Turning Point

-

1
s the City Council filUllly showing some spunk? Does New York
City really have the iruleperulent legislature it has always hoped
for? It 's a bit too soon to make such ajudgment, but there are some
very good signs. In at least two recent cases, skillful arul intense grass-
roots activism has pushed the council to oppose Mayor Giuliani.
Eighteen months ago the mayor announced his plan to eliminate
street corner fire boxes, those beaten old war-horses that serve as life
lines in many low income communities. With a bit of hemming arul haw-
ing, the council at first gave in to his demand, approving a pilot program
that ultimately led to the disconnection of one-quarter of the boxes, a
large number of them in poor, politically disconnected communities like
EDITORIAL
East New York and Brownsville.
The methodical organizing effort of a multiracial
coalition of neighborhood groups, clergy arul organized
labor has shamed the council into dropping the mayor's
plan (see "Father of the People," page 12). In a rare
show offorce, the council's black and Latino caucus has
ulUlnimously come around to the position that the fire
boxes must stay. Last month, Council Speaker Peter Vallone announced
his opposition, and put forward a bill to reconnect the entire system. He
hasn't played his entire haru1 yet; some compromise is still in the works,
but whatever the result, Vallone's spokesperson assures us that there will
be some kirul of on-street device wired directly to the fire dispatchers in
every neighborhood.
The same kirul of thing has happened with Giuliani's plan to priva-
tize Queens arul Elmhurst hospital centers. A grourulswell of communi-
ty opposition proved too powerful for even the mayor. The council is
blocking Giuliani's privatization plans, arul the likely private-sector
buyers of the facilities are losing interest.
Why the change in the council's east wing of City Hall? Perhaps it's
the looming threat of term limits, which will mean a complete turnover
of members in the year 2002. More so than at any time since the coun-
cil was exparuled to 51 members in the 1989 revision of the city charter;
legislators have reason to express the will of their constituents rather
than the will of Speaker Vallone. It's all a question of preserving their
own political futures after Vallone leaves to firul other work. The tum of
the century looms large.
Cover illustration by Liz Prager
Andrew White
Editor
(ity Limits
Volume XXI Number 4
City Limits is published ten ti mes per year. monthly except
bimonthly issues in June/July and August/September. by
the City Limits Community Information Service. Inc .. a non
profit organization devoted to disseminating information
concerning neighborhood revitali zation.
Editor. Andrew White
Senior Editors: Kim Nauer. Glenn Thrush
Special Projects Editor: Kierna Mayo Dawsey
Contributing Editors: James Bradley. Rob Polner.
Robin Epstein
Design Director. David Huang
Assistant Designer. Paul Lei shman
Advertising Representative: Faith Wiggins
Proofreader. Sandy Socolar
Photographers: Eric R. Wolf. Gregory P. Mango.
Gary Gelb
Sponsors:
Association for Neighborhood and
Housi ng Development. Inc.
Pratt Institute Center for Community
and Environmental Development
Urban Homesteadi ng Assistance Board
Board of Directors':
Eddie Bautista. New York Lawyers for
the Public Interest
Beverly Cheuvront. City Harvest
Francine Justa. Neighborhood Housing Services
Errol Louis. Central Brooklyn Partnership
Rima McCoy. Action for Community Empowerment
Rebecca Reich. Low Income Housing Fund
Andrew Reicher. UHAB
Tom Robbins. Journalist
Jay Small. ANHD
Doug Turetsky. former City Limits Editor
Pete Williams. National Urban League
"Affiliations for identification only.
Subscription rates are: for individuals and community
groups. $25/Dne Year. $35/Two Years; for businesses.
foundations. banks. government agencies and libraries.
$35/0ne Year. $50/Two Years. Low income. unemployed.
$10/0ne Year.
City Limits welcomes comments and article contributions.
Please include a stamped. selfaddressed envelope for
return manuscripts. Material in City Limits does not neces-
sarily reflect the opinion of the sponsoring organizations.
Send correspondence to: City Limits. 40 Prince St.. New
York. NY 10012. Postmaster: Send address changes to City
Limits. 40 Prince St.. NYC 10012.
Second class postage paid
New York. NY 10001
City Limits (lSSN 0199-0330)
1212) 925-9820
FAX 1212) 966-3407
e-mailL CitLim@aoLcom
Copyright 1996. All Rights Reserved. No
portion or portions of this journal may be repr inted with-
out the express permission of the publishers.
City Limits is indexed in the Altemative Press
Index and the Avery Index to Architectural
Periodicals and is available on microfi lm from University
Microfilms International . Ann Arbor. MI 48106.
CITY LIMITS
APRILJ996
THE GRID ~
. ,
SPECIAL PULL-OUT SECTION
Work Book
Strategies and opportunities: a comprehensive resource guide for community-
based economic development.
FEATURES
Cashing In
City Hall considers chopping up HPD; the commissioner flees; Rudy sells out.
People could say the city's housing policy is in chaos-that is, if there were a

housing policy. By Glenn Thrush
Ties That Bind
Two once-fractured neighborhoods forge a new grassroots democratic movement
on the streets of Philadelphia. By Ri((J Giordano
Black and Blueprints
Community-based planning by the books can take years, taxing everyone's
energy and goodwill. Activists are asking if there's a better way.
By James Bradley and Winton Pitcoff
PROFILE
One Step Forward
A black youth leadership network recalls the civil rights movement as it trains
a new generation of organizers. By Andrea Manueli((J Payne
PIPELINE
Lesson Plans
Rudy Giuliani and Sheldon Silver both want to change the way New York City
runs its schools. They may get their wish. Here's the scoop.
By Chris Mitchell
VERBATIM
Father of the People
Sometimes City Hall needs a jolt. Father John Powis knows how to deliver it.
MOTORIOUS
Rita, Educating
An art teacher's art of teaching.
Cityview
Ballot Boxing
Review
The Pay We Were
Spare Change
Public Enemy
Briefs
Gramercy's Bitter End
Omnibus Housing Bill
Oversight Unseen
COMMENTARY
DEPARTMENTS
6,7 Editorial
Letters
Professional
Directory
Job Ads
By Andrew White
By Glenn Thrush
138
By Gene Russianoff
139
By S((Jnley Aronowitz
By Nick Chiles
2
4
40
41


Arch I.'. Pal
Because of the positioning of the para-
graphs in James Bradley's article ('The
Landlord's Representative," February
1996) it appears that I am in some way dis-
satisfied with Councilman Archie
Spigner's actions. This is both inaccurate
and misleading.
the past. Since he has come through
before, I'm sure he'll come to our aid
in the future.
Veronique Le MeLLe
Executive Director
Jamaica Arts Center, Queens
BolI.r Bla.?
.. - . - ~ - - , .. , ... -
Prior to my conversation with
Bradley, I met with Councilman
Spigner to discuss my concerns
about the building next door to
the Jamaica Arts Center. As
reported in the article, the build-
Your reporting on 408-412
West 129th Street (Briefs,
February 1996) was inaccurate
and distorted.
~ .
LETTERS
ing, owned by Rita Stark, is a
health and safety hazard. When I
told Councilman Spigner about
my concerns and showed him the damage
the other building was causing to our
building, he promised to look into the
problem. He has already called the city
buildings department on our behalf. And
he immediately made a personal inspec-
tion of the Stark property.
Councilman Spigner promised to take
swift action as he has done many times in
Your article refers to heat and hot
water complaints but does not refer to the
complete overhaul of the boiler which I
ordered, got completed and paid for. And
since that work has been completed, there
have been no complaints or violations for
lack of heat and hot water at all.
Furthermore, you neglected to mention
that the delay in installing a new boiler
was due to bureaucratic red tape and a
budget dispute, that the overhaul was com-
pleted in spite of the pending new boiler,
and that the new window installation is
I' I I II \ \ I II I( () I, I I( \ (, I I" (
When it comes
to insurance ...
We've got
you covered.
F
or over 40 years, Pelham Brokerage
Inc. has responded to the needs of
our clients with creative, low-cost
insurance programs. We represent all
major insurance carriers specializing in
coverages for Social Service organ-
izations. Our programs are approved by
City, State and Federal funding agencies.
Let us be part of your management
team. As specialists in the area of
new construction and rehabilitation
of existing multiple unit properti es,

we work closely with our customers
to insure compliance on insurrulce
requirements throughout the develop-
ment process. Thereafter, we will tailor
a permanent insurance progrrun to meet
the specific needs of your organization.
Our clients include mrulY of the leading
organizations in the New York City area
providing social services.
For information call:
Steven Potolsky, President
111 Great Neck Road, Greal Neck, New York 11021 Phone (516) 482-5765 Fax (516) 482-5837
I " " I I( \ " ( I
g
required as the landlord's contribution to the
renovation.
On a personal, human level I would be
ashamed of myself if I doctored the truth.
The building was so economically
unfeasible, the city of New York itself
withdrew its attempt to take it over. When
I took it over, even basic management
would have been an improvement. Beyond
that, I have embarked on a total program of
rehabilitation. And to say that I "milk" my
properties is simply a lie. If I milked my
properties, how come they all have new
windows, new boilers, new entrance doors,
full-time superintendents, new mailboxes,
new lighting, new roofs and so on?
