HOMELESS IS WHERE THE HEART IS: IN LOVE IN THE SHELTERS

NEW YORK'S URBAN AFFAIRS NEWS MAGAZINE

WWW.CITYLIMITS.ORG
$2.95 FEBRUARY 2002
JOE SACCO
D OES
SUNNYSID E UP
02>
D EGREES OF SEP ARATION
THE GED
EX P LOSION
EDITORIAL
MAYOR MAY 11
A BOROUGH PARK CAMPAIGN contributor, a
demonstrator sitting on the floor of Jason
Turner's office, an itinerant vendor who'd
much rather have a reliable place of business,
a Wall Streeter who has no complaint with
anything but his latest bonus-not even
counting the tens of millions who've tuned in
since September 11, there are as many views
on the man we all call Rudy as there are peo-
ple who've been affected by his power. For
eight years, the only thing everyone could
agree on was Giuliani's own resistance to the
fierce order he wi lled on the rest of the world;
who hasn't called the man capricious, unpre-
dictable, counterintuitive, rash or just plain
crazy?
But the truth is that Rudy Giuliani was easy
to figure out, all the more so with hindsight.
New York City was, and in many ways
remains, his family-and I mean his family.
The obsession with public protection, order
and behavior. The wrathful casting-out of
those who spoke critically of his actions. The
vocal concern for children's well-being, exem-
plified by his aggressive response to the abuse
death of Elisa Izquierdo, coupled with a refusal
to acknowledge that he himself was also doing
much to bring them misery (for their own
good, he said). By the time he had to reassure
a shaken city, his authority as papa for the peo-
ple was already well established.
Rudy's parenting skills are nothing spe-
cial-they're basic pre-Doctor Spock (and evi-
dently not too effective; he still owes us an
apology for son Andrew's embarrassing Inau-
guration Day performance, 1993). But Giu-
liani became a master at applying the
mythologies of traditional fatherhood to the
far uglier tasks of public leadership-an act
that George W Bush might pull off, too, if
only he meant it.
Giuliani did get one thing right, though.
We are a family-an extended, neurotic, and
very, very large one. A city of more than 120
languages, 365,454 single parents, and 398
kids who think they're Harry Potter can never
have one patron saint or one favorite ball team,
never mind one father. Now as much as ever,
all of us who stake a claim in New York-
whether we rely on government as a lifeline or
squirrel away our riches tax-free in the Cayman
Islands-are united by a need to ensure the
survival of a larger whole, and must have a
share of authority to help make it happen. We
cannot live in a daddy state any longer.
For all the talk of personal responsibility, an
infantilized city isn't capable of fOOng itself,
and no leader can do the job on his own.
(Michael Bloomberg, for one, certainly has
complex feelings about paternity.) I'm a com-
mitted skeptic on the B100mbergian nostrum
that government should be run like business.
But it starts out with one decided advantage:
Our new mayor knows what his job descrip-
tion is. He's been hired to work in our collec-
tive interest-yes, even when he thinks some
of us have misbehaved.
~ -Alyssa Katz
Editor
Cover photograph by Brendan Bannon; Denis Krelic, a refugee from Bosnia, in Buffalo Niagara International Airport on the day of his arrival in America.
Centej for an
F
Utroan
u ure
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Go to our website or contact us to obtain any of our recent studies:
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FEATURES
13 LEARNING DISABLED
Tough graduation standards are prompting teens to seek another
way out of high school: the GED. But as kids crowd adult ed
classrooms, can local groups succeed where schools couldn't?
By Mark Greer
17 SUNNYSIDE
After the Gaza Strip and Bosnia, what's a journalist to make
of Queens' famed ethnic harmony?
By Joe Sacco
18 SAVING BUFFALO FROM
EXTINCTION
Each year, thousands of refugees pass through Buffalo, a place with
miseries of its own. Can these exiles be a dying city's salvation?
Story by David Blake. Photographs by Brendan Bannon.
26 WE ARE FAMILY
Nothing is easy when you don't have a home-least of all love. Meet
seven homeless couples facing the difficulties of shelter and street life.
Story by Bob Roberts. Photographs by Steve Hoffman.
CONTENTS
5 FRO NTLI N ES: LAST STAND ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE .... TEENS LEAD PRISON
UPRISING .... BROWNSVILLE BLUES .... NO SUCH THING AS A FREE BREAKFAST ...
JUDGES HAMMER ROCK .... CITY'S NEW HOMELESS PLAN: JUST ADD $500
INSIDE TRACK
10 THE BIG DIP
Stockholders aren't the only ones who take a hit during recessions.
Downturns spell double trouble for low-income New Yorkers.
By Matt Pacenza
INTELLIGENCE
32 THE BIG IDEA
In Chicago, they've figured out a way to wire the whole city with
high-speed Internet connections, and it won't cost government a penny.
Could New York do the same? By Clive Thompson
FEBRUARY 2002
34 CITY LIT
Unearthing Gotham: The Archaeology of New York City, by Anne-Marie
Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall. Reviewed by Paul Parkhill
36 MAKING CHANGE
Neighborhood nonprofits want to move from supporting schools to build-
ing and running them. But even the savviest groups are struggling with
the mess that is New York City school construction. By Neil F. Carlson
38 NYC INC.
A recession is the perfect time to take advantage of an opportunity that
King Rudy shunned-investing in entrepreneurs. By Jonathan Bowles
2 EDITORIAL
41 JOBADS
44 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
46 OFFICE OF THE CITY
VISIONARY
3
4
NANCY HARDY
Insurance Broker
Specializing in Community
Development Groups, HDFCs and
Non-Profits.
Low-Cost Insurance and Quality Service.
Over 20 Years of Experience.
270 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801
914-636-8455
THERE IS NO SUCH
THING AS A FREE LUNCH
But there is free legal assistance
Not-far-profits, community groups and organizations working to improve their
communities in New York City are eligible for free legal assistance through New
York Lawyers f or the Public Interest's (NYLPI) pro bono clearinghouse. The
clearinghouse draws on the expertise of lawyers at our 79 member law firms and
corporate legal departments.
Our network of attorneys can work with you
on a wide variety of legal issues:
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H you believe your organization can benefit from legal assistance,
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CITY LIMITS
Volume XXVII Number 2
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CITY LIMITS
FRONT LINES
CHARAS' Last Stand
CHRISTMAS DID NOT COME FOR CHARAS/EL 80HIO this past year. On
December 18, Civil Coun Judge Saralee Evans denied the East Village
cultural and communiry center a second stay of eviction from the former
elementary school building on East 9th Street it has occupied for the last
22 years. Evans says she was bound by an ear/ier appellate ruling.
At press time, CHARAS' lawyers were appealing the ruling. Bur an evic-
tion notice had already been served, and CHARAS founder Chino Garcia
conceded the center could be our by as early as Christmas Eve. Evans' rul-
ing culminates a six-year legal struggle by the Latino-run center, which was
sold to developer Gregg Singer for $3.15 million in 1998. CHARAS' plight
has become symbolic of the fate of progressive politics on the Lower East
Side. Like the communiry gardens and homesteads that grew up around it,
CHARAS embodied an ideal of neighborhood self-empowerment that put
it at odds with the market-driven philosophy of the Giuliani administration.
In 1979, Garcia and other former gang members rescued the then-
abandoned school, clearing out its ramshackle classrooms to provide cheap
space for local artists and activists. Over the years, the center nurtured new
talents that included actors Luis Guzman and John Leguizamo and Spike
Lee, who screened his first film there. The building has housed 12-step pro-
grams, manial arts, dance, and English classes, and a bike repair workshop
for troubled teens; it has also long offered free meeting space to activists.
"This place was unique in the way it tried to bring politics and arts
FEBRUARY 2002
together under one roof," says local resident Eddie Cruz. Indeed, CHA-
RAS' former executive director, Armando Perez, who was murdered in
1999, was a district leader who helped elect Ciry Councilmember Mar-
garita Lopez over Giuliani ally Antonio Pagan. Many believe CHARAS'
oppositional politics made it a target of Giuliani's push to privatize ciry
properry. While the ciry has sold buildings to nonprofits for $1, it reject-
ed CHARAS's proposal to purchase the school for $365,000, selling it
instead to the highest bidder.
Singer says he plans to invest $12 million in renovations, and insists
he will abide by the deed restriction, which requires that the building
house groups serving the communiry. He has yet to name any prospec-
tive tenants, but acknowledges that he will probably gut the 400-seat
basement theater because he can't find a nonprofit arts group that wants
to lease such a large space.
Meanwhile, the communiry that thrived at CHARAS is unraveling.
So far the only affordable space it has found is a small basement on
Avenue C, and that won't be available until March. Longtime tenants like
the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre have moved to Brook-
lyn. Others don't know where to go. But Garcia says CHARAS' mission
will not die with the loss of its headquarters. "CHARAS is more than a
building. It's a communiry spirit, and we will continue to provide pro-
gramming at other venues." -Sarah Ferguson
5
FRONT llNES
The $64.6 Million Quest

Ion
Are juvenile
detention centers
worth the price?
By Esther Kaplan
CHINO HARDIN CAllS HER TIME at Spofford Juve-
nile Center "one of the most degrading experi-
ences of my life. " She landed there at age 13
after getting into a fight with a classmate at her
Brooklyn junior high. The other kid's parents
pressed charges, and police arrested the
diminutive Hardin for assault. In detention,
she recalls, "I had to wear a uniform all the
time, down to my socks and underwear. I was
locked up and searched and shackled by the
ankles for trips to court." After a month and
three days, a judge released her to her parents,
with no mentoring, no counseling, a deep
sense of distrust and-as always in her East
Flatbush neighborhood-nothing to do after
school. "They're always talking about 'threat ro
society,'" she says, "but the only people who
are truly hurt are the ones being locked up.
You have to close up inside to survive some-
thing like that. "
By age 16, Hardin had landed at Rikers
Island on a grand larceny charge. "If weed is a
6
gateway drug, " she says, "Spofford is a gateway
to prison. You get locked up for shoplifting
and you get exposed to kids who've done all
kinds of things. "
Now 20, Hardin has emerged as a leader
within a grassroots effort to stop the city's
planned expansion of juvenile detention cen-
ters. The No More Jail Beds campaign has
brought together some of the city's most vocal
youth and criminal justice reform organiza-
tions, from the Prison Moratorium Project to
Brooklyn-based Sister Outsider, an empower-
ment project for young women of color that
Hardin now directs. The campaign has its roots
in an effort by Bronx-based Youth Force in the
mid-1990s to close down Spofford, then the
city's only pre-trial youth detention center,
plagued by cockroaches and an abusive staff.
Finally shut in August 1998 after two new
detention facilities were built-Crossroads in
Brownsville and Horizon in Mott Haven-the
notorious facility was given a paint job and
reopened as Bridges in late 1999, bringing total
secure detention slots to 398, the highest in
decades. Now the city is in the fmal phases of a
plan to further expand juvenile detention
capacity by adding 100 beds to each of the new
facilities, at a cost of $64.6 million. Only then
does the city intend to close Spofford for good.
Old-timers will recall that when Rudy Giu-
liani first entered City HalJ in 1994, he cut pub-
lic school funds by more than $150 million,
and youth services by another $19 million-
including cuts to dozens of vital community
organizations that have never been fully
restored. Now, as he exits office and the city
again faces a $1 billion deficit--expected to
grow to $3.5 billion by 2003-the young
activists of No More Jail Beds are demanding
that the budget not be balanced on their backs
this time. Instead, they're making some cost-
cutting suggestions of their own, namely that
$64.6 million.
The Department of Juvenile Justice origi-
nally sought the jail bed expansion to cope with
the exploding number of 1O-to-15-year-olds in
detention in the late 1990s. From 1997 to
1999, the number of detainees on an average
day jumped from 268 to 345, despite a 30 per-
cent drop from 1994 to 1999 in under-I8
arrests. DJJ spokesperson Sarin a Roffe says her
depanment has little control over those num-
bers-"I can't tell you why a judge puts a kid
into custody"-and attributes the rising daily
census to longer stays, not more admissions.
But the city has more discretion than Roffe lets
on: Judges often make "open remands, " leaving
the choice between lockup and a group home
to DJ]. Advocates say that building more jail
beds would only encourage DJ] to fill them.
"We want the city to close Spofford and halt
the expansion," says Mishi Faruqee, director of
the Correctional Association of New York's
Juvenile Justice Project, "and instead spend the
money to create alternatives. "
By most accounts, tl1e city has done little of
that in recent years. In 1993, the Annie E.
Casey Foundation, a juvenile detention reform
powerhouse, carne to the Big Apple to help D JJ
revise its screening methods, in order to lower
rates of youth detention. But Casey ultimately
pulled out of the experiment in frustration, says
senior associate Bart Lubow: "There was no
will to do real detention reform. "
This year, however, as the young activists
srrategize, the moment could be ripe for change:
For police chief, Mike Bloomberg tapped Ray
Kelly, the former commissioner known for
embracing prevention-oriented community
policing tactics; several 10ngrin1e advocates of
criminal justice reform, including AI Vann and
Charles Barron, now hold seats in the City
Council; and a slight change in the numbers will
make it harder for the city to justifY expanding its
detenrion program. In 2001, the average daily
population in detention centers finally dropped
CITY LIMITS
to match arrests, to 357 from 379 the year before.
A recent court case has already forced the ciry to
change its approach to juvenile delinquents. According
to state law, teens may be sent to detention only if they
pose a flight risk or are deemed likely to commit anoth-
er crime, bur a suit filed by the Legal Aid Sociery in 1998
established that this rule is regularly broken in New York
Ciry, due in large part to a drastic shortage of "non-
secure" beds in group homes. By this summer, pressure
generated by the suit, which culminated in a settlement
with the Giuliani administration in December, will have
doubled the number of group home beds, to 152 from
75 when the suit was filed. (Still, in 2001, despite sig-
nificant group home growth, DJJ spent three times more
on secure detention than on non-secure.) While Faruqee
says she and her colleagues prefer communiry-based
alternatives to incarceration, she admits, "Anything is
better than detention. "
The agreement can only bolster the Jail Beds cam-
paign. "There is less of a need for secure space if you're
subtracting the children who shouldn't be there," says
Nancy Rosenbloom, an attorney for Legal Aid. "There's
no reason to believe the ciry needs 200 more jail beds at
this time. "
As oflate December, Mayor Bloomberg had yet to take
a position on the proposed construction, but even the our-
going DJJ staff was hedging. "1 don't see [the expansion
proposal] going anywhere," Roffe told City Limits.
The campaign isn't taking any chances, though.
With help from law students at New York Universiry,
the young activists are surveyi ng Family Court orders
to document the reasons kids get sent to detention,
from racial bias to judges' failure to seek alternatives.
They've also secured support from the communiry
boards in Brooklyn and the Bronx that host the two
new high-securiry centers. Communiry Board 16 in
Brownsville is particularly distressed that the new
Crossroads beds would be built right on top of the
faciliry's only recreation area. And at least some new
Ciry Council members are on board. Jose Marco Ser-
rano, whose district includes Horizon, says he opposes
any expansion. However, Councilmember Tracy Boy-
land, whose district hosts Crossroads, is said to be luke-
warm at best. She did not return numerous calls for
comment.
Of course, the larger challenge will be turning around
the debate over juvenile justice-to get to a point, says
Hardin, "where nonviolent offenders don't even touch
base with a juvenile detention faciliry, where the focus is
on gerting to the root of the problem, helping young
people function and giving them skills." In December,
budget negotiations seemed headed in the wrong direc-
tion: Giuliani had called for cutting $660,000 in DJJ's
Communiry-Based Intervention program, which focuses
on skills-building, counseling and prevention. _
Esther Kaplan is a contributing editor at POZ, a producer
at WEAl and a freelance writer based in Brooklyn.
FEBRUARY 2002
FRONT LINES
FIRSTHAND
Street Escape
During the day, I like the sounds of Brownsville. I hear the children outside playing
jump rope or tag, or the guys on the corner hanging out, calling to girls. But at night,
Brownsville changes. I hear the loud reggae music, because they keep nothing but par-
ties across the street. And I hear couples fighting and cursing. It is really horrible to see
ladies getting beat before my eyes. Me, with my nosy self, looking out the window, and
my mother telling me to get out of the window before they want to hurt me, too.
My mother does not trust anyone from my neighborhood, not since one of my good
friends died. My friend was at home with her cousin and he took out a gun to show
her how to work it. His finger accidentally caught the trigger, and the bullet caught
her. She died. I could not believe it. I thought, "What was he doing with a gun any-
way? That bullet was not for her! She was not supposed to get shot. "
So that's why my mother questions everything I do. She has banned me from going to
a store across the street from my house. She thinks they sell weed. She also wouldn't let
me go to the neighborhood schools. I'm a senior at the Museum School in Manhattan.
My mother thinks Brownsville is not showing me good qual ities. I think most peo-
ple here just have difficult lives, and children act upon what they see. Still , it upsets
me to see how some of the people in my neighborhood act, because the way they show
themselves makes some people look at black people differently. Just the other day, I
heard this lady saying, "Look at how the black people in the ghetto live-smoking
weed, drinking, and getting no education."
But there is more to Brownsville than the ghetto. My mom is an educated black
woman-she's a nurse-and there are many people like her in Brownsville, too. So I
listen to my family, not my neighborhood. My uncle is always saying I should not play
with my education. I tell him that I will not be one of those teenagers who just wants to
have sex, fight, get knocked up and do drugs. And my mother always says, "No, you
won't, because you would be out of my house. " And I believe her. -Asha Cunningham
7
FRONT llNES
Political Party
While Mayor Mike Bl oomberg assembles "the best and the brightest" to fill the top seats in his admi nis-
tration, some young bureaucrats responsible for doing city agencies' dirty work have created Cosmopol ity,
an organized source of moral support and, in case things go awry with their new bosses, professional con-
tacts. Should Bloomberg use the new social club as a recruiting ground, they say they'll drink to that, too.
===HUNGER==
Let Them Eat Toast
AT A TIME WHEN NEW YORKERS are flooding the
city's food pantries and soup kitchens at record
levels, the public schools' free breakfast program
has some of the lowest attendance in the country.
Only 38 percent of city children whose fami-
lies receive emergency food participate in their
school's breakfast program, compared to 50 per-
cent of such kids nationwide, according to a srudy
released last month by New York-based Food for
Survival's food bank.
"Our participation is at the bottom of the
barrel," says Agnes Molnar, director of the
child nutrition unit at the Community Food
Resource Center, an advocacy group that suc-
cessfully pushed for legislation in Albany in
1976 mandating that every public school in the
state's five largest cities offer free breakfast.
Congress created the School Breakfast Pro-
gram in 1966 to provide a morning meal to
kids whose families earn less than 130 percent
of the poverty level-in the New York of 200 1,
that was less than $15,000 a year for a family
with two kids.
8
Last year, the feds chipped in $1.49 billion ro
fund the program, or $1.15 per free breakfast,
and New York State put in another 11 cents a
meal. While that's enough to cover the cost of
food, there's rarely much lefr over to pay for
staffing the cafeterias. Since teachers' contracts say
they are not obligated to volunteer for breakfast
duty, and a cafeteria aide makes $9 to $12 an
hour, some nutritionists charge that principals use
tighr budgets as an excuse for not getting eligible
kids to the meal . The more kids in the room, the
more chaperones they need to keep things calm.
"There are principals who would not like to see
the breakfast program expand because they would
have a real supervision headache," says Molnar.
Principals admit scheduling and budgeting can be
a pain, bur, says Peter McNally, a former princi-
pal at P.S. 229 in Queens and a vice president ar
the principals' union, "I really would be surprised
if anyone were encouraging people not to come."
The bottom line is getting the word out.
The Board of Ed's Office of School Food and
Nuuition Services posts menus on its web site
and produces posters adverrising the program,
but there are no funds set aside specifically for
this outreach, and the city says it has no plans
to starr a public awareness campaign.
To try to get schools to do more, State Sen-
ator Raymond Meier of Utica has proposed a
bill to provide $1,000 to $2,500 grants to any
disrrict or school that increases enrollment in its
breakfast program. The School Breakfast Incen-
tive Program, expected to cost about $1 million,
aims to get school administrators to remove
barriers like inconvenient bus or class schedules,
says Lisa Frank of the Nutrition Consorrium of
New York State, one of the authors of the bill
"We didn't want to pass a bill we weren't going to
fund," says Kristin Sinclair, an aide to Meier. The
legislation passed the Assembly in June, bur
died in committee in the Senate when the legis-
larure failed to agree on a budget.
-Alex Ginsberg
CRIMINAl JUSTICE
Judging Rockefeller
NEW YORK'S MANDATORY 15-year jail terms for
anyone convicted of drug possession or sale are
"outrageous," "an absolure barbarous atrocity,"
and "cruel and inhuman." Those aren't the words
of angry street protesters, but come direct from
the mouths of some of New York Srate's highest
judges, as laid our in a new reporr from the Cor-
rectional Association of New York.
The srudy compiles criticisms from judges
of the state's punitive Rockefeller drug laws,
named for Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who
signed the legislation in 1973. Over the last 18
years, says the Correctional Association, courts
have sentenced tens of thousands of New York-
ers to at least 15 years behind bars, the mini-
mum jail time required under the law for pos-
session and sale of drugs. A New Yorker found
with four ounces of narcotics in his pocket
could face life in prison.
"It's probably a better gamble to kill some-
body ... than to sell cocaine," said Nassau Coun-
ty Supreme Court Judge George EX. McIner-
ney in a 2000 press interview afrer he handed
down a mandatory 15-year sentence. He later
told a lawyer who complained to him abour the
ruling, "Write your legislator. "
Afrer his colleagues sentenced a defendant
ro 9 to 16 years for sell ing $10 worth of crack
ro an undercover officer in 1991, former
Appellate Division Justice John Carro called
the decision "unduly severe."
