvesant, Crown Heights and surrounding
area. CBP focuses on direct action organizing,
women's and youth leadership development,
micro-enterprise development and the incuba-
tion of cooperative economic institutions. The
Executive Director will be responsible for pro-
gram and membership development and man-
agement, financial management, staff super-
vision and support, fund raising and public
relations. S/he will work closely with CBP staff,
members and volunteers, and shall exhibit a
leadership style of open and collaborative
communication and consultation in decision
making. Qualifications: Demonstrated leader-
ship in a social justice organization; 3-5 years
experience in non-profit management; experi-
ence in fundraising; understanding of commu-
nity organizing and commitment to economic
justice issues; excellent writing skills. People
of color, women, and Central Brooklynites
strongly encouraged to apply. Salary: Mid $40s
+ benefits, commensurate with experience.
Send resume and cover letter to: Transition
Team, CBP, by October 4. Fax: 718-398-8972.
Mail : ll95 Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
11216.
ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION GROUP COORDINA-
TOR - Work directly with Southwest Bronx
teens, aged 12-18, on environmental issues
that concern them, as a component of the
award-winning Bronx Helpers Program,
focused on community service and youth orga-
nizing. 20 hrs/week, incllate afts. $12-14 per
hour, DOE. Undergraduate or graduate student
preferred. Spanish bilingual a plus. More
info:!new settlement. Send letter, resume and
list of 3 references to Job Search, New Settle-
ment Apartments, 1512 Townsend Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10452. Fax: 718-294-4085. EEO/AA.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Women's City Club
of NY, a nonpartisan, nonprofit, volunteer
civic membership organization, seeks an
Executive Director to manage the organiza-
tion and, working with committed volunteers,
provide leadership, vision and strategic
direction to further its mission. The individual
reports to the president and should have
experience with programmatic and financial
development, management, advocacy, mem-
bership and board development. Send letter
PROFESSIONALDIRECTORY
46
212.721.9764
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SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
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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
Eastchester, N.Y.
Phone: (914) 395-0871
ADVERTISE
IN THIS
SPACE
call (212) 479-3345
Consultant Service&
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CONSULTANT
HOUSING, DEVELOPMENT & RlNDRAISING
Community Relations
PHONE: 212-765-7123
FAX: 212-397-6238
&-MAIL: mgbuccl@aol.com
451 WEST 48th STREET, SUITE 2E
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10036-1298
CITY LIMITS
of application, resume, salary expectations
and references to: EDSC, Women's City Club,
33 West 60th Street, 5th Floor, NY, NY 10023
or wchen@wccny.org, subject "EDSC." Equal
opportunity employer.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Community Training
and Resource Center, Inc. is a not-for-profit
organization that promotes progressive hous-
ing preservation strategies. Qualifications and
Responsibilities An applicant for the position
of Executive should have five years relevant
experience required in one or more of the fol-
lowing areas: Fundraising, Nonprofit Manage-
ment, Housing Regulation, Community orga-
nizing, training, direct contact with tenants
and landlords, Interaction with elected offi-
cials and government agencies. The position
requires ability to work cooperatively with pub-
lic and private sector agencies, neighborhood-
based housing groups and nonprofit boards.
The Applicant must be able to manage an
ambitious agenda with a small staff. Salary
range: mid 50's, commensurate with experi-
ence. The Executive Director is accountable to
the Board of Directors and will maintain fre-
quent contact with the President of the Board
and other directors. Send resume, cover letter,
3 professional references and a writing sample
to: Search Committee Community Training and
Resource Center, 90 William Street - Room
1200, New York, NY 10038 Deadline for
Resumes: September 30, 2002 Community
Training and Resource Center is an Equal
Opportunity Employer.
EXECUTIVE COORDINATOR, New Members,
Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations - The
Riverside Church is seeking a motivated, team
player who will be responsible for managing
and coordinating all new member activities,
supervising all communication with new mem-
bers, financial oversight, program evaluation
and fundraising for the New Members Plus
program. The Executive Coordinator will also
seek to broaden The Church outreach into the
faith community through the coordination of
ecumenical and interfaith events, representing
The Church whenever appropriate. Finally, the
Coordinator will also train and supervise office
volunteers, coordinate all appointments and
telephone conferences for the Director and
handle administrative duties, such as corre-
spondence and phones. The Qualified individ-
ual we seek must at minimum, have a Bache-
lor's degree, with 5-7 years of diverse experi-
ence in business, technology and office
administration. A high level of proficiency with
PC's is critical, which ideally includes MS
Word, Access, PowerPoint and Outlook; graph-
ic software; and Raiser's Edge. Solid organiza-
tional , problem solving, communications and
listening skills are a must, as is a recognizable
focus on members and volunteers. Expertise in
business management or not-for-profit
administration are an asset; fund raising expe-
rience is required. We offer a competitive
salary and benefits package. Please submit
cover letter with salary requirements and
resume to: By mail Human Resources, The
Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive, New
York, NY 10027; Fax: 212-870-6708; E-mail:
hresources@theriversidechurchny.org. No
phone calls please; only Qualified candidates
will hear from us. EOE MlF.
FINANCE DIRECTOR - A growing community
development credit union launching a new
neighborhood retail branch serving the limited
equity cooperative and Harlem communities
seeks a Finance Director. The FD will oversee
the accounting and finance functions of the
credit union including: preparation of financial
statements, budgeting, forecasting, invest-
ment management and profitability analysis.
FD will also assist CEO with human resources
and administration, planning and preparation
of financial information for grant proposals.
Credit union offers excellent working environ-
ment and benefits. Please forward resume and
salary requirements to the attention of the
CEO: theizman@homesteadersfcu.orgorfaxto
212-222-1035
FIELD SUPERVISOR - Health insurance
enrollment program seeks supervisor for
enrollment staff in Manhattan community-
based sites. Qualifications: college or gradu-
ate degree; 3+ years supervisory experience;
Spanish fluency; experience with public bene-
fits, outreach and program development pre-
ferred. Fax resume and cover letter to: 212-
681-6315, Attn. Supervisor
FUN AFTERSCHOOL & SUMMER DAY CAMP
PROJECT DIRECTOR - The Family University
(FUN) is a model creative arts and educational
afterschool and summer day camp program
for the 6 - 12 year old children of Long Island
University students. We work with the School of
Education to create an environment where
children can be free to enjoy learning at their
own pace with staff who focus on the chil-
dren's strengths. Responsibilities include:
developing & implementing collaborative pro-
grams, supervising staff, participating in a
longitudinal evaluation process, securing,
maintaining & monitoring budget, materials,
equipment & other resources. Requirements:
Master's in education or related field with 2-5
years of experience working with children. Full-
time with evening hours. Salary commensurate
with experience, excellent benefits. Send cover
letter and resume to Charlotte Marchant,
School of Education, Long Island University,
One University Plaza Brooklyn, NY 11201, fax
JOBADS
718-246-6499 or email cmarchan@liu.edu
FIELD SUPERVISOR - Health insurance
enrollment program seeks supervisor for
enrollment staff in Manhattan community-
based sites. Qualifications: college or gradu-
ate degree; 3+ years supervisory experience;
Spanish fluency; experience with public bene-
fits, outreach and program development pre-
ferred. Fax resume and cover letter to: 212-
681-6315, Attn. Supervisor
FINANCE DIRECTOR - A growing community
development credit union launching a new
neighborhood retail branch serving the limited
equity cooperative and Hartem communities
seeks a Finance Director. The FD will oversee
the accounting and finance functions of the
credit union including: preparation of financial
statements, budgeting, forecasting, invest-
ment management and profitability analysis.
FO will also assist CEO with human resources
and administration, planning and preparation
of financial information for grant proposals.
Credit union offers excellent working environ-
ment and benefits. Please forward resume and
salary requirements to the attention of the
CEO: theizman@homesteadersfcu.orgorfaxto
212-222-1035.
FOOD EDUCATOR - Community Food
Resource Center (CFRC) offers the position of
Food Educator available in its Food and Nutri -
tion Services unit. Develop programs that
address food Quality and basic cooking skills.
Must be a graduate from a culinary school or
have an extensive cooking background. Experi-
enced in designing food education programs
from conception to implementation stages a
definite plus. We strongly encourage people of
color to apply. Resume/cover letter with salary
PROFESSIONAlDIRECTORY
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to produce one design-uniquely perfect for each ctient
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: 212-732-2n3
Low-income housing tax credit syndication.
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financing. HDFCs and not-for-profit corporations. Condos and co-ops. J-51
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Affordable Housing Applications, Senior Housing Health Care
Furniture and Equipment Purchasing, Project Management
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JOB ADS
reqs to: Human Resources Department, Fax
212-616-4990 or cfrcjobs@yahoo.com. No
calls please.
FINANCE DIRECTOR - A growing community
development credit union launching a new
neighborhood retail branch serving the limited
equity cooperative and Harlem communities
seeks a Finance Director. The FD will oversee
the accounting and finance functions of the
credit union including: preparation of financial
statements, budgeting, forecasting, invest-
ment management and profitability analysis.
FO will also assist CEO with human resources
and administration, planning and preparation
of financial information for grant proposals.
Credit union offers excellent working environ-
ment and benefits. Please forward resume and
salary requirements to the attention of the
CEO: theizman@homesteadersfcu.orgorfaxto
212-222-1035
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER - Reports to
Director of Finance and Administration. 35
Hours per week Mon-Fri-8:30am - 4:00pm.
Essential functions include: review and
process all Human Resources correspondence.
Maintain and administer the HR database and
conduct reports and studies as needed.
Respond to inquires pertaining to the applica-
tion of departmental and organizational poli-
cies and procedures. Recommend and prepare
revisions to departmental policies to ensure
compliance with organization and governmen-
tal entities. Insure that employment proce-
dure, personnel practices and all personnel
related issues are conducted within the Salva-
tion Army procedures and state regulations.
Develop and conduct orientation and training
for employees including but not limited to new
employee orientation. Ensure that all cyclical
Human Resources events, including but not
limited to probationary periods, performances
evaluations are adhered to. Ensure that data
is accurate in ADPIHR software. Responsible
for implementing a training program that
meets both the managers and employees
expectations related to job and performance.