Steven Green
Green Realty Management Corporation
Manhattan
Kim Nauer replies: When I visited
Green's properties in the second week of
January, residents in both of the buildings,
many of whom are elderly, were so cold in
their apartments they could see their
breath. Phone calls to residents at press
time indicated that, while workmen were
indeed in the building, the boiler was still
working only sporadically. While it may
be true that Green has finally fixed the
boiler, it is also true that he has owned the
building since last fall. The boiler should
have been fIXed then, preventing months
of frigid misery for tenants who ill-deserve
this fate and have suffered long enough
from the neglect of previous slumlords.
Greens behavior is nothing new. When
City Limits included him in its run-down
of the city's worst landlords in 1990, he
was cruising around town in his Rolls
Royce while tenant's ceilings were col-
lapsing .
CITVLlMITS
Specializing in
Community Development Groups,
HDFCs and Non Profits
Low .. Cost Insurance and Quality Service.
NANCY HARDY
Insurance Broker
Over 20 Years of Experience.
270 North Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 10801
914,654,8667
Who Needs
Housing NYC: Rents.
Markets and Trends 495?
APPRAISERS ADVOCACY GROUPS
BROKERS BANKERS
CONSULTANTS DEVELOPERS
JOURNALISTS LAWYERS
NON-PROFITS POLICY MAKERS
URBAN STUDIES EDUCATORS
Housing NYC: Rents. Markets and 1rends '95. an annual publica-
tion of the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, includes a
detailed Income and Expense Study, the 1995 Price Index oj
Operating Costs and extensive data from the
1993 NYC Housing and Vacancy Survey.
To order call (212)349-2262 or send a check for $23.00
payable to the
NYC Rent Guidelines Board
51 Chambers St., Suite 202, New York, NY 10007.
APRIL 1996
Manhattan
Neighborhood
Network
ManhaHan
Neighborhood
Network
wants to put you
on Public Access
Television
Manhattan Neighborhood Network is
looking to train community-based organi-
zations in Manhattan that are interested
in creating programs for public access
television. All of our services are free
including: workshops in studio and cam-
corder production; videotape editing
workshops; and air time to cablecast your
program on public access channels.
In the past year Action for Community
Empowerment, Chinese Staff and Workers
Association, Alianza Dominicana, EI
Barrio Popular Education Project and the
Upper Manhattan Task Force on AIDS
have taken television production work-
shops and produced dynamic community-
based television programs about the
issues and concerns of these organiza-
tions and the people they represent.
For more information about Manhattan
Neighborhood Network,
CALL
V"ldor Sanchez at
2122602670 ext. 303

BRIEFS i

Short Shots
GRAMERCY'S BITTER END
"I had always thought I'd
live the rest of my life here,"
says Jim Davis, a 51-year-old
part-time construction worker .
He is one of 19 tenants left in
two tired, old hotels, the
Gramercy and the Amsterdam,
at Lexington Avenue near East
25th Street Both buildings are
slated to be torn down to
accommodate a massive $250
million, 16-story student center
for Baruch College.
The plan has been on the
boards since the late 1980s
and most of the hotels' tenants
have long since taken various
buyout offers and housing
placements offered by the
New York State Dormitory
OVERSIGHT UNSEEN
Last October, the city
passed a new law creating a
brand new mega-construction
agency. But deep in the ser-
pentine recesses of the legisla-
tion lay a little-noticed provi-
sion that will severely limit the
power of communities to
review projects that require
city funds or zoning changes.
In the past, local community
boards were given 60 days to
hold committee meetings and
issue advisory opinions on city-
funded construction projects.
Thei r opinions-while not
always respected-were sel-
dom entirely ignored. But the
new law effectively cuts that
oversight period down to 30
days.
In fact, the new law stipu-
lates that boards must move
city projects within 30 days-
BRONX DA ROBERT
JOHNSON STOOD ON
principle against the death
penalty late last month-
and Governor George Pataki
booted him from a high-
profile cop-killing case.
Johnson retained his digni-
ty, and he never played the
race card, though the fol-
lowing trump comes instant-
ly to mind: Would Peekskill
George have attacked
Johnson if he were a white,
liberal, anti-death penalty
OA like Robert Morgenthau?
RUDY GIULIANI, THAT
self-styled Moses dragging
Gotham to the fiscally
responsible holy land, seems
doomed to languish in one-
shot hell. Two recent
reports-from Comptroller
Alan Hevesi, and from the
state's Financial Control
Board-show that the mayor

Authority. But in 1991, when it
became apparent that a hard-
core of tenants couldn't be
bought out, authority officials
promised the local community
board that holdouts would be
given SRO housing in the
neighborhood in their same
$200-a-month price range.
But NYSDA officials now
maintain that their commitment
was not legally binding. The
authority and its contractor, the
Bronx-based Relocation
Management Associates, have
offered to give the remaining
tenants a $7,500 one-time pay-
ment to leave. They also
offered to find the tenants effi-
ciency apartments, mostly in
uptown and outer-borough
SRO's with semi-private rooms.
"These places where they
wantto send us are small, bar-
racks-type places," says 67-
year-old Gosse Eppinga, a
retired waiter who has lived in
the Gramercy for a decade.
"You have to sign in and out.
It's like a nursing home. It's not
a real place like this."
"We have done everything
we can possibly do to relocate
these people," replies authori-
ty spokesman Paul Burgdorf.
"There are people in there
who believed there would be
large cash settlements if they
held out to the end."
which technically means the
city could rush plans through in
even quicker time. Like in 20
days. Or 10. Or two.
"It just shows that the
administration doesn't take
community consultation seri-
ously," says Manhattan
Borough President Ruth
Messinger, who was informed
of the fast-track provision by
the mayor's Community
Assistance Unit in late January.
At Messinger's request,
Washington Heights Council-
is plugging the deficit with
questionable, one-time sell-
offs of valuable city assets:
WNYC; tax liens; Mitchell-
Lama mortgages; the
ground underneath the air-
ports. What's next? Hocking
the brass bathroom fixtures
at Gracie Mansion?
To get Davis, Eppinga and
their friends out, the authority
and its relocation company
have resorted to private-land-
lord tactics. In the Amsterdam,
workers tore out toilets on
occupied floors, leaving behind
pools of stagnant, fetid water.
They even nailed the doors on
the shower rooms shut.
RMA employees also told a
judge in the eviction proceeding
that Davis, Eppinga and a 76-
year-old Amsterdam resident
had committed crimes, ranging
from pulling knives on fellow
tenants to bringing prostitutes
into the building to smoking
crack. "Absolute, utter non-
sense," Eppinga says. The judge
is expected to rule on the evic-
tion order sometime in April.
But the tenants know the
law is not on their side. All the
buildings on the Baruch site
have already been con-
demned. The authority is sim-
ply waiting for the judge's final
order to begin demolition, a
process that could commence
as early as May.
"We're going to fight this as
hard as we can," says Davis,
who is trying to enlist the sup-
port of campus groups, fair-
housing organizations and an
environmental lawyer. "If Ilose,
I just don't know what I'll do:
Glenn Thrush
man Guillermo Linares intro-
duced a bill that would restore
the community boards' two-
month review period.
The Giuliani administration
is unrepentant. "Nobody should
be questioning our commitment
to community involvement,"
responds deputy mayor Fran
Reiter. Reiter says the law is a
logical extension of the mayor's
efficiency crusade. "Things just
don't move fast enough in this
city," she grumbles.
A postscript: The law faces
almost certain amendment
since it happens to kill commu-
nity board members' cherished
summer vacations. The council
will soon consider a now mea-
sure, introduced by Bronx
Democrat June Eisland, restor-
ing the July-August hiatus. Her
measure, however, will do
nothing to restore the old
review period- and no one is
banking on the passage of
Linares' bill.
Glenn Thrush
CITY LIMITS
OMNIBUS HOUSING BILL
Even as the clock ticked
away the final hours before
Commissioner Deborah Wright's
April Fools' Day departure from
the Department of Housing
Preservation and Development
efforts intensified in the City
Council to pass an omnibus
housing bill. Advocates and cen-
tral City Council staff held crash
sessions to put the bill together
before a late-March hearing of
the council's Housing and
Buildings Committee. The bill
has the support of
Commissioner Wright who
barely disguises her concern
that the future of housing under
the Giuliani administration may
not be rosy.
''I'm trying as hard as I can
to get the bill passed before I
leave: Wright told City Limits.
"It's absolutely critical to do
this before I go. Completely
critical. ... I've had my issues
with the housing advocates,
but I'm the devil they know.
Given that it's unclear what will
follow next, it makes sense for
everybody to complete this
work before I leave.
"There's one thing that I
know: she added. " It will be
the most significant tax collec-
tion and abandonment preven-
tion legislation in literally three
decades."