The Correctional Association hopes the
words of these justices will help boost its cam-
paign to overrurn the laws. Says Executive Direc-
tor Roberr Gangi, "New York's judges particular-
ly object to mandatory sentencing provisions
that hamper their ability to dispense justice."
-Matt Pacenza
CITY LIMITS

Cash to Crash
FACED WITH A SEVERE shortage of shelter beds
for homeless families, and forced by court
order [0 keep a record number of families
housed in decent accommodations, the Giu-
liani administration in late December was con-
sidering writing our checks [0 families that
agree [0 move out of their shelter spaces for a
while [0 let new clients move into the system.
According [0 a draft proposal obtained by
City Limits, the city Department of Homeless
Services is thinking about paying participants
in a new furlough program $500 if they spend
two consecutive weeks outside of the shelter
system. For an absence of five weeks they
would get $1,000 and for a maximum of eight,
$1,500. A family would be eligible if it has
spent at least 10 months in the city shelter sys-
tem and can provide an alternate address [0
which their checks can be sent. If at any time
during or at the end of its two-month peregri-
nation, a family decided [0 seek housing via
the city's Emergency Assistance Unit-the first
Commitment is
s[OP in a homeless family's search for shelter-
it would be spared another eligibility investiga-
tion and go back on the waiclist for space in a
Tier II shelter, hotel or scaner-site apartment.
As of two weeks before the New Year, the
city had yet [0 decide when and ifit will imple-
ment the proposal, according to Robert Mas-
cali, acting first deputy commissioner of home-
less services. Many shelter managers and advo-
cates hope the decision is never.
"Paying people [0 go away for a couple of
weeks does not address the underlying prob-
lem of a lack of affordable housing," says
Steve Banks, an at[Orney for Legal Aid in its
years-long court battle [0 keep kids and their
parents from sleeping on the floor of the AU
or shuttling from temporary shelter [0 shelter.
According [0 Legal Aid, at least 1,600 families
were sent [0 temporary shelters in April, 238
of them for a week or more. That same
month, State Supreme Court Judge Helen
Freedman threatened [0 hold the city in con-
tempt of court unless it located close [0 500
new apartments for homeless people. Mascali
says the city has added 1,200 slots for families
in the shelter system over the last year, but
Banks claims that despite this, a few families
FRONT llNES
have been left overnight at the EAU since
September 11.
Citing numerous concerns about uprooting
children from their schools, enticing domestic
violence victims [0 go back out on their own
and encouraging families [0 crowd in with
friends and relatives, an alliance of family shel-
ters has presented DHS with a counterpropos-
al. "The city's program would have people
doubling up," says Fred Shack, president of the
Tier II Coalition of family shelter providers.
Instead, he says, the city should use those
funds [0 help pay rent for families who have
qualified for permanent apartments, but
thanks [0 bureaucratic tie-ups at the Human
Resources Administration-a common occur-
rence-have difficulty obtaining the cash they
need [0 move in. "Clients have lost apartments
because landlords were not willing [0 wait, "
says Shack.
Whatever form this p[Ogram takes, given its
failures in recent years [0 produce or locate suffi-
cient housing for the homeless, the city could
once again find itself in front of a judge. "The
city would be wise [0 not implement this with-
out further review by the courtS, " says Banks.
-Jill Grossman
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FEBRUARY 2002
9
INSIDE TRACK
The Big Dip
Ghosts of recessions past tell a story of what's to come.
THE NEWS HEADLINES THIS FALL and winter have
been foreboding: 100,000 Jobs Lost! $4 Billion
Budget Shortfall! Long Lines at Soup Kitchens!
Then, on November 26, official word came
from the National Bureau of Economic
Research: America is in a recession.
Broadly defined as prolonged periods
during which economic activity shrinks, reces-
sions are nothing new to New York. The city
has experienced two significant ones in the past
20 years, lasting roughly from 1980 to 1983
and 1989 to 1993. How long and how severe
the dip of 200 1 will be is anybody's guess, but
some economists say the nation could be in for
a recession as crippling as that of the early
1990s, which devastated New York City. They
10
point to bad signs like the all-time high levels
of personal debt and bankruptcies caused by
consumers over-borrowing and defaulting on
their credit cards, loans and home mortgages.
As jobs and wages disappear, bankruptcy and
foreclosure rates could jump further, restricting
consumer spending-which accounts for more
than two-thirds of the economy-and deep-
ening the recession.
Of course, some analysts do see a silver lining.
Bush administration chief economist Glenn
Hubbard, for one, points to the stock market's rel-
atively quick recovety in the months after Sep-
tember 11 and argues that the nation's economy
is fundamentally sound. Other optimists contend
that despite the loss of 100,000 jobs in New York
By Matt Pacenza
City since the World Trade Center attacks, the Big
Apple's unemployment rate was still only at 6.3
percent in October, more than 5 percent lower
than the previous recessions' highs.
But even if the city's economic founda-
tions-like a skilled labor force and immediate
access to capital-are solid enough to encourage
employment-generating investments, the reces-
sion might deepen because of what some are
calling "the post-traumatic stress economy. "
"The fUming point locally and nationally
depends more than anything else on the psycho-
logical outlook that people and businesses have,"
says James Partott, deputy director at the Fiscal
Policy Instirute. "Those things, like fear of ter-
rorism and anthrax, have subsided somewhat
since September 11, but they're still there. "
No matter how long the recession lasts, there
will be concrete consequences. A look at the
effects of previous recessions clearly foreshadows
some of what New Yorkers and their neighbor-
hoods are likely to experience during these
tough times. In the spirit of educated prognos-
tication, we offer you the first (and hopefully
the last) City Limits Recession Preview:
The pai nt wi" start to peel.
As tenants lose wages, they can't pay as much
rent. When landlords bring in less cash, they
spend less on maintaining their properties,
whicl1 is what caused housing conditions to
deteriorate during both of the city's previous
recessions, according to the Census Bureau's
Housing and Vacancy Surveys (HVS). For
example, from 1990 to 1992, the average
income of renting households dropped from
$23,442 to $20,545. Landlords had trouble
finding tenants who could pay higher prices, so
they lowered the rents slightly, from an average
of$540 in 1991 to $530 in 1993.
Over time, tenants discovered the new
bargain to be a Faustian one: The frequency
of cold radiators, cracked walls and peeling
paint rose quickly as rents inched down.
Between 1991 and 1993, the number of
properties in Manhattan that the HVS classi-
fied as "dilapidated" rose from 1.5 percent to
2.2 percent. Rats didn't seem to mind the
CITY LIMITS
changing conditions, though-their num-
bers jumped, from being reponed in 26.5
percent of apanments in 1987 to 32.4 per-
cent in 1991.
Fewer New Yorkers will have health insurance.
As of 2000, about 21 percent of New
York Ciry residents, or l.7 miJlion people,
did not have health coverage. As the number
of unemployed grows, so too will the
number of uninsured. From 1989 to 1994,
as a recession deepened, the number of New
Yorkers statewide without health benefits
grew from 11.8 percent to 16 percent.
When companies layoff employees, they
often offer coverage through the Consoli-
20
mated 1 million workers and their depend-
ents lose their health coverage. Apply that to
New York Ciry, where the unemployment
rate jumped from 4.9 percent in April to 6.3
percent in October, and about 80,000
people lost insurance during those months.
(Some of them have qualified for Disaster
Relief Medicaid since late September, but at
press time that program was scheduled to
last each recipient for only four months.)
A side effecr of diminished health cov-
erage is the increased strain it will put on the
hospital system. The ciry Health and Hospi-
tals Corporation, whose hospitals and clinics
serve most of the ciry's uninsuted, slashed its
staff by about 25 percent to make up for
18
Percent Without Health Insurance
Welfare (1 OO,OOOs)
16
14
12 -lL-,.,-_r
10
6
4
2
O ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ - - ~ - - ~ ~ - - ~ - - ~ ~ ~ ~ - - ~ __ ~ ~
1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 20002001
High unemployment causes big jumps in the welfare rolls and in the number of people
with no health insurance. That was clear between 1989 and 1992, while New York saw
a comparable decline during the booming late-1990s. What will 2002 bring?
dated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act,
a.k.a. COBRA. But, given the average
$260-a-month premiums for an individual
and $985 to cover a family, only about 20
percent of workers rypically take advantage
of that offer, according to Charles D.
Spencer & Associates, a fum that analyzes
employee benefits. While it is hard to pre-
dict how many people will lose insurance in
the coming months, a 1999 study by Emory
Universiry professor Kenneth Thorpe found
that for each half-percent increase in the
unemployment rate nationwide, an esti-
FEBRUARY 2002
Mayor Giuliani's $300 million cut to the
agency in 1994. Despite that, HHC cur-
rently claims a deficit of about $250 million.
Welfare caseloads will rise.
It's no shock that welfare rolls increase
with unemployment rates. Between July
1989 and March 1995, for example, the
number of recipients rose from about
800,000 to over 1.1 million.
When times get tough, ir's the low-wage
workers living on the edge, making just
enough to get by, who are most likely to tip
INSIDE TRACK
Previous Prognostications
This isn't the first time City Limits has grappled
with a recession. Here's a few of our more
startling observations on how the city deals
with job losses and neighborhood decay:
"Budget Cuts and Budget Shifts," April 1981
What is being staged in Washington is not so much
budget cuts, but a massive shift in that budget-
toward defense and military spending and away
from the provision of basic human services. The
results of the proposed budget cutting, for New York
City, will be akin to a second fiscal crisis ... the pro-
grams that are now littering the floor of govern-
mental agencies did not arise from the benevolence
of any administration of any political stripe. They
were achieved by years of organizing and struggle in
many different arenas on the part of the same
people they were designed to serve. Without a doubt
only similar efforts can reverse the current drift.
"The Homeless: Help Versus Headlines," January 1982
One only has to review the current state of the low-
income housing stock in this city to realize that
homelessness is the logical and inevitable result of
hostile forces in public policy. We continue to experi-
ence the combined effects of disinvestment and
withdrawal of essential services from multiple
dwellings, the lack of a viable vacancy rate, the
growing disparity between income and rent.. .. The
growing numbers of homeless people are clear evi-
dence of the holes in "safety net" theory. Thousands
of human beings are falling thorough the weakened
social fabric and hitting the very hard cement.
"Arson Alert," March 1991
Today's headlines are a haunting echo of those from
the 1970s, when a complex combination of factors
created a tinderbox for widespread arson and aban-
donment in neighborhoods across the city .... "We have
more foreclosures, landlords are starting to walk
away," says Barbara Shulman, coordinator of the
city's Arson Strike Force. "We're worried." Real estate
taxes, water and sewer charges and fuel oil costs
have all risen in the past year. At the same time,
many landlords who have purchased property on
credit during the real estate upswing of the 1980s
are now saddled with hefty mortgages and moun-
tains of debt. Those who expected to resell their
buildings are now in a bind.
11
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- INSIDE TRACK
into the welfare system-and those same
workers have been disproportionately hurt by
the terrorist attacks as their industries, from
restaurants and hotels to tourism and garment
manufacturing, suffer severe losses. Sixry per-
cent of the New Yorkers laid off since Sep-
tember 11 make, on average, $11 an hour,
according to the Fiscal Policy Institute. With 45
percent of the ciry's job market in relatively low-
wage service sector jobs, compared to 39 per-
cent 10 years ago, a larger chunk of workers are
expected to be hit by this recession.
Enter public assistance. How Mayor Mike
Bloomberg will handle a rising demand for
benefits remains to be seen, as he takes over
from an administration that perfected the
policy of "diversion" to shrink the rolls-and
welfare budgets-to their lowest levels in
decades. For a mayor facing a $4 billion budget
deficit, a rise in the rolls will be hard to fund:
Months before the recession was even declared,
the ciry's Independent Budget Office predicted
During a recession,
even the rats
come out in force.
a $57 million shortfall in funding for the wel-
fare program in 2003 thanks to the five-year
time Li mit on federal benefits, which requires
local governments to chip in more to cover the
costs of extended benefits.
"We don't know whether the new mayor will
accept the inevitabiliry of a rising caseload," says
Mark Levitan, a senior policy analyst with the
Communiry Service Sociery. "At this moment we
have a known set of economic pressures, but we
have a totally unknown set of policy variables."
All OF THIS PROSPECTIVE DOOM and gloom is
not inevitable. Many nonprofit groups, while
Struggling to survive in light of pending state
and ciry budget cuts, are calling for new gov-
ernment programs like public works job pro-
grams, expanded health care and more and
better job training to soften the blow on low-
income New Yorkers.
"The business communiry has moved
quickly to assert its needs since this recession
became evident," observes Levitan. "Now it's
time to push the conversation on to what we
should be doing for poor people. "
CITY LIMITS
1
I

Discipleship Education
Center opens doors
for dropouts.
Mireya Acierto
LEARNING DISABLED
restless teens, new school standards are an invitation to seek For
the credential of least resistance: the high school equivalency
centers, an underground school
diploma. As
system fights for
By MARK GREER
dropouts flock to "adult ed"
their survival-and its own.
T
en minutes before class starts, the hall out-
side the classroom is a whirlwind of
energy. Hyperactive students buzz about,
ralk about other classmates and make
plans for the weekend-al l things typical
teenagers do.
Nobody focuses on actually studying unril
teacher Greggoty Mitchell instructs the stu-
denrs ro get busy. A dozen or so file inro a
small, narrow classroom, stumbling over one
another ro squeeze around three circular tables.
Mitchell says he wanrs ro see a page of work in
the next hour from each studenr, but that plan
falters when he is forced ro spend at least 10
minutes getting a few of them ro srop misbe-
having. "Nathan, you can't work without a
pen--don't try and fool me, " he exclaims.
FEBRUARY 2002
"Steven, at least look like you are trying ro
study." Evenrually, he calms them down and
even manages ro devote a few minutes ro help-
ing studenrs individually.
Mitchell 's effort ro keep peace and order is
standard for an overcrowded, chaotic city high
school class-except that this isn't high school.
It's a GED course. And all of these kids, all but
one under 19 and many of them as young as
16, have dropped out of high school and are
looking for certification ro help make them
employable, as soon as possible.
The class is smaller than usual roday
because many of their classmates are out taking
the GED test itself. But these students cannot
join them-because of their young age, they're
barred by law from taking the exam. Instead,
they spend the next three hours studying gram-
mar, spelling, writing, and math by taking
practice tests from GED srudy books (the 1988
edition) and playi ng games like Jeopardy.
For the studenrs at Discipleship Education
Cenrer in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, this class-
room is a godsend. Earning a GED by passing
the Test of General Educational Developmenr,
a national high school equivalency exam,
proves ro be the best option for high school
dropouts conrinuing their education. In seek-
ing out that route, many of the nearly 27,000
studenrs who officially drop out of New York
City high schools annually-the actual num-
ber of dropouts is most likely higher-flock to
the city's adult education cenrers.
But a number of teachers and adminisrra-
13
tors in the field of adult education say that the
dropouts they've been seeing in the last year are
younger than ever.
Discipleship often serves students into their
sixties and seventies, and in years past, Disciple-
ship Program Director Edith Gnanadass rarely
saw more than a handful of 16- and 17 -year-old
students in the center's eight-week GED prepa-
ration courses. But in the last year, the number of
16-year-olds in particular has hit record highs: 13
of 32 students in its spring 2001 class and
another 10 of36 in its fall class, compared to just
6 of38 the previous winter and 6 of36 in the fall
of 2000. Scribbled on the 78-person waiting
list-it's always that long, says Gnanadass-are
the names of twenty 16-year-olds (and one 15-
year-old). In all, 40 are younger than 19.
Meanwhile, at the Flatbush Development
Corporation's GED program, the proportion
of 16- and 17-year-old students has doubled in
18 months, from 20 percent to 40 percent. In
a little more than a year, 17 -year-olds became
the majority of the students at the Sunset Park
Adult and Family Education Center-and
though it doesn't accept them, the program
now gets nearly as many 16-year-olds inquiring
about class openings, says Education Director
Jessica Peaslee. "Our programs for adults now
have a very youthful feel," she remarks.
For the past two years, 16- and 17-year-olds
outnumbered all other students combined at
the Linden Learning Center in East New York;
over the last few months, an administrator
there says, she's been receiving calls asking
about room for 15-year-olds. While always
large, the number of 17 -year-olds at Manhat-
tan's Opportunities for a Bener Tomorrow is at
an all-time high, comprising 35 to 38 students
in a typical 50-person class, says Executive
Director Sister Mary Franciscus.
The intense influx of young students is
putting crushing pressures on these GED pro-
grams, and threatening to take the "adult" out
of adult education. Particularly troublesome
are some of the very problems that help make
city high schools such challenging learning
environments: a lack of discipline and the pres-
ence of a mass of troubled young people.
After a "disciplinary incident" in one GED
course last October nearly cost Flatbush Devel-
opment Corporation the P.S. 269 classroom it
uses to conduct its courses, the program
banned 16- and 17-year-olds. ''The students
didn't want to participate," says a GED coordi-
nator at Flatbush, who asked to remain anony-
mous and refused to disclose derails of the inci-
dent. "It's difficult to have them in classes,
because they are not mentally or socially
14
mature enough to be in classes with adults."
Flatbush isn't the only program reacting to
behavioral problems among students. Starting
in late 2000, Sunset Park excluded 17 -year-
olds because they didn't have the same poise or
focus the adults did, making the classroom
environment too juvenile and distracting, con-
tends Peaslee. "The reality is that adult educa-
tion programs should be geared toward adults
with internal motivation to get their GED. At
least now the tone of the class is more adult. "
Literacy Parmers, which runs test prep pro-
grams around the city, bars students under 18
because it has found that "they tend to be a little
more impatient, thinking they could get aGED
in three weeks," says Sheila Ryan, associate direc-
tor for assessment and recruitment at the 28-
year-old nonprofit. "Having kids around changes
your focus away from the adults and creates dis-
ciplinary problems. It's like high school."
These students are flocking to GED courses
in greater numbers than ever, GED teachers are
convinced, because of the aggressive imposition
of new graduation requirements in New York
City high schools, including Regents exams.
The educators have no problem with high stan-
dards and expectations. What they do struggle
with is the staggering influx of younger and
younger srudents, and their inability to meet
those teenagers' intense needs, which go far
beyond education.
Gnanadass says she doesn't feel she has any
choice but to accept the new wave of 16- and
17-year-olds into her program. It has raken a
significant toll. With only three classrooms,
space is tight, and last year the growing genera-
tion gap forced Gnanadass to split a class in
two: The teenagers were too advanced in their
reading skills and were interfering in the educa-
tional process for the adults. "The younger stu-
dents don't want to be here and we don't want
them to be out of school," she says. "We don't
want them, but what are we supposed to say to
them? We don't want them out on the streets. "
F
or Stephanie Marquez, high school wasn't
worth the time-literally. After raking two
years to get through the ninth grade at
Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School,
Marquez realized that she couldn't make up the
credits she had missed without staying a ftfth or
sixth year. But for someone eager to move on to
college and begin training to become a para-
medic, a GED provided her a way to avoid stay-
ing in high school until she was 20. Instead she
can earn the equivalent of a diploma at 18-the
same age at which she would have graduated had
she never failed a class.
For Discipleship graduate Lisa Camarano,
who dropped out of Brooklyn's High School of
CITY LIMITS
"High school
wasn't a
good experience.
They didn't even
care about you.
Even if you would
go to class,
you taught yourself.
There was no control .
The teacher would
try to talk over us,
but no one
was listening. "
Telecommunication Arts and Technology in
2000, staying in class would have been worth-
while, if only she had been in a very different kind
of school. "High school wasn't a good experi-
ence," she says. "They didn't even care about you.
Even if you would go to class, you taught yoursel
There was no control. The teacher would try to
talk over us, but no one was listening."
Joan Beckerman, a teacher at Brooklyn's
George W Wingate High School, has three
classes of more than 30 students each, over-
whelmed and overcrowded. "It's impossible to
do any service for the students, such as giving
feedback to them or writing comments on
essays," she says, noting that an afternoon peer-
tutoring program for struggling Wingate stu-
dents is being cut.
That reality is no surprise to Mitchell, a 15-
year veteran of adult education, who says that
most of his students complain that in high
school they simply were bored or lacked focus,
and their teachers could not offer any remedy
because they were kept busy trying to man-
age-let alone instruct-oversized classes.
"These kids are underrated," he says. "The
educational system doesn't put great emphasis
on inspiring its students."
If keeping restless teens in school was
already hard, it's become particularly challeng-
ing with the advent this school year of new
graduation standards statewide. In September,
FEBRUARY 2002
the state Education Department increased the
minimum number of credits needed to gradu-
ate from 20.5 to 22. The state is also phasing
out the traditional "local diploma" and requires
the current crop of freshmen and all who fol-
low to graduate with a Regents diploma-an
honor once reserved for college-bound seniors.
They will earn it only by passing five stringent
exams during their senior year.
Discipleship registrar Florence Sirju says the
changes have discouraged many younger stu-
dents, especially freshmen, who either see the
Regents as an impassable wall at the end of their
high school careers or who fail too many courses
early on to acquire sufficient credits.
By the time they arrive at a GED program,
some students have exhausted all hope of grad-
uating from high school. Franciscus notes that
one in her current crop had such poor atten-
dance and indifference toward high school that
he took three years to get through freshman
year before dropping out and coming to her
program. "They've been running to us since
September," she says. Droves of students
headed to the Sunset Park Adult and Family
Education Center, too. Even though they were
banned, "we still get [inquiries from] plenty of
16-year-olds," says Peaslee, "and they all say
they don't have enough credits so far to gradu-
ate." The staff administrator at Linden says she
has seen students with excessive failures
swamping the center since September; one
recent 16-year-old student came with just two
credits in two years of high school. "The guid-
ance counselor told me the student didn't have
enough credits to walk a dog," she says.
