EDITORIAL

UNDER THE INFLUENCE

THERE'S NOT A LOT that can persuade more than
4,000 people to forego the diversions and oblig-
ations of a summer Saturday. But there they
were at the Javits Center on July 20, willingly
knee-deep in the geeky minutiae of urban plan-
ning. attending the Civic Alliance's "Listening
to the City" event in order to weigh in on the
future of the World Trade Center site.
That members of the public had a desire to
respond to the Port Authority and the Lower
Manhattan Development Corporation's redevel-
opment concepts was not surprising. Each of the
six proposals presented cold variations on the
theme of revenue for the Port Authority, and to
differing degrees each was an appalling affront
on the ideals of commemoration and civic unity
that emerged with such phenomenal clarity in
public discourse following September 11. While
there were many opinions voiced that day, such
disappointment was a consistent theme.
But the participants' presence there said
something else just as loudly. About one-third of
the people punching numbers into remote con-
trols reported that they were confident their
input would make a difference-this, over two
semi-private authorities that have no direct pub-
lic accountability. Even more, 45 percent, were
at least hopeful of having some impact.
Think about the last time you felt that way.
Professional advocates are a privileged bunch;
most of us have no power to alter the physical
and social form of the world around us. Whether
to circumnavigate the bulk of grossly overbuilt
office towers, involuntarily leave our kids with
strangers all day, or get used to 97 -degree heat, we
are always the ones who have to adjust.
The Javits Center crowd was a self-selected
bunch of engaged citizens, prone to optimism
about their power to make a difference. But they
were hardly suffering from delusions. Less than
a week after they carne together, Governor Pata-
ki, who has as much influence as anyone over
the Port Authority and LMDC, announced that
he was recommending that a substantial portion
of the 11 million square feet of office space the
Port Authority seeks to rebuild should be con-
structed elsewhere in lower Manhattan. Sure,
Pataki may change his tune once November
passes. But when he does, New Yorkers will be
able to point back to their high-tech referendum
and say: This is what we think.
Democracy doesn't come cheap. It cost the
Civic Alliance $2 mil1ion to pull together this pro-
ject, a lot of that spent on aggressive promotion
Cover photo by Aaron Lee Fineman; Fly and Mac McGill, artists and squatters on the Lower East Side.
and outreach to make sure people showed up.
But it's worth the money. The power of these
efforts lies in their very difference from the usual
methods by which community activists seek to
secure political influence. Litigation can be
enormously powerful, but as the Campaign for
Fiscal Equity learned with its school financing
suit, it can crumble on the desk of the wrong
judge. Community organizing and demonstra-
tions only work where consensus is already
strong, and they rely on labor-intensive work
that may never take on a life of its own. And the
amount of organizational staff time that has
gone into trying to get coverage in the New York
Times could probably run a small country.
"Listening to the City" was a one-of-a-kind
event, galvanized by a calamity and the popular
impulse to heal a wound in the city. But what it
showed is that with enough financing and coop-
eration, it is possible to 'open a precious channel
of civic political influence on those issues that
certain segments of the public care deeply about.
-Alyssa Katz
Editor
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~ I~ ~ ~ T U R S
ELECTION 2002:
18 THE DEMS WHO
WOULD RUN NEW YORK
Andrew Cuomo and Carl McCall want our votes. We wanted to
know more. What their campaigns aren't telling you about their
public service priorities.
21 POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
Liz Krueger has battled bureaucrats, empowered the poor and
prevailed in a tough campaign. But can she turn the most thankless
elected job in New York into a force for change?
By Alyssa Katz
24 SOLD OUT
Officials said street vendors had to leave New York's shopping
districts because they were bad for business. Now the sidewalks are
clear-not just of vendors, but customers too.
By Hilary Russ
29 SQUATTERS' RITES
The activists, laborers and artists who've made abandoned buildings
into viable homes were the scourge of City Hall. Now Loisada's last
outlaws have become government-sponsored homeowners.
By Robert Neuwirth
CONTENTS
5 FRO NTLI N ES: MODEL GARDENS ... DEFENDING THE OUTSPOKEN ...
NY: MEET THE DAKOTAS ... YOU CAN'T WAIT ... DIGITAl COOP CONVERSION ... BUMPER BUSES ...
PARENTAL ADVISORY SEEKER ... A GUYANIAN LAMENT ... DIVERSIFY, DAM MIT
INSIDE TRACK
11 PREGNANT PAUSE
The Board of Ed is backing off its 36-year-old pledge to provide
special schools for teenage moms, but placing them back in regular
schools delivers its own problems. By Charu Gupta
INTElliGENCE
36 THE BIG IDEA
Need city budget revenue? Tax Wall Street. Nearly every other major
financial city does. By J.W. Mason
38 CITY LIT
Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City, by Paul
Stoller. Reviewed by Hakim Hasan
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
40 MAKING CHANGE
Take donated computers. Add free software. Stir gently with staff
training, time-consuming customization and inevitable glitches.
By Steven Gnagni
42 NYC INC.
New York's collection of livable neighborhoods should attract businesses
looking for places that make their workers happy, but you wouldn't know
that if you listened to city officials. By David Hochman
2 EDITORIAL
47 JOB ADS
50 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
58 OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
3
LETTERS
DON'T TREAD ON My ROAD
Thank you for your feature about the work
of some extraordinary individuals who are
engaged-as I am-in the struggle for justice
and opportunity for immigrant New Yorkers
["Truth, Justice and the American Way," May
2002]. I am writing to respond to inaccurate
comments that Isabel Gonzalez, an activist pro-
filed, made about Make the Road by Walking,
where I am a member of the staff collective.
Make the Road is a democratic, membership-
based organization that builds power for low-
income, black and Latino New Yorkers through
grassroots community organizing. Members
elect Make the Road's board of directors from
their own ranks. They decide what issues we
organize around and how we move our cam-
paigns forward. The role of staff-both organiz-
ers and attorneys-is to develop new leaders and
to support member-led organizing campaigns.
While we occasionally use litigation ro
advance our organizing, our primary strategy is
direct action organizing-it works since we
have over 600 energetic Make the Road leaders
and members. Make the Road by Walking has
forced the city welfare bureaucracy to end
decades of discrimination, we have won hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars in back wages,
and we have cleaned up hazardous vacant lots,
repaved streets and brought new parks and
hundreds of new trees to our community. And
we're just getting started.
Amir Tafari
MEMBER ENTHUSIAST
I am writing in response to comments made
by Isabel Gonzalez in your recent collection of
immigrant activist profiles. I am 19 years old
and a member of Make the Road's Youth Power
Project. Our project, along with others at Make
the Road, all work in the same way: Adult and
youth members and staff together fight against
injustice. I was elected by the other youth
members of Make the Road to represent them
on our board of directors. As a member of the
board, I help to make important decisions
about how our organization is run. I am not
intimidated by the staff members Isabel refers
to as "white men with law degrees. "
I am sometimes intimidated to raise my
voice in front of our government, which rarely
listens to my community's concerns. Staff
members of Make the Road, including some
white men with law degrees, have worked long
hours to help me and others not feel intimidat-
ed about demanding justice.
Members at Make the Road make decisions
about our organizing campaigns. Members
facilitate meetings. Members help to write
press releases, and members speak to the press.
Members and staff raise their fists rogether at
the marches and protests that we organize. The
road doesn't build itself and it is not built by
one person alone. It is made by many people
for all of us to walk along. The Road is Made
by Walking-together.
Luis Reyes
No LIMITS
The article about the struggle to improve
the public schools ["Social Promotion, " June
2002] was very informative. Unfortunately, it
also includes a common error. In New York
State law, there is no class size limit for any
grade. Instead, there is a voluntary state pro-
gram that provides limited funds to help
schools reduce class size to 20 in grades K-3.
But even for this ptogram, the funds have
been frozen at $140 million for the last two years,
because of Governor Pataki and the state Senate.
Even if the program was expanded to $225 mil-
lion-the amount originally agreed on-this still
would be insufficient to reduce the class sizes in
all New York City schools in the early grades.
However, in the rest of the state, almost all other
school districts have reached this goal.
Moreover, as the story points out, in New
York City there needs to be more funds for new
classroom space. There was a federal program,
started under President Clinton, that brought
millions more to New York City to reduce class
size in overcrowded schools by hiring extra
teachers to provide small group instruction.
But the Bush administration eliminated this
program, with very little attention paid by the
local or national media.
CORRECTION
Leonie Haimson
Chairperson
Class Size Matters
We neglected to credit Sune Woods for her
photography, which accompanied "Dubious
Benefits" Uuly/August 2002] .
www.citylimits.org
4
CITY LIMITS
Volume XXVII Number 8
City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except bi-
monthly issues in July/August and September/October, by City
Limits Community Information Service, Inc. , a nonprofit organi -
zation devoted to disseminating information concerning
neighborhood revitalization.
Publ isher: Kim Nauer [email protected]
Associate Publ isher: Anita Gutierrez [email protected]
Editor: Alyssa Katz [email protected]
Managi ng Editor: Tracie McMillan [email protected]
Senior Editor: Annia Ciezadlo [email protected]
Senior Editor: Jill Grossman [email protected]
Associate Editor: Matt Pacenza [email protected]
Contributing Editors: James Bradley, Neil F. Carlson,
Wendy Davis, Michael Hirsch,
Kemba Johnson, Nora McCarthy,
Robert Neuwirth, Hilary Russ
Design Direction: Hope Forstenzer
Photographers: Aaron Lee Fineman, Jake Price, Sune Woods
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Interns: Doreen Jakob, Sonya Mohamed
BOARD OF DIRECTORS'
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CITY LIMITS
FRONT LINES
Jake Price
How Will Our Gardens Grow?
A DELEGATION FROM PARIS' parks department recently visited the Big
Apple to study how New York does community gardens.
"Right now there are very few collective gardens in Paris," says Antoine
Cassard of Paris-Nature, which coordinates environmental educational
programming in the city. "We want to find a way for people to be more
active and engaged in the parks."
Cassard was one of about 500 greening professionals and enthusiasts
who came to New York from across the U.S., Canada and Europe for the
23rd annual American Community Gardening Association conference in
late July. With community gardens a new concept in Paris, Cassard says,
"New York is a model we'd like to follow."
At the moment, though, local gardeners are not sure exactly what kind
of model New York represents. As City Limits went to press, State Attor-
ney General Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg were reported-
ly close to reaching a deal on the fate of nearly half of the city's 650 com-
munity gardens.
The legal barcle dates back to 1999, when Spitzer sued to block the Giu-
liani administration from auctioning gardens as "vacant lots. " The following
February, a judge issued a restraining order that has prevented the city from
developing any of the roughly 300 gardens currently under the jurisdiction
of its Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
HPD says it has plans to develop more than 2,900 units of affordable
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
housing on 131 of those 300 garden sites, and that the gardeners are jeop-
ardizing $48 million in state and federal funds. Spitzer, however, argues
that the gardens-many of which are more than 20 years old-should be
considered park land, and that the city should review the environmental
impacts of replacing them with housing.
While neither the Attorney General's office nor HPD would comment
on the progress of the talks, insiders say HPD is now insisting on develop-
ing just the gardens that have been okayed for housing by the City Coun-
cil. The city would then put the rest of the 131 disputed gardens through
land use hearings that would give gardeners the chance to defend them.
Spitzer is also reportedly demanding that the city relocate gardeners who
are displaced from their land.
Meanwhile, some gardeners are pushing for legislation that would allow
gardens to apply for petmanent status. Councilmember Joseph Addabbo, a bill
sponsor, says he will not schedule hearings until Bloomberg and Spitzer sercle.
Watching a throng of protesters in bug costumes outside City Hall,
Cassard found the complexities of New York's open space wars baffling. His
neighbors to the east, in Berlin, have 80,000 gardens, and gardeners there
have so much clout that if the city decides it wants to build on their land,
it has to compensate them with funds and an equal portion of space else-
where. Says Cassard, "I find it ironic that 1 work for the city in Paris, and
here 1 attended a demonstration against City Hall." -Sarah Ferguson
5
FRONT LINES
The Whistleblower's Dilemma
City claims wider
protections put
workers at risk.
By Carolyn Szczepanski
WHEN CHRIS ROBERTS got a face full of herbi-
cide while on the job as an assistant gardener in
a West Harlem playground, his managers at the
New York City Parks Department laughed.
When he dropped our of the herbicide applica-
tor training program because of animal safety
concerns, his coworkers chuckled.
But when Roberts began reporting haz-
ardous chemical storage and unsafe spraying
procedures to his supervisors and to the city's
Department of Environmental Protection, his
bosses seem to have lost their sense of humor.
And Chris Roberts lost his job.
"It was really blatant, " he says of his termi-
nation, which he claims came withour an expla-
nation and happened only days before he would
have been eligible for increased workers rights.
"It sent a message that if you're speaking out, it's
going to catch up and they'll get rid of you."
Parks Department officials say they fired
Roberts because of his poor job performance
6
and erratic attendance. They did not, however,
provide specific examples. Roberts says he
never received a job performance evaluation,
nor was he ever placed in the department's pro-
gram for employees with high absentee rates.
Roberts is now preparing to fue a lawsuit
against the city, claiming that his supervisors vio-
lated the state's civil service law, which protects
government workers who report violations that
endanger public health to another agency. He
hopes his tactic will get him his job back,
because it's his only chance: Neither the state nor
city whistleblower laws offer him any protection.
Some members of the City Council are now
trying to change that. Helen Sears of Queens
has drafted a bill to add protections to the city's
whistleblower law. The Council Committee on
Standards and Ethics, which she chairs, plans to
hold a public hearing on the proposed amend-
ment in September. "Whistleblowers need to
feel a strong sense of protection when they
come forward to expose corruption," she says.
Sears and her bill's supporters-there are
seven signed on so far-hope to encourage more
wimesses to wrongdoing to come forward. The
current city whistleblower law, written in 1984,
offers some protections for employees of mayoral
agencies who report on-the-job incidents of cor-
ruption, criminal activity and conflict of interest.
Those complaints must be fued with the city's
Department of Investigation, Public Advocate,
comptroller or City Council members. Roberts
had no such job protection, because he had made
his report on a job safety violation, and made it
to the Department of Environmental Protection.
Sears' legislation would allow whistleblowers
working at any agency or institution that is at
least partially funded by the city to register con-
cerns with any government official or agency
authorized to monitor government performance.
Those concerns could include gross mismanage-
ment, waste of public funds and violations of any
law. The bill also calls for confidentiality for com-
plainants-something that is not assured now.
"We need to do more to encourage a climate
in which employees feel free to discuss all aspects
of their jobs," says Beth Haroules of the New
York Civil Liberties Union. The civil rights group
has long advocated for stronger employee protec-
tions, and it has started to make some progress:
In June, the group won a lawsuit that challenged
gag-order policies, put in place by the Giuliani
administration, that prohibited employees from
talking to the press and the general public about
misconduct in city agencies.
The next step, says Haroules, is changing the
city law. Figuring our exactly how, however, has
proven difficult. The NYCLU has yet to support
Sears' bill, hoping to see broader First Amend-
ment rights for whistleblowers. Haroules believes
that any city worker who speaks out abour cor-
ruption publicly-not just to the prescribed city
agencies---ought to be protected by law.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum is also call-
ing for a more comprehensive education pro-
gram and more feedback on its inquiries by the
city Department of Investigation.
But DOl fears these kinds of changes might
make things worse. "We may start having reports
falling into the cracks with agencies who do not
know how to handle a report and actually place
the whistleblower at risk, " says Alain Burgeois,
the agency's first deputy commissioner. The cur-
rent law is effective and well-used, he says, citing
the fact that the department receives on average
8,500 complaints a year.
Proponents of change still remain hopeful.
''The culture in the past has been one of com-
plete control over the discussion of informa-
tion, " says Haroules. "But the Bloomberg
administration is more attuned to the employ-
ee as a watchdog, a guardian. It's just a question
of clarifying the rules of the game."
Carolyn Szczepanski is a Queens-based freelance
writer.
CITY LIMITS
===HOUSlttG ===
Trust a Bust for New York
THE NATIONAL AFFORDABLE housing movement took a step
forward in July, when a Congressional committee voted
ro double the funding that state and local housing trust
funds currently spend ro create affordable housing. But as
things stand now, New York won't receive a dime.
On July 11, the House Financial Services Committee
passed an amendment ro the Housing Affordability for
America Act of 2002. Drafted by Bernie Sanders ofVer-
mont and sponsored by Sue Kelly of Westchester Coun-
ty, the amendment calls for providing one-ro-one match-
ing funds for the 282 state and local housing trust funds
that currently exist nationwide. According ro Sanders'
office, these funds spend about $750 million a year ro
produce, preserve and rehabilitate affordable housing.
While housing advocates and their political support-
ers agree this vote is a vicrory, it's not the one they were
initially seeking. Another measure sought ro shin billions
of dollars a year from the mammoth Federal Housing
Administration insurance fund surplus into a national
housing trust fund, aiming ro help developers create 1.5
million units of affordable housing over the next decade.
It was defeated in committee.
Concerned from the outset that the more ambitious
measure would come under swift attack by the Bush
administration-which is on record as opposed ro a
national affordable housing trust fund-Sanders offered
the alternative amendment, with the hope that it might be
strengthened in the Senate. "Though it's not what we had
initialIy intended, we do think it's a major step forward in
addressing the housing crisis," says Sanders aide Joel
Barkin. "We hope this will encourage more local housing
trust funds."
The Empire State certainly needs one. New York is one
of only eight states, along with Alabama, Arkansas and the
Dakotas, that does not have a designated housing trust
fund, with a committed, ongoing source of revenue.
There are 38 state housing trust funds in 34 states nation-
wide, 42 local trust funds in 22 states and another 142
city funds in New Jersey, according ro a report released
this summer by the Center for Community Change.
Meanwhile, housing advocates are talking with the
Bloomberg administration about other funding options.
"Flexible capital," says Joe Weisbord of the affordable
housing developers' coalition Housing First. "That's what
we need in New York. " Center for Communi ty Change
field coordinaror Laura Barrett, who has been helping
cities and states establish housing trust funds, notes that
putting a trust rogether is not that big a deal: "These are
measures that city councils come up with and promote
because they think they're a great idea. " The Housing
Affordabili ty Act now moves on for consideration in the
full House of Representatives.
-Jill Grossman
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
FRONTLINES
URBANLEGEND
Fountain of Youth
NAIROBI SHELLOW IS A MASTER of disguise. The 23-year-old Flatbush native certainly
does not look like he's been an organizer for nearly a decade. His tall , slender frame is
draped with the trappings of youth: a trendy sleeveless shirt, baggy jeans and shell top
sneakers. With a Discman in one hand and cellular phone in the other, he doesn't seem to
fit the part of executive director of Youth Organizers United, a growing nonprofit sexual and
reproductive health organization.
His unconventional manner has helped shape the group, which he founded two winters ago.
The naysayers told him, "I don't have a college degree. I have no managerial skills. I'm too silly,"
Shellow recalls. But, he adds, "With statistics that say young people make up more than 50 per-
cent of all HIV infection, I cannot [give up]. I was set out to prove everybody wrong. "
Shellow's penchant for being what he laughingly calls "a troublemaker" began at 15,
when he became a youth advocate for the AIDS and Adolescents Network of New York. He
wanted to learn more about the disease that was affecting his family and community.
In 1999, MNNY closed its doors. But Shellow refused to become just a little orphan of
MNNY. For months, he and a corps of youth advocates held trainings on diversity and sex-
ual health in parks and on the streets. In February 2000 they formalized the organization,
and hired 26 advocates.
Now, Shellow hopes the group can retain what he calls "a youthy spirit. " The age limit
for staff members is 25, giving him just a couple more years to spread the message about
HIV and AIDS and its impact on young people. He certainly does not plan to waste any time.
YOU's schedule is packed with in-school public education forums about HIV and AIDS, sex-
uality and reproductive health. They distribute condoms and help organize big events like
Youth Action Day, which brings hundreds of teens to Albany to meet with legislators.
YOU's work has certainly drawn attention. Two years ago, Shellow became the youngest
person ("and the only young person," he says) elected to the New York City HIV Prevention
Planning Group, a public body that allocates federal funds to AIDS organizations through-
out the city. Although hit with obstacles like lack of space and displacement- their offices
are two blocks from ground zero, which left them homeless for six months-YOU is emerg-
ing as an influential voice of youth within the HIV and AIDS community. -Jessica Rodriguez
7
FRONT llNES
c::::=:::::::f E C H N 0 ~ 0 G Y ==
Home Wiring
"ARRIBA LAS MUJERES," Yolanda Torres cheers-
"Women arise"_as she and four other women
haul huge Dell computer boxes up onto their
shoulders and up the stoop into their apartments
on West 140th Street. Torres and many of her
neighbors are becoming first-time computer own-
ers. Just a few months after moving into the five-
story cooperative that they spent thousands of
dollars and hours rehabbing, they hope to use
their new appliances to run their building better.
Their building is the first of about 70 low-
income coops that will receive computers and
internet access under the Urban Homesteading
Assistance Board's Connecting Communities J
program. Funded by a $450,000 grant from the
U.S. Department of Commerce's Technical
Opportunities Program, with one-to-one com-
munity matching funds, the initiative aims to
give residents the sofrware and hardware to both
learn job skills and improve their homes.
to date on legislation, housing training sessions
and techniques to run their homes smoothly.
In addition to sending members regular
email updates on pertinent housing informa-
tion, UHAB established a web site that will
post resources and host chat rooms in which
tenant leaders from different buildings can
exchange ideas and ultimately, Goldstein
hopes, create neighborhood councils.
"The vision is to create a technological eco-
system for cooperative buildings to better man-
age their budgets and mobilize to improve their
communities," says Jared Goldstein, UHAB's
digital programs development director. Since
1973, UHAB has helped set up 1,200 low-
income coops. By wiring a cluster of 11 buildings
in West Harlem with cable modems, for starters,
UHAB hopes to ensure that tenants can stay up
==8USINES-S
Chinatown's Bus Wars
THE WHITE BUS PARKED by the Citibank on Canal
Street has been sitting there since Memorial Day
weekend, when Dejian Chen tried to use it to
run over a driver from a rival bus company.
In the early morning of May 26, Chen sat
behind the wheel of his bus, idling at China-
town's unofficial bus terminal on East Broad-
way and Forsyth Street. He was waiting for
Chen Lundong, an employee of Far Well Tours,
to come out of a local deli with his morning cof-
fee. Just as Lundong walked behind Chen's bus,
Chen threw the gear in reverse and tried to
squeeze Lundong between his bus and another.
Lundong survived and was rushed to Bellevue
Hospital. And Chen was arrested, adding yet
another skirmish to the police department's
records on the feuding bus companies.
8
After fully wiring those 11 buildings, at a cost
of about $5,000 each (the broadband will cost
each tenant about $8 a month), UHAB also plans
to give computers---donated by Per Scholas, a
nonprofit technology provider-and wiring to
For the last several years, a number of small
bus companies have shuttled passengers between
the Chinatowns of New York, Boston, Philadel-
phia and Washington, D.C. The fares are unbeat-
able: While commercial bus companies based at
the Port Authority charge about $40 for a round
trip ticket to Philadelphia, a ride with these more
informal establishments runs about $10.
The companies started up to cater to China-
rown residents, mostly members of the Fukinese
community. Many live or work in another city,
relying on the buses to visit family and shop.
After a few years, word of the bus services
spread, attracting bargain-hunters from across
the city. And with the growth in business came
cutthroat competition. About three years ago,
the sole bus line running from New York to
Philadelphia split in two. "They've been fight-
ing ever since," says police officer David Yap of
Chinatown's 5th Precinct, noting that employ-
ees of both companies have been arrested for
assaulting one another.
three residents in each of another 58 buildings.
But UHAB's buildings could be one of the
last to benefit from the federal Technical
Opportunities Program, which has supported
500 such projects nationwide since 1994. Pres-
ident George W Bush recently called for cut-
ting its entire $12 million budget. At press
time, some members of Congress were working
to restore the funding.
"It's a shame because it's not for a lack of
money, but a lack of priorities," says Torres.
"The government takes away programs that
help the poor people lifr themselves up."
-Nicole Karsin
The attempted murder in May has drawn the
attention of the New York and Philadelphia
police departments, as well as the Federal Bureau
ofInvestigation, who all say they are investigat-
ing the incident, though they would not com-
ment on the specific nature of the inquiries.
Tracking the companies down is not easy.
''The bus companies change their name every
week," says Justin Yu, a reporter with World
Journal, a national Chinese newspaper that cov-
ered the story. Many Chinatown residents and
merchants know of the feud but can't name the
companies. "They are in a big fight, " says an
employee of the Chinese Consolidated Benevo-
lent Association, a network of 60 Chinese organ-
izations, sharing all the information he had.
For now, fighting between companies seems
to have cooled and business is bustling. And
Eastern Travels & Tour, its name stenciled on
the side of Chen's white bus, now travels to
Boston instead of Philadelphia.
-Steven Ehrenberg
CITY LIMITS
===E 0 U C ATI 0 N===
Educating the Schools
WITH A NEW WEB SITE scheduled to launch this fall, the
organization Advocates for Children hopes to help par-
ems of children in public schools teach the Board ofEdu-
cation some urgent lessons.
The site, www.insideschoolsnyc.org, will provide the
first online forum for public feedback to school superin-
tendents, principals and other administrators, on every-
thing from gangs in schools ro loose asbestos, school cur-
riculum to school buses. Parents will be led through the
process of filing a complaint, choosing from among 20
main topics. They will then be informed about any laws
relating to the topic and given a text area to fill in their
concerns.
Next, they have the option of emailing or faxing the
letter ro the appropriate school officials, including prin-
cipals, superintendents and Board of Ed staff. An auto-
mated email to parents follows up with each complaint
two weeks later, inquiring whether the issue has been sat-
isfactorily resolved.
But Advocates for Children does not have the staff to
follow up in person. That's where the project's other fea-
(Ure comes in: the power to amass and track complaint
data allover the city. If there are numerous reports about
a problem at a particular school, or certain problems that
are widespread throughout a district or school system,
project staff will know it.
It remains to be seen what Advocates for Children
will do with the data. At the least, they will post it on
their website and use it to write internal reports and
hold press conferences. "We want to make sure that
individuals get satisfaction, but we're equally excited
that we're able to track issues in the aggregate," says Jill
Chaifetz, the organization's executive director. "We
can't do individual advocacy, but for systemic things,
we can."
Noreen Connell, executive direcror of the reform
group Educational Priorities Panel, says that she antici-
pates the site will bring much-needed clarity to com-
munication between parents and schools. Parents, she
says, need to learn how ro use legal information to get
results, instead of relying on emotional pleas. It's also
rare for parents to document their exchanges with
school administrators.
Advocates for Children is hoping the digital divide
won't get in the way. Although the web site is currently
only in English, the group plans to offer a bilingual edi-
tion. It is also training staff at public libraries, commu-
nity centers and community-based organizations about
the site.
This August, with their kids still on break, a group of
parents was scheduled to go to work in Advocates' office,
banging around the system for bugs.
-Socheata Poeuv
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
FRONTLINES
FIRSTHAND
A Cold Welcome
COMING TO NEW YORK FROM GUYANA was a dream that came through in January 2000.
My wife and daughter came with me.
We arrived at JFK airport around 10 p.m. It was snowing and I had on a T-shirt and jeans
and was braving the cold standing outside the airport awaiting our hosts. Some people
passed by and said, "Young man, get in the airport or put on some clothes." The weather
didn't feel that bad because I was in the land I had dreamed of.
But that night, my dreams were dampened. Our host's apartment was a one-bedroom.
She pays $600 for rent and another $200 for utilities, and only earns $1,000 a month. I real-
ized people here are facing some of the same problems as in my country.
I began job-hunting at places like building contractors, hospitals, nursing homes and
various stores. I got my first job at a nursing home in the food department, where I am still
working. I never did work like this before, except for myself at home, sweeping, mopping and
taking out garbage. Sometimes pride came upon me because of the type of work I had to do.
My dreams about America seemed unrealistic and began to affect me mentally. It got worse
after working and drawing pay for weeks and the money wasn't enough to assist with the basic
needs. We stayed at my mother's and I worried that we would never make it on our own.
Then, my wife left me. We had a big quarrel one night, and the next evening, when I
returned from work, she had already picked up her clothes and our daughter. I told her Amer-
ica really brought out her ingratitude, that she used me: We quarreled over the years in
Guyana and she never packed up and moved out.
Now, my focus is on doing more positive things in my life. I am going to school to get my
GED and after that I would like to go to college. With a GED certificate I would feel much
more confident when I go to apply for a job, and it would give me the opportunity for a bet-
ter living. What I'm earning now is small and I'm struggling.
After all my trials and tribulations, I am feeling beauty. New York has opened my eyes
and mind to life survival. -Orin Abrams
9
FRONT LINES
No Picnic in
the Park
Forget your salon dinners-how
about a picnic? About 150 city parks
workers on welfare hauled their ther-
moses and paper plates to the
doorstep of Mayor Bloomberg's Upper
East Side townhouse in late June to
extend him this invitation. Their din-
ner conversation, they hoped, would
concern the Parks Opportunity Pro-
gram, whi ch gives New Yorkers
reaching their five-year limit on fed-
eral welfare one-year jobs with bene-
fits. Last fall, the Giuliani adminis-
tration froze the program. While the
protesters never di ned with Bloomie,
the mayor did shore up the jobs
efforts: 3,500 workers are being hired
for six-month stints again this year.
==HDUSING
Neverending Stories
IN THE LATEST CHAPTER of a 26-year legal saga
challenging racial discrimination in south
Williamsburg housing projects, the city Hous-
ing Authority and Hispanic and Hasidic advo-
cacy organizations recently reached a settlement
that will toughen monitoring of tenants moving
in and out of the buildings, and require that
more black and Hispanic families move in.
The agreement settles an action brought by
the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, which
first sued the city over housing discrimination
in 1976. In its most recent challenge,
PRLDEF argued that NYCHA's lax monitor-
ing doomed an earlier agreement that was sup-
posed to bring more Latino and black families
into three predominantly Hasidic housing
projects: Bedford Gardens, Jonathan Williams
Plaza and Taylor-Wythe Houses. The city's
lack of oversight amounted to "an informal
policy of replacing Hasidic families with
Hasidic families and maintaining strict racial
quotas," says Marty Needelman, chief counsel
10
for Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A,
who worked on the lawsuits until 1995.
Both NYCHA and PRLDEF confirmed
they'd reached an agreement but would not
comment on the case until federal Judge
Robert Sweet approves their settlement, which
he is expected to do by the end of September.
Under the agreement, NYCHA will offer Sec-
tion 8 housing vouchers to the first 150 Hasidic
families who volunteer to leave their homes in the
three housing developments and look for afford-
able apartments on the open market. The agency
agreed to then rent those empty apartments pri-
marily to Latino and black families from
Williamsburg on the city's long waiting list for
public housing. In addition, the settlement man-
dates that the city notify both PRLDEF and the
United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg-
which has been advocating on behalf of the
Hasidic families in the buildings-each time an
apartment transfer takes place.
Non-white families and advocates have
been battling with NYCHA over their
Williamsburg housing policies for decades.
When PRLDEF first flied suit, the group
alleged that the city was granting preference to
Hasidic applicants for open apartments in the
three buildings. They discovered that, at that
time, the Housing Authority had quotas to fill
between 60 and 75 percent of the apartments
with white tenants. In 1978, a federal judge
ordered the Housing Authority to stop using
quotas, but PRLDEF continued its litigation,
seeking a remedy for previous decades of dis-
crimination. Its first agreement with the city,
reached in 1980, temporarily gave preference
to black and Latino families seeking open
apartments, and moved to uJrimately make the
approval process color-blind.
That did not quite happen, though. Nine
years later, they returned ro court and got the
city ro agree to place non-white families in the
next 190 available apartments. While
NYCHA did fulfill that requirement, the ratio
of Hasidic to Latino families remained the
same, according to Needelman. So in 2000,
PRLDEF returned to court to pursue the lat-
est deal. Needelman is cautiously optimistic
about the outcome: "It's very disappointing
that the city and the Housing Authority did-
n't get the message that discrimination and
favoritism in housing aren't acceptable. And
now? We shall see."
-Matt Pacenza
CITY LIMITS
INSIDE TRACK
Pregnant Pause
Facing abysmal test scores and worse attendance, should five
mom-and-baby schools shape up or shut down? By Charu Gupta
JASMIN LOPEZ IS A POPULAR, feisty redhead, half-
Cuban, half Puerto Rican. She likes her jeans
extra snug, wears her hair up in a cight rabbit-tail
bun and doesn't care if she is late to class. At her
old high school, Park West in Manhattan, she
would go to classes one day, cut the next. Her
sophomore year, she failed most of her classes.
She also became pregnant. By the time she real-
ized what was happening, it was summer vaca-
cion. School was closed. Her boyfriend was his-
tory. And Jasmin was 16 years old.
With the advice of her foster mother, who is
also a social worker, Jasmin opted for a change.
She learned about a special school for pregnant
girls, and two years ago this September-seven
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
months pregnant-she began commuting to
P911 in East Harlem, one of five New York
City public schools under the Alternative Pro-
gram for Pregnant and Parencing Teens.
Also known as a "P-school," P911 is indeed
a different place. Girls between the ages of 14
and 21 carry diaper bags to class and talk about
their "baby-daddy-mamas" (the baby's father's
mother). At breakfast, which is free, Jasmin
asks a very round-stomached girl, "Are you
dilated yet?" The schools boasts small classes
and its counselors and social worker can be
watchful to the point of nagging, giving
impromptu hallway or cafeteria pep talks on
the importance of nutrition, exercise, patience
and attendance. At P911, Jasmin says she has
found camaraderie and attention and is happy
that she wasn't the "only one pregnant."
But Jasmin's progress toward a high school
diploma has been minimal. Jasmin, now 18,
still has at least eight classes to go before she can
graduate. She failed the math Regents test this
year and has failed the English Regents exams
three times. And Jasmin is not alone. Only 24
percent of ninth graders at P911 passed the
English Regents exams last January. Less than 5
percent passed the math tests. And an English
teacher there estimates most students are read-
ing at a third- or fourth-grade level.
Today, 36 years into the only high school
11
12
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program that the Board of Education offers to
address the needs of pregnant and parenting
teens, school officials are wondering if some-
thing has gone terribly wtong. "I would say
that we have concerns at this point about the
level of success that's being achieved," says
Alan Werner, a deputy superintendent of
Alternative Schools, whose office oversees the
P-schools.
Classrooms either lie empty or echo with the
voices of a half-dozen students, who often
spend class time filling out worksheets or writ-
ing in journals. Jasmin's eighth period math
class played Scrabble for a week straight because
the teacher was on juty duty and the school had
not hired a substitute.
After a recent assessment of the P-schools,
the Board of Ed plans to restructure the pro-
gram. At least one of the five schools, Teen Aid
High School in Brooklyn Heights, will not
reopen this fall. The remaining four schools
will change who and what they teach. Accord-
ing to Joan Davis, the manager for the Board
of Ed's high school day care programs, the
schools will share more classes with neighbor-
ing high schools and will allow non-pregnant
junior high school girls as young as 12 to start
attending the program. The schools' curricu-
lum will also be revamped to better reflect the
statewide Regents tests, which are now
required for graduation.
The superintendent's office would not dis-
cuss details of the changes or the reasons behind
them. What is clear, though, is that school offi-
cials are acknowledging that the experiment of
giving pregnant students a place of their own
has faltered. At the same time, no one is yet sure
of a better way to ensure these girls' success.
THE P-SCHOOlS WERE BORN at a time when teen
pregnancy had reached epidemic levels. Board
of Ed officials and a group of concerned teach-
ers created the Alternative Program for Preg-
nant and Parenting Teenagers in 1966, when
one out of every 10 teenage girls in New York
City was pregnant. Designed to provide safe
havens for high school students dealing with
the stresses of parenthood, the program took
pregnant students out of a coed environment
and away from heavier workloads and gave
them a temporary place-for no more than two
school years-to start raising their babies.