Measures being consid-
ered in the bill include:
codifying HPD programs
designed to help some owners
of distressed properties regain
financial footing by using low
interest loans for building
repairs and allowing rent
increases;
establishing a system for
directly transferring ownership
of other tax-delinquent proper-
ties to new for-profit and non-
profit landlords, and in some
cases tenant associations;
directing the administration to
continue developing a computer-
ized "early waming system" that
would help officials identify dis-
tressed buildings;
defining a "distressed" proper-
ty so that buildings teetering on
the edge of abandonment
would not be inc/uded in lien
sales;
assuring that the Tenant
Interim Lease (TIL) program-
the much-l auded system for
helping tenant associations
take over their distressed build-
ings-will continue to exist by
transferring the titles of some
buildings temporarily to a non-
profit intermediary.
Resources
a big-time lobbying generating 1,200 pro- ical resources on the
THE DAYS OF POLm
ClANS weighing heaps
of telegrams to gauge
the vox populi are
gone. "Electronic peti-
tioning," sending salvos
of e-mail messages to
politicians, has become
APRIL 1996
tool for small-budget
advocates. According to
the Washington-based
newsletter InfoActive,
Illinois death-row
inmate 6irvies Oavis
placed his statement of
innocence on the Web,
clemency e-mails. Ralph Internet, or to subscribe
Nader's Taxpayers Assets to InfoActive, call the
Project sent thousands nonprofit (enter for
of messages to fight Media Education at
loopholes in the federal (202) 628-2620. Or e-
Paperwork Reduction mail them at infoac-
Act. To find out more tive@cme.org.
about progressive po lit-
After years of planning,
the Women's Housing and
Economic Development
Corporation has begun a
massive gut-rehabilitation
operation at the former
Morissania Hospital on
East 167th Street i n the
Bronx. At a ceremonial
groundbreaking last
month, Borough President
Fernando Ferrer (left) and
state housing commission-
er Joe Holland joined
WHEDCO director Nancy
Biberman in bashing
through the concrete that
had plugged the aban-
doned property's doorway
for two decades. The pro-
ject, due to be completed
next year, will include 132
apartments and an innova-
tive mix of job training,
health care and family
support programs.
Those drafting the bill hope
its passage will squelch the
administration's back-burner
plan to dismantle HPD (see
" Cashing In," page 14). They
are also hopeful that once in
place, the new anti-abandon-
ment programs would prevent
the mayor's planned sale of
liens on tax-delinquent proper-
ties from devolving into a
wholesale auction program.
But at press time, it was
unclear if these efforts had the
support of the mayor or Council
Speaker Peter Vallone.
Glell/! Thrush alld
Alldrew White
AND NOW YOU CAN (heck them out. Of
READ our weekly bul- course, you can also get
letin, City Limits Weekly, the bulletin by fax. Just
on the Web. We are call us at (212) 925-
hooked in thanks to two 9820; or bye-mail:
excellent sites: send a note to
www.pratt.edu/picced GtLim@aol.com.
and www.columbia.
edu/cu/ssw/acsj/.
s
PROFILE ~
,
Dorothy
Chavannes (left),
Marie Marthol and
Celena Green
strategize during a
voter registration
drive at Bedford
Stuyvesant's Boys
and Girls High
School
-
One Step Forward
Slow work but true: Planting the seed of black consciousness
in New Yorks young people. By Andrea Manuelita Payne
P
0rty-five minutes late and counting.
It's cold and dark on Myrtle Avenue
in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, more
than an hour after dusk. A lone vol-
unteer waits in front of the Whitman hous-
ing project for others to arrive. She had
planned to hand out bags of donated food to
needy residents, in recognition of Black
Solidarity Day. Maybe not tonight.
Then a cab screeches up, followed by
another. Marie Marthol, head of the Black
Student Leadership Network (BSLN)
People's Communi.ty Feeding Program
climbs out of the car, wmch is packed
above the rear-view window with grocery
bags and boxes. She smiles apologetically
while others get out and start unloading. It
was your basic logistical nightmare, she
explains. They had J 50 bags of gro-
ceries-and no car. "Our driver didn't
show up. We had to call a cab."
Such is the story of the four-year-old
New York Metro Chapter of the BSLN.
These unpaid organizers are forced to
manage an ambitious program on a tight
budget and the even tighter schedules of
two dozen young African-Americans who
regularly volunteer their time. Some two
hundred young adults are New York BSLN
members, participating on and off in the
group's various family advocacy and
youth outreach programs.
"I'm very surprised to find young peo-
ple like them, putting their minds together
to help the community," says Pastor
Michael Jackson of the Antioch Church of
Our Lord Jesus Christ in Bedford-
Stuyvesant. Jackson responded to
Marthol's request for a church home to
permanently house BSLN's feeding pro-
gram, wmch began in August 1994. Until
then, volunteers simply distributed food
outdoors on Fulton Street. Now BSLN and
the church serve about J 00 people hot
meals twice monthly. "They've been a
blessing," Pastor Jackson says.
The feeding program is BSLN's
biggest project, says Marthol, a 26-year-
old public health researcher. Volunteers
raise funding themselves, and prepare and
serve the meals. They also pass out pam-
phlets with the local hunger hotline num-
ber, updates on federal food programs and
lists of area food banks. The leaflets also
carry a political message, informing resi-
dents that government policy could be
more humane.
In the distant future, Marthol envisions
putting together community gardens
where residents grow their own produce
and establishing buying clubs that allow
communi.ty members to purchase food col-
lectively. But the church feeding program
is where it all starts, she says. "We must
address people's immediate needs first.
How can we talk about organizing for the
long term when people are hungry?"
Breakfast Meeting
The BSLN is the creation of Marian
Wright Edelman, president of the
Children's Defense Fund, and Lisa
Sullivan, a 34-year-old organizer whose
work galvanizing black youth in
Connecticut for the NAACP caught
Edelman's eye. Sullivan's work in New
Haven contributed to the election of that
city's first black mayor in 1989. Shortly
after the victory party, Sullivan was sur-
prised by a call from Edelman's office
requesting a breakfast meeting.
At the meeting, Sullivan told Edelman
she believed young African Americans
genuinely want to complete the unfInished
business of the civil rights movement, but
they have no one to bridge the generation
gap between old and young, the way Ella
Baker had done during the creation of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee in the 1960s. Edelman
revealed that she had been a protege of
Baker's, and that cemented their relation-
smp, Sullivan recalls.
After Edelman convened a retreat to
discuss the crisis facing black children,
Sullivan committed to mobilizing her
peers to do communi.ty organizing. Out of
the retreat came the Black Community
Crusade For Children (BCCC). Later, at a
conference Sullivan organized in 1991 at
Howard University, the BSLN was born as
a youth organizing arm of the BCCC. Both
organizations are affiliates of the
Cmldren's Defense Fund and receive some
money from the organi.zation. However,
BSLN locals are expected to set their own
agendas and do most of their own
fundraising.
In New York City, Mark Winston
CITY LIMITS
Griffith, the 32-year-old executive director
of the Central Brooklyn Partnership, was
one of the first activists Sullivan contact-
ed. With another young organizer, Dorothy
Chavannes, Griffith cofounded the New
York affiliate and galvanized a small
nucleus of young people largely from
Brooklyn and Queens. BSLN member
Andrew Gaudlin is now organizing a sec-
ond BSLN affiliate in Harlem.
It's the beginning of something impor-
tant, Sullivan maintains, arguing that BSLN
is, in its own way, analogous to the student-
led movements of the 196Os.
Organizing black youth is "a radical
notion in the 1990s." Sullivan says.
"Young black people have been demo-
nized, marginalized and ostracized by
everybody, including, unfortunately, black
adults," she adds. "But in the midst of this
isolation, fear and hopelessness, young
people are saying 'I want to serve my com-
munity and I want to be an advocate for
children and families. '"
On. Thousand Vot.rs
Outside, it's a frigid March night in
Bedford-Stuyvesant, but indoors at the
New York Metro Chapter's headquarters
the atmosphere is heated as 20 BSLN
members hold a strategy session. With the
presidential elections dominating the head-
lines, the national BSLN has begun orga-
nizing voter education and registration dri-
ves to teach people about their rights and
responsibilities as citizens, discuss the
issues and, ultimately, register voters.
The national goal is to sign up one mil-
lion new voters in time for the November
election; the question on this night is how
to do it.
The voter registration committee,
headed by 21-year-old Celena Green, sets
a goal to register 1,000 men and women.
They had already registered 26 people at a
fashion show sponsored by the
Organization of Black Women at New
York University, and they agreed to con-
tinue their effort the following week at a
step show at Bed-Stuy's Boys and Girls
High School.
While these activities are important,
BSLN leaders say it's the network's
training, supported by the national office
and CDF, that is most significant, as it
gives members skills for organizing their
own programs.
1Wenty-four-year-old Chavannes, for
example, helped create the Nia Youth
APRI L 1996
Collective following a summer spent volun-
teering in 1993 at a Freedom School in
Harlem run by BSLN and the Rheedlen
Centers For Children and Families.