Jill Chaiferz, executive director of Advocates
for Children, believes these new graduation
requirements in overcrowded schools create a pri-
mary motivator for younger kids to leave school:
"These students see the new standards, and they
make the decision they aren't going to get any
assistance [to meet them], so they drop out."
Students have good reason to be concerned.
So far, Big Apple high school seniors have fared
poorly on the tougher tests. Citywide passing
rates on the Regents Exams for the class of2001
are dismal: Just 56 percent of those tested passed
the English Regents and a mere 59 percent
passed the math Regents by the margin that will
soon be required for graduation. About 17 per-
cent were not tested at all. Though not required
at the time, Regents diplomas were awarded to
just 27 percent of the city's class of2000. The dis-
appointing results placed New York City's school
district a dismal 39th among 50 major cities
nationwide in graduation rates. As it stands, says
Noreen Connell, executive director of the Edu-
cational Priorities Panel, only the best students
are meeting the expectations set by Albany. For
students to have confidence facing the tests, she
adds, they will need more resources and atten-
tion: "Right now, we have a Darwinian situation,
where kids are not given the services they need. "
It's easy for counselors and administrators to
tell which students aren't the fittest, from a very
young age. School staff look at a student's scores
from the eighth grade competency tests to pre-
dict his or her success in high school. "If you
look at the reading and math scores, you can tell
who is going to graduate," says Carmen Nesbitt,
a counselor at FOR High School who works
with struggling students and routinely refers 16-
year-olds to GED programs if they unsuccess-
fully repeat grades two and three times. "Many
of the freshmen read and have math skills below
the sixth grade level," she adds. "You can't have
second grade math skills and expect to pass the
science Regents. " Nesbitt says that while she
tries to get students to build skills in high school
before sending them out to a GED program,
such an approach is not common practice
among her colleagues. ''They'll just send them to
a GED program," she says. "The kids cause
papetwork and follow-up, so the unspoken pol-
icy seems to be that if a student doesn't have
enough credits, the GED is suggested."
In fact, that policy may be much more
explicit. One attendance officer in Brooklyn,
who asked not to be identified, says that he and
his colleagues have received directives from
school administrators to discharge students if
they don't have half their credits by the time they
turn 17.
Many high school students who are chroni-
cally unable to graduate end up in large GED
classes run by the Board of Ed itself But coun-
selors have incentives to send students to private
programs instead: The state requires schools to
keep their dropout rates at less than 5 percent.
(Only about two-thirds of ciry high schools cur-
renrly meet that standard.) In Board of Ed-
sponsored GED programs, students still count
as graduates if they pass the exam and as
dropouts if they don't. By contrast, students
who go into community-based programs are
official "discharges" from the New York City
school system, not "dropouts. " The Board of Ed
doesn't follow up to see whether the student
actually earns a GED or not, and the discharged
students literally vanish from the city's books.
As a spokesperson for the Board's Division for
Assessment and Accountability explains the
policy, "Students who are discharged from the
school system no longer attend New York City
public schools, [so] it is inappropriate to hold
15
schools accountable for these students."
There are a lot of them: In 2000, FDR dis-
charged more than twice its number of
dropouts-a trend consistent throughout the
city's high schools. "The officers discharge
them out of school the moment the students
show them a letter saying that they are going to
the GED program," says Nesbitt. "Nobody
cares about them."
At 16, Leticia Cedeno wanted nothing
more than to get away from FDR, where she
had struggled for two years with her atten-
dance. When Cedeno asked last year about
options at an alternative high school, her tru-
ant officer gave her Discipleship's contact
information. Cedeno says that though she
never wanted to leave high school altogether,
she took his advice anyway and enrolled at
Discipleship last January. She now works at
Discipleship as an outreach coordinator.
Over the past few months, she has recog-
nized a growing number of former classmates
from FDR, including Marquez, in the cen-
ter's classrooms.
Camarano had a similar experience. Frus-
trated by the overcrowded, chaotic environ-
ment at Telecommunications High, she called
the Board of Education last January, looking ro
transfer to another school. Someone in the
office told her to go to Discipleship and take
the GED. Other dropouts report a similar pro-
cedure: At their schools, they each received a
list of privately run adult education programs
and were told to study for the GED.
L
ike snowflakes, no two adult education
centers are alike. There are more than a
hundred in the city, offering programs
from remedial high school courses to
GED prep emphasizing job placement. Each
program has its own size and scope-from
renowned operations like the Door, with its $5
million budget, to sessions held in church
basements. Money comes in different combi-
nations from allover: private sources, city con-
tracts, some state and some federal grants. But
the biggest funder of New York City's adulr
education programs is the New York City
Adult Literacy Initiative (NYCALI), a pro-
gram funded through the federal Workforce
Investment Act that provides literacy training
through numerous organizations around the
city. The initiative supplies $30 million to the
Mayor's Office of Adult Literacy and the state
Education Department, which then distribute
the funds to six providers: CUNY; the New
York, Queens and Brooklyn public libraries;
the city Department of Youth and Commu-
16
nity Development; and the Board of Educa-
tion. Some providers, like the Board of Ed,
hold their own adulr education programs,
while others, including DYCD, fund pro-
grams through contracts with communiry-
based organizations like Discipleship and Sun-
set Park. The Board of Ed still serves nearly 60
percent of the 50,000 students who seek liter-
acy education each year. The DYCD-funded
programs currently serve abour 16 percent of
the students, more than either CUNY or the
public libraries.
Discipleship receives $60 from DYCD
and NYCALI for each hour of instruction
plus additional funding from the State Office
of Child and Family Services. Stretching an
annual budget of $200,000 over eight classes
and more than 400 students each year, Disci-
pleship needs to make every dollar count,
says Gnanadass.
That leaves few resources to address
teenagers and the distinct challenges they
bring with them. "These students come in fac-
ing heavy-duty issues, such as low self-esteem,
teen pregnancy, broken homes and no family
structure to speak of, " Gnanadass notes.
Unlike in high school, there is no counselor
down the hall to comfort the kids when they
get in trouble. "Many of these students need
supportive counseling, which we just can't pro-
vide," she adds.
"We are not equipped to handle that kind of
class," agrees Sunset Park's Peaslee. "You would
need a full-scale youth program to handle their
needs, and we didn't have the support for that
type of counseling."
Gnanadass continually writes about the sit-
uation in her quarterly reports to Disciple-
ship's city and federal funders but has yet to
find a solution. In the meantime, she is trying
to secure more funds and is considering con-
tacting the Board of Education about placing
some of the kids in city-run programs.
For some GED programs, the pressures
young students pose are even greater. These
groups rely on performance-based education
and job trammg contracts, which pay them
only when students get and retain employment.
The job training program at the 18-year-old
Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow is funded
through the city Department of Employment
and receives money only once its graduates keep
jobs for at least nine months. The organization
provides GED prep on the faith that its gradu-
ates will ultimately secure a job.
Franciscus routinely turns away 16-year-olds
because employers won't hire them, but placing
a class full of 17-year-olds who never graduated
from high school is proving to be no breeze
either, particularly in the current economy.
While Franciscus normally places about half of
her 100 graduates into jobs, just two people in
her current crop have secured employment.
continued on page 41
CITY LIMITS

rfJ r\ immi,grant lillta long enDu,gh in the. good 01' USA -to fW
rand l. m'y land." IXlt stilf- enamored with the idea. of
-1 looked forwari:f tc m!;l relocation to Queens, that. oft-touted bot--
of muiti-C44lti glories, and, in particular; a neighborhood ca/led-
FEBRUARY 2002
17
ao
F ro m
Refugees from war-torn countries could
help revive a dying city - but first,
they'll have to stop fleeing it.
Extl
nctlOn
Brendan Bannon
18
CITY LIMITS

S
oe Soe and Hla Ohn met in a Thai
refugee camp. Both belonged to separate
rebel forces battling Burma's ruling mili-
tary junta, which had killed or enslaved
30,000 people in the last 10 years. They spent
seven years in the camp, where they fell in love,
married and had their firSt child, Khin Hsinr. In
the spring of 2000, they moved into an apart-
ment on 14th Street, in the West Side, one of the
poorest neighborhoods in one of America's most
woebegone cities: Buffalo, New York.
The West Side is known for transvestite
prostitution and other trades of the under-
ground economy, conducted mostly after dark.
But during fine-weather days like this one, the
street buzzes with playing children-there's a
bottomless metal milk crate nailed to a tele-
phone pole-and dueling stereos, an amalgam
of Latino and African-American pop rhythms.
The old houses here are well built: Soe Soe and
FEBRUARY 2002
Hla's apartment is spacious, with high ceilings,
hardwood floors, nice woodwork and relatively
large rooms.
The refugee resettlement agency that found
them the apartmenr, the International Institute,
also helped Soe and Hla apply for social services
and find work. One of their neighbors, Thein
Lwin, who goes by his pen name ofThara, was
another Burmese refugee who had been in Buf-
falo for more than five years and had recently
landed a job with Radio Free America there. A
writer and an imellectual with over 60 books to
his credit, all banned in his homeland, Thera is
an unofficial godfather to Buffalo's small bur
expanding expatriate Burmese communiry. He
speaks English, a language neither Soe nor Hla
know, and was able to help them with both
translation and transition. Soe would get a job;
the kids would go to school. Hla was pregnam
again. "We were happy, " says Soe, Thera trans-
lating. "We wanted to stay."
T
hese are people who need a place,
living in a place that needs people.
At the turn of the 20th cemury,
Buffalo was one of the largest cities
in the world-a national icon of growth, pros-
periry and optimism. Buffalo's own heyday had
everything to do with the arrival of outsiders,
mainly German, Irish, Italian and Polish immi-
grants, as well as a few African-Americans-
for escaped slaves, Buffalo was the last stop
before Canada on the Underground Railroad.
Today, the symbols of the ciry's idemiry are
snowstorms, chicken wings and an unrelenting
economic deterioration. Buffalo entered a long,
slow spiral of decline when traditional indus-
tries like steel and shipping began to erode. As
its industrial base withered, the ciry's popula-
tion began to slip away, declining to just over
half its 1950 high of 580,132. The lost tax rev-
enue sunk the ciry's economy even deeper into
its already morral regression. In 2000, the U.S.
Census put Buffalo's population under
300,000 people-292,648, to be precise-for
the first time since 1890. As it thus drops in
rank from a second-tier to a dlird-tier ciry, Buf-
falo stands to lose $2.8 million in federal block
grams, and possibly one or fwO congressional
seats as well. This past December, after being
forced to layoff 433 public school teachers, the
ciry's governmem began to consider a drastic
solution it had always rejected before: letting
Erie Counry swallow it whole and dissolving its
own ciry government, effectively committing
civic suicide.
Yet Buffalo has one remarkable advantage,
one that defies its status as a national weather
joke: This flat, swampy, snowy, isolated ciry has
world-class geography.
The ciry's proximiry to Canada-less than
an hour away by car-along with that coun-
try's more tolerant citizenship laws, makes Buf-
falo a natural way station for refugees. Since
1984, thousands of asylum-seekers have fil-
tered through Buffalo, seeking refugee status in
Canada. The wandering populations come
from wherever the world's latest atrocities crop
up: Last October, four Afghans managed to
find their way here, and in November, the
number of Pakistanis spiked to 32. In the
1990s, the number crept up steadily; last year
alone, at least five thousand exiles came to Buf-
falo to wait, making the ciry the crucial last
stage of a journey that begins with escape from
torture, starvation or death, and ends with a
new life in a new coumry.
Roughly a thousand more refugees come to
Buffalo each year to be integrated into Ameri-
can life by the ciry's four resettlement agencies.
The ones who seek status in Canada could con-
ceivably do the same: Though they're more
likely to get refugee status in Canada than in
the U.S., it's not unheard of for refugees to be
rejected in Canada and later apply to and be
accepted by the Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion Service.
Bur in Buffalo, almost as a rule, they don'r.
Of the five thousand refugees who passed
through Buffalo last year seeking Canadian citi-
zenship, most are like Nasrat Mohamed: A Tan-
zanian who fled both political persecution and
domestic abuse, she found Buffalo a desperate
place. She felt sorry, she said, for people who
must live there, expressing her piry to a local
photographer for having grown up and lived in
Buffalo all his life. She was on her way back to
Canada; the idea of living in Buffalo horrified
her. Of the refugees who pass through Buffalo,
less than 1 percent of them try to stay.
So this class of temporary citizens continues
to pass through, getting by on whatever public
money they can, but never becoming a perma-
nent part of the ciry or its economy. "It's kind
of like they're on a train, and we're the final
stop before they reach their destination," says
Chris Owens, who runs Vive la Casa, the shel-
ter where refugees wait to get their rickets into
Canada. "And there's not much point in get-
ting off here. But I wish they would."
H
e's not the only one. Owens and a
few other local visionaries are sug-
gesting an innovative solution ro
Buffalo's population problem: fill
it up with refugees. "We need these people to
19
move inro our area, fill up some empty houses,
fill up some jobs, bring some vitality, " urges
Greg alma, a local politician.
"Hisrorically, immigrants have been a great
source of energy for New York [City]' as well as
other places, and that's a great thing ro bring ro
upstate cities," agrees Robert B. Ward, direcror
of research for the Public Policy Institute, a
business-backed Albany think tank that studies
New York State's economy. Last June, Ward
wrote an op-ed in the Buffalo News suggesting
the city replenish itself with refugees.
grants and refugees in the 1990s. Bosron cre-
ated an Office of New Bosronians, and gained
32,000 Latino and Asian immigrants. Pitts-
burgh, as bereft an old steel town as Buffalo--
like Buffalo, it lost about 10 percent of its pop-
ulation in the I 990s alone-is trying ro attract
refugees and other immigrants as well. Last
April, a private foundation awarded four local
nonprofits $800,000 to help lure immigrants
with the promise of jobs. The hope is that
they'll settle in, help fill up a depleted labor
market--especially those ubiquirous low-wage,
unskilled labor POSI-
tions-buy homes and
use their various talents
to rebuild communities.
In Buffalo, where
good jobs are scarce but
low-wage jobs go beg-
ging, Ward thinks
refugees could help keep
local businesses in tOwn.
"We have traditionally
looked at the fact that
every community needs
employers. If you don't
have employers, people
are certainly going ro
leave, and we certainly
saw that all across western
New York, " he says. "But
the other side of the coin
is that if people move
away, then employers
can't make it either. You
need ro have wotkers."
Nasrat Mohamed, who fled political persecution in
Tanzania, pitied people who lived in Buffalo.
Other upstate cities
have done it: Ward cites
Utica, an even smaller,
struggling upstate city,
which manages to suc-
cessfully resettle over 700
refugees a year. A study
conducted at HamiltOn
College in upstate's
Mohawk Valley found
tl1at in tl1e first years of
resettlement, refugee
households cost the local
Urban growth and vitality in the U.S. has
always depended on the resettlement of people
from other places. The people who run cities
know this, and in the past decade, those losing
population have looked to refugees for salva-
tion. Louisville, Kentucky, which created a new
city office ro coordinate translation and com-
munity support services, gained 20,000 immi-
20
economy 111 resources-
mainly education, public assistance and Medic-
aid. Bur once they stay a certain number of
years-in the Mohawk Valley, it was 13-the
net economic benefits to the workforce and to
the tax base begin ro accumulate, and add up
for as long as they stay.
But in order for Buffalo to hit that point of
increasing returns, it's goi ng to have to con-
vince refugees to remain. These days, even
some of the refugees who come expressly to
Buffalo to start new lives there leave. Thara, the
venerated elder of the Burmese expats, is look-
ing to move somewhere else; Texas, he's heard,
is not bad.
Soe and Hla are also finding their lives in
Buffalo supply more misery than other parts of
America have to offer. Soe got a job working
for a pallet company in Tonawanda, north of
the city. But the job only pays minimum wage,
and he has to leave daily at 11 for a two o' clock
shift. Without a car, it's a trip that includes
three changeovers and a three-mile walk from
the last bus stOp. When I ask Soe why he would
take a job that pays so little and is so far away,
Thara, interpreting, explains that when the
agency finds you a job, you are obliged to take
it, or else you're on your own.
What's more, he says, the weather is
unbearably frigid, and the big apartment is
expensive ro heat in the winter. They received
heating cost assistance last year, but by the
time they figured out all the paperwork and
got it processed, it was already March. "The
weather here is too cold," says Thara, "even in
the summer."
Mostly, though, Soe wants to make more
money. Living in a larger Burmese community
may take some of the edge off the family's lone-
liness as well. There's a Burmese refugee com-
munity in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he tells me,
where a worker can get a better wage. Since
neither Soe nor Thara can afford to move just
yet, for now they're waiting it our. "They want
to move someplace warmer, where they can
make more money, " Thara explains. "They can
get welfare anywhere."
In the end, refugees flee this dying city for
the same reasons natives do: poverty, hopeless-
ness, poor housing, worse transportation.
"Why are people leaving Buffalo like crazy?"
asks one refugee from Vietnam who has stayed.
"It's simple. Look at Buffalo."
V
ive La Casa is located off a small side
street on the East Side, in an aban-
doned Catholic school with bars on
the windows, in a neighbhorhood
visitOrs are usually warned to stay away from.
The refugees who stay here are cautioned not
to drift tOo far from the grounds, but there are
always a few who get mugged.
Inside, long, poorly lit corridors lead to
classrooms turned into dormitories, one for
men and one for women and children. People
here are dressed in the clothing of their cul-
tures: bright colored shirts and skirts, shawls,
CITY LIMITS
Soe Soe and Hla Ohn, refugees from Burma, moving into their new apartment in Buffalo's West Side. Both fought
Burma's repressive military junta; he's wearing a pin with a picture of jailed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
turbans, loose-fitting and light colored for
warm-weather climates-whatever they
showed up here with. (One African man
walked the miles from the downtown Grey-
hound station in a blizzard, wearing nothing
but his best dinner jacket and an elegant
Ascor.) Some never remove their winter hats.
Others, awkwardly outfitted in old suits from
chariry donations, look like they could be audi-
tioning as extras for Casablanca. They are all
waiting, coming or going ro and from nowhere
in particular, playing pool, talking in clusters
according to language. In the basement cafete-
ria someone's written Russia Rules in red marker
on one of the walls. Underneath it, someone
else wrote Russia Sucks.
Within the exile communiry, these are the
lowest of the low. Even Soe and Hla's helpful
neighbor Thara, the Burmese political exile and
novelist who wrote about "the common man, "
refers to Vive's residents as "dirry illegals" and
"liars," although he has never met one of them.
Five thousand people come through Vive
every year, more than all the refugee resettle-
ment agencies in Buffalo combined. All are
FEBRUARY 2002
searching for some place and possibiliry, bur
with the clerical distinction that they don't
have the proper documentation and are there-
fore considered illegal aliens. If they were not at
Vive, they would be in an INS detention facil-
i ry or on the streets.
Nearly all are seeking asylum in Canada
because chances of acceptance are greater there
(48 percent) than they are in the U.S. (23 per-
cent, and that was before September 11).
Besides providing food and shelter, Vive helps
them with their residency applications, and
provides those who have been denied on their
first try in Canada-and therefore must leave
the land of the maple leaf for 90 days before
they can reapply-a place to sit it our and hope
for bener luck next time.
Owens would like to encourage more of them
to stay, and he has reached out ro both local
foundations, hoping they would sponsor a Pitts-
burgh-sryle population effort, as well as ro the
ci ry's reseruement agencies. (He's also seeking
international funding, since Vive functions as a
de facro nongovernmental intermediary berween
countries.) But it's slow going: These are rough
times for both Buffalo and refugees, and funding
a grand international urban experiment is not
high on anyone's list of priorities. Only rwo
schools in Buffalo have resources ro serve chil-
dren who don't speak English, and they're both
filled ro capaciry. Buffalo's budget crisis means
there's li rue hope that things will get bener.
Vive also has its own problems ro attend to.
Since late September, the agency has been filled
to double capaciry with refugees desperately
seeking to get into Canada before this June,
when strict new immigration laws prompted
by 9/11 take effect there. (Among them, asy-
lum-seekers will now have just a single oppor-
[Uniry ro apply for Canadian citizenship before
they must go back home or into the limbo of
detention.) And in 1996, federal welfare
reform removed New York State's obligation to
fund certain services for legal immigrants. The
result, for Vive, was a $400,000 budget cur.
Vive would have gone out of business entirely
had Erie Counry not decided ro channel funds
from other sources to the organization.
"Refugees are the largest and most silent
homeless population in Buffalo, " says Alex
21
Priebe, Vive's former development officer.
"When you apply for asylum in the United
States, you cannot work, you cannot receive
benefits. You are dependent on the kindness of
anyone who will give it to you. Unless you
come with money in your pocket-a lot of
these people come with only the clothes on
their backs-you are an orphan in a system not
set up to be kind."
O
n a run-down section of Broadway
Street, among liquor stores, bars,
tattoo shops and abandoned
houses, you'll find the low-slung
office of the last politician who set out to make
Buffalo a refugee haven. Until he lost at the
polls this November, burly maverick Greg
Olma was a Democratic county legislator.
The walls of Olma's office are bare, with two
exceptions. On one there are the police mug
shots of the actor Hugh Grant and Divine
Brown, the prostitute he was picked up with a
few years back. On the other is a life-size, smil-
ing cardboard cutout of Buffalo's Common
Council President, James Pitts, the powerful
Democrat and political leader of Buffalo's black
East Side. He's also a well-known Olma neme-
sis. Next to the cutout a carefully positioned
cartoon balloon reads, in neat block lerrers:
GREG OLMA IS A VERY SMART MAN!
