city limits magazine, july/august 2001 issue

8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, July/August 2001 Issue

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EDITORIALDOING GOOD,LOOKING BETTERSurprised you, huh? Welcome to a sleeker andhopefully more readable City Limits-newpackage, same award-winning, tell-it-like-it-ismagazine. We think this new design will helpus-and you-as we try to translate the complex, often baffiing intrigues and infrastructureof New York into compelling journalism thatalso makes the city a better place.

Up front, you'll find an expanded news sec-tion, Frontlines, featuring neighborhoodreports, uncompromising assessments of timely issues, and profrles-of newsmakers, troublemakers, and the people of New York City.Following that is Inside Track, a close-up lookat the inner workings of the five-boroughworld-from the scoop on city agencies to thelatest community development trends. Asalways, at the heart of the magazine arethoughtful, in-depth investigative and literary

features about the issues that really matter tothe city-includinghousing, education, neighborhood politics, child welfare, labor, healthcare and the environment.

Last bur very much in the front of ourminds is Intelligence, a new section all about

Call us obsessive(we do), but all this is justphase one ofCity limits'25th anniversary revamp.

policy and advocacy. It starts on page 30with The Big Idea, a news column wherepolicy isn't a dirty word-it's a world ofschemes for changing society and of peoplewho fight it out in couns, statehouses, unionhalls, foundations, Washington, the academy and the streets. You'll also find a guide to

Cover photo by Joshua Zuckerman; door of vacated apartment, Prospect Plaza.

y u

new reports. City Lit is an expanded bookreview, with updates on current releases.Making Change is all about the business ofnonprofits and other social enterpriseswhat it really takes to turn big ideas intoaction that alters lives.

Call us obsessive (we do), bur all this is justphase one of our 25th anniversary revamp.Coming this fall: a totally redone City Limitsand Center for an Urban Future web site, fea-turing full text of articles, the Weekly Bulletinand classified ads, a serious search engine, andall-new research resources for communityadvocates. And no brick wall.

Let us know what you think! Our email [email protected];you can also find staffemail addresses on page 4. City Limits is yourmagazine as much as it is ours, and we needyour help to make it everything it can be.

n h-Alyssa Katz

Editor

>I Have a primary diagnosis of Mental Illness?>I Receive 551 benefits?>I Are 21 years of age or older?

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Help your employment program meet its goals; Offer your clients access to special social security and housing financial incentives; Assist individuals who are thinking about returning to work or joining a training programbu t haven't worked in years; Provide advise on retaining benefits such as health care coverage when they enter the workforce; Provide other information regarding resources available to individuals with disabilities.

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City Limits relies on the generous support of its readers and advertisers , as well as the following funders: The Adco Foundation, The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Hite Foundation, The Un i-tarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, The North Star Fund, J.P. Morgan &Co.Incorporated, The Annie ECasey Foundation, The Booth FerrisFoundation, The New York Community Trust, The New York Foundation, The Taconic Foundation, Deutsche Bank, M&T Bank, Citibank ,and Chase Manhattan Bank.


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FEATURES14 TOWER WRECKERS

Jane Jacobs would approve: replace decrepit high-rise buildings withacozy mix of homes. But for tenants of Brownsville's Prospect Plaza,the new public housing is leaving behind the residents of the old.

By Robert Neuwirth

19 WE'VE GOT ISSUESEight years of Giuliani is enough to turn anyone into awould-be

urban planner. But as the new slew of candidates takes on the city'stoughest choices, they may regret getting what they wished for.

25 SCHOOLS OF DOOR KNOCKSDeciding to become a community organizer used to mean post-college purgatory. Now it's a ifelong profession. City Limits examines

15 organizing schools that prep tomorrow's rabble-rousers.By Tracie McMillan

CONTENTS

5 FRONTLINES: FEDS KILL HAITIAN RADlO ____SORRY KIDS, CLINIC'S CLOSED ....CHELSEA CHAMP FIGHTS ON ....BRONX BUILDING: CLEAN AND GREEN ....COURT BLOCKS RENT BREAKS

INSIDE TRACK9 SECTION EIGHT IS NOT ENOUGH

Getting a housing voucher from the city is tough. Finding landlordswilling to accept them is an even bigger struggle. By Erin Drasler

12 SYSTEM ERRORComputer centers for the poor were the bees' knees yesterday, todaythey're passe. Dubya's first budget may be the fatal blow.

By Nora McCarthy

2 EDITORIAL4 LETTERS35 JOB ADS

40 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY42 OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY

JULY/AUGUST 2001

INTElliGENCE30 THE BIG IDEA

Sending drug offenders to rehab instead of jail may ease upovercrowded jails and courts. But can coerced drug treatment help

people get clean? By Maia Szalavitz

32 CITY LITThe Lost Children of Wilder, by Nina Bernstein; American Pharaoh:Mayor Richard 1. Daley, His Battle for Chicago and the Nation,

by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor

34 MAKING CHANGETiny community groups grow quietly in grassroots New York, evenbefore they brave the paperwork of becoming official non profits.

Meet the "out-ot-pocket sector." By Nora McCarthy


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ETTERSHO'S WACKO? UNHAPPY HOMEOWNERIs City Limits nuts? Since when is it

ppropriate to use an anonymous quote tottack ACORN ["Lending Fences," May2001]? ACORN has ptobably done more toombat predatory lending than any otherro up in the city. Advocates can complainbout the deals organizers cut for their mem

bership, but they should have enough nerveto get quoted.

I read Judith Macloff's article ["Houses ofInequity", May 2001) with a great deal of personal interest. I, too, have been attempting topurchase a home in Central Harlem, through aNew York City Housing Partnership/HPD program called Central Harlem Townhouses. HP Dis unresponsive, at best, and the private builderand developer have left much to be desired.

Thankfully, the Partnership has been tremendous. I have been able co work with the Partnership in a way that makes it easier for a first timehomebuyer like myself co understand home construction, including classes that offer informationon getting insurance, making repairs, etc.

4

Mary DaileyLead OrganizerThe Northwest Bronx CommunityandClergy Coalition

Anonymous

~ U t ~ Y a n . u ureNot all of the influential

writing about policy issuesin New York City today is

coming from the Rightthe sister organizationof City Limits www.nycfuture.org

Need a Lawyer WhoUnderstands Nonprofits?For 30 years, nonprofits have been choosingLawyers Alliance for legal help with contracts,incorporation, tax, real estate an d many othercritical issues. We're the number one provider offree and low-cost business and transactional legalservices to community-based nonprofits in housing,child care, economic development, education andother areas vital to the quality oflife in New York'sneighborhoods.Get the experienced legal help you need for yournonprofit from Lawyers Alliance for New York.For information, call 212 219-1800 x223 or visitour website at www.lany.org.330 Seventh AvenueNew York, NY 10001212 219-1800www.lany.org

Lawyers Alliancefor NewYorkBuilding a Better New York

CITY LIMITSVolume xxv Number 7

City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except bi monthly issues in July/August and September/October, by theCity Limits Community Information Service, Inc, a nonprofitorganization devoted to disseminating information concerningneighborhood revitalization .Publisher: Kim Nauer [email protected] Publisher: Anita Gutierrez anita@citylimits .orgEditor: Alyssa Katz [email protected] Editor: Tracie McMillan [email protected] Editor: Annia Ciezadlo [email protected] Editor: Jill Grossman [email protected] Editor: Matt Pacenza [email protected] Editors: James Bradley, Wendy Davis, Michael

Hirsch , Kemba Johnson, Robert NeuwirthInterns: Erin DraslerDesign Direction: Sarth CalhounProofreader: Sandy SocolarPhotographers: Mireya Acierto, Gregory PMango, Joshua

ZuckermanCENTER FDR AN URBAN FUTURE:Director: Neil Kleiman [email protected] Director: Jonathan Bowles [email protected] Director: David J. Fischer [email protected]

BDARD OF DIRECTORS':Beverly Cheuvront . New York City Coalition Against Hunger

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CITY LIMITS


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FRONT LINES

Radio Free HaitiEVERY EVENING, AHANDFUL of Haitian radio stations based in F1atbushignite rhe airwaves with the mellifluous tones of Creole and French, therhythms of compa music and passionate debates about Haitian and NewYork politics. For the price of a shortwave radio, about $30, Haitianimmigrants can stay up to date on the tools they need to survive in theciry, from immigration policies to housing law.These sounds are not nearly what they were just a year ago, however, when more than 20 stations, most of them lacking legal permits,crowded the FM bands in Brooklyn. Las t summer, the Federal Communications Commission shut down most of those pirate stationsand scared the rest of f the airwaves. The crackdown coincided wirhthe stunning defeat in Congress of former FCC Chairman WilliamKennard 's proposal to allow up to a thousand low-power stationsonto the radio . With permits to operate a station on the FM dialcosting tens of millions of dollars, members of the Haitian communi ty are desperate to find alternatives. This spring, they learnedthere's too much at stake not to.