After securing a grant from the
Corporation for National Service,
Chavannes recruited student volunteers
from the Black Student Union at Hunter
College to create an organization to refocus
the energies of young people on communi-
ty development. Youths in the collective
completed a 30-minute documentary enti-
tled "Step Forward-The Reconstruction
of a Community," interviewing communi-
ty people and recording their opinions on
issues such as poverty, crime, violence,
drugs and lack of unity. Collective volun-
teers also painted a mural on the comer of
Cumberland and DeKaib Avenues in Fort
Greene and tutored 60 children at the Fort
Greene Beacon School.
Unfortunately, Chavannes' story has an
epilogue common to many organizing
efforts: the Nia Collective has been shut
down, at least temporarily. Working with
an all volunteer staff "is very difficult since
we are trying to do community service and
advocacy," Chavannes notes. "It's hard to
get a group of folks dedicated enough to do
it consistently without getting paid. And
consistency is key." Staffmg tutorials four
days a week proved taxing, even for her.
Making matters worse, the collective lost
its home last year after the Fort Greene
Beacon, operated by the Youth Service
Coalition, lost its city contract.
Despite the difficulties, there is new
hope with each young organizer that
BSLN trains. Lisa Beggs, 18, was director
of lighting for the Nia Collective's docu-
mentary and attended the BSLN's national
conference in February. "I have not seen
black people come together to talk with
each other the way they did in Charlotte,"
she says, slightly awed. "Over the years
I've seen black people come together
mostly to argue. In Charlotte I saw every-
body respecting each other. It had a big
influence on me. It made me more black
conscious." And that, BSLN leaders say, is
why the network exists .
Andrea Manuelita Payne is a Brooklyn-
based freelance writer.
RrF
of
NEW YORK
INCORPORATED
For 20Years
We've Been There
ForYou.
Your
Neighborhood
Housing
Insurance
Specialist
R&F OF NEW YORK, INC. has a special
department obtaining and servicing insurance for
tenants, low-income co-ops and not-for-profit
community groups. We have developed competitive
insurance programs based on a careful evaluation
of the special needs of our customers. We have
been a leader from the start and are dedicated to
the people of New York City.
For Information call:
Ingrid Kaminski, Senior Vice President
R&F of New York
One Wall Street Court
New York, NY 10005-3302
212 269-8080 800 635-6002 212 269-8112 (fax)



PIPEliNE ~
,
Lesson Plans
Giuliani and Silver want to revolutionize the city s school
system: A primer. By Chris Mitchell
W
ith less than two months to
go before the May 7 commu-
nity school board elections,
Schools Chancellor Rudy
Crew made a politically outlandish request.
He wanted the state legislature, which has
authority over questions of school gover-
nance, to postpone the voting in all 32 city
school districts for a year so he could super-
sede community control wherever he saw
corruption or academic failure.
Funny thing is, he got pretty much what
he wanted. Leaders in both the
Democratic-controlled assembly and the
Republican-controlled senate balked at the
idea of punishing good districts, but agreed
to let Crew delay the seating of winners in
districts the chancellor deems a failure.
"Both sides reached the same deci-
invite a single Republican.
"When you're talking about school
governance, the safest bet is that nothing
is going to happen," says Stanley Litow, a
deputy chancellor under Chancellor Joe
Fernandez.
Yet Albany's recent compromise on
school board elections may have changed
everything. The two main reform plans
currently on the table-one introduced by
the mayor's Republican friends in the sen-
ate, the other backed by the Democratic
assembly leadership-may not be impos-
sible to reconcile. Even the mayor's lob-
byist, Robert Harding, seems to have
embraced the prevailing spirit of coopera-
tion by refusing to publicly criticize the
assembly proposal. "There has never been
discussion like this time," he says.
The Clullanl Plan
Supporters: Rudy Giuliani. Most of
New York City'S GOP senators. Governor
George Pataki (in public anyway).
Mayor's Role: All power would flow
from the mayor, who appoints the chan-
cellor with the City Council's advice and
consent. The mayor also gets to name two
of five appointees on newly created bor-
ough boards.
Board of Education: The seven-mem-
ber central board would be replaced by
five borough-level boards (each with two
mayoral appointees, two members
appointed by the City Council, and one
appointed by the borough president).
Chancellor: Assumes almost all power
formerly held by the central board. Would
be able to remove any local superinten-
dent or principal almost at will. Would
also appoint all members of new local
school councils.
Community School Districts: All 32
district boards would survive. But each
district superintendent would have to hire
Gone are the Itommunity empowerment"
reforms of the 1960s. The focus this time is
on efficient}' and corruption-fighting.
sion," says Crew's Albany lobbyist,
Stephen Allinger. "This is a good sign.
It's confidence-building."
The city's educational cognoscenti
have heard this optimistic talk before,
however. Five years ago, a state commis-
sion headed by Staten Island GOP
Senator John Marchi sketched out the
general themes of today's major reform
recommendations: more school-based
decision-making; a radical shake-up of
the local school districts; a far leaner cen-
tral administration.
Despite earning widespread acco-
lades, the Marchi bill died in the assem-
bly in 1993, as the senate was killing an
assembly-approved alternative. Last year,
prospects for bipartisan reform seemed
just as bad. Assembly Speaker Sheldon
Silver even called a "summit" of the
city's educational leaders-neglecting to
Both legislative plans have basic ele-
ments in common. They each propose an
end to the community school board-based
city system in place since the "communi-
ty empowerment" reforms of the 1 96Os.
And although each offers greater power
to favored constituencies, the focus of
reform is essentially on management,
efficiency and corruption-fighting.
"The driving force [in the 1960s] was
community control of hiring," says David
Bloomfield, author of a 1993 school gov-
ernance proposal put forward by borough
presidents Ruth Messinger and Claire
Shulman. Now, reformers are almost all
focused on the quality of teaching and
administration.
Following is a summary on the two
ascendant plans in Albany. Some form of
either may be the future of education in
New York.
a financial watchdog approved by the
chancellor to guard against corruption.
School Councils: New seven-member
councils in every school would have an
advisory function, much like city commu-
nity boards. They would be composed of
the principal, five parents and one
teacher.
Advantages: This model's uncontested
mayoral control allows voters to hold one
person responsible for the condition of
the schools. No more Byzantine board
politics at 110 Livingston Street. And the
chancellor would have the power to cut
down district-level corruption.
Drawbacks: The schools budget would
be entirely at the mercy of the mayor. The
borough boards may add an unnecessary
layer of bureaucracy and intrigue. More
than 6,600 school council members
would be appointed by the chancellor,
CITY LIMITS
making loyalty to the mayor a prime force (although the
school councils have little real power anyway).
Outlook: This is the bill that will shape the GOP's main
effort, but Marchi 's bill has resurfaced and could provoke
a GOP brawl. Giuliani might try to cut a compromise with
assembly Democrats before his bill hits the senate floor.
Th. Ass.mbly Plan:
Supporters: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Education committee chair Steven Sanders. The United
Federation of Teachers.
Mayor's Role: The mayor would appoint five members
of a new 19-member central board, and would lose the
power to shift money from the schools budget to other
city agencies.
Chancellor: Would gain more power to intervene in
troubled schools and mismanaged districts.
Board of Education: Would be replaced by a 19-mem-
ber board. Five members would be appointed by the
mayof, the rest picked in borough-wide elections.
Community School Boards: All 32 boards would be
eliminated. District superintendents would sUfvive, main-
taining their authority over kindergarten through eighth
grade education.
School Councils: Each school would have an ll-mem-
ber advisory panel composed of four parents, fOUf teach-
ers, one administrator, one school services employee and
one community representative, the last picked by the bor-
ough president and the local city council member.
Advantages: The plan protects the school system from
the mayor's whims and eliminates easily manipulated,
often corrupt community school boards.
Disadvantages: Imagine a Board of Education with 19
members. The plan might as well have been written by the
teacher's union: teachers are overrepresented on the
school councils and strongly protected in central hiring
policy. It also effectively ends the 25-year experiment in
community-district based school governance.
Outlook: The bill should pass the full assembly by mid-
April, unless the leadership brings the Republicans into
talks first.
Alt.rnatlv. Plans
There are other school governance plans out there. The
most significant are: the new Marchi bill, under which
appointed borough boards would assume most of the cen-
tral board's power; a plan introduced last fall by City
Council Speaker Peter Vallone that endorses the idea of a
mayor-appointed chancellor, but calls for greater school-
level control over budgeting and hiring; and the 1993 pro-
posal from Messinger and Shulman that first raised the
notion of abolishing the central board.
The one common loser in most proposals? Principals,
who must perform or face the music. But hey, not every-
one can love school reform .
Chris Mitchell is a Brooklyn-based writer who reports
frequently on education.
APRIL 1996
The CITI
never sleeps4D
So you can ...
61 PHILIPS
say goodbye to
all those fees.
And hello to
all this.