Work with employees and managers to resolve
all employee relation issues. Qualifications:
Bachelors degree, 3 years of experience in the
Human Resources field, preferably as a man-
ager. Salary: Up to $45,000 depending on
experience. Submit resume and salary require-
ments to: Harold Weaver, Director of Finance
and Administration, The Salvation Army, 120
West 14th Street, 7th floor, New York, NY
1O0ll, or fax to 212-337-7279. No telephone
calls please
HOUSING SPECIALIST - Help USA, a Home-
less housing provider has the following posi-
tion available, Housing Specialist. Opportuni-
ty for individual with prior exp to assist fami-
lies in securing permanent housing. Real
estate &Jor gov't low income housing lease
negotiations in DSS exp a+. BA or related
degree & computer literacy req'd. Lease nego-
tiations skills are desirable. Bilingual (Span-
ish/English) 8+. Salary starts low-mid $20s.
Resumes indicating position should be for-
warded to: Tabitha Gaffney, Dir. Of Social Ser-
vices at fax # 718-485-5916. EOE. A drug free
workplace.
48
HOUSING COUNSELING COORDINATOR -
Catholic Charities Brooklyn & Queens seeks
motivated, flexible individual to develop &
implement all aspects of new Housing Coun-
seling Program. Coordinator will provide direct
counseling/advocacy and train/resource
agency staff. Masters or BAIBS w/3+ year;
housing/mortgage experience desirable. Bilin-
gual Spanish helpful. Resume to: Patricia
Dawson, Community Project Director, 90-39
189th St., Hollis, NY ll423. Fax: 718-464-
1317.
HELPLINE/RESOURCES COORDINATOR -
Needed for Learning Disabilities Helpline, tele-
phone information/referral service; Maintain
database, Resource Library; Conduct work-
shops; Maintain supply inventories, perform
related support duties. Requires excellent tele-
phone!interpersonal skills, strong computer,
internet, writing, organization skills. Special
education, advocacy experience/training pre-
ferred. Bilingual Spanish 8+. Send resume to
Helpline; LDA- NYC; 27 West 20th Street; NY,
NY 100ll
HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER - Reports to
Business Administrator. 35 hours per week,
Mon-Fri., 8:30am - 4:00pm. Essential Func-
tions: Receive and review all HR correspon-
dence. Review and process all HR requisitions
and related correspondence. Maintain and
administer the HR database (hiring, transfers,
compensation, salary adjustments, benefits,
performance evaluations, disciplinary actions,
medical certifications, drug testing, clear-
ances, qualifications, licenses etc. Answer rou-
tine questions pertaining to HR policies and
procedures. Develop and conduct orientation
and training for employees including but not
limited to new employee orientation. Track pro-
bationary periods, performance evaluation and
other cyclical HR events, generate "activity
due" reminders and monitor compliance. Qual-
ifications: Bachelors degree in liberal arts,
business administration or human services.
Minimum of three years experience in the HR
field. Verifiable organizations skills and solid
computer skills. Submit Resume and salary
requirements to Patricia DeLouisa, Associate
Director of Social Services for Families and
Adults, The Salvation Army, 120 W. 14th Street,
7th Floor, New York, NY 10011. Via fax 212-
337-7279 ** No Telephone Calls Please**
HELPLINE COORDINATOR - Seeking Bilingual
Helpline Coordinator. Join a progressive con-
sumer advocacy group working with families to
demand better nursing home care and more
responsible public policy. Responsibilities:
telephone counseling, developing educational
materi als, representing organization in com-
munity outreach, assisting on public policy
projects, training student interns/volunteers.
BA + 2 years experience in health or aging +
counseling experience preferred. Salary 34K +
benefits. Resume/Cover Letter to FRIA, II John
Street, Suite 601, NY, NY 10038. Fax 212-732-
6945.
HUMAN RESOURCES ASSOCIATE - The pri-
mary responsibilities will be to participate in
management's administration of personnel
and labor relations matters and to coordinate
all aspects of the ACLU's benefits programs.
College degree or at least two years experience
in human resources, benefits and/or adminis-
tration; Excellent computer skills required.
Reply to Human Resources-HR Assoc, ACLU,
125 Broad Street-18th Floor, NY, NY 10004.
HOUSING SPECIALIST - Westchester leading
not-for-profit agency has opening for an expe-
rienced person to provide housing counseling
assistance to families in shelters & temporary
housing environment. Ideal candidate will be
familiar with Sec 8 certification and able to
interface with landlords and other outside
agencies. Good computer, oral/written/inter-
personal skills a must. A Bachelor's Degree
with 3yrs of expo Knowledge of Westchester cty,
valid NYS driver's lic & own car is required.
Send resume/salary history to Dir of HR West-
hab 85 Executive Blvd., Elmsford, NY 10523
Fax 914-345-3139.
INTENSIVE CASE MANAGER - Weston United
Community Renewal , a non-profit mental
health agency in Harlem has full time positions
for intensive case manager in our scattered
site program. Responsibilities include crisis
intervention, ADL services, referrals and home
visits. Knowledge of MICA & AOT population.
Good computer and writing skills. Bilingual a
plus. BA or MSW level with 3 years of experi-
ence. Salary $38k with great benefits.
Fax resume: 212-316-9618 or email :
h r@westonunited.org.
INTENSIVE CASE MANAGER - Help USA, a
Homeless housing provider has the following
position available, Intensive Case Manager.
Exciting, challenging opportunity to provide
intensive case mgmt to caseload of 12-15
families. Duties include meeting with each
family as needed, with max of once per week.
Assist families in maintaining day-to-day
activities, increasing the family's money
mgmt, daily living & parenting skills, & teach-
ing families self-advocacy skills. Must be
computer lit. lime mgmt skills and ability to
multi-task as well as working in a fast paced
environment are nec. BA req'd. Salary starts
in low $30s. Resumes indicating position
should be forwarded to: Tabitha Gaffney, Dir.
Of Social Services at fax # 718-485-5916.
EOE. A drug free workplace.
IMMIGRATION SPECIALIST - Queens settle-
ment house is commencing a project headed
by the Legal Aid Society to provide advocacy
and assistance to immigrant adults partici -
pating in our Adult Education program. We
seek an individual sensitive to diverse immi-
grant populations, bilingual (Spanish most
helpful), advocacy experience and some knowl-
edge of immigration policy in relation to food
stamps, public assistance, education and cit-
izenship. The position is 28 hours per week, 2
evenings per week required, and is available in
September. Send cover letter and resume via
Fax to: Attention K.C. Williams at 718-898-
7461
INTENSIVE CARE MANAGER - Exciting, chal-
lenging opportunity to provide intensive case
mgmt to caseload of 12-15 families. Duties
include meeting w/each family as needed,
w/max of once per week. Assist families in
maintaining day to day activities, increasing
the family's money mgmt, daily living & par-
enting skills, & teaching families self advoca-
cy skills. Must be computer lit. lime mgmt
skills & ability to multi-task as well as working
in a fast-paced environment are nec. BA req'd.
Salary starts in low $30's. Resumes for Social
Work Clinician, indicating position, should be
forwarded to: Tabitha Gaffney, Dir of Social
Services at fax # 718-485-5916. EOE. A drug
free workplace.
INTAKE AIDES - Yorkville Common Pantry
seeks staff for our new 24 hour 7 day week East
Harlem based emergency food program. We
value & seek a diverse workforce for: Per diem
Intake Aides to cover shifts in the event of ill-
ness or other absence and coverage needs.
Should be able to work various shifts, week-
ends and holidays. EOE. Resumes: Hester Old
Sullivan, Deputy Executive Director for Pro-
grams, YCP, 8 East lO9th Street, NY, NY 10029.
JOB DEVELOPERIMARKETING MANAGER -
Leading mental health agency seeks experi-
enced, committed, consumer-centered job
developer for award- winning, cutting edge
employment program serving SPMI and MICA
adults in the Bronx. Develop/implement plan to
market supported employment
program/clients to the business community.
Maintain strategic relationships with diverse
group of employers, develop permanent jobs
for SPMI adults. Minimum qualifications:
HS/GEO, self-starter, solid experience in sales
and marketing, creative team player, excellent
interpersonal skills, in-depth knowledge of the
NYC labor market and business community
culture. Bi -lingual (English/Spanish) a +.
Salary: mid-thirties. Send/fax resume and
cover letter to Dept. BC, Fast Track to Employ-
menVMental Health Association of NYC, 120
Wall St., 16th fir., New York, NY 10005 Fax:
212-809-0985
JOB DEVELOPERIEMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST
- Experienced Job Developer needed for voca-
tional program serving the homeless. The abil-
ity to develop employer contacts & a viable job
bank is necessary. Strong communication &
presentation skills are req'd. BA or BS degree
pref'd. Send resumes to: HELP SEC, 1 Wards
Island, New York, NY 10035, Attn: R. Cappella-
Velazquez, send via fax at 212-534-9826 orvia
email at: rcappella@helpusa.org. EOE. A drug
free workplace.
JOB DEVELOPERS - Nationally known educa-
tion and training company seeks highly ener-
getic and motivated Job Developers to work
with low income and welfare to work popula-
tion. Must have job bank. Must be able to place
people from diversified background. Immedi-
ate openings. Please fax cover letter and
resume with salary expectations to Director at
212-967-2735.
JOB DEVELOPER - B.A.lB.S. and 2+ yrs expe-
rience, excellent communication and organiza-
tional skills, proven record in job placement,
flexibility, computer literacy, ability to work in
independently and in team, experience working
with employers and clients required. Job
CITY LIMITS
coaching experience preferred. Local travel
required, must have access to car. Salary $30's
depending upon experience, plus benefits.
Send resume, cover letter and writing sample
to: WomenRising, Inc., Attn: CEO, 270 Fair-
mount Avenue, Jersey City, NJ 07306. Fax 201-
333-9305. EOE.