In April, immigrants and their advocates were desperately trying tospread details of a federal rule rhat would have allowed more than half amillion undocumented immigrants across the country to stay in the U.S.while applying for legal residency. The lawwas scheduled to sunset at theend of the month , and a rerurn home for these immigrants often meansthey are barred from America for years.Jean Michel, executive director of Chay Pa Lou ("The Load Is NotJULY/AUGUST 2001

Heavy"), an immigration rights organization, believes thousands ofHaitians did no t apply because they had inadequate information aboutthe process. "Because the pirates were not on the air anymore, the information just could not get out," he says. "The radio is really important inour communiry, because most people listen to radio." With a high illiteracy rate, he adds, "They don't read newspapers."

F1atbush Congressman Major Owens is considering using a Haitianpirate station as a test case against the FCC's tactics, but Beltway insiders express little faith that Michael Powell, the new deregulation-friendlyFCC chief, will revive Kennard's proposal. "I have serious questionsabout the constitutionaliry of the FCC's regulations in terms of freespeech," says Owens. "People like the Haitians, whose starions are onlyin Creole, end up with aImosr norhing."Meanwhile, rhe surviving stations continue to broadcast on subfrequencies that can be picked up only on shortwave radios. All day atRadio Lakay-which was a pirate station until February, when five busi-nessmen chipped in to buy a sub-frequency permit for several thousanddollars a month-people walk into the cramped second-floor office onChurch Avenue to buy these radios. On a recent Saturday afternoon,Laguerre "Tom Male" Lamour, the station's programming director,helped seU the brightly colored boom boxes. He is certainly well aware ofthe problems. As he thanked a customer, he admitted with a laugh, "Youcannot fight the FCC."

-JeffChang

5


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FRONT l lNES

Did the city run itsown child healthclinics right out ofbusiness?By Julie HantmanGLOR IA ACEVEDO FONDLY REM EM BERS workingin a child health clinic in East Tremont duringher summers o ff from her job as a school nurse."It was rotally free, " says Acevedo, now president of nurses Local 436, part of DC 37. "Andyou especially had a lot of young mothers thatwould use this as their primary care becausethey had nowhere ro go, they didn't havemoney. My gosh, I have a great letter from oneof these young mothers, how this is how shelearned to be a good parent. Besides givingimmunizations and general health care forthese children, the parents got parenting classes , nutrition, everyrhing."

But if state authorities allow the city tomove ahead with its plans, one in five of theciry's child health clinics will close their doors6

Failing Health

for good. Officials at the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) want ro shutternine of them, as part of a bid ro close 27 cityrun health clinics citywide and save the agency$2 million in operating expenses.

The child health clinic closings will also letthe agency duck ou t of over $2 million more inneeded repairs and renovations on the children's facilities, according ro HHC senior vicepresident LaRay Brown. Faulty wiring, flooding and heating problems affect eight of thenine clinics slated for closing, most of them incity housing projects. Over the past rwo yearsthose eight have already been temporarilyclosed, awaiting repairs and renovation. "Inthese eight clinics' cases, the clients are beingserved in other locations, and the staff havebeen moved already tq those locations,"explains Brown. Under HHC's plan, the temporary reroutings would become permanent.Originally established in the early 1900s as"clean milk stations" that passed ou t free pasteurized milk ro combat infant mortality, thechild health clinics also helped quell diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus via massimmunizations. Their hallmark has been counseling and education, with treatment servicesadded in the 1970s.Now, HHC is scrambling ro take care of itsbottom line. With Medicaid revenue dropping,

state subsidies drying up and outpatient careincreasingly hard ro fund, HHC loses moneyon its clinics. In that light, the relatively smallchild health clinics-staffed by one docror, onenurse and support staff-don 't offer economiesof scale. They show some of the lowest utilization rates of the city's clinics; the nine slated forclosure had on average 3,300 visits in 1999."These are tiny clinics that in this era are notthe kind of clinics that most people want rocome ro, " says Brown. Many who do come areuninsured.

But if child health clinics are small, HHCitself has helped ro shrink them, charges Dr.Katherine Lobach. A clinical professor of pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center, she oversaw the child health clinics for a decade, first atthe Department of Health and then underHHC, after the clinics were transferred ro thehospitals agency's oversight in 1994. SaysLobach, "It's been clear since they were transferred ro HHC that many of them would sortof be left ro hang out ro dry. "Under Lobach's management at HHC,counseling and education remained rop priorities, medicines and lab supplies flowed freely rothe clinics, and the agency aggressively recruited public health-oriented staff. But HHC eliminated Lobach's unit in 1998, the year theagency decentralized its facilities into sixregional nerworks headed up by hospitals.Decentralization was the "final blow," saysLobach. Now, some clinics have a rough timegetting the medicines they need from busy hospital pharmacists, and clinicians are often juggled from facility ro facility, so kids can't stickwith a particular docror.Drawing people ro the clinics has taken abackseat as well. Advocates charge HHC hasneglected ro mount promotional efforts thatcould boost their patient numbers. Until the1970s, integrated linkages across the public sys-tem meant all new moms were referred ro thechild health clinics by public hospitals or fieldnurses. Today, there are few such connections,and no outreach aside from some communityfairs. Signage outside the clinics is poor or nonexistent. It's even hard ro find a working phonenumber for the clinics, as Hunter College students enrolled in a communiry-organizingcourse found ou t this spring. Armed with survey questions for child health clinic staffregarding clinic utilization, the students

CITY LIMITS


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couldn't get through to 40 percent of the phonenumbers they tried. Phones rang and rang, orworse. "They were either closed, or there weredisconnection notices, and not really any forwarding number," according to senior CarolineBudhan.While there's little effort to pull in newpatients, the clinic closings have already beenshrinking the rolls of existing patients. Whenthe Forest Houses Health Clinic in the SouthBronx closed for repairs in 1998, patients andstaff were rerouted to the Melrose Houses Clinic, a mile ro the southwest. But only a third ofthe kids from Forest have ever showed up atMelrose for care, es timates one Melrose stafferwho asked ro remain anonymous. The newtraveling distance-which could require twobuses with small kids or in bad weather-is theprime reason that fewer showed up thanexpected. Unlike Forest residents, "the parentswho live here at Melrose, they can just say, 'I'llbe down in 5 minutes,' and for sure they'll behere," the staffer explains.

With the high asthma rates plaguing theSouth Bronx and the city, Dr. David Evans ofthe Columbia School of Public Health agreesthe extra distance is "a step backward." Newdata stemming from a recent multimilliondollar collaborative project with the childhealth centers showed that when staff aretrained to better manage kids' asthma, it helpsprotect kids' health and save HHC money."People did make fewer ER visits and more vis-its to local centers for treatment of acuteepisodes of asthma," says Evans. "They weregetting treatment from people who knew themand were providing their ongoing care."Getting the clinics reinstated may wellrequire City Council members and other political leaders ro fight for "their" clinics and evenfund repairs out of their own budgets. That'show Manhattanville, also temporarily closeddown, stayed off the hit list: through advocacyby Councilmember Stanley Michels and amillion-dollar donation by the Manhattan borough president 's office.For Pedro Espada, a council health committee member whose district includes the nowclosed John Mitchell Houses Clinic, the bestso lution is the most obvious: more money forHHC. "They always ask for zero budgetatydollars, zero tax levy dollars," says Espada of theagency's annual requests to the council. "It'salmost impossible for an organization that'schartered ro take care of all the indigent care inthe city of New York to be able to afford it." Julie Hantman is a Manhattan-based healthwriter.

JULYIAUGUST 2001

FRONT l lNES

URBAN lEG END

Gregory P. MangoOutlasting Chelsea's SlumlordsIN THE BASEMENT OF AROW HOUSE on West 17th Street, aslight woman with bifocals and shoulderlength gray hair sits at a olding table with avolunteer lawyer. Adozen embattled tenants have come toseek her counsel. Jane Wood convenes the weekly meeting of the Chelsea Coalition on Housing by urgingthese tenants to resist eviction, harassment and hazardous repairs. After agreeing to bake fudge for thecoalition's upcoming annual block party, tenant Dee Vera jokes , "You just can't say no to her."

Landlords who have tried to reckon with the spry 94-year-old know it's an impossible task. Since founding CCH three decades ago , Wood has picketed landlords ' homes, squatted in threatened buildings andrallied hundreds if not thousands of tenants. In the 1980s, she stared down goons hired by unscrupulouslandlords to bully and intimidate tenants. She shocked church officials a ew years ago by denouncing themanager of Leo House, a ow-cost women's residence affiliated with Catholic Charities, as aslumlord. "Ifyou have Jane Wood on your side, lots of times landlords will just cave in ," said State Senator Tom Duane,who has worked with Wood on housing issues for 25 years. Even when landlords don 't back down , Wooddoesn 't feel defeated. "The community organized in such away!" she says of the fight for the Leo Housetenants, who were ultimately forced out. "Part of it is just being together."