Think all banks are alike? Compare what's included
in your checking account at Citibank versus the
competition. Services that cost hundreds of dollars
a year elsewhere are now yours at Citibank at no
extra charge: And Citibank lets you do things that
other banks simply can't
CIT/BAtiK CHEMICAL CHASE NAT WEST
ATM TRANSACTIONS
Included** Extra Extra Extra
24-HR PC BANKING Included Extra Extra Not Offered
PAY 81US OR SEND MONEY &tro on PC. not fx1n> by phono
TO VIRTUALLY ANYONE Included offO<ed by phono ... K.not Not Offered
8Y PC, PHONE OR ATM orATM off tied brATM
24-HR SCRffN
PHONE BANKING Included' Not Offered Not Offered Not Offered
90-DAY
ACCOUNT HISTORY Included Not Offered Not Offered Not Offered
Included Not Offered Not Offered Not Offered
PLACE ORDERS TO 8UY/SELL
Included Not Offered Not Offered Not Offered
SECURITIfS" 8Y PC OR ATM
"Sec.untJeS t.ransactlOnS through crucorp InYestment SeMc:es.
To change the way you bank. call 24 hours a day:
1- 800-321-CITI ext. 9045
: THE CITI NEVER SLEEPS '
Owl ccmpII'l5C)nSdorotn:lt.dt&s.cs.n/arvorSl'T'llva;.<)1J6


SecUt'llleS
Investment products are not bank deposits or FDIC Insured, are not obIlptions of, or CU&ranteed by Cltlbank or Cltkorp
Investment S.,..,kes, and are subject to investment risks, 1nduct'"1 toss 04 the princ:lpaJ amount lnvestecL
-,
s
Father of the People
John Powis knows what it means to win the good fight. An unrepentant
advocate for the poor takes on City Hall. By Andrew White
Father John Powis
and the congrega-
t ion of St.
Barbara's Roman
Catholic Church
launched a suc-
cessful campai gn
to save the city's
fi reboxes.
fW
P
ar Mayor Giuliani, it was a matter
of money: false fire alarms had
cost the city an "extra" $5 million
a year. But for the people of
Bushwick, Brooklyn, it was a matter of life
and death.
In October 1994, Giuliani and his fire
commissioner, Howard Saflf, announced a
cost-saving plan to disconnect more than
16,000 street comer flfeboxes across the
city. Within a matter of hours, a small
number of community and labor activists
began to mobilize. They ftled a lawsuit,
worked their local politicians, and stopped
the proposal in its tracks.
But Giuliani was stubborn. With the
help of Council Speaker Peter Vallone,
he quickly put together a compromise
pilot program to dismantle fire boxes in
just a few neighborhoods. The plan
called for shutting down about one-tenth
of the boxes. Yet within a year, the fire
department had shut down one-quarter
of them.
Enter Father John Powis and his con-
gregation at St. Barbara's Roman Catholic
Church in Bushwick. Nearly 20 years ago,
Powis was among the founders of East
Brooklyn Congregations, a church-based
community organization in East New York
and Brownsville that was the first New
York City affiliate of the Industrial Areas
Foundation (IAF). Three years ago he
moved from a church in Brownsville to
Bushwick. As the battle over the fife boxes
reveals, he and his allies know how to
fight City Hall.
While the pilot program progressed,
Powis and his congregation joined with
East Brooklyn Congregations and mem-
bers of the dispatchers' and electrical
workers' unions. The group began picking
off City Council members one by one,
beginning with a leafleting campaign that
generated thousands of telephone calls to
local legislators. By early this year, they
had won over the council's black and
Latino caucus. And in March, Vallone
announced his support for a bill to pre-
serve the fire boxes.
Andrew White: Why is it so important
to your neighborhood that the fife boxes
not be dismantled?
,._-_ .. .... --" ........ -
-
VERBATIM
John Powis: I remember on a Saturday
morning I heard Giuliani on New York
One announce that, starting Monday, they
were removing all the fife boxes in the
whole city. I had just checked with the
telephone company and the fife depart-
ment out here, and I knew this is the high-
est district in the city for people without
phones. Thirty-one percent of the people
here have no phones. In a lot of other poor
areas the rate is in the mid-twenties. I also
know that the phones here in the street are
abominable. In some cases you can't even
call 911 for free-and these are the ones
that are working.
Bushwick has a lot of wood frame
homes, three family houses, four family, six
family, which are all attached. Take a beau-
tiful little block like Harman Street over
here. Every house is leaning against anoth-
er house and they're all wood. When there
is a fife here on a windy night, you don't
lose one building, you lose three or four.
AW: When you frrst heard about it did
you go straight to your councilman, Victor
Robles?
JP: No. First thing we did was we got
a group of people together, and we brought
a lawsuit. That has created a problem for
me with Giuliani because it's called
"Powis vs. Giuliani."
Victor Robles was, at first, a staunch
advocate of preserving the fireboxes. And
then he went along with the pilot program
to remove them. to remove them. When
they had the [council] vote at City Hall,
they told us they had forty votes in support
of the pilot, and we only had nine against.
We were there in the balcony, and so many
of the council members changed their votes
that it came down to Vallone having to cast
the fmal, deciding vote. He was so angry. I
saw him go up to [Bedford Stuyvesant
Councilman] Enoch Williams screaming
and yelling. And Robles was running
around getting the votes because he's the
whip. They won with only 26 votes.
After they put the pilot in place, the
people in East New York and Brownsville
were furious because it came down heavy
on them. Two thirds of [Martin Malave-]
Dillin's district lost their fife boxes. The
people there got furious with Dilan,
because Robles had convinced him to vote
for the pilot.
AW: Where's Dilan stand now?
CITY LIMITS
JP: Oh, he wants them back. He has
really gotten blasted. He may lose his seat
because of it.
AW: How was he blasted? What kind
of organizing went on in his district?
JP: Like we' ve done around the whole
city. We had fliers made up, and people
went from door to door, project by project.
Actually, in his area the people who did
most of the work were with East Brooklyn
Congregations. They ran some just awful,
awful actions on the guy. I think they are
going to look for somebody that's willing
to run against him, because he only won
by a small amount.
AW: Why did Robles support the pilot?
JP: Robles does what Vallone tells
him. That's the way most of the council is.
AW: How was this organized?
JP: I think everybody in the city is try-
ing to figure out how it got done. And I
don't think most of them have figured it
out yet. I think they think it's an IAF thing,
which it is not. It really ' started in
Bushwick. And with the dispatchers union.
And the people who have really been into
it have been a group called the
Sportsman's Club that is part of Local 3 of
the electrical workers union-Local 3 has
really been the people who have pulled
this thing off citywide. I had
Williamsburg, Bushwick, East New York
and Brownsville. That was my turf.
Basically the Sportsman's Club and Local
3 did the rest of the city.
AW: At what point did you start getting
the people in East New York involved?
JP: After the pilot went forward we sat
down, had these meetings, started talking
about what we could realistically do. We
ended up doing about 37 entire council
districts. That's a lot of time. These men
spent hours and hours of their own time.
These Sportsman's Club people are just
absolutely the best. I know from talking
with them its not just the jobs of dispatch-
ers and electricians that concern them.
This particular group really believes it's a
safety issue, particularly in the poor neigh-
borhoods. They are pretty decent, sincere
people. The vast majority of them are
APRIL 1996
white, middle class people. They know
how to go into a section, at what time of
night. They are not afraid to go anyplace.
And nobody knows how they've done
this. It's a group of about 65 men. They did
it after work, they did it all through this
winter. They don't do it every night but
when they decide to, they may do a coun-
cil member's entire district in four days.
Then they disappear for a few days. And
that's what has everybody confused.
That's when another council person comes
into City Hall and says "I just got bombed.
All my constituents are calling me. What' s
going on here?"
I know that the last time we were down
at City Hall, [Councilman] Sal Albanese
was asking me about how this thing was
done. I told him it was done by legwork.
Door to door, council section by council
section. We had a map of each council dis-
trict and they'd color it in as they finished,
block by block. And these guys and these
women got called and called until they
were sick of hearing about it.
The people here from Saint Barbara's
went little building by little building. The
young people here were involved. We now
have the EBC High School for Public
Service in Bushwick. They' ve been
involved, giving out flyers.
AW: When did you know the tide had
begun to tum?
JP: I think what happened was the
black and Latino caucus met about two
months ago and made it very clear that
there entire body was going to vote against
removing the boxes. They went to Vallone
and I think he understood that this was
something he should not back. He's a
political animal. He saw what happened.
Archie Spigner and some others Vallone
always depends on-Antonio Pagan, Lucy
Cruz-they had all voted for the pilot. I
don't think they will again. Some of these
guys only won election by a couple hun-
dred votes. I don't think they want to take
a chance. It's really to the credit of the
black and Latino caucus.
Plus we got Congress people and state
Assemblypeople invol ved. I met with
Major Owens, Al Vann, Frank Boyland,
Nydia Velazquez. They all weighed in.
I think the fire box victory is a sign. Its
a victory for the people, a sign of some
hope at a time when government has just
forgotten neighborhoods like this.

III would hope that there's
enough decent people in New
York City who will see the
difference in Giuliani from
when he was first elected
and the way he has become,
which is like a little Caesar."
AW: Do you think Giuliani 's attitude
toward poor people reflects something in
the larger white population of New York
City?
JP: There are people in my own fami-
ly who think he's the new Messiah, that he
has the whole city in better shape, that he's
coming down hard on crime. Which means
he's coming down hard on black people
and Hispanics.