Olma has a reputation for being ourspoken
and controversial, which, along with allegations
of corruption (he denies them), probably con-
tributed to his election defeat. Breaking from
the fulsome provincialism and sophistry stan-
dard among the city's elected officials, he may
be the only local politician who'll speak can-
didly about the city's parrern of spiraling decline
and realistically about its prospects for revival.
As county legislator, he was certainly the only
one considering immigrant and refugee recruit-
ment as part of any redevelopment plan.
"Buffalo's a sad case. It's not as bad as
Youngstown, Ohio, or Gary, Indiana, or
Newark, but it's pretty damn close to that, " he
said in an interview conducted before his defeat.
"Our only hope would be to encourage immi-
gration of people from countries that will work
and maintain a partisan and ethnic enclave."
But Olma's attempt to revive the glory years
of the urban immigrant political machine ran
into some hitches. For one thing, Buffalo's
refugee agencies are not well coordinated:
They operate independently and sometimes
competitively, spending their limited resources
on services-like English language classes and
job placement programs-that often duplicate
one another.
Olma's vision, for which he got some local
support but ultimately too little funding, was
to combine their efforts into one comprehen-
sive community development initiative, mak-
ing it easier for refugees to buy houses right
Thara, a writer whose 60-plus books are al l banned in Burma, is an unofficial godfather for Buffalo's Burmese refugee
community. But like the Ohns, he's looking to leave and move to a warmer and more li vable city.
22 CITY LIMITS
away and begin building their new lives.
"Essentially, what you got to have are people
from poor countries without anything," says
Olma. "There's a lot of those out there, and
Buffalo's a good place to bring them, because
they will help build us up again. "
Olma's no stranger to the power of refugees
in community revitalization. In the 1980s, the
city built a low-rent housing project in the
Broadway-Fillmore district, the Walentynowicz
Apartments, designed for post-Solidarity
refugees from Krakow. Noted for its strong eth-
nic ties, the district became a bustling Polish
neighborhood, the symbol and center of which
remains the Broadway Market-a large indoor
bazaar with small kiosks selling everything from
ethnic food to televisions. (Regularly mired in
patronage scandals, Broadway Market also
became a symbol of Buffalo's tradition of graft.)
But Broadway-Fillmore's comeback faded
quickly when the immigrants headed for the
suburbs. The way Olma sees it, that was because
the refugees weren't poor enough or desperate
enough. "What you have to have to build a
community-to build an ethnic community in
the inner city-you've got to have lower-
income immigrants who come from a certain
kind of poverty siruation," he explains. "The
problem with European immigrants, Eastern
European, is that they watched Western TV
They think this country's like Dynasty. And so,
you get good workers and sruff; it's good for the
community; it's good for your restaurant selec-
tion-if you get enough immigrants you'll get
some interesting food and things like that, par-
ties to go to. Bur you don't get a real commu-
nity from that kind of situation.
"A lot of it has got to do with education," he
continues, oblivious that he's getting into sen-
sitive terrirory. "A lot of these people from
Poland had some college education, or they're
more Westernized, so to speak."
There are, believe it or not, things Olma
doesn't say. One of them is that one reason so
many Polish residents were moving out was
because African-Americans were moving in. At
the same time, Broadway-Fillmore, like many
other parts of the city, became run down with
unemployment, declining property values and
hard poverty. The tiny white enclave that
remains is called the Iron Triangle, as much a
reference to its siege mentality as its East Euro-
pean flavor. "I think that's the same thing that's
going to happen with the Bosnians. There's
some Bosnians moving in, " says Olma. "But
generally speaking, they're climbers and they're
going to climb right out."
For Olma, a desire to settle, stay and build a
FEBRUARY 2002
Yusuf Bahri Oksum, a journalist from Izmir, Turkey. While he waits for asylum
in Canada, he's staying in Buffalo at Vive La Casa.
life is what disti nguishes the Viernamese from
some of the other immigrating populations.
"Since the Polish dried up we've had a lot of
Somalians, Bosnians, Vietnamese, " he says.
"And the Vietnamese," he declares, "were the
ones that were the most durable."
It's this "Vietnamese-type of immigrant" that
serves as the model for Olma's visions of refugee-
fueled revival. He describes them as being "like
the old immigrants," which is to say that they
buy houses in his district and tend to bring over
their extended fanlilies, which means more
votes-preferably for him. "They're Catholics,
most of them, which is good for the Catholic
parishes," he points out. "They're savers, they're
frugal , and they're not glory-seekers."
This is a point Olma stresses: that the earth's
truly wretched will be grateful to live in Buf-
23
Greg Olma with Luan Nguyen and Hoa Nguyen, discussing the needs of the Vietnamese community (more housing, a
Catholic priest) and the needs of Greg OIma (more Vietnamese registered voters).
falo. "To me, the best thing for refugees is not
doctors and lawyers, " he says. "The best
refugees are able-bodied workers who have
some education but are not looking for the
srylized American lifesryle. They just want to
get ahead, you know ... they don't pull them-
selves out and live in [suburban] Amherst, like
the doctors and lawyers do. They're not that
enculturated. I don't know if this sounds bad or
not, but it makes perfect sense to me: Not
every immigrant is as good as the other one."
M
inh Tran is Olma's dream person-
ified. He lives in a pleasant two-
story house on the Lower West
Side. On the corner directly
opposite the house is his family's store, a tiny
building so overctowded with products and
advertising that stepping inside is enough to
trigger a swarming disorientation.
Minh's family arrived here in 1981 via South
Vietnam, after a year in a Hong Kong refugee
camp. Minh's father, a former officer in the South
Vietnamese army, died in the camp, leaving
Minh, his mother, two sisters and a baby brother
24
to carry on without him. "My mother never took
social services; she refused," says Minh, in a tone
about as humble as a statement like that can be.
The family came over with some savings, but
not enough to save Minh, who at 19 was the old-
est son, from having to take a sewing job in Buf-
falo's old garment district to help support them
all while his younger sisters and brother went off
to school and, later, college. When he wasn't
working, Minh was busy helping his mother run
the store; to this day, he himself has never taken
a college class. As a result his English, while not
quite broken, is still thick with accent.
That kind of experience can cause bitterness,
but there's no sense of that in Minh. Confident
and charismatic, he's become a leader in Buf-
falo's close-knit, small, yet relatively powerful
Vietnamese communiry. He is also a case man-
ager at the International Institute, the agency
that helped resettle his family. He gets calls at all
hours from his clients, refugees new to the area
who get lost, don't know how to call a taxi or
need to fllld the nearest hospital.
Minh's querencia, his place of strength, comes
from a mixture of individual will and genuine
compassion. His success and kindness make him
a local legend, but he deflects individual credit.
"A lot of people help me out," he says, and specif-
ically mentions Greg Olma.
More than once, Olma has driven across
town to sit at Minh's table and talk to the local
Vietnamese leaders, asking them what services
they need and checking to see how many of
them have registered to vote.
It was Olma who helped arrange a deal with
the ciry so they could purchase space for a Bud-
dhist cultural center. For those who are
Catholic, it was Olma who helped them find a
priest for their church.
"Greg, he welcomes people. He wants to
build communiry," Minh says, struggling to fit a
tile around a tricky corner. We are sitting on ply-
wood that for the moment is passing as Minh's
dining room floor, drinking cans of beer, while
Minh is carefully measuring and laying new floor
tiles. Not liking the fit, he peels it up, frowning,
and tosses it over his shoulder. "There goes 99
cents," he says with a light laugh.
There are lots of pictures on the walls: fam-
ily portraits, a painting of Jesus and other reli-
CITY LIMITS
Minh Tran, a refugee caseworker, takes
the Ohn family to apply for their
Social Security cards.
gious artifacts, including a large cross. I ask
Minh if he's Camolic. "Yeah," he laughs, "but
what is Camolic anyway, you know."
Minh minks the whole Buffalo population
crisis is way overblown. "The Census got it
wrong," he insists. "Refugees weren't coumed,
for one; they don't know what mose Census
forms are or how to fill them out. And when
the people come to the door to ask mey come
during business hours when the refugee is at
work."
I ask Minh if he's concerned that Buffalo
has trouble arrracting immigrams and refugees
who are willing to stay, and what mat ulti-
mately means for me community. "What prob-
lem?" he says. "In my mind, mey all stay. "
Once Minh leaves to go pick up his son from
day care, though, his younger bromer, Thorn,
says he can see why people are leaving Buffalo.
''I'm not complaining; Buffalo treated me well,"
he adds quickly. Thorn, which is not his real
name but me only one he's willing to provide,
went to SUNY-Buffalo and gO[ a business
degree. Now, he works at me Walentynowicz
Apartments, a job Olma got him. For $7.50 an
hour, he cleans apartments and collects rems
from less fortunate, more recently arrived
refugees. "I know it's hard for them. They only
get me minimum wage jobs," he says. "Bur what
am I supposed to do? I have to do my job."
Sitting on the porch, after a few beers,
Thorn begins talking about his life here, his
childhood in Ho Chi Minh City, venal politi-
cians. About trouble and me need, sometimes,
for a new start. "I would like more, of course,"
he says, "but people have to accept reality."
David Blake is a writer who used to live in Buf
Jalo. Brendan Bannon, who provided additional
reporting for this story, has been photographing
refugees in Buffalo for over two years.
The Ohns liked their new house in Buffalo, but soon they were looking to move somewhere warmer.
FEBRUARY 2002 2S
IF YOU'RE HOMELESS, LOVE MEANS STAYING TOGETHER
WHEN THE SYSTEM WANTS TO KEEP YOU APART.
Story by Bob Roberts Photographs by Steve Hoffman
LIKE ANY FORTY-SOMETHING COUPLE on a Sunday afternoon, Anthony
Boyce and Patricia Garcia are sitting side by side in matching lounge
chairs, alternately napping and watching television. But this isn't their
living room; it's St. Agnes' drop-in center in mid-town Manhattan, one
of the busiest way stations for homeless people in New York. The chairs
26
they are sitting in, Iighrweight plastic patio furniture arranged and
rearranged throughout the day by the staff, are their one guarantee of
another night together.
They're lucky to have them. Competition can be fierce, and it's not
uncommon for fights to break out, despite the uniformed security
CITY LIMITS
guards standing by the metal detecror at the enrrance. That's because
rhose who fail ro secure a place ro sit by five o'clock have no choice but
ro look elsewhere for the nighr.
As individuals, Anrhony and Patricia do have orher options besides St.
Agnes wirhin New York Ciry's shelter system. Anrhony could go ro a shel-
ter for men, and Patricia could find a Spot in a women's residence. In fact,
social workers are quick ro suggest rhat they separate. "They want ro send
me here, and her there," Anrhony complains. But he and Patricia have been
rogether for over five years, and despite rhe noise, overcrowding, and dan-
ger oflife at a drop-in cenrer, rhey still prefer living in chairs ro living apart.
Theoretically, under New York's right-ro-shelter laws, rhe city must
house all families rogerher. The Departmenr of Homeless Services' offi-
cial policy, issued in a January 2001 memo, states rhat any two adults
with a demonstrated hisrory of cohabitation who depend on each other
physically or financially-whether married, unmarried or same-sex-
constitute a family just as much as a couple with children.
In practice, however, the two groups are treated quite differently. Cou-
ples with children often end up in Tier II family shelters-well-run non-
profit shelters with private rooms, kitchens and a range of social services,
from psychological counseling ro child care. Couples with-
out children who choose ro stay rogerher, on the orher
hand, are fortunate ro get a short-term stay at a welfare
hotel or a substandard city-run facility like rhe Auburn
Shelter in Fort Greene. Unmarried and especially same-sex
couples are particularly discriminated against when social
workers at rhe city Emergency Assistance Unit in the Bronx
decide who constitutes a family. "Childless couples fall
between the cracks," says Patrick Markee of the Coalition
for the Homeless. "The system isn't designed ro accommo-
date their needs. It's frustrating, because they miss out on
the few good rhings the system has ro offer."
Even married heterosexual couples have a hard time being housed as a
family: In one four-monrh period, Kenneth Nash and Tanya Jones stayed
at rhe EAU, the Jam.aica Assessmenr Cenrer and three differenr welfare
hotels. One of the hotels rhrew away all of their possessions, including
rheir marriage license.
There are legitimate reasons for separating some homeless couples.
Sexual conract is forbidden at single shelters largely because temporary
liaisons-"shelter romances"-can be exploitative, and a genuine handi-
cap ro people trying ro get off rhe streets. For those dealing with drugs or
alcohol, even committed relationships can cause problems. "In recovery,
people don't think rhat their relationships are incidenral, but in fact they
are," says Roseanne Viglione of Project Renewal's New Providence
House, a Manhattan women's shelter that treats substance abuse.
But most long-term couples, whether same-sex or heterosexual , mar-
ried or unmarried, need ro stay rogether for rhe same reasons other fam-
ilies do: love and security. Besides rhe obvious emotional support and
companionship of an enduring relationship, couples help each other sur-
vive economically-a fact even rhe 1996 welfare reform law recognized
when it promoted marriage as a way for people ro get off welfare.
Anthony and Patricia pool their funds, combining her SSI and his work-
fare benefits. And Jay Toole, who worked as a dispatcher at a messenger
company while she was homeless, managed ro get her partner Sheila King
a job delivering packages.
In order ro really thrive, though, all families ultimately need a home.
"If we could get a place rogerher," says Anrhony, "we'd be one step up
the ladder."
Bob Roberts is a Bronx-based freelance writer. Steve Hoffman, a Manhattan-
based photographer, has been photographing homeless couples for seven years.
Anthony: I met Patricia in Tompkins Square Park. I'd been
fighting with my wife; rhe tension level was so high I just had
ro leave for the sake of my children. I just srood there-I didn't
know what to do. What did I know about homelessness? Three
days later I met Patricia.
romanric evening is to go down ro rhe park by the river and
watch the boats. Water relaxes me. Evenrually I was able ro get
her away from rhat sroop. I think I help keep Patricia away
from the deep end.
Patricia: I have a hard time expressing my feelings sometimes.
Anthony: And she helps me wirh my anger. The orher day,
I was about ro get inro it with some guy and she just grabbed
me around the chest and held on till I calmed down. Patricia: I'd been burned out of my apartmenr three
monrhs earlier. I'd lived there all my life, and I lost every-
thing-not just material possessions but all of my pho-
rographs, things of senrimenral value. It was one of the most
painful experiences in my life.
Anthony: When I first noticed her, she was sitting on the
park bench and some guy was trying ro flirt wirh her. I didn't
say anything. The second time I saw her, she looked at me and
said ''I'm not messing with you!" But the very next day, she rold
me "Come here. I need someone ro talk ro."
Patricia: That's what people really need, someone ro talk roo
We used to have a woman's group here, where people could talk
about their feelings. We're trying ro start it up again. I've had
problems with depression ever since I lost my apartmenr. I used
ro go and sit on the sroop of myoId building, JUSt thinking
rhere was some way to get in.
Anthony: I'd go and sit on that old sroop with her, but
come on-who wanrs ro sit on some old sroop! My idea of a
FEBRUARY 2002
Patricia: It's a problem when people wirh serious menral
health problems are inrertwined wirh so-called normal people. I
get so anxious wirh all this noise and confusion. People fight
over chairs here! There are cliques outside selling drugs. The
police are there, but they can't watch everybody. Someone could
snap on you.
Anthony: I'm not used ro this jailhouse menrality. People
sneak weapons past the metal detecrors. We need a place where
real couples can get back on their feet. Every other weekend we
have ro pay for a hotel just ro beat the stress. It's not just sex-
sometimes you have ro lay in a bed. I can't remember rhe last
time we wenr ro rhe movies togerher.
Patricia: I stick with Anthony because he cares a lot
about me.
Anthony: We came in here rogether and we'll leave
togerher. All I can say is that I hope we stay together unril God
separates us.
27
Park Across From
Penn Station,
Sam and Elinor had been
together for about five
years. Both had serious
alcohol and drug
problems; both had been
in and out of hospitals
many times. She's in a
wheelchair. They lived in
the park. -SH
28 CITY LIMITS
Sheila King and lay Toole
Jay: I used to live in rhe subway. You know, down near me PATH
crain enrrance where you see a bunch of people sleeping? I was one of
mose people. I spent a nighr ar Sr. Agnes once, bur a gang rried to jack
me in rhe bamroom, so I had to leave.
Sheila: We mer in me Brooklyn Women's Shelrer.
Jay: We lived in rhe same dorm. I remember I was hanging our wim
anomer burch and she asked me "See any women you like?" I looked
over ar Sheila and said, "She's going to be my wife." So I srarred hang-
ing our around, borrowing books, ralking. We have a lor in common.
Sheila: They say rhar shelrer romances don'r work .. bur wow!
Jay: And we've always srayed in conracr, no marrer whar. We jusr
have mar spark Afrer a while I gor sick of me shelrer, so I gor a job as a
disparcher. Bur we'd sti ll meer every day ar rhe Burger King near me Porr
Aurhoriry, even when I was on me meer and she was in me shelrer. Ir
was a job rrying to sray togemer. Somerimes I'd ger coffee and sand-
wiches ar Sr. Francis to give her in case she missed breakfasr, and I'd
always give her wharever change I could pick up.
Sheila: I used to hare ir when she'd go our and pick up cans.
Jay: I remember somerimes we'd go to Bryant Park and I would jusr
pur my head in her lap and sleep fo r hours.
Sheila: She was toughing ir our.
Jay: When I was working, we did ger an aparrmem a couple of
rimes-once in Harlem, and once on Hawmorne Srreer in Brooklyn.
Bur we were born using. I was drinking and smoking crack
Sheila: I was smoking cocaine, drinking and abusing prescription
Staten Isl and
Ferry Terminal,
This couple had been
rogerher for abour a
year. They didn'r wanr
ro be named. They used
ro live in Sraren Island,
bur came into me ciry
hoping ro ger imo a
shelrer. They had been
living in rhe ferry
rerminal for abour four
weeks. -SH
FEBRUARY 2002
drugs. I've had over 60 detoxes. When we were rogerher and using, ir was
hard. We'd fighr and argue all me rime. All I'd do was scream and yell; I
wasn'r happy unless we had money for drugs. Bur we born knew mar we
weren'r really like rhar.
Jay: The rhings we said and did, rhar was me drugs, nor us. I finally
decided ro sober up mer I gor my head busred open fighring wirh a gang
of kids ourside of Porr Aurhoriry. I was hospiralized and wem mrough
me D.T.s.
Sheila: For me ir was abour gerting older, seeing orner people raking
care of my babies.
Jay: Thanks ro a woman I mer in me Projecr Renewal van, I checked
myself into rhe Jamaica Assessment Center and srarred going ro New
Providence House in me evening.
Sheila: Bur for rhree monms I was still gening high. She could rell
by my voice on rhe phone rhar I was using.
Jay: Ir was a lonely rime.
Sheila: Now I'm sraying ar Holland House on 42nd Sneer. I'm see-
ing a merapisr mere, and Jay and I go ro couples counseling rogerher.
Lasr year, I had Thanksgiving wim my emire family and my mree grand-
daughrers for rhe firsr rime!
Jay: This is me firsr lease I've had in my own name. We alrernare
berween her place and mine. Thar way we can do all me fun mings in
Manhanan, go ro movies or Liberry games. I'm jusr glad I gor a second
chance. We born wanr people ro know ir can be done.
Sheila: Twelve years is a long rime!
Jay: Too long! Uh oh, I'm going ro ger a bearing when you ger our of
here!
29
Kenneth Nash and Tanya lones
Kenneth: We were at a welfare hotel. Ten o'clock in the morning,
the lights go out.
Tanya: They blamed me for the blackout. Said I was cooking in my
room. That night they gave us a long orange plug with a light bulb at
the end to use for lighting.
Kenneth: I complained to our caseworker at HASA [HNIAIDS Ser-
vices Administration)' Ms. Romero. She told me ro stop acting like a lit-
de gi rl, and 4: 15 the next day she rold us we had to get out. We had 45
minutes ro pack our stuff and get up ro the EAU in the Bronx by five.
Tanya: They called the cops because I said we'd been there 45 days
and I wasn't going nowhere. They dragged me outside in my underwear
with a sheet wrapped around me. They handcuffed me so tight I had
bruises up and down my arm.
Kenneth: She had ro go ro the hospital! And I had ro go spend $90
on a hotel room so I could be near the hospital when she came out. She
was drugged up real bad when they released her. The lady at the hotel
said we could leave our stuff in the room.
Tanya: We're supposed to have three days ro get our stuff. When I
came back ro get it, all of my things were ruined. My hygiene things
30
were smashed like somebody had used a hammer.
Kenneth: I bought my wife some perfume-it wasn't expensive, 65
bucks. That was my anniversary present ro her. They rook the rop off
and poured it out in the bag with our clothes!
Tanya: Now we're staying at Jamaica Assessment. It's mad nasty up
there!
Kenneth: It's just an abandoned school building with lights and
plumbing.
Tanya: There are roaches everywhere!
Kenneth: Roaches eat bener than we do.
Tanya: You know, ever since we've been having problems, people
have been trying ro separate us.
Kenneth: People think because I'm 300 pounds I'm going ro abuse
my wife. But me and my wife, we get along great. We both grew up in
foster homes, so we have a lot in common. If we can get along this
good when times are bad ... .I've told her I'm never going ro walk away
from her.
Tanya: What do I want ro fight with my husband for? I'm going ro
be with him the rest of my life. We've been rogether for four years, and
we love each other very much.
Kenneth: Tell 'em, baby!
CITY LIMITS
DeWitt
Clinton Park,
52nd Street and
11 th Avenue,
Kathy and John had been
rogether for about five
years. John's a mechanic.