JOB DEVELOPER - Associate Degree and 2+
yrs experience, excellent communication and
organizational skills, proven record in job
placement, flexibility, computer literacy, experi -
ence working with employers and clients
required. Must have established and create
business partnerships. Salary depending upon
experience, plus benefits. Send resume, cover
letter to The Fortune Society, 53 West 23rd
Street, NYC 100ll. Fax:212-633- 8456 Email:
jobs@fortunesociety.org attn: Human
Resources Dept.
JOB READINESS TEACHER - Award winning
job readiness and mental health program for
adults with multiple barriers to employment
seeks Job Readiness Teacher. Prefer Masters in
social work, psychology or education and expe-
rience with disadvantaged populations. Down-
town Brooklyn location. Fax cover letter and
resume to 718-852-9681 or email
kgraves@thehopeprogram.org
MEDICAID BILLER - Not-for-Profit organiza-
tion is seeking an experienced Medicaid Biller
with experience with the Office of Mental
Health in NY State & NYC Funded Programs,
monthly billing, pending and re-billing knowl-
edge a must. Computer literate with Fund "E-
T' software knowledge a plus. Working experi-
ence with MS Word, Excel and Lotus 1-2-3
essential. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence. Fax resume to 718-852-0706 or mail to:
BVSJ, Inc., 665 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn,
NY ll206.
MANAGERS - Selfhelp Community Services
Inc., is an established not-for-profit innovator
of home care concepts, senior housing and
social services programs. We are presently
seeking Managers for our senior centers/hous-
ing division. The qualified candidate will coor-
dinate all activities of the Senior
Centers/Housing Division. This includes staff
supervision, training and performance evalua-
tion; analyzing and implementing the divisions
operational and philosophical goals; assuming
all long and short term budgetary and fiscal
planning responsibility; acting as primary liai-
son with all government agencies, private
grants and elected officials; and community
outreach. Must have an MSW or a Masters
degree in a related field along with at least 5
years supervisory experience. Experience with
seniors is a plus. Interested applicants send
resume to: Human Resources Manager, 520
8th Ave., NY, NY 10018; fax 212-695-0941 or
email: mbeech@selfhelp.com OE
MENTAL HEALTH CASE MANAGER - ART is a
collaborative project of the New York City
Human Resources Administration (HRA) Office
of Health and Mental Health Services (OHMHS).
ART provides time- limited, specialized case
management services for clients of HRA's
HIVIAIDS Services Administration (HASA, for-
NOVEMBER 2002
merty known as DASIS) who have serious men-
tal illness. Position Summary: The ART - Men-
tal Health Case Manager performs biopsy-
chosocial assessments of clients in their place
of residence in conjunction with NYC HRA
Office of Health and Mental Health psychia-
trists. Provide time-limited specialized case
management services to individuals with seri-
ous mental illness and HIV, including linkage
to community-based mental health substance
abuse, and other treatment facilities. Provide
crisis intervention services as well as monitor-
ing services. Refer clients to supportive hous-
ing programs. Maintain documentation. Expe-
rience and Skills: MSW and three years experi-
ence in services to individuals with serious
mental illness. Please send resume & salary
requirements to: Medical and Health Research
Association, Inc. (MHRA) - attn: Kris Picariello,
40 Worth Street -Suite 720, New York, NY
10013 (Att: KP-MHCM); Fax: 212-267-3895; E-
mail: MHRAemploymnet@mhra.org (attn: KP-
MHCM) EOE MlF. Please visit our website at
www.mhra.org for more information about our
company.
MICA SPECIALIST - Mental health agency
located in central Harlem has full time opening
for individual with, substance abuse and psy-
chiatric experience. Candidate will provide
counseling to a chronically mentally ill popula-
tion in a residential setting, run groups, make
referrals and interface with community agen-
cies. Excellent career and training opportunity.
Degree preferred and 2 years of related experi-
ence, bilingual a plus, computer literate.
Salary $26,000 with great benefits. Fax resume
to: Joseph Wong, Human Resources Manager,
212-316-9618 or email: hr@westonunited.org.
MSW / HIV PROGRAM COORDINATOR - Lead-
ing social service and advocacy organization is
seeking an MSW to join its multi-disciplinary
HIV/AIDS Program. The MSW will oversee an
innovative program that assists HIV-affected
individuals and families to transition from
homeless ness to permanent housing and sta-
bility. Responsibilities include: supervising
five-member case management team, design-
ing and leading client workshops and support
groups, providing one-on-one client counsel-
ing, developing new projects to address
emerging client needs, and participating in
public policy and advocacy initiatives.
Resume, cover letter, and sal reqs to: The Part-
nership for the Homeless Human Resources
Rep. 305 Seventh Ave. , 13th floor, New York,
New York 10001 AAlEOE / MlFIDN/sO
MAJOR GIFTS ASSOCIATE - Writing, editing
and proofreading donor and other communica-
tions, draft and produce individualized
acknowledgements for the organizations top
donors; Utilize Team Approach database to
monitor and produce reports on donors and
maintain gift records. Coordinate the tracking
of donor relationships. Two years related expe-
rience performing administrative duties and
an Associates degree required. Reply to:
Human Resources, Dept. MG-DA, ACLUF, 125
Broad Street- 18th Floor, NY, NY 10004.
MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER - Lesbian & Gay
Rights and AIDS Projects. Plan and implement
annual individual giving campaign, in consul-
tation with Development Director; Staff leader-
ship and volunteer fundraising visits; Plan and
implement coordinated phone, email , and mail
appeals. At least two years fund raising experi-
ence, major gifts experience preferred; Ability
to plan and execute complex programs inde-
pendently. Reply to: Matt Coles, Attn: Mjr Gfts
Officer, LGRP, ACLU, 125 Broad Street- 18th
Floor, NY, NY 10004.
ORGANIZER - Community Voices Heard is
seeking an experienced Organizer to build and
manage a statewide campaign in New York
State focusing on TANF Re-Authorization (Fed-
eral Welfare Reform), job creation and state
welfare reform issues. This position will be
based in NYC, but with a larger percentage of
statewide travel, a large focus of which will be
the Hudson Valley to Albany. The Statewide
Campaign Organizer is a temporary position.
Applicants should have access to an automo-
bile for statewide travel. Salary is DOE. Please
mail or fax resume and cover letter ASAP to
CVH 170 E. ll6th St. # IE NY, NY 10029 or
212-996-9481. CVH is an equal opportunity
employer, women, people of color; LGBT people
and former welfare recipients are strongly
encouraged to apply for this position.
OFFICE MANAGER - The New York Immigra-
tion Coalition (NYIC) is an umbrella advocacy
and policy organization for roughly 150 groups
in New York State that work with "newcom-
ers"- immigrants, both documented and
undocumented, refugees and asylees. The
NYIC successfully brings together multi-eth-
nic, multi-racial , and multi-sector constituen-
cies to pursue common goals. Responsibilities:
(Full-Time) Assure provision and effective use
of administrative; Oversee human resource
systems; Coordinate activities, including
establishing yearly meeting calendars, over-
seeing bi-annual Board election, and writing
and distributing meeting minutes; Oversee
membership database, recruitment materials
and strategies, and initiate contact with
potential members; Authorize and assist in
coordinating printing and translation of major
NYIC documents; Oversee all office manage-
ment activities as necessary Qualifications:
BA, plus excellent written, verbal , analytical ,
financial, and organizational skills. 3-5 years
experience working with a nonprofit communi-
ty-based or public interest organization, with
experience in administrative management pre-
ferred. Practical knowledge working with
immigrant and refugee communities. Strong
computer skills (Word, Excel , Publisher, and
Microsoft Office) and ability to work coopera-
tively with diverse staff. Bi/multilingual abili-
ty preferred. Salary: commensurate with expe-
rience. Deadline: ASAP. Only those offered
interviews will be contacted. To Apply: No
phone calls please. Mail or fax resume, salary
history, and cover letter to: New York Immigra-
tion Coalition AnN: Office Manager Search,
275 Seventh Avenue, 9th Floor New York, NY,
10001. FAX: 212-627-9314
OFFICE MANAGERlEXECUTIVE ASSISTANT -
An Office ManagementlExecutive Assistant to
oversee and coordinate the daily operation of
the office and provide administrative support
to the Executive Director and program staff.
JOB ADS
Responsibilities: coordinating outreach and
reporting to the Board of Directors; attending
Board meetings; drafting and coordinating
production of programmatic reports; coordi-
nating public relations; facilitating external
relationships with elected officials and others;
ensuring that all files, mailing lists, and other
records are accurate and up-to-date; other
projects as needed. The ideal candidate pos-
sesses a thorough knowledge of office admin-
istration and organizational procedures. Excel-
lent interpersonal and communication skills
are essential for all positions. Salaries are
competitive, commensurate with experience.
Excellent opportunities for ambitious self-
starters. SRCO is an equal opportunity employ-
er. Please fax or mail a cover letter and resume
to st. Raymond Community Outreach, Inc.,
1720 Metropolitan Avenue, Bronx, NY 10462.
Fax: 718-824-0532 *No phone calls,
pleasel!*
OVERNIGHT INTAKE CASE AIDE - Yorkville
Common Pantry seeks staff for our new 24 hour
7 day week East Harlem based emergency food
program. We value & seek a diverse workforce
for: Overnight Intake Case Aide. The Overnight
Intake Case Aide will distribute food as well as
develop relationships with any nighttime emer-
gency service providers; will also be responsi-
ble for updating any outstanding paperwork
and computer data entry. EOE. Resumes:
Hester Old Sullivan, Deputy Executive Director
for Programs, YCP, 8 East lO9th Street, NY, NY
10029.
PROJECT MANAGER - For community based
not-for-profit housing organization to coordi-
nate affordable housing development projects.
Experience working and negotiating with ten-
ants, architects, contractors and government
agencies. 1 year experience & BA required.