The diminutive St. Louis native has been at the forefront of every Chelsea housing dispute since the1960s. She began by protesting the destruction of affordable tenements called home by Greek immigrantsworking on the nearby piers to make way for Penn South , amiddle-income cooperative complex. Thoughthe buildings went up , hose who had lost their homes were given priority in the new housing.

The intrepid organizer has lived in her three-bedroom apartment on West 19th Street since 1947 , andshe remembers when Chelsea was a working-class community with a thriving manufacturing district."That was before the real estate industry decided it was aneighborhood," she said .

Though suffering from emphysema and hip problems, Wood hasn 't let up on her crusade for "integration not gentrification." She can be found on the picket lines, even if it means trekking to Brooklyn toprotest rent hikes proposed by the Rent Guidelines Board, as she did at the end of April. And don 't thinkbecause she has acane that she needs a est. When someone at the demonstration tried to get Wood tosit down , City Councilmember Christine Quinn recalls, "She looked at him as if he had four heads! Therewas arally and she was there to picket. Why would she possibly need achair?" -Megan Costello


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FRONT LINES

== HOUSING==Judge DreadTHIS SPRING, ATENANT called the MetropolitanCouncil on Housing's hotline to ask ifhis landlord could legally take away the rent discountshe'd been getting for years. Recognizing a jumpin the neighborhood 's housing market, hisbuilding's owner wanted to significantly raisethe rent, to the maximum level allowed underthe state's rent regulation laws.

Don't worry, Met Council organizer DavePowell told the caller, New York's housing lawsprohibit landlords from making a switch likethat until the current tenant moves out. Powell's answer was correct-until the next day,May 22, when the Appellate Division of theManhattan Supreme Court ruled that anytimea lease comes up for renewal , landlords canraise the rent to the full amount allowed understate rent regulation.

For tenants in neighborhoods like Harlem,Bushwick and Williamsburg, where oncestruggling housing markets are heating up,rents could as much as double. And some advocates predict it could mean a spike in evictions."This will give landlords a real incentive to jackup rents if they have other tenants who are willing to pay that price," says Powell.The appellate division's 3-2 ruling threw outa decision made by th e state Division of Hous-

FIRST HAND

School's Out

ing and Community Renewal in 1997 thatrejected a landlord's request to charge higherrents for tenants who had been paying what aretechnically known as "preferential" rents. Inthat case, the Missionary Sisters of the SacredHeart sought to raise an East Village tenant 'srent by $70, 5 percent more than the ratethey'd charged for the previous two years. Thecourt said there is no reason to conclude "thatthe preference was to survive after the economically depressed market recovered."

Landlords applaud the decision, saying thereductions were always meant to be short-term."It's always offended me that if an owner did afavor for a tenant, that became permanent," saysDan Margulies, president of the CommunityHousing Improvement Project, a landlord group.Meanwhile, tenants hope DHCR appeals.''I'm really scared they'll decide to not fightthis," says Ken Rosenfeld, legal director for theNorthern Manhattan Improvement Corporation. "If it stands, it's a major blow for tenantsin gentrifying neighborhoods." -Matt Pacenza

- ENVIRONMENT=Days in the SunCASA DEl SOL, A COMMUNITY center in MottHaven, barely dodges the shadows of the Bruckner Expressway, bur its directors are determined

to take advantage of its spot in the sun as a wayto cut the air pollution that has put the SouthBronx neighborhood on the map.Run by the Cherry Tree Association, a localnonprofit that has battled environmentalthreats, from medical waste incinerators topower plants, for the last eight years, Casa plansto become the first environmentally-sustainable community center in the city by the fall of2003. Already equipped with a communitygarden and solar panels (candelabras are also litas the sun sets), Casa del Sol plans to install thelatest solar technology to heat its water andelectrify the entire building. A rooftop greenhouse will be used for composting, and itsplants will purify the water and air that willthen be funneled throughout the center.In a neighborhood where the asthma rateamong kids is twice the city average, say thepeople at Cherry Tree, any change is welcome,and they are working with the City CollegeArchitectural Center and New York Institute ofTechnology to make it happen.

Of course, a friendlier environment is notfree, and in this case it could run as much as$7.5 million. Some funding has already beenslated from the city Department of Environmental Conservation, Con Ed and the National Resources Defense Council. While it maytake some time, Cherry Tree also hopes tomake money by se lling excess power to energyusers around the city.

-Hillary RussI'm assuming that I'm going to speak to acase manager and get aplan to get meback to work. But what I'm told is, "Here is the assignment." Aren 't they supposedto assess me and ask what I'mcapable of doing? Then I went to my WEP assign-ment.lt was maintenance work using chemicals. I have abad rash on my arm andso I said , "Ican't use chemicals. Can 't Iget an office job?" They said no: "You haveto do maintenance work. " There was no type of adjustment made. Everything is runlike you 're in aherd.

Mireya Acierto

My dealings with the welfare office on getting an education were mind-boggling. Iwent in and asked, "What training programs can I be involved in? CanI go to college? " I was told , "You can't do it."HRA's message is you come in and do exactly what we tell you to do . I've hadfriends who were forced to stop school because of welfare. If you're already inschool, it's difficult. If you want to go to school, it's not an option.

I'm amother of two boys. Simeon is 6, Sam is 8. I'm 39 years of age. I have ahighschool diploma. I worked at Chemical Bank for 15 years: first as aclerk and ulti-mately as an officer of the bank. Ididn 't pass this insurance exam so they fired me.In 1998, I irst collected welfare. I've been on public assistance on and off now forthree and ahalf years.

I really want to go back to school. I want to do something to help children andlet parents know they have rights. Parents on welfare take awhole lot of crap thatyou would never take but you want to help your children. When I first went to HRA,I cried because of the way they treated me . At no time should you experience thathumiliation. In high school , I had to go with my mother to her welfare appoint-ments. It was horrible. The system now is the same as it was for my mother. It washorrendous then a d it's still horrendous now .

My first contact from HRA was a etter that says, "Come to awork orientation." -Sandra KillettWilliams, as told to Matt Pacenza8 CITY LIMITS


9/44

INSIDE TRACK

Section 8 Is Not EnoughIn a tight housing market, government rent vouchers arerapidly losing their value. By Erin DraslerESTElLA CARTER VISITED 15 landlords and regis-tered with nearly 40 real estate agencies duringher months-long search for an apartment earlierthis year. She'd waited two years to get a Section8 voucher that would allow her to spend only 30percent of her low income on rent. Now all shewanted was to escape the cold and rundownthree-bedroom she shared with her five children.

As she pounded the pavement, however,Carter found her ticket to cheaper rent was notworth a whole lot. All over Brooklyn and inQueens and Staten Island, no landlord wouldeven show her an apartment.In a painfully tight real estate market, Carter'sstory has become common. Finding a landlordwho will accept Section 8 vouchers is hardernow than it has been for years, if ever. After wait

ing up to 10 years to get into the program, aboutone-tenth of the city's voucher-holders returnthem unused because they cannot find an apartment by the end of a four-month deadline,according to the city Housing Authority.

Carter is three months into her search. Onelandlord told her she had no Section 8 apartments, though several brokers had her buildinglisted as a program participant. Another insistedCarter's family was too large for the three-bedroom apartment he had available, although Section 8 guidelines recommend a three-bedroomhome for a six-person family. At press time,Carter had a lead on a place in Crown Heights.While an expired voucher can be renewed,buying another two months, it's still no guarantee. Some people go through up to two renewalswhile bouncing between shelters, staying indilapidated apartments or struggling to makerents beyond their means. "Section 8 vouchersjust aren't working as well as they used to," saysPatrick Markee, senior policy analyst for theCoalition for the Homeless.Families get caught in a housing market(fap. They can no longer find apartments inmany neighborhoods they once relied on, fromFort Greene to Washington Heights. But thedeeply poor neighborhoods still open to themoffer few vacant apartments that meet thestringent standards city inspectors demand.

The program's travails are no surprise to thoseJULY/AUGUST 2001

who mounted opposition in 1982,when the Reagan administrationreplaced housing construction programs with rental vouchers. Supporters of Section 8 claimed itwould offer poor families mobilityinstead of clumping them in housing projects. But some housingadvocates criticized the plan, foreseeing its failure to increase the affordable housing stock, particularly intight markets like New York City's.

Almost 20 years later, lowincome tenants are being shut out ofmany neighborhoods. Landlords saythere is little incentive to participatein the Section 8 program. "If ownerscan rent to someone else, they will,"says Roberta Bernstein, president ofthe Small Property Owners of NewYork (SPONy), estimating thatabout 20 percent of her 1,000 members participate in the program, thelowest rate in years. With the city'svacancy rate at about 3 percent,down from 5 percent five years ago,many building owners can afford tobe picky. HUD sets one flat maximum rate that amounts to less thanhalf of what landlords can get inmany parts of the city.

Estella Carter can 't find a landlord willing to take hefamily and Section 8voucher.