When this picture was
taken, they had just left
upstate and arrived in
New York ro derox at Mt.
Sinai Hospital. -SH
Park at 29th
Street and
9th Avenue
This couple, who didn't
want ro give their names,
had been rogether for
many years. She's blind;
he has a serious alcohol
problem. They were
living on the streets.
-SH
FEBRUARY 2002 31
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
The Underground Railroad
By Clive Thompson
FOR DOUG POWER, BROADBAND internet con-
nections aren't just wires and cables, or just for
downloading music and videos at lightning
speed. In the digital age, he argues, broadband
is the lifeblood of a city's economy.
It's much like the impact the railroad had on
the West in the 19th century, or the way New
York's subways opened up new areas for develop-
ment. "In the old days, if your town lay along the
railroad, you prospered. You had access to com-
merce," Power says. "But today the railways are
high-speed broadband-that's what's bringing in
the high-tech companies and the jobs."
Power ought to know. As an assistant com-
missioner at Chicago's Department of General
Services, he's heading up a project called
CivicNet, which is aiming to blanket the entire
city with super-fast broadband. It will, he pre-
dicts, kickstart the city's poorer neighborhoods-
such as the South Side---where businesses van-
ished during bad times in the 1970s and 1980s
and which have yet to completely come back.
"We've got a ton of warehouses around the
city that are rusting and empty," Power adds.
"But for start-ups, they don't want to pay
downtown rent. If we can wire them, this could
32
get all sorts of activity and jobs out there." Data
storage and service, telemarketing call cemers, a
neighborhood graphics shop-any business
that uses information technology could benefit.
The advantages aren't just economic. CivicNet
will also hook up fast bandwidth to evety school
and public hospital in the city, improving the
quality and reliability of public services.
Most impressively, though, Chicago is plan-
ning to build this network without spending a
single penny of new government money.
Instead, they're convincing private compa-
nies-successfully, judging from initial interest
in submitting proposals for the project-that
constructing an entire chunk of the city's infra-
structure is a profitable move.
If Power can pull this off, CivicNet's innova-
tive piece of policy could become a blueprint for
how major cities everywhere could rev up their
economies, for next to nothing. All of which
made the project much easier for the city's
politicians to green-light, he notes: "Since this is
all comingent on us not spending any money,
we didn't have to do all the work proving how
much we'd get out of it." Chicago's non-gamble
allows the city to dream-to build a public
resource that will be there (for a fee) for busi-
nesses and organizations to grow into as they
integrate technology into their work.
It's an imeresting concept for New York to
observe. Certainly, New York's bandwidth com-
panies and urban-development bureaucrats
agree that New York's digital landscape ought to
be spread more widely; broadband still isn't
easily and cheaply available outside big-money
commercial areas and rich residential neighbor-
hoods. Nationally, only 13 per cent of house-
holds earning less than $15,000 a year even
have normal phone-line access to the Internet.
These days, though, prosperity is no guar-
antee of service. The attack on the World Trade
Center knocked out significant parts of down-
town's telecommunications backbone. Not only
does that area need major rebuilding, but some
in the real estate and technology businesses are
contending-with a healthy amount of self-
interest-that the entire city ought to receive
extra wiring to make sure furure incidents don't
stop business or government data from flowing.
In an economic analysis of the attack's impact,
the New York City Partnership noted that
downtown's telecommunications proved to be
"surprisingly fragile," and that rebuilding should
include more redundancy, building extra layers
of wiring so that if some are knocked out, others
will keep going. "If we do not do this, Lower
Manhattan will become a ghost town," John
Gilbert, executive vice-president of the real
estate firm Rudin Managemem, told a meeting
of security officials in November.
To information magnate-turned-mayor
Mike Bloomberg, governmem technology must
look like it's in a time warp. Most municipal
workers don't have access to the web or email,
and city agencies didn't have a coordinated email
system until just last year. The city is still
working on projects to integrate computer net-
works; when the information starts flowing, reli-
able connections will be essential. Indeed, the
city intends to pay companies to thread fiber-
optic wiring through unused water supply pipes.
"From a policy perspective, what the city
needs to do is to support anyone with an idea that
increases the diversity of how we bring broadband
to New York," says Marc Josephson, founder and
chairman of Advanced Digital Internet, a New
York-based company that provides fast broad-
band connections to residential buildings, and
who served on the Mayor's Council on New
Media under Giuliani. Companies like his would
benefit from a broadband boom, of course, but
Josephson also agrees that it's a matter of eco-
nomic necessity. "It's not just about rebuilding the
city from the attack," he says. "This stuff creates
jobs." He's been pitching MTA officials the idea
of putting wires through subway lines, a measure
that could protect the conduits from damage and
CITY LIMITS
would provide high-quality service to business out Drew McNaughton ofAxia Supernet Ltd.,
districts in the outer boroughs. part of the private consortium building the pro-
But the question in any broadband project is, ject: "I mean, there's one town out there with
who'll pay for the work? In Chicago, the key to only one school, with 30 kids total. And they're
attracting private-sector attention is the city's going to have 20 megabits per second connec-
own lucrative broadband needs. The city is tion, as good or better than stuffin major cities."
promising to buy its own connectivity-worth So are any of these models suitable for New
$31 million of business annually-for 10 years York? Some observers aren't as confident of the
from the company that submits the successful numbers as Chicago or Alberta boosters are.
bid to create CivicNet. As a result, the winning Josephson suspects the private sector here might
private company has a guaranteed level of face higher costs, given expenses that include
income, making the project much less risky. New York's "last mile"-where wiring buildings
Mind you, it's not without risk: Power says often requires expensive punching through walls
it could cost anywhere from $80 million to or roads to attach to the fiber-optic nerwork
$250 million to wire the city, so the winning running through ducts underground. "The eco-
contractor will need (0 drum up much more nomic payback, I'm not sure it's there for private
business than just the gov- _____________ companies," he speculates.
ernmenr. But here, the New York is already
upside might be signifi- Fed up with undertaking municipal
cant-a study by the con- build-outs, albeit smaller
sultant KPMG showed that electron-Ic and less organized, in which
Chicago has a potential individual private compa-
$2.4 billion market for h nies are shouldering lesser
broadband services. And the ana rc y, risks. The New York City
winner will actually own the Housing Authority, for
cable, much of which will Chicago builds example,isacceptingprivate
be wired through train lines proposals to wire all 2,400
and other public rights-of- a technology of its buildings. The city will
way, making it unnecessary share the costs and revenues
to tear up streets. "It's a ripe, of the project, and the win-
ripe market, " Power says. infrastructure- ning contractor will make
All signs suggest firms will the money back by leasing
jump at the chance (0 build -th t d - the infrastructure to service
CivicNer. Last fall, when WI OU spen Ing providers like Verizon or
Chicago sent out a request Tlffie Warner Cable. "It'll
for qualifications, 40 inter- a dim e _ bring a lot of connectivity to
ested companies responded, a lot of places," says Howard
including communications Marder, NYCHA's director
giants such as Nortel Nerworks, Marconi and of communications. But the projects' low-
EDS. Half received a request to submit a formal income tenants will carry the cost; the city is not
proposal by December, and the winner will be asking the companies for discount rates.
selected by the end of 2002, with the project Meanwhile, the city's Economic Develop-
likely launching the following year. ment Corporation has been attempting (0
Chicago isn't alone in pursuing innovative launch a project that builds more bandwidth
private-public broadband partnerships. The for economic stimulus of specific neighbor-
province of Alberta in Canada is developing a hoods. Digital NYC wires up buildings in tar-
similar project called SuperNet, in which the geted areas and then leases them to companies
provincial government will be the anchor client looking for good bandwidth.
of a privately built fiber-optic nerwork. In this But for Power, the economic case for bigger
case, the province itself will own the nerwork, plans is there. Once the winning bidder has
shouldering almost rwo-thirds of the project's rewired Chicago, he expects that the company
$200 million (in U.S. dollars) cost. But once the will be able (0 use the model with any other
nerwork is built, it will lease the pipeline at inex- urban center. "You could take this plan, " he
pensive rates to any company that wants to use says, "and bring it (0 any major city and do the
it, while ensuring that remote rural areas of the same thing. "
province have cheap high-speed connections,
too. Indeed, these are places where the market
would otherwise never bring broadband, points
FEBRUARY 2002
Clive Thompson is a technology columnist for
Newsday and a Brooklyn-based freelance writer.
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
NEW REPORTS
Making policy-makers look mindless probably
wasn't the goal of researchers who evaluated
a college program for inmates at Bedford Hills
Correctional Facility. But this compelling
report's finding-college prison programs
save money because the women who took
classes were four times more likely to remain
out of jail once released-illustrates the
short-sightedness of the 1994 federal ban on
Pell grants for felons, which shut down nearly
350 college prison programs nationwide.
"Changing Minds:
T17e Impact of College in a Maximum-Security Prison"
T17e Graduate Center of the City University of New Yorfr
Available on web: www.changingminds.ws
or 212-817-7000
There'd better be spiritual rewards in working
for God, because according to this survey of
upper management pay at nonprofit organiza-
tions, executives at religious groups earn an
average of only $24,000, way below their
counterparts at hospitals-$169,000, the
most lucrative sector-{)r even the $41,000
paid by human services agencies. The report
also finds that groups funded by government
contracts typically pay better than those that
depend on contributions or grants.
"Executive Compensation in the Nonprofit Sector:
New Findings and Policy Implications"
T17e Urban Institute
Available on web: www.urban.orgor 202-833-7200
This is one of those reports that won't make
anyone happy. After an "exhaustive review" of
studies examining charter schools and school
vouchers, "none of the important questions"
about whether they work better than their public
counterparts can yet be answered. According to
this book-length report, African-American stu-
dents have performed slightly better in voucher
programs and charter schools than public ones.
But charter schools and vouchers don't promote
integration, and for most groups, academic
improvements are minimal.
"Rhetoric Versus Reality: What We Know and What We
Need to Know About Vouchers and Chatter Schools"
T17e RAND Corporation; Available free on web:
www.rand.orgortor$15at 877-584-8642
33
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
Digging Up Dirt
By Paul Parkhill
Unearthing Gotham:
The Archaeology of New York City
by Anne-Marie Cantwell
and Diana diZerega Wall,
Yale University Press, 374 pages, $39.95.
MY LONE EXPERIENCE IN URBAN archaeology
came about five years ago, when I decided to
carve out a garden in the decrepit backyard of
my Brooklyn apartment building. The yield:
batteries, crack vials, auto parts and an
unending supply of glass fragments dating back
to at least the epoch of Mayor Beame. Imagine,
if you will, excavating the same haul six hun-
dred or six thousand years hence and
attempting to extrapolate broad cultural trends,
development patterns, or the activities of daily
life from such random artifacts.
The absurd challenge of such an endeavor is
both the thrill and the frustration of the urban
archaeology described in Unearthing Gotham:
The Archaeology of New York City by Anne-
Marie Cantwell and Diana diZerega Wall, both
anthropology professors. In creating an account
that's part archaeology textbook, part general
interest historical survey, Cantwell and Wall
intrepidly take on 11,000 years of New York
City history, drawing on a range of anecdotal
material, artifacts, primary historical docu-
ments, and their own experiences leading exca-
vations in Lower Manhattan.
For those unfamiliar with the profession,
the book provides an interesting glimpse into
the ptocess of archaeology, describing such
exotic practices as site test cuts and wet
screening with fire hoses. It also succeeds in
highlighting some compelling and unusual
facets of New York's material, social and eco-
nomic legacy, including the hidden world of
urban backyards, evidence of slave malnutri-
tion and 17th-century wampum factories. The
book fails, however, to enliven most of the
larger historical topics it touches on, and tends
toward simplistic theoretical conclusions
driven by its authors' empirical focus and
broad humanistic aspirations.
Cantwell and Wall profess to be digging for
no less than "a deeper understanding of the
human predicament. " But Unearthing Gotham
34
The Archaeology of New York City
Anne-Marie Cantwell rmd DilJ1l1J Wall
is at its best when its authors stick to the par-
ticulars of excavating in modern New York
City. Not surprisingly, it is an undertaking
fraught with obstacles, including development
pressures, identity politics and random
encounters with stray urinators. The first
chapter details Wall's work on the Stadt Huys
Block Project, an excavation of the seventeenth
century Dutch State House site and tavern.
The site, excavated in 1979 and 1980 prior to
the development of an office tower at 85 Broad
Street, allows the authors to illustrate their
process while commenting on the emergence
of what they term "contract archaeology. "
Spawned by the 1966 Historic Preservation
Act and perpetuated by the City Environ-
mental Quality Review process (which can be
used to mandate site excavation when devel-
opers apply for zoning variances), this profes-
sional subspecies of archaeologists-for-hire
expanded exponentially during the 1980s,
when Lower Manhattan experienced a
renewed building boom.
Much like the tumultuous excavation of the
African Burial Ground a few years later, the
Stadt Huys demonstrated the contract archaeol-
ogist's peculiar predicament. Funded by reluc-
tant developers, contract archaeologists work
under immense fmancial and scheduling pres-
sures, face random thefts by looters and hostility
from construction crews, and must grapple with
a plethora of regulatory and political issues that
often overshadow historical inquiry or scientific
methodology. At the African Burial Ground, the
impatience of the federal government, which
owned the site, was the least of the diggers' chal-
lenges; their excavation of slave skeletons for
analytical purposes struck many New Yorkers as
CITY LIMITS
an act of hubris more egregious than the usual
atrocities perpetrated by developers. The por-
trayal of this kind of distinctive urban conun-
drum, combined with the unlikely juxtaposition
of privy pits and skyscrapers, makes these chap-
ters compelling reading.
The remainder of the book, sadly, lacks this
frisson. An extensive discussion of the Archaic,
Transitional and Woodland Periods-stretching
from about 11,000 years ago to the seventeenth
century-lapses rapidly into textbook mode,
bogged down by meticulous charts of notched
spearheads and extensive
discussions of pottery
sherds (another name for
census returns, directories and social registers as
source material. Here as elsewhere their descrip-
tion would have benefited from more illustra-
tive graphics and more daring analysis-their
conclusion that ethnic enclaves are dispersed by
economic success is frustratingly timid- but
the subject matter is fascinating nonetheless.
Elsewhere Cantwell and Wall broach simi-
larly remarkable subjects, including early bulk-
head and pier construction methods, brothel
artifacts ftom Five Points and the history of
backyard cisterns. In lieu of profound new
insight, New Yorkers will
find resonances with
their own experiences of
shards, apparently) . Pri-
marily excavated by avo-
cational archaeologists,
about whom Wall and
Cantwell express mixed
emotions, these artifacts
provide blunt hints about
a distant history largely
beyond anyone's grasp.
Although many of these
amateur diggers seem like
people you'd want to
meet-William Calver,
for example, was an early
IRT engineer who
unearthed ancient dog
bones in his spare cime-
the presentation here fails
to bring them, or their
discoveries, to life.
Excavating
in modern
history embedded in the
everyday-reminders of
JUSt how unfamiliar one's
own home turf can be
once you get below the
surface. There are quite
possibly people buried
beneath the street you
walk home on every
night. Right beside them
lie artifacts that provide
connective ligaments to
modern life but remain
inherently removed from
it. It suggests the condi-
tion most New Yorkers
experience: surrounded
by history but basically
oblivious to it.
New York is an
undertaking
fraught with
development
Wall and Cantwell
become more energetic
once Europeans arrive
on the scene, making
fateful early encounters
with Munsee tribes. A
discussion of Dutch
Governor Willem Kieft's
brutal tenure, devas-
pressures,
identity politics
and random
encounters with
stray urinators.
Had Cantwell and
Wall chosen a tighter
focus-for instance,
limiting their geo-
graphic scope to Lower
Manhattan-they
would likely have
written a more coherent
and compelling book.
tating small pox out-
breaks among the Mun-
sees, the introduction of a "global economy"
based on furs and wampum, and the English
occupation of New Amsterdam all draw heavily
from period illustrations, maps, and historical
records, adding welcome context to the parade
of bones, rocks, and beads.
By the time we arrive at the 18th and 19th
centuries, in fact, the authors occasionally leave
out digging altogether. In one of the more inter-
esting asides, the authors describe a project
undertaken by their colleague Nan Rothschild
to map the city's shifting ethnic and economic
enclaves in 1703 and 1789, using tax records,
FEBRUARY 2002
As a vast and sometimes
superficial survey, the
work often feels like the
authors are desperately trying to cram every-
thing in, leaving too little time for reflection,
analysis and context. This becomes painfully
obvious when the authors attempt to summa-
rize perhaps 10 outer-borough sites in about as
many pages. Still, for those with a taste for
material culture and an interest in New York's
development, Unearthing Gotham provides a
good baseline and the occasional delight.
Paul Parkhill is an urban planner and community
development consultant. He is cofounder of Place in
History, a public art and urban history nonprofit.
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
NOW READ THIS
Empire: A Tale of Obsession, Betrayal, and
the Battle for an American Icon
By Mitchell Pacelle, John Wiley & Sons, $27.95
In 1991, Tokyo bill ionaire Hideki Yokoi deci ded to
add the Empire State Bui ldi ng to his coll ection of
beautiful structures, alongsi de nine chateaus, four
castles and a palace. Over the next decade, a
vicious ownership struggle ensued between Yokoi
and several of the city's prominent real estate
tycoons, namely Leona Helmsley and Donald
Trump. Wall Street Journal business reporter
Pacelle's exhaustive yet snappy take on that
struggle unveils the pathology and narcissism that
dominates the city's high-end real estate market.
Place Matters:
Metropolitics for the Twenty-First Century
By Peter Dreier, John Mollenkopf & Todd
Swanstrom, University Press of Kansas, $15.95
It's true that the late 1990s economic boom
improved the quality of life of even the poorest,
but as these urban pol icy experts point out,
America's central citi es still have "levels of
poverty, crime and homelessness that would
cause national alarm in Canada, Western Europe,
or Australia. " Place Matters starts with a careful
analysis of the government policies that aban-
doned certai n neighborhoods to poverty and
decay. Next, and more importantly, the book artic-
ulates a vision of regional development with
fami liar recipes for success----expanded tax
credits, better chi ld care, improved health c a r ~
but that persuasively ties those into the very
streets people live in. Best of all, it's readable.
limes Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon
By lynne B. Sagalyn, MIT Press, $59.95
This handsome, 175-illustration work looks like it
belongs on a coffee table. It doesn't, unless that
table is meant for si ngularl y precise planning
histories, with 70 pages of footnotes, reproduc-
ti ons of zoning maps and expl ications of theoret-
ical approaches to urban development. This
seems certain to become the definitive history of
how Times Square went from a shady working-
class hangout to the city's family tourist attrac-
tion-though wading through this Columbia real
estate prof's dense prose is certai nly no vacation.
3S
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
The New Schools
By Neil F. Carlson
WHEN CYPRESS HillS Local Development Cor-
poration helped found the Cypress Hills Com-
munity School back in 1997, the group hadn't
planned to actually build a school building. It
just son of happened-or rather, it will happen.
Probably. If everything goes according to plan.
Which is far from cenain.
Michelle Neugebauer, Cypress Hills LDC's
executive director, concedes the project has
required "a lot of risk and a lot of money," from
seed dollars to staff time, so she has learned to
live with the ambiguity. After all, her organiza-
tion is trying to do something no local CDC has
done before: build, own and operate a school.
Founded five years ago, the Cypress Hills
Community School grew out of neighborhood
parents' desire for better schools and local
input in curriculum, hiring, and management.
Cypress Hills LDC organized parents and com-
36
munity members around education reform and
the need for classroom space. The school has
already relocated twice; it now occupies five
classrooms and a pair of portable trailers at 1.S.
302. There is no common space, no gym, and
only limited library access, so parents, staff and
local politicians are hopeful about the $20 mil-
lion facility Cypress Hills LDC is proposing to
build nearby. With seed funding from the Local
Initiatives Suppon Corporation (LISC) and a
grant from New Visions for Public Schools,
Cypress Hills is negotiating purchase of an
industrial building, which it plans to refurbish
and turn into a 400-seat school serving kinder-
garten through 8th grade. In December, the
Board of Education authorized $17 million for
site acquisition and construction.
Cypress Hills, along with a handful of other
CDCs now working on construction projects
for community-based schools, could take com-
munity-driven school reform to a deeper and
possibly more influential level. The school con-
struction projects undertaken by CDCs have all
emerged from strong parent and community
organizing around education reform; building
schools has emerged as a way to leverage the
CDCs' technical expertise in finance and rede-
velopment as an vital part of making quality,
neighborhood-driven schools a reality.
Still, school construction is new territory for
CDCs, involving bureaucratic, financial, and
regulatory challenges that may have parallels in
housing development but also bring a steep
learning curve and a lot of uncertainties. The
Board of Ed has been open to the idea, but turf
battles with the School Construction Authority
(SCA) , which is entrenched in relationships
with eXlstlllg private developers, seem
inevitable. And unless the Board of Ed and the
SCA develop guidelines and fmd consistent
funding for CDC school development projects,
a promising idea may remain strictly academic.
THE INADEUUACIES OF New York City's school
facilities are no secret. According to "Still No
Room to Learn," a December 2000 report from
then-Public Advocate Mark Green, 53 percent
of New York City elementary schools are over-
crowded, operating at 99 percent or greater
capacity. In 10 districts, almost all of which serve
low-income communities, 70 percent or more
of elementary schools operate at 99 percent or
greater capacity. In a system serving 1 million
children, the overall shortfall has climbed to
upwards of 100,000 seats-a figure that does
not include countless decaying facilities. Yet
even prior to cuts made this past fall, the Board
of Ed's 1999 five-year capital plan would have
provided only 28 percent of the seats needed in
Brooklyn, the Bronx and upper Manhattan, and
just one in five in Queens.