Assigned small classes, teachers were expected
to offer students advice on everything from
standard high school curriculum to how to
breasrfeed, read to their babies and cope with
the demands of motherhood at a young age.
The schools never fully realized that poten-
CITY LIMITS
rial, however. Arrendance has always been low.
On a good day, abour 40 percenr of rhe sru-
denrs ar P911 show up, many kepr away by
docrors' appoinrmenrs, orhers by day care
rroubles. (P911 's day care cenrer has only 40
slots, despire enrollmenr of more than 100 stu-
denrs.) Arrempts to cater to all the studenrs'
needs slowly fell victim to mismanagemenr and
neglect. The budget for bilingual and remedial
classes was slashed. After-school programs on
art and African dance were cur last year. But
teachers say the kids' needs for extra help, par-
ticularly in literacy, are stronger than ever. "P-
schools are not meeting these new demands,"
says one Bronx P-school teacher who has been
with the program for more than 20 years and
spoke on condition of anonymity.
But ar one time they did handle srudenrs'
School officials
are acknowledging
that the experiment
of giving pregnant
students a place
of their own
has faltered.
needs more effectively, say other educators who
have long been involved with the program.
'They did a berrer job with the kids in the early
days because they understood the focus berrer,"
says the principal of a Bronx high school who, in
1982, was parr of the Citywide Taskforce on
Pregnant and Parenring Teens that ushered day
care inro city high schools. (Fearing repercus-
sions from the Board of Ed, she requested that
her name nor be used.) More serious Iireracy
problems, she adds, have surfaced in recenr years.
While thar task force has historically focused
more on its broader mission of reducing adoles-
cent pregnancies, the group of 100 social welue
agencies, educators, policymakers and advocares
has begun brainstorming for solutions to the P-
schools' problems. Earlier this year, abour 20
members of the group met to identify services
pregnant teens need most at the P-schools, honing
in on literacy intervention and emotional support.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
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13
INSIDE TRACK
"We're concerned with the lack of services these
kids are provided with," says Marilyn Mosley, the
task force's director. Since 1987, Board of Ed reg-
ulations have required mainstream high schools to
designate a staff liaison for every pregnant girl.
This has never happened, Mosley says: "There's
nothing in place by the Board of Education that
picks up the pieces after a child leaves school
because they are pregnant. " Her group plans to
present recommendations to the Bloomberg
administration this fall.
THE NEW YORK CIVil LIBERTIES UNION is glad to
see more people stepping into the debate. For
the last decade, the civil rights group has
vocally opposed the existence of P-schools,
fighting to keep pregnant teens in their regular
high schools, one case at a time. "We want
equality in their education and their Regents
testing and getting their high school diploma,"
says Rebekah Diller, director of the NYCLU's
Reproductive Rights Project. "Our problem
with the P-schools," she says, is that "they've
become a dumping ground and an excuse for
shunting aside academics. "
In a 2000 survey of 28 high school admis-
sions offices, the NYCLU found a pervasive
lack of understanding of state and federal equal
educational opportunities laws. By law, any
Commitment is
alternative program is voluntary-a pregnant
student has the right to stay in the school of her
choice. "Too many times, P-schools are offered
as the only choice once a girl becomes preg-
nant, " says Diller.
And with the rise of high stakes testing and
more rigorous high school graduation require-
ments in New York City over the last few
years, Diller says the situation has worsened as
some principals try to rid their schools of stu-
dents who might bring down their schools'
overall performance. Danyel Thomas, for one,
was by no means at the top of her class at her
old high school in northern Manhattan, but
she says she was making decent grades. When
she became pregnant as a junior, Danyel says
her guidance counselors told her the school
didn't have the proper insurance to keep her.
They suggested Danyel look into P911
instead. "I didn't have to go to P911," says
Danyel almost 18 months later. "I could have
stayed in my school and I would've been out
already and I would have probably been in
college by now." Danyel finally got her high
school diploma this January, at age 19, while
still at P911. She started attending a
Manhattan business-training program a few
weeks later.
"In the name of accountability and high-
stakes testing," says the principal and former
task force member, "we have made it very diffi-
cult for these kids to finish high school."
And many of the students haven't made it
through schoo!. They have left the P-schools,
or been asked to leave. Last year, there were
802 students in the program-346 fewer than
two years ago. This is pardy due to declining
rates in teen pregnancy. But many students
dropped out or transferred to GED programs
for a faster track to graduation. Of the 243
students on P911 's roster two years ago, 33
left for high school equivalency programs.
Three attended evening school to earn gradu-
ation credits, and 28 students transferred back
to a mainstream high school. Citywide, near-
ly 400 P-school students either dropped out
or were kicked out for missing more than two
weeks of classes.
The introduction of child care in high
schools, though significant, has not been
enough. As oflast December, 44 of the city's 213
high schools had day care centers to handle a
total of 680 babies. According to the New York
State Department of Health, there are about
11,000 teen mothers in the five boroughs.
With the Board of Ed now directly under
the jurisdiction of Mayor Bloomberg since July,
the NYCLU met with representatives from
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14
CITY LIMITS
Ciry Hall. "They were concerned and we're
hopefUl they will take proactive steps," says
Diller. "Our whole approach is that you have to
do things in the regular and P-schools at the
same time. "
While eager to place Jasmin in a smaller
school where she would get more attemion,
Alita and Ray Camacho, Jasmin's foster par-
ems, say the school was not all they had hoped
it would be. "I don't see her in the books," says
Ray. "The book bag stays in the car." Jasmin
plans to leave P911 in September and finish
her senior year at West Side High School
in Manhattan.
Despite promises of equipping girls with job
skills, vocational training is limited at the P-
schools. Jasmin's job training consisted of one
class period in the school's main office faxing,
filing, answering phones, sorting the mail and
running errands. Until last year, the school
brought in professional women working in
business, social work and education for a Sat-
urday mentoring program, but a lack of inter-
est and money shut it down.
Board of Ed Administrator Joan Davis
argues that flawed as they are, the P-schools
remain necessary. "For those kids who have
already dropped out, those with psychological,
emotional problems," she says, "they need this
as a transition." According to the Child Trends,
a research group, 50 percent of girls become
pregnant within a few years of dropping out of
Jasmin's eighth
grade math class
played Scrabble for
a week straight
while their teacher
was on jury duty_
school. If nothing else, says Davis, the schools
can try to catch those who might otherwise
have more babies while they're still teenagers.
But Davis also hints at disillusionment. "The
five schools are enough," she says. "There's no
INSIDETRA CK
more need for segregated high schools for preg-
nant girls." Instead, the need, said Davis, is for
more accessible day care in mainstream high
schools.
Althea Gibson Treadwell is fighting to keep
the P-schools alive and is optimistic she can turn
them around. The principal of all five P-schools
since last September, Treadwell says the push to
be more in line with the state education stan-
dards "has made us more accountable for the
coment of our classes. It has also given us the
opportuniry to make sure our girls are comply-
ing, so when they go back to their regular school,
time here isn't wasted time." The former assis-
tant principal for special education at Theodore
Roosevelt High School in the Bronx, Treadwell
hopes to bring back home schooling and voca-
tional programs to the P-schools.
But not everyone shares her rosy view.
Instead, they fear a future in which, without a
investment of public resources, there will be no
alternatives. "I don't think the P-schools are the
answer," says the Bronx principal who served
on the task force. "The danger is, if you don't
have the P-schools, you have nothing."
Charu Gupta is a Manhattan-based freelance
writer.
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These Derns Want
We Want to
What Andrew Cuomo's
HUD history tells the city
For a malt with the political ambitions of Andrew Cuomo.
his four years as HUD secretary (after fOllr Inore as assistant
in chwge of commllnity planning and development) might
have seemed like alt ideal opportun.ity. TV appearances, rib-
bon cuttings, reams of literally concrete accomplishments-the
young aspirant lVith little more than a name and a nOllproJi-t
accllmulated all the makings of electoral success.
He also happened to have walked into one of the most
thankless jobs in the president 50 cabinet. When he took over in
1997, Cilomo inherited an agency that Republicans in Con-
gress had vowed to abolish. It was all easy twget-
bureaucratic, cripppled antiquated in/ormation sj'stems
and often entangled in messy lotall/.rban politics.
Despite eIWI)t hing-inclilding a controversial downsizing of
agenc)" staf/under his watch-Cuomo left his mark. He helped
revamp subsidy programs so thatl-IUD-sponsored apartments
stayed affordable, alld pushed for expanding
homeownership. Vet sometimes it lVas hard to k/lOW who he
was working fO/: [n Ime Clintonian fashioll, CUO/l1O :S- llUD
sought to /fIWI)' constituencies, and the putative be/leJi--
ciaries offederal hOllsing and development programs did not
alwa)"s feel like they came first.
As the stories below detail, Cuomo 's I-IUD loosened over-
sight of home lenders, pressed for greater flexibilit)" for cities
spending federal dollars and pushed private redevelopment of
former public hOllsing sites. Those moves and others brought
powedLtI pllblic- alld pril'Clte-sector players to the support of
HUD alld its projects-and Lo CUOIllO won-
dering {{Ihat his priorities might be as governor of Ne/IJ Vork
1V0uld do ll'ellto ask what they were when official job
description was savior of cities.
Did Cleaning House
Clean Out Homeowners?
D
uring the late 1990s, a wave of individual cata-
strophes swept through urban, minority neigh-
borhoods. Homeowners from Ozone Park ro
Philadelphia to Atlanta watched their dreams collapse,
as their mortgage payments skyrocketed beyond their
means. Most had taken out their first mortgages thanks
to the Federal Housing Administration, a HUD divi-
sion that promotes homeownership by protecting
lenders in the event that a borrower can't pay back.
cOl/lil/l/ ed 01/ page IS
CITY LIMITS
to Run New York.
Know More.
Dov Tale: How Carl McCall
helped bail out a political ally
By Jesse Goldstein and Theodore Ross
Ai
er Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. announced his support of
gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo in early May, Cuomo's
pponent, State Comptroller H. Carl McCall, called on his good
friend, Assemblymember Dov Hikind, to denounce the endorsement.
Hikind was perfectly happy to do so: Jackson, after all, had voted against
a House resolution calling for total solidarity between the u.S. and
Israel, a measure Hikind staunchly supported. He was also glad to help
McCall, whom he had endorsed in the 1998 State Comptroller race.
Now, Hikind is backing McCall in the upcoming Democratic guberna-
torial race--carrying with him the influence of more than 10,000
Orthodox Jewish votes in and around the 48th Assembly District.
Also at McCall's request, Hikind had accompanied the state
comptroller to Israel this past March. The trip, which is best known
for a photo op of McCall firing a rifle in the West Bank, garnered crit-
icism from not only Cuomo's supporters but also some of McCall's,
who questioned the comptroller's decision to visit Israeli settlements.
But McCall was merely answering Hikind's demand that he "do
something meaningful" in response to the Mideast crisis.
It's not the first time that McCall has done Hikind a favor. After
Hikind's July 1998 acquittal of federal corruption charges in connec-
tion with the Jewish social service organization Council ofJewish Orga-
nizations (COJO) of Borough Park-and a congratulatory phone call
from McCall two days later-McCall's office paid Hikind $420,000 to
cover his legal expenses. The payment, approved by Carl McCall and
former State Attorney General Dennis Vacco, was made in February
1999 under a little-known secrion of New York's Public Officers Law
that provides for the payment of "reasonable legal fees" to state employ-
ees accused and then acquitted of crimes related to their job. Over the
past five years, not counting Hikind, there have been 30 instances
in which New York State employees were reimbursed
for legal expenses under the Public Officers Law. The
total amount of reimbursements made to the 30
state employees as of May 2001 equaled $262,789,
just slightly more than half of the sum paid to
Hikind by McCall's office.
The only problem is that Hikind should have
never received the payment. The Public Officers
Law requires that state employees provide "the orig-
inal or a copy of an accusatory instrument within
ten days" of arraignment. Hikind was indicted on
August 7, 1997 and did not submit any paperwork
until July 21, 1998. He missed the 10-day applica-
tion period for reimbursement by nearly a year.
Hikind's attorney, wannabe Borough Park City
cOlllilllled 011 page 19
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
17
Andrew Cuomo continlledji'olll page 16
The last decade has seen a massive increase in mortgage defaults
among FHA borrowers. In 1992,6.9 percent of borrowers fell more than
90 days behind on their payments. By early 2002, the rate had climbed
to 11.2 percent.
Andrew Cuomo played a critical role in developing federal housing
policies closely tied to the foreclosure explosion. He downsized HUD's
staff just as auditors warned that the agency's oversight was skimpy. And
he loosened some lending regulations, even as the evidence mounted
that lenders themselves were knowingly selling loans that were guaran-
teed to bankrupt borrowers.
Clearly, no one public official or agency bears responsibility for the sharp
expansion of predatoty lending, the unseemly practice of selling high-cost
loans-and employing misleading sales tactics and hidden fees-to low-
income borrowers. Sweeping changes in the mortgage industry, growing
interest from Wall Street and advances
in technology played critical roles.
Even so, the HUD secretary's role in
combating FHA foreclosures and preda-
tory lending demands close scrutiny. As
highway workers and retired teachers
lost their homes to slimy salespeople
and an indifferent bureaucracy, where
was Andrew Cuomo?
O
ne of Cuomo's first acts as sec-
retary was an aggressive effort
to continue the downsizing
that had begun under his predecessor,
Henry Cisneros. He announced a
massive reorganization of the agency
and further job cuts, with the goal of
shrinking the workforce by nearly 30
percent more. FHA bore the brunt of
the shrinkage; staff dropped from
5,100 workers to roughly 3,200.
Even before those cuts, an indepen-
dent audit from the accounting giant
KPMG had warned HUD in 1997
that FHA staffing was inadequate to
prevent mortgage defaults. The reductions were also put in place just as
HUD was pushing an expansion of FHA lending, in part by raising the
cap on loans that could be insured from $86,000 to $208,800, to meet
President Clinton's goal of increasing homeownership among poor and
minority Americans. That expansion was successful: Between 1997 and
1999, total FHA lending grew by 63 percent. But it came at a price.
Estimating the actual value of a property is a crucial safeguard in
home lending. But following a congressional mandate, in 1994 HUD
changed the appraisal process, from randomly assigning an appraiser to
allowing a lender to pick its own. The industry had convinced Congress
that the randomized process was too slow and was bad for business.
It may have been, but in this case, Congress' cure has been worse than
the disease. In cities where recent FHA scandals have rocked neighbor-
hoods-like the 203(k) mess that has led to nearly 600 abandoned build-
ings in New York City-at the heart of the problem were appraisers acting
in collusion with unethical lenders. Typically, they overstated the value of
18
property, saddling borrowers with unaffordable loans and decrepit homes.
Though Congress tied HUD's hands, there was still wiggle room for ini-
tiatives to regulate appraisers and assist borrowers. But Secretary Cuomo
failed to institute a key reform that could have protected homebuyers,
charges William Sentner, president of the American Guild of Appraisers. In
June 1999, HUD proposed that all FHA mortgage lenders give potential
homebuyers a copy of the full appraisal 15 days before closing. A few months
later, the fmal rule was published, and it required that lenders give borrow-
ers only a summary of the appraisal, just five days before closing. "The Mort-
gage Bankers Association of America and the National Association of Real-
tors had gotten a hold of Cuomo," concludes Sentner. "They made sure con-
sumers had no time to ask questions. They didn't want scrutiny."
"Five days seemed more than adequate," protests former FHA Commis-
sioner William Apgar, now a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard. He says HUD under Cuomo did its best to rein in fraudulent
appraisers, but that ultimately the agency was handcuffed by the mandate to
have lenders select their own appraisers,
which he compared to "sending a rabbit
out to deliver the lettuce."
At the least, HUD could have
watched those appraisers more closely,
according to a 1999 report from Con-
gress' investigative wing, the General
Accounting Office. It stated flatly that
"HUD is not doing a good job of mon-
itoring the performance of appraisers,"
particularly because the agency didn't
adequately double-check their esti-
mates. And even when it did, the GAO
reported, appraisers with poor records
were rarely penalized. In 1998, HUD
discovered that 246 appraisers in
Philadelphia and Denver had each sub-
mitted at least two bad appraisals, "but
only 11 of the appraisers were prohibit-
ed from doing subsequent FHA
appraisals," the GAO noted.
As the number of FHA foreclo-
sures rose steeply at the end of the
1990s, homeowners and activists
fought hard to get pol icy makers'
attention. At first, those efforts fell on deaf ears. One upstate New York
activist, who asked not to be named, remembers back to 1997 and 1998,
when she and others pleaded with HUD and FHA to take predatory
lending seriously. "They didn't want to use the word 'predatory' at all,
even with clearly fraudulent lending practices going on," she remembers.
When Cuomo finally did act-beginning in late 1999-he moved
forcefully. Even typically cynical activists say they were impressed by the
strong legislative actions recommended by a national predatory lending
task force that Cuomo and several Democratic senators convened in April
2000. Cuomo announced an ambitious plan that May to fight FHA fraud,
including a temporary moratorium on foreclosures in key "hot wnes"
where FHA delinquency rates were high, and a pledge to punish corrupt
lenders and appraisers. Most notably for victimized homeowners, Cuomo
pledged that his staff would re-do fraudulent mortgages in the hot wnes,
so that bad loans didn't result in foreclosures.
While hopes were high that May, the last two years have seen only dis-
continued 011 page 20
CITY LIMITS
Carl Me C all continued from page 17
Council member Robert Miller, argued that his client couldn't have filed ear-
lier because the wording of the indictment did not clearly indicate that
Hikind was charged with crimes related to his role as a public official. Yet the
indictment states, "Hikind ... [used] his position with the New York State
Assembly to obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funding for the
cOJO entities." It further alleges that Hikind "devised and participated in a
scheme to defraud the people of the State of New York." Paul Chernick, for-
mer director of the now defunct CO J 0 of Borough Park, pleaded guilty to
misappropriating state funds and attempting to bribe Hikind. Hikind's
lawyer argued that he accepted the money without "corrupt intent."
Donald Berens, the deputy Attorney General who oversaw the case,
says he cannot recall why Hikind's reimbursement was approved: "I
remember the names of Dov Hikind and COJO. I do not remember
much beyond that. "
While the AG's office decides
whether or not an applicant qualifies
for reimbursement, it's the comptroller's
office that determines the "reasonable-
ness of the legal fees and expenses." In
an inter-office memo dated December
1, 1998, State Comptroller assistant
counsel Harvey Silverstein commented,
"The top hourly rates before discount
and the total billed, even after discount,
are historically high." In February 1999
Silverstein reiterated, "[O]ur office was
still concerned that the fee seemed
high" and "that some of the legal fees
needed fUrther justification." Silverstein
calculated that the Hikind reimburse-
ment should equal $393,629.25, for a
compiled 3,332.21 hours worked by
Hikind's six attorneys. Silverstein's rec-
ommendation was discarded.
McCall's office approved reimburse-
ment with just $61,000 deducted from
the $481,000 requested by Hikind.
What did Hikind do with the
money? The comptroller's office says
it's not its business. Asked if she knew what happened with the reim-
bursement, spokesperson Theresa Bourgeois responded, "No, we don't.
We made the payment." She further commented that McCall himself
had no awareness of, nor involvement in, the Hikind reimbursement.
Hikind's defense team, from the law firm Newman, Schwartz &
Greenberg, had already been compensated for its work by December 1,
1998. The reimbursement therefore went to two Hikind-associated
funds. Trust For Fair Justice, the legal defense fund that helped raise
money for Hikind's court case-it appears to have worked on no other
cases-received $332,000 from McCall's office. Friends of Dov Hikind,
Hikind's campaign fundraising organization, received $88,000.
Like COJO funds, which Hikind was accused of using to pay for his
children's schools and his nephew's wedding caterer, along with trips to
Israel and France, the comptroller's reimbursement has been kind to
Hikind's family. The ultra-conservative Jerusalem Reclamation Project, for
which Hikind's wife, Shani, serves as executive director, has received
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
$5,250 in donations from Friends of Dov Hikind since the reimburse-
ment. Jerusalem Reclamation Project's mission is to create a Jewish-only
Jerusalem by buying out Arab owned property in the city's eastern section.
Shortly after reimbursement, Friends of Dov Hikind paid his daugh-
ter Deena $1,100 and his son Yoni $675. It also spent $14,561 on car
payments, $9,110 on insurance payments, and $8,553 in American
Express fees. (Friends of Dov Hikind failed to return phone calls from
City Limits inquiring about the purpose of these expenditures.) Benson-
hurst COJO received $500 and employees in Hikind's Assembly office
have received a combined total bonus of $1,100. But the biggest recipi-
ent of the comptroller's largesse was Wolf Sender, a former Giuliani assis-
tant commissioner in the Division of Youth and Community Develop-
ment who testified on Hikind's behalf during the assemblymember's trial.
Since February 2000, about a year after Hikind's reimbursement, Sender
began receiving payments from Friends of Dov Hikind, for a total of
$5,950, according to the most recent Board of Elections reports. Friends
has spent more money on consulting
fees for Sender than for any other indi-
vidual since Hikind's reimbursement
was issued in February 1999.
After Sender lost his $67,000-a-
year position under Giuliani that
same month, he remained largely
unemployed until McCall gave him a
$70,746-a-year assistant public infor-
mation position on the comptroller's
staff. Hikind recommended Sender to
McCall's office.
Following Hikind's acquittal,
Sender claimed that Giuliani officials
had urged him to testify against
Hikind. When Sender lost his city
position in February 1999, Hikind
supported Sender's contention that he
had been fired because he failed to
provide incriminating testimony dur-
ing Hikind's trial.
Sender is not the first Hikind ally to
receive a patronage job with McCall.
After Hikind supported McCall's 1998
campaign, his former chief of staff, Jeff
Reznik, received a $59,232-a-year position in the comptroller's office.
The McCall-Hikind friendship has endured since then. He paid his
condolences and sat shiva with Hikind and his mother afrer Dov's father
passed away in April 2000. At Hikind's behest he gave at least $1,200 to
a West Bank fundraising group, the One Israel Fund, and paid $3,000
to attend a March 1999 fundraiser for Hikind's failed Brooklyn Borough
President run. He also attended the opening of Hikind's United New
York Democratic Club in Borough Park and, last May, spent $2,500 to
attend a Hikind fundraiser at a private Brooklyn residence.
Come primary time, Hikind will most likely use what Speaker Shel-
don Silver has coined his "pit-bull" political instincts to gather a large
Jewish bloc vore in support of Carl McCall. Given their close history,
this should come as no surprise .
Jesse Goldstein is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer. Theodore Ross is a free-
lance writer in Los Angeles.
19
Andrew Cuomo COII/;lIuedjrolll page 18
appointment. The agency created narrow eligibility requirements for
relief-the loans had to be less than two years old, and had to be more than
30 percent overvalued-that eliminated many homeowners who were seek-
ing help. The process dragged on; not until this past April clid HUD's actu-
al remecliation offers come through. They were grossly inadequate, says
Rick Wagner, director of litigation fot Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation
A, who recently fIled a pair oflawsuits against mortgage lenders and HUD
on behalf of homeowners who received no compensation. "The fact is that
HUD has treated them as if what happened is their fault, " says Wagner. "It
was simply a sound bite, a press conference,
an illusory solution to a very real problem
designed to reflect on Cuomo well politically,
but not to remecliate in any powerful way. "
Others say Cuomo is not to blame. Ken
Strong, clirector of research and policy at the
Community Law Office in Baltimore, where
nearly a thousand homebuyers bought over-
valued properties that had been "fupped" by
corrupt realtors and lenders, thinks that
Cuomo's good intentions were dashed when
Democrats lost the White House: "It was my
impression that time ran out before they had
a chance," says Strong. Apgar agrees: "My
sense is if we had stayed there past November
[2000], we would have gonen the job done."
There's no debate that Andrew Cuomo's
response to the FHA lending crisis was
inadequate. Two years after he announced
he would not "rest until we know that not
one FHA borrower falls prey to these prac-
tices," the number of foreclosures continues
to rise. We're left only with the question of
why the measures to fIx it failed: Were they
too little, or too late?
Bruce Marks, CEO of the Neighborhood
Assistance Corporation of America, a non-
profIt that makes loans to low-income bor-
rowers, picks the former. "It was a lot of smoke
and no rue," says Marks of HUD's efforts to
fIght fraud. "Our experience with Andrew
Cuomo was that ultimately he was not will.ing
to go to war against abusive practices in the
mortgage industry."- Cily Limils editors
Did new flexibility preserve
anti -poverty dollars----or give cities
loose cash?
L
ong a visible champion for the impoverished, Andrew Cuomo kept
himself in the headlines during his eight-year stint at the HUD. He
chastised New York City for its homeless policy (eventually taking
over administration of its federal funds), threatened to sue gun manufac-
20
turers on behalf of the poor and brought television cameras into the
nation's most blighted areas.
But some housing advocates who worked with Cuomo say he had
another side as well, one that clid not always further the interest of the most
clisenftanchised. They point, in particular, to a series of decisions Cuomo
made following pressure from big city mayors, governors and redevelop-
ment officials. The officials wanted to loosen the mandates attached to
Community Development Block Grants (CDBG)-a $4.4 billion-a-year
program targeted primarily at low- and moderate-income communities-
so the grants could be used to fund more general projects, like repaving
roads and redeveloping commercial clistricts.
"We were yelling from the sidelines," says
one low-income housing advocate who
unsuccessfully fought the changes in the
mid-1990s. "We clidn't have the political
juices. " The CDBG decisions left many in
the public interest community feeling luke-
warm or clisappointed in Cuomo, as if the
opportunity presented by a Democratic
administration had been missed. "Cuomo
always listened to a conversation with two
ears," said Cushing Dolbeare, the founder of
the National Low Income Housing Coali-
tion. "One was on the substance; one was on
the poli tics. "
When Cuomo arrived at HUD in 1993,
the political muscle, both in Congress and in
the halls of HUD, wanted decreased regula-
tion for local governments that rely on the
money. At an August meeting, Cuomo, then
IIIIIIIF:L an assistant secretary, announced a total
reworking of the planning process, combining
CDBG applications with three other pro-
grams into something he called the "Consoli-
dated Plan. " The change unclid language that
encouraged local officials to spend their
money on their neecliest residents, says Ed
Gramlich, an advocate who objected to
Cuomo's plans at the meeting. "They tossed
everything out," says Gramlich, a senior
researcher at the Center for Community
Change. "There were no more instructions,
and they said we are just going to start with a
clean slate."
Howard Glaser, who was Cuomo's
deputy assistant from 1994 to 1996, says that HUD had a very good rea-
son for the change: to save funcling for CDBG in the face of attacks from
a hostile Congress. ''Andrew's approach on the whole at HUD was always
to take away arguments that the Republicans had, [in order] to save the
programs," says Glaser. "Had Andrew Cuomo not taken action to make
these programs work better, Congress without a doubt would have taken
the money ftom these programs." The problem with CDBG, he says, was
that local officials were failing to spend all the money they received.
Glaser blames onerous regulatory requirements, which called for localities
to report such data as the income levels for benefIciaries of jobs programs.
At the time of the regulatory changes, local governments were already
abusing the system. A 1993 audit by the HUD Inspector General, Susan
COllliltlled 011 page 4-+
CITY LIMITS
Political
Consciousness
This fall, Liz Krueger faces a bitter battle to hold
on to her East Side State Senate seat. Her seven
months as an idealist in the depths of Albanyforce
the question: Why would anyone want her job?
By Alyssa Katz
ALBANY-At 9:30 a.m. on a Tuesday, the Alco-
holism and Drug Abuse corruninee of the New
York State Senate is wasting no time in anending
[0 public business. On the agenda this May
morning are nominations for new members of
the Advisory Council [0 the Scate Office of Alco-
hol and Subsrance Abuse Services, which funds
and oversees drug treacmem programs. Senacor
Pedro Espada, Jr. of the Bronx has recently caken
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
over as chair of the comminee, a reward for
switching his allegiance earlier this year from the
Democratic Pacey co join the Senate's Republican
majoriry. He cakes pains noc [0 make eye comacr
with the handfUl of Democracs in the room.
Liz Krueger, the newest Democrat in the
Republican-comrolled State Senate, is one of
them. At the comminee table, she riffles through
a scack of papers, searching in vain for any back-
ground information on the nominees. None of
the other Democracs seems [0 have gotten
advance notice of the candidates, either. Her col-
league Dan Hevesi of Queens asks Espada [0
delay the vote until they can find out more about
the nominees' qualifications. But Espada, dis-
playing a Bushian air of bewilderment as he leans
over [0 receive an earful of advice from a com-
minee staffer, responds firmly. "We have co move
the nomination. We've been [Old this is a neces-
sary thing to do," he lectures them. "The con-
cerns are duly noted. The nominees are passed
out of corruninee."
Krueger is no more successful in seeking
discussion of a bill that would establish a local
review process for new substance abuse treat-
ment houses, giving mayors and neighbors
influence [0 relocate or even block the facilities.
"You might have communities that don't want
halfway houses," Krueger tells the comminee.
"That doesn't indicate a need for extensive reg-
ulation." Unswayed, Espada calls a vote; the
bill passes, as it already has the Assembly.
Krueger is a legislacor with virtually no
power. She can introduce bills, but they will
never get out of comminee unless she ghost-
writes one for a Republican. If she calls a hear-
ing, she shouldn't expect anyone outside her
parry [0 show up. Likewise, if she wants to
attend a hearing called by a Republican, she has
21
to sit in the audience, just because they say so.
Committee meetings are so brief they are
often over before she gets to them, and Krueger
is not a tardy person (even if she still sometimes
gets lost in the labyrinths of the capitol build-
ing). One meeting that rarely lets out early,
though, is the Agriculture Committee's, which
has the power to influence hunger-related fund-
ing and policy-an area of great interest to
Krueger, who spent 20 years as an advocate for
low-income people before taking office. There,
committee members can expect a feast with
hostess Lorraine Hoffmann (R-Syracuse), sup-
plied by the food producers of New York State.
In April, the menu featured ostrich kebabs,
farmed by a lone entrepreneur. The birds, and
the farmer's need to expand his markets,
were the only item on the agenda. He had
measure, the Republican majority blocked it
the easiest way they could. They walked out.
IS THIS WHAT LIZ KRUEGER spent twO
years and at least $1.5 million to do for a living?
As State Senator for the Upper East Side,
she's now running for the third time in 24
months for one of the least powerful elected
offices in the state, against an opponent who
promises to be well-financed and formidable.
Even if she holds onto her seat, Krueger's
involuntary paralysis as a Democratic senator is
in striking contrast with where she's been until
now. Before winning the job in a hard-fought
special election this past winter, Krueger was
known as a notably effective advocate for the
"Each session seems to
be worse than the
three men, currently Governor George Pataki,
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate
Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, make all the
decisions, putting Albany into perpetual grid-
lock. They also privately decide how to spend
the vast bulk of the $90 billion state budget.
In theory, this should all work out just fine
for New York City. After all, the Democrats
have the state Assembly all to themselves, with
their own committees and dollars and agendas.
But in New York State, where Democratic vot-
ers outnumber Republicans by about 2 million,
the current order gives the Republican party
and its upstate base disproportionate influence
over state spending and legislative priorities.
The stuff Krueger cares about-ensuring ade-
quate resources for the poor, promoting
public health care, constructing afford-
able housing--couldn't be further off
their agenda.
This year, rank-and-file members had
every reason to expect some help: In the
past year, the committee has sought to
add three cents in taxes to the price of eggs
to create a marketing program for the
product, and, in a measure that became
law, granted tax exemptions to livestock
breeders and horse boarders. Krueger tried
and failed to raise other business that day:
"I was taking away time from the urgent
business of the people," she recalls with
well-flexed sarcasm.
Life as an idealist in Albany is a little
bit like being a human on Mars, a planet
Krueger says bears some resemblance to
her new workplace. When she speaks up
among her colleagues to address a chair in
committee, she says, "Some of them look
like, 'You're crazy-why are you bother-
ing them?'"
preceding-less productive,
more frustrating, " says
former State Senator Franz
Leichter. "It's worse than
embarrassing, and after a
while you don't want to be
tainted to be part of
about two hours to review the budget,
hundreds of pages long, before voting on
it. They themselves have a say on only a
small fraction, about $100 million a year
in each house, handed to them as "mem-
ber items" to spend on favored district
projects and to shore up political support.
"All of a sudden, I'm Santa Claus? With
your taxpayer dollars?" Krueger jokes, and
it sounds like self-righteousness-except
that, of course, she's right.
But Krueger needn't worry about
spending too much of our money. In the
Senate, Republicans get up to 10 times as
much apiece to spend on member items
as Democrats, according to staff esti-
mates, as well as budgets for more staff,
with higher salaries. (The reverse is true
in the Assembly.)
But no incident this year captured the
frustrations of Senate Democrats more
the system. "
than their attempt this May to introduce
campaign fmance reform legislation, comple-
menting a bill in the Assembly. Under new
majority-written rules, each party conference
can only bring three bills directly to the floor
each year without going through Republican-
controlled committees, using a procedure called
a "motion to discharge." Only the bill's sponsor
can speak, and then just for five minutes. And
when a vote is taken on the motion, any sena-
tor who is not in the room but has checked in
earlier that day is on record as voting "no. " (For
all other votes, the opposite is true, which is
why the chambers are usually half-empty dur-
ing session.)
So when it came time for minority leader
Martin Connor to make his five-minute case
for an immediate vote on the campaign finance
22
poor. She used her skills as a proselytizer, coali-
tion-builder and dealmaker to create models for
setvices, including anti-eviction programs, food
stamp education programs, and the city's first
food bank. She got things done.
In Albany, Krueger now opens her door for
progressive advocates like herself. She routinely
calls her former colleagues at the Community
Food Resource Center and other organizations
for advice and ideas, and Tuesday afternoons
bring to her office a passel of lobbyists and
well-wishers from New York City's social ser-
vice, housing and health care agencies.
But even ifher party were in the majority, she
wouldn't be able to help them much. If voters in
New York City know one thing about how busi-
ness gets done in Albany-a big if-it's that
Pedro Espada is now suing the Bronx Demo-
cratic Patty in an effort to remain on the Demo-
cratic ballot this fall despite his switch in alle-
giance to the Republicans. He was only doing
what he had to do, Espada swore to the court, to
make sure that his impoverished district got more
of the state dollars that it so urgently needs. As
reported by the New York Times, tucked neatly
into the 2003 budget was $745,000 in grants for
the Bronx health clinics where he setves as exec-
utive director.
FOR KRUEGER, the daily trials of life in the
legislature are made tolerable by an admittedly
utopian and to most ears ludicrous prospect:
that New York's state legislature could be a dif-
ferent kind of place, where members wouldn't
CITY LIMITS
have to stop being politicians, but could start
being effective public servants.
Good government advocates are convinced
that New York's state legislature is the least
democratic and most partisan in the country.
"Each session seems to be worse than the pre-
ceding-less productive, more frustrating, " says
former Manhattan Senator Franz Leichter, who
retired in 1998 after 30 years and now sirs on
the Federal Housing Finance Board in Wash-
ington. "It's worse than embarrassing, and after
a while you don't want to be tainted to be part
of the system." The session that ended in June
was notably unproductive for an election year,
without progress on Rockefeller drug law
reform, a minimum wage increase, brownfields
cleanup rules or predatory priests. Governor
Pataki and the majorities in each house
are absolutely confident of their reelec-
tion, and they see no reason to mess with
that.