The result is the very ghettoiza-tion the program was supposed to fix. By allaccounts the bulk of vouchers are now used inthe South Bronx and eastern Brooklyn, whereproperty values are low and vacancy rates rela-tively high. "Ten years ago, you could get a Sec-tion 8 apartment in Park Slope," says VincentCastellano, a real estate broker who specializesin Section 8. "You just can't do that now." Forlandlords in poor neighborhoods, however, hecalls it the best rental assistance program thegovernment runs. Building owners in thoseareas often have a hard time finding tenantswho can pay the rent, he says. "You have to lookelsewhere. To me, the best elsewhere is Section8." Within two months, he adds, he usuallyfinds a home for people with vouchers.

But many landlords report apartments arincreasingly hard to come by, and demandgrowing. In 1997, Congress ended a three-yeafreeze on new Section 8 vouchers. Today210,000 New Yorkers sit on the waiting list, andif the past is any indication , they could wait along as a decade. Recognizing the shortage ohousing for their clients, government officialhave made attempts to lure landlords in. Thiyear, the city increased the maximum paymento property owners, to $949 for a two-bedroomIt has also started offering bonuses of up t$6,700 to landlords who rent to homeless families using Section 8.

It is too early to see the full effects of thesin itiatives to get more apartments into the pro


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gram, bur another, started two years ago, hasreceived mixed reviews. In 1999, Congress gavelandlords new flexibility to reject or evict Seccion 8 tenams, which had previously been verydifficult. Many tenant advocates say the changehas created an easy out for property owners. "Itis backfiring for the tenants who have to movemore frequendy. Many landlords just don'trenew those leases ," says Ranjana Natarajan, alawyer at South Brooklyn Legal Services. Nocicing an increase in evictions and a tendency forlandlords to refuse to renew leases, Legal Servicesflled a lawsuit against the Housing Authority lastNovember. It charges that tenants must wait toolong-up to two years, the lawyers claim-toget a voucher for a new apartmem once they areevicted. These "emergency" vouchers are supposed to take less than 30 days to obtain.DESPITE ATTEMPTS TO BRING them in, manylandlords are scill saying no to Seccion 8, reasoning that the perks don't outweigh the costs. Noronly is their remal income often reduced, saysBernstein, who refuses to accept vouchers in herBrooklyn buildings, but the program costs themrime as well. The paperwork alone rakes weeksto fill out and process, and by the time a checkis run on a landlord's history and an inspectorsurveys the property for a fresh paint job, window guards and a smoke detector, four monthshave typically passed. "In the meancime," shesays, "the property owners are left high and dry."

While tenants and advocates chide the cityfor failing to sufficiendy scrutinize Section 8apartmems and placing residems in uninhabitable buildings, some landlords poim to theunwieldy inspection process as reason for dropping out. Brooklyn landlord Ed Korman sayshe waited three years for one comract renewalto go through. HUD evemually paid him whathe was owed, bur after years in the program, hedecided not to accept new Section 8 residems.

It's no surprise that inspeccions have slowed.The city got almost 2,000 new vouchers lastyear, while the number of Section 8 staffersdropped. The HousingAuthority is now lookingto fill about 40 spots to handle the increasedworkload. Korman calls the agency's new information sessions for landlords a promising start,bur adds, "It would take a lot to convince landlords that they've cleaned up their acr."

Castellano agrees that the program needs better management, but he says that fixing Section8 misses the point. "The real issue here is thelack of affordable housing," he says. "With addicional tenants chasing fewer and fewer apartments ... You can't fit a four-pound salami into atwo-pound bag."

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INSIDE TRACK

System ErrorCommunity technology centers were aglowing hope for bridgingthe digital divide. Can they survive a crash? By Nora McCarthy

Asian Americans for Equality got awindfall of cash to open aChinatowncomputer center, but little money to keep it going.ON 14TH STREET IN BROOKLYN, cwo classroomsat Project Reach Youth are full with adulrsbem over worksheets, ringed by hummingcomputer screens. "Who's used a computerbefore?" asks teacher Luis Perez, and only oneyoung man, from Ecuador, raises his hand.Perez looks surprised, then says, "OK-hecan help the rest of you. "The srudems, all Spanish-speakers here colearn English, roll their chairs over co thecomputers. But they're no more experiencedwith DSL than they are with ESL. Onewoman pushes her mouse around with onefinger. Others type. No one knows how COopen the imernet English program they are couse, and once Perez helps them find it, theycan't read the directions.Teaching technology skills co the uninitiated is difficult, and community technologycemers (CTCs), like the three Project ReachYouth opened last fall, are still working outJULY/AUGUST 2001

the kinks. Still, they are providing an opporrunity for low-income New Yorkers co learncomputer skills, from word processing co dataentry to job searching, that can get themwhite-collar work. It's a pricey undertaking.Besides buying computers and other equipmem and services, cemers have to hire staff,raise money, and develop curricula that usethe technology effectively. Compu ters quickly get outdated, making expensive upgrades afrequem necessity.All told, running a CTC can cost hundredsof thousands of dollars a year. As the economyslows and technology continues co lose its luster, non profits that run CTCs say that raisingthe money to keep them going has become aformidable challenge.Many started with big dollars and dreamsto match. Project Reach Youth is one of 11city non profits awarded federal Departmemof Education grams in the last two years to

start 34 community technology centeThose grams wem to big nonprofits liAbyssinian Developmem Corporatiowhich has built six cemers in Harlem, aLehman College's Bronx CTC Necwowhich developed 11.These nonrenewable three-year grants stout big-nearly $300,000 in their first yeartypical. Each year, the CTCs supply more amore of their own funds , starting with 30 pcem of their operating budgets the first ye(perhaps $100,000), 40 percem the secoyear, 50 percem the year after that. Ththey're on their own.The feds expected CTCs to be able raise huge matching grams from tech companies and private foundations, as wellstart profitable vemures that wou ld quickmake the cemers self-sustaining. They wefueled by a belief that money would com

pouring in to anything associated with tecnology. Some have made the emrepreneurmodel work. The Restoration Informatiand Technology Education cemer in BeSruy charges fees for classes and hires outstaff to set up necworks, create web sites aassist other nonprofits.But instead of trying to leverage monfrom communities that have little to give, moCTCs look for grants and donations. "Ir 's simple math, really," observes Nick Noe, a researassociate at MOUSE, a nonprofit promotitechnology in city neighborhoods. "You aserving underserved populations that dohave resources. That's why they needed pubsupport in the first point. "Even for big organizations, finding bdollars has not been easy, and the competion has been fierce. "It 's been hard to raieven 30 percent. It's kind of frightening even consider what the next year will lolike," says Claudia DeMegret, the progradirector at the National Puerto Rican Forumwhich received nearly $1 million over thryears from the feds. "You keep havingreplace equipmem, especially when youdoing high-quality services, not just lerripeople diddle on the computer."


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THERE IS NO SUCH THINGAS A FREE LUNCH

But there is free legal assistanceNot-for-profits, community groups and organizations working to improve their communities in New YorkCity are eligible for free legal assistance through New Yo rk Lawyers fo r the Public Interest's(NYLPI) pro bono clearinghouse. The clearinghouse draws on the expertise of lawyers at our 78member law firms and corporate legal departments.Our network of attorneys can work with you on a wide variety of legal issues:

Establishing your group as a not-for-profit Lease negotiations and other real estate matters Establishing a long-term relationship with one of our member law firms Representing your organization in litigation mattersI f you believe your organization can benefit from legal assistance, call Wendy Brennan

at (212) 244-4664, or email at [email protected] to see if you qualify.All legal services are free of charge.NYLPI, 151 West 30th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10001-4007

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While the centers are in decent shape now,the people who run them say their fledglingprograms will have to make serious cuts whenthe federal funding stops. "When the grantends, we 're not going to have any money, ourcomputers are going to be outdated and a lot ofCTCs are going to be competing for the samemoney," says Maricela Brea, CTC director atProject Reach Youth. "How are we going tomaintain all this, plus staff?"Brea may have to find answers sooner thanshe was planning to. President Bush's proposedbudget shifts funding for community technologycenters into block grants that states can spend asthey choose. If that happens, there's no guaranteethat centers will receive the grant payments

they're due. At the same time, federal funding islikely to be cut drastically. A new round of grantapplications that was supposed to start this springhasn't begun, and most observers expect it neverwill. Says Noe of the new budget, "It's prettymuch going to decimate the CTC."Only a year ago, closing the digital dividewas a national priority, and the gap is still farfrom closed. The much-hyped Department ofCommerce study "Falling Through the Nd 'documented that only one-quarter of black andHispanic households have internet access, compared with half of white and Asian families. Yetwhile the need for CTCs is only growingnearly 75 percent of new jobs require techski lls-government has quickly abandoned itsformer urgency."The whole craze for CTCs and the digitaldivide, well, the heat of the issue just started tocool off," says Francis Lam, program managerfor the Asian Americans for Equality computercenter in Chinatown. "A year ago, it was thebiggest thing in the world. But when the dotcom world started disappearing, a sudden disinterest was very apparent."IN THE LATE 1990S, more than a hundred smallcommunity technology centers sprang up within non profits allover the city, funded by donations from computer giants like Gateway, cityand state grants, and private foundations .AAFE's Division Street computer lab opened in1999 with 12 computers paid for by start-upgrants from the State Assembly, Bell Atlanticand Verizon.At first, it focused simply on access. Then,as more of its clients acquired computers athome, the center tried to switch its focustoward structured, socially relevant projectsthat incorporate technology training, like aworkshop where teens create a community website in English and Chinese. But that kind ofJULY/AUGUST 2001

project requires extensive staff, and the centerhas yet to win the grants it needs.In part, that's because finding money forhard costs like computers and software tends tobe easier than raising cash for staff. Funders can

see the results of buying a dozen monitors, andthose cost a lot less than a full-time teacher,Lam observes. While the Chinatown centerscurries for funding, it has ended up offeringmostly open access and few classes, and cutback its hours. "Like a restaurant," Lam says,"we started to close earlier."Smaller CTCs are already deep into whatthe federally funded centers will soon have to

"A year ago it wasthe biggest thing inthe world," saysthe head of onestruggling center.