I don't know. I had great hope for the
guy. Before he was elected he had come to
a number of EBC rallies. He had spoken
very progressively, very openly and hon-
estly about how he would work with
groups like this. Now he won' t even meet
with us anymore. He doesn' t want to hear
us. That's a shame. In the beginning he
said "I want to hear the kind of things you
talk about." And now nothing. Nothing.
AW: Do you see a way people's opin-
ions may shift?
JP: I would hope that there's enough
decent people in New York City who will
see the difference in this man from when
he was first elected and the way he has
become, which is like a little Caesar. A
guy who, whatever decision he makes,
will never be changed. And he will do
anything to wipe out someone who has a
different opinion.
The other big question is, who is going
to run against him? Mark Green is proba-
bly a person who could, but in Catholic
circles I don't think Green will go over
well. Sal Albanese-if he runs for mayor,
believe me, I think the whole IAF network
will rally behind him. Imagine what a
thing it would be for the city if a guy like
him became mayor .
-e
[By Glenn Thru sh]
00
erb Berman, the silver-maned chairman of the City
Council's powerful Finance Committee, likes his meet-
ings to go his way. And on February 26 he was pressing
hard to fast-track Mayor Rudolph Giuliani 's new plan
for selling off city liens on tax-delinquent property to private
investors. The bill would generate a quick windfall to cover part
of the city's $2 billion budget deficit. And, as far as Berman was
concerned, the faster it passed, the better.
In his way stood a gauntlet of good-government types who
insisted on testifying before him in wholesome, mostly nay-say-
ing tones. It drove Berman crazy. All he really wanted was to run
through his roll call, collect his dozen pre-arranged "ayes" and
take the drive back to Brooklyn. Instead, he was forced to listen
for two hours, a burden he did not take sitting down-literally.
Berman prowled behind the curved dais of the council's commit-
tee room, hurling hostile questions at the witnesses, punctuated
with gritted-teeth "sir"s and "madam"s.
The mayor needed the bill, desperately, if he
was to have any chance of closing the gaping
hole in his budget before the fiscal year ends
in June. Wlth this property tax one-shot,
finance officials figure they can get a quick
$147 million, a big assist on the road to
budget balance. Without it-and without a half dozen other similar
deals-the state's Financial Control Board could step in and take
control of the city's finances as early as next summer. And that
would be a devastating blow for the mayor's reelection chances.
Berman very much wanted to help the mayor. Time will ulti-
mately tell why, but what councilman wouldn't want the mayor to
owe him a $147 million favor?
Lost in the politics was the fact that this vote about selling
property tax liens on Wall Street was, in fact, a major decision on
the future of New York's commitment to the preservation of low
income housing. Importantly, those unpaid taxes are often owed
on buildings where people have their homes.
Berman eventually got his bill. But in the rush to raise cash, it
appeared as though financial concerns had thrown housing poli-
cy into total eclipse. At one point during the council hearing,
Adam Barsky of the administration's finance department
announced that the city intended to set aside a multimillion dollar
reserve fund to pay for emergency repairs in some buildings
whose tax debt was sold to investors. Officials from the
Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD}-
ostensibly the city's housing agency-were sitting nearby, but
they didn't know what Barsky was talking about. When a
bystander asked HPD Deputy Commissioner Harold
Shultz for more details, he threw his arms up and admit-
ted, "I didn't know anything about it."
In other words, there's a gaping hole in the
Giuliani administration where a housing
policy should be.
o
~
t didn't start out that way. Last October, the mayor, along
with HPD Commissioner Deborah Wright, announced a
comprehensive plan to reform the city's system for dealing
with buildings whose owners have fallen behind on their
property taxes. No longer would the city foreclose on tax delin-
quent properties and take title, wholesale, to hundreds of buildings
each year. The program was called "Breaking the Cycle," a refer-
ence to the costly cycle of building deterioration, landlord aban-
donment and city seizure that plagued New York starting in the
1970s, and cost the city an estimated $220 million a year to oper-
ate and maintain the foreclosed buildings.
But six months later, Commissioner Wright was preparing to
leave office for the top job at the Harlem Empowerment Zone.
And, as City Limits went to press, the only housing-related initia-
tive the administration had pushed through in that time was the
plan to sell off property tax liens.
The law, broadly worded and passed by the City Council under
Berman's gavel after only a cursory debate, has opened many
potential loopholes for crafty investors. While the Giuliani admin-
istration is promising a careful process that will involve selling the
liens in bulk to only top-flight Wall Street securities brokers, the
law itself makes no distinction between Morgan Stanley and the
sleaziest of slum speculators. By the administration's own admis-
sion, the law would allow for a straight auction of city tax liens-
and the right to foreclose on thousands of apartment buildings-
to any speculator at all.
And the uncertainty doesn' t end there. City Limits has learned
that in recent weeks, City Hall has circulated an internal memo
outlining a plan to dismantle HPD altogether. While internal sup-
port for killing HPD has reportedly ebbed since early March, the
proposal is still alive, according to administration sources. It
reportedly calls for shifting housing code enforcement to the
buildings department and dividing other HPD functions among
the finance department, the mayor's new contracting agency and
the Economic Development Corporation.
"You've got a commissioner leaving and a number of people
in the mayor's office asking the question, 'Should there be an
HPD?'" says a former high-ranking Giuliani administration offi-
cial who retains close ties to City Hall. "The truth is, their main
concern is getting the budget balanced and keeping the Financial
Control Board from stepping in before the election .... The fiscal
concerns, not the issues that are important to advocates, are total-
ly paramount" as far as the administration is concerned.
"I think you've got to ask a fundamental question," he adds. "Does
the administration even care enough to have a housing policy?"
W
he drive to reform the city's property tax foreclosure sys-
tem began in 1993, when Mayor David Dinkins put a
freeze on the city's policy of taking distressed buildings
from tax-delinquent landlords. Shortly after his election,
Giuliani extended the moratorium, putting an official end to near-
ly two-decades of foreclosure that, over time, had put more than
7,500 occupied apartment buildings into HPD's hands.
Many of those properties have since left city ownership and
now, under the control of community groups, tenant associations
and private landlords, form the backbone of affordable housing in
APRIL 1996
low income neighborhoods. Others have sat under the control of the
city's own management office for years, often in very poor condi-
tion, and are maintained with hundreds of millions of federal block
grant dollars that advocates and officials alike say could be better
spent on housing rehabilitation and affordability programs.
The moratorium itself was never intended as a long-term solu-
tion, however. As a result of the freeze, the city has, in effect,
stopped the aggressi ve collection of overdue property taxes.
"When you withdraw the threat of foreclosure, you get rid of your
best collection tool," says Barsky.
The city, therefore, needs a new threat to make tax-delinquent
landlords pay up. The tax lien bill approved by the City Council
in early March not only plugs a big gap in the mayor's budget, it
also serves as the necessary guillotine. If you haven't paid your
property taxes for more than a year, you may suddenly find a col-
lection agent at your door, sent not by the city, but by a profit-hun-
gry company.
Giuliani signed the decree authorizing the tax lien sales on March
18. Here's how it will work:
On May 20, the city plans to sell large, pre-packaged "bun-
dles" of tax liens on thousands of properties to a trust established
by four securities firms: Smith Barney, Morgan Stanley, Lehman
The twin tene-
ments of 79 ad 83
St. Nicholas Place
wear the term
"distressed" on
their facades.
Under the city's
new law, such
buildings may be
included in tax
lien sales to Wall
Street.
-
HPD Commissioner
Deborah Wright
leaves a founder-
ing agency; Deputy
Commissioner
Harold Shultz (left)
inherits a host of
headaches.
-
Brothers and Bear Stearns. The bundles will be composed of two-
thirds commercial property and one-third residential. The trustees
will pay the city for the full value of the tax liens, up-front, net-
ting the administration its huge windfall. The trustees will be paid
an underwriting fee by the city, though the exact amount has yet
to be worked out, according to Barsky.
The trust will then solicit investors on Wall Street, ranging
from huge pension funds to individual market-players. These
investors will not buy liens on individual properties; rather, they
will purchase shares in the entire trust in the form of a securitized
bond, each representing a small percentage of the trust's value.
The value of the trust increases as landlords' penalties accrue
on the unpaid taxes. Penalty rates are high: about 18 percent a year.
The dirtier work of collecting money from landlords falls to
yet another company, a "servicer." This company, not yet select-
ed, will be a sort of corporate repossession man, pressuring dead-
beats to pay. The fIrm will get a percentage of the tax penalties,
and it will also have the power to start foreclosure proceedings
against individual landlords.
"For an investor, the bulk lien is kind of like a grab bag at a
party: you get some good stuff and you get some bad stuff," says
Joel Markowitz, the author of "The 16 Percent Solution," an
investor's guide on tax liens. "The owners of valuable properties,
they'll payoff their taxes because they don't want to lose their
building over some stupid tax bill. The slum buildings, well, no
private investor is ever going to foreclose on them for nonpay-
ment of taxes, because nobody wants to be saddled with a mil-
lion-dollar repair bill and a bunch of complaining tenants."