Parry discipline is enforced by a
gauntlet of majority-written rules in each
house, and the ability of both parties'
leadership to withhold funds from mem-
bers who step out of line. The neat divi-
sion of power between Assembly
Democrars and Senate Republicans is
also reinforced from without by unions
and other big-dollar campaign contribu-
tors rewarding their benefactors. The
minority leader in the Senate, 25-year
veteran Martin Connor, is supportive of
liberal members but not particularly
inclined to rock the boat. In May, Con-
nor shocked fellow party members
when, at the groundbreaking for the
Brooklyn Bridge State Park, he said that
candidate Pataki had done more "things
for the people of Brooklyn than I've seen
of any other governor."
But leadership's iron control is also an invit-
ing target for subversion. Wimess the so-called
Bragman coup two years ago, when a sizeable
faction of Democrars led by a Syracuse assem-
blymember attempted, unsuccessfully and with
painfUl repercussions, to depose Silver from the
Speaker's seat, complaining that they had little
active role in lawmaking.
Around that same time, the balance of power
in the Senate also appeared vulnerable. In 1999
and 2000, Democrars Eric Schneiderman and
Tom Duane, along with Rochester's Rick
Dollinger and Albany's Neil Breslin, decided to
shake things up. They aggressively used the
motion to discharge to compel the Senate to
debate and even pass bills on gay civil righrs,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
abortion clinic access and other issues Assembly
Democrars were also pushing. At the same time,
the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee,
headed by Schneiderman, went on the offensive
for the upcoming elections. The Republicans
held the majority by only six sears out of 61, and
the presidential race promised to bring Gore
voters to the polls in force. Even if Democrars
couldn't take them all, the threat of losing some
sears might be enough to force Republicans to
reckon with the Democratic legislative agenda.
Krueger was the star recruit for the Democ-
rats' cause. Even though she lost to Republican
Roy Goodman in a squeaker that took longer
to resolve than Bush v. Gore, Krueger was the
story of the 2000 Senate race: a liberal, wealthy,
charismatic and competent Upper East Sider
the minority," says Barbara Bartoletti, legislative
director for the League of Women Voters. "This
was a vendetta against a group of people."
That backlash against the upstart Democrats
is now defining the Senate elections this fall,
and Krueger is being shown no mercy. She's fac-
ing a challenge from Andrew Eristoff, an East
Side Republican who left the City Council in
1999 to serve as finance chief for the Giuliani
administration. As of mid-July, Eristoff had
raised about $400,000-including $167,000
from his own family-and spent nearly as
much, mostly on mailings, ads and consultants.
Krueger had raised just under $81,000. That's
not her only new hurdle: During redistricting
this spring, Bruno redrew her district to excise
Peter Cooper Village, Stuyvesant Town and
Waterside Plaza, the areas where Krueger
ran most strongly in the previous races.
Last year Senate
leadership locked down
the chamber, forcing
senators to get permission
to go to the bathroom.
"This was a vendetta,"
says one veteran lobbyist.
Meanwhile, redistricting has also put
Schneiderman on the defensive-and
pushed Dollinger into retirement. In early
July, Dollinger, a 10-year veteran of the
Senate and a dogged advocate for improved
health care and legislative reform, decided
to leave the Senate rather than take a pri-
mary challenge from Joe Robach, a leader
of the Bragman coup attempt who has
switched to Republican and is getting sig-
nificant backing from the party.
Schneiderman has decided to fight it
out. His Upper West Side district shifted
north, to include heavily Dominican
Washington Heights, where ex-City
Councilmember Guillermo Linares, a
Democrat, is now running with GOP
support. Political observers wager Schnei-
derman will be able to hang on. But in
some sense he will still lose, because he'll
have to spend this summer and fall raising
with an impressive track record as an advocate
for the poor. Then Goodman departed his post
for a job in the Bloomberg administration and
the race started anew; Krueger battled Assem-
blymember John Ravitz for the seat, and won.
But when she finally arrived this past Febru-
ary, the State Senate was an even more inhos-
pitable place, if that's possible. Once the majori-
ty leadership restricted use of the motion to dis-
charge, the group of Democrars found a new way
to be nudniks: they staged a slow roll call for
every bill, and debated each for as long as possi-
ble. The Republicans were not pleased. On one
memorable occasion, leadership locked down the
chamber, forcing senators to get permission even
to go to the bathroom. "It has gotten so totali-
tarian and dosed because of the effectiveness of
money to keep himself in office-not helping
other Democrats run for the Senate.
"I wish we were in a stronger position to take
more sears," acknowledges Krueger. Hevesi is
also leaving, after redistricting pitted him
against fellow Queens Democrat Toby Stavisky.
In Brooklyn, Democrat Vincent Gentile is
expected to get a stiff challenge ftom Republi-
can Councilmember Marty Golden. And in a
new Brooklyn district, another former coun-
cilmember, Noach Dear, is favored; there are
rumors that he, too, plans to turn Republican.
Indeed, some Democrars are livid at Schnei-
derman and the campaign committee for what
the critics consider a reckless and counterpto-
ductive crusade. "It's totally the biggest failure
con [inned on page 4.5
23
H
aggling on his cell phone with Citibank over exorbitant fees,
straddling a pile of bills, and helping customers all at the
same time, David Ramnauth holds court outside his parents'
hardware store. He constantly nods hello, and gets patted on
the shoulder by men walking past. Ramnauth seems to know everyone
on Bedford-Stuyvesant's Fulton Street.
With good reason: he's been working in the area since 1979. His par-
ents now own the building and store he stands in ftont of, and his btoth-
er owns Rose, a beaucy supply business down the street, right next door
to a health food store that a Ramnauth cousin runs.
Ramnauth's family didn't always have so much real estate. When they
24
started out, they were licensed street vendors, selling fragrances and cos-
tume jewelry. ("It was the disco era, so we sold big pearls and medallions,"
he recalls.) By juggling street sales, college and his mother's office clean-
ing job for over two decades-one Ramnauth would watch the tables
while the others were occupied-they built three small businesses and
began investing time, money and love into the neighborhood. Now, they
are vendors, residents, customers, shopkeepers, building owners and small
business operators, all in one family. "We were in the right place at the
right time," says Ramnauth.
Yet the Ramnauths aren't reaping many benefits these days. Rents are up
on Fulton Street, but business is down-way down. And according to
CITY LIMITS
Ramnauth and scores of other small merchants on Fulron's main commer-
cial strip, it's plummeting because of a measure that was intended ro help
local merchants: getting street vendors off the sidewalks of Fulron Street.
In May of200 1, the city, using police on horseback and in helicopters,
and with metal barricades and special task force tearns, removed all street
vendors-whether they were licensed or not-from Fulron Street. As
with most vendor crackdowns, the city was responding ro complaints
from residents, commuters and real estate groups ro Brooklyn's Commu-
nity Board 3. According to District Manager Lewis Watkins, local busi-
ness owners wanted the vendors out too, but were too afraid to come for-
ward. "Store owners complained under their breath-we were getting a
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Through street vending, David Ramnauth's family built
a smaU business empire on Brooklyn's Fulton Street.
lot of complaints from people who never had a face," says Watkins. Then-
City Councilmember Anneue Robinson lobbied hard for the vendors'
removal, which was implemented as part of a $3 million Brooklyn Cham-
ber of Commerce and city Department of Business Services revitalization
project called Fulton First.
But on Fulton Street, it's difficult to find a single retailer who will
acknowledge supporting the campaign for the vendors' eviction. Shop
owners satisfied with the outcome are just as scarce. When the crush of
vendors along Fulton Street's sidewalks was swept away, Ramnauth esti-
mates, "all businesses out here lost 20 percent" of their sales. The street
vendors, it turns out, were one strand in the web of relationships that
snared customers and sustained Fulton Street.
In interviews up and down the strip--from Bedford to New York
avenues-almost all small merchants say the same thing. While a few
shop owners report that removal of the vendors did not affect their prof-
its one way or another-''!'m not waiting for vendors to bring us busi-
ness," says record store owner Charlie Rawlston--even they have to
admit that business did not improve. And it's not just the crashing econ-
omy, they say. The majority date the local slump to the vendors' removal,
after which business "instandy dropped," contends Roberto Mader, who
has wotked on Fulton Street for seven years. Then, he adds, "9/11 fin-
ished it off" Over and over, vendors and merchants alike mutter phras-
es like "Just look," gesturing with a wave of the hand to point out the
obvious: deserted streets, abandoned storefronts, empty marketplaces.
Inside the narrow Rose beauty store, Ramnauth's niece Tina, a cheru-
bic 17-year old, lists benefits that vendors brought to the area, and, in
turn, to her parents' corner store: variety, crowds, liveliness, and music
that "made you feel wanted, like you belong. Caribbean people like to
have some music to bop their heads to," she explains, herself of Guyanese
and Indian descent. Without the vendors, says Tina, "it's just dead. "
Outside, Tina's mother Rose notes that "zero visibility" restrictions
have also limited their ability to pay their $6,000 rent every month.
Enforced at the same time as vending crackdowns, these city regulations,
which prohibit shops from cluttering street sighdines by displaying their
wares outside, have the same goal: pristine, merchandise-free sidewalks.
Yet most stores along Fulton Street put inventory outside-in a way,
becoming vendors themselves--even though they risk fines of up to
$1,000. Siuing in the midst of her T-shirts and handkerchiefs, Rose
explains: "If you have high rent and no foot traffic, $800 feels like
$8,000. If I didn't do this, I couldn't pay the rent." Visible goods-
whether a vendor's or the store's--equal sales.
While some merchants still think vendors constitute unfair competi-
tion, others see them as threads of the same commercial web. Mader has
worked for seven years in a store that sells everything you would expect to
see at vendors' tables: hats, scarves, beaded sandals, trinkets, bags, and
more. But business didn't improve with vendors out of the way. In fact,
when they were out on the sidewalks en masse, "I wouldn't be sitring down
on a Saturday," says 27-year-old Mader from his tiny chair. A few doors
away, his mother, Pamela, a Trinidadian vendor of incense, had drawn up
petitions in support of vendors remaining on the street, giving them to
then-Councilmember Robinson. Now, her son's store is losing out.
"They made a big mistake for everyone," says Cobra, an aspiring pho-
tographer who works in a small photo and gifr shop on Fulton Street,
close to Nostrand, the epicenter of the Bedford-Stuyvesant shopping
strip. "Fulton Street is not what it used to be," sighs the 23-year-old
philosophically. "Ask anyone."
Across the street from Cobra, in a housewares store literally stuffed
2S
to the rafters with towels, sheets, curtains, and other home goods, an
attractive, quiet man estimates that without the vendors in front of the
shop, they're losing $400 per day, $700 a day on Saturdays. They had
to layoff one staff member, and those who remain work fewer shifts.
(Because most of them were violating vending or zero visibility laws,
vendors and many merchants were afraid to give City Limits full or even
first names.)
It wasn't just sales that deteriorated, either. Two weeks after vendors
were removed, says Pamela, an old lady was mugged of $200 at the bus
stop across the street. While some people say crime was worse with the
crowds and the vendors, Tina says, "If somebody was in trouble, they'd
be the first ones there-even before the cops."
"Before, you couldn't have stolen something and gotten more than
merchants can't even put out their own stuff?" demands Jack Katz, pres-
ident of the Flatbush Business Improvement District, which succeeded
in getting vendors off Flatbush Avenue. "They were breaking the law
being in the street. It was not kosher. "
Fred Hooke, head of the city Department of Business Services' Ven-
dor Micro Enterprise Initiative, which coordinates enforcement of vend-
ing laws and helps set up alternative vending sites, also finds illegal street
vending hard to defend. While the city caps the number of vending per-
mits, issuing 3,000 food licenses and 853 general vending licenses,
Hooke's agency estimates that about 17,000 people are vending without
permits or licenses. Hooke and others cite a range of egregious behavior,
from leaving garbage and causing congestion to hawking stolen or boot-
legged goods. "It's a false notion that these streets need vendors, that
stores will suffer" without them, he says. "Study after
study has shown that vendors constitute a public haz-
ard. There's no doubt about that. "
Yet serious market analysis, studies, or surveys are
conducted before sweeping vendors off the streets.
(Asked to cite particular studies, Hooke could not
name one.) Rather, city officials usually make the
decision after meetings with local business and com-
munity groups. "When it's done, there's no market
analysis that supports it," says Mark Winston Grif-
fith, executive director of the Central Brooklyn Part-
nership (and a City Limits board member), which is a
parmer in Fulton First. "It's just based on sensibility
and aesthetic and class-based resentment toward a
certain kind of people."
Steve Balkin did one of the few studies on the
topic. An economist at Roosevelt University in Chica-
go, Balkin studied the destruction of that city's famed
vendor market on Maxwell Street. Since 1912, push-
carts crammed the sidewalks and lanes of Maxwell
Street, especially on Sundays, when over 1,000 ven-
dors congregated. Known the world over, the market
served low-income residents, mostly Mrican-Ameri-
can, as well as a multi-ethnic mix of people from
throughout the city. A well-known hangout for blues
musicians, Maxwell Street is often called the birth-
place of the electric blues, since musicians had to amp
up their sound to be heard over the commercial din.
Cobra says customers fled Fulton Street as soon as the city cleared
street vendors away .. .
Over the years, the vendors thrived, even as the
neighborhood fell into disrepair. Then, in the early
1990s, the nearby University of illinois at Chicago
decided to expand student housing to Maxwell
Street. Balkin and others initially welcomed the idea,
believing it would revitalize the area. But in 1994,
two feet," before being caught, says Cobra. "Everyone looked out for
each other. Now, evetyone looks out for themselves."
W
hile the vitality street vendors offer might seem as obvi-
ous as the desolation their absence brings, other mer-
chants and businesses often fail to see it until the vendors
are gone. Many storefront retailers believe the vendors,
with their proximity to customers, have an unfair competitive advan-
tage-especially if they're selling the same product.
"Why should somebody be allowed to peddle on the street when my
26
the university decided the Maxwell Street vendors had to go, prompting
outrage from Chicagoans and from urbanists the world round. As the
university closed the market with the city's help, Balkin and two fellow
researchers tried to estimate the impact.
What they found was intriguing. As soon as the peddlers and street
vendors moved out-even before the university began to demolish sur-
rounding buildings-the local merchants' business dropped. "People
were coming there for the vibrancy of the street life," explains Balkin, "not
to buy hats and suits."
In a cost-benefit analysis, they calculated that monetary loss to users of
CITY LIMITS
the market-including lost income ro vendors and their relocation
expenses, and lost shoppers' savings-would be $35.2 million over a pro-
jected seven-year period.
When they facrored in indirect losses-from vendors no longer
spending their money in their area; by local wholesalers from whom ven-
dors had bought goods; and from money not being spent at other neigh-
borhood businesses, because even regular shoppers went elsewhere once
the vendors were gone-the removal of the vendors represented a loss of
almost $50 million (about equal ro the subsidy the university received ro
move into the space).
Balkin's srudy pur a dollar value on what the Fulron Street merchants
learned on the job: Street vending, even if it's illegal, obeys basic eco-
nomic laws. A competitive market that benefits some or all participants
and harms none has reached a state called Parero optima-in short, a
win-win situation. And whether or not well-meaning officials and com-
muniry representatives realize it,
it's ofren what you find on srreers
where vendors thrive.
"What the srore doesn't have,
the vendors will," notes an employ-
ee at the housewares srore on Ful-
ron Srreer. Ofren pedestrians
would stop ro browse a vendor's
goods, she says, and "rum around
and see something they like in the
srore"-a statement echoed almost
verbatim by Cobra and other shop-
keepers. Ramnauth agrees. "Any
rime you have choices," he says,
"you get more business. "
As businesses cluster cogether
in the same geographic space,
their profirs tend co rise-even if
they're selling the same producr.
Economisrs call it the agglomera-
tion principle, and it's why several
competing department srores will
all be located at the same mall.
communiry is particularly important in low-income neighborhoods,
where any means of entering the formal economy can make the differ-
ence between a life of hope and one of desperation," says Chip Mellor,
president of the conservative, anti-regularory Institute for Justice think
tank in Washingron, D.C.
In Chicago, the vendors on Maxwell Srreet arrracted defenders from
the opposite extreme of the ideological spectrum: "It's a sad day in Amer-
ica, " chuckles Balkin, "when the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Parry
has to defend free enterprise."
A
s freshman council member for Lower Manhattan, Alan Ger-
son's fiery baptism into ciry politics includes deciding what ro
do abour the growing souks in Soho, Chinarown and espe-
cially around Ground Zero. Yawning at the end of a long day,
Gerson suggests a three-pronged approach co vending: IdentifY the
That street vending helps local
merchants is "almost textbook"
economics, agrees Margaret Craw-
ford, a professor of urban design
and planning at Harvard Universi-
ry's Graduate School of Design.
Like Balkin, she believes that street
... and at the Bedford-Stuyvesant Cooperative Market, Jah Thomas and Amadou Perry
only see a fraction of the customers they got on Fulton Street.
vendors create "natural markets,"
identifYing consumer demand and filling it. (Crawford jokingly adds that
when ciry planners regulate vendors, it's usually because they "have ro
make work for themselves. ")
Another scholar who has studied street vendors' relationship to the sur-
rounding formal economy is Universiry of Nebraska-Lincoln urban anthro-
pologist John Gaber. Afrer nine months of field research, Gaber found that
illegal vendors on Manhattan's 14th Srreet provide a "positive synergistic
conrribution" to local merchants by selling complementary goods and cre-
ating a distinctive environment for shopping.
It's not just academics who think vendors uplifr neighborhoods.
"There is strong anecdotal evidence ro suggest that a vibrant vending
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
appropriate time, place and densiry for sidewalk vending; work with
vendors on-site ro address sanitation or noise complaints; and develop
something he calls a "vendor benevolent sociery." And if that fails, con-
sider putting them in a marketplace.
When law enforcement crackdowns promoting "qualiry of life" tar-
geted street vendors in the mid-1990s, the city's Department of Business
Services (DBS) came up with a plan ro incubate the entrepreneurial
dreams of vendors who were swept off the sidewalks. In consultation with
several other ciry agencies, DBS set up "alternative markets" in
previously vacant, usually ciry-owned lots in Harlem, Bed-Sruy, Flatbush
cOlltioued on page -+6
27
A great day on the Lower East Side:
Soon, these squatters will own their homes.
28
CITY LIMITS
ers
,

I es
Loisaida's last outlaws are about to make their most
revolutionary move yet: legal occupation.
By Robert Neuwirth. Photographs by Aaron Lee Fineman.
T
his is the story of a housing war, and an
unexpected victory for some of the city's
most maligned activists.
On one side were the Lower East Side's
squatters, ordinary people who illegally occu-
pied some of the city's most decrepit aban-
doned buildings. Against them stood the city
of New York, which through three mayors was
ready to use its full firepower to get them out.
The story of their conflicts is one of pitched
battles, paramilitary assaults, and incredible
bravery and risk. And for more than 200 squat-
ters who toughed it out and are still in their
homes, it's now a story with a happy ending.
In the spring of 1989, the squatters of
Umbrella House barricaded themselves in their
building when the city's demolition crew
arrived at the foot of Avenue C to tear it down.
As the wrecking ball started to swing, biting
into the vacant tenement next door and com-
ing ever closer to their homes, they stationed
themselves in their windows and defied the
police to take them out.
"I put a big sign on my window that said,
'I'm willing to die for my home, how about
you?, '" recalls Umbrella House squatter Siob-
han Meow. ''And I meant it, I really meant it. I
wasn't fucking around. Because I had nothing
other than that building."
During a three-day standoff, the police
blocked off Avenue C between East 2nd and 3rd
streets while the squatters bricked up their front
door and ducked in and out through back alleys.
They brought in water from a fire hydrant
around the corner. They used buckets for toilets,
scurrying out of their building under cover of
darkness to empty the waste into city sewers.
They took showers outdoors, in the runoff from
rainstorms. Because the city Department of
Housing Preservation and Development (HPD)
had ripped out most of the interior staircase,
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
they used the rear fire escape as stairs.
Compared with what went down at other
squats, this was a minor skirmish. On May 30,
1995, hundreds of heavily armed NYPD riot
cops invaded the East Village in an armored
personnel carrier, evicting squatters from 541
and 545 East 13th Street and arresting 31. The
battles were not confined to Manhattan:
Between 1990 and 1995, the city used every
weapon at its disposal-police officers, fire-
men, EMTs, housing cops-to evict hundreds
of squatters, mostly low-income Latino factory
workers and their families, from about 200
South Bronx apartments.
Three successive mayors-Koch, Dinkins
and Giuliani-treated squatters as if they were
more dangerous than violent criminals. The
hardball tactics, along with changes in the
housing market, seemed to spell the end of
squatting in the city. By the late 1990s, there
were only about a couple of hundred squatters
lefr in Manhattan, most of them in a dozen
buildings on the Lower East Side.
But now, 11 of the Lower East Side's 12
remaining squats are about to sign a deal with
their old archenemy. The Loisaida squats, last
bastion of illegal occupancy, are becoming offi-
cial, and soon the squatters will own their
homes. For the past three years, the squatters
have been quietly working to buy their apart-
ment houses from the city and turn them into
low-income cooperatives. And afrer decades of
arguing that legalizing squats would encourage
squatters to invade buildings everywhere, the
city has agreed to do just that.
In late August 1999, the Lower East Side's
remaining squatters began secret negotiations
with the Giuliani administration. Much like
shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, they never
talked directly; instead, they communicated
through an intermediary, the Urban Home-
steading Assisrance Board (UHAB), a local non-
profit that helps tenants take over and manage
their buildings. Afrer much discussion, they cut
their own version of the Camp David accords.
The squatters have agreed to tame their anar-
chist tendencies and become legal, hiring archi-
tects to bring their homegrown rehabs up to
code. The city has agreed to sell the buildings to
UHAB, which will take responsibility for them
during the renovations and then sell them back
to the tenants as low-income cooperatives.
The deal , hammered out during the last
days of the Giuliani administration, was
delayed after September 11 . But Mayor
Michael Bloomberg's staffers have honored the
basic framework, and on June 26, the deal to
save the squats passed the City Council. Sever-
al weeks later, Bloomberg signed off on it.
No one, not even those close to the deal,
knows for sure why the city finally agreed to
end this two-decade standoff. HPD Commis-
sioner Jerilyn Perine declined repeated requests
for an interview, issuing a written statement
that said, "HPD is continuing its longstanding
policy of conveying our in rem properties to
quality, non-profit developers. We are confi-
dent that UHAB will make sure the buildings
are rehabilitated and become safe, decent and
affordable housing for local residents."
But the lengthy, bitter squatter battles of the
past suggest what the city's reasons might be.
Informed observers speculate that since most of
the remaining squatter buildings are stable and
well-run, they would resist attempts at eviction
and get sympathetic press coverage in the
process. Since at least one of the squats agreed
to drop ongoing litigation, the deal has also
saved the city considerable court costs- anoth-
er one of Mayor Bloomberg's goals.
For the squatters, going legal means aban-
doning their outsider status, which has been
29
John Ferris, poet. Lives at 292 East 3rd Street.
Zenzele Browne, painter. Lives at 278 East
7th Street.
Rosemary Wall s, artist. Lives at 719 East 6th
Street.
30
both an ethical stand and a source of pride. "I'm
kind of torn on that, because, well, I'm kinda
proud of beating the system," admitS John Wag-
ner, who has lived at Serenity House on East 9th
Street since the early 1990s. One friend of Wag-
ner's, who used to live in the squat and thinks
that the squatters are selling out, sends him let-
ters addressed to "house thief John Wagner. "
But going legit after decades of extraJegaJ
occupation is less of a contradiction than it might
seem. While outSiders, city bureaucratS and even
some housing activistS regard them as middJe-
class anarchist scoffiaws, the squatters themselves
invoke the more practical notion of old-fashioned
sweat equity ownership. Their longtime defiance
may have been political, but it was aJso practical.
They wanted to keep their homes. For Wagner
and the others, legalizing the squatS is just anoth-
er way to do that.
'The whole issue of taking over vacant space
and using it is revolutionary, according to the
establishment," said Hafid Lalaoui-who lived
in many East Village squats over the years, most
recently at Bullet Space on East 3rd Street-as
he basks in the afternoon shade on Avenue C.
"But it's not steaJing. It's recycling and trans-
forming and building community. We were not
anarchists, not anti-establishment. We were
Struggling to survive-period."
N
ew York's squatS were born from the
flames of arson and abandonment. Land-
lords deserted swaths of structures in the
1970s, and the city began foreclosing en masse,
taking thousands of buildings at a time. Almost
immediately, people began moving into the
vacant buildings, rescuing them from destruc-
tion and decay. The early squatters were the typ-
ical New York melting pot: whites and blacks,
Puerto Ricans and Latinos, party animaJs and
politicos, gentle hippies and genuine radicals,
lots of poor people and a few who seemed inter-
ested in upward mobility. For some, squatting
was a political act, a way to reclaim unused and
blighted property for the people where the gov-
ernment had clearly failed. For many others, it
was just a way to afford a place to live.
By the early 1990s, there were between 500
and 1,000 squatters spread through 32 build-
ings on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The city
had foreclosed on thousands of abandoned
buildings during the 1970s and 1980s, so by
then most of the squats were owned by the gov-
ernment. Squatting, initiaJly embraced by
neighborhoods and activistS aJike, was begin-
ning to faJI out of favor with both. Some com-
munity residentS were openly skeptical about
the vaJues and motives of the Loisaida squatters,
seeing them simply as pampered politicaJ white
kids seeking a cheap rent. (In the homesteading
heyday of the 1970s, the squats were probably
about 70 percent Latino. And while it's true that
they got whiter over time, they are far from
monolithic: In the 11 squats going legaJ, 50 per-
cent of residents are white, 20 percent Latino,
23 percent African-American, 2 percent Asian
and 5 percent identifying themselves as other or
mixed. There are families, too: 39 of the 236
squatters are children.)
Their bitterest enemies, though, were non-
profit affordable housing groups. For years, the
Loisaida squatters refused to work through
approved channels. This irked many progres-
sives and local housing organizers, who saw
them as interfering with legitimate affordable
housing goaJs. The disagreementS were partly
political-some of the squatters' anarchist antics
were bringing the neighborhood bad press. But
for some affordable housing developers, the ani-
mus was more direct: They were competing for
the rapidJy shrinking city-owned housing stock.
The city painted squatters as enemies of
affordable housing, evicting them if any develop-
er had a plausible plan for low- or moderate-
income apartments. Some in the housing devel-
opment field played aJong eagerly. Antonio
Pagan, a nonprofit-developer-turned-City
Council member, labeled the squatters "yuppie
gentrifiers disguising themselves in revolutionary
garb to get free rent. " For their part, the squatters
viewed traditionaJ housing activistS as selloutS.
But for every ideological firebrand, there
were other squatters who were aJmost apolitical.
For every squatter who gleefully mouthed
words of revolution there were others who had
no time for ideology because they were too busy
instaJling new beams. For every drug-addJed
party animaJ, there were squatters who were 9-
to-5 working stiffs.
"The trouble with squats is they attract dead-
beatS like maggotS to a corpse," recaJls one squat-
ter leader as he leans on a ladder near one of his
homemade windows. "You've got a core group of
workers, and then you've got the parasites. The
squatS that didn't survive were the ones where
people used them to do drugs and get drunk. "
The squatters who thrived did so by engaging
in what might be caJled self-help opportunism.
Interviews with successful squatters show that
they actuaJIy have quite a bit in common with
their sworn enemies, reaJ estate developers.
For instance, just as developers ofren look to
take over vaJuable buildings that may have faJIen
into city hands, many squatters who took over
their buildings in the early 1980s took advantage
of a controversiaJ city program caJled Operation
CITY LIMITS
A Brief History of Squatting
South Bronx, 1977: Going Banana Kelly Members of the Banana
Kelly Community Improvement Association "liberate" three buildings on
banana-shaped Kelly Street in the South Bronx. These squatters are cele-
brated, not arrested: The Citizen' s Committee of New York gives Banana
Kelly its biggest-yet Self-Help Neighborhood Award, the squatters are feted
in the Bronx Borough President's office and local banks even take out sub-
way ads saluting "sweat equity" takeovers.
East New York, 1985: The Long Squat Summer Over the sum-
mer of 1985, ACORN and the Harlem Reclamation Project win widespread
support for squatting with dozens of high-profile building takeovers.
Before squatting any buildings, the ACORN squatters first asked the city
to renovate 2,000 abandoned, rotting East New York buildings. (It didn't.)
On August 22, State Senator Thomas Bartosiewicz (D-Brooklyn) and
three ACORN activists get arrested for breaking into an abandoned city-
owned building in East New York. (In the end, ACORN got to keep the build-
ings it seized: The group formed the Mutual Housing Association of New
York, and the city turned over 58 buildings, plus $2.7 million in city fund-
ing to rehab and run them.) ACORN lobbies for a law, based on one in
Chicago, which would bar the city from evicting any squatter who improves
his or her property. "I don't think you could ever make squatting legal:
sniffs East New York City Councilmember Priscilla Wooten. "Can you imag-
ine what that would do to a city like this?"
Bronx, 1987: Community on the Move Onetime Loisaida home-
steader Matthew Lee founds Inner City Press, a community newspaper for the
South Bronx featuring free verse poetry and how-to tips on homesteading. In
1988, Lee starts meeting every week with local families in the South Bronx
who want to clean up and renovate buildings. By 1993, 150 families-almost
all low-wage Latino factory workers-occupy about a dozen buildings.
Bronx, 1991-1993: Community on the Ropes
December 1990-January 1991: Even though squatters say they'd be will-
ing to join a city-run program, the city sends 200 cops in riot gear to force
families out of Inner City Press' original Crotona Park East buildings after
two space-heater fires. Another group of Bronx buildings is evicted when the
land is slated for a "moderate-income" housing development.
September 1991: After a 31-year-Old firefighter dies while fighting a fire
supposedly set by a squatter, Mayor David Dinkins vows to remove
squatters from all city-owned buildings.
March 1992: Inner City Press meets with then-HPD Commissioner Felice
Michetti to discuss the future oftheir homesteading efforts. "Our buildings
may be owned by the city, " sexagenarian squatter Enrique Deleo says to
Michetti. "But the city is the property of the people and we are the peo-
pie." Later that summer, HPD demands a list of buildings Inner City Press
is squatting. When Inner City Press refuses, HPD breaks off negotiations.
July 8, 1993: Cops, firemen, EMS and HPD officials swarm two Inner City
Press buildings, 670 and 675 East 170th Street in Morrisania. For the
Bronx squatters, it's the fourth eviction in three years. Sixty-year-old Deleo
goes up to the roof and almost jumps; cops take him down, arrest him
and charge him with "attempted suicide." Cops escort 32 families from
the building, taking them straight to homeless shelters in the Bronx and
Manhattan. Eight months later, most families from the 170th Street build-
ings are still living in welfare hotels, costing the city $80 a day per house-
hold. To this day, about 200 people live in Inner City buildings. Though
they have repeatedly tried to legalize them, even enlisting Congressman
Jose Serrano (D-Bronx) to help, their status remains unresolved.
East 13th Street, 1993-1997: Adverse Possession is Nine-
Tenths of the Law
1994: Squatters sue to get title to five buildings, 535-45 East 13th between
A and B. The squatters, some of whom have lived there for more than 10
years, use the legal doctrine of "adverse possession" : If you've had contin-
uous use of property, with no formal objection from the owner, it's yours. In
'"
-:-......... !
iij
~
:
_ ....... _. 8
Frank Morales defending 319 East 8th St. in 1989. The
building was later torn down.
other words, squatter's rights. Their lawyer is Stanley Cohen, now best known
for defending Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and other Islamic militants.
1995: State Supreme Court Justice Elliot Wilk issues a preliminary injunc-
tion against the city's eviction plans, rejecting its claim it urgently needs
the buildings for a $3.9 million, mostly low-income housing development
it's been planning since 1990. "For more than a decade," wrote the judge,
the city "demonstrated no interest in preserving this housing stock. They
knowingly allowed it to deteriorate and to become a magnet for drug traf-
fic, to the detriment of the surrounding neighborhood. "
1996: When a state appellate court lifts the injunction, the Giuliani admin-
istration wastes no time in evicting the squatters, sending bulldozers, barri-
cades and Dumpsters and razing their gardens. Police arrest five people.
Two days later, police arrest 23 protesters for marching to Tompkins Square
Park in support of the squatters.
January 1997: The city owns 1,325 vacant buildings.
713 East 9th Street, 1999: Dos Blockos April 27, 1999: Squatters
chain themselves to the fire escape, cement the doors shut, block halls and
stairwells with refrigerators, air conditioners and washing machines, and hurl
bottle rockets at riot-clad cops to keep them out of Dos Blockos. It doesn't
work: Emergency Services workers drill a hole in the brick wall, and power-saw
through the chains. Hundreds gather on the street outside, singing as cops
take down the banner proclaiming "We the people won't go. " One squatter
leans out the window, shouting "Help, police, they're breaking into my home! "
The city let the building stand vacant for 12 years before the squatters
seized it. The squatters, who put in a new roof, electricity and running
water, also tried to get rent-stabilized leases. Instead, the city sells the
building to a private developer for $285,000, and charges 13 of the 22
squatters with obstructing governmental administration. "The only crime
they committed," rages City Councilmember Margarita Lopez, "was to
save that building. "
-Annia Ciezadlo
Sources: City Limits archives, New York Times, New York Newsday, Washington Post, New York Daily News, Associated Press, Village Voice, Los Angeles Times.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002 31
Popeye, relaxing in his home recording studio, says C Squat was "total hectic hell" until
residents laid down some rules.
Pressure Point, a paramilitary police action
against the drug trade that forced heroin addicts
and dealers to abandon many buildings that had
served as shooting galleries. When the dealers
and addicts moved out, the squatters quickly
moved in, figuring their actions might not be
noticed while the police were otherwise engaged.
Successful squatters chose their takeover tar-
gets carefully. One particularly savvy local
activist advised them to identify a building slat-
ed for the city's "cross-subsidy" program-a
compromise plan allowing developers to do
high-income construction in exchange for cre-
ating a certain number of affordable apart-
ments. Because the program was controversial,
even among housing activists, the squatters fig-
ured the cross-subsidy building they found
would be mired in political red tape for years,
and that their occupation might fly under the
radar. It did, and today that building is the
squat called Umbrella House.
When gentrification became the new threat
32
on the block, canny squatters fought it. But
they also put it to work for their buildings, pil-
fering from every neighborhood dumpster and
construction site, scavenging joists, plywood,
rebar, toilets, tile, pipes, plumbing. Others
combed the neighborhood for materials, even
hauling perfectly good used toilets out of the
trash when buildings were required by law to
install new water-saving low-flow models.
Through it all, the squatters maintained a
relentless focus on making their buildings habit-
able. Though many squats started with an inter-
esting blend of communitarian and libertarian
values, the squatters quickly realized that if they
were going to build something permanent, they
couldn't run their buildings like Dodge City.
They would need to lay down laws, too.
So, from the early days of occupancy, squat-
ters at Umbrella House drew up a few rules:
among them, no drugs, no violence, no theft,
no racism, no sexual harassment. A few mem-
bers of the initial core group were thrown out
because they began to break those ironclad
principles. Similarly, at C Squat-a haven for
punk musicians with a penchant for loud noise
and hard living-some hard-working residents
were ultimately forced out when their addic-
tions spun out of control.
Popeye has been in C Squat for eight years,
which makes him a grizzled veteran, as the
streak of gray in his hair confirms. Sprawled in
a frayed chair in the roughly rehabbed room
that is at once bedroom, living room and
recording studio, he remembers the early days
of C Squat. "It was total hectic hell when every-
one was 18," he says. "Bohemia is devoted to
freedom. But rules exist for a reason, too. We
have applied them, and good friends have been
tossed. " In some cases, he adds, the threat of
eviction pushed addicts to try to clean up.