Then the dot-cornsstarteddisappearing.face-trying to generate enough in grants,donations and partnerships with other nonprofits to scrape by. And while large organizations say they'll have an easier time raisingmoney, the experience of the Fortune Society, alarge nonprofit whose computer center serves500 ex-offenders each year, suggests otherwise.

Fortune got money two years ago to build a14-computer lab and staff it with one instructor, Eric Applegate, who jokes that he's "alwaysscreaming about getting another paid instructor. " Applegate has created sophisticated programs-ex-offenders learn to build web pages,email with a class of adults in Germany, andjoin online discussions of the criminal justicesystem-but he stiLI teaches almost every classhimself, from 9 to 5. "A lot of grants arefocused on equipment, but if you look at offering a curriculum that makes any sense, thetraining is what's important," Applegate says."We often get mesmerized by the technology,

INSIDE TRACK

but we should be truly empowering them use the technology as a tool."

If the experience of small CTCs is aindication, the federally funded programs wsoon be in trouble, too. None of the smcenters have the money for software and haware upgrades, broadband lines or adequstaff-exactly the things the governmegrants have covered so far. This fall, MOUreleased a study of city CTCs, and foundpercent "anticipate funding difficulties." Nnow calls that "a tame way to say they're haing serious problems."A MAJOR OBSTACLE for everyone is that CThave not formed a strong community amothemselves . In everything from plannicourses ro finding profitable side projects, centers have been reinventing the wheel , somtimes paying to write a curriculum that's haly different from what's offered down block. CTCs could run more efficientlysaving money on group purchases or by shlI1g programs.That's why MOUSE and other CTCs lobied the City Council's Subcommittee Small Business, Retail and Emerging Technogies back in March, hoping the council woubudget funds for a CTC Bank. The bawould act as an intermediary to provide ceters citywide with resources like grant writitechnical assistance, pooled curricula, stdevelopment training, bulk discounts and conections ro social venture philanthropies.would primarily be directed toward smCTCs, especially in underserved outer-bough areas. The council added $500,000the bank to the budget, to be followed bymillion each year, part of which wouldtoward grants to small centers.But Mayor Giuliani's budget included mention of funds for CTCs. That may penny-wise and pound foolish; the city's ecoomy, after all , depends on a supply of skilworkers. A lot is riding on the public sectability to teach word processing and web suing to people who can touch a keyboard for first time, look for a job on the internet or fthe thrill of sending email to relatives in Chi'Technology is not an end in itself,using technology in service agencies can chanpeople's lives," says Mara Rose, who ranCTC Playing to Win in Harlem. "Exposurwhat makes us think bigget, and dream wwe 've never dreamed before." -Nora McCarthy is a Brooklyn-based freelawriter.


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ower

Joshua Zuckerman14

rec ers

1114) Housoon tear down 430Saratoga Avenue to makeway for a new low-rise,mixed-income community.

BY ROBERT NEUWIRTHTeir 368 apartments would be completely renovated. They would temporarily move into newly built townhouses nearby and rerum to their formerhomes once the work was done. The townhouses would bring new Life to the vacantlots that surround their housing project.They were promised a leg up on getting jobsfrom the construction contractors. And, afterrenovating their buildings, the governmentwould chip in millions of dollars for socialservices-giving them a chance to learn computers, to train for home ownership opportunities, and to get their kids enrolled in academic, arts, and recreational programs. Alltold, $75 million in public and privatemoney would make their central Brooklyncommunity bloom.All they had to do was sign on the dotted line.Bur just five years after approving plans to

use a $22 million grant from the U.S.Department of Housing and Urban Development HOPE VI program to renovate theirdeteriorating houses, the tenants ofBrownsville's Prospect Plaza look back at adeal they couldn't refuse and find themselvespuzzled and dispirited. They're getting thereconstruction and some money to move-and almost nothing of anything else.First, their entire four-building complexwill be emptied, a process that is alreadyunderway and should be wrapped up by themiddle of next year. One of the buildings,containing 102 apartments, will be demolished.The other three wiJl be renovated. Thetenants will be relocated, but not to nearbytownhouses. Those have yet to be built-andwhen they are, most will be offered for sale atprices far beyond the reach of the overwhelmingly poor residents of the projects.Instead, Prospect Plaza's tenants are beingoffered replacement apartments in otherhousing projects or Section 8 vouchers theycan use to rent apartments on the privatemarket. They have been promised the rightto rerum to Prospect Plaza, which defines thearea around Saratoga and Prospect avenues,but most doubt they will ever be able tomove back. And the social services that weresupposed to be up and running already are

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The tenants of Brownsville's Prospect plaza proiects havelived through snipers, despair and decay. But it took theNew York City Housing Authority-and a HOPE VI urbanrenewal grant-to drive them out of the neighborhood.nowhere in sighL A consortium of community groups and churches,which joined with project tenants ro jointly administer the funds, arenow duking it out for control of the money.

All rold, many Prospect Plaza tenants have lost faith in the plan thatonce seemed like their salvation. "I don't know anything, except we havero get out," says Joanne Jones as she sits in the sun in front of 1765Prospect Place, where she has lived for 13 years."I think they're full of shit-straight cheese," says Keisha Washingron, as her children rollerblade through the dirty halls of 1750 ProspectPlace. Several of the apartments are already empty, their doors padlocked. Washington, who grew up in the apartment where she is nowraising her seven kids, believes that the HOPE VI deal is simply a planro remove the existing tenants and bring in higher-income people.Washingron's got reason ro worry. Strictly interpreting a 1998 federallaw, the New York City Housing Authority, which manages the city's346 housing projects and is in charge of the Prospect Plaza deal, nowrequires that half the vacancies in all public housing developments go rowhat it calls "working families"-with incomes between $31,450 and$66,550, depending on family size. The 1999 Housing and VacancySurvey found the median income in city housing projects was $9,704.Such "deconcentration" is an explicit goal of HOPE VI, roo. When thedevelopment reopens, it will have the elusive income mix that NYCHAofficials are sweating ro achieve at other complexes.Even residents who say they'd welcome higher-income neighborsare running out of patience. Milron Bolron, the pres idem of theProspect Plaza Tenant Association and once a big booster of the plan,is now ambivalent. He 's distressed that the social service programs arenot established yet-particularly the homeowner training workshops,since he someday hopes ro buy a house. Bolton, a soft-spoken bear ofa man, sits in a straight-backed chair and bounces his 2-year-old sonon his lap as his seven other children scoot in and out of the room."We welcome the changes," he says. "We welcome the impact if it'sdone righL But no matter what we do, it still feels like we 're fightinga losing battle."Such gripes are normal whenever renovation plans become morethan dreams on paper. But this particular vision-$75 million investedin troubled Brownsville-carries with it some terrible tradeoffs. To beredeveloped, Prospect Plaza must become a ghost rown. Every week, sev-eral families move out, and their apartments are padlocked. The remaining tenants have been rold that they will all have ro be our within a year.The renovations-scheduled ro be finished in early 2004--will almostcertainly make Prospect Plaza a nicer place ro live. But most of the families who patiently lived through rough times-drugs, deterioration, andgun violence, including a 1994 roofrop sniper and the 1995 crossfirekilling of a four-year-old girl who was rollerskating in front of her homeat 1765 Prospect Place-believe that they won't be around ro celebratethe project's rebirth.