Markowitz says distressed buildings are "dead weight" in the
lien bundle-and smart investors will never even seriously con-
sider collecting on them for fear of starting a protracted, costly
foreclosure process. Those buildings, he said, will sit in "a sort of
limbo. The decision of what happens to them is up to the munic-
ipality."
To assuage fears that the lien sales will force marginal land-
lords into abandonment, HPD and the fInance department are
giving assurances that distressed housing won't be included in
the lien sales. Barsky says no building will be included in the sale
if the value of the tax lien equals more than 30 percent of the
assessed value of the property, the benchmark the fInance depart-
ment has set to determine whether a building is fIscally sound
enough to payoff its tax bill.
ri
et even this apparent safeguard has a fIscal motive: If a
building doesn't qualify under the 30 percent rule, it
wouldn't be attractive to the brokerage houses, Barsky
says. "In any event, very few of these buildings will ever
get to foreclosure," he adds.
Even so, the lien process has created far more questions than
it's answered for advocates of low income housing.
HPD's Harold Shultz insists that the fInance department will
run every property by his staff-and, in some cases, people in the
communities-to ensure that buildings with high numbers of code
violations and other problems won't be included in the lien bun-
dles sold on Wall Street. ''We have access to more than enough
information to be able to tell the general condition of a building,"
he says. "I am very confIdent we can keep inappropriate buildings
out of the pool."
Yet the city's pledge-however sincere-isn't bound by law.
'There's no provision in the tax-lien law to stop the inclusion of
distressed rental property," says Victor Bach, housing policy direc-
tor of the Community Service Society. 'That's just a plain fact."
Bach is concerned about the "limbo" period that Joel
Markowitz describes. What will happen to deteriorating buildings
that become the so-called "dead weight" in the lien bundles
owned by the Wall Street securities fIrms? 'The city says those
buildings will be subject to HPD's Emergency Repair Program,"
Bach says. "But who knows what will happen."
Another concern is that, under the letter of the law, the city can
legally sell any property tax lien to just about anyone. The fInance
department, Barsky says, can sell the liens individually, as well as
in the bulk sale.
One doomsday scenario goes like this: The city sells off the
valuable liens and uses the cash to fIll the defIcit. The fInance
department, eager to make a little more money and rid the city of
its responsibility for thousands of decrepit apartment buildings,
decides to sell off the tax liens on distressed, poorly maintained
apartment houses. When pressed for tax collection, the landlords
either can't or won't pay their tax debt. The furn that bought the
liens from the city then forecloses on the properties and quickly
sells them to speculators or fIrst-time, naive landlords. The ten-
ants, already living in substandard conditions, are thrown right
back into the "cycle" of abandonment.
Will that happen? Maybe not, but there are already early indi-
cations that HPD's filter may have a hole or two. City Limits found
that several buildings on a preliminary lien list were in low income
neighborhoods and had poor repair and maintenance histories.
Two of the buildings-twin apartment houses at 79 and 83 St.
Nicholas Place in Harlem-wear the term "distressed" on their
fractured facades. At No. 79, the front door locks are shattered and
useless; tenants had to nail up the makeshift numbers over the
CITY LIMITS
J
j
"You've got a commissioner leaving and people in
the mayor's office asking, 'Should there be an HPD?' ....
You have to ask yourself, does the administration even
care enough to have a housing policy?"
vestibule--a gray "7" and "9"-because the landlord refused to
even provide identifying markers. The lobby is a shambles, stair-
well windows have been punched out and the stairs themselves
are pocked, loose and broken.
"Remember that big snowstorm, the 'Storm of '961'" says
Anne, a middle-aged tenant who didn't want her full name used for
fear her landlord would delay needed repairs on her apartment. "For
four days we didn't have heat or hot water. I was okay because my
bedroom is close to the kitchen and I was able to put on the oven,
place a pan of water in there and let it warm the place up."
Her father, who is in his 80s, adds: "My room isn't so close to
the kitchen. I wasn't sleeping so good those days. I was spending
a lot of time in my daughter's room."
Despite its obvious problems, the building was included on a
March 19th list of 12,000 lien-sale properties, which means it
could be in the May sales.
''That's not the final list," Barsky responds. "HPD will still
have the right to screen buildings out."

against including distressed buildings in the

sales could easily have been inserted in the City Council
Finance Committee's bill. In the days leading up to that
vote, some members succeeded in convincing Council
Speaker Peter Vallone and finance chairman Herb Berman to
exempt co-ops, condos and one-family houses from the initial
sell-off.
But both Vallone and the mayor's office rebuffed a similar
effort on behalf of tenants in marginal buildings. Councilwoman
C. Virginia Fields, a Harlem Democrat who enjoys a good rela-
tionship with the council's leadership, proposed exempting entire
neighborhoods with high rates of landlord abandonment from the
lien sales. In the end she lost-but wound up voting for the bill
after being assured that her proposed exemptions would be recon-
sidered at a later date.
At press time, Fields was trying to get similar provisions
inserted into omnibus legislation under consideration in the coun-
cil's Housing and Buildings Committee (see Briefs, page 7).
"We're trying to get stuff into the law to make sure that all these
low income tenants aren't just hanging out there with no protec-
tion," says Fields staffer Luther Smith.
Commissioner Wright is ambiguous about her position on the
Fields amendments but warns against attempts "to limit the
APRIL 1996
administration's flexibility on the lien sales." HPD Deputy
Commissioner Jerry Salama-whose tenure at HPD is expected to
continue after Wright's departure-puts it in even stronger terms:
"You can't just identify a community and exempt them from pay-
ing their taxes .... We can't tie our hands."
And Councilman Berman, regarded as the second-most influ-
ential member of the council, takes an even tougher stance,
rebuffmg advocates who suggest the city wasn't doing enough to
protect tenants in troubled buildings. "I don't know if [keeping
buildings in a good state of repair] is the function of government,"
he says.
W
eborah Wright spent her fmal days as a city commis-
sioner amid this confusion and uncertainty. At press
time, HPD staff, advocates from the Association of
Neighborhood Housing and Development (ANHO) and
the Community Service Society, council staffers and Virginia
Fields were rushing to craft the omnibus housing preservation bill.
Sources in the council said it was unclear whether the mayor or
council leadership would support the resulting legislation.
All of this is taking place at a time when housing for poor peo-
ple is under unprecedented stress: Congress has eliminated any
increase in the number of federal rent subsidies for low income
people (more than 120,000 eligible New York households are on
the waiting list); Mayor Giuliani is demanding deep cutbacks in
the number of families on public assistance; and Governor Pataki
has proposed a 26 percent cut in the average welfare benefit,
essentially making it nearly impossible for a family on welfare to
pay rent on their own.
Still, the most disturbing fact, as far as city housing policy is
concerned, may be that Wright's successor had yet to be selected
in late March despite a month's supply of hollow rumors. ''That
tells you all you need to know about the priorities of this admin-
istration," says a top Giuliani agency official. "HPD doesn't have
a strong constituency and that's what makes it vulnerable to being
eliminated."
And what impact would HPD's dissolution have on the city's
housing stock?
"It's a scary prospect. We don't love HPD, but at least it was
the one agency that had the official responsibility of taking care
of tenants," says ANHO's Celia Irvine-already speaking in the
past tense .
-
LEARNING ALLIANCE
STRATEGIES FOR A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY:
COUNTERING GLOBALIZATION with PAUL HAWKEN,
HAZEL HENDERSON, DAVID KORTEN, BALDEMAR
VELASQUEZ, HELENA NOBERG-HODGE, RON BLACKWELL
& Others
We continue to tackle the pressing issues of globalization with this
1 1/2 day program. We are gathering community activists, econo-
mists, labor leaders and others to continue to examine the impacts
of globalization as well as to offer strategies for creating a sustain-
able society. Speakers and workshops will examine working models
for community-based and macro-economies; organizing and educa-
tion strategies for mobilizing the public; creating government poli-
cy; and cooperative efforts for building a movement. Sessions will
cover: Sustainable Models for Communities; Labor's Response to
Free Trade, Understanding the Threat to Democracy; and much
more. Contact us for a full conference program.
Also see Washington D.C. Globalization program. We continue this
series in the fall, with a program which will place special emphasis
on strategies for the urban core. Speakers include: Paul Hawken-
author, "Factor 10: The Next Industrial Revolution," Chairman,
Natural Step+Lori Wallach-Public Citizen+Vernice Miller-
West Harlem Environmental Action + Hazel Henderson-Author,
Building A Win-Win World + David Korten-People Centered
Development Forum, author, When Corporations Rule The World;
Helena Norberg-Hodge-International Society for Ecology and
Culture+Ron Blackwell-UNITE+Congressman Major R. Owens;
+ Baldemar Velasquez-Farm Labor Organizing Committee; and
others. Call For Location
Sec A Fri, May 17, 7:30pm
Sec B Sat, May 18, 9:3Oam-5pm
Both Days
$7 $10 $16
$12 $20$30
$15 $25 $40
DEMOCRACY & TECHNOLOGY
CONSEQUENCES & POSSIBILmES
WITH RICHARD E. SCLOVE, KIRKPATRICK SALE
& STANLEY ARONOWITZ
Technology affects everyday life and the environment,
and the course of history, as profoundly as do major leg-
islative initiatives. Indeed, many modern technologies
conspire in subtle, unplanned ways to subvert democratic
values and institutions. Yet our major decision making
institutions-government, corporations, and universi-
ties-remain focused on technology's narrow economic
functions. Tonight we gather to answer the question:
"Can democratic processes for evolving democratic
humane and sustainable technologies be developed in a
society where the dollar dictates social policy?"