CDC industry leaders, educators and school
construction advocates argue that CDCs could
eventually play a pivotal role in easing this
crisis. A few years ago, an ad hoc coalition of
CDCs, financial institutions, community orga-
nizers, and intermediary organizations formed
the School Construction Working Group and
took their case before the Board of Ed and the
SCA. Traditionally, the school construction
process is lengthy and expensive, taking five to
10 years as the School Construction Authority
assembles tracts of land, hires contractors and
oversees construction of large schools. CDCs,
supporters reasoned, would focus on small
developments-rehabilitated schools, ware-
houses, commercial spaces-which they would
refurbish or build to smaller scale. Since most
CDCs have experience with commercial and
housing development, they are well suited for
modest school construction projects.
"What CDCs bring to the table is not a
CITY LIMITS
magic formula that makes a CDC able to deliver
a classroom seat at less cost-although they are
capable of making some savings-and it's not
that there is such capability that they could clear
the construction backlog in three years, but
there are certain things they can do," says Joan
Byron, architectural ditector of the Pratt Center
for Community and Environmental Develop-
ment and a convener of the the working group.
In 1998, the working group and the Board
of Ed starred discussing the possibility of
having CDCs develop school facilities that
they would then lease them back to the board.
The group also persuaded state legislarors to
create guidelines that would allow CDCs to
receive Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, a U.S.
Department of Education financial instrument
that offers federal tax credits to the institution
holding the bond.
Beyond their technical expertise, CDCs can
also sharpen the community focus of individual
schools. Of the few CDCs that have initiated
school construction projects-including
Abyssinian Baptist Development Corporation
in Harlem, and EI Puente LDC in Brooklyn, as
well as Cypress Hills---every one entered into
construction after starting community-based
schools in existing facilities. The curricula at
Abyssinian's Thurgood Marshall Academy for
Learning and Social Change and the EI Puente
Academy for Peace and Justice, for example,
both emphasize community activism as well as
academic rigor. Cypress Hills, meanwhile, is
bilingual English/Spanish, with small classes and
a curriculum designed by its parent board.
This soup-to-nuts involvement, advocates
say, engenders a sense of community owner-
ship and accountability, which the schools have
leveraged into lobbying and advocacy on their
behalf When Cypress Hills was pushing for
the school development bonds, parents rallied
in front of the Board of Ed and pitched a tent
city in a lot adjacent to 1.5. 302.
Parent Involvement Coordinator Maria
Jaya-Vega first got involved in Cypress Hills'
parent organizing efforts back when her own
children attended local schools. Today, the par-
ents she works with are coauthors of the Com-
munity School's curriculum, working closely
with administators. "You don't see that in
[other] schools," says Jaya-Vega. "We're more
than bake sales and buildings. "
THE BRIGHT HOPES THAT FOLLOWEO the talks
with the Board of Ed have dimmed somewhat
amid the glacial pace of bureaucratic reform,
the gloom of the city's current fiscal crisis, and
political shake-ups in both the Board of Ed and
FEBRUARY 2002
City Hall. As Public Advocate and then as
mayoral candidate, Mark Green backed school
construction reform and seemed poised to
push through new guidelines that would have
opened the door for more CDCs to build and
refurbish schools. Mayor Bloomberg is a harder
read. But Bloomberg appointed Karen Phillips,
Abyssinian's president and CEO, to his transi-
tion team, which means that at least one of the
players in CDC school construction has the
mayor's ear.
Advocates point to two areas where reform is
needed most: in planning and in streamlining
construction. "Part of the reform process is that
the city should be involved in planning up
front," says Denise Scott, managing director of
New York LISC. Scott and others point to
A Cypress Hills
organization
is trying
to do something
no local group
has done before-
build, own and
operate a school.
changes in the Housing Construction
Authority under the Koch administration as
one potential model. Through much of the
1970s, the city housing authority directly man-
aged most public housing construction but
eventually streamlined the process and opened
the door to CDCs. "Not to dis the SCA," Scott
argues, "but there has to be faster, easier,
cheaper way to build schools. "
Despite the bureaucratic torpor, reformers
credit the Board of Ed for its willingness to con-
sider the possibilities. "With the success CDCs
have had in housing, it's easy to forget how long
it took us to get to this point," Joan Byron
recalls. "People forget that many years were
spent occupying offices at HPD and picketing
before it becanle accepted. For the Board of Ed
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
to be talking about this is progress-it's not fast,
but it's progress." The next step, she says, would
be to outline a process for determining technical
and financial feasibility, and then setting a
process for moving projects forward.
At least one CDC is moving ahead without
financial assistance from the Board of Ed.
Northeast Brooklyn Local Development Cor-
poration is working with Clearpool, Inc. , a
nonprofit charter school company, to jointly
rehabilitate a 45,000-square-foot facility in
Bedford-Stuyvesant. The singular partnership
leverages each party's strengths: Clearpool
focuses on building the curriculum and run-
ning the school, and Northeast Brooklyn is
managing the project development and orga-
nizing community support. Jeffrey Dunston,
Northeast Brooklyn LDe's executive director,
estimates the project will cost around $10 mil-
lion-roughly half of what the School Con-
struction Authority would charge for similar
space-which the groups hope to finance
through private grants and loans. "The two
organizations are definitely committed to this, "
Dunston says. "We want to make it happen. We
believe we can develop a private model, and we
are committed ro that ideal. " Dunston con-
cedes, however, that someone-in his case,
foundations-will have to pick up the tab.
In the end, the most formidable obstacle to
any school construction project is money.
Without formal procedures for public
financing of feasibility studies, CDCs have had
to finance their own pre-development work,
which can cost upwards of $400,000. As as
result, development has been somewhat extem-
poraneous. El Puente, Cypress Hills, and
Abyssinian all won grants from New Visions,
awards that guaranteed visibility and political
support. Northeast Brooklyn and Clearpool
are splitting costs down the middle.
But ad hoc is not a remedy for the city's
school construction crisis. Given the current
climate of fiscal austerity, new capital projects
will face an even steeper climb. "The real crux
of the problem, underneath all the discussion
of mechanisms and guidelines, is who takes
what level of risk at what point, " Byron
observes. School officials and CDCs, she says,
ought to help one another settle that question.
The new administration may be inclined to
work out the bureaucratic kinks; at the end of
the day, after all, it is far less risky to talk about
reforming the school construction process than
it is to actually fund the work. Which means
that the regulatory pump may get primed, but
CDCs could have to wait to get the construc-
tion cash flowing .
37
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
Starting this issue, the Center for an Urban Future - the solutions-focused think tank affiliated with
City Limits - introduces a regular column devoted to the inner workings of New York's economy_
A Small
Opportunity
By Jonathan Bowles
TENS OF THOUSANDS DF TOP-NOTCH employees
out of work. Major companies moving out of
town. Investors turned gun-shy after the burst
of the dot-com bubble.
Doesn't sound like good news for small
businesses? Well, with a little push, it could be.
The time is ripe for a wave of start-ups to
emerge in New York City. Thanks to the lay-
offs of thousands of software programmers,
web designers, bankers, lawyers, writers and
even some engineers, a pool of highly skilled,
creative New Yorkers is on hand. Many of
those now out of work were involved with
successful (and unsuccessful) start-ups in the
mid-1990s, during the city's first high-tech
surge. Many of them know a thing or two
about how to finance and run small busi-
nesses-and most have learned quite a bit
about how not to.
With the economy in decline and large
employers continuing to cut costs, some of
these people will look to create their own job
opportunities. Not all of these new businesses
will make it. But even in tough economic
times, the best ones historically have. And
although venture capitalists are not likely to
jump in with both feet the way they did in the
go-go 1990s, investors will nonetheless be
38
watching and waiting for solid bets to emerge.
"New York's creative juices are definitely
running, " says Sara Garretson, executive
director of the Industrial Technology Assis-
tance Corporation (ITAC), which provides
technical assistance to small businesses.
"People are willing to take a risk when they
lose thei r jobs."
The city should seize this opportuniry. Not
only would a start-up boom help jump-start
the economy, but it would also begin to pre-
pare us for a future in which small and
medium-sized businesses will increasingly be
the real job engines.
Smaller businesses-particularly tech-
nology-related firms-are the most likely can-
didates to pick up the slack left by the finan-
cial-industry giants, which have begun dis-
persing their operations throughout the region.
Even some of those corporations that have
recommitted to being in Manhattan have
transferred some of their employees to offices
in New Jersey and Connecticut. By mid-
December, the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York estimated that 18,000 jobs at stock bro-
kerages, banks and insurance companies had
permanently moved from lower Manhattan to
Jersey City and elsewhere in New Jersey since
the September 11 terror attacks.
'The big financial firms will probably keep
important corporate presences in Manhattan,
but there will be a continuous leakage of jobs
to Connecticut, New Jersey and elsewhere,"
says Neil Barsky, managing parmer of Mid-
town Capital Partners, an investment manage-
ment firm.
Even before September 11 , the financial
industry was no longer the jobs powerhouse it
once was. Although investment banks still con-
tribute a disproportionately high amount of
revenue to the ciry, even during the incredible
boom times of the 1990s they generated just
45,000 of the roughly 430,000 jobs created-
and about half as many jobs as the industry
generated during the 1980s upturn.
Overall, from 1993 to 1996-as the ciry
was coming out of the last recession-large
businesses created just 22,000 new jobs, while
small businesses created almost 100,000,
according to the ciry comptroller's office.
Before September 11, 98 percent of the ciry's
businesses had fewer than 100 employees-
and 89 percent had fewer than 20.
Says Barsky: "In the absence of big-com-
pany growth, it is reasonable for the ciry to fuel
the creation of new businesses. "
Fostering small businesses is a role tailor-
made for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who
started his own company after being booted
from Salomon Brothers in 1981. His $10 mil-
lion severance package certainly helped. But
the point is that today, Bloomberg LLP
employs thousands.
By embracing and encouraging entrepre-
neurship, Bloomberg could do much to
reverse the errors and omissions of past
administrations. Though Silicon Alley
emerged in the mid-1990s, the Giuliani
administration had virtually no role in its
development. And, at least until late in his
second term, Giuliani did little to nurture
small businesses or grasp the opportunity for
growth in emerging sectors such as software
and biotech. Instead, his economic develop-
CITY LIMITS
ment agenda consisted primarily of providing
tax breaks to large finance and media compa-
nies, and trying to build sports stadiums.
The Giuliani administration even managed
to bungle the city's only plan ro provide early-
stage equity investments in emerging busi-
nesses with high growth potential. The
Emerging Industries Fund, created by the City
Council in 1997, was supposed to allocate up
to $25 million in small equity investments. But
the city's Economic Development Corporation
sat on the program for years, named political
fund-raisers such as Georgette Mosbacher to its
advisory board and ultimately handed manage-
ment of the program over ro a venture capital
firm that had no intention of investing in the
early-stage companies that were initially tar-
geted by the City Council. To date, the fund
has made just one investment-a $600,000
pledge ro a Manhattan biotech firm.
Not surprisingly given the high costs of
doing business here, entrepreneurs and venture
capitalists don't consider New York a particu-
larly friendly place for emerging businesses.
Dun & Bradstreet's annual list of the most
entrepreneurial big cities in America came to
the same conclusion; New York logged in at a
dismal 21st place.
This is all going to have to change if New
York expects to grow its economy in the years
ahead-and it will have to change quickly. The
city has the human capital needed to fuel a
small-business renaissance, but if the new
administration doesn't make the city a more
attractive place for entrepreneurship, New York
risks losing many of its software programmers,
scientists and other highly skilled people to
cities that are more friendly to start-ups.
In responding to the September 11 tragedy,
city officials have rightly made a priority of
retaining businesses and convincing large
employers forced out of the city by the attacks
ro return to New York. But there's no reason
why the Bloomberg administration shouldn't
also pursue a parallel strategy of nurturing
emerging businesses, particularly those that
have potential for growth.
Though the city isn't in a position to be
spending money on ambitious new projects,
Mayor Bloomberg can lay the groundwork for
such a strategy without breaking the bank.
There are a number of things he can do ro
signal ro potential entrepreneurs and invesrors
that his administration is going to make a
break from the past-and make a priority of
promoting and supporting new businesses.
For starters, he can make sure New York
remains a place where people want to live and
FEBRUARY 2002
work. Among other things, this means contin-
uing to make quality-of-life issues such as
safety a priority, and forging a realistic plan to
create more affordable housing.
He could also send a strong message by
restructuring EDC-an agency that essentially
reacts to the needs of a handful of large com-
panies-into an organization with a more for-
ward-looking, secror-based strategy of eco-
nomic development that addresses the needs of
businesses both large and small within several
key industries.
Start-ups
can't stand
in for fleeing
financial
giants.
But they
could help
put the
city
back in
business.
Bloomberg could personally call on New
York-based venture-capital firms to make
investments in local companies-something
they haven't always done. He could urge local
academic leaders to push for greater cross-col-
laboration between technology research pro-
grams and business schools-a marriage that
could lead to the creation of more businesses.
And, in coordination with industry associa-
tions, his administration could sponsor a series
of business workshops that would bring
together potential entrepreneurs, people who
have succeeded in starting businesses, venture
capital ists, university technology program offi-
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
cials and groups that provide technical assIs-
tance to new businesses.
For more ideas, and for assistance, the
mayor could easi ly tap existing resources,
including the Industrial Technology Assistance
Corporation, the Borough of Manhattan
Community College's high-tech incubator in
lower Manhattan and R&D programs at local
uI1lversities.
Of course, a more nurturing environment
alone will not suffice. "What entrepreneurs
really need is money," says Syl Tang, founder
and CEO of HipGuide, a multimedia city and
lifestyle guide. "Whenever I've been asked what
would make the difference, that's what I tell
government agencies and pretty much any
organization that I think really wants a truthful
answer-but somehow we still get offered
everything bur. "
More than anything else, entrepreneurs
need early-stage capital-seed money ro cover
the cost of protecting intellectual property,
writing business plans, refining technology and
keeping founders afloat unti l they reach the
point where they can access funding from ven-
ture capitalists and other invesrors.
"For the first-time entrepreneur, it is difficult
to get the seed funding, " says venture capitalist
Jack Hidary. "It would be helpful if something
could be done for more of that seed stage. "
Fortunately, nearly $25 million of city
money previously allocated ro the Emerging
Industries Fund is now most likely available for
that purpose. The mayor should insttuct EDC
ro restructure the program ro make small seed
investments-this time under a newly created
advisory board of successful entrepreneurs and
"angel" investors.
Finally, the administration should make
sure ro embrace the city's other entrepreneurial
class-first-generation West Indians, Nige-
rians, Guyanese, Dominicans and other new
immigrants living in the five boroughs. Entre-
preneurship among immigrants helped keep
the city's economy going during the last reces-
sion. The city could encourage a similar
response to the current downturn by creating
community entrepreneurial assistance centers
in each borough ro provide rechnical assistance
and training.
All of this is possible. The opportunity is
here. Whether it happens or not may depend
on whether the city's entrepreneur-turned-
mayor makes it a priority .
NYC Inc. is a monthly look at New Yorks
economy from the Center for an Urban Future,
where Jonathan Bowles is research director.
39
40
Please join the staff of
CITY LIMITS and the CENTER FOR AN URBAN FUTURE
for a REAL political party
It's our 25
th
Anniversary Celebration! Don't miss it!
Thursday, March 7, 2002
from 6 to 9 p.m.
Bridgewaters at the South Street Seaport
Yes, I would like to sign up now to be a part of the 25th Anniversary Gala Benefit Committee!
D VICE-CHAIR:
At $10,000 Includes: Twelve Premium Tickets
and a Gold Page in the Tribute Journal
o VISIONARY;
At $5,000 Includes: Eight Premium Tickets
and a Silver Page in the Tribute Journal
o IDEALIST:
At $3,000 Includes: Six Premium Tickets
and a Full Page in the Tribute Journal
OR JOIN US INDIVIDUALLY:
o STRATEGIST:
At $1,500 Includes: Three Premium Tickets
and a Half Page in the Tribute Journal
o ACTIVIST:
(individuals/nonprofits only):
At $500 Includes: Two Individual Tickets
and an Eighth Page in the Tribute Journal
[J Enclosed is $ for premium tickets at $400 each
o Enclosed is $ for individual/nonprofit tickets at $125 each
D I' m sorry, I cannot attend. Please find my tax-deductible donation of $ enclosed
D Please send me information on purchasing a tribute in the 25th Anniversary Gala Journal
Print your name as you wish it to appear in the 25th Anniversary Gala materials:
Name: ____________________________________________________ __
Organization: ____________________________________ ___ __
Address: _ ____________________________________________ _
City/State/Zip: ______________ _______________________ _
Phone: _ ___________ Fax: ________ E-Mail: ___________ _
For more information, call Anita at 212.479.3345 or e-mail [email protected]
Please mail form and checks payable to:
City Limits Community Information Service, Inc.
120 Wall Street , 20th floor, New York, New York 10005
Thank you for supporting City limits and the Center for an Urban Future!
CITY LIMITS
LEARNING
DISABLED
continlled from page 17
T
o discourage students from dropping out of high
school, New York has always possessed stringent
GED eligibility requirements. Under normal cir-
cumstances, New Yorkers must be at least 19
years old, one year removed from school or a former
member of an already-graduated class. (About one in
five high school diplomas awarded in New York State is
a GED.) In the past year, gerring an equivalency diplo-
ma in New York has become even rougher: The GED
testing service altered the exam's format at the start of
2001, and students who passed some, but not all, of the
exam's five sections before 2002 are now requi red ro
retake the entire test sections.
Young New Yorkers determined ro earn their GED tra-
ditionally had a place to take refuge-New Jersey. The Gar-
den State has none of the age requirements New York does,
so droves of New York youths-about 225 of them in 2000
alone-get around New York's rules by testing across the
Hudson River. Gnanadass herself sent around twenty-five
16-year-olds over the state border last year.
But that route, too, is now a dead end: This past July,
New Jersey banned out-of-state GED test-takers. Vermont
officials did much the same in 1997, requiring applicants
to provide in-state addresses, after test-takers seeking more
flexible terms-including lower age limits-overwhelmed
the Green Mountain State. (New Jersey education officials
refused to explain why they decided to bar out-of-staters.)
Both Cedeno and Camarano rook and passed the GED
just before New Jersey imposed its ban.
While 16- to I8-year-olds wait and wait to take the test,
they take up precious classroom slots, which are available
on a first-come, first-served basis at Discipleship-where
students continue, on and off, until they pass the tests.
There are therefore fewer openings in the program for new
students of any age.
Intelligent, taciturn Crystal Teesdale, a 16-year-old who
dropped out of Wingate last June, dreams of becoming a
computer technician. She also has fears of ending up like
many of her family members who never finished high
school. She herself didn't like being a number in the sys-
tem. She says she knows a GED is the way to avoid going
down the well -traveled road of her family, and with a 268
out of 400 on her practice test-well above the 225 need-
ed ro pass-Teesdale is more than ready rake the GED
exam. But the rules force her ro wait until June.
While her apathy forced Teesdale out of high school,
her determination to succeed in a more supportive envi-
ronment is getting her through Discipleship. "I have to
wair because of the age limit, " she says. "But I'm still in
the program. I can't srop, because now I have to take care
of myself and further my education. I must get that
GED."
FEBRUARY 2002
ADVERTISE IN
CITY
LIMITS!
To place a classified ad in
City Limits, e-mail your ad to
[email protected] 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
Anita Gutierrez at
212-479-3345.
RENTAl SPACE
Space Available: City Project seeks small non-
profit organization to share office space. One
office available in suite. Fax, copier, and
postage meter available. Good company, close
to City Hall. $500.00 a month. Available
December 1st. Call Lynne Weikart or Glen
Pasanen 212-965-1967.
Two separate office spaces available for not-
for-profit groups only. Approximately 10,500
square feet available at a below-market rental
on a high floor in a first class building. Approx-
imately 3200 square feet available with good
light and views. This space can al so be rented
by for-profit corporations. Both spaces are in
move-in condition and available immediately.
For further information and inspection, please
telephone Lee Allen, licensed real estate bro-
ker, at 212-447-1576.
JOB ADS
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER works with Parent
Action Committee, an established grass-roots
organizing project led by parents in SW Bronx,
whose goal is systemic improvement of the
schools in District 9, where 77% of students
do not read at grade level. C.O. works with par-
ents to research, develop and implement mul-
tifaceted campaigns and conducts outreach.
Requirements: Trained organizer with passion
for social justice; minimum 2 years' experi-
ence. B.A.IB.S. or M.S.w. Experienced organiz-
ers with equivalent training also considered.
Salary: High-20s-low 30s. EDUCATION CDUN-
SELOR, College Access Center. Working with
Center Director in new center, plan & conduct
JOB ADS
1-1 counseling sessions & group workshops
for teens, parent orientations & community
outreach, with goal of assisting youth in over-
coming barriers to higher education, staying
on track through high school & applying to col-
lege. Requirements: Counseling/advising
experience with focus on academic achieve-
ment and higher education
opportunities. B.A.IB.S. Salary: mid-20s-30K.
AAlOFFlCE MANAGER, College Access Center:
As sole administrative support to education
staff, manage day-to-day operations, recep-
tionist & secretarial duties; orient walk-ins
and new program participants; maintain
resource library & staff calendars. Require-
ments: college credits/degree; related office
experience; proficiency in MS Office, including
Publisher. Salary: to mid-20s. ALL POSITIONS
Full-time, year-round. Comprehensive bene-
fits. Spanish bilingual important. New Settle-
ment has an 11-year track record of neighbor-
hood revitalization, community building &
organizing, and positive youth development.