28K-33K plus benefits. Please send resume
and cover letter to: R. Vi snauskas, CHDC, 403
West 40th Street. NY NY 10018 orfax 212-967-
1649
PROJECT DIRECTOR - AFC the premier legal
services and advocacy organization regarding
educational rights (see ww.advocatesforchil-
dren.org) is looking for a Project Director for our
Juvenile Justice Project. The project works with
court-i nvolved youth to solve school-related
problems to avoid further court involvement.
Responsibilities include: direct representation
of youth in administrative hearings, managing
relationships with probation, conducting work-
shops, policy work on issues relating to
improving educational services for court-
involved youth; managing two staffers. A law
degree required. Preferred: two years legal
experience, ability to work independently/ man-
age multiple tasks, excellent written/oral skills,
experience working with youth. Salary 37-
40k.AFC is an EOE. Send info to, Elisa Hyman,
AFC, 151 West 30th St., 5th FI. NY NY 10001 or
to hbraunstein@advocatesforchildren.org.
PUBLIC EDUCATION DIRECTOR - Responsi-
ble for the National ACLU's public education on
LGBT rights and the rights of people with HIV.
At least four years experience in any of the fol-
lowing areas: media, Internet, public educa-
tion, public relations, lesbian/gay rights and/or
49
JOB ADS
AIDS policy which must include managerial
and supervisory experience very desirable.
Reply to: Matthew Coles, Attn: Pub Ed Dir,
LGRP, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-18th Floor, NY,
NY 10004.
PROGRAM DIRECTDR - National Puerto
Rican Forum seeks Program Director to imple-
ment & monitor outcomes of innovative pro-
gram to alleviate skilled teacher shortages in
NYC and Puerto Rico. Program will recruit and
train professionals to pass certification exams.
Master's Degree in Education or Ed. Admin
required. 5-10 years' ed. management and
classroom experience imp. Strong curriculum
dev/teacher training necessary. Bilingual Eng-
lish/Spanish. Excellent written, oral and ana-
lytical skil ls. Send cover letter & resume to
NPRF, 31 East 32nd Street, 4th Floor, NYC
10016. Fax # 212-685-2349. No calls.
PROGRAM PLANNER - Palladia, Inc., a lead-
ing social service agency, is seeking a Program
Planner for grant writing. The successful can-
didate will possess excellent writing skills, an
interest and understanding of public policy,
and the ability to think strategically. Comput-
er skills, a must. Grant writing experience, a
plus. BAIBS required, advanced degree pre-
ferred. Send or Fax Resume to Palladia, Inc. 10
Astor Place, New York, NY 10003; Fax: 212-
979-7231; e-mail: hr@palladiainc.org
PROGRAM MANAGER - Community Food
Resource Center (CFRC) offers the position of
Program Manager available in its Food and
Nutrition Services unit. Develop a CSA network
in (Harlem) that establishes direct markets
between food businesses, community resi-
dents, and regional farms. Experienced in pro-
gram managemenVinstitutional change
required. We strongly encourage people of
color to apply. Resume/cover letter with salary
reqs to: Human Resources Department, Fax
212-616-4990 or cfrcjobs@yahoo.com. No
calls please
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The NYC Orga-
nizing Support Center is a non-profit providing
technical support, training and political edu-
cation for New York City's community organiz-
ers and grassroots leaders to build skills,
strategies, alliances. We help groups to
strengthen their issue campaigns, build their
base of grassroots leaders and more effective-
ly fulfill their organizing missions. Program
coordinator will provide training and technical
support to groups and be the primary staff per-
son for our Spanish Language Leadership Pro-
gram. Required: At least 2 years experience as
an organizer or grassroots leader. College
degree or 4 years of employment or leadership
related to community organizing. Experience
designing and delivering training. Bi-lingual in
verbal and written Spanish and English.
Salary: Mid-30's based on experience. Excellent
benefits, including family health coverage and
TransitCheks. Mail resume, cover letter, 3 refer-
ences to Joan Minieri, NYC Organizing Support
Center, 180 Varick Street, 12th Floor, NY, NY
10014.
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - CDVCA is the trade
association of community development ven-
50
ture capital funds. These funds make equity
investments in businesses to create jobs,
wealth and entrepreneurial capacity that
advance the livelihoods of low-income people
and the economies of distressed communities.
CDVCA seeks a highly motivated, creative,
self-starting individual with strong financial
skills, commitment to our mission, and experi-
ence in program management, especially
related to developing training programs.
Responsibilities include coordinating, design-
ing and implementing a broad array of training
initiatives and services designed to build the
capacity of CDVC funds. The ideal candidate
will have excellent communication skills,
strong initiative, flexibility, experience with
finance and business development, and expe-
rience developing training programs. B.A.
required. Related graduate work strongly pre-
ferred. Salary commensurate with experience.
Excellent benefits. Send cover letter, resume,
and writing sample to CDVCA via e-mail:
employment@cdvca.org; fax: 212-594-6717;
or mail: 330 7th Avenue, 19th Floor, New York,
NY 10001. Telephone inquiries are not encour-
aged.
PARALEGAL CASEHANDLERITENANT ORG-
ANIZER - Based in Bronx Neighborhood
Office of Legal Aid Society, organizing tenants
in buildings in both Brooklyn and Bronx receiv-
ing Section 8 funding. Responsibilities include
completing project reports, drafting material
distributed to tenants, and speaking at public
meetings. Attend night meetings in Brooklyn
and Bronx. Work as part of team of attorneys
and paralegals addressing needs of tenants.
Salary $31,600 + excellent benefits. Requires
4-year college degree or paralegal certificate.
Send cover letter, resume and short writing
sample to: Helaine Barnett, Attorney-in-
Charge, Civil Division, Legal Aid Society, 166
Montague Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Women,
people of color, gays and lesbians and people
with disabilities especially encouraged to
apply.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Outreach/drop-in
prog serving homeless mentally ill/mica, Upper
West Side. Intensive case mgmt, stabilization,
pmnt hsg. Resp incl prog admin & devpt, clin-
ical oversight & staff supvsn, contract compli-
ance, personnel , ensuring effective communi-
tylinteragency relations. Req: CSW or rei MA,
proven record of successful mgmt. Sal com
w/exp, exc ben. LeVres: Mona Bergenfeld, Pro-
ject ReachouVGRCC, 593 Columbus Avenue,
NY, NY 10024.
PART-TIME BEIGED TEACHER - Curriculum
development, instruction, assessment, record-
keeping, coordination with supportive services.
Four days/week. Seeking instructor committed
to learner-centered education. Bilingual a plus:
Spanish, Arabic, Russian or Chinese.
Resume/letter: Stacie Evans, Sunset Park
Adult and Family Education Center, 414 80th
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11209, Fax 718-491-5060.
PRDPERTY MANAGER - Immediate opening
available for Property Manager. Deals with all
aspects of property management, deals with
tenants on issues of rent, and delinquency and
legal issues. Knowledgeable about section 8;
supervise three superintendents and desk
clerks. Act as liaison between management
and social services. Salary commensurate with
experience. Benefits included. Spanish speak-
ing helpful. Fax resume to 212-426-6315. Mail
to PO Box 6385 NY, NY 10128.
PROJECT DIRECTOR (part-time) - Grant-
funded project to promote mental health insur-
ance parity. Plan and implement project activ-
ities, collaborating with diverse project partic-
ipants. Community outreach, public education,
government relations, research, report writing,
grant development. Work with business and
community leaders, government officials, leg-
islators, advocates. Qualifications: knowledge-
able about mental health issues and policy,
particularly parity; experienced advocate;
effective communicator; skilled writer and
analyst; creative, proactive, collaborative,
organized, goal-oriented; budget management
and computer skills. Compensation dependent
on qualifications. Available immediately. Cover
letter, resume, professional references:
execdir@naminyc.org or Parity Project, NAMI ,
432 Park Avenue South, Suite 710, New York,
NY 10016. More information about NAMI:
www.naminycmetro.org
PROGRAM PLANNER - Palladia, Inc. , a lead-
ing social service agency, is seeking a Program
Planner for grant writing. The successful can-
didate will possess excellent writing skills, an
interest and understanding of public policy,
and the ability to think strategically. Computer
skills, a must. Grant writing experience, a plus.
BAIBS required, advanced degree preferred.
Send or Fax Resume to Palladia, Inc. 10 Astor
Place, New York, NY 10003; Fax: 212-979-
7231; e-mail: hr@palladiainc.org
PROGRAM ASSISTANT NFCDCU
(www.natted.org) is seeking a Program Assis-
tant to assist their National AmeriCorps*VISTA
Program. This initiative places service volun-
teers in credit unions to develop asset-building
programs for low- income communities. The
ideal candidate will have: a strong interest in
community service and development; excellent
verbal and written communication skil ls, abil -
ity to multi-task, strong computer skills; and
desire to operate with diverse staff/member-
ship. BAIBS required. Responsibilities include:
provide resources and support to VISTA mem-
bers; collect data on VISTA activities; lead
national recruitment effort; and assist with
major NFCDCU initiatives. Send resume &
cover letter to: Job Search - VISTA, NFCDCU,
120 Wall Street, 10th Floor, New York, NY
10005. Fax 212-809-3274, E-mail:
vista@natted.org.
POLICY AND ADVOCACY ASSOCIATE - Child
Care, Inc., a New York City based Child Care
Resource and Referral Agency has a position
opening for a Policy and Advocacy Associate.
This position involves developing and imple-
menting CCI's policy and advocacy agendas on
the city and state level. Responsibilities
include: Tracking legislation and budgetary
information pertaining to child care and early
education on the city, state and federal levels.
Managing state and local coal itions commit-
ted to improving and expanding Quality,
affordable child care and early education
opportunities for New York City families. Gar-
nering community support by developing and
implementing a comprehensive organizing
strategy focused on child care programs and
community based organizations. Organizing
advocacy events, phone and letter writing
campaigns and providing current information
on policy developments in early care and edu-
cation to the public. Augmenting press cover-
age of early care and education issues and
acting as a liaison to the press, elected offi-
cials, public agencies and community groups.