Te federal Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere program, a.k.a. HOPE VI, proposes a good deal for tenantsand cicy agencies alike. It offers hope to housing authorities acrossthe country, allocating money ro severely distressed housing projects, seeking ro clean them up and build new housing. And it offershope ro tenants because HOPE VI leverages other funds to provideJULY/AUGUST 2001

ongoing social services, job training, and recreational opportunitiesthat the projects do not once again become human dumping groundominated by crime, drugs, and gunfire.But more fundamentally, HOPE VI, inaugurated by the Deparrmeof Housing and Urban Development in 1993, was born from the senthat the nation's grand experiment with public housing has failed-thinstead of giving people a boost, housing projects have become eternghetros. So HOPE VI does not attempt ro create more federally subsdized apartments. Instead, it seeks ro downsize housing projects, cuttithe number of units dramatically and demolishing high-rises in favortownhouses. And HOPE VI does not attempt ro make more housiavailable ro the poor. Instead, it seeks ro tweak the income mix in tprojects, bringing working-class people inro housing developmendominated by the very poorest.With these goals, HOPE VI offers tenants a Faustian bargain. If thwant their housing projects improved, they must make use ofHOPE Vmoney. But, in most cases, if their deal is approved, they will haverelocate, and many of them may never be able ro rerum. Some buildinin their developments will be demolished. The supply of public housiwill shrink. In essence, HOPE VI forces residents ro confront a horribquestion: Do we have ro destroy public housing ro save it?In the eight years since HOPE VI was established, HUD has allocaed $4.1 billion for 149 projects across the country. This, the agenclaims, has leveraged almost $7 billion in private financing for retadevelopment, local services and private housing. Much of the focus hbeen on tearing down multisrory buildings. From 1993 ro 2000, HOPVI paid for demolition of almost 97,000 public housing units. In theplace, the program created 61,000 new or revitalized dwellings. In aHOPE VI has reduced the number ofaparmlents at those developmenby more than 37 percent; in the last four years alone, the program hauthorized demolition of 33,796 apartments. As at Prospect Plaza, teants are offered replacement apartments in other projects or Sectioncertificates. But HUD has done almost no follow-up ro determine hothese families have fared in their new homes.While the townhouse communities that replace the old high-rismay be an improvement, the math is inescapable. HOPE VI mmake life better for some housing project residents, but it reduces thsupply of affordable housing. For instance, Albany, New York , won1998 grant ro improve the Edwin Corning Homes, bu t the plreduces the number of apartments by 35 percent, from 292 mostlow-income units ro 160 mixed-income units in 80 townhouses. Thplan cal ls for another 200 units around the city, but, facroring income-mixing requirements, low-income tenants will still experiena loss in availab le apartments. Similarly, Birmingham, Alabama, ganered a $35 million HOPE VI grant to demolish a 910-aparrmecomp lex and replace it with 1,029 new scattered-site townhouses. Thsounded great, until residents read the fine print: Only 340 of the neunits would go ro low-income residents. In the end, there was a nloss of 490 low-cost apartments. .Boosters say HOPE VI creates vibrant new communities in areas thhave long been blighted. "We're not just revitalizing a developmenwe 're revitalizing a neighborhood," explains a New York-based HUofficial familiar with the project, who asked to remain anonymous.may be the neighborhood needs a different mix of incomes. And t


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departmenr for some time has been pushing racial deconcenrration andeconomic diversity."Critics conrend, however, that HOPE VI is a tool for displacemenrpushing out lower-income residenrs in favor of berter-off tenants. In a1998 audit, HUD's own Inspector General recognized the problem.While the audit saluted the "impressive physical revitalizations" HOPEVI has brought about, it cautioned that "improvemenrs to the lives ofthe residents who lived there are much less obvious." What's more, theaudit revealed that at most HOPE VI developments, fewer than half theoriginal tenants returned after renovations were complete.Some of those residenrs undoubtedly chose not to return, whetherbecause they found better places to live (though not easily in cities withtight housing markets) or had no desire to move twice in just a few years.HOPE VI is counting on them not to come back. In most of its projects, the result is about one-third fewer affordable units than whenreconstruction started, and some families that want to return may neverget the chance.Afust glance, Prospect Plaza would seem an odd choice for aHOPE VI grant. Its four red brick towers of 12 to 15 stories werebuilt in 1974, making them much newer than many of the city'sother housing projects. From the outside, the buildings don't seem

16

particularly deteriorated, at least not noticeably more than the surrounding neighborhood. Indeed, to the east of the project, ProspectPlace dissolves into a vast vista of weed-filled lots, while to the west,across Saratoga Avenue, many of the larger buildings are vacanr andboarded up. Prospect Plaza's tenanrs have the usual litany of complaints-rats, roaches, lack of security, thin walls, shoddy plumbingbut they never felt that their homes were structurally unsound.

What Prospect Plaza did have was a number of vacanr parcels in thearea, providing room for new construction nearby. And from the NewYork City Housing Authority's poinr of view, Prospect Plaza had another important characteristic: it is an extremely low-income development.The average Prospect Plaza family earns approximately $11,700 ayear-22 percenr lower than the rest of the Ocean Hill-Brownsvillecommunity, and less than one-third of what the average household inNew York City earns. And, given that many Prospect Plaza residenrshave large families, the disparity in income is even more shocking. Percapita income in the project is just $3,450 a year-80 percent below thenorm for the rest of New York.

So NYCHA made a pirch to secure HOPE VI funding for ProspectPlaza. The fust proposal, submitted in 1997, conremplated renovatingall four towers and adding some new townhouses. Tenants couldn't seea downside. At the time, HOPE VI regulations required that tenantsendorse all deals, and Prospect Plaza's residenrs overwhelminglyapproved the plan.Unfortunately, HUD wasn't so ardenr. To the bureaucrats in Washington, that proposal was deficienr, both because it wouldn't break upthe density of the developmenr and wouldn't create new homeownershipunits. HUD rejected the plan.So NYCHA retooled its approach. A year later, it submirted a newproposal calling for one tower-the 15-story, 102-apartmenr building at430 Saratoga Avenue-to be demolished. NYCHA told tenants thebuilding had structural problems because it was built on low ground,had water damage to the foundation and was settling unevenly.

The application offered no documenration of the alleged structuralproblems with 430 Saratoga Avenue, and it's unclear whether NYCHAever provided HUD with any. In its application, the authority simplynoted that the building would be demolished. Again, the residenrssigned on."The tenants were promised the earth, moon and stars," recallsJudith Goldiner, an attorney with the Legal Aid Sociery, who spoke withProspect Plaza's tenants early in the process. "They were happy withwhat NYCHA was telling them and didn't want to hear anything else."This time, the application was successful: the feds allocated $22million for renovation, demolition and new construction at ProspectPlaza. Over the past year, NYCHA has quietly emptied 430 SaratogaAvenue. In early May, there were only 10 families left in the building,all of them waiting for apartments to become available in other projects to which they have chosen to move. The hallways were eerilyquiet, with gianr dead-bolts and padlocks dominating the doors to allthe vacant apartments."Nobody wanted to move; everyone was forced out," says awoman who grew up in her grandmother's apartmenr in the buildingand asked that she not be identified. She adds that her grandmotherwas happy in the building and was initially shocked to learn that shewould have to move.

Her memories are rosy, of knowing her neighbors and joining forsummertime block parties. Her grandmother moved into 430 SararogaAvenue the day it opened and is still in her bright, airy apartmenr as she

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waits for a similar-sized unit ro come available at a nearby housing projecr. No marrer what happens at Prospect Plaza, rhe woman notes, rhismuch is sure: Her grandmorher and many of rhe other 101 families rhatlived in 430 Sararoga Avenue will not share in it.Even as it has emptied rhe building, NYCHA has conrinued withroutine maintenance. The agency even brought in a conrracror ro laynew tile and paint the walls on rhe 15th floor, despite rhe fact rhat alltenants on rhat floor have been relocated and all the apartmenrs arevacanr. (Officials working on rhe Prospect Plaza plan said rhey were willing ro talk wirh a reporter as long as rhey got agency approval, butNYCHA refused to allow rhem ro speak and declined ro cooperate wirhrhe preparation of this article.)In addition to demolishing one tower, the Prospect Plaza plancalls for gut renovation of the other three buildings, which willallow NYCHA to reconfigure the units to create larger apartmenrs.(This will reduce the number of remaining units by 10 percent.)

The Prospect Plaza plan also calls for construction of 10 townhouses conraining 68 renral apartmenrs for low-income families and 40two-family townhouses that will mostly be sold to middle-incomeowner-occupanrs.So far, only one portion of rhe reconstruction effort, rhe homeowner units, has moved forward. Settiemenr Housing Fund has been named

as the developer of those buildings, but planning has been delayedbecause one of the proposed sites is currenrly used as a community garden. NYCHA is also now considering wherher to expand rhe units roinclude basemenrs. The houses will cost around $130,000 per unit robuild and are slated ro sell for anywhere between $107,000 and$211,000, depending on what kind of money Settlemenr Housing canput together to fund rhe project, says Carol Lamberg, the group's exec-utive direcror. The bulk of rhe homes will be sold ro middle income buyers. Twelve units will be reserved for low-income families making lessthan $27,000 a year, but even those homes will be beyond rhe means ofmost Prospect Plaza residenrs.