Mail letter, resume and 3 references to Job
Search, New Settlement Apartments & Com-
munity Services, 1512 Townsend Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10452. EEO/M
PROGRAM MANAGER. National not-for-profit
open space organization seeks program man-
ager for its Playground Program in NYC.
Responsibilities include coordinating site
selection, collaborating with communities,
agencies, and design/construction consul-
tants, providing stewardship oversight, and
assisting with fund raising, budgeting and
marketing. Reqs: Bachelor's degree; three
years related experience; excellent organiza-
tional, communication and problem-solving
skills; proven record of developing consensus
among varied groups. For more information:
www.tpl.org. TPL is an equal opportunity
employer. To apply, send resume to: TPL, Attn:
HR, 666 Broadway, 9th Floor, New York, NY
10012, or fax 212-353-2052.
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE works in conjunction
with the Project Director, the FCYO's Board and
committees, and other staff to implement the
affairs of the FCYO. Thi s full-time position is
located out of the New York City offices of the
Jewi sh Fund for Justice, the FCYO's fiscal
administrator. The Program Associate receives
ongoing supervision and support from the Pro-
ject Director, the co-chairs of the Board, and
other senior staff as necessary. The Program
Associate reports to the Project Director and
communicates regularly with the co-chairs of
the FCYO Board. The Program Associate is
responsible for coordinating and supporting
the planning for national grantee gatherings;
supporting the work of the Capacity Building
and Outreach and Education Committees; pro-
viding administrative support to the Project
Director and for the FCYO's grantmaking activ-
ities; and publicly representing the FCYO
where appropriate. For a complete job descrip-
tion please contact Ms. Miao at 212-213-2113
x. 24. Applications due ASAP.
Bailey House, Inc is committed to empowering
people living with HIV/AIDS, their loved ones
and the communities and agencies that serve
them to operate at their fullest potential
41
JOB ADS
through the development and provision of
housing and supportive services. We currently
have several positions open in our new Family
and Adult Support Program in East Harlem.
SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISOR, MSW plus super-
visor experience, FAMILY CASE MANAGER, MSW
and MENTAL HEALTH/SUBSTANCE ABUSE SPE-
CIALIST, MSW + CASAC. Bilingual
English/Spanish and experience in the
HI V/AIDS community. Additional positions
include MANAGER/NETWORK ADMINISTRA-
TION. Maintain agencywide IS functions, BA
required with three to five years of application
experience. DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT, lead
extensive development effort including fund
raising,marketing, special events and more.
MAINTENANCE WORKER for our scattered site
program. We offer competitive salaries along
with a comprehensive benefits package that
includes medical/dental insurance, life/dis-
ability insurance, pension plan and five weeks
vacation. If you are interested in applying for
this positions please submit your resume in
confidence bye-mail: [email protected]. by
mail : Bailey House, Inc. 275 Seventh Avenue,
NY NY 10001 Attention: Human Resources, or
Fax: 212-414-1431. Bailey House, Inc. is an
Equal Opportunity Employer.
Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, an interna-
tiona I law firm in New York, seeks a PRO BONO
COORDINATOR. The firm has a strong commit-
ment to pro bono legal work undertaking
assignments relating to civil rights, criminal
defense (including death penalty appeals).
immigration matters, political asylum cases,
economic and housing development, family
rights and environmental conservation. The
Pro Bono Coordinator will maintain regular
contact with clearinghouse organizations
(legal service providers that refer pro bono
matters to the firm) for appropriate projects,
maintain and expand the firm's internal pro
bono website and remain informed regarding
current pro bono issues. Bachelor's degree,
excellent writing, editing, research and com-
munication skills requi red. Prior experience in
the NYC nonprofit community preferred. Please
send resume and cover letter to:
[email protected] or fax (212) 225-3999 or
Mail : Personnel Dept. , Suite 4300, One Liberty
Plaza, New York, NY 10006.
Bushwick Family Residence DIRECTOR OF
SOCIAL SERVICES---committed professional
needed to lead social service team in delivery
of services to homeless families; strong clini-
cal skills; positive attitude; creative problem-
solving; attention to detai l; management and
supervision experience essential; bilingual a
plus. Qualifications: MSW; 2 years supervisory
experience. Fax or e-mail resume and cover let-
ter to: Fax: 718-574-2713. Email address:
[email protected]
SOCIAL WORKER. CUCS' Prince George Sup-
portive Housing program is recruiting for a
Social Worker. Resp: Providing a full range of
clinical services to tenants, assisting in pro-
gram planning, development, and implemen-
tation of group services with particular
emphasis on mental health, chemical depen-
dency, and services to people living with
HIV/AIDS. This position works closely with the
42
Clinical Coordinator to ensure the effective-
ness of the core services team. Reqs: New
grads and experience clinicians encouraged to
apply. MSW required; CSW preferred with at
least 2 year post-Masters direct service experi-
ence with the populations served by the pro-
gram. All candidates must have excellent out-
reach, assessment, written and verbal com-
munication skills; computer literacy required.
Salary range for this position is $37-40K; com-
mensurate with experience and education; full
benefits. Send cover letter and resume to Dawn
Bradford, CUCS/The Prince George, 14 East
28th Street, New York, NY 10016. Fax: 212-
471-0765. CUCS is committed to workforce
diversity. EEO.
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
affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides excellent
benefits and offers opportunities for advance-
ment. Resumes and cover letters indicating
position may be mailed to 2054 Morris Ave.,
Bronx, NY 10453, or fax as directed. The Posi-
tive Living Program has an opening for an
EDUCATION SPECIALIST. Responsibilities
include providing HIV education workshops
and coordinating outreach. The position
requires a bachelor's degree in public health or
related field. Bilingual English/Spanish is
helpful. Fax credentials to Kashif Iqbal at 718-
716-1065. The Nelson Avenue Family Resi-
dence has an opening for a TEACHER. The
position requires a bachelor's degree in Early
Childhood Education or related discipline, and
at least one year of experience working in a
childcare setting. Fax credentials to Dana
Yeary at 718-299-1682. CAB seeks a DIREC-
TOR OF TECHNOLOGY to oversee agency plan-
ning and systems, including supervision and
scheduling of computer technicians, local area
network development and maintenance, pc
trouble shooting support, computer and
peripheral purchasing and set up, virus pro-
tection, software support, inventory, consul-
tants, email and Internet access. Tracking sys-
tems, and agency wide coordination. Fax cre-
dentials to Karen Courtney at 718-365-0697.
The Nelson Family Residence has an opening
for CASE MANAGER. The position requires a
bachelors degree with experience in entitle-
ments, advocacy and communication. Duties
include assisting families with entitlements,
conflict resolution, educational/employment
issues & housing readiness. Fax credentials to
Edward Neira at 718-299-1682. CAB is an
equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.
Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership a
Maternal and Child Health Agency in Central
Harlem seeks the following staff for its various
programs. Baby Steps an early intervention
program seeks: FAMILY ASSESMENT WORKER
- Candidate will engage new and expecting at
risk parents into the home visiting program.
He/She will conduct outreach/screening in the
community, complete home-based assess-
ments and develop new outreach
strategies/sites. Bilingual Spanish required.
Some evenings and weekends required. Salary
$25,000. Applicants should have High School
Diploma and some experience in the human
services field. SUPERVISOR - BSW/MSW to
supervise four paraprofessional home visitors.
Bilingual SpanishlFrench preferred. Should
have some supervisory experience. Salary:
$31,000. HOME VISITOR - Candidate will pro-
vide education, advocacy, and support to new
and expecting families in Harlem. Bilingual
Spanish, French, Wolof, Madingo. High School
of GED required. Salary $21,700, weekly unlim-
ited Metro Card. Fax resumes to: J. Tuck 212-
665-1842. The Sisterlink Prenatal Care Action
Coalition seeks: PROGRAM ASSISTANT - Can-
didate will coordinate prenatal care services
and HIV/AIDS prevention targeting high-risk
women. He/She will develop referral and reten-
tion protocols for service providers. The indi-
vidual will be responsible for recruitment, and
training of a consumer advisory group. He/she
will provide supervision to the consumer advi-
sory group and assist the group with planning,
improving, and evaluating the effectiveness of
the Sisterlink Prenatal Care Action Coaltion.
Qualifications: Candidate must have extensive
knowledge of HIV/AIDS, familiarity with and
sensitivity to the issues of the target popula-
tion (substance abusers, homeless, teenagers,
and immigrants) superior oral and written
communication skills and experience in group
facilitation, public speaking, and/or communi-
ty organizing. Salary $21.47 per hour. This is a
full time temporary position beginning Decem-
ber 1 2001-June 30, 2002. Fax resumes to
Kim Whitfield at 212-665-1842. The Healthy
Start Program seeks the following: PROGRAM
ASSISTANT - The candidate will be responsible
for arranging meetings with other providers,
community organizations and individuals
under the supervision of the Program Director.
He/She will participate in monthly program
meetings and quarterly consortia meetings.
Order and maintain project equipment and
supplies. Maintain client database, type
reports, minutes, memos and correspondence.
Qualifications: A two year degree or High
School Diploma and a minimum of two years
secretarial experience. Must be computer liter-
ate and have excellent writing skills. Salary
$28,000. HARLEM WORKS COORDINATOR -
Candidate will be responsible for the manage-
ment of the day to day operation of the pro-
gram. He or she will hire and supervise the
consultants and trainers for the program,
manage the budgetary aspect of the contract,
and develop and understanding with potential
employees. Will organize job fairs for clients
and participate in program meetings. Qualifi -
cations: Bachelors in business, Vocational
Rehabilitation, or similar field and two years
experience managing a program. Salary:
$40,000. Fax resumes to: B. Paul
212-665-1842.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE COUNSELORS, (2.5) for 87
formerly homeless single adults in Central
Harlem. Requirements: Bachelors Degree in
human services or related discipline. CASAC
preferred. At least 3 years experience working
with homeless substance abusers. Bilingual
preferred. HIVIAIDS Counselor for 260 formerly
homeless at 3 sites, East, Central and West
Harlem. Requirements: Bachelors Degree in
human services or related discipline. RN pre-
ferred. At least 3 years experience working with
homeless MICA/substance abusers. Bilingual
preferred ENTITLEMENT COUNSELOR for 260
formerly homeless at 3 sites, East, Central and
West Harlem. Requirements: Bachelors degree
in human services or related business special-
ty. At least 3 years experience working with
homeless single adults. Bilingual preferred.
COUNSELORS: entry level positions. Two years
college education in a human services field or
two years experience working with formerly
homeless single adults in residential setting.
Bilingual preferred. Please submit resume and
cover letter to: Marian Wilkinson, Director of
Residential Services, 205 East 122 Street, 2nd
Floor, New York, NY 10035 or fax to:
212-426-6315.
SUPERVISOR - MSW with experience preferred
for Case Management community-based
agency serving homebound seniors. Position
includes supervision of social work staff and
students, intake, program development and
director client contact. Salary: $40,000 +. Send
resume to Betsy Tuft, Director, Project Life, 312
East 109th Street, New York, NY 10029.
Haitian Women's Program (HWP) has the fol-
lowing positions available for hire: DIRECTOR
OF PROGRAM SERVICES: Assist the Executive
Director in the overall strategic planning for all
HWP's programs. Must have MSW or MPH plus
5 years management experience. Housing Spe-
cialist: assist HIV clients with apt. search and
advocacy. Must have BA/BS and 1 year experi-
ence with HIV + families. Fax or email resume
and cover letter stating position of interest and
salary requirements to: Gabrielle Kersaint,
Executive Director, Haitian's Women's
Program, 464-466 Bergen Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11217; Fax: 718-399-0360;
email: [email protected].
SDCIAL WORK SUPERVISOR - An innovative
women's job training program seeks dedicated
MSW with 2 years experience to work with sur-
vivors of domestic violence/ women affected by
loss of home/job, and provide clinical supervi-
sion to a small interdisciplinary staff, run
groups and supervise mentoring program.
Knowledge of entitlements, women's issues
and housing issues necessary. Desire to be a
team player in a flexible environment a plus.
Only MSWs need apply. Fax resume, cover let-
ter and salary history to: First Step, Coalition
for the Homeless, Fax 917-507-0260, Email:
[email protected]
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR. Community-based,
non-profit housing advocacy organization
seeks Associate Director to provide fundraising
and management support. Responsibilities
include programmatic and personnel manage-
ment, fundraiser, proposal writing, program
development, reporting, outreach and admin-
istrative duties. 2 + years in non-profit
fund raising and/or management. Ideal candi-
date will have excellent writing skills & knOWl -
edge of housing issues and is computer liter-
ate. Admission to the NY State Bar A+. Women
and minorities encouraged to apply. Salary:
40's DOE. Excellent benefits. Send resume and
CITY LIMITS
cover letter to Executive Director, Housing Con-
servation Coordinators, 500 West 52nd Street,
4th Floor, New York, NY 10019 or by fax 212-
541-5966.
Clover Hall , a new 72 unit permanent support-
ed housing facility located in the Bedford Stu-
veysant section of Brooklyn is seeking two fully
qualified and experienced RESIDENCE MAN-
AGERS. We are also seeking a highly qualified
and experienced CASAC to join our Clinical
Team. Please fax Cover Letter (noting position
and salary required) and resume to Bob
Raphael at 718-602-9107. EOE committed to
a diverse workforce.
CASE MANAGER/REHABILITATION SPECIALIST
This position is responsible for providing a
broad range of direct client services. These
include crisis intervention, the coordination of
program activities, and working with team
members to develop treatment plans. There is
particular emphasis on providing mental
health and chemical dependency services for
this position. Reqs: High School Diploma or
equivalent and experience working with men-
tally ill , homeless individuals are preferred.
Salary: $25K + comp benefits including
$665/month in transit checks. For applicants
with a BSW + 1 year relevant experience
(excluding fieldwork); BA + 2 years relevant
experience; HS Diploma (or GED) and 6 years
relevant experience, the salary is $30,773 +
comp benefits, including $65/month in transit
checks. Also, for applicants w/o college
degrees, every 30 credits can be substituted
for 1 year of experience. Bilingual
SpanishlEnglish preferred. Send cover letter
and resume to Catherine Plumb, CUCSlThe
Prince George, 14 East 28th Street, New York,
NY 10016. CUCS is committed to workforce
diversity. EOE.
OPERATIONS MANAGER needed for growing
nonprofit messenger business. Must have dis-
patcher experience and history of homeless-
ness. Full time with benefits. Send resumes
to: Victoria Shire, New Horizon Courier Service,
1625 Lexington Ave, NY, NY 10029 or Fax 212-
831-3934.
The Community Preservation Corporation, a
not-for-profit affordable housing lender, has
an opportunity for a highly motivated person to
work in their Bronx office as an ASSISTANT
MORTGAGE OFFICER. New York's low and
moderate-income communities will benefit
directly from your work. The Assistant Mort-
gage Officer will help the Director operate a
field office by providing executive administra-
tive support to two Mortgage Officers, and by
being involved in all aspects of loan produc-
tion - including but not limited to due diligence
and preparation packages. Qualifications:
The candidate must be articulate, have a will-
ingness to learn and research, have good math
skills, have knowledge of Real Estate and/or
Community Development. Should be highly
organized, detail oriented and accurate; able
to write a business letter, licensed to drive a
car, and proficient in Lotus 123 and Word Per-
fect (windows environment). Knowledge of
NYC neighborhoods would be helpful. Com-
petitive salary and excellent benefits. Please
FEBRUARY 2002
fax resume and state salary requirements to
(718) 543-3437. Please do not call .
Bluestockings Women's Bookstore and Collec-
tive is now hiring for 3 PART-TIME STAFF POSI-
TIONS (15-20 hours per week, $12 an hour) at
a volunteer collectively run women's bookstore
and cafe. Responsibilities include: book-
selling, cafe work, administrative duties,
attending weekly staff meetings and monthly
collective meetings. One person will be in
charge of either: book ordering, events and
outreach, or volunteer coordination. Commit-
ment and interest in bookselling a must. Pre-
vious experience in bookselling or good literary
knowledge, Spanish or Chinese language a
plus. Must be committed to ideals of mission
statement. Women of color, transgendered
people, and older women strongly encouraged
to apply.
HOUSING POLICY ANALYST. The Community
Service Society (CSS) seeks a housing policy
analyst in its Public Policy Department to
expand current housing research, advocacy
and program development capabilities. Mas-
ter's degree in public policy, urban planning, or
related field required-Ph.D. preferred-with
housing policy specialization and at least one-
year demonstrated experience in housing
research and report writing. Requires working
familiarity with housing and community devel-
opment issues in NYC, with quantitative and
qualitative research methods, with SPSS and
other data-analytic software. Demonstrated
oral and written communication skills, ability
to interact with resident and community orga-
nizations and with policy makers. Salary up to
$45,000 depending on experience. Send letter
of interest, current resume, and list of 3 refer-
ences (one academic) to Human Resources by
fax at (212) 614-5336, or bye-mail at or by
mail to: Community Service Society, 105 E.
22nd Street, New York NY 10010.
Care for the Homeless seeks a full-time
HEALTH EDUCATOR to assist in developing,
implementing, and evaluating health promo-
tion programs for homeless families and sin-
gle adults at outreach sites. Bachelor's degree
in community health education or related field
required; experience with homeless people pre-
ferred. Intra-city travel required. Bilingual
Spanish preferred. Send resumes to: Care for
the Homeless, 12 West 21st Street, New York,
NY 10010. EOEIM.
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Rheedlen Centers for
Children & Families, Inc. is seeking a Develop-
ment Officer to assist with its fundraising
efforts. Salary is in the mid 30s
to mid 40s commensurate with experience.
Excellent benefits. Contact: R. Laszczych,
Rheedlen, 2770 Broadway, NYC 10025 For
more information, please visit:
www.rheedlen.org.
HOUSING CONSULTANTS (I and II ) The Housing
Resource Center is seeking housing placement
consultants to provide information about sup-
portive housing options and technical assis-
tance on the housing application process to
homeless individuals with mental illness and
their advocates. Other responsibilities include
training staff from agencies throughout NYC,
conducting site visits to supportive housing
programs, resource development and advoca-
cy. Requirements: All applicants should have
knowledge of and experience in the mental
health and homelessness service systems;
supportive housing experience preferred.
Excellent verbal and written communication
skills and computer literacy. HC I Requires:
Bachelor degree with four years relevant work
experience or Master degree. HC II requires:
Master degree and five years of related work
experience (including two years post masters).
Supervisory experience preferred. Competitive
salary and benefits. Send cover letter and
resume to Michael Hornsby, CUCS, 120 Wall
Street, 25th Floor, New York, NY 10005. Fax:
212-635-2191. CUCS is committed to work-
force diversity. EEO.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER. Faith-based organi-
zation seeks community organizer to build ten-
ant and block associations in Central Harlem.
Must have community organizing experience.
Send resume to: Larry T. lilley, Abyssinian
Development Corporation, 131 West 138th
Street, New York, NY 10030.
POLICY & TRAINING ASSOCIATE. Responsibili-
ties: research and create training materials on
immigration, public benefits, employment and
other topics, and conduct trainings on these
issues for staff of community organizations
that serve immigrants/refugees; Monitor,
compile updates on proposed or actual
changes in federal , state and city laws or reg-
ulations that could impact NY's
immigranUrefugee families; Write bi-weekly
advocacy and policy updates for NYIC mem-
bers; Work with NYIC staff and network to reg-
ularly evaluate training program. JD
REQUIRED. 2-4 years relevant experience
working on immigrant & refugee community
issues. Fax, resume, cover letter and salary
history to (212) 627-9314 by 12120/01. No
phone calls.
EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST. Henry Street Settle-
menUUrban Family Center. Seeks a hard work-
ing EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST to increase the
number of businesses and organizations who
hire Henry Street Settlement Transitional Ser-
vices interns and program participants.
He/She will email ensure that the program "job
placement" mandates are met. A "roll-up the
sleeve" attitude is essential. Major duties will
be day to day activities of the position, develop
and implement an aggressive training and
marketing strategy, develop a growing job
bank and consistent tracking, follow-up and
retention activities. Minimum requirements
are: A Bachelors degree in the social or human
services field. Minimum three years experi-
ence. Proven ability to produce positive results
and outcomes consistently. Strong writing and
communications skills. Knowledge of TANF,
welfare reform and the challenges of home-
less ness helpful. Bilingual helpful-but not
required. Mail or fax resume to: Linda L.
Sargeant, Coordinator of Vocational Program-
ming, Henry Street Settlement, 281 East
Broadway, New York, NY 10002, Fax # 212-
220-4053. EOElMIF
JOB ADS
JOB DEVELOPER. Successful WIA-funded
training program for mature workers seeks
experienced job developer for Manhattan loca-
tion. Looking for someone with 2+ years expe-
rience and an existing job bank. Candidate
must be able to work independently and meet
pre-established placement goals. Program
has a 17-year history of success with motivat-
ed and skilled job-seekers. Fax Shawn at (212)
674-8483 or email [email protected].
OFFICE DATAIMANAGER. The Office/Data Man-
ager will manage the reception area and the
program's database. He/She will answer and
direct all calls from clients and service
providers and will develop procedures and sys-
tems to keep the program staff well organized.
The OfficelData Manager will input all data
and generate reports as required. He/She will
assist the Program director in planning meet-
ings with participating agencies and will
develop program tools and correspondence as
needed. Qualifications: A degree or certificate
in secretarial or computer science. Experience
managing a database. Must be familiar in
Windows, Access, Excel. Must have a balanced
temperament and be able to manage multiple
tasks. Have the ability to communicate with
professionals and providers. Salary $31,000.
Fax resumes to J. Tuck 212-665-1842.