Requirements: Extensive experience in one or
more of the following: community organizing,
government affairs, media relations and pub-
lic policy analysis. At least a Bachelor's degree
in relevant field. Master's preferred. Excellent
organization, writing and communication
skills. Extensive knowledge of city and state
legislative and budgetary process. Knowledge
and interest in child care and early education
and/or children'S issues. Compensation: Com-
petitive, based on experience. Please fax, mail
or e-mail resume to the attention of Nancy Kol-
ben, Executive Director, Child Care, Inc. 275
Seventh Avenue, 15th Floor New York, NY
10001, fax 212-929-5785 email to
info@childcareinc.org
PROPERTY MANAGER opening. Brooklyn CBO
seeks PM with extensive experience in property
management; responsibilities include collec-
tions, maintenance, tenant meetings, leasing
& rent-ups, government compliance issues,
must know Section 8 processes. Salary com-
mensurate with experience, bi-lingual helpful.
Fax resume to 718-485-4683.
PART-TIME BOROUGH ASSISTANT - City Wide
Task Force on Housing Court is a nonprofit
organization providing legal information and
referrals to unrepresented litigants with land-
lordltenant issues at information tables in
NYC's Housing Courts and through a telephone
hotline, trainings to community organizations
and advocating on issues related to justice in
Housing Court. Part-time Borough Assistant
responsibilities: Distribute information to
unrepresented litigants in borough housing
courts. Provide general assistance at Task
Force information table and telephone hotline.
Assist in documenting problems faced by ten-
ants. Hours are 9 a.m. to 12 noon, 4 - 5 days
a week, and one afternoon per week. Qualifica-
tions: Minimum of H.S. Diploma and one year
experience with housing issues or other rele-
vant community service. Bilingual (Spanish)
preferred. Salary: Pursuant to CBA, $13.49 per
hour, with excellent benefits. Positions avail-
able in Harlem, Red Hook, and Queens. To
apply, send resume and cover letter to City-
Wide Task Force on Housing Court, 29 John
Street, Suite 1004, New York, NY 10038. Att:
HR Department, Fax 212-962-4799, email
info@CWTFHC.org.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Develop and imple-
ment discharge planning and referral program
to assure seamless re- entry in larger commu-
nity for HIV+ releasees from Rikers Island;
manage daily activities of unit programs;
develop and implement systems for monitoring
and ensuring the achievement of project (s)
goals and objectives; liai se with funding
CITY LIMITS
source contract monitors. Candidates must
have some college background (BA preferred);
minimum 3 years experience working with
research based programs; prior supervisory
experience and working with persons living
with HIVIAIDS, substance abuse, mental ill-
ness, and/or criminal justice background pre-
ferred; basic understanding of and familiarity
with NYC and NYS corrections regulations and
requirements; must have ability to obtain cor-
rections clearance and valid NYS license.
Please send cover letter and resume to The For-
tune Society, 53 West 23rd Street, New York, NY
10011, or fax 212-633-8456 or email
jobs@fortunesociety.org
PROJECT COORDINATOR - Yorkville Common
Pantry seeks staff for our new 24 hour 7 day
week East Harlem based emergency food pro-
gram. We value & seek a diverse workforce
for: Project Coordinator oversees staff and
scheduling, reports to the Deputy Executive
Director for Programs. Principally responsible
for publicizing the project, encouraging refer-
rals and maintaining relationships with refer-
ral agencies, distributing food and referring
clients to other programs for ongoing provision
of supplementary foods. Will also do schedul-
ing for all program shifts. Requires Masters
plus related experience. EOE. Resumes: Hes-
ter Old Sullivan, Deputy Executive Director for
Programs, YCP, 8 East 109th Street, NY, NY
10029.
PROJECT MANAGER - Responsible for devel-
oping a comprehensive real estate and land
use plan for the garment industry. Responsi-
bilities include: * Work with industry and union
leaders, elected officials and other interested
parties on garment industry issues; * Research
and help implement innovative real estate
development and zoning models; * Research
and help advocate for industry-related eco-
nomic development policy and legislation; *
Assist Director of Research with data and pol-
icy research for use in proposals, articles and
presentations. Qualifications: 2-3 years experi-
ence in government or economic development;
Excellent written & verbal communication, and
interpersonal skills; Strong computer skills;
Knowledge of real estate and land use policy.
Knowledge of the garment industry a plus.
Salary: high $30k to low $40k plus benefits.
Resumes with cover letters should be mailed
to: Ms. Jen Roth, NYIRN, 175 Remsen Street,
Suite 350, Brooklyn, NY 11201. No Calls,
No E-mail.
PROJECT MANAGER - Responsible for imple-
menting Food From New York, a new business
assistance program for NYC food manufactur-
ers. Responsibilities include: * Manage and
grow NYIRN's network of banks, utilities and
other organizations that can provide services to
food companies; * Assist in developing indus-
try-specific programs to provide financing, cut
energy costs, access new technologies and
improve marketing; * Conduct outreach to food
companies interested in partiCipating in a col-
laborative program; * Develop an advisory
board from the industry and Labor organiza-
tions to direct ongoing research, program
development, services and advocacy; * Fulfill
reporting requirements. Also responsible for our
partnership with the Artisan Baking Center,
NOVEMBER 2002
acting as liaison, conducting outreach activi-
ties, providing follow-up business services for
referred client companies. Qualifications: MPA,
MPP or related degree (or be working towards
its completion) OR a minimum of 2 years expe-
rience implementing economic development
programs for businesses; AND Excellent written
& verbal communication, and interpersonal
skills; Strong computer skills. Marketing skills a
plus. Salary: mid to high 30k's, plus benefits.
Resumes with cover letters should be mailed to:
Ms. Anne Adair, NYIRN, 175 Remsen St., Suite
350, Brooklyn, NY 11201. No Calls, No Email.
PROGRAM AlOES - PER DIEM - The Per Diem
worker provides coverage when regular pro-
gram aide staff are unable to work. Aides pro-
vide direct service to residents of the Lenox Hill
Neighborhood House Women's Shelter. Req.
High Diploma plus one year's experience with
homeless substance abuse, or mentally ill
adult client population. EOE. Fax resumes to
Diane Duarte, Deputy Director, 212-570-1758.
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - The lides Founda-
tion, a public charity dedicated to progressive
social change through creative philanthropy, is
currently seeking a Program Associate to sup-
port to the Philanthropic Advisor and the NYC
Office. For the complete job description and
application deadline, please visit
http://www. tides .org/ti des-jo bs-deta i I.cfm?
For a list of our current positions, please visit
www.tides.org
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The NYC Orga-
nizing Support Center is a non-profit providing
technical support, training and political edu-
cation for New York City's community organiz-
ers and grassroots leaders to build skills,
strategies, and alliances. We help groups to
strengthen their issue campaigns, build their
base of grassroots leaders and more effective-
ly fulfill their organizing missions. Program
coordinator will provide training and technical
support to groups and be the primary staff per-
son for our Spanish Language Leadership Pro-
gram. Required: At least 2 years experience as
an organizer or grassroots leader. College
degree or 4 years of employment or leadership
related to community organizing. Experience
designing and delivering training. Bi-lingual in
verbal and written Spanish and English.
Salary: Mid-30's based on experience. Excellent
benefits, including family health coverage and
TransitCheks. Mail resume, cover letter, 3 refer-
ences to Joan Minieri, NYC Organizing Support
Center, 180 Varick Street, 12th Floor, NY, NY
10014.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - Implement
intergenerational program linking seniors and
children (5-15) in Naturally Occurring Retire-
ment Community (NORC) on Upper West Side.
Available weekends; Requirements include a
B.A. and previous experience with those in tar-
get audience; advanced degree desirable;
responsibilities include identifying volunteers
and program participants; community out-
reach; fax or mail resume and salary require-
ments to Evelyn Rich, Lincoln House Outreach,
303 W. 66th Street, # 12FE, New York, NY
10023; fax 212-874-7047. No phone calls
please.
PROGRAM ASSISTANT " - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit serving the Bronx for 30 years. CAB
provides excellent benefits and offers opportu-
nities for advancement. CAB's Fiscal depart-
ment seeks a Program Assistant II. The posi-
tion requires an associate's degree, computer
literacy, good verbal and writing skills and the
ability to work under pressure. Responsibilities
include providing support to accounts payable,
payroll and agency audits, handling heavy vol-
ume of faxing, copying and typing fiscal corre-
spondence. Knowledge of centralized record
management is a plus. Fax credentials to T.
Samuel at 718-590-4771, email
tsamuel@cabny.org or candidates can mail
resume with cover letter indicating position to
2054 Morris Avenue, Bronx, NY 10453. CAB is
an equal opportunity/affirmative action
employer.
SRCO, a dynamic, growing organization in the
Parkchester section of the Bronx, is building a
community center and developing social ser-
vice and youth programs to be house there.
Three positions are currently available: 1) A
seasoned DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND
PLANNING to work with the Executive Director
to build organizational capacity, design and
implement programs, and manage a growing
professional staff. Qualifications: College
degree (BA or BS) is mandatory; a master's
degree is a plus. Candidate must have experi-
ence in managing professional staff and expe-
rience in one or more of the following fields:
education, community development, philan-
thropy, or social services. 2) An ASSOCIATE
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, to implement programs
and to oversee the CHOICES College & Career
Counseling Program. A college degree (BA or
BS) is mandatory; a master's degree is pre-
ferred. Experience in education, social services,
and/or community development is necessary.
Candidate must have familiarity with the col-
lege application and financial aid process. 3)
An OFFICE MANAGERlEXECUTIVE ASSISTANT
to oversee and coordinate the daily operation of
the office and provide administrative support
to the Executive Director and program staff.
Responsibilities: coordinating outreach and
reporting to the Board of Directors; attending
Board meetings; drafting and coordinating
production of programmatic reports; coordi-
nating public relations; facilitating external
relationships with elected officials and others;
ensuring that all files, mailing lists, and other
records are accurate and up-to-date; other
projects as needed. The ideal candidate pos-
sesses a thorough knowledge of office admin-
istration and organizational procedures. Excel-
lent interpersonal and communication skills
are essential for all positions. Salaries are
competitive, commensurate with experience.