"Sometimes the prospect of being severed from
your group of friends, from your family, is the
only countervailing force" to addiction, he says.
After the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square
Park, when police moved to break up a tent
city, local squats welcomed many of the park's
former occupants. It was a turning point, both
for the neighborhood and for the squats. "We
thought we could do this big liberal idealistic
thing, " recalls Umbrella's Siobhan Meow. "But
you can't be nice to criminals. You can't give
people stuff for free because they'll just shit on
it. These guys were literally hanging their asses
out the windows and shirting into the
courtyard. They almost brought the house
down .... That we survived that was more of a
miracle than the city leaving us alone."
O
utside, some of the Loisaida squats
maintain a graffiti-scarred look, as if to
inform passersby that they've been
through the wars. Others look much like the
gentrified rehabs that surround them. Some
still require residents to black out their win-
dows at night because they are afraid Con Ed
will discover that they are stealing power and
move to shut them down.
Inside, squatter apartments are done up in
styles as diverse as the residents themselves.
Some are spartan places-dean but rustic, with
salvaged windows and crudely patched floors.
Others are as genteel as you can imagine, with
fine floors and carpeting, fully equipped
kitchens, and plenty of exposed brick walls.
To climb the steps in C Squat is to walk up
a living graffiti artwork. The halls resemble
subway cars a few decades ago. But instead of
monikers, these tags are battle cries for revolu-
tion, outlaw logos, complaints and humorous
takes on official slogans. "School-Free Drug
CITY LIMITS
Zone," one door proclaims. At Umbrella
House, the walls are much more restrained:
One of the choicer tags notes that if you want
to ear the rich, you've gor [0 cook them firsr.
The Lower East Side squats inherited a tra-
dirion of do-ir-yourself anarchist activism. Bur
in the buildings that survived, residents did not
spend all their time partying or pushing politi-
cal platforms. While many squatters clearly
were interested in a social revolurion, they
didn't lose their focus on improving their
homes. "The idea was [0 take this on as a con-
struction projecr," says a politically acrive
squatter who has occupied one East Village
building for 17 years. (Like many other squat-
rers interviewed for rhis arricle, she didn't want
to be named: Ar the rime, they were still illegal
years. "This building was so ronen, it was liter-
ally like a rainforest in here," he remembers.
"We had nothing. No money, no marerials, no
rools. We were just doing the lamest scuff"
The squaners learned as they went. "The
roofleaked so bad that you could be in the base-
ment, look up, and see the sky," adds Dann.
"When it rained hard, we had these tarps to
funnel all the water into buckets, and we had to
run a bucker brigade to pour the water out the
windows." The rarp sysrem, and the fact that
passersby would get soaked if they didn't have
umbrellas, gave Umbrella House its name.
To replace the dozens of stairs that were miss-
ing, Meow scavenged thick rebar from a side-
walk replacement projecr on St. Marks Place.
Then the squar held a staircase party at ABC No
Siobhan Meow, who rescues and neuters Loisaida's stray cats, calls his Umbrella House
pad "the furry love kitten cat farm. "
occupanrs in the city's eyes.) "First get the
building, then secure the building, then water-
proof the building, and on and on. Most squar-
rers are not activisrs-they're workers." Squar-
rers needed to do labor-intensive construcrion
like fixing roofs, replacing joisrs and building
walls. Ar Umbrella House, Geoff Dann
remembers, "For the first five years, thar's all we
did-work."
Standing in the spacious bur rustic top-floor
aparrment in Umbrella House thar he shares
with the 89 cars he has rescued from around the
neighborhood, Siobhan Meow (who takes his
lasr name from his feline roommares) recalls
whar kind of hell he lived in for the first few
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Rio, sening the rebar in molds and pouring con-
crere around it. As the finishing touch, artists
embellished the concrete with riles, glass frag-
ments, even palm and face prints. "They were
definirely nor code," concedes Meow, bur they
worked fme until early this year, when the build-
ing finally agreed [0 accepr new risers.
Every building has a similar srory. Ar C Squat
(155 Avenue C), the beams were so roned that
the building had sunk almosr a foor in the cen-
rer. The squaners jacked the building up and
replaced the joists one by one. They got their
replacement beams Tom workers ar a nearby gur
rehab. In return for six-packs of beer, the work-
ers saved the old but scill usable joists they were
11 FXR UPRS, NO DN PMT
292 East Third Street, aka Bullet Space. A
haven for artists and musicians with a gallery on
the ground floor. A very low-income building; at
one point, the person with the most stable job
was a waitress. Residents: 10. Estimated cost
of rehab needed: $211,750. *
719 East Sixth Street. Demographically speak-
ing, the oldest squat. A real Loisaida mix: aging
radicals, punk rock parents and folks who just
gravitated here by chance. Some are even eligi-
ble for Social Security. Residents: 28. Cost of
rehab: $574,751.
209 East 7th Street. A stable building of families
and children, where women take leadership. Resi-
dents: 35. Estimated cost of rehab: $514,251.
274 East 7th Street. Residents call it Rainbow
Co-op, but others call them "the Germans, "
because of the high number of European immi-
grants. Residents: 21. Cost of rehab: $393,251.
278 East 7th Street. Known for stable house-
holds and families, this squat was never vacant.
Residents: 33. Cost of rehab: $574,751.
733 East 9th Street, aka Serenity. Sandwiched
between two pricey buildings, Serenity's punk
rock aesthetic has not endeared it to the neigh-
bors; they continuall y report it to the Fire Depart-
ment. Residents: 34. Cost of rehab: $544,501.
377 East 10th Street. A quiet squat, with lots of
veteran squatters who have lived in multiple
squats over the years. Residents: 19. Cost of
rehab: $423,501.
544 East 13th Street. Movie star Rosario Daw-
son-Will Smith's girlfriend in Men in Black II-
spent time here growing up, and her family still
lives in the building. Residents: 16. Cost of
rehab: $333,751.
7 1/2 2nd Avenue. Might be the most middle-
class squat. Occupants include an MTA mechan-
ic and a businessman who imports fish from
South America. Residents: 15. Cost of rehab:
$242,001.
21-23 Avenue C, aka Umbrella House. Once
known as the UN squat, because of its diversity.
Now, about one-third of the house is South Amer-
ican, mostly from Colombia. Residents: 24. Cost
of rehab: $605,001.
155 Avenue C, aka C Squat. The youngest squat,
with most residents in their twenties and a few
still in their teens. About one-third make their liv-
ing doing seasonal farm work, picking blueberries
in Maine and cranberries in Massachusetts.
Beloved crash pad known for concerts, parties,
screenings and skateboarding tourneys. Resi-
dents: 16. Cost of rehab: $484,001.
-AC
*all preliminary estimates
33
removing and passed them on to the squaners.
"For a year or more we lived like a Hopi Vil-
lage, with ladders going up each floor," says
Popeye, who was burned out of several East
Village buildings before he moved into C
Squat. He adds with a laugh that for a building
with so many punk musicians, it was great hav-
ing a huge hole in center of the house, because
you could haul heavy amps up or down with a
rope-and-pulley system.
After their three-day battle with police,
Umbrella House's squaners outfoxed a city stop-
Inside C Squat: rules for rooftop use.
C Squat scavenged building supplies from
materials abundant in the neighborhood.
Once C Squat is legal, Popeye promises, "we' ll just
tag it to death anyway."
34
work order by tunneling under Avenue C to
install a waste line and tie it into the sewer main.
"If they found out that we had no drains or
waste line, they could have evicted us," explains
Geoff Dann, who joined the Umbrella House
crew in early 1989. "We were about halfway into
the job when the city came. They came on a Fri-
day night and really pulled our pants down."
The city inspector gave the squatters until
Monday morning to fill in the hole they had
dug in Avenue C. At a house meeting that
evening, the squatters resolved to resort to sub-
terfuge: They would cover the street with
boards or steel plates, and tunnel under them
to install the waste line in a secret underground
marathon. Dann, who spent an eight-hour
shift cramming himself into the narrow open-
ing and chopping at the hard earth with a
short-handled shovel, recalls dirt cascading
onto his head every time a car passed overhead.
After the pipe was installed, the squatters had
to pack dirt back into the hole so the tunnel
would be invisible when inspectors returned in
the morning.
"We worked 24 hours a day for three days
straight," says Meow of his time in the hole. "It
was like a scene out of The Great Escape. We
were the sandhogs from hell."
F
or 15 years, various squatters had
approached UHAB about the possibilities
of becoming legal, hoping to guarantee
they wouldn't get kicked out. And for 15 years,
UHAB probed the matter with the city-and
ran into a brick wall. From Koch to Dinkins,
the answer was blunt: "Prior administrations
refused to accept squatters as human," recalls
Joe Center, UHAB's associate director.
But the Giuliani administration, whatever
its reasons, finally decided to keep talking in
the summer of 1999. The negotiations, which
took three years, were not especially arduous.
They were simply time-consuming, mainly
because all the players needed some time to
suss each other out.
At C Squat, many of the younger occupants
just don't feel comfortable with authority fig-
ures, and they considered executives from non-
profit housing agencies to be hypocrites to
boot. But UHAB's commitment to communi-
tarian principles eventually quieted the squat-
ters' fears. (It also didn't hurt that Center,
though soft-spoken, has a long record in the
city's radical movements and can cite guerrilla
history as well as any squatter.) "We wouldn't
be doing this without UHAB," says Ellen
Kessler, who has squatted on East 7th Street
since 1981 and now lives at number 278.
"They're objective. They have nothing to gain
or lose. And their principles are in line with
what ours should be."
In the end, only one building, 272 East 7th
Street, refused to participate, telling Center
that they had documentation of the city's con-
spiracy to cleanse the Lower East Side of peo-
ple of color, and would win in court if it ever
tried to kick them out. Staying out of the deal
is their right, notes Center, but it makes him
fear for their future. "I think they've isolated
themselves," he frets, adding that he doesn't
think "a racist, classist court system" is going to
protect them.
Once they learned to trust UHAB, the squat-
ters had to trust the city. That the Giuliani
administration was willing to allow them to stay
is a mystery that even the squaners don't risk try-
ing to explain. But they're beginning to believe
that City Hall is not trying to arrest them this
time around: When a fire broke out in 377 East
10th Street last March, HPD sealed the building
and relocated the squaners through the Red
Cross as though they were ordinary tenants. And
when the Fire Department threatened to vacate
Umbrella House for building code violations last
fall, HPD pulled strings for the squatters, telling
the city's building and fire inspectors to back off,
informing them that the city was working to fix
the problems, and fixing stairs and fire escapes.
"That was, like, amazing," says Meow. "It's hard
to be bitter enemies when they fix the stairs and
fire escapes for free. "
In another show of good faith, the city
agreed to a fallback plan in the aftermath of
September 11. Not knowing who the next
mayor would be, HPD agreed to immediately
lease the buildings to UHAB if the deal's
future was threatened. (HPD disputes this ver-
sion of events, saying that any reference to
such an agreement is inaccurate.)
The final agreement relies on a fiction: The
city is selling the buildings as if they are vacant,
transferring them to UHAB for $1 each. Thus,
on paper at least, the city still does not have to
acknowledge the squatters as legitimate resi-
dents. More importantly, the city will not put
any money into renovation. (That's not to say,
though, that the squatters won't be attempting
to corral funds from other government pro-
grams, such as block grant funding or low-
interest loans, down the line.)
UHAB will then flip the buildings to the
squatters, who will run them as limited equity
cooperatives, meaning that squatters will not
be able to make a quick fortune by turning
around and selling what are supposed to be
apartments for low-income people. The squat-
CITY LIMITS
ters have signed agreemems mat mere will be
no subleasing-indeed, no reming of apart-
mems at all-and that all units must be sold
back to the tenant association rather than to
new shareholders, reducing the chance that
anyone who suddenly becomes greedy will
demand under-the-table paymems for me
right to purchase an apartmem.
UHAB will also work with each building to
cobble together the finances to make renova-
tions possible. Cemer estimates mat the total
cost of rehabbing the 11 buildings will be
about $4.9 million, to be paid for with a com-
bination of cash equity, bank financing and,
for three of the squats, revenue from ground-
floor retail storefroms. The construction credo
can be summed up in a few words: "You make
it legal," says Cemer. "You don't do anyrhing
else. These buildings are going to become
barely legal." The number of electrical outlets,
for example, will be the code minimum
instead ofUHAB's more generous standard of
one outlet per wall.
Ultimately, Center estimates mat monthly
maimenance paymems could balloon to about
$120 a room--or perhaps 25 percem more man
is me norm in the average new limited equity
coop-mostly because me buildings will have to
take on some debt. But costs will still be far, far
below me mousands a monm me apartmems
could command on me open market.
For Umbrella House, that may mean
"rems" (or "donations to me building fund,"
as Siobhan Meow prefers to say) rising to $500
a momh from about $100. "That will be
hard," he admits. And at 544 East 13th Street,
one of the original invaders, who emered me
building in 1984, notes that her momhly pay-
mems will rise 400 percem-from about $100
a momh to over $400. 'Tm going to feel the
pinch," she admits.
A;
they prepare to become owners, me
squatters will face some culture shock.
or one, they have always been out-
siders-and they've learned to live wim hard-
ships. Many of me buildings still have no heat
and no gas-at least, not legally.
Now, wim higher monmly rems and an
ownership stake, some squatters worry me
complaims are going to start-about how
clean me halls are or whemer staircase light
bulbs are promptly replaced, or about me state
of me paim job in me common areas of me
building, or about junk someone may be stor-
ing on the roof. In a way, the squatter buildings
now risk becoming a bit middle class.
"We have to make choices based on what's
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002


















. ,


..
A family of squatters: Sophie Herivelomalala with husband Dan Yafet, who has lived at 209
East 7th Street since 1987, and two little Yafets.
going to be good for this building 10 years down
me road," says Meow. "And mere's a danger that
me tenant association could turn imo a bunch
of backbiting freaks. " Already, at least one of me
squats has split into bitterly opposing factions.
Hafid Lalaoui, who now lives in Portland,
Maine, supports me plan for me squatters to own
meir homes. But he's a bit sad, too. "I think this
idea of having me building owned will be a big
change," he says. "People will begin to have me
concept of 'this is mine.' That wasn't what it was
about originally, and I'm worried about mat. "
Meow agrees. "I would rather continue me
way we're going-if we could be left alone, " he
says. "But me stakes have changed. We know
mat if we don't take me deal it would be a mat-
ter of time before me city came after us. "
Up at C Squat, Popeye becomes philosoph-
ical as he considers me future.
"This place is an ongoing experirnem, an
informal urban commune," he says. "It's easier
to pay rent and not have to know or depend on
me person who lives next to you. For whatever
reason, me city made a mistake. We slipped
mrough me cracks in mis place that abhors
what we are. Being here, in a mundane and
tiny way, is committing treason."
Popeye sees me squats-particularly me punk
vision of C Squat-as heir to me democratic tra-
dition of me beats and me hippies. The coop
vision, he says, won't end mose ideals. In a way,
it will enable mem to cominue, by ensuring mat
"mis little place mat ain't like me rest of me world
will go on. As long as this lime thing is here, mis
kind of spirit will persist in Manhattan. "
Besides, he adds, owning meir apartmems
will not change people's spirit, and new walls
and fresh paint won't crush the C Squat aes-
thetic. Says Popeye, with a wry smile as he
heads out the door to go to work, "1 can guar-
antee you: Afrer the rehab, we'll just tag it to
deam anyway. "
Additional reporting by Annia Ciezadlo.
35
Tax the Street
Hong Kong does it.
So does London.
Why don't we?
By lW. Mason
HIGH FINANCE DOESN'T have the prestige it had
a year ago. As the city prepares to invest bil-
lions in rebuilding Wall Street, new financial
scandals joust for front-page space with New
York's looming budget gap. New Yorkers might
be excused for asking, How can we make sure
the Street does something for the city?
Here's one idea: Tax the financial markets.
From 1907 to 1981, the state levied a stock
transfer tax of up to a nickel a share, which
worked out to about 0.2 percent of each trans-
action. Every share traded on the New York
and American stock exchanges was liable for
the tax, no matter where the buyer, seller or
broker happened to be. (Strictly speaking, the
tax still exists but is instantly rebated. An addi-
tional federal tax, 1/300th of a percent on
stock transfers, is also assessed to fund the
Securities and Exchange Commission.)
A stock transfer tax is part of the broader
family of securities transaction taxes. The most
famous member of this family is probably the
hypothetical "Tobin tax" on international cur-
rency transactions, which Nobel prize-winner
James Tobin proposed as a tool to limit the
kind of destructive financial speculation that
has contributed to financial crises throughout
the developing world.
Whether transaction taxes really reduce mar-
ket volatility is a matter of considerable dispute.
But no one doubts that they can raise a lot of rev-
enue. And arguably, they do so with a minimum
of the "distortions" that, for economists, are the
real cost of taxation. For an economist, the only
meaningful expense of a tax is the change in pe0-
ple's behavior that it causes. And there's little evi-
dence that a stock transfer tax would significant-
ly change the behavior of investors, brokers or
anyone else. If anything, it might help curb the
excesses of speculation that have helped bring
Wall Street into its current crisis.
In 1981, the last year New York's tax was in
effect, it brought in $328 million for the city.
(The tax was collected by the state but, under
a deal worked out by Mayor John Lindsay in
the 1960s, the proceeds were passed to the
36
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
city.) If the same tax were imposed on today's
hyperactive markets, it would bring in nearly
$8 billion a year.
No one is currently proposing that. Advo-
cates of the tax-led by the Working Families
Party and the independent Fiscal Policy Insti-
[Ute-are calling for a tax at one-tenth the old
nickel rate, or half a penny per share, capped at
$35 per transaction. (This would work out to an
average tax rate of less than 0.02 percent.) The
tax would bring in an estimated $800 million a
year--exactly enough, as it happens, to cover the
$753 million budget shortfall projected for this
year by the city's Independent Budget Office.
SO MUCH FOR THE BENEFITS. What about the
costs? Some fear the financial services indus-
try-banks and brokers-will leave the city;
others believe the exchanges themselves will
pull up stakes. Less apocalyptically, but per-
haps more realistically, some worry that even if
the brokers stay, they'll direct their trades over-
seas. "The bottom line is, " says Don Mele of
the New York City Partnership, "how much
business which otherwise would have hap-
pened in New York won't happen?"
The answer is probably not much. Because
the tax would apply to all shares traded on the
New York exchanges, no matter where the
broker, buyer or seller was, the vast bulk of the
industry would be unable to avoid it by leav-
ing town. "So unless you believe this tax will
cause the entire stock exchange to move,
which on its face is absurd," says Dan Cantor
of the Working Families Party, "you're not
going to see businesses leave."
Not everyone agrees it's absurd. (The New
York Stock Exchange, which got Bloomberg's
attention this July when it hinted it might
move half its operations to Westchester,
declined repeated requests for comment.) But
consider: The tax would increase trading costs
by less than 1 percent-and that would be
paid by investors, not by the exchanges. New
York City's pledge of massive financial support
to build a new New York Stock Exchange
doesn't alter the fact that it would be enor-
mously expensive for the exchange to relocate
outside of New York City, bringing infinitesi-
mal cost savings. If the exchange does move, it
will be for a lot of other reasons-cheaper rent
and security concerns foremost among them.
A more serious worry is that since many
stocks traded on the New York exchanges are
CITY LIMITS
also traded on foreign markets, brokers might
try to save their customers the cost of the tax by
directing their orders abroad. Such a shift would
cost the ci ty little in the short term, but in the
long run could erode the primacy of New York's
markets. As Mele says, there is no guarantee that
New York will be the world's fmancial hub for-
ever: "Who ever would have thought of Singa-
pore as a major financial center 10 years ago?"
As it happens, Singapore, number two on
the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom
index, already levies stock transfer taxes. So does
number one, Hong Kong. London, a market
which, as Mele rightly notes, has been gaining
business from New York in the past decade, has
one of the world's highest stock-transfer taxes,
0.5 percent--over 20 times the proposed New
York rate. It's possible that tax-avoidance would
lead to trading overseas, but where?
Indeed, in much of the
world taxing sales of
is that it falls much more heavily on short-
term speculation than on the Warren Buffets
of the world who buy and hold. The small tax
being proposed is unlikely ro affect investor
behavior much one way or the other; but to
the extent it encourages longer time horizons,
we might expect more productive investment
by American firms. And if the tax reduced
short-term speculation, moderating Wall
Street's boom and bust cycles, the city would
benefit directly as well.
Some suggest limiting the tax, at least ini-
tially, to the most potentially damaging forms
of speculation. Jane D'Arista, an economist at
the Financial Markets Center, proposes begin-
ning with a tax limited to short-sales, the prac-
tice of selling borrowed shares in the hopes
they will decline. "Some limits on the
most egregious forms of speculation are
absolutely necessary,"
says D'Arista.
stocks is as natural as tax-
ing sales of cigarettes.
France charges 0.15 per-
cent of the stock's value,
Germany 0.17 percent,
Switzerland 0.15 percent,
Ireland a full 1 percent. At
least 30 countries, includ-
ing almost all of New
York's major competitors,
tax stock transfers, accord-
ing to a recent Poli tical
Economy Research Insti-
tute paper by economists
In much of the
world, taxing sales
of stocks is as
natural as taxing
cigarettes.
As Pollin notes, a
new tax on Wall
Street probably has
better odds of passing
now than any time in
the past generation.
"The collapse of the
1990s bubble makes
clear that re-regulat-
ing financial markets
in an intelligent
way is a matter of
urgency," he says.
Robert Pollin, Dean Baker
and Marc Schabere. All
else being equal, market participants would no
doubt avoid the tax if they could.
But all else is never equal. Total transaction
costs on stock trades-commissions, spreads,
fees levied by the exchanges-are seldom less
than 2 percent. Given that few taxes are as
high as one-tenth of that, it's not surprising
that taxes are swamped by other factors in
determining where trades take place.
IN FACT, IT'S UNLIKElY that the tax New York
is considering would have any noticeable effect
on market behavior at all. But if it did, the
most likely response would be that investors
would simply trade less. (There's some evi-
dence that this was one of the main responses
when the London tax was extended to previ-
ously untaxed transactions in 1986.)
Though it would reduce the revenue from
the tax a bit, this would not necessarily be a
bad thing. One benefit of a stock-transfer tax
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
"Stock transfer taxes
are highly flexible
policy tools. If they
are set at a low rate, they discourage only the
most highly speculative traders and still raise
lots of revenue. "
Whether to rein in speculation or to raise
revenue, any proposal to reinstate the stock
transfer tax will face an uphill fight. In the wake
of September 11, it's hard to make the case for
imposing any new burden on lower Manhattan,
especially when few realize how small the tax's
burden would actually be. But its proponents
are optimistic: Although Mayor Bloomberg
doesn't think much of the idea, a majority of
the City Council is already on record in support
of reviving the stock transfer tax.
"Given how big a deficit we're about to
face," says Cantor hopefully, "something that
wouldn't have a chance in ordinary years may
actually happen. "
j. W Mason is a Ph.D candidate in economics at
the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
NEW REPORTS
With land for new housing rapidly dwindling,
nonprofit developers and others are warily eye-
ing the city's roughly 5,000 brownfields-for-
merly industrial or commercial sites, many
along waterfronts, with moderate contamina-
tion-as virtually the final option for inner-
city development. Unfortunately, as this most
recent issue of the Citizens Housing and Plan-
ning Council newsletter cogently and suc-
cinctly details, such development is stalled by
legislative indifference in Albany, since devel-
opers won't proceed until laws are in place
that clearly delineate their clean-up responsi-
bilities and future liabilities.
"Brownfields Burnout, "
The Urban Prospect May/June 2002
www.chpcny.orWprospect.htmlor 212-2869211
While the Community Reinvestment Act has
certainly succeeded in promoting lending and
investment in poor neighborhoods, its provi-
sions cover fewer than 30 percent of all home
purchase loans. That's because the primary
activity that the law seeks to promote-mort-
gage lending-is now dominated by non-
CRA-regulated mortgage lenders. To ensure
that the act can still give activists the tools
they need to assess banking in their commu-
nities, this massive Ford Foundation-commis-
sioned report suggests extending CRA to cover
all mortgage lending.
"The 25th Anniversary of the Community
Reinvestment Act: Access to Capital in an Evolving
Financial Services System, "
The Joint Center for Housing Studies
www.jchs.harvard.eduor617-495-7908
To label this study as depressing is an under-
statement. Of the thousands of 18-year-olds
who "graduated" from foster care in Califor-
nia, Illinois and South Carolina in the mid-
1990s, on Iy 45 percent of the youth ever
worked at any time during the three years
studied. Those dismal rates aren't much worse
than two other peer groups: foster care youth
who were reunited with their families before
they turned 18, and a general group of low-
income young people.
"Employment Outcomes of Youth
Aging Out of Foster Care, "
University of Chicago
aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/alisthtm or 202-690-7858
37
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
Out of Africa
By Hakim Hasan
Money Has No Smell: The Africanization of New York City
By Paul Stoller
The University of Chicago Press, $18, 232 pages
FROM 1992 TO 1999, I worked as a book ven-
dor on Sixth Avenue at 8th Street in Green-
wich Village. It was there that I befriended
Yusef, an African from COte d'Ivoire who was
trying to "make business," as he put it, by sell-
ing African masks.
In 1994, Yusef's father died. Because his
temporary visa had expired, INS regulations
barred him from returning ifhe left the United
States. Yusef had to choose berween attending
his father's funeral or remaining in the United
States. He decided to stay.
For me, Yusef's decision was a revelation.
Like many black Americans, I romanticized
Africa, but knew nothing of the realiry of
poverry there. I knew little about the econom-
ic devastation in Africa when France, pressed
by the World Bank, devalued the CFA-franc
(the currency of 14 African countries that
belonged to the Communaute Financiere
Africaine), causing the cost of medicine and
simple goods to skyrocket. Nor did I realize the
role that corrupt post-colonial African leaders
played in the fiscal mismanagement of African
countries. But Yusef's decision magnified the
terrible economic conditions in Cote d'Ivoire,
which he talked about endlessly.
In Money Has No Smell Paul Stoller draws a
connection berween the intractable poverry
most Africans endure and the predicament of
African immigrants like my friend. Stoller, an
anthropologist at West Chester Universiry in
Pennsylvania, examines the lives of African
traders who fled their continent to become
street vendors in New York Ciry.
New York Ciry has seen rwo distinct surges
of migration by African traders. The first,
which began as early as 1982, came primarily
from Senegal; the second wave, with West
African traders coming en masse from Ghana,
Nigeria, Mali, and Cote d'Ivoire during the
1990s, is Stoller's primary focus.
When the Senegalese arrived in New York
Ciry in the early 1980s, they set up shop on
fashionable Fifth Avenue in front of ultra-chic
stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth
Avenue and Trump Tower, which had its own
coterie of chic boutiques on the ground floor.
38
They sold counterfeits of Rolex-
es and other brand name watch-
es from makeshift tables. In the
1990s, competition heated up
berween the ubiquitous Sene-
galese vendors and the newly
arrived West African traders
from Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana
and Nigeria.
Inevitably, the Fifth Avenue
Merchants Association, led by
Donald Trump, began to com-
plain to the Koch Administra-
tion about the vendors. Forced
to leave the sacrosanct Fifth
Avenue commercial district in
1988, the vendors migrated to
125th Street in Harlem, nostal-
gically regarded by some histori-
ans and cultural critics as the
"cultural capital" of black America. It was here,
interestingly enough, that the newly arrived
West Africans abandoned Rolexes in favor of
Afrocentric baseball caps, tee-shirts, textiles,
jewelry, and art to black Americans.
The rich Afrocentric market in Harlem gave
rise to unexpected business alliances berween
Africans and Koreans. Stoller documents how
"Afrocentric" goods were manufactured by
Koreans in sweatshops along Canal Street in
lower Manhattan, then bought wholesale by
African street vendors uptown and sold to
black Americans, to whom they symbolized
authentic African heritage and identiry.
"Korean merchants in lower Manhattan ... did
not want to bow out of the lucrative market, "
writes Stoller. "And so they traveled uptown to
invest in bolts of wholesale 'Ghanaian kente,'
which they brought to their sweatshops in lower
Manhartan, producing hundreds of 'kente' caps
at a price cheaper than one could get buying
cloth on 125th Street and commissioning an
African tailor."
While the African vendors sold Afrocentric
goods to black Americans-what Stoller calls a
"simulated" version of authentic African iden-
tiry-many of the vendors wore baggy "home-
boy" jeans, baseball hats, and clothing from
Money
Has
No
Smell
The
Africanization
of
New
York
City
Paul
Stoller
the Gap. Whether or not this was a deliberate
attempt to appear American-Stoller does not
say-the lesson is clear: Globalization creates
cultural transvestites, global citizens able to
operate in a multitude of ethnic milieus.
But as street vendors multiplied along
125th Street, Harlem's main commercial
artery, tensions began to rise berween the
vendors, local merchants, and the political
establishment: Community Board 10, the
125th Street Business Improvement District,
and the Harlem Business Alliance, among
others. Like the Fifth Avenue Merchants
Association, these converging interests peti-
tioned Mayor Dinkins, and later Mayor Giu-
liani, to remove the vendors.
In 1994, under the auspices of then-Police
Commissioner William Bratton, Mayor Giu-
liani disbanded the vendors on 125th with a
show of police force that bordered on a mili-
tary invasion. The wholesale removal of the
vendors from 125th Street was one of Giu-
liani's first symbolic acts of control over public
space, one that set the tone for his rancorous
relationship with the black communiry during
his rwo terms as mayor. To further complicate
maners, the Ciry, in an unlikely-some said
unholy-political alliance, put a local mosque
CITY LIMITS
in charge of the vendors. Officials of the
Masjid Malcolm X Shabazz now preside over
an alternative vending site at 116th Street.
Stoller's account is painfully accurate,
though he fails to document the rise of Busi-
ness Imptovement Districts (BIDs) in New
York City in the early 1980s and during the
1990s. This is a serious omission, because of
the influence they had in regulating the use of
public space. The BIDs successfully pressured
police and city officials to remove vendors,
even when they were in full compliance with
city vending ordinances.
This is complicated terrain. To his credit,
Stoller articulates the nexus between global
trade policies and poverty in Africa. Yet he fails
to show how economic development policies in
poor black communities (in this case Harlem)
can also cause economic fissures and migrations
of their own.
Undoubtedly, the macro-migration of West
African traders to New York City as a response
to globalization is
important to reconcile
street vendors. They create informal banks to
loan one another money, paying back only
what they have borrowed, since interest is for-
bidden by Islamic law. Their collective goal is
to maintain their tradition of trading and the
economic lifelines to their families.
There are instances when Stoller's infor-
mants' accounts of village and family life are
unconvincing. This is particularly true when
the vendors talk about sexual fidelity and
polygamy. Their stories convey that there is no
strife, no tension-all is well in traditional
African society; yet, Stoller writes:
"To avoid opportunities for infidelity,
long-distance traders often insist that their
wives live in the family compound, surround-
ed by observant relatives who enforce codes of
sexual fidelity .... many of these men, especially
if they are travelling, believe it is their inalien-
able right to have sexual relationships with
other women. As Muslims, moreover, they
have a right, if they chose and are financially
able, to marry as many
as four women." One
and understand. Howev-
er, the constant micro-
migration of African
vendors within New
York City is also impor-
tant. Do the vendors dis-
tinguish between the
political and economic
forces that drove them
from their homelands
and those that drove
them from 125th Street?
The African vendors
in Stoller's book, very
Migrant street
vendors sell
watches,
kente cloth and
African identity.
wonders if Stoller has
read So Long A Letter
by the Senegalese femi-
nist novelist Marima
Ba. Considered a clas-
sic work of African lit-
erature, Ba debunks the
myth of happy "co-
wives" in polygamous
marriages and demon-
strates how "culture"
has been used to limit,
if not destroy, the
much like my friend
Yusef, share a stark disillusionment with Amer-
ica. But it is tempered by economic expediency
and geography: in the end, they prefer to be dis-
illusioned in America, with a greater chance of
economic survival, than in Africa. They have no
time for lofty speeches or negritude analysis.
They gather their goods. They move. They sell.
And so, after the police crackdown on vendors
in Harlem, Yusef migrated to the Village; we
agreed that he would sell his masks from under-
neath my book vending table.
WITHOUT LAPSING INTO academic doublespeak,
Stoller traces the consequences of globalization
on the diasporic lives of his informants, men
like Issifi Mayaka, El Hadj Moru Sifi, Idrissa
Dan Inna, all of whom are devout Muslims.
Relying on cooperative economic practices
based on Islam, many see survival by trade as
life, fortitude and honor-the ethos of most
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
ambitions of women.
But for the most
part, Stoller's "montage of social analysis and
ethnographic description" is purposeful.
vibrant and unobtrusive. Based on fieldwork
he conducted in New York City from 1992 to
1998, Stoller's intricate theoretical narrative
creates what Meyer Shapiro, the great art his-
torian, called "an entrance" into the lives of
West African vendors in New York City.
By examining the lives of African vendors,
Money Has No Smell uncovers the hidden
anthropology of African life in America.
Deeply informed by Stoller's extensive experi-
ence as a cultural anthropologist on both sides
of the Atlantic, Stoller's book gives us a fasci-
nating glimpse of New York City's third world
urban future .
Hakim Hasan is the Director of the
Audrey Cohen College Urban Institute in
New York City.
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
NOW READ THIS
Capitol Offenders: How Private
Interests Govern Our States
By Diane Renzulli and
The Center for Public Integrity
Public Integrity Books, $14
Creating this must have been hell. CPI, a good
government group, brought its Beltway-sharp-
ened investigative skills to state capitols, com-
pi ling campaign contributions and personal
financial information from the nation's 7,400
state legislators into a huge database. The
result is a compendium of numbers and out-
raged anecdotes about insider deal-making,
corporate influence and overt corruption. One
stunning factoi d: America has 36,959 registered
lobbying interests-nearly five for each legisla-
tor nationwide.
Making WorK Pay: America After Welfare
Edited by Robert Kuttner
The New Press, $18.95
The 18 American Prospect stories here take two
seemingly contradictory approaches: While
chastising local governments for heedlessly push-
ing welfare recipients into the unforgiving low-
wage market, it also applauds programs that help
low-wage workers build their careers and
incomes. The approach belies the nuanced reality
of welfare reform: Its seamy side ignored by cele-
bratory policymakers nationwide, its successes in
expanding child care and job training under-
played by progressive advocates and thinkers.
Grounds For Play: The Movement
that Built Playgrounds for the
People of New York
By Justin Krebs
New Yorkers for Parks, Donation requested
Playgrounds don't just happen, this brief but
engaging history argues; they exist because of
the hard work of activists who have prioritized
safe recreational spaces for youth. The highlight
is images of youth in the city's playgrounds-
from a dim shot of boys playing a primitive game
of basketball in a back alley to a bird's-eye view
of elaborate group dances in 1930s Harlem.
39
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
Poverty 3.0
Could free software
and computers wire a
grassroots revolution?
By Steven Gnagni
THE IDEA SEEMED so simple, yet so powerful.
First, take a bunch of old, decrepit computers
nobody else wanted. Install bare bones soft-
ware-an operating system, a word processing
program, email and an Internet browser.
Finally, distribute the computers to low-income
people, and fly them across the digital divide.
For Robin Acree, a welfare organizer in cen-
tral Missouri, the plan sounded perfect. The
local university extension offered 14 computers
it no longer needed. Acree's technology provider
was willing to handle software installation and
training. And her board members all needed
40
computers-most had never owned one.
As if that wasn't enough ro convince her,
Acree found herself drawn in by one last detail.
The software itself was state of the art, and it
would cost nothing. Created by a group of pro-
grammers scattered across the world, this kind
of software--called "open source" software
because the programs can be openly distributed
and modified-promised ro be more bug- and
failure-free, because it was developed and test-
ed by a collective of programmers and users.