The project plan also calls for a 30,000-square-foot community center that will house a day care facility, a computer laboratory, a room forconrinuing education classes, a gymnasium, and a drop-in cenrer forseniors. The neighborhood should also see a 15,000-square-feet retailcenrer rhat will house shops and a small-business incubator. HUD plansto invest $1.8 million in rhe social service effort, and it has budgetedcommunity groups to pump in anorher $6 million of rheir own.

Ithere's one per.son who's part of rhe project who would seem a likely candidate to be rhe tenants' friend and advocate, it's Abdur-Rahman Farrakhan. A long-time housing activist, Farrakhan was working

in rhe community when Prospect Plaza was builr. For more than twodecades, he 's headed rhe Oceanhill-Brownsville Tenants Association, agroup that manages and renovates rental housing.

He 's seen many governmenr officials promise to invest inBrownsville, and rheir consistenr failure ro follow rhrough has left himsuspicious and angry. "You've got a bunch of fucking thieves out rhere,"he says. "The politicians of Ocean Hill-Brownsville are corrupr. Thoseof us in leadership capacity should be ashamed of ourselves. We havefailed our community."Farrakhan joined rhe HOPE V1 effort when the OceanhillBrownsville Tenants Association took a seat on rhe board of rhe ProspectPlaza Developmenr Corporation (PPDC), a new entity set up byNYCHA ro manage rhe social service money coming to the area. Hisgroup has promised to raise $2.9 million in private money to add roJULY/AUGUST 2001

HUD's pool of funds for job training, business developmenr and homeownership training at Prospect Plaza. This time, he's unusually optmistic. "This is an excellenr opportunity," Farrakhan says. "HOPE Vaffords people rhe chance to make physical as well as human impactThe challenge is ro make lasting impacts sustainable over rhe long terin borh areas. If we don't, we will be doing anorher HOPE V1 in 2010But if Farrakhan has commirred his organizing know-how and keeunderstanding of pressure politics to rhe Ptospect Plaza efforts, it hasnlooked that way ro orher players in rhe projecr. If anyrhing, he hbecome a lightning tod for everyone's resenrments. Early on, when Farakhan became chairman of rhe PPDC, rhe group quickly descendeinto a nasty war of words. Farrakhan accuses orher non profits-in paticular rhe Btooklyn lnrerborough Community Network (BICNet)--manipulating Prospect Plaza's tenants in rhe hopes of gerring large cotracts for job training and technical assistance. "Everybody is lookingposition themselves as best rhey can ro be able to take advantage of this


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he says. Farrakhan says that Shelton Jefferson, who heads BICNet,"wanted a guaranteed contract and went to the tenants to stir shit up."Jefferson says he 's astonished by Farrakhan's charge. "1 doubt if Mr.Farrakhan would say something like that," he says. "I have becomeinvolved in this project only because I was asked. I was asked byNYCHA to be an adviser to the tenants. "For their part, the tenants acknowledge an interest in getting skillsand possibly jobs and contracts-through the training programs thePPDC will administer. Still, they contend, Farrakhan has been a negativeinfluence. "He's a control freak," says Priscilla Davis, who has lived in thetower at 1786 Prospect Place for 14 years and is a member of the board ofthe PPDC, where she has feuded with Farrakhan. "I see him as a bullyone of those schoolyard bullies I had to beat up when I was little. "Meanwhile, the other non profits say Farrakhan is the one seekingto cash in. His group group ran a $250,000 deficit in 1998, the last

One tenant offers someharsh advice for housingproject tenants offered a

HOPE VI deal. "I'd tell themdon't do it. Run-run as fast

as you can."year for which its tax returns are available. Leon Gelzer, assistantdirector of Northeast Brooklyn Housing Development Corporation,which is also part of the PPDC, points out that Farrakllan earnsmore than $100,000 a year, while he and the executive director of hisgroup earn half that.Farrakhan insists that hostility comes with the territory. "T understand where they're coming from," he says of the tenants. "They're newto this situation. Many of them have never ventured into something ofthis magnitude before."But at the same time as he professes empathy for the tenants, he isclearly angry that they have not treated him with what he thinks isappropriate decorum. At his job, staffers call Farrakhan 'Chief.' ProspectPlaza's tenants are much less deferential. "In leadership you expectingratitude," Farrakhan thunders. "1 don't do what I do because of anyone. 1 do what I do in spite of most people."

As for the suggestion that he's only in it for the money, Farrakhanturns cutting. ''I'm not known to be a liar, a thief, or an immoral person,"he says. "I'm not looking to be no goddamned Trump of the ghetto."Still, the projects' tenants aren't the only ones in the neighborhoodwho've got a beef with Farrakhan. Tenants at several buildings managedby Oceanhill-Brownsville have complained bitterly about hardball management practices, decrepit building conditions and bad renovations.Acknowledges Farrakhan, "We have not always been as prudent as wecould be or should be. We hired a management company that really18

made a mess out of some buildings, " and adds that he has sinceimproved his own organization's building management staff.In March, Farrakhan was voted out as head of the PPDC, replacedby Rev. Elliott Cuff, pastor of nearby Mt . Ararat Church, another partner in tlle social service effort. So far, Cuff has cultivated more cordialrelations with the Prospect Plaza tenants.Farrakhan admits that the dissention took its toll. "We should havebeen well into this project six or seven months ago," he says. Indeed,according to the project timetable, the social services were supposedto begin in late 2000 and early 2001. But the only program that's upand running is one that the tenants created: an effort to train peoplewho want to become cashiers at Walgreen 's Drug Stores. Thepromised big ticket items-from children's recreation to homeownership training, not to mention the construction of the new townhouses-have yet to get off the ground.

Compare that to the HOPE VI effort in Albany, which wasapproved the same time as Prospect Plaza's. There, the demolition iscomplete, half the new homes are already framed out and a newcommunity center is under construction, reports Darren Scott, thecity's HOPE VI coordinator. The development is on track to becompleted by fall 2002, when work at Prospect Plaza will probablyjust be starti ng.

The lack of homeownership training is particularly galling toBolton and other tenants. They know that the price of the new homesbeing built in Brownsville will be high, and that a tenant who hopesto purchase one of them will need help understanding the costs andbenefits of owning a home and learning how to save and develop acredit rating.Tenants also worry about a much more basic thing. They have beentold that all tenants "in good standing" will have the right to return toProspect Plaza in 2004, when it is a completely renewed neighborhood.This means that they must not be behind in their rent or face otherproblems, like reports of poor housekeeping or household memberswith criminal records. Given that NYCHA routinely sends evictionnotices to tenants who are more than five days late with their rent, tenant association leaders worry that many residents, including themselves,will be deemed "not in good standing" and refused permission to returnto Prospect Plaza once the work is done.Bolton, who has put in countless hours on the Prospect Plaza deal,believes that he will not be allowed to return to the project once the renovations are complete. He has been unemployed for a while and admitsthat there have been many times that he has fal len behind in his rent.He's even been put on probation for the problem. "What they're tellingme is once 1 leave , I'm nOt coming back," he says. "We just have to hopethey bring at least some of the people back."For the past five years, the tenants of Prospect Plaza have lived on anemotional roller coaster. At times they have been elated about theprospect of having homes in an ideal community. At other times, theyare filled with rage, angered that the programs and benefits they werepromised still seem so far away. Viola Bunch, who has lived in ProspectPlaza for 11 years and is secretary of the tenant association, acknowledges the despair. "Look," she says, "the last thing we need is hope anddreams not coming through."

Priscilla Davis, who recently quit as Tenant Association vice-president, believes the heartache and headache are not worth it. She offerssome harsh advice for tenants at other housing projects who maysomeday be offered a HOPE VI deal. "I'd tell them don't do it. Run-that's what I'd tell them. Run as fast as you can." CITY LIMITS


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,e ve ssuesFor eight years, the answer to the city's problems has been acinch: Blame Rudy. So now what? Here are seven reasonswhy the way to the future is less obvious than you think.1. H0 USINGIS HELL From the City Limits archive

new Partnership housingof New Yorkers who were victims of felonies has been out- the Bronx, 199It's a crime srat that defmes the Giuliani years: The numberstripped by the number who feel like they get mugged onthe first of every month. More than 525,000 households paymore than half their incomes for a place to live. An estimated150,000 live doubled up. This March, the homeless shelterpopulation hit 26,000, the highest since 1988. Is it any wonder that in a fiercely competitive mayor's race, housing is hot?Mark Green calls his five-year plan to build 50,000 units ofaffordable housing "Apollo-like." Peter Vallone would create atleast 20,000. Not to be outdone, Fernando Ferrer wants150,000 apartments over 10 years. All would spend a billion dollars or more, using city money to aggressively secure bondand private dollars. Alan Hevesi is reportedly regretting hisassertion last fall that housing is not one of his top issues; now,he's ralking about leveraging pension dollars and World TradeCenter taxes.But what do all those promises mean? As the city teeterson a hill of debt, where are the big bucks going to come