Excellent opportunities for ambitious self-
starters. SRCO is an equal opportunity employ-
er. Please fax or mail a cover letter and resume
to St. Raymond Community Outreach, Inc.,
1720 Metropolitan Avenue, Bronx, NY 10462.
Fax: (718) 824-0532 *NO PHONE CALLS,
PLEASE*
PRO BOND PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Legal not-
for-profit seeks candidate wI strong, organiz-
ing, writing & people skills, w/5 yrs. prof. expo
Send resume, writing sample & references by
JOBADS
8130 to NYLPI, 151 W. 30th St., 11th FI, NYC,
10001.
PROGRAM ADMINISTRATOR - If you enjoy
challenging and diverse job responsibilities,
and a fast paced office, this people oriented
position may be right for you. The Program
Administrator will coordinate daily operations
of Bronx Green Up, a community outreach pro-
gram, in the office and in the field. Will man-
age staff schedules; maintain database; orga-
nize events; represent program at community
meetings; and provide general administrative
and clerical support. Ideal candidate will have
some college or equivalent experience; excel-
lent interpersonal, organizational , and com-
puter skills. Conversational Spanish skills and
experience with community gardening a plus.
Competitive salary with excellent benefits
including 4 weeks vacation. Send resume and
salary requirements to: Recruiter - PA The New
York Botanical Garden 200th Street & Kaz-
imiroff Blvd. Bronx, New York 10458-5126
Email: hr@nybg.org EOEIMIFIDN
RESEARCHER - Garment Industry Develop-
ment Corporation (GIDC), a non- profit consor-
tium of business, labor and government work-
ing to retain good jobs in the garment industry,
seeks a Researcher. Responsibilities include:
Research apparel companies using interviews,
publications, databases, and internet sources;
Track business operations of targeted compa-
nies; Identify and analyze growth opportuni-
ties; Develop well-written and persuasive
analyses. Reqs.: BAIBS in economics, busi-
ness, labor studies or other related field; Expe-
rience in conducting research from primary
and secondary sources including Internet; Abil-
ity to interpret statistical information and
financial statements and organize informa-
tion; Ability to conduct informational inter-
views; Excellent written and verbal communi-
cation skills; Interest in apparel industry; Com-
mitment to labor issues; Proficient user of
database software, i.e. Access. Salary: low to
mid 30's. Mail or FAX resume and cover letter
to: GIDC, 275 Seventh Avenue, 9th Floor, reo
Researcher, New York, NY 10001, FAX: 212-
366-6162, www.gidc.org.
REHABILITATION SPECIALIST - This position
is a senior paraprofessional position on a core
services team at the limes Square, an
acclaimed supportive housing residence for
low-income and formerly homeless individuals.
Resp: case management, group work, crisis
intervention, entitlements assistance, medica-
tion monitoring, liaison with collaterals, and
services documentation. Reqs: BA, 2 yrs direct
svs exp with indicated populations (BSW & 1
yr); or 60 credits & 3 yrs, or HS & 6 yrs; demon-
strated ability to serve a specialized population
or address a special need of the program, good
verbal & written comm. Skills; & computer lit-
eracy. Bilingual Spanish/English preferred.
Salary: $30,773. Benefits: compo bnfts incl
$65/month in transit checks. Send resumes
and cover letters to: Sophie Miller, CUCS/limes
Square, 255 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY
10036. Fax 212-391-5991, Email:
tshire@cucs.org.
SOCIAL WORKER - Social Worker MSW, for
51
JOB ADS
Women's Shelter. Will carry a caseload of 15-
18 clients, provide clinical follow-up, groups &
housing services. Work as a member of multi-
disciplinary team. Must maintain good chart-
ing & record keeping practices. EOE. Resumes
and cover to: Stella Hughes, Lenox Hill Neigh-
borhood House Women's Shelter, 643 Park
Avenue, NYC 10021
SOCIAL WORKER - Social Worker with MSW.
Work with the homebound elderly & family
caregivers providing financial management &
caregiver services. MSW + 2years experience.
Strong clinical & organizational skills. Salary
mid $30s. Resume & cover to Dr. Mushkin,
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, 331 East 70th
Street, NYC 10021. EOE.
SOCIAL SERVICE SUPERVISOR - Nazareth
Housing is a small , entrepreneurial not-for
profit serving homeless families of the Lower
East Side. We seek a bi-lingual (Spanish/Eng-
lish) Social Service Supervisor to manage a
supportive services program. Responsibilities
include caseload management, supervision of
staff, program development and execution,
intake and interviewing of prospective resi -
dents and extensive contact with City agen-
cies. MSW and 5 years of experience working
with diverse populations are required. Must be
computer literate. Please e-mail resume and
cover letter to Executive Director at
nazareth@earthlink.net. An equal opportunity
employer.
SOCIAL WORKERS - Expanding not-for-profit
healthcare network has immediate openings.
Work interdisciplinary team to enhance HIV
prenatal , reproductive health services in an
outpatient primary care setting. Exp. working
w/adolescent and substance abuse using pop-
ulation of diverse cultural bkgnd. reQ'd. Bilin-
gual (Spanish) strongly pre'd MSW reQ'd. Posi-
tion avail. in our Bronx center We offer compet-
itive salaries and bnfts. package Please send
resume to VP of Human Resources, Communi-
ty Healthcare Network 184th Avenue 2nd fir.
NY, NY 10010, Fax: 212-807-0250.
www.chnnyc.org EOE MlFIDN/AA. No phone
calls please.
SOCIAL WORK CLINICIAN - Challenging
opportunity for creative & dedicated prof'l to
grow through hands-on practice through ther-
apeutic groups & counseling indivs. Must have
MSW. New grads are encouraged to apply.
Computer lit a must. Bil (SpanlEng) 3+. Salary
starts in low $30's. Resumes for Social Work
Clinician, indicating position, should be for-
warded to: Tabitha Gaffney, Dir of Social Ser-
vices at fax # 718-485-5916. EOE. A drug free
workplace.
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF SOUTH FORTY EMPLOY-
MENT & TRAINING SERVICES needed to direct
the workforce development activities for the
Osborne Association. Oversee job training,
placement and retention services for prisoners,
ex-prisoners and their families. MPA, MBA or
MA in social work, psychology, or related field
required. Minimum of 8 years experience pro-
viding workforce development services to eco-
nomically disadvantaged people. Three of the
eight years relevant work experience must be in
52
a supervisory capacity. Must be well versed in
workforce development policy issues. Must be
a strong manager and team-builder. Persons
interested in applying should fax a cover letter
(include job reference code DirS040CL) , salary
requirements and resume to Employment Man-
ager 718-707-3315. For more information you
can visit our web site at www.osborneny.org
EOE
SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION COORDINATOR
- The Department of Social and Community
Development is looking for a Social Justice
Education Coordinator (Fm to work with the
Department Director to develop, plan and fol-
low up Jubilee Justice Days for Vicariates and
parishes. Develop increased parish participa-
tion in operation Rice Bowl , Bread for the World
and other international education develop-
mental activities. Work with the vicariate
parish social ministers and parish and vicari-
ate social concerns committees to plan and
organize social justice activities in parishes.
Assist the CCHD coordinator in developing and
implementing a plan for increasing parish par-
ticipation in CCHD collection and educational
activities. Develop and coordinate specific pro-
jects and activities in social justice education
with the Schools Department Catechetical
Department, Permanent Diaconate program
and RCIA. Coordinate Public Discipleship (PO)
in the Archdiocese, including staffing the
steering committee, arranging retreats and
workshops and maintaining the PD groups.
Qualifications: BA degree, MA in relevant area
preferred, experience of parish life, knowledge
of community organizing methods deSirable;
knowledge of Catholic Social Teaching. Ability
to communicate well verbally and in writing,
organizational and computer skills. Apply to:
Catholic Charities, Personnel Office, 1011 First
Avenue, New York, NY, 10022. Fax: 212-826-
8795. Email: ccjobs@archny.org.
STAFF ATTORNEY - Bronx Neigh borhood
Office of Legal Aid Society has immediate
opening for a Staff Attorney in its newly creat-
ed Community Economic Development Unit.
Attorney will assist eligible groups and individ-
uals in matters of incorporation, tax exemption,
contracts, land purchase and in litigation in
connection with such activities or related mat-
ters. Representation of tenant groups and
organizations will be prioritized and housing
court representation may be required. Com-
munity Economic Development Unit is part of
the Housing Unit. Experience in all or some of
areas mentioned above is strongly preferred.
Send cover letter, resume and short writing
sample to: Helaine Barnett, Attorney-in-
Charge, Civil Division, Legal Aid Society, 166
Montague Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Women,
People of Color, Gays and lesbians and People
With Disabilities Especially Encouraged to
Apply.
SOCIAL WORKER - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit serving the Bronx for 30 years. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. The Family Enrichment
Program seeks a Social Worker. The position
requires an MSW with good writing and com-
munication skills. Responsibilities include,
carrying a caseload of 15 families, providing
family and individual counseling, meeting with
families at least twice a month, home visits,
and group work. Bilingual EnglishlSpanish
preferred. Fax credentials to B. Karim-Khan at
718-293-9767
SOCIAL WORKER POSITION - The Green
Chimneys Children's Services @ Ungar House
has a full-time position available as a social
worker in the Gramercy Program for gay, bisex-
ual, transgender and Questioning adolescents.
The position requires a minimum of a MSW
degree. Experience with foster care, GLBTQ
populations and bilingual in Spanish- a plus.
Full benefits. Salary is commensurate with
experience. Please fax resume to: the social
work supervisor: Ms. Shannon Morse at
212-673-1476. For additional info on our pro-
grams, please visit our website at
www.greenchimneys.org.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE SPECIALIST - This posi-
tion will work as part of an interdisciplinary
team educating staff and clients in methods to
achieve and maintain sobriety. Responsibili-
ties also include counseling, resource develop-
ment, and case management. Applicants
must have experience with abuse and recovery
issues in a community setting, experience with
MICA and PLWA, knowledge of, or use of tech-
niques such as 12-Step, Harm Reduction, psy-
chodynamic interventions, etc. ReQs: Addic-
tion training and exp with psychiatric popula-
tion required; CASAC credits preferred. BSW +
1 year relevant experience (excluding field-
work); BA + 2 years relevant experience; HS
Diploma or equivalent + 6 years experience.