In late April, Acree's New York City-based
computer consultants-Dirk Slater and Arif
Mamdani, of the Welfare Law Center's Low
Income Nerworking and Communications
(LINC) project-rook a trip ro Mexico, Mis-
souri, where Acree's low-income organizing
group, Grass Roots Organizing, is based. Out
of the 14 donated computers, a hodgepodge of
486s and low-end Penriums, 10 worked well.
It took rwo enrire days ro install the new
software. "We fully expected to run into prob-
lems," says Mamdani. "That's the other thing
about older machines. You never know exactly
what you're getting. There were a bunch of flop-
py drives, a couple of CD-ROMs that weren't
working, but the hard drives were all working."
Once the computers were set up, Mamdani
trained Acree and her staff, first as a group and
then individually. Three of the board members
had some experience with Windows machines,
and the other three had little or no experience
with computers at all.
There were some quick successes. One
board member, as soon as she saw that she had
a word processing program, immediately start-
ed wriring a letter to the governor. "That's very
powerful," says Acree. "We just gave her a com-
puter that someone else was going to throw
away, and look what she can do now. "
Gloria Curtis, another board member from
Columbia, Missouri , now uses the internet to
research welfare programs in other states. She's
also studying to be a paralegal and is complet-
ing all of the course exams online. Other board
members now email Acree constantly, setting
up meetings and responding to her messages.
But they had some steep learning curves, too.
While open source programs are just as func-
rional as Microsoft Word or Internet Explorer,
there are small differences-a function may be
listed under a different menu, for example, or it
may have a slightly different name. Those differ-
ences have slowed Acree down. "It's a hard tran-
sirion for me right now," Acree says. "There
seem to be extra steps involved that I'm not used
to doing. I'm very open-minded about it, but I
srill don't feel right."
IN 1984, A FORMER MIT computer scienrist
named Richard Stallman suggested that software
would become better if you made the source
code accessible to anyone, allowing other pro-
grammers a crack at improving it. They might
rewrite some of the code, which could make the
program run faster or crash less; they might also
create enrirely new features. In 2000, a small
group of nonprofits founded an organizarion
dedicated to promo ring and crearing open source
software: the Nonprofit Open Source Iniriarive,
or NOSI (www.nosi.net).
But while a small number of technology
assistance providers in the nonprofit sector are
actively promoting the use of open source soft-
ware, they're also finding out that the software
is srill a work in progress. In some cases, the
software is very intuitive and user-friendly; but
in others, setting up the software and learning
to use it can be so difficult it may even impede
the work of the organizarion. Part of the prob-
lem is that because the software was developed
by individuals, not companies, the documenta-
tion and support are often more complicated,
CITY LIMITS
or even lacking entirely. So while the organiza-
tions are saving money by getting free software,
they end up paying consultants to help them set
up and customize open source programs.
And while software can be expensive, setup
and upkeep are often the more expensive costs
in any technology project, says Jason Hutchins,
director of business relations for NonprofitSolu-
tions.Net, a technology consultancy for human
services and community-based organizations.
Not everything is complicated to set up.
Downloading and installing Mozilla, an open
source web browser designed by Netscape pro-
grammers, is as simple as getting the Netscape
browser. But installing and configuring Pagetool,
an open source program that allows inexperi-
enced computer users to create and update web
pages, or installing the Linux operating system
with a desktop interface that looks like Windows,
is more complicated.
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
something where I would say to a group, 'You
don't need my help ro do this,'" Slater says.
"But actually, I do know a couple of groups,
like [Brooklyn-based] Make the Road by Walk-
ing, that have had some computing expertise in
house, and they've been able to set them up
themselves."
It's much more rare to fmd examples of open
source being used on individual computers.
Because of this, the Missouri project was a big
trial for Slater and Mamdani. They carefully
chose the software: KDE and Gnome, two desk-
top interfaces that look a lot like Windows; the
web browser Mozilla; and two word processing
programs, Open Office and AbiWord.
Mamdani says he and Slater soon found one
challenge they didn't expect: Retraining experi-
enced users accustomed to using commercial
programs. They fust had to ask, "How are you
used to doing this?" and
then had to show the For nonprofits, the
real power of open
source, says Hutchins, is
in small, free, easy-to-
configure office and
Web applications. 'Til
go into nonprofits, and
they'll be talking about
how they need to buy
and customize some
How to turn old
computers into
organizing tools.
user the new way to do
the task. With com-
pletely inexperienced
users, "the training was
easier," Mamdani says.
"There was nothing to
relearn."
For Acree's group,
large, extensive piece of software to communi-
cate with each other," Hutchins explains. "And I
just say 'Look, why don't you just get AOL
Instant Messenger.' I spend an inordinate
amount of time going into organizations just
pointing Out free stuff. It's probably the first
thing I do. "
The other real money-saver, Hutchins says, is
open source software for servers-the large com-
puters that host files, web pages, and sometimes
software applications. "Most of your big non-
profits here in the city are paying professional
hosting services with huge contracts," he says.
"We're talking $60,000 annually for having
multiple servers. For that kind of budget, they
could have somebody on staff building and cus-
tomizing applications with open source."
IN FACT, MANY human services non profits are like-
ly already using some form of open source soft-
ware, whether they know it or not, and it's usual-
lyon their servers. The most common application
is an open source web site server called Apache.
According ro a survey released in March, 54 per-
cent of all web sites use Apache to serve content.
The second most common use of open
source software, says Slater, is installing the
Linux operating system on a file server. "It's not
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Slater focused on finding
technologies that would enable Acree and her
board members to do organizing work. Running
open source software on donated computers is a
clear winner for any organizing group, Slater says,
and last July LINC launched a similar project
with New York City low-income membership
group Community Voices Heard (CVH).
"I hate this term, but there's a digital divide on
our board-people who have computers, people
who don't have computers," says Paul Getsos,
executive director of CVH. Without the low cost
of open source software, says Getsos, CVH
couldn't consider giving computers ro all eight of
its board members. And in addition to its low
cost, the small-scale nature of open source soft-
ware makes it possible to use donated computers.
"If we're talking about a $1,000 investment," says
Getsos, "ies much more attractive."
For CVH, Slater is considering using Page-
tool. Available in a Spanish-language version,
the program allows organizers to update their
web sites themselves. "You can actually get a bit
more of your constituency involved in the
development of the site itself," Slater says. "For
us, that's huge."
Steven Gnagni is an Astoria-based freelance
writer.
CITY
LIMITS
ON
THE
WEB
NEWS.
ARCHIVES.
CALENDAR.
JOBS.
WWW.
CITYLIMITS.
ORG
41
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
Doing
Our Marketing
By David Hochman
ONCE UPON A TIME, back during the dot-com
labor shortage, I heard the chief operating offi-
cer of a major Internet company address a
Crain's breakfast-a regular event at which read-
ers of the weekly business publication and oth-
ers socialize, and listen to a panel of journalists
interview leading business and political figures.
The COO's company was a classic New
York City success story: He and his parmers
grew a vibrant technology business (still with
us today) by feeding off our dominance in
advertising. Of all the complaints a new media
mogul might have leveled at New York, this
entrepreneur chose to vent his wrath against
rent control. Why, he asked, should longtime
residents of the city lock up a valuable resource
that his new employees needed-and at bar-
gain prices, no less-simply because they were
longtime residents? If this intolerable and irra-
tional subsidy continued, pretty soon his
employees would have to commute from so far
away, they would no longer be recruitable. The
city would shrivel and die if his newly arrived
programmers could not be housed in the style
to which they were accustomed and entitled.
Much to his credit, the then-president of
the New York City Economic Development
Corporation took the floor in response. The
COO's complaint was sustainable, he said,
only if one ignored the many viable residential
neighborhoods outside Manhattan-all sub-
stantially cheaper per square foot, and most a
fast subway ride away from the business dis-
tricts. Had the complainant ever seen Brooklyn
Heights, or Cobble Hill, or Jamaica Estates?
Had he ever been outside Manhattan, for that
matter? The EDC head made admirably clear
that the city is actually richly endowed with
neighborhoods quite suitable for professional,
technical and managerial talent.
This exchange opened up for me a much
larger question: What does the city do to pro-
mote its strengths on the issues that really mat-
ter to entrepreneurs and senior executives? And
while we're at it, what exactly are the most
important issues? How do we reach the people
who actually make the private-sector decision
about where a job will be created, and where
one will be destroyed? Shouldn't the city that
42

can sell anything learn to sell itself?
When they are shaking down cities for subsi-
dies, companies like to say that they decide where
to locate based on tax rates and business costs,
and the financial incentives offered to them to
offset those costs. But the survey evidence is over-
whelmingly clear that what they really value is
infrastructure-knowledge infrastructure, in
modern times--and easy access to skilled man-
agers, hardworking professionals, experienced
technical staff, and reliable ordinary labor.
For example, when the Bank of Boston sur-
veyed 4,000 "MIT-related" companies nation-
wide and asked why these generally fast-growing,
high-wage employers chose their present loca-
tions, respondents ranked "quality of life" as the
single most important factor, followed by "skilled
professionals" and "proximity to markets. " Inci-
dentally, "regulatory climate" and "taxes" were
tied for least important, while "labor" and "low
business cost" ranked somewhere in the middle.
Such results emerge time and again, in stud-
ies by economists at the Milken Institute, from
Michael Porter's colleagues at Harvard Business
School, in my own work with Battelle Memo-
rial Institute, and from many state-level or
regional technology-trade associations. The
link is clear: To a business deciding where to
locate, "quality of life" means quality as per-
ceived by the key workforce.
Of course, there's one very particular class of
worker that business owners and senior execu-
tives are very concerned about: themselves.
Economic-development practitioners have
long privately held that the best predictor for
any corporate location was minimization of the
decision-maker's driving time! In fact, in a sur-
vey of early-stage biotech firms conducted
some years ago by the Washington (State)
Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, 93
percent of respondents agreed that their choice
of location was influenced by the desire of the
company founder or CEO to live in the area.
That result beat the next-most-frequently cited
factor (proximity to an institution of higher
education) by 9 percentage points.
EXECUTIVES OF THE CITY'S few remaining large
multinational corporations can afford to mini-
mize their commute time while satisfying their
quality of life needs by allocating their gener-
ous compensation packages to Manhattan
rents and private-school tuitions. Or, if they
want more space, they can commute from a
wealthy suburb with good schools. As for the
rest of the company-tough luck.
But that system doesn't work so well for the
entrepreneurial and technology-driven startup,
and everyone knows it. Startups live and die by
the talent they can recruit, and even if the prima-
ry entrepreneur is wealthy enough to do as he or
she pleases. The needs and preferences of other
key employees must be considered as well.
With regard to these tastes, a consensus has
begun to emerge in the popular literature.
Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon University
in Pittsburgh has received much press recently
for his theory of the "creative class." Young
knowledge workers, he points out, are often
intense, unconventional types. They "share a
common ethos that values creativity, individu-
ality, difference and merit" and are thus attract-
ed to communities of great diversity that offer
amenities demanded by young people (such as
nightlife). Joel Kotkin, of Pepper dine Universi-
ty in Malibu, California, and a fellow at the
Center for an Urban Future, cites human-scale,
mixed-use urban neighborhoods, cultural
offerings, and livability in general as big draws
for young, single knowledge workers.
While the city does well on nightlife, diversity
and culrural offerings-and that may be enough
to draw the youngest members of the "creative
class" (as it was during the dot-com boom)-
when twentysomething workers become thir-
tysomethings, the city's allure becomes less self-
evident. Javascript programmers may want to
party all night when they're 22, but what about
when they're 32, and managing a division, or 42
and running a company? Florida asserts that as
they age, marry and reproduce, they would really
rather remain where they are, but there is no ques-
tion that their needs change in certain funda-
mental ways-and the need to live in a city that
never sleeps generally begins to lose ground to
more domestic concerns.
"Hard" technology workers, such as engi-
neers and lab-bench life scientists, are an even
CITY LIMITS
tougher sell. According to Kotkin, they tend to
be drawn to safety and security from the outset,
gravitating toward places such as Irvine, Califor-
nia, which Kotkin dubs "nerdistans": planned
communities that "seek to eliminate all ... distrac-
tions--crime, traffic, commercial blight-that
have commonly been endemic in cities," and
which are not dependent on commuting into a
central city. The nerdistans are self-contained
pods of upper-middle-class housing and upper-
middle-class jobs. This goes a long way toward
explaining why New York has not generated
many startups in telecom hardware, biotechnol-
ogy or advanced materials, for example.
Molecular biology postdocs at age 30 like to
know they can work late into the night at the
lab and get home safely, and that their spouses
will be secure at home alone. They want to live
comfortably and give their children every
advantage. That they can't see a way to do this
in New York City is why pharmaceutical exec-
utives and biotech entrepreneurs gravitate to
obscure corporate campuses in Princeton, New
Jersey, instead of to New York City, which sup-
ports far more academic medical research than
does the entire state of New Jersey. Eventually,
even the programmers and the Internet content
providers run into the same problem.
What do these needs really boil down to? The
answer is housing and schools. Aside from phys-
ical safety, that's the really bottom line. It's so
obvious-why do we miss it? Our competitors
in the suburbs certainly don't. Take the D.C.
suburbs, which are among Kotkin's key nerdis-
tans. Have a look at the Web si te of Virginia's
Fairfax County Economic Development
Authority, and you'll find a page on living there.
You'll fmd median housing costs (favorably com-
pared with median prices in Boston and New
York City), and you'll find this illuminating
quote: "The Fairfax County Public School Sys-
tem is consistently rated among the best in the
nation, with many special academic programs,
and high test scores and graduation rates."
Or take a look at the Web page for the
Tust in Unified School District in Irvine:
"TUSD has a long history of excellence ... nine
schools in TUSD have been recognized as
either state or nationally distinguished
schools ... Tustin schools consistently score well
on state tests ... students receive top scores
among state schools on annual standardized
tests." Or try the "Destination Irvine" Web site:
"Irvine's high school topped the state's average
S.A.T. score by more than 150 points. "
Across the nation, the pattern recurs: Irving,
Texas (a Dallas "boomburb," as Fannie Mae
Foundation calls such sprawling high-growth
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
communities), Boulder, Colorado (a Denver edge
city)-all these competitors for good jobs empha-
size their high-quality housing and schools.
But in New York, the newyorkbiz.com web
site of the Economic Development Corporation
contains absolutely nothing about residentialliv-
ing in New York City. Nothing about housing
costs, nothing about schools, nothing about
neighborhoods, nothing about worship or com-
munity. It's all about fmancing and tax-benefit
programs. Oh, and don't bother looking at the
web page of NYC and Company (the city's visi-
tors' bureau) , or the New York City Partnership
and Chamber of Commerce, or any other pro-
motional entity. You won't find the information
there, either. (About a dozen years ago, the New
York City Partnership did publish a guide to res-
idential neighborhoods in all five boroughs,
To attract
fast -growing,
high-wage firms we
should talk up our
Tudors and our
test scores, not our
tax breaks.
Stressing the diversity of architectural and living
styles available outside Manhattan. However, its
use in economic-development activities was spo-
radic, and was not continued into the Giuliani
years-a time when quality-of-life initiatives
focused on attacking problems, rather than on
cultivating and marketing assets already in place.)
Now, I know our Board of Ed ain't the Tustin
Unified School DiStrict. We do have our success-
es, however, and they are more than Stuyvesant
High School and Bronx Science, which are
known even to many corporate executives. But
take a look at how far you have to dig into the
New York City Board of Education web site
before you learn that one of the schools that leads
the Intel Science Scholarship Competition on a
regular basis is Midwood High School in Brook-
lyn, a racially integrated neighborhood school
one block off the Brooklyn College campus!
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
Where can you find us bragging about Townsend
Harris in Queens, about Hunter College High
School, about Brooklyn Tech, about all those
neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens and the
Bronx and Staten Island that the complaining
COO had never heard of? You can't.
Well, we're going to have to start-and we're
going to have to be aggressive about it, because
the rest of the country doesn't understand very
well even the basics of life here, let alone what can
make it especially fulfilling. A onetime colleague,
who lived in the suburbs of Buffalo and used to
come to New York City on business several times
a year, once asked me earnestly, "Where do New
Yorkers shop for food?" He knew that millions of
us lived here, but he'd only ever seen the midtown
business district, and he couldn't find anything he
identified as "supermarker. " And during last
year's tussle over the downtown aid package, Sen-
ate Majority Leader Trent Lott expressed surprise
that people actually lived in Battery Park City's
high-rise buildings.
To start winning the fight for high-wage jobs
and high-growth companies, we must promote
the school successes we have, especially those in
the non-Manhattan boroughs. We must promote
and further cultivate residential neighborhoods
in the boroughs that offer suitable housing for
professionals, managers and business owners.
And we need to scout for those areas throughout
the boroughs that are suitable for-and
amenable to---developing residential neighbor-
hoods and commercial districts attractive to the
founders and owners of technology-based enter-
prises. We may even find that some outlying
neighborhoods give us the opportunity to emu-
late the suburban "campus setting," complete
with access to nearby living arrangements, aimed
at those all-important trained professionals.
Most of all, we must begin to be much more
explicit about how daily life actually works in
New York City, and how it can work for those
whose skills are needed for us to prosper. We
need to see New York as a great place to live
before we can tell that story believably to oth-
ers. With all that advertising talent we have, we
mustn't stop until our most tranquil and livable
neighborhoods, our most functional schools,
and our absurdly low real-estate taxes on single-
family homes are as well known to those who
might consider moving here as are the more-
familiar virtues of Princeton or Westport or
Scarsdale or Manhasset .
David Hochman is a consultant in technology-led
economic development based in New York City.
NYC Inc. is a project of the Center for an Urban
Future.
43
Andrew Cuomo COlllilllledjrolll page 20
Gaffney, found widespread municipal misuse of CDBG funds. By law, 70
percent of the grants must benefit low- and moderate-income residents.
While HUD claimed that more than 90 percent of the money went to
these groups, Gaffney found a series of institutionalized faulty accounting
practices. She said the benefit to the poor was closer to 65 percent.
But the report did not appear to faze Cuomo. Several years later, he
further weakened restrictions on CDBG, announcing a new program
without any public review. Under the new rules, local governments
could designate geographic zones in which at least 51 percent of the pop-
ulation is low- or moderate-income as "neighborhood revitalization
areas." CDBG dollars could thus be spent on job creation or housing
improvement no matter whom the money benefited.
At the same time, advocates say, Cuomo allowed a continued loosen-
ing of enforcement for those cities abusing the system. "It was just star-
tling to notice how much you didn't see HUD anymore in your office,"
says Ann O'Hara, associate director of Boston's Technical Assistance
Collaborative, who has worked with housing issues for 27 years and
whose program received CDBG dollars. "The whole focus of the depart-
ment turned inward, and much less to how grantees were doing."
Glaser says that the advocates' claim is simply inaccurate. Crack-
downs on abuses in Milford, Connecticut, and Galveston, Texas, he says,
reflected the agency's commitment to maintaining strong enforcement.
Yet cities continued to flaunt regulations. Binghamton, New York,
used CDBG money to rebuild a main commercial street, enclose
carousel horses in the city park and put up signs for tourists, while fund-
ing for a nearby homeless shelter was cut. Lex Liberatore, an associate
director of Citizen Action of New York, remembers complaining about
the apparent violations to HUD's local area manager in 1997. The man-
ager's response, according to Liberatore, was blunt: "Forget about the
regulations," he said. "Let's talk about reality."
Gramlich blames that new reality on Cuomo's oversight. "There was
clearly a different attitude coming from headquarters, " he says. Years
later, the management of CDBG dollars remains difficult to gauge. As
recently as March, HUD said 84 percent of CDBG money was benefit-
ing low- and moderate-income individuals, but the agency has not
released a detailed accounting of that money.
In 2000, HUD's inspector general Gaffney-by now an avowed polit-
ical foe ofCuomo's-reported that the same problems she found in 1993
still existed. She recounted recommending that Cuomo increase CDBG
regulation when he arrived at HUD. "However, " she noted, "those rec-
ommendations have not been implemented. " -Michael Scherer
Public housing falls
and new neighborhoods rise-
with limited room for the poor.
(.(. It is one of the things I'm most proud of," Andrew Cuomo has
said of his commitment as HUD secretary ro provide $1.5 bil-
lion ro help Chicago tear down all of its high-rise public hous-
ing and place the rest under private management. "We're going ro learn
from the mistakes of the past."
Many former residents of public housing would agree that their homes
were in terrible shape--dreadfully deteriorated, or at least segregated, iso-
lated and crime-ridden. But researchers who have studied the federal gov-
ernment's decade-old response--demolishing more than 80,000 units of
public housing and replacing them with privately built, mixed-income
low-rise developments-are now asking whether amid the trees and
44
townhouses, old mistakes are being compounded by new ones.
Perhaps no city is more affected right now than Chicago, where 53 high
rises have been, or will soon be, demolished. The apartments were in dis-
mal shape: In a 1996 HUD viability survey, 18,000 our of38,000 flunked.
Mismanagement and decrepitude led ro high vacancy rates in some pro-
jects. At the same time, the housing authority-under HUD receivership
from 1995 to 1999-mainrained a 40,000-household waiting list.
Yet only one-third of the newly developed housing units will be avail-
able ro poor people, resulting in a net loss of an estimated 14,000 afford-
able apartments. HUD was concerned enough abour the impact of
Mayor Richard Daley's plans to a market study on the availability oflow-
cost housing. A team from the University of Illinois surveyed the six-
county region, crunching numbers and interviewing landlords. They
found that the areas where apartments were available were the South and
West sides of the city-already overwhelmingly poor, isolated from eco-
nomic opportunity and transportation, and segregated by race. "It's not
enough to make sure there are units," says Janet Smith, a lead researcher
on the study. "You have ro be able to get into those areas." <None>In
addition, some fmdings certainly suggested an overall mismatch between
supply and demand: For households making less than abour $20,000 a
year, the study found a shortage of about 153,000 apartments.
Smith and her team hoped ro get the study released in time for a series
of public hearings on the so-called Transformation Plan. It wasn't. Instead,
it got locked in a bitter back-and-forth between the researchers and
Cuomo's office. According ro Smith, HUD officials "wanted us ro say
defmitively whether the market would or wouldn't absorb the new peo-
ple. " She tried explaining the nuances of their fmdings and the impossi-
bility of drawing a firm conclusion, ro no avail.
Howard Glaser, who was Cuomo's negotiaror with the Daley adminis-
tration, says HUD had evety reason ro demand precise answers. ''The criti-
eal question in Chicago was, Could the market absorb additional residents?"
he recounts. "This is what the University of Illinois was paid hundreds of
thousands of dollars to find out. The agency would have been abdicating
responsibility if it hadn't drawn those conclusions." As for the timing of the
report's release, "My recollection is that the report came out in record time. "
Chicago is now a living laborarory for the results. For the tenants
already moving our of the rowers, it hasn't been easy. Sudhir Venkatesh, a
sociologist at Columbia University, has been studying the former resi-
dents of Robert Taylor Homes, a two-mile-long colossus that housed
4,500 large families, as they make their way ro new neighborhoods. Just
seven of 28 buildings still stand.
Venkatesh has found that at least 30 percent of residents were not
legal occupants, and thus have no subsidies to help pay the rent; some
were squatters, others friends or family ofleaseholders. It's one reason, he
suspects, why abour 10 percent of households who've left report having
been homeless or living in transient situations since they moved out.
Even some legal tenants have found themselves ineligible for Section 8
vouchers, because they owe utility bills or get hit with "one strike" evic-
tions for association with drug offenders.
Another researcher, Sue Popkin of the Urban Institute, has found that
families who remain in public housing despite incentives ro move often
have serious personal problems, including mental illness and physical ail-
ments. Attachment to the old neighborhood frequently proves difficult
to break; even among those who have moved, Venkatesh is finding, most
continue ro use their old churches and grocery srores, and one-quarter
still send their children to their former schools.
"In Chicago, a large proportion are there because it was the housing of
last resort," observes Popkin, who credits Cuomo with doing much more
than his predecessor, Henry Cisneros, to make sure that residents receive
social services during the transition. "They don't have a place in the private
rental market. " She maintains that some kind of supportive housing will be
necessary: "They need ro be treated as if all but homeless." -A0;s"sa Katz
CITY LIMITS
Political Consciousness
Gonlirllledji"Olll pnge 23
in a decade," says one Democratic consultant
of the 2000 Senate bids. "They pumped mil-
lions into that." In addition to the candidate
funds, the campaign committee spent $6.9
million in 1999 and 2000, including a
$700,000 loan that is less than half repaid.
KRUEGER, OF COURSE, disagrees. She has
already made good use of the one heavy weapon
in the Senate Democrats' arsenal: their power to
pass popular legislation by rurning it into a cam-
paign issue. By letting voters know, over and
over again, that Senate Republicans were block-
ing progress on a years-old measure requiring
health insurance companies to cover birth con-
trol and other women's health services, her cam-
paign against Ravitz forced the Senate ro fmally
pass a version just days before the special elec-
tion this past winter, over the objections of the
Catholic Church. This June, the Senate and
Assembly agreed on a fmal bill, which gives reli-
gious employers the option of denying birth
control coverage but requires it for everyone else.
"IfI played a role in getting that passed, then
pat me on the back," says Krueger. But while
false modesty is among her more traditional
tricks of political charm, what people tend ro
remember about Krueger is the way she trans-
lates social conviction and hellish bureaucratese
alike into the charry spiels of a teenager point-
ing out the obvious. (Not for nothing does she
mockingly refer ro herself as Gidget Goes ro the
Senate.) "Mammograms, breast cancer preven-
tion, do we need another study on that?" she lit-
erally snorts. "Pap smears, hello-o? Why is this
so hard in New York State in 2002?"
Schneiderman asserts that even if the Senate
rules were less brutal, political hardball would still
be the only way for the Dems ro get anywhere.
"No one has ever gonen anything in Albany with-
out political pressure," he notes. "It's not like
there was a time when people would just stand up
and debate the issues. That was never the case." In
this year's races, he hopes to hammer the opposi-
tion on the Senate's inaction on a minimum wage
hike, Superfund site deanup, unemployment
extension, smoking restrictions and other mea-
sures that have wide popular appeal .
Krueger presents herself as more of an ideal-
ist. In consultation with her old advocate allies,
she crafts detailed arguments for her positions
and retails them ro key Republican colleagues.
Often, it's to block conservative social legisla-
tion, like a bill that would have made anyone
who failed ro atrend a court date for a misde-
meanor ineligible for public assistance. Like
most of the hundreds of measures introduced in
the Senate every year, it was not even in play in
the Assembly. Krueger says she puts energy inro
blocking political measures like this anyway
because "I don't want it floating out there."
The channels for internal influence are
there. "Bruno controls his chairs, but not as
much as Silver does," observes Ned Schneier, a
professor of political science at Colgate College
and sometime education lobbyist. "If you can
convince the chair, you might be able to get
some of your arguments through."
Usually candid to excess, Krueger is disin-
clined ro talk on the record about her internal
lobbying work. Pointing out the obvious,
Krueger notes that any Republican found to be
working with a Democrat targeted for elimina-
tion "is going to have their head on a planer. "
Krueger also has to find hope in defeats.
Both houses ended up passing a bill, scripted
by Hertz and Avis, that eliminated longstand-
ing protections for car renters, but not before
Krueger railed against it on the floor and
helped convince 10 Republicans-some of
whom thanked her afterwards for persuading
them to break ranks-to vote against it.
"Despite the craziness that is our legislature,"
WANT
ONE
"('
\ '/
'::0-::'
- -
./ / I \ <'
OF THESE?
I
L _____ ....
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
she says of the lesson of that experience, "if you
do your homework, make arguments, push
hard, develop a level of what I'd like ro think is
respect from colleagues, you can get them to
cross their own leadership."
One issue she hopes to make headway on is
housing, as ranking minority member of that
committee and, she plans, resident expert. It's
not new territory for Krueger: At CFRC, she
established an anti-eviction program noted for
going beyond the requirements of its New York
City contract.
A lot of her colleagues, including a significant
chunk of the New York City delegation,
couldn't give a crap, as Krueger herself might say.
Still, Kruger says she's convinced her labors-
the speeches, the research, the networking and
nudging and fundraising-are not a waste.
"Doing advocacy for low-income people for 20
years, I learn how ro lose," she says. "Often the
biggest wins are stopping them from doing
something worse than they intended to do. "
At the same time, like most career activists
she has ro reckon with the unthinkable. Posted
right behind her desk is a New Yorker carroon,
of a secretary checking in on her boss' schedule:
"From 3 a.m. ro four-thirty, I have you wonder-
ing if everything in your life has been a mistake."
At 6:30 that night, after a day spent at three
hostile committee hearings, meetings with anes-
thesiologists, plumbers, and domestic violence
counselors seeking support on bills, a DC 37
luncheon, a closed door member-item meeting
with the Democrats, and one sparsely populated
Senate session, the cartoon looked like a thought
balloon over Krueger's head. "I don't know ifI'll
be any more effective in government," she says.
"But I just looked at 20 years in activism and
asked myself I'm not sure I was effective there
either. Deep down inside, I'm just a flag-waving
patriot. I had people pushing me: Duane,
Schneiderman, Dollinger, they brought me up
here, and I was waving the flag. "
Get a cool poster of
our invite cartoon!
Send $5 for postage
and handling to:
CITY LIMITS POSTER
120 Wall Street,
20th Floor
NYC 10005
45
Sold Out conlinlled jrolll page :23
and Washington Heights. As Chinatown's business suffers in me wake of
September 11, Manharran's Community Board 3 is proposing to move
some vendors inro an alternative lot, and DBS has signed on to help.
To business groups, me markets are an ideal solution. "I mink me city's
done someming pracrical and inrelligenr in irs approach to vending," says
Kennem Adams, me amiable presidenr of me Brooklyn Chamber of Com-
merce. "If mere's a lot of illegal vending on a commercial street, and you
want to enforce legislarion, you've got to give mem somewhere to go!"
The markets are set up by a unit ofDBS called me Vendor Micro Enrer-
prise Division, which gers most of irs $515,OOO-a year-budget from federal
block granrs for community economic developmenr. Once me markers are
established, local nonprofirs take over day-to-day managemenr and offer
vendors classes in business, a=unting, English and computer skills.
But for many vendors, me markets are not a popular oprion. While
mey fare better in some than in others-some vendors praise Flatbush's
well-managed market, but omers have gone belly-up in Harlem's-mey
all make less money man mey would on me sidewalk.
Even mose who manage mem agree mat me markets are more suc-
cessful at assuaging community complainrs man at generaring revenue.
"We were in support of vendors remaining on me street," says Griffim,
whose Central Brooklyn Partnership oversees me Bed-Stuy marker. "I
mought it added a flavor and a vibrancy. It made me feel at home. But
we were offered lemons, and so we had to make lemonade. "
For Crawford, "me marketplace thing is a problem. It appears to be a
way of legitimating vending but is actually a way of eliminaring it,
because mey make such srringenr rules. " Having studied vending exten-
sively in Los Angeles and currently in Florence, Italy, she concludes, ''I'm
personally against me marketplaces. "
Milano
But perhaps mere are omer options. Vendors and meir advocates, poliri-
cos, planners, and academics suggest a vast, unexplored middle ground for
resolving me vendor conundrum. Marketing guru Paco Underhill lauds
urban markers, but says planners should take design lessons from "fesrival
marketplaces" like Boston's Faneuil Hall, designed by James Rouse to
resemble urban srreerscapes---<:omplete wim vendors, of course. Kennem
Adams proposes revamping vending regularions, which are so confusing
mey're hard to enforce (some vendors, for example, are allowed to set up
over street grates, while omers aren't) . Balkin suggesrs a day tax on a sliding
scale to combat what he calls "a big &eaker-outer"-me fact mat illegal ven-
dors don't pay taxes. Sean Basinski, coordinator of me Urban Jusrice Cen-
ter's Street Vendor Project, which organizes and provides free legal services
to vendors, thinks me city should simply issue more licenses.
Jaya, who goes by just her first name, hawks handcrafted jewelry in
Soho, where local merchants and residents are pushing aggressively for
more enforcement against vendors--even legal ones. (Recently, many
Soho vendors have started carrying video cameras and tape recorders to
ward off illegal seizure of goods by police.)
Cute, calm and extremely diplomaric, Jaya's got alternarives in mind.
Vendors could "roll wim it, " she says, in reference to pushcarrs allowed in
omer ciries. And she finds Cleveland's day licenses and New Jersey's.
assigned spots interesring alternarives worth looking into in New York.
Most importantly, mough, Jaya believes vendors need to go to community
board meerings and tell meir side of me story to residenrs and merchanrs.
And small shops, says Jaya, need to remink meir relationships to ven-
dors. Having peddled in all five boroughs, she cautions mat retailers and
residenrs who want vendors removed should be careful what mey ask for.
"I worked in each one of mose areas where [vendors] were taken away, and
watched mose businesses lose money," she says. "We bring mem business.
They're not thinking about mar. " _
Students and faculty working
46

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together to rebuild New York
Earn a Master of Science degree in:
Urban Policy Analysis and Management
Nonprofit Management
Human Resources Management
Health Services Management and Policy
Organizational Change Management
Ph.D. degree:
Public & Urban Policy
(.III lor Iflfor IIldtlOI1 !12 !!<) ;1;0 ('xt. 30;
72 Fifth AvelluP. Nt'w York. N,Y 10011 www.n('wschool.{'du/milano/
CITY LIMITS
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[email protected] or fax
your ad to 212-479-3339. The
ad will run in the City Limits
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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 Publisher Kim Nauer at
212-479-3352.
RENTAL SPACE
SPACE FOR RENT - NYC - 708 Broadway -
NOHO 7,750 sf, suitable for office, medical ,
education, training programs near NYU, Vil-
lage, Soho, all transportation Central AC.
direct electric, Reasonable rent call Jay Case-
ley, Excl. Agent 212-505-5089
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN OFFICE SPACE AVAIL-
ABLE IMMEDIATELY.Over 8,000 square feet SI.
Ann and the Holy Trinity Parish House, 157
Montague St. Bus. Dist. Subdividable; Non-
profit only, suitable for classrooms, conference
center, administrative offices. Access from all
major subways. Term: 2 to 3 years Rent: $15-
$20 per square foot, net Contact: Gregory
Eaton, 718-875-6960.
R F P S
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL- The New York Cit-
izens Committee of the Rockefeller Foundation
invites proposals for capacity building pro-
grams targeting organizations encouraging
civic participation (voter education, school
leadership, community boards, citizen advo-
cacy promoting community well-being, com-
munity cultural development, etc.) in immi -
grant communities in New York City. Awards
will be for up to $200,000. The deadline is
September 5, 2002. For guidelines contact
[email protected] or call 212-852-
0180.
JOB ADS
DIRECTOR OF TRAINING: BWI- a non-profit
workforce development organization-seeks a
motivated individual to manage program
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
operations, including: program design, cur-
riculum review, program evaluation, contract
management and relations with contracting
agencies and staff supervision for two training
programs serving over 150 people annually.
Additional responsibilities include overseeing
job development; managing participant track-
ing database; supervising recruitment and
referrals; and assisting with resource develop-
ment and special projects and staff supervi-
sion. Qualifications: Minimum of 3 years man-
agement experience in workforce development
and/or adult education. Experience managing
multiple training programs and contracts.
Familiarity with performance- based con-
tracts, WIA and workforce development in NYC.
Experience with program design and evalua-
tion. Excellent written communication, organi-
zational and computer skills. Job Development
and database experience major pluses. Bilin-
gual (English/Spanish) a plus. Salary: DOE;
good benefits. ANEOE. Fax or e- mail resume,
cover letter and salary requirements to: Aaron
Shiffman, 718-857-4322 or
[email protected]. See www.bwiny.org
for more information.