from, and where would they go? When the cheapest newapartment costs about $135,000 to construct and $2,100(unsubsidized) to rent, according to the New York City Part-nership, what exactly constitutes "affordable," anyway? rather than looking at the totality," says Naomi Bayer, director of FanThese are all questions the city's community development industry is Mae's New York Parmership Office and one of he instigators behind Houeager to clarify. With nearly a half-million dollars supplied by foundations ing First.and Citigroup, ]PMorganChase, Independence, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Those agendas are many, and Housing First isn't pretending otherwiand Fannie Mae, a coalition of banks, housing finance corporations, for- The nonprofit Association of Neighborhood and Housing Developersprofit builders, community development groups, and tenant advocates is emphasizing the need for rental apartments and construction targetedmounting a novel cross between a grassroots mobilization and a trade lob- the neediest. The Coalition for the Homeless, too, wants a large commbying initiative. ment to the very poor; the Supportive Housing Network, to people w"Housing First" is the campaign's name and its agenda: To make hous- special needs.ing as bread-and-butter an issue as schools, cops and taxes in this year's But Housing First's tent is big enough to also include the for-profit NCity Hall races and next year's governor's election. The objective is com- York Srate Association for Affordable Housing and Real Esrate Boardmitments from government for significantly expanded public support of New York. They see vast potential for a middle-income building boomnew housing. They're proposing a $10 billion city investment over 10 years with the right kinds of incentives to make it profitable. Banks, toO, gato create 100,000 new housing units, and preserve lots more; homeown- from those deals, because they can rap into conventional fmancing. Preership and rentals, for low-, moderate- and middle-income New Yorkers, much the only thing Housing First's members have in common is a desas well as expanding supportive housing for the mentally ill and others to bring in more money to build more housing, and to alter the city's Dawho could benefit from access to social services. This would effectively tesque regulatory environment to make it possible to tum those dolldouble what the city now spends on housing. Among new sources of into budget bricks and mortar.money suggested are property tax lien sales, loan repayments for city hous- The anger of middle-class voters who can no longer afford to liveing programs and real estate taxes. their own neighborhoods presents a precious political opportuniThe people who build subsidized housing are trying to craft a unified "We've been trying to put our finger on why housing is such an issagenda- leaving behind, publicly at least, their history of competing for now," says Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless. Unlikegovernment support. "In the past, when groups advocating for middle- the 1980s, he observes, "it's not just a crisis afflicting low-income peopincome housing or the homeless or community development corporations not just a rising level of homeless ness. Now it's affecting higher-incomgot together, they would argue over whose agenda was more important, New Yorkers, too."JULY/AUGUST 2001


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y any measure, New York's poorest are suffering from a housing meltdown. Among the very poor, spending two-thirds of income onhousing is the norm. There are about 779,000 households in the city

making less than $20,000, and abour 416,000 apartments affordable tothem, assuming they spend one-third of their income on renr. The CitizensHousing and Planning Council estimates an additional 250,000 illegalunits, mostly dangerous basement apartments. One in five Asian and Latino immigrant homes are officially overcrowded, probably an undercount.

Yet even the best-intentioned plan has to reconcile the poor's crushing needs with the basic math of development: The more affordable thehousing, the bigger the subsidy must be ro get it builr. The amount ofpublic cash it would take to produce one apartment for the very poorestcou ld just as easily create five middle-income units. Those middleincome residents will pay taxes, teach in schools, patrol the streets, staffcompanies and spend their money at local businesses-in the city's economy, they're in the asset column. Middle-class New Yorkers are also dedicated voters and will be courted accord in gly by candidates.Housing First is following a similar course. Nearly half its proposed100,000 new apartments would be priced for working- and middle-classfamilies. The other half would go ro households making less than$20,000 a year. Supportive housing accounts for 16,000 of those lowincome units; senior housing, 2,500. There will be a call for new homesfor other extremely low-income households, making less than about$16,000 a year. They represent one-third of city households. Yet on theHousing First agenda, these would add up to 30,000 units at most, simplypart ofwhat Bayer calls "a range of needs and a range of solutions that meetthose needs." As much as anything, Housing First is a proposition for bringing prosperous residents back to battered communities, with a platformthat stresses "programs that create not only housing, but also safe, sustainable, mixed-income neighborhoods."

Strictly by the numbers, middle-class renters are not facing a crisis. Atthe city's median income of $33,000 , affordable apartments actuallylightly outnumber people, 1.16 million to 1.06 million, according tothe Census Bureau's 1999 Housing and Vacancy Survey. "It's not to sayou don't need middle-income housing production," says CHPC's FrankBraconi, who has been advising Housing Firsr. "But I wouldn't do it onthe basis that the middle class is stressed on income burdens."That is to say that people live in a city, not a spreadsheet, and make lifedecisions based on much more than the price of rent. Finding a livable

pace in a neighborhood that's safe and accessible, with decent shopping,chools and other resources, is just as importanr. A report commissioned

by Vallone and written by private builders lays out the bottom line: ''As thecity's new economy generates highly paid jobs for well-educated workers,many ofwhom prefer an urban residential environment, the quality of theCity's neighborhoods is exacerbating the problem of housing cost inflation. Rents in the few neighborhoods that offer the housing quality andamenities those workers seek are being bid up to levels that threaten theCity's ability to attract talented and ambitious newcomers. It is necessaryto promote the development of the City's neighborhoods in a manner thatraises the quality of urban life so as to relieve market pressure on Manhattan and the most desirable communities of the outer boroughs."

As for the low-income people who now li ve in those amenity-deprivedwnes-asswning they aren't displaced by a stampede of talented andmbitious newcomers-some could benefit from moderate- and middleincome construction. Builders ofNehemiah and Partnership homes foundthat buyers tended to come from the neighborhood and often upgradedfrom regulated or public housing, opening up units for other occupants.

But does large-scale building produce trickle-down vacancies? "It frees0

up some, but how much?" asks Braconi. "I don't know, and I haven't seenresearch." There are some inescapable barriers. Many landlords, especially those who bought their buildings at speculative prices, can't afford tocharge significantly lower rents. And Braconi observes that in the lastwave of city-sponsored development, under Mayor Koch's lO-year plan,the construction of middle- and moderate-income housing appeared tooversaturate some neighborhoods: The city saw a sudden spike in vacancies among older apartments in the same price brackets.In the end, what to build is the easy stuff. The biggest questionsremain where to put it all and how to get it built, reforming everythingfrom building codes to zoning regulations. Some developers want to see

less of the low-rise sprawl synonymous with the Partnership, which hasenjoyed privileged access to city-owned land, bur what's left to build onisn't pretty: Much of it is brownfields, and New York still lacks a law thatwould make their cleanup cost-effective. Rezoning manufacturing areasis possible but would have to be done carefully to avoid displacing jobs.The dipping economy threatens another precious resource: private-sec

tor cash.The federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit pumps $14 millionannually into local construction for families making up to abour $35,000 ayear. But major investors are pulling out of the program, because real-worldlosses have eclipsed their need for tax write-offs. In response, says WilliamTraylor of the Richman Group, which funnels credits to builders, some brokers are trying to sweeten deals with higher percentage retutns for investors,which in the end means less cash for building. While the market in tile cityis strong for now, he predicts that "you'll feel the impact in New York."

Private-sector malaise makes public investment that much more critical. The feeling at Housing First is that getting a commitment of anykind is an improvement over a City Hall that won't even obey existinglegal mandates to fund affordable housing. A running start is as much asanyone is hoping for. ''A billion dollars over 10 years doesn't come closeto solving the housing problem," says Brad Lander, execurive director ofthe Fifth Avenue Commi ttee and ANHD board member. "It probablyshould be double thar. Bur this is definitely what's possible. "-Alyssa Katz

2. MONEY ISN'T EVERYTHINGWhile mayoral candidates agonize over which cash commitmentsto make, the two men running for comptroller face a more exacting decision: What do you do with 90 billion bucks? In April,candidate Bill Thompson suggested increasing the amount of money thatthe city's five municipal pension funds pur into "economically targetedinvestments," or ETIs, specifically economic development and affordablehousing. Thompson's proposed increase was tiny: abour one half of a percentage point from each of the five funds. Bur even a single extra pointfrom pension coffers could mean $900 million more dollars to invest inthe city's economy. Since 1982, the city has committed only $741 millionto such investments.

For former Board of Ed president Thompson, planning creative waysto target pension money is a priceless campaign op. He can pledge toinvest the money in grocery stores and apartment buildings, or promiseto strong-arm big businesses. Bur while civic investing holds endless possibilities for fiscal baby-kissing, it's hardly ever done. The obvious reason,as one pension trustee points out, is that "it's important that we keep thefunds very flush, so that the workers, who are essentially lower-income,have something to retire on. "

For the trustees who control the pension funds, accepting a lower rateCITY LIMITS


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of return would be a violation of meir fiduciary duty co get me highestrate of return possible on members' money. "If someming has a collateral benefit, great!" says one union trustee. "But you can't say, 'Here's thecollateral benefit , and I'm going co take a lower rate of return. '" For matreason, most municipal funds tend co invest most of meir money in bluechip scocks. "I

city limits magazine, july/august 2001 issue

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