Additionally, for applicants without college
degrees, every 30 credits can be substituted
for 1 year of experience. Salary: $30,773.
Benefits: compo bnfts incl $65/month in tran-
sit checks. Send resumes and cover letters by
9/20/02 to: Leslie Phillips, CUCS/Times Square,
255 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036.
The Center for Urban Community Services
(CUCS) is a nationally recognized not-for-prof-
it providing services to homeless and special
needs individuals. CUCS is committed to
workforce diversity. EEO
SENIOR DIRECTOR, QUEENS CHilD ADVOCACY
- Safe Horizon, the nation's leading victim
assistance and advocacy organization is look-
ing for a Sr. Director, Queen Child Advocacy
Center. Qualifications: Masters in Social Work,
Clinical Psychology, Law or related field highly
preferred. Ten years of progressive manage-
ment and administrative responsibilities.
Experience in and/or commitment to work in
child advocacy issues. Salary: $55,000-
$58,000, excellent benefits packages included.
To Apply: Send cover letter an resume to Brian
Lasofsky, Administrative Director, Child Advo-
cacy and Family Support Programs, 2 Lafayette
Street, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10007 or fax to
212-385-0331.
SOCIAL WORKER/ClIENT ADVOCATE - Social
Worker with Master's Degree sought for innov-
ative public defender to work with lawyers in
Bronx courts. Must be dedicated, good writer,
Spanish speaker. Fax resume and writing sam-
ple to Denise: 718-665-0100.
SOCIAL WORK CLINICIAN - Help USA, a
Homeless housing provider has the following
position available, Social Work Clinician.
Challenging opportunity for creative hands-on
practice through therapeutic groups and coun-
seling individuals. Must have MSW. New
grads are encouraged to apply. Computer lit a
plus. Bilingual (SpanishlEnglish) 3+. Salary
starts in low $30s. Resumes indicating posi-
tion should be forwarded to: Tabitha Gaffney,
Dir. Of Social Services at fax # 718-485-5916.
EOE. A drug free workplace.
SOCiAl SERVICE MANAGER - The Social Ser-
vice Manager is the staff member responsible
for the coordination of social services under
the supervision of the Queens Office Manager
and the Managing Director of Housing, Social
and Legal Services (HSL). For further informa-
tion on this and other positions at AAFE please
check out our website al: www.aafe.org
SENIOR HOUSING PARALEGAL - To provide
housi ng rights advocacy to tenants and assi st-
ing housing attorneys with cases, in addition
to administration and reporting under the
supervision of the Director of Housing Legal
services to assist disadvantaged immigrant
communities become self- empowered. For
further information please view: www.aafe.org
SPECiAl ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR Of
AffiLIATE SUPPORT & BACK-UP - Writing,
editing and proofreading documents; Main-
taining and tracking budgets and expense
reports; Coordinating and scheduling meet-
ings, travel arrangements and appointments;
Organizing and supporting the needs for com-
mittee meetings and workshops. Minimum of
three years related administrative experience
or the equivalent in education and experience
required. Self-starter with strong organization-
al skills. Reply to: asb@aclu.org; fax: 212-
549-2648; ASB, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-18th
Floor, NY, NY 10004.
SENIOR PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - Organiza-
tional Development. The Nonprofit Connection,
a leading management assistance provider,
seeks a highly motivated, outcome-oriented,
experienced management professional.
Responsibilities include: providing consulting
services and conducting workshops for non-
profit organizations in areas such as strategic
planning, organization design, program devel-
opment, board development, human resource
management, and community/economic
development. Requirements: Minimum of five
years experience in consulting, training or
organizational management with expertise in
organizational diagnosis and design of appro-
priate interventions. Excellent cognitive, ana-
lytical, writing and presentation skills; com-
puter competency; ability to work in a team-
oriented, multicultural environment. Second
language desirable. Extensive travel within
New York City's five boroughs. Salary: Com-
mensurate with experience. Plus excellent
benefits package. How to Apply: Send resume
with cover letter to: Search Committee, K.W.
Murnion & Assoc., 50 Park Ave., Suite 17C, NY,
NY 10016. No Phone Calls. Equal opportunity
employer. www.nonprofitconnection.org.
CITY LIMITS
SOCIAL SERVICE SUPERVISOR - Nazareth
Housing is a small, entrepreneurial not-for
profit serving homeless families of the Lower
East Side. We seek a bi-lingual (SpanishlEng-
lish) Social Service Supervisor to manage a
supportive services program. Responsibilities
include caseload management, supervision of
staff, program development and execution,
intake and interviewing of prospective resi-
dents and extensive contact with City agen-
cies. MSW and 5 years of experience working
with diverse populations are required. Must be
computer literate. Please e-mail resume and
cover letter to Executive Director at
nazareth@earthlink.net. An equal opportunity
employer.
SOCIAL WORKERIPROGRAM COORDINATOR -
Community-based settlement house seeks
MSW for NORC- Senior Services Program. Over-
all responsibilities include community organiz-
ing and community building. Develop volun-
teer/tenant leadership and ed/rec programs for
multi-cultural, senior tenants. Special events,
casework, short-term counseling. Flexible
hours. Team player. Experience with elderly and
bi-lingual a +. Salary mid-$30's plus excellent
benefits. Fax resumes to 718-760-4723.
SOCIAL SERVICE SUPERVISOR - Nazareth
Housing is a small , entrepreneurial not-for
profit serving homeless families of the Lower
East Side. We seek a bi-lingual (SpanishlEng-
lish) Social Service Supervisor to manage a
supportive services program. Responsibilities
include caseload management, supervision of
staff, program development and execution,
intake and interviewing of prospective resi-
dents and extensive contact with City agencies.
MSW and 5 years of experience working with
diverse populations are required. Must be com-
puter literate. Please e-mail resume and
cover letter to Executive Director at
nazareth@earthlink.net. An equal opportunity
employer.
SUPPORTIVE SERVICES MANAGER -
MSW/CSW HIV/AIDS Supportive Housing
Facility. Leadership role, reporting to the Exec-
utive Director, involves full responsibility for
all aspects of the Clinical/Supportive Services
programs. Must have a proven track record of
accomplishment in an organization providing
services, under city or state contracts, to
homeless persons with co-presenting mental
health, addiction and forensic issues. Excel-
lent writing skills and a high degree of com-
puter proficiency are mandatory. Serious can-
didates should forward resume and detailed
cover letter, stating salary requirements to
Executive Director, Clover Hall , 333 Kosciusko
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11221. Fax 718-602-
9107. EOE
TEACHERS - A Non-Profit Organization seek-
ing to fulfill Literacy and Basic Education
teaching positions. Experienced teachers are
needed to teach youths who have been through
the Juvenile/Criminal Justice Systems. The Lit-
eracy Teacher would be responsible for teach-
ing class Basic Reading, Math, and Writing
skills and the Basic Education Teacher would
be responsible for teaching class subjects. The
schedule is Monday through Friday(morning
NOVEMBER 2002
hours) 16 hours per week. Fax resumes to
Tracey Gooding 212-760-0766
TEACHERS - A Non-Profit Organization seek-
ing to fill Literacy and Basic Education teach-
ing positions. Experienced teachers are needed
to teach youths who have been through the
Juvenile/Criminal Justice Systems. The Literacy
Teacher would be responsible for teaching
basic Reading, Math, and Writing skills and
the Basic Education Teacher would be respon-
sible for teaching class subjects. The schedule
is Monday through Friday{morning hours) 20
hours per week. Fax resumes to Tracey Gooding:
212-760-0766
TRAINING AND OUTREACH - Manhattan
Neighborhood Network administers the Public
Access Cable channels in the borough of Man-
hattan. Seeking qualified individual commit-
ted to media for the public interest. Responsi-
bilities; community outreach, video produc-
tion/post-production training in single and
multi camera environments, grant administra-
tion and facilitation, community media orga-
nizing and curriculum development. FIT, ben-
efits, some eve. and weekends required. Salary,
$32-38K. Send resume, cover letter and three
references to: Ed/Out Search, MNN - 537 W.
59th St., NY, NY 10019 by Sept. 16, 2002. No
Calls.
TEAM LEADER - Candidate sought to lead
interdisciplinary team withe ability to coordi-
nate three (3) case managers, w/caseload of
63 clients, ensuring support services & weekly
contacts are provided to families. Provide indiv
supervision, crisis intervention & support to
the team & Case Managers. Ensure that proto-
cols & regulations are adhered to by counsel-
ing staff. MSW (preferred) or related deg req'd.
Computer literacy a must. Min 2 yrs superviso-
ry exp req'd. Must have clinical as well as case
mgmt expo Salary starts in mid $30's. Resumes
for Team Leader, indicating position, should be
forwarded to: Tabitha Gaffney, Dir of Social
Services at fax # 718-485-5916. EOE. A drug
free workplace.
TRAINING AND OUTREACH - Manhattan
Neighborhood Network administers the Public
Access Cable channels in the borough of Man-
hattan. Seeking qualified individual commit-
ted to media for the public interest. Responsi-
bilities; community outreach, video produc-
tion/post-production training in si ngle and
multi camera environments, grant administra-
tion and facilitation, community media orga-
nizing and curriculum development. FIT, bene-
fits, some eve. and weekends required. Salary,
$32-38K. Send resume, cover letter and three
references to: Ed/Out Search, MNN - 537 W.
59th St., NY, NY 10019 by Sept. 16, 2002. No
Calls.