TRAINING PROGRAM OIRECTOR, BWI - a
non-profit workforce development organiza-
tion - seeks a motivated individual to manage
staff and program operations, including: job
readiness training, placement and retention,
contract management, participant recruit-
ment and selection, and database manage-
ment for our commercial driving training pro-
gram, Red Hook on the Road. Additional
responsibilities include assisting with job
development, case management, outreach
and special projects. Qualifications: Minimum
of two years experience in workforce develop-
ment, and/or adult education. Supervisory
experience required. Familiarity with perfor-
mance-based contracts, WIA and workforce
development in NYC. Excellent written com-
munication, organizational and computer
skills. Job Development and database man-
agement experience major pluses. Bilingual
(English/Spanish) a plus. Salary: DOE; good
benefits. MlEDE. Fax or e-mail resume, cover
letter and salary requirements to: Aaron Shiff-
man, 718-857-4322 or
[email protected]. See www.bwiny.org
for more information.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS -
Busy public affairs office of elected official
seeks deputy director/press secretary with cre-
ative writing, media and management skills.
Manage media inquiries and press relations.
Savvy communication abilities with strong
media contacts & able to multitask. Journal -
ism experience, knowledge of Brooklyn & pub-
lic policy issues. Must have the ability to main-
tain a tight work schedule in a limited publi c
information office and work well under pres-
sure. NYC residency & BA required. 3 yrs paid
experience. Fax resume and cover letter with
salary history to 718-802-2655. EOE
COMMUNITY EDUCATOR - The Women in
Prison Project of the Correctional Association
of NY seeks an energetic, creative, and com-
mitted part-time Community Educator for its
new ReConnect initiative. The Community
Educator will develop and implement a course
for former women prisoners and women in
alternative to incarceration programs that will
offer training and information on job readi-
ness, educational opportunities, public hous-
ing restrictions, foster care and custody, and
substance abuse services; and an outreach
campaign to educate community-based
groups about ways in which they can assist
women returning to their communities.
Women, people of color and former prisoners
strongly encouraged to apply. Salary DOE, full
health and dental benefits. Please send
resume and cover letter to WIPp, 135 East 15th
Street, NYC 10003.
CASEWORKER - Bilingual in Spanish, Man-
darin or Cantones. Provide social services to indi-
viduals and families affected by 9/11. BAlBSW
preferred or at least 2 years case management
experience within Human Services. Assess
needs, develop service plans, work independent-
ly with team mentality, excellent interpersonal
skills, flexible, culturally sensitive to consumer
needs, objective in difficult situations. Email
resume [email protected] or
fax 212-337-7467.
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS SERVICES - to join
economic development NFP based in Sunset
Park, Brooklyn. The Director runs the Empire
Zone program, consults with local businesses
on other economic development programs,
and works to arrange favorable financing for
various real estate/equipment projects of local
businesses. Master's degree in business,
finance, urban policy, or related field, or bach-
elor's degree plus two years experience sug-
gested. Ability to respond to requests for
assistance, and to initiate new projects. Email
resume w/ cover letter to Bill Shockney at
[email protected]; fax to 718 965-4906;
or mail to SWBIDC, 269 37th St. , Brooklyn, NY,
11232, ATTN: Executive Director.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR - for entrepreneurial
development programs is a new position with
responsibility in planning and delivering inno-
vative business assistance programs. Pro-
grams include training, technical assistance,
and resource development for local entrepre-
neurs, small businesses, and members of a
small business incubator. Qualifications: An
entrepreneurial individual with 3 years of
business experience, a Bachelor'S degree,
strong communication skills, and the ability to
lead teams. Bi-lingual (English/Spanish) is
strongly preferred. E-mail cover letter, resume
and three references to Jenn Beisser at jbeiss-
[email protected]. Please submit ASAP.
EI Puente, a holistic learning and development
institution founded in 1982 in North Brooklyn,
is looking for a COORDINATOR - for its TASC
[The After School Corporation) funded program
at EI Puente Academy for Peace and Justice.
The organization's mission is to inspire and
nurture leadershi p for peace and justice. EI
Puente uses a community center approach to
bri dge the efforts of a performing and vi sual
arts center, a public high school and a com-
munity health and environment institute with
after school / after work and in-school pro-
JOB ADS
grams to promote development, democracy
healing and all human rights. The TASC Coor-
dinator works very closely with EI Puente Acad-
emy staff and facilitators. Under the direct
supervision and guidance of the Executive
Director, s/he is responsible for overall man-
agement and coordination of EI Puente's TASC
funded program, including, but not limited to,
program planning and design, recruitment of
students and staff, staff supervision and
development, timely submission of all required
program reports to TASC and attend all TASC
sponsored meetings, trainings and workshops.
Qualifications: B.A. and a minimum of two
years experience in education, youth develop-
ment and/or other related fields; demonstrat-
ed commitment to and experience in youth and
community development; strong administra-
tive and supervisory skills; excellent verbal
and written communication skills; highly orga-
nized and self-motivated; ability to work with
and in teams; strong commitment to human
rights and social justice issues. In addition,
S/he is expected to participate in the organiza-
tion's general staff meetings and to achieve
contractual and organizational goal s and
objectives. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence. Please send resume to: Frances Lucerna,
Executive Director, EI Puente, 211 South 4th
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211.
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR / CHIEF OPERATING
OFFICER - UHAB, a city-wide co-op housing
nonprofit, seeks a full time employee to have
primary responsibility for developing and
applying a new business plan to accommo-
date UHAB's current and future activities and
growth. The Associate Director will assist in
developing and implementing changes in the
internal operations at UHAB. He or she will be
responsible for the short and long term
financing needs of the organization and work
with UHAB's Project Directors to oversee the
financial aspects of UHAB's government and
other fee for service contracts. Location:
UHAB's main office at 120 Wall Street. Quali-
fications: This job requires an entrepreneurial
approach and a strong background in busi-
ness planning and finance, as well as experi-
ence with the administration and operations
of non-profit organizations. Experience in
community development is preferable. Good
communication, writing and computer skill s.
Salary: Depending upon qualifications and
experience. Application: Send a letter and
resume to: UHAB, 120 Wall Street, 20th Floor,
New York, NY 10005 Fax: (212) 344-6457
E-mail: [email protected] More Info:
www.uhab.org
RECEPTIONIST/ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
- Small downtown office seeks reception-
ist/administrative assistant to set up and
organize files, answer phone, create Power-
Point slides, monitor and order office supplies,
make copies, assemble mailings, as well as
other administrative duties. Applicant should
have knowledge of and experience with basic
office systems, WORD, PowerPoint, Outlook
and Internet research. Proofreading experience
a plus. Applicant should be organized, enthu-
si astic, flexible (pretty relaxed office), and able
and willing to take initiative with projects. 9 to
5 hours, $201hr (no benefits). Please send
47
JOB AOS
resume/cover letter to: Amy Baker, Annie E.
Casey Foundation, 80 Broad Street, Suite 2401,
New York, NY 10024 or [email protected]
DlRECTDR DF RESIDENTIAL LIFE - Responsi-
ble for establishing a new boarding program at
a Catholic Hi gh School for girls in East Flat-
bush, Brooklyn. Serve as liason between resi-
dential community and school. Need to have
leadership qualities, good communications
skills, good management and counseling expe-
rience, and need good experience working with
at-risk teenage girls. Responsible for manag-
ing and supervising house parents. Responsi-
ble for creating and maintaining a safe envi-
ronment where students can grow both per-
sonally and academically. Responsible for
designing an after-school program that
ensures that all time is supervised, productive,
and stimulating. Responsible for establishing
a relationship with parents of boarders and for
giving them regular updates on the progress of
their child. E-mail resume to Barbara Welles
at: [email protected] or fax:
212.842.5731.
The South Broadway Business Improvement
Di strict in Yonkers, New York has just been
formed and we are seeking an EXECUTIVE
DIRECTDR - to help start and guide us. We
have extraordinary potential to make our area
highly sought after for general commercial
needs as well as dining and entertainment. We
will be looking for an Executive Director, hold-
ing at least a Bachelor's Degree and with a
minimum of seven years of relevant experience
dealing with private industry and the public
sector. Our Executive Director will have: (1) a
clear understanding of what makes merchants
successful, (2) a clear understanding of the
needs of business people in the daily opera-
tions of their businesses, (3) knowledge of the
workings of government, (4) an intuitive sense
of how to utilize resources of the public sector
to benefit the needs of the private sector and
(5) a talent for working effectively with an
active and diverse Board of Directors. Compen-
sation is competitive and commensurate with
qualifications. Please reply by June 10, 2002
to: Dennis Monasebian, Chair South Broadway
District Management Association 435 South
Broadway, Office #7 Yonkers, NY 10705 or, E-
mail [email protected] Or, FAX 914-273-
9015.
PRDGRAM CDDRDINATDRSITHERAPIST -
Innovative drug free outpatient agency seeks
CSWs and CASACs for two program coordinator
and several therapist positions at Brooklyn and
Queens sites. Individual/group counseling.
Spanish-speaking and/or MICA experience
desirable. Fax resume to Paul Ruchames 718
243-2715.
PDLlCY ASSDCIATE - Gay Men's Health Crisis
seeks Policy Associate to work to increase the
availability of and access to affordable, quali-
ty health care for people living with HIVIAIDS.
Responsibilities include monitoring legislative
proposals, administrative policies and prac-
tices that impact availability of care, design-
ing educational tools that explain changes in
the public and private programs that serve
people living with HIV/AIDS, engaging in direct
48
public policy advocacy on behalf of people liv-
ing with HIV/AIDS at the city, state and Feder-
al levels and drafting documents in response
to legislative proposals and administrative
practices. Master's Degree in public policy,
public health, public administration or related
field, or equivalent experience required. Proven
experience in hands on public policy advocacy
for vulnerable populations, preferably on
behalf of people with serious illnesses, includ-
ing HIVIAIDS is necessary. Specialized knowl-
edge areas include the design, financing and
delivery system of public and private health
programs including Medicaid, AIDS Drug
Assistance Program (ADAP), and private health
insurance. The position requires strong policy
writing skills, frequent travel to Albany and
occasional travel to Washington, DC. Send
resume with cover letter that must include
salary requirement to GMHC, HR Dept., 119
West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011, or elec-
tronically to [email protected]. GMHC values
diversity and is proud to be an equal opportu-
nity/affirmative action employer.
ECDNDMIC DEVELDPMENT CDDRDlNATDR -
This 28 year-old nonprofit community develop-
ment organization works to improve the com-
munity of Flatbush, Brooklyn. You'll work with
merchants and residents to improve commer-
cial strips, manage capital improvement pro-
jects, develop and implement a facade
improvement program. You'll also provide
assistance to existing businesses, market the
area to potential new businesses and to new
customers, conduct promotional activities and
events. You must have strong communication
skills, experience with small businesses, and
be well organized. For prompt, confidential
consideration, fax resume indicating salary
history/expectations to 718-859-4632, or e-
mail to [email protected].
NEIGHBDRHDDD DIRECTDR - Neighborhood
Housing Services, A NY based not-for-profit
organization dedicated to affordable housing,
is seeking a director for one of its Brooklyn divi-
sions, to oversee a staff of 8 and administer a
budget in excess of $500m. Successful candi-
date will bring five plus years experience in
non-for-profit administration and a demon-
strated ability to work with community leaders,
government representatives, lenders, and a
diverse Board of Directors. Competitive salary
and benefits package. Send/lax resumes with
letter of interest to Ermine McLawrence, NHS of
Bedford-Stuyvesant, 1012 Gates Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11221 212-242-6680 or
[email protected].
The New World Foundation seeks a PRDGRAM
ASSISTANT - who wi ll : Assist the President
and Senior Program Officer of the Phoenix Fund
for Workers and Communities; Work with
grantees and funder networks; Assist with pro-
gram and administrative activities; This is also
a training position for further work in philan-
thropy and/or social justice organizations.
Responsibilities: Handling calls and corre-
spondence; Coordinating meetings, calendars
and itineraries; Maintaining data-base infor-
mation; Coordinating logistics for special
events; Participating on docket preparation
teams; Maintaining the Phoenix Fund's Online
Clearinghouse Listing. Qualifications Concern
for social justice and labor rights issues; Prior
experience in maintaining databases; Experi-
ence in both teams and individual projects;
Good writing, speaking and presentation skills;
Ability to plan, coordinate and maintain multi-
ple tasks; Good knowledge of MS Power Point,
Word, Outlook, and Publisher; Fluency in Eng-
lish and Spanish required. Excellent benefits.
E-mail a cover letter, resume and three refer-
ences to Diego Iri arte at [email protected]
to Fax number: 212-472-0508 or mail to:Diego
Iriarte New World Foundation 666 West End
Avenue, Suite IB New York, NY 10025 Submit
no later than June 24th, 2002. The New World
Foundation is an equal opportunity, affirmative
action employer.
The Lower East Side People's Federal Credit
Union seeks a highly self-motivated and com-
mitted DIRECTDR DF LENDING - to run the
loan department of this 16-year old certified
community development financial institution.
The successful candidate should have real
estate (co-op and mortgage) lending experi-
ence, with a background in either banking or
non-profit lending. We're looking for someone
with leadership skills to help build a success-
ful team within our small staff. Position
includes product development; program imple-
mentation; and oversight of real estate, com-
mercial , consumer and participation lending.
Bachelors degree and at least 5 years' relevant
experience required. Call Pablo DeFilippi at
212-529-8197 ext. 17.
HDUSING DIRECTDR Join a growing organiza-
tion offering programs and services to persons
with disabilities. Plan, develop and manage
community-based accessible and affordable
housing including group homes and apart-
ment buildings. Supervise professional and
non- professional staff. Experience working
with or providing housing to the disabled a
plus. Full time, full benefits. Send resume to:
Director of Human Resources Cerebral Palsy of
North Jersey 515 Valley Street Maplewood, NJ
07040 Phone 973-763-9900, ext. 302 Fax 973-
763-9905 e-mail: rwilson@cpnj .org Equal
Opportunity Employer.
LDCAL CAMPAIGN CDDRDINATDR - Work with
Director of Public Policy to coordinate efforts to
win policy and programmatic improvements in
schools in local districts, working with GLSEN
chapters, Gay-Straight Alliances, and other
local allies to design and carry out successful
campaigns. Set local campaign targets,
strategies and goals based on regular assess-
ments of grassroots capacity and other rele-
vant factors. As the supervisor of the Local
Chapter Development Specialist, s/he will also
oversee efforts to build the capacity of GLSEN's
chapter network. This position reports to the
Director of Publi c Policy and can be based in
either New York or Washington. Candidates
should have 2 years experience as a communi-
ty organizer at the local , regional or national
level, an understanding of K-12 education and
LGBT issues, be willing to travel and partici-
pate in fund-raising, have excell ent written
and oral communication skills, experience
supervising staff and volunteers, and a deep
commitment to the mi ssion and goals of
GLSEN. send cover letter and resume to
[email protected] or via fax to 212-727-
0254.
PIT ADMIN ASSISTANT - for management
consultant. Computer, organizing, spread-
sheet, research skills. Detail oriented, takes
initiative. Manage calendar & travel , coordi-
nate meetings. 8-16hrs/wk, flexible schedul -
ing. Currently lower Manhattan, relocating to
Prospect Heights in fall. Good, competitive
wages. Fax resume & cover letter 212-334-
7874.
BILINGUAL PARENT DRGANIZER - Queens-
bridge Community In Action, seeks FIT Bilin-
gual (English/Spanish) Parent Organizer to
work with QCIA members and staff to coordi-
nate outreach, campaigns and actions. Speak
fluentlY,skilied in written translation, experi-
enced in grassroots organizing. Salary com-
mensurate with experience, benefits.SendlFax
cover letter and resume to: Yvette Grissom,
Queensbridge Community In Action,38- 81
13th Street, Long Island City, NY 11101 fax:
718-784- 6615
PARALEGAL - Immigrants' Rights Project
Collection and analysis of social science and
other non-legal research for use in litigation
and policy presentations; preparing memos on
policy issues as directed; coordinating strategy
with lawyers around the country; handling
intake and maintaining the intake system. BA,
strong resarch, writing and interpersonal
skills. Reply to: Harry Snyder, ACLU IRP, 125
Broad Street-18th Floor, NY, NY 10004.
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT - The National Urban
League seeks an Executive Assistant for its
National Headquarters. The successful candi-
date will provide administrative and secretari-
al support to the President & CEO. Successful
candidate must have excellent secretarial abil-
ities, including strong proofreading, oral and
written communications skills. Must have
advanced knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite.
Must be able to work in a fast-paced environ-
ment with demonstrated abil ity to handle mul-
tiple tasks. Must have seven to ten years
administrative/secretarial experience working
with senior level executives. Bachelor's degree
and/or an acceptable combination of experi-
ence required. Please submit cover letter and
resume to [email protected] or fax to 212-
558-5497.
ASSDCIATE VICE PRESIDENT, ADVDCACY -
Planned Parenthood of New York City, Inc, a
leader in reproductive health care, education
and advocacy, is currently recruiting for a full -
time Associate Vice President, Advocacy.
Reporting to the Vice President, Public Affairs,
the AVP is responsible for the day-to-day oper-
ations of the Advocacy Division of the Public
Affairs Department including developing the
division's yearly operating plan and budget
and overseeing the implementation of such
plan. Directs the development of PPNYC's
advocacy agenda and the strategies for
achieving the agenda through lobbying, com-
munity organizing and educating opinion lead-
ers. Develops and recommends advocacy
CITY LIMITS
strategies for ensuring that city, state and fed-
eral laws, policies and budgets support the
right of each individual, regardless of age or
income, to access the information, skills and
services necessary to make reproductive and
sexual health choices. Represents PPNYC and
serves as a key liaison and spokesperson to
government agencies, elected and appointed
officials and other pro-choice organizations,
especially Family Planning Advocates and
Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Works closely with the AVP, Communications to
ensure policy findings and positions are
st rategically disseminated to the public and
other key stakeholders. Master's degree, JD
preferred plus 5 - 7 years of related or applic-
able experience; at least two (2) of which were
in a supervisory role plus a strong commitment
to PPNYC's mission, a demonstrated capacity
to affect public policy and the ability to man-
age effectively required. Also requires a track
record of accomplishments in advocacy, lobby-
ing or political communications and requires
excellent oral and written communications
skills. Knowledge of reproductive health care
preferred. Interested candidates should fax
their resume with cover letter and salary
requirement to: Assistant Director, Human
Resources via fax at (212) 274-7243 or by
email at [email protected] No phone calls,
please. Planned Parenthood of New York City,
Inc is an equal opportunity employer commit-
ted to a diverse workplace; women and minori-
ties are encouraged to apply. For more infor-
mation on our programs and services, please
visit our website at www.ppnyc.org.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Leading community
development corporation in Brooklyn, NY seeks
experienced, multi- faceted, dynamic CEO to
lead organization into its fourth decade. Will
oversee $3 million non-profit agency conduct-
ing successful programs in affordable housing
development and management, tenant and
community organizing, homeownership, eco-
nomic development and commercial revital-
ization. Will lead fund-raisi ng, strategic plan-
ning and overall organizational management.
Successful candidate will have SUbstantial
experience in above areas plus urban plan-
ning, government relations, PR, human
resources and financial management. Com-
petitive salary and benefits. Please send letter
of interest and resume to c/o PACC ED Search,
Fannie Mae New York Partnership, 780 Third
Avenue, New York, NY 10007 or via fax 212-
755-7475. No calls. EEOC. Women and people
of color encouraged to apply.
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE ANO ADMINISTRATION
- Responsibilities for oversight of the Salva-
tion Army's Social Services for Families and
Adults Dept. $25 million fiscal, administrative
and resources systems. Supervise budget
preparation; oversee accounting, financial
reporting, human resources, facilities man-
agement and control systems. Responsible for
analyzing and revising existing systems and
developing new systems including: depart-
ment-wide communications, performance
evaluations, accounting and budgeting. Grad-
uate degree in related financial field required.
At least five years experience in finance, con-
tract, budget and non profit management.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Solid organization skills, ability to manage
multiple tasks, strong communication skills.
Salary $70K. Resumes to Alfred Peck, via fax
212-337-7279 or email :
Alfred][email protected].
SOCIAL WORKER/CASE MANAGER - BAlBSW
to work in primary care setting in Manhattan
with interdisciplinary team caring for adults
living with HIV. Responsibilities include pro-
gram intake, assisting with MCD, ADAP and
DAS applications, accessing resources, client
follow up. Bi -lingual Spanish required. Please
send resume with cover letter stating mini-
mum salary required to: Elisa
Wallman, IUFH, Fax: 212-989-2840, Email:
[email protected]
PROGRAM ANALYST - The Salvation Army's
Social Services for Families and Adults Dept.
seeks a multi-talented individual to write
grant proposals and a quarterly dept. newslet-
ter, maintain dept website, manage statistics,
coordinate volunteers, and maintain staff
training opportunities. Responsibilities also
include conducting program evaluations and
assists with program development. Position
requires very strong writing, communication,
and computer skills. BAIBS required.
Resumes to Patricia DeLouisa via
fax 212-337-7279 or email:
[email protected]
The New York City Coalition Against Hunger is
currently recruiting 14 people to work on its
AmeriCorps VISTA project. We are looking for
people who will work-time for a year starting
this July, taking part in a pioneering communi-
ty service effort to fight hunger and poverty
citywide
i
Participants who are selected will be
paid a government living stipend, as well as
receive nearly $5000 to pay for student loans
and further education. This opportunity is per-
fect for recent college grads, retired profes-
sionals, and community activists. Duties: Work
with food pantries and soup kitchens across
the city to build networks and emergency
action centers, organize communities, coordi-
nate workshops, train hunger workers, manage
volunteers, help agencies use computer tech-
nology, and more! Help us empower low-
income families to move "beyond the soup
kitchen" to eventual economic self-sufficiency.
Ten of the participants will work out of food
pantries and soup kitchens in all five boroughs
of New York City. The remaining four will work
directly out of the Coalition's offices in down-
town Manhattan. Qualifications: BA or signifi-
cant work experience required. Must be citi-
zens or permanent residents of the U.S. Strong
organizational, communications, problem-
solving and community organizing skills need-
ed, as well as a positive attitude and commit-
ment to social issues. Must be comfortable
working with both very low-income people and
business/civic leaders. Second language
(Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, etc.) a
plus. For more information, applicants should
send resumes: to J.C. Dwyer, phone: 212-825-
0028, ext. 210, fax 212-825-0267; e-mail:
[email protected] Applications are due by
June 12th, 2002.
The New York Work Exchange, an initiative of
the Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agen-
cies, is mandated to increase employment
opportunities for consumers of mental health
services through the provision of education,
training and technical assistance to New York
City service providers. The following position is
available: EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM AND POLI-
CY ANALYST Responsibilities include: prepar-
ing analyses regarding workforce development
and related policies and practices; collabora-
tion with providers, consumers, government
agencies, learning institutions, employers and
other consultants; providing technical assis-
tance and training to constituents on program
design and development; grant writing. Quali-
fications include: a Masters degree in a rele-
vant field and 5 years related experience, or an
undergraduate degree or certificate and 5-10
years of relevant experience; experience in
research, policy and planning analysis; ability
to present issues clearly and succinctly in writ-
ing and verbally; knowledge of the NYC mental
health systems and other systems and pro-
grams promoting rehabilitation and the
employment goals of consumers of mental
health services; computer skills in Word, SPSS,
Access, Excel, and PowerPoint. Send resume
and cover letter to: Alysia Pascaris Director
New York Work Exchange 90 Broad Street, 8th
Floor New York, NY 10004. The New York Work
Exchange offers competitive salaries with a
generous benefit package. Consumers are
encouraged to apply. The CVMHA is an Equal
Opportunity Employer.
Federation Of Protestant Welfare Agencies
seeks DIRECTOR- CENTER FOR PROFESSION-
AL DEVELOPMENT (TRAINING) The Federation
of Protestant Welfare Agencies is a non-profit
umbrella organization for 243 social service
agencies in the New York City metropolitan
area. Professional development and manage-
ment training are a major service provided by
FPWA for its member agencies and other social
service organizations, both at the FPWA head-
quarters and on-site at agencies. We are seek-
ing a Director for the FPWA Center for Profes-
sional Development to develop and implement
the FPWA's training program for the managers,
staff and boards of social service non-profit
organizations. This requires recruitment,
screening and hiring of trainers; design of
workshops and courses; program planning and
budgeting; marketing and promotion of the
Center's services; supervision of a Program
Associate; coordination of the FPWA MSW
graduate intern program, including field
supervision; intra- and inter-agency communi-
cation of training activities. Qualifications: A
minimum of a masters degree in social work or
an equivalent degree in training and profes-
sional development. Three to five years experi-
ence in training and supervision in human ser-
vices, social welfare or human resources;
Knowledge of training resources and trainers
in the metropolitan area; Ability to lead the
program and manage all of its aspects; Excel-
lent oral and written communication skills.
CIFI certification to serve as an MSW field work
supervisor is highly desirable Salary: Commen-
surate with experience Benefits: Full health,
dental and life insurance benefits; 401(k) pro-
gram interested candidates: submit a resume
and salary requirements to Emma Guzman,
JOB ADS
FPWAlCPD, 281 Park Avenue South, New York,
New York 10010.
Medical and Health Research Association of
New York City, Inc., administers $130 million in
federal and city HIVIAIDS care and prevention
funding on behalf of the New York City Depart-
ment of Health. HIV Care Services, the program
responsible for administering these funds,
currently manages approximately 350 con-
tracts with community-based organizations,
hospitals, clinics, mental health agencies and
other service providers. HIV Care Services is
seeking a DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR PLANNING
AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS, a member of the
senior management team. Overall responsibil-
ity for collecting, managing and analyzing
data submitted by contractors. Supervise staff
responsible for production of reports required
by external funders and other stakeholder and
internal management reports. Direct data
analysis and ensure quality of data. Direct and
supervise staff responsible for development
and maintenance of management information
systems and project web site. Qualifications:
Graduate degree in public health, public
administration, health services administra-
tion, etc., concentration on quantitative analy-
sis; experience developing and maintaining
management information systems; minimum
of five years progressive responsibility in the
field of health policy or planning; minimum of
five years management experience; excellent
analytical , communications, planning and
supervisory skills. For a more detailed job
description, visit our web site at
www.hivcs.org.
New Settlement Apartments And Community
Services seeks candidates for three openings:
FULL-TIME (SEASONAL) COORDINATOR OF THE
SUMMER PLAY STREET PROGRAM, which pro-
vides diverse daily recreational activities for
girls and boys, aged 7-14, M-F, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
in July and August. Coordinator must have pre-
vious supervisory experience in recreational
youth programming, strong communication
skills, ability to work outdoors in hot weather,
availability in June to plan program. College
degree or experience desirable. Rate of pay:
$13-$16 per hour, DOE, negotiable. LEAD COM-
MUNITY ORGANIZER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT coordinates the campaign
agenda & supervises staff of the Parent Action
Committee, an innovative grass-roots organiz-
ing project led by parents in Southwest Bronx,
focused on improving failing schools of Di strict
9. Works with Community Collaborative on
coordinated, district-wide campaign. Salary:
35- 40K. EVENING TEEN PROGRAM COORDI -
NATOR directs and develops year-round recre-
ational and educational program, afternoon,
evening & summer, for youth aged 12-18, and
supervises staff. Salary: to mid-30s. Lead C.O.
and Teen Program Director are full-time, year-
round, with comprehensive benefits. Require-
ments: 3-5 years' experience, including 1 year
as supervisor. B.A. or M.S.w. preferred. Span-
ish bilingual a plus. All positions: See /new
settlement for more info. Send letter, resume
and list of 3 references to Job Search, New Set-
tlement Apartments, 1512 Townsend Avenue,
Bronx, NY 10452. Fax: 718-294-4085. EED/M
49
JOB ADS
FINANCIAL OFFICER - A growing community
development credit union launching a new
neighborhood retail branch serving the limited
equity cooperative and Harlem communities
seeks a Financial Officer. The FO will oversee
the accounting and finance functions of the
credit union including: preparation of financial
statements, budgeting and forecasting,
investment management and monitoring the
organization's profitability. Please
forward resume and salal)' requirements
to the attention of the CEO:
[email protected].
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - Habitat for
Humanity - New York City, one of the fastest
growing urban affiliates of Habitat for Human-
ity International , is seeking a full-time Com-
munity Organizer. The Community Organizer
will develop partnerships with local communi-
ty based organizations and congregations in
neighborhoods where Habitat is building
homes and community. Candidates should
have experience in low-income, multiracial
communities as well as strong management
and communications skills. Salal)' commensu-
rate with experience. Please send resume and
cover letter to: Richard Wong, Habitat for
Humanity - NYC, 334 Furman St., Brooklyn, NY
11201 tel:718.246.5656 x307 email :
[email protected]
The Hunter College Center on AIDS, Drugs and
Community Health assists community organi-
zations in NYC to develop and evaluate inter-
ventions to prevent HIV, substance abuse and
violence. We seeks a candidate for the follow-
ing position: PROJECT OIRECTOR: Supervise
and manage a four year NIDA funded study;
supervise jail based staff; provide OA, design,
analyze data and report on evaluation of inter-
vention; at least 5 years experience in develop-
mentlmanagement of research projects,
expertise in eval. and HIV, criminal justice,
substance abuse and/or violence. PhD in pub-
lic health or related field. Send CV and 3 refer-
ences to: J. Melly, Center on AIDS, Orugs and
Community Health, Hunter College, 425 East
25th Street, New York, NY 10010. No phone
calls please. Hunter College is an Affirmative
Action/Equa I OpportunityllRCAlAmericans
with Disabilities Act Employer.
Community Voices Heard is seeking an experi-
enced STATE WIDE ORGANIZER - TEMPO-
RARY to build and manage a statewide cam-
paign in New York State focusing on TANF Re-
Authorization (Federal Welfare Reform), job
creation and state welfare reform issues. This
position will be based in NYC, but with a larg-
er percentage of statewide travel , a large focus
of which will be the Hudson Valley to Albany.
The Statewide Campaign Organizer is a tem-
poral)' position. Applicants should have access
to an automobile for statewide travel. Salal)' is
OOE. Please mail or fax resume and cover let-
ter ASAP to CVH 170 E. 116th St. # IE NY, NY
10029. CVH is an equal opportunity employer,
women, people of color; LGBT people and for-
mer welfare recipients are strongly encouraged
to apply for this position. No calls please
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - Community
Organizer: Grass-roots membership organiza-
tion seeks experienced individual to build
membership, conduct leadership develop-
ment, plan campaigns, staff organizing meet-
ings etc. Issue work includes job creation, wel-
fare/workfare issues, education, and training.
Salal)' DOE. Bi-lingual Spanish strongly
desired. Women, people of color, GLBT strongly
encouraged to apply. Res & Cov Letter to CVH
170 E. 116th St. Suite IE NY NY 10029 of Fax
212-996-9481.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SERVICES - Self
motivated MSW with 5+ years experience in
community development, organizational
assessment, strategic assistance and pro-
gram supervision to establish new depart-
ment. Responsibilities include management of
diverse programs including oversight of 29
social workers, institution of Community
Capacity Building, and administration of WTC
Disaster programs. Experience in program ser-
vice, budgeting, multi-site administration and
student supervision necessal)'. Development
experience a plus. Computer literacy and excel-
lent communication skills a must.
Salal)' $60+ benefits. Fax or email
resumes only. Fax: 212-337-7279, email:
[email protected]
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Kingsboro Men's
(MICA) Shelter in Brooklyn. Full responsibility
for all phases of operation and management of
100+ bed shelter including: personnel, client
services, fiscal including budget preparation
and monitoring, facility management, commu-
nity relations, and grant writing. Prior experi-
ence with MICA, modified TC, or homeless
shelters necessal)'. BAlBS, Master's preferred.
Salal)' $50K + depending upon experience. Fax
or mail resumes to the attention of Richard
Schwartz at 212-337-7279 or 120 W. 14th
Street, 7th Floor, NYC 10011.
DIRECTOR OF ADULT SERVICES - Responsi-
ble for management, administrative oversight,
supervision and coordination of existing and
future shelters/programs for adult popula-
tions. Responsibilities include direct supervi-
sion of program directors, grant writing, fiscal
administration, and community relations.
Experience in program services for the home-
less and multi-site administration necessal)'.
MAIMS degree, computer literacy and excellent
communication skills a must. Salal)' $68K +
benefits. Fax 212-337-7279 or email resumes
to [email protected]
LEGAL SECRETARY, Reproductive Freedom Pro-
ject Preparation, word processing, proofread-
ing and editing of legal documents and public
education documents; answering telephones,
taking messages, routing calls. Two years
experience or a degree; proficient with comput-
er applications, especially word processing.
Reply to: HR-RFP, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-18th
Floor, NY, NY 10004.
TEAM LEADER - HELP USA, a homeless hous-
ing provide seeks a candidate to lead an inter-
disciplinal)' team with the ability to coordinate
(3) Case Managers with a caseload of 63
clients ensuring support services & weekly
contacts are provided to families. Provide indi-
vidual supervision, crisis intervention & sup-
port to the team & Case Managers. Ensure that
protocols & regulations are adhered to by the
counseling staff. Special requirements: MSW
(preferred) or related degree required. Comput-
er literacy is a must. Minimum of two years
supervisol)' experience required. Must have
clinical as well as case management experi-
ence. Salal)': starts in mid 30's. Resumes
should be sent to: Tabitha Newkirk - Gaffney,
Director of Social Services, fax # 718-485-
5916.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIDNS - Orug Pol-
icy Alliance, the nation's leading organization
working to end the war on drugs, is looking for
a director of communications for our national
headquarters in New York. The Director of Com-
munications will oversee the web, media and
publications departments at the Alliance, and
develop and execute strategic media cam-
paigns on a variety of issues related to drug
PROFESSIONAl DIRECTORY
so
212.721.9764
.J REICH [email protected]
WWW.CREATIVEHDTLIST.CDM / .J REICH
ADS, ANNUAL REPORTS , SOOK DESIGN, BROCHURES, CATALOGS ,
COLLATERAL, CORPORATE IDENTITY, MEDIA KITS, & MORE
SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
J-51 Tax Abatement/Exemption 421A and 421B
Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All forms
of government-assisted housing, including LISC/Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Eastchester, N.Y.
Phone: (914) 395HB811
ADVERTISE
IN THIS
SPACE
call (212) 479-3345
Consultant Services
Proposals/Grant Writing
Hud Granu./Gtwt. RFPs
Housing,IProgrotm Oevdopment
Real Estate Saler./Rentals
Technical Assistance
Employment Programs
Capacity Building
MI(UA(L 6. BU((I
CONSULTANT
HOUSING, DEVELOPMENT Be 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
policy reform. Duties include: Managing and
coordinating activities among the web, media
and publications departments and between
those departments and our policy projects and
offices around the country. This includes rec-
ognizi ng "newsworthy" components of organi-
zati on's work and developing media messages;
overseeing production of brochures, annual
reports and other organizational materials;
and strategizing on-line components to com-
munications campaigns. This person will join
the senior management team, with responsi-
bility for coordinating all of the Alliance's com-
munications work. Direct media outreach will
also be a substantial part of this job, including
pitching, conducting media trainings, writing
press releases and organizing press confer-
ences. Qualifications: Experience managing
staff, coordinating and executing communica-
tions campaigns, including developing strate-
gy, pitching reporters and writing background
materials. Interest in drug policy reform relat-
ed to: treatment instead of jail for non- violent
offenders; marijuana law reform; needle
exchange and other harm reduction interven-
tions; and social , racial , and gender justice.