The Community Collaborative to Improve Di s-
trict 9 Schools seeks COMMUNITY ORGANIZ-
ERS to join a new organizing project on the cut-
ting edge of public school reform and commu-
nity building in the SOUTH BRONX. The Col-
laborative is committed to organizing parents
and residents into a powerful constituency for
the radical improvement of the public schools
in Community School District 9. We are five
community-based organizations that have
played leading roles in rebuilding the South
Bronx, including ACORN, Citizens Advice
Bureau, Highbridge Community Life Center,
Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council , and New
Settlement Apartment s. Strategic and techni-
cal support is provided by the NYU Institute for
Education and Social Policy. There are FIVE
POSITIONS available for individuals who pos-
sess at least two years' paid or unpaid grass-
roots organizing experience. BAlBSlMSW and
English/Spanish fluency desirable. EOE.
SALARY: Mid-$20s-mid-$30s, DOE. Send
cover letter and resume to: Community Collab-
orative to Improve District 9 Schools, c/o NYU
Institute for Education and Social Policy, 726
Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10003.
Email: [email protected].
The National Urban League seeks a PROGRAM
ASSOCIATE to assist the Director, Housing &
Community Economic Development with the
overall departmental administration. Success-
ful candidate coordinates provision for on-site
technical assistance to affiliates. Require-
ments: BAiBS (Master's preferred); At least 5
years experience; knowledge of housing and
community economic development programs
at national , state and local level with non-
profits serving low income urban communities;
ability to interface with public officials, busi-
ness and agency leadership and practitioners.
Salary 40's-50's. To apply submit resume along
with a writing sample to [email protected].
43
JOBADS
Deadline to apply: January 3, 2002.
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST. Grosvenor
Neighborhood House (GNH) is seeking a full
time YOUTH DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST to work
with adolescent and teen males participating
in its after school and evening program.
Founded in 1915, GNH (www.grosvenor-
house.org) is a nonprift organization dedicated
to increasing the economics and personal self-
sufficiency of children, youth and their families
living in the Manhattan Valley area by provid-
ing community residents with year-round,
meaningful and effective educational , career-
readiness, cultural recreational, and counsel-
ing services. Responsibilities for this position:
Organize and administer fun and educational
activities for approximately 60 adolescent and
teenage males ages 10-27, including career
awareness, college prep, sports/recreation, life
skills, computer technology training, academ-
ic enrichment, leadership development, ser-
vice learning, and arts/culture. The youth
development specialist will coordinate pro-
gram planning, curriculum development, com-
munity partnerships (guest speakers and
workshops, field trips, mentors, volunteers),
and will conduct on-going workshops, field
trips, mentors, volunteers), and will conduct
on-going workshops/activities. As a full-time
position, this person will oversee the evening
program, in collaboration with the coordinator
of the girls evening program, and will directly
supervise youth workers. Qualifications
sought: BA, at least 3 years experience working
with urban youth at the project manage-
ment/direct service level, excellent computer
skills, and team player. Bilingual Spanish pre-
ferred. People of color/males strongly encour-
aged to apply. Salary commensurate with
experience; excellent benefits. Please fax 212-
749-4060, email [email protected]
or mail resume, cover letter, and three refer-
ences to the attention of the Executive Director,
Grosvenor Neighborhood House, 176 West
105th Street, New York, NY 10025.
Housing/social service provider seeks: CASE
MANAGER: Prior experience in social services;
prior work in a residential setting and/or case
work. Must be computer literate with effective
oral and written communication skills. Will
work as part of an interdisciplinary team pro-
viding advocacy and identifying appropriate
referrals. Will also prepare statistical data &
monthly reports. Requirements: A four-year
degree in Social Work or related field. Bilingual
in Spanish and English is a plus. Excellent
interpersonal skills necessary. Salary range
from $26,5000 to $35,000. TEAM
LEADERISOCIAL WORK SUPERVISOR: Super-
vise case management, assessment and coun-
seling, analyze team statistics and coordinate
service areas. Requirements: MSW (preferred)
or related degree required. Three (3) years
supervisory experience preferably in a residen-
tial setting necessary. Computer literacy is a
must. Salary ranges from $37,000 to $49,000.
Send resumes to: HELP USA, Attn: Ron Guy,
Regional Executive Director, 285 East l7lst
Street, Bronx, NY 10457 or fax: 718-583-9085.
EOE. A drug free workplace.
BRENNAN FElLOWSHIP. Work on First Amend-
ment issues with the ACLU's national legal
department. Analysis of pending Supreme Court
cases; drafting of briefs and pleadings; partici-
pation in trial litigation. The fellow is selected
from third-year law students or recent gradu-
ates and will serve for a one-year period start-
ing September 2002. Send applications to Ann
Beeson, Attention: Brennan Fellowship, ACLU,
125 Broad Street-18th Floor, NY, NY 10004.
MEMBERSHIP ACQUISITION COORDINATOR
Coordinate New Member Acquisition from Web
Site Giving and Reinstatements; Manage Pro-
duction, Direct Marketing and Member Ser-
vices for the Guardians of liberty Sustainer
Program; Oversee Affiliate New Member Pro-
gram; Direct mail , marketing experience; Excel ,
Word, fundraising databases; bachelor's
degree. Send resume to Human
ResourceslMAC, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-18th
Floor, NY, NY 10004 or [email protected].
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT. Job
Duties: Assist the Director to create a working
and active Catholic Charities development
strategy. Develop active committees as need-
ed. Research and help identity prospects-
research via internet, publications, etc. Imple-
ment Special Events and donor recognition
program. Prepare fiscal reports on contribu-
tions, including year to date analysis and
donor history analysis. Qualifications: College
Degree. Two to three years experience in
fund raising or public relations with specific
direct mail experience. Familiarity with
fundraising computer systems and knowledge
of Microsoft Office specifically Excel. Excellent
oral and written communication skills. Willing
to participate in committee meetings and work
with volunteers in a team environment.
Catholic Charities promotes balances between
work and life for our employees with 19 paid
holidays along with an excellent benefits and
vacation package. Send resume, salary
requirements and you must include the posi-
tion you are applying for to the following:
Catholic Charities Att: Personnel Department
1011 First Avenue - Rm. 1112 New York, New
York 10022, Fax: 212-826-8795 or E-Mail :
[email protected]
CASE MANAGERS. (Spanish/English required)
are needed for our programs in Monticello,
Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Haver-
straw, Peekskill , Yonkers, South Bronx, Inwood,
Harlem and Manhattan locations. Job Duties:
Provides direct case management services to
the poor and the disenfranchised through
advocacy, information and referral, crisis
intervention services, and short term case
management. Requirements: M.S.w. or Bache-
lor's Degree with at least two years of experi-
ence in the social service field. Spanish-Eng-
lish required. Excellent interpersonal , organi-
zational , time management & communication
skills. Ability to work well independently as well
as part of a team. Catholic Charities promotes
balance between work & life for our employees
with 19 paid holidays along with an excellent
benefits and vacation package. Send resume,
salary requirements and you must include the
position your are applying for to the following:
Catholic Charities, Att: Personnel Department,
1011 First Avenue - Rm. 1112 New York, New
York 10022 FAX: 212-826-8795 E-mail:
[email protected].
CSS seeks experienced DIRECTOR responsible
for the Gates Avenue Project to provide leader-
ship and vision to CSS' community organizing,
community development and social service
activities, conducted in partnership with the
residents of the Gates Avenue neighborhood of
Brooklyn and locally based nonprofit organiza-
tions. The Director should be seen as a leader
in Bedford-Stuyvesant, advancing the shared
goals of CSS and neighborhood residents. A
master degree in social work, public adminis-
tration or a related field is strongly preferred.
Five (5) years of professional experience in a
social service or community organizing setting
involvement with programs serving youth is
desirable. Some background in real estate
development and related issues is preferred.
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
44
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Applications 501 (c) (3) FederaJ 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
NesoH Associates
management solutions for non-profits
Providing a fllll range of management support services for non-
profit organizations
management development & strategic planning
board and scaff development & training
program design, implementation & evaluation
proposal and report writing
Box 130 75A Lake Road Congers, NY 10920 tellfax (914) 268-6315
Consultant Services
Prop:>S3Is/Grant Writing
Hud Grants/Govt. RFPs
Housing!Program Development
Real Estate Sales/Rentals
Technical Assistance
Employment Programs
Capacity Building
MI(UA(L 6. BU((I
CONSULTANT
HOUSING, DEVELOPMENT & FUNDRAISING
Community Relations
PHONE: 212 765-7123
FAX: 212-397-6238
E-MAIL: [email protected]
451 WEST 48th STREET, SUITE 2E
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10036-1298
CITY LIMITS
The successful candidate should be able to
demonstrate experience working with commu-
nities, including formal and informal leader-
ship. Familiar with Bedford-Stuyvesant area is
desired. Three (3) years experience in manage-
ment and supervision is required, preferably
with community organizing or social service
staff. Send res/cov Itr: HR PP-OS, CSSNY, 105
E. 22nd St. NYC 10010, fax 2121614-5336 or
e-mail to [email protected]. EOE
Women's Housing and Economic Development
Corporation, an award-winning women's eco-
nomic development agency, seeks talented
GRANTSWRITER to prepare proposals and
write funder reports. Join a growing depart-
ment. 3-5 years experience, excellent track
record with government and foundation
grants/contracts. Competitive salary and
excellent benefits. Send resume, cover letter,
and writing sample to Donna Rubens, PhD,
Director of Development and Evaluation
Research, WHEDCO, 50 E. 16Sth St, Bronx, NY
10452 or e-mail: [email protected]. Check
our website: www.whedco.org.
FAMILY CASE MANAGER. Starting Date: Imme-
diately Family Justice is a new not-for-profit
that partners with government to identify,
apply and disseminate best practices in using
family supports to improve the success of
offenders released to or supervised in the com-
munity. Family Justice consists of three
branches, including La Bodega de la Familia
(a storefront providing family-focused services
on the Lower East Side); research and devel -
opment; and training and technical assis-
tance. La Bodega de la Familia is in a diverse,
low-income community on New Yor!< City's
Lower East Side. The program helps substance
abusers under the supervision of the criminal
justice system remain drug-free and comply
with criminal justice mandates by building
family supports. La Bodega provides an array
of services, including Family Partnering Case
Management, counseling and relapse preven-
tion services, and 24-hour crisis intervention
in the event of a drug-related emergency.
RESPONSIBILITIES: Make initial contacts with
potential participants and/or family members.
Formulate family assessments, action plans,
ecomaps, and genograms. Conduct family
sessions. Contact and collaborate with collat-
eral agencies regarding particular cases. Make
home and collateral visits. Wor!< within a team
to discuss cases and to coordinate services.
Facilitate support groups and workshops.
Maintain written chart forms and case notes
on participants' progress. Prepare monthly
activity reports. Forge and maintain relation-
ships with Bodega's partners in the communi-
ty and the criminal justice system. Make pre-
release visits ("community preps") to families
with Parole offi cers). Provide 24-hour support
(on a rotating basis) for participating families
Reports to Project Director. QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor's Degree in social services or a relat-
ed field and experience wor!<ing with families
required. Master's degree in social work pre-
ferred. CASAC a plus. Prior experience with
offender populations, families, groups, and/or
substance users, or with issues such as
domestic violence, HIVIAIDS, mental illness,
and/or related issues. Ability to wor!< with a
culturally diverse populations; Fluency in
Spanish a plus. Salary: Based on experience.
Family Justice is an equal opportunity employ-
er. Please send or fax resume and cover letter
to Patricia Dornelles, CSW, Project Director, La
Bodega de la Familia, 272 East
Third Street, New York, NY
10009 (FAX: 212-9S2-1765). Email address:
[email protected] No telephone
calls accepted.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS. Design a
strategic communications plan to increase the
ACLU's visibility and contribute to the develop-
ment of a new, diverse generation of citizens
committed to the preservation of civil liberties.
A minimum of 10 to 15 years' experience in
leadership positions of strategic communica-
tions departments, as well as experience with
publications and media relations. Send resume
to: S. Ashton, clo ACLU Human Resources, 125
Broad Street-ISth Floor, NY, NY 10004.
Multi-tasking Systems, Inc. (MTS), a non profit
organization, is hiring a VOCATIONAL COUN-
SELOR. Prefer individuals with experience in
employment programs, conducting intake
interviews, assessing a client's employability,
providing on-going support to clients and
familiarity with VESID. Bachelor's Degree nec-
essary. Please fax cover letter, resume and
salary requirements to MTS - Attention, D.
Davis @ (212) 962-762S. No Phone Calls
Please.
Healthcare Hospital for Special Surgery, the
nation's leading orthopedic specialty hospital,
seeks a talented individual for the following
position: MEDICAID MANAGED CARE COUN-
SELING ASSOCIATE. We seek an experienced
individual who will provide education, assis-
tance and advocacy services to patients/fami-
lies transitioning into Medicaid Managed Care.
In collaboration with the health care team, you
will assess patients needs, identify options
and interface with community agencies and
train/supervise volunteers. Requires a BSWor
advanced/related degree, computer literacy
and a thorough knowledge of Medicaid Man-
aged Care and related entitlements. The abil-
ity to communicate effectively, generate
reports and be proactive is essential. Bilingual
EnglishlSpanish preferred. We offer excellent
JOBADS
salary and benefits. Please send your resume
to: Director of Employment, Human Resources
Department, Hospital for Special Surgery, 535
East 70th Street, NY, NY 10022. Fax 212-606-
1146. Call 212-606- lllS. We are an equal
opportunity employer .Hospital For Special
Surgery
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. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. The Workforce Develop-
ment Department seeks qualified candi dates
for the following positions: WORKFORCE
DEVELDPMENT SPECIALIST to conduct out-
reach, recruitment and job readiness wor!<-
shops. Will also provide one-on-one resume
writing and job readiness counseling to low-
income Bronx residents. BA required, bilingual
English/Spani sh a +. TRAINER to conduct job
readiness workshops and one-on-one employ-
ment counseling to limited English speakers.
Bilingual EnglishlSpanish a must. CASE MAN-
AGER to provide case management, employ-
ment counseling and retention services to lim-
ited English speakers. BA required, bilingual
EnglishlSpanish a must. Fax resume/cover let-
ter to J. Ora mas at (71S) 993-S0S9-or mail to
391 E. 149th St, Suite 520, Bronx NY 10455.
CAB is an equal opportunity /affirmative action
employer.
ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR. The Center for
Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit
legal and educational organization dedicated
to advancing and protecting the rights guaran-
teed by the United States Constitution and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
MICHAEL DAVIDSON
Consultant in Nonprofit Management
MANAGEMENT SUPPORT & ASSESSMENT
BOARD DEVELOPMENT & TRAINING
STRATEGIC PLANNING
INTERIM MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENTS
Hands-on solutions to help
nonprofit organizations achieve their vision
Tel: (212) 662-1758, 523 West 121 St., NY, NY 10027,
Fax: (212) 662-5861, [email protected]
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: 212-732-2773
Low-income housing tax credit syndication.
Public and private
financing. HDFCs and not-for-profit corporations. Condos and co-ops. J-51
Tax abatement/exemptions. Lendingfor historic properties.
FEBRUARY 2002
Hand Mailing Services
Henry Street Settlement Mailing services is a revenue
generating, work-readiness program offering battered women and
shelter base families on the job and life skills training.
We offer hand inserting, live stamp afftxing, bulk mail, folding,
collating, labeling, water sealing and more.
For more information please call Bob Modica,
212-505-7307
OFFICE SPACE PROBLEMS?
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CS1
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(845) 566-1267
Expert Real Estate Services - once
available only to major corporations and
institutions -
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at no out-of-pocket cost,
or at specially reduced rates.
Visit our web site: www.npspace.com
Call for a free, no-obligation consultation.
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45
46
I LLUSTRATED MEMOS
OFFICE OFlHE (lIT VISIONARY:
"-"-"''j r '
"" r-r
Unfortunately, the process of
terminating federal payments
must begin in the middle of a
recession, but we don't have to
leave the success of welfare
reform to chance.
WELFARE CASINO SAFETY NET
PLAN NO. 2951836-8
Why not create jobs, reassign
benefits, and raise needed
revenue for state assistance
programs all at the same time?
GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLUTION
TO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?
SEND IN TODAY!
OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONA.RY
CITY LIMITS MAGAZINE
12.0 WALL ST., 20
TH
FLOOR. NY NY 10005
ootcv@citylimits.
CITY LIMITS
seeking an Administrative Director to assume
primary responsibility for the overall financial ,
personneVbenefits, information systems (MIS),
and office management functions of the Center.
Duties include: overseeing and administering the
Center's annual budget; preparing and monitor-
ing all payroll transactions; administering all
personnel management functions; overseeing
the purchasing and maintenance of all office
technology and office equipment; and overseeing
the delivery of front desk services, i.e., reception,
mai l, etc. We are seeking a highly motivated and
organized individual with at least six years of pre-
vious administrative experience, strong financial
management skills and excellent written and oral
communication ski ll s. Applicant must have firm
knowledge of computers; proficiency in Excel and
QuickBooks preferred. A demonstrated commit-
ment to social justice is strongly preferred. The
position offers a competitive salary and excellent
benefits. To apply, send a cover letter and resume
to: Annette W. Dickerson, Center for Constitution-
al Rights, 666 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY
10012, re: Administrative Director. The fax num-
ber is (212) 614-6499. The deadline for applica-
tions is January 22, 2002. CCR is an affinmative
action/equal opportunity employer. 'Mlmen, pe0-
ple of color, people with disabilities, and mem-
bers of the LGBT community are encouraged to
apply.
Vibrant and growing community-based health
insurance enrollment program seeks a FIELD
SUPERVISOR. Supervise enrollment staff,
oversee outreach, expand program to new
sites. Bi-lingual (Eng/Span), must have super-
visory experience. Master's degree a plus.
$40,000+ Fax cover letter and resume to Kate
Lawler (212) 681-6315.
Queens not-for-profit agency seeks an experi-
enced MORTGAGE COUNSELOR to market and
implement Pre- and Post-purchase homeown-
ership and community outreach activities;
Credit and budget counseling; guidance and
assistance to consumers with an emphasis on
foreclosure prevention and home improvement;
review, assess, track and develop initiatives
and strategies to address predatory lending.
Qualifications: Ability to work effectively with
diverse groups. Knowledge of, and proven expe-
rience in homeownership counseling and
assistance. Demonstrated ability to coordinate
and interact with audiences through work-
shops, seminars, newsletters, etc Excellent
analytical , writi ng and interpersonal skills.
Extensive knowledge of home buying process,
public and private loan products, FHA regula-
tions and loss mitigation tools. Proficiency in
electronic technology a must. Bilingual (Span-
ishlEnglish) a plus. Submit resume with cover
letter and salary requirements to; Executive
Director, Jamaica Housing Improvement, Inc.,
161-10 Jamaica Avenue, Suite 601, Jamaica,
NY 11432. Fax; 718658-5065.
OPERATIONS MANAGER- Briarwood Family
Residence. Committed professional needed to
supervise and monitor house management
JOB ADS
and security services for shelter serving home-
less families; experienced supervisor with
excellent interpersonal and communication
skills; knowledge of homeless families, role of
security services, positive attitude and excel-
lent team player. Fax: 718-268-9235.
DIRECTOR COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND VOL-
UNTEER PROGRAMS. Leading nonprofit orga-
nization has an immediate opening for a tal-
ented professional who can mobilize our
already-existing volunteer base, design initia-
tives that recruits new volunteers throughout
the city, and develop innovative projects that
involve neighborhood-based and corporate
volunteers in our advocacy efforts and direct
service programs. Applicants must have
grassroots organizing experience, an ability to
bui ld diverse coalitions, and excellent advoca-
cy and public speaking skills. Send a resume
to: Director, Human Resources, The Partner-
ship for the Homeless, 305 Seventh Avenue,
13th floor, New York, New York 10001. ANEOE
Reach 20,000
readers in the nonprofit sector.
Advertise In CITY LIMITS
FEBRUARY 2002
Call Anita Gutierrez at
(212) 479-3345
LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION
OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
We have been providing low-cost insuraRce programs and
quality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
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47
Lawyers Alliance for New York
330 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
(212) 219-1800
www.lany.org
The leading provider oj free and low-cost business law
services to nonproj its tlwt are working to improve
the quali ty oj life in New York:S neighborlwods.
Workshops in Legal Issues for Nonprofits
Workshops are $40 in advance and $50 at the door. Seating is limited; reservations are
recommended. New York Foundation grantees may attend certain workshops at no cost.
For more information, or to make a reservation, please call 212 2191800 x236.
danuary 15 Coping with Financial Crises
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
danuary 23 Legal Issues Associated With Operating After-School Programs
10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
February 4 Basics of Housing Development*
10:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. at Support Center for Nonprofit Management 305 Seventh Avenue, 11th Floor
February 13 Operating a Nonprofit in the Aftermath of September 11*
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
February 25 Family Child Care Networks
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Support Center for Nonprofit Management 305 Seventh Avenue, 11 th Floor
March 12 Employment Issues for Nonprofits Working with Volunteers and Interns*
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Support Center for Nonprofit Management 305 Seventh Avenue, 11 th Floor
April 11 Incorporation and Tax Exemption
6:00 p.m. -8:00 p.m. at Lawyers Alliance for New York, 330 Seventh Avenue, 19th Floor
April 19 Copyright and Trademark for Nonprofits
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
April 24 Business Ventures for Nonprofits
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
May 10 Fundraising Law and Regulation
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
May 16 Legal Aspects of Insurance
10:00 a.m. -1 :00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, 2nd Floor
May 30 Tax Compliance and Financial Reporting
10:00 a.m. -1:00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Floor
dune 5 Incorporation and Tax Exemption
New workshops
Making a World of Difference
Building a Better New York
10:00 a.m. -12:00 p.m. at Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center, 281 Park Avenue South, Main Roor