THERAPIST - Part-time Therapist to work
with children affected by trauma in therapeu-
tic arts after school program. 15 hours week-
ly. $20-30 hourly. MSW or MS in Creative Arts
Therapy. Experience with children. Bilingual,
Spanish. Fax resume to Hillary Stern 212-473-
5462 or email toloisaidaincjobs@aol.com
UNIT LEADER - Venture House, an innovative
mental health program, is seeking a highly
motivated individual for this supervisory posi-
tion in the Administrative Services Unit of our
clubhouse. This unit is responsible for member
enrollment, publishing our newsletter, member
records management, report preparation and
data entry. You would also provide assistance
to people with mental illness with goal setting,
employment placements, entitlements, and
needed services while working in partnerships
with members. Flexibility and a belief in reha-
bilitation and recovery are essential. Several
years experience in the mental health field is
required. Supervisory experience important.
Competitive salary and benefits. Some evening
and weekend work required. Pleas fax your
resume to Ray Schwartz at 718-658-7899 or
mail it to 150-10 Hillside Ave. , Jamaica, NY
11432.
VAN DRIVER - Pomonok Neighborhood Cen-
ter, Inc is seeking a Van Driver for the Senior
Center. Hours are Monday thru Thursday,
8:00am - 3:00pm at $10.00/hour. Must be
pleasant and know how to treat Senior Citi-
zens. Fax resume to Linda at 718-591-3904.
Weekend Intake Case Aides - Yorkville
Common Pantry seeks staff for our new 24 hour
7 day week East Harlem based emergency food
program. We value & seek a diverse workforce
for three Part-Time Weekend Intake Case Aides
will cover the weekend shifts with similar
responsibilities to weekday positions. EOE.
Resumes: Hester Old Sullivan, Deputy Execu-
tive Director for Programs, YCP, 8 East 109th
Street, NY, NY 10029.
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST - Youth
Turn serves adolescents in 13 faith-based sites
with outreach, groups, activities and support-
ive services. YDS will strengthen program com-
ponents to support educational and employ-
ment needs of youth. CSW preferred with 5+
years experience in developing programs for
at-risk adolescents; familiarity with juvenile
justice; sound clinical and strong communica-
tion skills. New York Theological Seminary, 475
Riverside Drive, Suite 500, New York, NY 10115
or Lucy.Cano@NYTS.edu
YOUTH MINISTER - This position's goals are
to evangelize the youth of the community by
creating a transformational intersection of
faith, family, community and schools. This
intersection will be created through activities,
bible study, regular worship, prayer, faith
based community organizing and academic
excellence. A commitment to Christ and
Christian ministry, a BA or advanced degree
with previous youth ministry and knowledge of
grant writing are necessary. Send resumes to:
Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2430
Walton Avenue, Bronx, NY 10468 phone 718-
367-8330. Attn: Rev. Foster.
The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large,
multi-service non-profit serving the Bronx for
more than 25 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-need populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals and
JOBADS
families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides
excellent benefits and offers opportunities for
advancement. Resumes and cover letters indi-
cating position may be mailed to 2054 Morris
Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as directed.
CAB's Nelson Avenue Family Residence has
several openings. HOUSING SPECIALIST - The
position requires a Bachelor'S degree, experi -
ence with real estate brokers, finding perma-
nent housing for homeless families, knowledge
of housing programs, and entitlements. COOR-
DINATOR - for the Nelson Avenue After School
program. The position requires a bachelor's
degree and a valid drivers license. A back-
ground in youth services/social services (non-
athletics) preferred. Knowledge of issues
affecting homeless youth preferred. Experience
supervising staff preferred. TEACHER - The
position requires a bachelor's degree in Early
Childhood Education or related discipline, a
minimum of one year experience working in a
child care setting. Fax credentials indicating
position to G. Rosich at 718-299-1682 or e-
mail it to Grosich@cabny.org. For the teachers
position indicate 0 Yeary. CAB's Positive Living
Program seeks a PROGRAM SPECIALIST for its
Harm Reduction program. The position requires
a high school diploma/GED and some college.
Knowledge of HIV related issues, some Spanish
and counseling/group skills are a plus. Fax cre-
dentials to L. Varriale at 718-716-1065. CAB's
Jackson Avenue Family Residence seeks a
HOUSING SPECIALIST. The position requires a
bachelor's degree experience working with real
estate brokers, and landlords. Knowledge of
housing programs and entitlements for home-
less families a must. Fax credentials to w. Cruz
at 718-993-1249. CAB's Children and Adoles-
cent Department has several openings. PRO-
GRAM COORDINATOR - The position requires
a Bachelor's or Masters degree, and the ability
to manage and oversee teen and adolescent
program activities. SOCIAL WORKER - The
position requires an MSW. Responsibilities
include providing individual and group coun-
seling to teens and adolescents. SPECIALTY
TEACHER - The position requires a Bachelor's
or Masters degree. Responsibilities include act-
ing as a lead instructor teaching students on
the required subject matter. Math and English
Board of Ed. teachers preferred. ACTIVITY SPE-
CIALIST - The position requires an associate's
degree. Responsibilities include assisting with
coordination of teen and adolescent program
activities. TUTOR - The position requires an
associates or bachelor's degree. Responsibili-
ties include assisting students with homework
and academic activities. Strong math and Eng-
lish experience preferred. EDUCATIONAL COOR-
DINATOR - The position requires a bachelor'S
or masters degree. Responsibilities include
leading, planning, and conducting all educa-
tional activities. Board of Ed. teacher preferred.
GROUP LEADERS - The positions require a
high school diplomaiGED or above. Responsi-
bilities include assisting with all adolescent
group activities. Those interested should fax
credentials indicating the position to E. Fowlkes
at 718-590-5866. The COBRA Community Fol-
low-Up Program seeks a CASE MANAGER. The
position requires a bachelor's degree, 2 years of
work-related experience, familiarity with HIV,
homelessness, substance abuse, and mental
illness. Responsibilities include providing
intensive case management, performing out
53
JOB ADS
S4
I LLUSTRATED MEMOS
om CE OF THE CITIVISIONARY:
:
The Teaching Fellows
program has taught us that
anyone can change careers
and become an effective
teacher.
UNEMPLOYMENT REDUCTION
PLAN NQ 8659lf31207-Z
r USED TO RUN
A DOTCOM
Why not start a similar
program to place laid-off
workers from other fields into
empty positions at the NYPD
and the FDNY?
LISTSERVE .
NOW I'M IN
A. POSITION TO
SAVE PEOPLE'S
LIVES!
GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLUTION
TO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?
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OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
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FLOOR, NY NY 10005
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CITY LIMITS
JOB ADS
reach, supervising completion of intakes, and
conducting home visits. Fax credentials to J.
Smith-Houk at 718-293-9767. CAB is an equal
opportunity laffirmative action employer.
The Forest Hills Community House, a multi-ser-
vice, settlement house serving the borough of
Queens seeks to fill positions necessary to pro-
vide services to individuals and families direct-
ly impacted by 9/11. The project is to com-
mence in late August/early Sept. Persons fluent
in Spanish, Arabic, Asian and South Asian lan-
guages and with sensitivity to and appreciation
of diverse populations encouraged to apply for
the following positions: PROJECT SUPERVISOR
- MSW, supervisory experience, program
development experience, crisis intervention
experience, experience working with diverse
communities, knowledge of entitlements,
strong communication, writing, organizational ,
and computerskills. CASEWORKERS - BSWor
equivalent, social service experience with
immigrant communities, previous work with
families, advocacy experience, knowledge of
entitlement systems, good communication and
organizational skills. COMMUNITY WORKER -
Seeking organizer with social service experi-
ence, multilingual with strong communication,
organizational and outreach skills. Fax Resume
& Cover Letter: Mary Abbate, Assistant Execu-
tive Director 718-592-2933.
Hamilton-Madison House in Lower Manhattan
has immediate openings for OUTREACH
WORKERS, COORDINATORS, COUNSELORS,
PSYCHOLOGISTS, PSYCHIATRISTS for Project
Liberty, a crisis-counseling program for 9/11
victims sponsored by FEMA & NYS Office of
Mental Health. Qualifications: excellent ver-
bal, interpersonal and organizational skills;
demonstrated ability to work under stress & to
work with vulnerable populations; experience
human services field; Bilingual. Great oppor-
tunity to help community. Competitive salary;
commensurate with experience. Excellent ben-
efits. Please fax resume to 212-732-9774 or
email projectliberty@hmh100.com
9/11 SERVICE COORDINATOR - Reports to:
Assistant Director, Member Services. The Service
Coordinator is responsible for providing direct
case management services to those persons
affected by the Sept. 11 World Trade Center dis-
aster. Work includes the full range of casework
services for each client including comprehen-
sive needs assessment, counseling, information
and referral , crisis intervention and advocacy,
which meet disaster-caused or disaster-aggra-
vated needs. Service Coordination is conducted
under the aegis of the United Services Group's
policies and procedures. Specific Duties include:
Establish professional relationship with client.
Conduct comprehensive needs assessment;
assess and identify clients' needs. Develop and
use an individualized service plan, including
short-term resources and long-term solutions.
Provide information and referral on resources,
services, benefits; help client access them.
Advocacy; assist client to make the most of
information provided; act on client's behalf, as
appropriate. Maintain adequate client records;
adhere to confidentiality. Participate in training
sessions; stay abreast of information in 9/11
field. Adhere to USG and agency policies. Other
tasks as assigned, such as Federation member-
ship liaison, planning of Annual Meeting. Qual-
ifications: BA Degree, major in human services
field required. MA degree, MSW preferred.
Knowledge of New York City human services sys-
tem. Excellent written and oral communications
skills. Computer skills including knowledge of
Word, Access, Excel. Salary and benefits com-
mensurate with education and experience. Send
resumes to: Judith Milone, CSW, FPWA, 281 Park
Avenue South, New York, NY 10010.
VOLUNTEERS - Lighthouse International,
leading resource worldwide on vision impair-
ment and rehabilitation, seeks volunteers in
Queens/Forest Hills area for special projects-
community outreach, special events, volunteer
recruitment and training and curriculum
development. Also seeks Manhattan based
volunteers to research community resources in
all 5 boroughs. If interested, call Margaret
Rodgers 212-821-9405.
Reach 20 ,000 readers
in the nonprofit sector
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For more information, call Susan Harris at
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