Outstanding written and oral communication
ski ll s. Salary based on experience. Please
email cover letter and resume to Dani McClain
at [email protected] or fax to 212-
548-4670 by Friday, June 14. For more infor-
mation about Drug Policy Alliance please visit
www.drugpolicy.org. If you have already sub-
mitted a resume forthe Director of Media Rela-
tions you will be automatically considered for
this position - it is not necessary to submit
another resume. We are not hiring a Director of
Media Relations at this time.
PARENT INVOLVEMENT COORDINATOR CHLDC,
a community-based agency, seeks a parent-
involvement coordinator for PS 89, an alterna-
tive public school co-founded by CHl DC, local
parents, and Community School District 19.
Plan and organize meetings and activities of
parent groups, family literacy, and parent vol-
unteering. Requirements: Bilingual
(English/Spanish), experience with groups,
and in low-i ncome communities. MSW pre-
ferred. Salary $28-35K, DOE. Send/fax resume,
cover letter to Emily Blank, CHLOC, and 3214
Fulton St, Bklyn, NY 1120B/fax: 718-647-2104.
[email protected].
CSH seeks an ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OPER-
ATING OFFICER whose office is in Minneapolis,
MN. You, however, will be based in New York
City. Your main goal in this position will be to
improve the COO's accessibility to key leaders
within CSH and to enhance his capacity to pro-
vide leadership and support the efforts of the
national and state offices as they implement
the organization's agenda. You will follow up
on his commitments to state Directors, their
staff, and other managers and staff members.
Assist with implementing and overseeing
reporting systems and tracking tools, prepar-
ing reports and analyses, following up to
assure that targets are bei ng met on a timely
basis, coordinating and/or completing special
projects, researching issues and writing drafts
of memos, reports, proposals, etc. Ideally you
possess a mix of some knowledge of housing
and service delivery, an understanding of the
requirements of effective not-for-profit man-
agement and operations, and experience in
project management. You will also be comfort-
able performing a broad range of tasks, some
highly interactive and others working alone.
You must also be able to function
autonomously and exercise solid judgment .
You need a minimum of six years in the fields
of affordable housing, health care, social ser-
vices, property management, community
development, employment services, homeless
services or a closely related field with signifi-
cant experience in progressively responsible
leadership positions. Some of this experience
should be at a management level including
responsibility for supervision and evaluation of
staff, organizational development, systems
change, team building and programmatic
planning. For a detailed description visit the
What's New Section at www.csh.org. Salary
commensurate with experience. CSH provides
a competitive benefits package. Submit
resume with cover letter summarizing your
interest, ski ll s and salary requi rements to:
Steven G. Thomas, COO, CSH, 2801 21st
Avenue South Suite 220, Minneapol is, MN
55407, or Email: [email protected] or fax
612-721-9903
SPECIAL EVENT COORDINATOR - Habitat for
Humanity - NYC, the New York City affi li ate of
Habitat for Humanity International, the world-
wide builder of affordabl e housi ng, seeks a
Coordinator for three themed annual event
builds and for two annual fundraising events.
Responsibilities include: preparing event bud-
gets, developing event programs, soliciti ng in-
kind services and donations to support events,
planning and coordination of all event logis-
tics, coordination of volunteer, communication,
construction and development staff for the
events, outreach to build neighborhoods to
support building events, and post-event follow
up including a post event report. The Special
Event Coordinator will work with all sections of
Habitat for Humanity - NYC, but will especial-
ly work with the community partnership, volun-
teer and development departments. The Spe-
cial Event Coordinator will work closely with
Habitat's neighborhood-based Chapter Boards
to enlist community support and assistance
for the Event Bui lds. The Special Event Coord i-
JOB ADS
nator wi ll report di rectly to the Executive Direc-
tor. Qualificati ons: Undergraduate degree
required and experience in event coordination,
personnel and/or volunteer management and
affordable housing development preferred.
Applicant shoul d be a hands-on person who is
a capable of managing and tracking many dif-
ferent tasks. Applicant should be a creative
goal driven self-starter. Salary range $30-
40,000 depending on experience. Good bene-
fits. Send resume and cover letter to Roland
lewis, Executive Director, Habitat for Humani -
ty - NYC, 334 Furman Street, Brooklyn, NY.
718-246-5656 FAX 718-246-2787. Habitat -
NYC is an equal opportunity employer.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE -
Midtown Community Court. BA, Organizational
and communications skills a must. Start date:
August 1, 2002. Responsibilities include:
assist in the recruitment and intake of partic-
ipants of TImes Square Ink (lSI), a job-readi-
ness and job training program for ex-offend-
ers; coordinate with referral agencies; conduct
TSI orientations; and maintain case records for
all TSI participants. See www.courtinnova-
tion.org. Email resume to
[email protected] or fax resume to
212-586-1144. DOE.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Jews for Racial &
Economic Justice (JFREJ) seeks an Executive
Director to continue our growth as a progres-
sive Jewish force in NYC. The Executive Direc-
tor must provide strong overall leadership,
alongside an active staff, board and member-
ship. Responsibilities include developing edu-
cational programs, participating in and con-
tributing vision to our activism, and executing
a communications strategy. The Director
supervises staff and office administration and
leads a multi-prong fund raising strategy
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
Award-winning document ary production company
Need a video made? Call Carla at
212.952.0121 ext 226
www.mintleafproductions.com
Committed to the development of affordable housing
GEORGE C. DELLAPA, ATTORNEY AT LAW
15 Malden Lane, Suite 1800
New York, NY 10038
212-732-2700 FAX: 212-732-2773
housing tax credit syndication.
Public and privau
financing. HDFCs and not-for-profit corporations. Condos and co-ops. j-51
Tax abatement/exemptions. Lendingfor historic
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
NON PROFIT WRITER
Newsletters, Brochures, Annual Reports
Millions of Dollars in Grant Money Raised
NORAH HART
(718) 622-2175 Nhart@ brooklaw.edu
OFFICE SPACE PROBLEMS?
u.w.d
CSI
CSI CON.SUl TANT5 INC.
(845) 566-1267
Expert Real Estate Services - once
available onl y to major corporations and
institutions -
Now offered to NYC' s Non-Profits ...
at no out-or-pocket cost,
or at speci ally reduced rates.
Visit our web site: www.npspace.com
Call -for a free, nO-<lbligation consultation.
www.npspace.com
51
JOB ADS
including membership, foundations, events
and major donors. Qualifications: experience in
organizing, program development, fundrais-
ing, and administration, as well as strong
speaking, writing, and interpersonal skills.
Women, lBGTQ, people of color,
SephardiclMizrachi Jews are encouraged to
apply. Salary DOE. Send resume and a cover
letter immediately to [email protected]
or fax: 212-647-7124
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - JFREJ seeks a
progressive Jew to provide political leadership
to our organizing for fundamental social
change including: developing campaigns and
committees, crafting strategic plans and car-
rying out actions. Day to day responsibilities:
political strategizing, public speaking, mobi-
lization, writing materials, media, staffing
coalitions, facilitating workshops and meet-
ings, coordinating events and outreach to Jew-
ish community groups. Strong growth potential
for the right candidate. 2+ years of organizing
or social action experience. Women, lBGTQ,
people of color, SephardiclMizrachi Jews are
encouraged to apply. Salary: Mid 30s, full ben-
efits. Send resume and a cover letter immedi-
ately to [email protected] or Ix:
212.647.7124.
CONSTITUENT SERVICES & COMMUNITY LIAI -
SON - East Side Assemblyman Steve Sanders
seeks a bilingual (Spanish), articulate, ener-
getic, confident, compassionate, detail -orient-
ed, quick learner to handle individual con-
stituent services and act as a community liai-
son. Work with tenants, neighborhood groups
and community-based organizations. Must lis-
ten and write well and be able to set and meet
own deadlines. Familiarity with NYC and NYS
government, landlord-tenant issues and pub-
lic entitlements a plus. Salary: low 30s. Excel-
lent benefits. Will consider new college grad. E-
mail cover letter and resume to
[email protected] or fax to 212
979-0594. No calls please.
PROGRAM DlRECTOR- Youth and Family Ser-
vices position reports to Executive Director. The
Director of Youth and Family Services develops,
implements, monitors, supervisor and evalu-
ates all personnel and programs related to the
quality of life and youth development. Specific
responsibilities: Plan, supervise and direct the
implementation of programs designed to have
a positive impact on the family's life with a
focus on youth development. Monitor the con-
tractual levels of services in all programs,
developing corrective plans wherever needed.
Maintain effective utilization of staff to ade-
quately meet the needs of the community and
address contract expectation. Cultivate and
maintain positive relationship with funding
sources. Represents la Casa at appropriate
human service forums at the county, city and
state levels. Supervises the counseling and
program staff and ensures the coordination of
counseling and program activities as well as
client and staff interrelationships. Conducts
case conferences. Oversee administrative
component of the program, including the
preparation of reports, review of financial
reports and active involvement in resource
development for program activities. Partici-
pate in overall agency activities as requested
52
by the Executive Director. Requirements: Must
have a Masters in Social Work, license in NJ
preferred. Must have 7 years of experience in
social service setting and three years of
administrative experience. Excellent verbal
and written communication. Bilingual (Eng-
IishlSpanish preferred). Forward resumes via
email to: [email protected]
Not-for-profit, community based agency in the
South Bronx seeks an ADMINISTRATIVE ASSIS-
TANT - to the Executive Director. Responsibil-
ities for this position include: Preparing and
tracking all correspondence, proposals, reports
by paper and computer. Responding to
inquiries for information. Preparing proposal
enclosures and duplicate proposal packages
for foundations. Answering phones in Execu-
tive Director's office and managing Director's
calendar. Coordinating communication with
proposal writer outside of the office via phone,
fax and modem. Scheduling appointments for
the Executive Director. Attending all staff
development and in-service staff events. Min-
imum requirements include: High School
Diploma, one year work experience in a com-
munity based organization, English fluency. In
general this person will need to have adminis-
trative, social , and decision-making skills. All
applicants will be given a skill test in the areas
of responsibility listed above. Interested appli-
cants should fax their resume to 718-681-
4137.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The National
Urban league seeks a Program Coordinator for
its National Headquarters. The Program Coor-
dinator maintains the database of member-
ship and activities related to the National
Urban league Young Professionals (NUlYP).
The Program Coordinator facilitates the devel-
opment and preparation of the annual NUlYP
conference and provides support to affiliate
chapters implementing nationally funded ini-
tiatives. The successful candidate will also be
responsible for developing, maintaining and
providing technical assistance to affiliate
NUlYP chapters. Bachelor's degree is required.
Experience in data- based technology, program
development and budget management. Experi-
ence in the planning, organizing and imple-
mentation of major detailed-oriented events
desired. Must have demonstrated knowledge of
young professional issues and concerns. Mini-
mum of three years program coordination and
experience in non- profit or similar organiza-
tion preferred. Out-of-town travel required,
some weekends. Salary to low 40's. Submit
resume and cover letter via email to recruit-
[email protected] 212-558-5497. Please
mention you were referred by City limits. email
to [email protected] or fax to 212-558-
5497. Please mention you were referred by City
limits.
The HOUSING COORDINATOR oversees the
UJO's housing programs, which are designated
to promote residential development and hous-
ing preservation in Williamsburg Brooklyn.
Coordinator will work wi th architect on renova-
tion project of community center, facilitate
housing preservation programs and work with
executive staff to advocate for the creation of
housing for low- income families. Master's
degree in Urban Planning or simi lar field pre-
ferred or Bachelor's degree with three years in
housing or community development. Strong
written and oral communication a must. Salary
Commensurate with experience. Please fax
resume to: United Jewish Organizations of
Wil liamsburg Attn: Housing Coordinator Posis-
tion 32 Penn Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211 Fax:
718-643-6581
PARENTING SKILLS INSTRUCTOR - for innov-
ative parenting education program serving
parents with developmental disabilities.
Extensive fieldwork & home visits; occasional
court appearances. Competitive salary DOQ,
excellent benefits. Bilingual Spanish. Send
resume with cover letter to Joscelyne Fernan-
dez, Sinergia, Inc., 15 W. 65th Street, 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10023, or fax to: 212-496-5608.
DIRECTOR OF HUMAN RESOURCES - Earn-
Fair is a social mission staffing services com-
pany, contracting entry-level workers to our
business clients. The Director of Human
Resources oversees recruitment of applicants
and support and supervision for employees.
Masters of social work strongly preferred,
knowledge of transitional benefits required
plus 2 years experience in HR or employment.
Emai l [email protected]
Hudson Guild, A not-for-profit social service
agency located in the Chelsea section of Man-
hattan is seeking qualified ambitious and ded-
icated candidates for a great opportunity to
learn and provide essential direct support to
Chelsea area residents. The following positions
are available: Adult Services Department
seeks: COOK SUPERVISOR - Responsibilities:
Responsible for food preparation, including
purchasing, cooking and serving congregate
and homebound meals. Schedules work and
supervise kitchen staff and kitchen volunteers.
Maintain sanitary and food-storage standards
in compliance with regulating agencies'
guidelines. Qualifications: Must have a valid
food handlers certificate. Three years experi-
ence as a cook with 1- year supervisory respon-
sibilities. Must be in good physical health, able
to read, write and speak English. (Bilingual
Spanish/English A+). Children's Center
Department seeks: TEACHERS (DAY CARE) -
Responsibilities: Develop daily classroom
plans, oversee supervision of children and
assistant teacher, and interact with parents
and other related duties as assigned. Qualifi-
cations: Must be actively pursuing permanent
NYS Certificate, N-6, bilingual EnglishlSpan-
ish/Chinese A+. Salary commensurate with
experience, comprehensive benefits package
Union Scale, local 205. Position: FIT. TEACH-
ERS (School Age) - Responsibilities: Develop
daily classroom plans, oversee supervision of
children and assistant teacher, and interact
with parents and other related duties as
assigned. Qualifications: Must be actively pur-
suing permanent NYS Certificate, N-6, bilin-
gual Spanish/English/Chinese A+. Salary
commensurate with experience, comprehen-
sive benefits package Union Scale, DC 1707.
Position; PIT from September to June & FIT July
to August. ASSISTANT TEACHERS (DAY CARE)
Responsibilities: Assist teacher and/or areas in
the classroom. Qualifications: A.A. degree in
Early Childhood; advance working with 2 years
old. Bilingual EnglishlSpanish/Chinese A+.
Salary commensurate with experience, com-
prehensive benefits package Union Scale,
l ocal 205. Position FIT. Community Organizing
& Advocacy Department: TENANT ORGANIZER -
Responsi bilities: Assist tenants in distressed
buildings to collectively address poor condi-
tions/services, harassment, eviction and rental
overcharge. Provide individual casework ser-
vices and assist tenants in housing court,
maintaining relevant case files. Qualifications:
Knowledge of NY rent laws and NYC Housing
Court. At least 2 years experience in grass
roots, neighborhood-based community orga-
nizing. B.A. degree preferred. Computer skills
requi red bilingual EnglishlSpanish A +. Salary:
$27,000 (depending on experience) + benefits.
We are an equal opportunity employer. If you
meet the above qualifications the please send
us your resume with cover letter in confidence
specifying position(s) desired. Fax resume to:
Human Resource Department 212-268-9983.
Email resume to: [email protected].
Mail resume to: Hudson Guild Human
Resources Department, 441 West 26th Street,
New York, NY 10001. No phone calls please.
SOCIAL WORKER (MSW) - Mental health
agency located in Harlem seeks MSW with psy-
chiatric and MICA experience. Successful can-
didate will supervise casework staff, coordi-
nate intake, referrals and interviews, interlace
with community agencies and provide direct
clinical services to a mentally ill population.
Excell ent career and training opportunity.
Competitive salary and benefits. New gradu-
ates are encouraged to apply. Fax resume to:
Joseph Wong Human Resources Manager, 212-
316-9618 or email: [email protected]
SMAU BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT COUNSELOR
- Dynamic community development organi-
zation seeks a Small Business Development
Counselor to coordinate and faci litate monthly
business workshops, provide individualized
business counseling, and assist in designing
and implementing business assistance pro-
grams. Ideal candidate has related experience,
self-starter with strong communication and
organizational skills. Fax cover letter, resume
and salary req. to 718-783-3289.
NEW YORK POLICY DIRECTOR-Paraprofes-
sional Healthcare Institute, national nonprofit
health care employment and public policy
organization based in South Bronx seeks State
Policy Director responsi ble for research, analy-
sis and strategic advocacy on behalf of New
York State home health aides, personal care
attendants, certified nurse's aides and their
clients. Must work with consumers, labor and
providers to 1) Assess and document status of
paraprofessionals, 2) Craft recommendations
to improve quality of jobs and quality of long-
term care, 3) Pursue implementation of recom-
mendations. Qualifications: Ability to work col-
legially with diverse groups of people; strong
organizational , research and analytic skills;
crisp and clear writing; three years' experience
in health care or low-income employment poli-
cy or public advocacy and coalition building.
Send cover letter and resume to: Steve Edel-
stein PHI 349 East 149th Street, Bronx NY
10451 [email protected]
www.paraprofessional.org
CITY LIMITS
PART-TIME NURSING INSTRUCTOR - For NYS
approved cert ified nurse aid program. Daytime
hours needed. Flexible schedule. Competitive
salary. Highbridge Community life Center, 979
Ogden Avenue Bronx, NY 10452. Call 718-781-
7743 ask for Ronnie Hector
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT HOUSING SPE-
CIALIST - Community-based organization in
Washington Heightsllnwood is seeking a tal-
ented person to join its organizing department
to direct housing development and manage-
ment programs. Work with tenant leaders,
property managers, financial institutions, and
government agencies, to promote tenant own-
ership, package and implement rehabilitation
projects, and administer participation in low-
income housing programs. Develop leadership
and management skills in tenant-controlled
buildings. Assist grassroots group on policy
initiatives. Prepare proposals for funding.
Qualifications: 2 years experience in housing,
community development, or organizing. Degree
in urban planning, public administration, or
similar field preferred. Strong analytical and
computer skills. Excellent organization and
communication abilities. Bilingual
English/Spanish desi red. Salary: commensu-
rate with experience, generous benefits. Fax
resume to 212-740-9645 or email
[email protected].
SOCIAL WORKERS - Expanding not-for-profit
healthcare network has immediate openings.
Work interdisciplinary team to enhance HIV
prenatal , reproductive health services in an
outpatient primary care setting. Exp. working
w/adolescent and substance abuse using pop-
ulation of diverse cultural bkgnd. req'd. Bilin-
gual (Spanish) strongly pref'd MSW req'd. Posi-
tions avail. in our Bronx center We offer com-
petitive salaries and bnlts. package Please
send resume to VP of Human Resources, Com-
munity Healthcare Network 184th Avenue 2nd
fir. NY, NY 10010, Fax: (212) 807-0250.
www.chnnyc.org. EOEIWFIDN/AA. No phone
calls please.
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE-Progressive
Korean American org. in Flushing is looking for
a person to coordinate fundraising & grant
writing. Need to provide assistance in all pro-
grams. Excellent writing & Fluency in English
and Korean is desirable. Must be Familiar with
Korean American, Asian American community
issues. $26000 to $ 29000. email resume &
cover: [email protected]
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - Dynamic non-profit
seeks Associate Director to lead our communi-
ty organizing and environmental advocacy
work. Great opportunity for a smart, enthusias-
tic person who want to support the work of
NYC's grassroots leaders. BA and 5 years of
non-profit experience required. Spanish a huge
plus. $45k annual salary,S weeks paid vaca-
tion, 401k and full benefits. Fax or e-mail
resume, cover letter and salary history to: 212-
202-5371 or [email protected]
VICE PRESIDENT FOR DEVELOPMENT -
leading Westchester, NY non-profit corp is
seeking a senior level person experienced in all
phases of affordable housing development.
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
Individual will take over management of a
dynamic team of professionals and a portfolio
of 9 active community and housing develop-
ment projects. Resume should be sent to Direc-
tor of Human Resources, Westhab Inc., 85
Executive Blvd., Elmsford NY 10523 or fax to:
914-345-3139.
INCOME CERTIFICATION SPECIALISTISUBSIDY
LIAISON - The Westside Federation for Senior
and Supportive Housing, Inc. Diverse, caring
non-profit agency seeks a compliance special-
ist to certify resident income/eligibility and
liaise with housing agency. You will work close-
ly with the residents and social service team,
maintain case records, manage/respond to
audits. Requires BNBS Degree, 2 years' expe-
rience with government entitlements, prior
work with the homeless or others with special
needs, and strong organizational skills. Span-
ish helpful. Competitive salary and benefits
package. Fax resume & cover letter to: L. Tuck-
er@ 212-721-6043.
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE -
Becker and Becker Associates seeks a Real
Estate Development Associate to assist with
public/private development ventures including
an 80/20 project in Manhattan; affordable
housing using LlHTC and Historic Tax Credits;
and a charter school/day care center. Develop-
ment, planning and financial modeling experi-
ence preferred. BBA is located in New Canaan,
Connecticut - one hour from Manhattan. Visit
www.beckerandbecker.com for more informa-
tion. Send letter/resume to BBA, 26 Forest
Street, New Canaan, CT 06840 c/o Kirsten
Springer, or [email protected].
SOCIAL WORKER - The HIV Law Project seeks
bilingual MSW/CSW (1-3 years experience) to
join its legal team in providing comprehensive
services to low-income people living with
HIVIAIDS. Requirements: fluency in Spanish
and experience providing individual/family
counseling. $36,000 + DOE; excellent benefits.
Full job description available upon request. E-
mail, fax or mail cover letter and resume: Tracy
L. Welsh, ED 161 William Street, 17th Floor New
York, NY 10038 Fax: (212) 577-3192
[email protected]
PROJECT DIRECTOR - Seeking Project Direc-
tor for Sept. 11 Chi natown community mental
health project for children, with media cam-
paign, alter-school and mental health worker
training, community building events. Duties:
project planning/administration, subcontract
management, community networking, liaison
to consultants. Req: Master's + 3 yrs experi-
ence, or Bachelor's + 5 yrs, with project man-
agement experience, familiarity with China-
town community and culturally appropriate
services, ability to work independently and with
team, excellent oral and written English com-
munication skills. Ability to write/speak a Chi-
nese dialect preferred but not required.
Resume/cover letter with salary reqs to CACF,
120 Wall St, 3rd FI , New York, NY 10005 or
[email protected].
lEAD ORGANIZER-fUREE is a multi-racial,
woman-led membership organization in Brook-
lyn. Our members receive public assistance,
and are almost exclusively women of color. We
are involved in local and national welfare
rights campaigns. Through this work we are
building the political vision and analysis of our
members. Responsibilities include: 1) Mem-
bership Recruitment/Development 2) Cam-
paign strategy/development 3) Fundraising 4)
Organizational/ Staff Development Women,
people of color and immigrants strongly
encouraged to apply. FUREE has a positive and
supportive environment. Starting salary $30-
35,000 DOE. Health, dental , paid vacation/sick
days. Great opportunities for growth, develop-
ment, leadership. Respond to lIana Berger
[email protected], or fax to 718-857-4322
The Center for Urban Community Services
(CUCS), a national leader in the development
of effective housing and service initiatives for
homeless people, invites applicants for the fol-
lowing position. ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR
- To assist in the overall administration of
the Housing Resource Center, a national
provider of training, consultation and informa-
tion. Resp: contract & budgent management &
oversight; program development & adminis-
tration; staff supervision & development; infor-
mation systems development & maintenance;
proposal writing & contract negotiations; and
external relations. Reqs: Bachelor's degree; 10
years of senior level experience in supervision,
program development and management in
related field; excellent verbal, written, analytic,
organizational & communication skills; & com-
puter literacy. Master's degree in a related field
preferred. Salary: Competitive salary. Benefits:
comprehensive benefits. Send resume and
cover letters to: Lucy Kim, CUCS/Housing
Resource Center, 120 Wall Street, 25/ Floor,
New York, NY 10005. Fax: 212-635-219L
CUCS is committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
MARKETING DIRECTOR Top professional
orchestra seeks creative, organized team play-
er with a proven track record and excellent
written and oral communication skills.
PRlMarketing experience a plus. Supervise all
marketing, public relations and publications.
Part-time option available. Fax: 914 682-3716
or e-mail [email protected]
CUCS is currently recruiting for the following
position for its lime Square Program. ADMIN-
ISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - The Administrative
Assistant will assist the Office Manager and/or
the Program Director in carrying out the vari-
ous administrative duties. This individual is
also responsible for mail distribution, recep-
tion, purchases, management of agency funds,
and vendor relations. Finally, this individual
must be able to provide task supervision to
other office/clerical staff. Reqs: High School
Diploma or equivalent. Two years office experi-
ence; good interpersonal and organizational
skills required; attention to detail , computer
literacy, and team player preferred. Salary:
$30,773. Benefits: comp benefits including
$65/month in transit checks. Send resumes
and cover letters by 718/02 to: Tracy Robinson,
CUCS/Times Square, 225 W. 43rd Street, New
York, NY 10036. CUCS is committed to work-
force diversity. EEO.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER ASSISTANT - 14
JOB ADS
hours/week The Community Organizer Assis-
tant is primarily responsible for working with
the Community Organizer to increase CUCS
tenant/consumer participant in policy advoca-
cy and community organizing efforts. Resp:
Essential duties will include in person, phone,
and mail outreach to tenants, attendance at
advocacy-related meetings, events coordina-
tion, database maintenance, and some clerical
support for the Community Organizer. Reqs:
Commitment to increasing consumer activism
on issues related to homelessness, mental
health and HIVIAIDS. life experience as a con-
sumer of mental health, HIV/AIDS, or homeless
services preferred. Good verbal and written
communication skills required. Previous com-
puter, public speaking, and policy advocacy
experience preferred. Salary: $1O.00/hour.
Send resumes and cover letter by 7/8/02 to:
Vuka Sticevic, CUCSlHousing Resource Center,
120 Wall Street, 25 Floor, New York, NY 10005.
CUCS is committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
The CUCS Transitional living Community, a
model housing placement program for home-
less women with mental illness, seeks a CLIN-
ICAL COORDINATOR - for its Day Team. CLIN-
ICAL COORDINATOR- Program services
include shelter for 40 women, comprehensive
case management, group treatment, on site
psychiatric and medical services, and housing
placement. Resp: Supervise day team, provide
clinical services to individuals, crisis interven-
tion, oversee group treatment activities, and
participate in program development and qual-
ity assurance activities. Reqs: CSW; 3 years
post -masters direct service experience with the
populations served by the program, 1 year
supervisory experience, good written and ver-
bal communication skills, and computer liter-
acy. Bi lingual Spanish/English preferred.
Salary: $46,459. Benefits: Comp benefits
including $65/month in transit checks. Send
resume and cover letters by 7/8/02 to: Julie
Lorenzo, CUCS/350 Lafayette TLC, 350
Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012. CUCS is
committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS - Three opportunities
exist at Barnard College for experienced and
creative individuals to help strengthen donor
relationships with the College and increase
fund raising. Annual Fund - The Associate
Director will be part of an Annual Fund team
responsible for managing all aspects of the
Annual Fund (gilts up to $50,000). Individual
will work with a segment of the alumnae body,
maintain contact with key alumnae leadership
and class volunteers to set goals, identify
prospects, and oversee reunion gilts and mail
solicitations. Parents Fund Program - The
Associate Director, Parents Program will be
part of an Annual Fund team responsible for
managing all aspects of the Parents Fund
(gilts up to $50,000). Individual will work with
current and past parents, manage Parents
Fund Committee and related events, set goals,
identify prospects, and oversee gilts and mail
solicitations. Major Gilts - The Associate Direc-
tor will be part of a major gifts team soliciting
gilts of $50,000 to $1,000,000. Duties include
cultivation of prospects, preparation of propos-
als, volunteer management and coordination
of events. Travel required. Applicants should
possess three or more years of fundraising
53
JOBADS
experience and outstanding personal , organi-
zational , written and oral communication
skills. We offer a competitive salary and bene-
fits package. Send letter with position of inter-
est, resume and salary requirements to
Employment Manager, Barnard College, 3009
Broadway, New York, NY 10027. E-Mail:
[email protected] Fax: 212-854-7550. EOE.
FINANCIAL SERVICES SALES ASSISTANT -
Socially responsible investment firm seeks
sales assistant to assist principals in market-
ing, proposal development, performance mon-
itoring and to provide excellent client service.
Job requires experience in financial services
industry, excellent computer skills, and com-
mitment to customer service. Commitment to
socially responsible investing a must. Health
coverage is included. Send cover letter/resume
to [email protected].
ASSET MANAGEMENT OFFICER - Locallnitia-
tives Support Corporation (LlSC) seeks an
experienced Asset Management Officer (AMO)
in its New York Office to oversee a portfolio of
Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects. The
AMO will be responsible for all asset manage-
ment issues from development of the invest-
ment proposal throughout the life of the lower
tier partnership to ensure the continuous deliv-
ery of tax credit benefits and projected passive
losses. The qualified candidate must have 3 to
5 years responsible experience in housing,
asset management, property management or
real estate finance and financial analysis
skills and knowledge of multifamily real estate
operations. A bachelor's degree in accounting,
real estate finance, economics, business, or
related field is required. Master's degree and
knowledge of LlHTC preferred. The successful
candidate will have excellent communication
and organizational skills and will enjoy working
as a member of a high-performing team in a
fast-paced office environment. Send resumes
to Miriam Colon, Director of Asset Manage-
ment, Local Initiatives Support Corporation,
733 Third Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY
10017. LlSC IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
EMPLOYER
PROJECT MANAGER - Civic Builders, a non-
profit organization affiliated with the Green-
point Manufacturing and Design Center, seeks
a project manager to help provide real estate
development consulting services to education-
al and public purpose entities around NYC. Job
includes assisting core staff with site assess-
ment, regulatory and code research, market
analysis, database management, mapping
and report writing. Job may also include oppor-
tunities to work on development projects
directly. 1-3 years background in planning,
architecture and/or real estate preferred. EOE.
[email protected]
CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATE -
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LlSC)
seeks a highly organized and self-motivated
individual to serve as a Construction Manage-
ment Associate in its New York Office. The CMA
will provide secretarial and administrative
support to the Director of Construction Man-
agement, will assist in the tracking and moni-
toring of construction documentation and con-
54
struction progress of NYC LlSC projects, will
enter and update construction progress data
on scheduling and tracking software, will com-
pile and update project binders and perform
other administrative tasks as requested. The
qualified candidate will have previous admin-
istrative experience (familiarity with construc-
tion documentation a plus) and a college
degree. The successful candidate will have
excellent communication and organizational
skills and will enjoy working as a member of a
high-performing team in a fast-paced office
environment. Send resumes to Jorge Usher,
Director of Construction Management, Local
Initiatives Support Corporation, 733 Third
Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10017. LlSC IS
AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
COORDINATOR, SUSTAINABLE LIVING FUND -
Gay Men's Health Crisis seeks Coordinator,
Sustainable Living Fund to oversee and coordi-
nate the operation of the Fund. The Coordina-
tor will design and spearhead a marketing
campaign directed at New York City based
CBO's to ensure broad participation in the SLF,
will develop fiscal assessment mechanisms,
negotiate and execute agreements with con-
tracting CBO's, evaluate and approve applica-
tions for SLF grants, and facilitate weekly and
quarterly meetings. Qualifications: Bachelor's
degree or equivalent experience and proven
experience in the field of HIVIAIDS, housing
and/or immigration including fiscal oversight
and program evaluation required. Ability to
work with diverse populations, including indi-
viduals in crisis is essential. Bi-lingual Eng-
IishlSpanish is a plus. Send resume with cover
letter that must include salary requirement to
GMHC, HR Dept., 119 West 24th Street, New
York, NY 10011, or electronically to
[email protected]. GMHC values diversity and is
proud to be an equal opportunity employer
PROGRAM MANAGER A national association of
grantmakers dedicated to increasi ng
resources for LGBT communities, we are seek-
ing an individual who has knowledge of the
LGBT communities and can interact with fun-
ders to assist with developing and organizing
national programs, conducting research and
writing public education materials. For com-
plete details email [email protected].
JOB DEVELOPERlMARKETlNG MANAGER -
Leading mental health agency seeks experi-
enced, committed, consumer-centered job
developer for award- winning, cutting edge
employment program serving SPMI and MICA
adults in the Bronx. Developlimplement plan to
market supported employment
program/clients to the business community.
Maintain strategic relationships with diverse
group of employers, develop permanent jobs
for SPMI adults. Minimum qualifications:
HS/GED, self-starter, solid experience in sales
and marketing, creative team player, excellent
interpersonal skills, in-depth knowledge of the
NYC labor market and business community
culture. Bi-lingual (English/Spanish) a +.
Salary: mid-thirties. Send/fax resume and
cover letter to Dept. BC, Fast Track to Employ-
mentlMental Health Association of NYC, 120
Wall St., 16th fir., New York, NY 10005 Fax:
212-809-0985
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - SAGE (Senior
Action in a Gay Environment) , the nation's
largest/oldest community based service and
advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexu-
al and transgender seniors, seeks a COMMUNI-
TY ORGANIZER for community building work to
expand our services into Upper Manhattan,
Harlem and the Bronx. The work includes
developing strategies to increase participation
of LGBT people of color and women in SAGE
and in building neighborhood-based projects.
Excellent verbal , written, computer skills,
dynamic self starter, broad experience in out-
reach and community organizing and working
in diverse communities. Desirable: Spanish
speaker, experience working with older LGBT
communities, being an older LGBT person.
Send resume and cover letter to SAGE, 305 7th
Avenue, NYC, 10001, att: Sandy Kern, or fax to
212-366-1947. No calls please.
DIRECTOR OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
& EDUCATIONAL QUALITY - Established in
1998 by the Open Society Institute, The After-
School Corporation (TASC) is an exciting initia-
tive seeking to make quality after-school pro-
grams universally available; we currently sup-
port over 200 programs throughout New York
State. Reporting to the President, this senior
management position will oversee a division
that is responsible for ensuring quality in the
program content of sites funded by TASC, inte-
grating and disseminating research findings
and information on best practices in after
school programs, piloting special projects and
partnerships, and providing training and tech-
nical assistance to TASC grantees. The Director
will serve as TASC's liaison with the New York
City Board of Education (BOE) and institutions
of higher learning on matters of curriculum
design and professional development, and will
be a spokesperson for TASC on issues relating
to curriculum design, best practices, and pro-
fessional development. The position requires at
least 15 years of professional experience in
educational programming, curriculum design,
and/or policy and a graduate degree in educa-
tion; a Ph.D. and public school experience are
preferred. Send cover letter and resume to:
[email protected] - subject line: PDEQ.
Or PDEQ Director Search, The After- School Cor-
poration, 925 Ninth Avenue, New York, NY
10019. www.tascorp.org
ACAOEMY COORDINATOR - TASC Scholars
and Mentors Academy The After-School Corpo-
ration ITASC- www.tascorp.org) is launching
a new initiative, the TASC Scholars and Men-
tors Academy, to train and support a cohort of
up to 150 high school students in mentoring
middle school students in after-school pro-
grams. Working collaboratively with TASC staff
and consultants, the Coordinator will develop
curricula and instructional materials, recruit
students, work with TASC middle school pro-
grams and partner community-based organi-
zations to develop placement opportunities,
and evaluate the program. Requires 5 years
related experience, strong program design and
implementation skills, excellent communica-
tion skills, and mission- driven outlook with
good sense of humor and teambuilding abili-
ties. E-mail resume to employment@tas-
corp.org - subject line: Academy Coordinator
or mail to Academy Coordinator Search, TASC,
925 Ninth Avenue, NY, NY 10019.
PARALEGAL-Lansner & Kubitschek is a
small , dynamic public interest law firm seek-
ing individuals interested in using the law for
social change. We specialize in family law, civil
rights, and Social Security disability. No legal
experience necessary. Spanish proficiency a
plus. Contact [email protected].
BOOKKEEPER - EI Puente, a not-for-profit
CBO located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is seek-
ing a full time Bookkeeper to join there fiscal
office. The position involves the day-to day
allocation and tracking of programmatic and
core expenses using spreadsheet and Fund EZ
accounting software under the supervision of
the Fiscal Director. The position includes the
processing of all GJ, GIL and TIB transactions,
monthly bank reconciliation's and the prepara-
tion of source documents for funding agency
audits. In Addition The Bookkeeper is responsi-
ble for the preparation of monthly and quarter-
ly expense reports to funding agencies. Ideal
candidates shoul d have completed at least 2
years of Accounting coursework, have two
years or more of not-for-profit Fund Accounting
experience and well versed in Microsoft Excel
and Microsoft Word. Attention to details, abili-
ty to organize and problem solve is Necessary.
The salary range is from high 20K to mid 30K
commensurate upon experience with health
(including dental) and life insurance benefits.
Individuals with Spanish proficiency strongly
urged to apply. Interested candidates should
send a resume with cover letter to EL Puente
attention Joe Colon, Fiscal Director at 211
South 4th St, Brooklyn NY 11211 or email at
[email protected] or fax 718-387-6816.
SOCIAL SERVICE - HELP USA, a nationally
recognized leader in the provisions of transi-
tional housing, residential & social services,
has the following positions available: DIREC-
TOR, CLIENT SERVICESISOCIAL SERVICES, we
are seeking a highly qualified prof'1 who pos-
sesses MSW or related degree w/min 5 years in
casework practice, supervision & staff devel-
opment. Requirements: MSW or related field.
CSW pref'd. Must have excellent clinical skills.
Bilingual (Spanish/English) A+. Excellent
interpersonal skills necessary. Salary from
$44,000 to $58,000. TEAM LEADERISOCIAL
WORK SUPERVISOR: We seek candidate to lead
interdisciplinary team & to coordinate 3 Case
Managers, ensuring support services & weekly
contacts are provided to families. Provide indi-
vidual supervision, crisis intervention & sup-
port to team & Case Managers. Requirements:
MSW preferred or related degree required.
Computer lit a must. Min 2 years supervisory
expo required. Must have clinical & case man-
agement experience. Salary from $37,000 to
$45,000. Send resumes, indicating position to:
Ron Guy, Reg. Exec Dir, 285 East 171 Street,
Bronx, NY 10457 or fax to 718-583-9085. A
drug free workplace. EOE
HOUSING ORGANIZER - East Village tenants
rights organization seeks full time organizer to
assist tenants in distressed housi ng to
improve building wide conditions; counsel ten-
ants facing eviction, rent overcharge, harass-
ment. Do building inspections, tenants rights
CITY LIMITS
education workshops. Good verbal skills, prior
experience and computer skills required. BA
degree preferred. Bilingual, EnglishlSpanish
helpful. Salary: $28 - $32K plus benefits. We
are equal opportunity employers. Fax resume
with cover letter to: Steve Herrick, Cooper
Square Committee at 212-473-2837 or e-mail
to: [email protected].
UNION ORGANIZER - CSEA, Local 1000, the
largest local of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME), AFL-CIO, with 265,000 members in
New York is seeking dedicated, statewide union
organizers for expanding organizing depart-
ment. Private sector campaigns to take place
in various regions of New York State with new
efforts planned in New York City and Long
Island. Qualifications include experience in
organizing, community action or political
action. Diversified experience welcome. Bilin-
gual (English/Spanish) skills a plus. Competi-
tive salary commensurate with experience.
Excellent benefits. Drivers license and car for
business use. Submit resume to Director of
Human Resources, P.O. Box 7125, Capitol Sta-
tion, Albany, NY 12224 or email
[email protected]. Equal opportunity
employer.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT -Brooklyn
Legal Services Corporation A (Brooklyn A) is
seeking a Director of Development to design,
expand and maintain fund raising and commu-
nications activities, and build upon 10 years of
ongoing development work. He/She will collab-
orate in the creation and implementation of a
3-year development plan. For 33 years, Brook-
lyn A has been providing high quality neigh-
borhood-based civil legal services to low-
income individuals, families, and community-
based organizations throughout North and
East Brooklyn. Brooklyn A serves as a local and
national model for its community-based pro-
grams focused upon economic development,
welfare education and poverty law, homeless-
ness prevention, domestic violence, HIVIAIDS,
senior citizens, and more. The candidate will:
Expand Annual Fund giving; Research and
write corporate and foundation grant proposals
in conjunction with program staff, and develop
and implement outreach plans in support of
these efforts; Manage the existing donor data-
base and maintain all donor-related communi-
cations; Work to enhance the organization's
communications and media efforts; Work
closely with the Board of Directors and the
Advisory Committee; Ensure the best possible
public image of Brooklyn A is cultivated and
maintained, and that the organization's goals
are realized through the implementation of a
3- year development and communications
plan. Knowledge and skills: Excellent writing
skills as well as strong research capabilities
are required. Ability to manage ongoing, multi-
ple initiatives and prioritize them as may be
required to meet deadlines and maximize
development opportunities. Ability to work in
collaborative and creative ways with Brooklyn A
staff; with colleagues from the non- profit,
community-based groups supported by Brook-
lyn A; and with law firm, corporate, foundation,
individual, and government supporters. Ability
to use computer software programs to enhance
overall development and institutional objec-
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
tives and to monitor performance. Complexi-
ties: He/she will work closely with funders to
ensure that services, information, projects and
programs within Brooklyn A meet the needs of
the non-profit partners, support the organiza-
tion's core objectives, and are properly coordi-
nated and executed. Qualifications: At least
three years of previous fund raising experience
is required. Familiarity with WordPerfect 8.0,
database management systems, and the Inter-
net. Salary and Benefits: Commensurate with
experience. Contact: To apply for the position,
please send a cover letter with your resume to:
Martin S. Needelman Project Director & Chief
Counsel Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A
256 Broadway Brooklyn, NY 11211 Brooklyn
Legal Services Corporation A is an affirmative
action, equal opportunity employer.
POLICY COORDINATOR - West Side Assem-
blymember Scott Stringer seeks a bright, ener-
getic individual with excellent communication
skills to serve as policy coordinator in his Dis-
trict Office. Responsibilities include: issue
research; writing reports, newsletters and tes-
timony; and administrative and constituent
services. Salary: low 30s, with excellent bene-
fits. E-mail cover letter and resume to
[email protected] or fax to 212
873-6520. No calls please.
CAPITAL CAMPAIGN & SPECIAL EVENTS COOR-
DINATOR - The Fifth Avenue Committee, a
premier Brooklyn, NY community development
corporation committed to social and economic
justice, seeks temporary, full-time Coordinator
for its Capital Campaign and 25th Anniversary
celebrations through the fall of 2003, with
responsibility for generating capital grants
and major gifts, staging an anniversary dinner
and special events, developing publications
and promotional materials, and managing vol-
unteers. Candidates require 2 years experience
in events planning or capital campaigns, plus
experience with major donors and grant writ-
ing, non-profit work, experience with diverse
constituencies and volunteers, and availability
for evening meetings. Salary: $47,000, varying
based on experience. Good benefits, pleasant
work environment. Candidate may apply on
consultant basis. Send cover letter, resume
and writing sample to FAC, 141 5th Ave. ,
Brooklyn, NY 11217 (attention: G Rubenstein)
or fax to 718-857-4322. Phone inquiries to
718-857-2990 x30. EOE, people of color
strongly encouraged to apply.
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE& ADMINISTRATION -
SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment),
nation's largest/oldest community based ser-
vice and advocacy organization for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender seniors, seeks
Director of Finance & Administration to man-
age financial accounting, administration and
human resources functions. Excellent verbal,
written, computer skills, dynamic self-starter,
detail oriented and advanced degree in
accounting or business required. Send resume
and cover letter to SAGE, 305 7th Avenue, NYC
10001, att: Sandy Kern, or fax to 212-366-
1947. No Calls Please
HOUSING SPECIALIST - Westchester leading
not-for-profit agency has opening for an expe-
rienced person to provide housing counseling
assistance to families in shelters & temporary
housing environment. Ideal candidate will be
familiar with Sec. 8 certification and able to
interface with landlords and other outside
agencies. Good computer, oral/written/inter-
personal skills a must. A Bachelor's Degree
with 3 years of experience, knowledge of
Westchester County, valid NYS driver's license
& own car is required. Send resume/salary his-
tory to Director of HR, Westhab, 85 Executive
Blvd., Elmsford, NY 10523. Fax: 914-345-3139
PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER - needed to
develop and manage comprehensive market-
ing/promotions campaign. Responsibilities:
writing and producing marketing materials
(newsletters, annual reports, brochures); work-
ing with press; website development; and
event planning. Ideal candidate will have a
degree in Journalism or Communications
(Master's a plus) and at least 2 years experi-
ence working in the not-for-profit sector. Must
possess strong interpersonal, written and oral
communication skills. Salary: $34,000 to
$39,000. Please fax/email a cover letter,
resume and writing sample to Christina Brown,
Deputy Director. Fax: 212-420-8670;
[email protected]
FIELD SUPERVISOR - Health insurance
enrollment program seeks supervisor for
enrollment staff in Manhattan community-
based sites. Qualifications: college or graduate
degree; 3+ years supervisory experience; Span-
ish fluency; experience with public benefits,
outreach and program development preferred.
Fax resume and cover letter to: 212-681-6315,
Attn. Supervisor
ENROLLMENT COUNSELOR - Conduct out-
reach and enrollment activities for community-
based health insurance enrollment program.
Screen applicants for eligibility, assist with
collection of documentation, complete forms;
and troubleshoot problem cases. Qualifica-
tions: college degree, Spanish fluency, atten-
tion to detail, direct service and public benefits
experience. Fax resume and cover letter to
(212) 681-6315. Attn: Enrollment.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - National Puerto
Rican Forum seeks Program Director to imple-
ment & monitor outcomes of innovative pro-
gram to alleviate skilled teacher shortages in
NYC and Puerto Rico. Program will recruit and
train professionals to pass certification exams.
Master's Degree in Education or Ed. Admin
required. 5-10 years' ed. management and
classroom experience imp. Strong curriculum
devlteacher training necessary. Bilingual Eng-
lish/Spanish. Excellent written, oral and ana-
lytical skills. Send cover letter & resume to
NPRF, 31 East 32nd Street, 4th Floor, NYC
10016. Fax # 212- 685-2349. No calls.
JOB COACH - CEO is looking for a Job Coach
to strengthen pre- employment services and to
improve post-placement outcomes regarding
participants. The Job Coach will be assigned to
clients at intake and, through early interven-
tion and appropriate support services, are
devoted to helping participants stay focused
and motivated on the job. The minimum qual-
JOBADS
ifications are: HS Diploma. Two + years work-
ing with people with special needs. Ability to
communicate effectively with people from
diverse cultures and backgrounds.
English/Spanish a plus. Email resume to
[email protected], or fax 212-248-4432.
COMMUNITY COORDINATOR - Harlem Com-
munity Justice Center seeks a person with
strong organizational and facilitation skills to
further build our community alliance. The coor-
dinator will lead a coalition working to reduce
substance abuse and delinquency among
youth in Harlem through prevention and inter-
vention strategies. Applicants must have a
bachelor's degree, experience with community
organizing, and have worked with youth
and families. Salary is commensurate
with experience. Great benefits I See
www.courtinnovation.org for further
information.
ENGLISH TEACHERS - Asociaci6n Tepeyac a
community organization whose mission is to
promote the social welfare and human rights
of Mexican immigrants, specifically the undoc-
umented in New York City, seeks PART-TIME
ENGLISH TEACHERS - for locations in the
Bronx. The Association informs and educates
immigrants and their families about their
rights and resources. The English Program is
currently creating a curriculum that in addition
to grammar, vocabulary, speaking, listening,
reading, and writing skills, strives to address
situations and topics relevant to the immigrant
community served by Asociaci6n Tepeyac. Can-
didates must have 6 months teaching experi-
ence, a TESOL certificate or academic back-
ground in related subject area, a demonstrat-
ed commitment to advocating for social jus-
tice, a commitment to and experience working
with low-income, undocumented, Latino immi-
grant communities, familiarity with and com-
mitment to participatory teaching methods
and curriculum development, excellent com-
munication skills in both English and Spanish,
and a willingness to work flexible hours,
including evenings and weekends. The English
Teacher will prepare for and teach English
classes at locations in the Bronx, develop cur-
riculum in coordination with other educational
programs organized by Tepeyac, including the
Computer Program, the Afterschool Program,
and the Parents' School, assist with adminis-
trative tasks including maintaining atten-
dance records and program database, attend
monthly meetings with other program teachers
and staff, and participate in organization
activities and events. To apply, please send let-
ter and resume by mail or email to: Sarah Gar-
land, English Program Coordinator,
Asociaci6n Tepeyac de New York, 251 West
14th Street, New York, NY 10011,
[email protected] ASAP.
ADVOCATE/CASE MANAGER - Cutting edge
advocacy and direct service organization
assisting homeless New Yorkers seeks out-
standing advocate/case manager to work as
part of an interdisciplinary team. Work with
families and individuals affected by HIVIAIDS
on issues of temporary and permanent hous-
ing, government benefits, health care and sup-
port services. BAIBS required with demonstrat-
ed commitment to assisting underserved pop-
55
JOB ADS
ulations. We offer competitive salary and excel-
lent benefits package. Send resume with cover
letter and salary requirements to: Human
Resources Rep. The Partnership for the Home-
less 305 Seventh Avenue, 13 floor New York, NY
10001 AAlEED MlF/DN/SO
The South Bronx Overall Economic Develop-
ment Corporation (SOBRO) is seeking an ener-
getic, community- minded person for the posi-
tion of DIRECTOR OF COMMERCIAL REVITAL-
IZATION (CR) - SOBRO has been operating a
City funded CR Program for 20 years. The pro-
gram looks to strengthen urban neighborhoods
through the revitalization of local shopping
districts. Strategies include marketing cam-
paigns; capital improvements, such as
streetscape redesign and installation of street
furniture or banners; merchant organizing and
real estate development projects. Please send
cover and resume to SOBRO, 370 East 149th
Street, Bronx, New York 10455 c/o William
Bollinger, or [email protected].
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - Provide program,
outreach and administrative support for pro-
gressive faith-based national grantmaker.
Entry-level professional opportunity with career
track potential. Assist program officers to eval -
uate and recommend grants; plan annual
meeting; write and edit publications; provide
executive assistance to Director; special pro-
jects. Requirements: Great writer, good judg-
ment, patience, demonstrated commitment to
social justice, belief in and support for princi-
ples of Unitarian Universalism and Veatch Pro-
gram priorities. Experience in community, union
or political organizing desirable. Car necessary.
Send resume, cover letter, three references by
JULY 5th to: Program Associate Search, UU
Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, 48 Shelter
Rock Rd., Manhasset, NY 11030. Fax: 516-627-
6596. People of color encouraged to apply.
PROJECT ASSOCIATE - The Women in Prison
Project seeks a Project Associate with a strong
commitment to women's rights and social jus-
tice, to work with the Project Director four days
per week. The Project Associate will assist with
coordination of the Coalition for Women Prison-
ers, which conducts advocacy and public edu-
cation campaigns on issues including visita-
tion and custody of children of incarcerated
mothers, conditions of confinement for women
prisoners, and domestic violence survivors
involved in the criminal justice system. The
Project Associate will organize the Coalition's
annual advocacy day in Albany, and will par-
ticipate in other meetings with legislators and
prison officials. The Project Associate will also
coordinate and join in monitoring visits to
women's correctional facilities. Excellent writ-
ing skills required. Women, people of color, and
former prisoners strongly encouraged to apply.
Full medical and dental benefits. Please send
cover letter, resume, and writing sample to
WIPP, 135 East 15th Street, NYC 10003.
St. Raymond Community Outreach (SRCO) , a
dynamic, growing organization, located in the
Parkchester section of the Bronx, is building
this neighborhood's first community center and
developing integrated educational and youth
programs to be housed there. We are seeking a
56
flexible DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS AND PLAN-
NING - who will work with the Executive
Director to build organizational capacity, over-
see and implement programs, and manage a
growing professional staff. Qualifications: BA
or BS degree required; a masters degree a
plus. Successful candidate will have experi-
ence in managing a professional staff, and
substantial experience in progressively more
responsible positions in one or more of the fol-
lowing fields: education, youth leadership,
community development, philanthropy, or
social services. Must have demonstrated
effective supervisory experience; evidence of a
strong commitment to education and youth
development; demonstrated initiative in pro-
gram development; demonstrated ability to
work well with diverse communities, to facili-
tate change, and to work within a collegial
framework; excellent communication skills and
strong analytical and decision-making skills.
Salary and benefits: Highly competitive and
commensurate with experience and qualifica-
tions. Application procedure: Please submit a
cover letter of application, a complete resume,
and the names and phone numbers of three
references. Applications should be sent to
Executive Director, SRCO; fax number (718)
824-0532 e-mail [email protected] NO
PHONE CALLS, PLEASE. Applications received
by July 1, 2002 will receive first consideration.
EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT - Non-Profit Commu-
nity Dev Corp in Bklyn seeks experienced admin
support for Exec Dir. Thorough knowledge of
executive office administration and equip-
ment; superior verbal and writing skills; ability
to organize, coordinate, and prioritize workload
in busy office. Fax resume and cvr Itr w/salary
reqs to PACC, 718-222-3292; [email protected].
CASEWORKER FOR WTC FAMILY ASSISTANCE
CENTER - Provide social services (service
coordination) to individuals and families
affected by WTC. BSWIBA preferred and/or at
least two years extensive case management
experience in human services with individu-
als/families/children. Cultural competency a
must. Develop and maintain Client service
plans. Assess needs, flexibility, supportive
counseling, work independently, team mental-
ity. Bilingual (English/Spanish) a plus.
email resume and cover letter -
dim itra_g ian aco pou I os@salvationarmy-
WTC.org or fax Dimitra at 212-350-1527.
Include job title in subject line.
NEWSPAPER EDITORlBUSINESS MANAGER -
The St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation
Corporation seeks a Newspaper EditorlBusi-
ness Manager to oversee publication of
GREENLlNE, a community newspaper. Publica-
tion currently reaches 13,000 residents in the
growing Williamsburg/Green point market.
Applicants must have good writing skills, be
well organized, a self-starter and a team play-
er. Newspaper experience a plus. Must have
editing, salesmanship capabilities or sales
experience. BSIBA degree plus two years work
experience required. Send cover letter and
resume to Michael Rochford, II Catherine
Street, Brooklyn NY 11211 or email:
[email protected]
SENIOR ACCOUNTANT - Corporation for Sup-
portive Housing is a national non- profit orga-
nization with a mission of promoting expansion
of permanent housing linked to services for
persons with chronic medical , mental health,
and other disabilities. We currently seek a
Senior Accountant. Your primary responsibility
will be to monitor the terms and requirements
of grants and contracts received by CSH, and
to monitor compliance by sub-grantees and
sub- contractors with terms and requirements
of contracts, grants and loans awarded by
CSH. In addition, you will prepare grant and
contract reports to funders, interact with CSH
staff including Directors, vendors and service
providers regarding financial issues, prepare
budget variance analysis, and perform special
projects and other duties as required. You will
need to be detail-oriented and analytical , have
a degree in Accounting, Finance, or Business
Administration, and possess excellent inter-
personal skills. In addition you will need to be
familiar with non-profit accounting standards
and requirements, have experience with gov-
ernment contract billing, auditing, spread-
sheets, databases and word processing. With
CSH you can expect a competitive salary and
benefits package and a great working environ-
ment. Resumes to: Human Resources, CSH, 50
Broadway, 17th Floor, New York, NY 10004 or
fax to (212) 986-6552.
EMPLOYMENT SPECIALIST - Leading advoca-
cy and direct service organization is seeking a
creative, energetic, and committed person to
work as an Employment Specialist in our multi-
disciplinary, cutting-edge Workforce Develop-
ment Project. The Employment Specialist will
provide job search counseling, support and
resources to adult clients at our Family
Resource Center, a program that offers compre-
hensive social and advocacy services to fami-
lies transitioning from homeless ness to perma-
nent housing and self-sufficiency. The Employ-
ment Specialist will assess clients' skills, abil-
ities and experiences; work with clients to iden-
tify and overcome barriers to employment; cre-
ate plans for obtaining employment; and pro-
vide appropriate job search-related counseling
and coaching. In addition, the Employment
Specialist will build an educational and
employment resource library at the Center. Can-
didates should have employment
services/counseling experience and be able to
create and deliver workshops and trainings on
employment-related topics. BA required;
advanced degree in a social service field help-
ful. Bilingual preferred. Excellent salary and
benefits. Resume with cover letter and salary
requirements to: Director, Human Resources,
The Partnership for the Homeless, 305 Seventh
Avenue, NY, NY 10001. AAlEED MlFIDN/sO
HOUSING ATTORNEY. - Northern Manhattan
Improvement Corporation (NMIC), an indepen-
dent community based legal services provider,
seeks an experienced housing attorney to join
its Legal Services Department. Applicant must
be admitted in NYS and have relevant litigation
experience in landlord-tenant, housing and/or
benefits issues. Spanish language ability pre-
ferred. Salary commensurate with experience,
excellent benefits. Send resume to Kenneth
Rosenfeld, Director of Legal Services, Northern
Manhattan Improvement Corporation, 76
Wadsworth Avenue, New York, New York 10033.
PARAlEGAL - Northern Manhattan Improve-
ment Corporation (NMIC), an independent com-
munity based legal services provider, seeks an
experienced paralegal to join its Legal Services
Department. Applicant must have relevant
experience in landlord-tenant, housing and/or
benefits issues. Spanish language ability
required. Salary commensurate with experience,
excellent benefits. Send resume to Kenneth
Rosenfeld, Director of Legal Services, Northern
Manhattan Improvement Corporation, 76
Wadsworth Avenue, New York, New York 10033.
PROJECT MANAGERIREAL ESTATE DEVELOP-
MENT - The St. Nicholas Neighborhood
Preservation Corporation seeks a Project Man-
ager/Real Estate Development to oversee non-
profit housing, commercial and community
facilities development. Individual will coordi -
nate architect, contractor and governmental
review. Qualifications: MS or BS with 3-5 years
experience in development or related field.
Knowledge of real estate finance, government
financing mechanisms and New York City reg-
ulatory environment a must. Email resume and
cover letter to Michael Rochford at
[email protected]
FUND RAISING ASSOCIATE - The Pratt Area
Community Council (PACC), a growing, neigh-
borhood-based non-profit dedicated to
improving the Brooklyn communities of Ft.
Greene, Clinton Hill, and Bedford Stuyvesant, is
seeking a Fundrai sing Associate. Research,
write and edit proposals and reports; assist
with newsletters, website content, donor rela-
tions/prospect research, special events, some
administrative duties. Competitive salary com-
mensurate with experience. EOE. Send cover
letter & resume to: PACC, 201 Dekalb Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11205. Fax: 718-522-2604.
[email protected]
YOUTH ORGANIZER - Reports to: Lead Orga-
nizer Department: Neighbors in Highbridge
Classification: FUll-Time Division: Storefront
Date: June 19, 2002- July 19, 2002(Deadline to
apply). Responsibilities: Work within team of
organizers to oversee outreach events geared
for youth. Develops youth leadership activities
and identifies youth to participate in communi-
ty transformation activities. Recruit youth to be
involved in Neighbors in Highbridge (NIH) out-
reach opportunities. Organize youth workshops
and training session, when appropriate, to
ensure youth activities correspond with NIH
outcomes. Identify and work to engage poten-
tial youth spokespersons on relevant communi-
ty issues. Tracks progress of NIH youth compo-
nent toward achieving department goals.
Engage parents and interested community res-
idents to support NIH efforts to enhance youth
participation. Qualifications: Minimum: Bache-
lor's degree in related field. At least one year of
organizing experience, or previous youth-relat-
ed experience under supervised conditions.
Minimum: one year of combined experience,
which includes youth supervision, youth coordi-
nation or teaching. Must have experience coor-
dinating youth-related programs, and/ or com-
munity organizing. Ability to interact Tactfully
CITY LIMITS
with youth, residents and other professional
staff. Demonstrated ability to work with com-
puters and the internet. Good communications,
interpersonal skills, analytic and strategic
planning abilities. Demonstrated ability to work
collaboratively and manage multiple priorities
and projects effectively. Proficiency in Spanish,
preferred. Interested applicants should fax
resu mes/cover letters to
(718)681-4137 or via email to
[email protected].
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, CORPORATE COMMU-
NITY RELATIONS - who will report to the
Department's V.P. Conceptualize, develop, and
facilitate project implementation related to
community relations and the Institute for Com-
munity Living (lCL), a dynamic not-for-profit
with corporate offices in lower Manhattan and
services to persons with disabilities in the NYC
region. Corporate Comrnunity Relations aims
for ICL to be a valued neighbor in each com-
munity the company serves. This position
requires an MSW, MPA, or related field; and a
minimum of 2 years in community develop-
ment work. Applicants who possess knowledge
of governmental relations are encouraged to
apply. Ability to clearly communicate verbally
and in writing is required. Excellent salary and
benefits. Send resume and cover letter to
Nancy Santiago at 212-385-0378 (fax) or call
at 212-385-3030, xl21.
Social Services - DATABASE MANAGER Assist
a dynamic community-based services organi-
zation to implement new client data collection
and management software; train users on
database functions; provide supportlinternal
help desk; generate data reports; create new
systems and procedures in response to pro-
gram needs. Managerial experience preferred.
Send resume with cover letter including salary
requirements to: The Fortune Society, Inc. 53
West 23rd Avenue, 8th Floor New York, NY
10010. Attn: Human Resources Dept. Fax: 212-
255-4948 or email: [email protected]
EOE. No phone calls please.
New World Communities Inc. - a preventive
agency located in Brooklyn, New York is seeking
to employ a SUPERVISOR to manage a unit of
4 Case Planners. Experience needed: 2 years
supervisory experience. Masters in Social Work.
Salary: $40 + K. In addition: Seeking 2 CASE
PLANNERS Experience needed: BA in field of
Human Services, 1 year experience in Case-
work. Salary: Upper $20's. Please fax resume
to: 718-399-7603
ECONOMICIBUDGET ANALYST - Unique com-
bination: strong analytical, quantitative and
communications skills, with passion for jus-
tice. Research, analyze City's budget, other
economic and fiscal issues; writing and public
speaking. Required: Masters in economics or
related field. Preferred: experience in public
budget or economic analysis; demonstrated
commitment to progressive policies.
Women/minorities encouraged. Fax resume,
cover letter: 2121 965-0053.
PAYROLL CLERK - Prepare and maintain
computerized payroll system for the company
and its afiliates. Maintain time keeping
records and payroll changes for each employ-
ee. Monitor company's payroll systems and
related schedules. Requires: BS/BA Degree in
Accounting, Finance, Economics or Business
and 3 years payroll (Windows) experience, ADP
PC for Windows 4.0 preferred, but not required.
OR Associates Degree in same diciplines as
BSIBA, and 5 years payroll (Windows) experi-
ence. Proficiency with MicroSoft Excel. Ideal
candidate is well organized with excellent com-
munications and interpersonal skills. Must
have ability to work independently and as part
of a team. This position interacts with the
Human Resources Department and when
required, Department Managers and staff.
Manage external relationship with ADP cus-
tomer and technical support services. JoB Code
#4078-FAMAlPC-0702CL. Send resume with
cover letter, salary requirements and job code
to: Ms. 0.1. Thomas, Personnel Manager, VIP
Community Services, 1910 Arthur Avenue, 4th
fl. , Bronx, New York 10457 fax: 718/299-1386
or e-mail : vipworks @aol.com Visit our website
at www.vipservices.org EOE
CHILDREN'S PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - Associ-
ate to provide case management and counsel-
ing to children of immigrant women. Responsi-
bilities also include providing advocacy and
accompaniment, and organizing special activ-
ities and children's events. Bi-lingual in Man-
darin or Cantonese required. Fax resume to JK
at 212-587-5731.
The Center for Urban Community Services
(CUCS) is recruiting for the following positions
at the Career Network, a job-training &
employment program. ADMINISTRATIVE
ASSISTANT - The administrative Assistant
supports program management and direct ser-
vice staff by carrying out administrative func-
tions. This position requires interaction with
program participants, including possible
supervision of clerical interns. Resp: filing,
supply inventory & purchasing; managing ven-
dor accounts; managing agency funds; word
processing; and report preparation & database
management. Reqs: High School Diploma or
equivalent; 2 years office experience; good
interpersonal and organizational skills; good
computer skills; effective written & verbal
communication skills; & ability to flexibly man-
age multiple tasks. BA preferred. Salary: $29,
725. Benefits: compo Benefits including
$65/month in transit checks. Send resume and
cover letters to: Carlene Scheel, CUCS/Career
Network, 14 East 28th Street, New York, NY
10016. VOCATIONAL SERVICES SPECIALlST-
Resp: vocational assessments; situational &
behavioral assessments, service planning;
counseling; case management coordination;
job placement recommendations; group work;
service documentation; and information and
referral. Reqs: BA & 2 years direct service expe-
rience with indicated populations (BSW + 1
year) or 60 credits & 3 years or HS & 6 years;
vocational services experience or demonstrat-
ed ability to serve a specialized population or
address a special need of the program; good
verbal & written communication skills; & com-
puter literacy. Bilingual Spanish/English pre-
ferred. Salary: $30,773. Benefits: compo Bene-
fits incl. $65/month in transit checks. Send
resume and cover letters to: Carleen Scheel,
CUCs/Career Network, 14 East 28th Street,
New York, NY 10016. CUCS is committed to
workforce diversity. EEO.
Help low-income New Yorkers access thousands
in tax benefits! Community Food Resource Cen-
ter (CFRC) has three available positions in its
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) campaign. Last
year, the project helped over 2,000 people get
$3.2 million in tax refunds. You can help us
reach thousands more. OPERATIONS MANAGER
- Oversee set-up and operation of multiple tax
preparation sites, including location, staffing,
technology, training, and partnerships. Experi-
ence managing a complex project and large
staff required. MEDIA/OUTREACH COORDINA-
TOR - Develop and implement a media/out-
reach campaign to inform eligible New Yorkers
about the mc. Organize publicity events and
press conferences, produce materials for print
and radio, and coordi nate with partner groups.
Strong written/verbal communication skills and
experience developing a large-scale campaign.
ADVOCATElPOLICY ANALYST -Research/ana-
lyze data, monitor legislative activity, develop
policy strategies and work with elected officials
to improve tax credits and related issues. Strong
analytical/communication skills and related
experience. For all positions: Bachelor'S degree
and/or equivalent experience. Bilingual (Span-
ish/English) preferred. We strongly encourage
people of color to apply. Resume/cover letter to:
Human Resources, CFRC, 39 Broadway, 10th
Floor, NYC 10006, Fax (212) 616-4990 or
[email protected].
JOB ADS
ATTORNEYS - Several staff attorney positions
to provide Housing Rep and/or Benefits Rep
(public assistance, Social Security, etc) in
neighborhood trial offices. Send cover
letter,resume & short writing sample to: Helaine
Barnett, Attorney-in-Charge, Civil
Division,LEGAL AID SOCIETY, 166 Montague
Street, Brooklyn, NY ll201. Women, People of
Color, Gays & Lesbians and People with Dis-
abilities Especially Encouraged to Apply
Major nonprofit serving the homeless and low
income population, seeks applicants to fill
the following positions at new Brooklyn resi-
dence: Social Work Supervisor MSW or related
fld. 3-5 yrs exp in family or res counseling
and supv expo or BSW w/6-8 yrs expo SENIOR
SUBSTANCE ABUSE COUNSELOR MSW or BA
and CASAC. Prior exp with addiction treat-
ment req'd. COUNSELOR/JOB PREP SPECIAL-
IST BA in Human Svcs or related fld. Knowl of
working w/families and homeless issues.
Familiarity w/social svcs setting and wkg
w/clients on vocational issues. Housing Spe-
cialist BA or equiv in work expo plus exp with
NYC housing mktg expo HEAD TEACHER BA in
Elementary Ed or ECE. Classroom teaching
expo a must. Knowl of child development, cur-
ric. and needs of homeless families. Spanish
spkg a plus. Recreation Coordinator Assoc.
Degree plus 2 yrs exp providing recreational
activites for homeless families. Openings for
youth wkrs w/ relevant expo MAI NTENANCE
DIRECTOR HS Diploma or equiv. 5 yrs facility
mgmt expo Cert. in boiler systems & know of
fire safety & security. SECURITY DIRECTOR
HS diploma or equiv. NYS security license. 3-
5 yrs supv exp in a res.setting. Computer lit-
erate. Fire Guard Cert.req'd. Shift Supervisors
HS diploma or equiv. NYS security guard
license & state central registry clearance. 2-
3 yrs exp in soc. svc or res setting. Spanish
spkg helpful. SECURITY STAFF HS Diploma or
equiv. NYS cert. Pis fax 212-465-9539 or
send resume to HR Dir, Women In Need, Inc.
ll5 W. 31 St, NY, NY. An EOE, M/F/DN no
calls pis.
DIRECTOR OF MAlOR GIFTS - Support the
expansion of the major gifts programs in ACLU
affiliates, including the production of materi -
als and the training of affiliate staff and vol -
unteers; Develop short- and long-term strate-
gies to identify, cultivate, solicit and steward
individual major donor prospects and donors
for annual campaign gifts as well as endow-
ment campaign gifts. Eight years experience in
fund raising, with extensive major gifts exper-
tise. Reply to: ACLU-Human Resources, 125
Broad Street-18th Floor, New York, NY 10004.
[email protected].
.. ~ . - ~ .... ', ... - - -:
Reach 20,000 readers in the nonprofit sector.
Advertise In CITY LIMITS. Call Kim Nauer at (212) 479-3352
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2002
S7
JOB ADS
58
I LLUSTRATED MEMOS
om CE OFTIlE CflY VISIONARY:
(" .
I.
In an era of crippling budget
deficits, independently wealthy
novices might not be the best
alternative to the tired old
party politics of Democrats and
Republicans.
NONPARTISAN SINGLE WORKING MOTHER
MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS PLAN NO. 315
Why not elect more experienced
candidates who know how to get by
when ends don' t meet?
GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLUTION
TO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?
SEND IN VOJJrFl
OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
CITY LlMITS MAGAZINE
120 WALL ST., 20
TH
FLOOR, NY NY 10005
ootcv@ citylimits.ors
CITY LIMITS
Lawyers Alliance for New York
The leading provider of free and low-cost business law services to nonprojils
that are working to improve the quality of life in New York's neighborlwods.
330 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
(212) 219-1800
www.lany.org
Workshops in Legal Issues for Nonprofits
Workshops are $45 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 212 219-1800.
September 6 Incorporation and Tax Exemption
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
September 17 Employment Law
10:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
September 20 Basics of Housing Development
10:00 a.m. -1:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
September 27 Lobbying and Political Activity
10:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
October 10 Legal Issues Associated with Nonprofit Child Care Centers
10:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
October 18 Fundraising Law and Regulation
10:00 a.m. -1:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
October 22 Creating a Successful Community Lending Program *
10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
October 30 Incorporation and Tax Exemption
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at Lawyers Alliance for New York. 330 Seventh Avenue. 19th Floor
November 13 Business Ventures for Nonprofits
10:00 a.m. -1:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
November 14 Legal Issues Associated with Operating Mter School Programs
10:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
November 21 Developing Low-Income Housing Using the Federal Tax Credit
10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
. December 3 Legal Issues Relating to Governing and Managing Nonprofit Organizations
10:00 a.m. - 1 :00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
December 11 Incorporation and Tax Exemption
New workshop
Making a World of Difference
Building a Better New York
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at Empire State Building. 350 Fifth Avenue. Room 2925
City Limits' sister organization, the Center for an Urban Future,
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