$10 $12 $15 Thursday, May 30 7pm
CHAOS OR COMMUNITY
THE PRICE WE PAY FOR ECONOMIC
INJUSTICE WITH HOLLY SKLAR, EMILY KAWANO &
OMAR SHABAAZ
Americans are angry and confused. Jobs and wages are being
downsized. Prisons are expanding, and communities are in
decline. As the systemic causes go untreated, a host of national
leaders are peddling the snake oil of scapegoating. These grim
realities have manifested themselves in a rising tide of fear, inse-
curity, resentment and bigotry. Where does this fear and anger
come from? What are the social events that have produced them?
Tonight we will trace these trends and offer testimony to the power
of realizing community over chaos as well as develop strategies
for finding a coherent alternative to the profit grubbing, individu-
alistic, overly competitive, market driven system that has led us on
the path to impoverishment. Co-sponsored with the American
Friends Service Committee
$10 $12 $15 Tuesday, May 14 7pm
Organizing Skills Classes
MAKING DECISIONS
INTRODUCTION TO CONSENSUS
Friday, April 26 6:30-8:3Opm
Saturday, April 27 lOam-5pm
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
5 Mondays, May 6-June 10 6:30-9:30
IMPROVE YOUR TRAINING SKILLS
TRAINING TECHNIQUES FOR TRAINERS
Thursday, May 9 6:30-9:30pm
Tuesday, May 21 6:30-9:3Opm
PROPOSAL WRITING FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
Thursday, May 16 6:30-9:30pm
UP CLOSE WITH THE FUNDERS
SOCIAL ISSUES GRANTMAKING
Wednesday, May 22 12:15 - 3:30pm
Call For a Fl'ee C a t a l o ~ of Events and Resources 212 226-7171
All EHnts (Unless noted otherwise Are At the Learning Alliance Center
324 Lafayette Street (Between Bleecker & Houston)
-- - -- -----
D
uring the last couple of years, City Limits has published more than
a dozen articles about economic trends and alternative strategies
for generating jobs and opportunity in low income neighborhoods.
The field of community-based economic development is growing
fast, yet resources to help nonprofit groups playa role are not always easy to
find. This guide is meant to provide ideas, tools, contacts and potential col-
laborators for those in the field and those about to get in.
The primary focus is on models and resources available in New York City.
But a number of the listings are of national organizations, which can refer
readers to groups in other parts of the country similar to those mentioned here.
This is by no means an exhaustive listing. In some cases, there are many
groups performing similar functions and we listed only one. The guide is divid-
ed into four parts: Technical assistance providers; resources for entrepre-
neurs; models; and publications. It was compiled by Bill Lipton and the staff
of City Limits, with the support of the New York Community Trust.
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROVIDERS
lob Creation and Community Development
Community Information Exchange
1029 VennontAvenue, N.W., Suite 710, Washington, D.C., (202) 628-2981
Kathy Desmond, President
CIE maintains an extensive database of funding sources, model projects,
technical assistance providers, bibliographic abstracts and other material, pri-
marily for community development organizations. It also maintains seven
smaller computer "bulletin boards" and has many helpful publications.
Mt. Auburn Associates
408 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02144, (617) 625-7770
Beth Siegel, President
Mt. Auburn Associates is a for-profit consulting firm that works with com-
munity development groups, foundations and local governments to develop
neighborhood economic development strategies. Using market analysis of
industry-wide trends as well as surveys, interviews and focus groups, Mt.
Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project
P.O. Box 259, Inwood Station, New York, NY 10034, (212) 569-5929
Sarah Ludwig, Executive Director
NEDAP provides research tools and data as well as organizer training and
support for small, grassroots groups in low income neighborhoods seeking to
challenge redJining by financial or lending institutions. The organization also
assists groups in setting up locally controlled economic development projects
in the areas of affordable housing and microenterprise.
Shorebank Advisory Services
1950 East 71st Street, Chicago, IL 60649, (312) 753-5694
Paige Chapel and Shelly Herman, Managing Directors
Shorebank Advisory is a consulting organization that helps governments,
foundations and nonprofit community organizations nationwide to establish
economic development programs, including small business development pro-
jects, business incubators, job training efforts and microenterprise loan funds.
Shorebank Advisory will assist with every stage of a project from develop-
ment of a business plan through financing and marketing.
Bankers Trust Company
280 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017, (212) 454-3487
Gary Hattem, Managing Director
Working with LISC and the International Franchise Association, Bankers
Trust has developed the Neighborhood Franchise Project to promote local
ownership of franchises. Bankers Trust and its partners have selected six New
York-based community development corporations (CDCs) to work with
neighborhood residents interested in franchise ownership. The CDCs will co-
own the business, helping with siting, training, promotion and security. The
goal is to open 25 new businesses over the next five years.
Center For Neighborhood Economic Development
30 Flatbush Avenue, Suite 420, Brooklyn, NY 11217, (718) 522-4600 ext. 20
David Gallagher, Executive Director
CNED assists community developers, merchants' associations and
Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), where merchants set up self-taxing
Auburn is currently working with The New York Community Trust
to assist community developers in northern Manhattan,
Williamsburg and Mott Haven devise collaborative
districts to clean up and improve security on their blocks. The
'----- center helps groups with needs assessments (using focus
economic development strategies.
APRIL 1996
groups and surveys), organizational development and
fundraising.
-
A RESOURCE GUIDE FOR CO MMUN I TY BASED ECONOMIC DEV ELOPMENT.
Lawyers Alliance
99 Hudson Street, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10013
(212) 2191800
Karen Shennan, Deputy Director
The Lawyers Alliance's Community Development Legal Assistance
Center (CD LAC) helps businesses and nonprofits with legal issues pertaining
to finance issues, the purchase or leasing of a site, incorporation and more.
The alliance also assists with general corporate legal questions and offers a
number of publications and seminars. The cost is below market and, where
appropriate, free.
Local Initiatives Support Corporation
733 3rd Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10017, (212) 4559800
P. Jefferson Armistead, Senior Vice President
LISC is a national community development fmancing intermediary using
federal tax incentives and corporate and foundation grant funding to pool pri-
vate capital and channel it to development-oriented nonprofits. While the
organization primarily funds housing development, it also structures financ-
ing for retail and business deals, like the Abyssinian Development
Corporation's Harlem Pathrnark project. It also offers professional technical
support to organizations it works with.
Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development
379 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205, (718) 636-3486
Ron Shiffman, Executive Director
The oldest university-based advocacy planning organization in the United
States, PICCED's first major project in central Brooklyn attracted the atten-
tion of Bobby Kennedy and the Ford Foundation and led to the creation of
one of the first CDCs in the country-tbe Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration
Corporation. It works with CDCs on job creation strategies, particularly in the
human services fields, including day care and health care. Pratt also offers the
Pratt Community Economic Development Internship, a one-year program for
the staff of nonprofits and public agencies. Participants learn to plan, design
and package a housing or commercial development initiative for their spon-
soring organization.
Cornen University Cooperative Extension
16 East 34th Street, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10016, (212) 3402900
Dr. Ruth Allen, Executive Director
This Cornell University program assists organizations with a focus on cre-
ating jobs in construction and building maintenance, energy-related enter-
prises and agriculture. The extension has been working with East Harlem's
Youth Action Program as it trains young people in construction-related skills
by fixing up abandoned buildings. Its New Farmers, New Markets Program
teaches urban residents farming techniques and the marketing of produce in
their communities.
National Development Council
317 Madison Avenue, Suite 1500, New York, NY 10017, (212) 6821106
Robert W. Davenport, President
NDC provides technical assistance and training to nonprofits and busi-
nesses with a focus on job creation, including fmancial
analysis, deal structuring, loan packaging, business
credit analysis and cash flow management. It is willing to
look at projects that are considered non-bankable by tradi-
tional fmanciers. NDC's fees, however, may be too high
for many CBOs.
-
Ms. Foundation for Women
120 Wan Street, 33rd Floor, New York, NY 10005, (212) 7422300 ext. 317
Sara Gould, Director, Economic Development Program
The foundation conducts an annual institute on job creation for low
income women and women's participation in the economy. Staff is also avail-
able for short-term problem-solving and referrals. Ms. Foundation recently
received funding to help five social service organizations in Central Harlem
and the South Bronx begin or expand economic development activities. The
organization also manages a funding collaborative that makes grants to
microenterprise projects and cooperative ventures for women.
Job Rftentlon
ICAGroup
20 Park Plaza, Suite 1127, Boston, MA 02116, (617) 3380010
James Megson, Executive Director
Founded to educate Americans about the success of the Mondragon work-
er-owned cooperatives in northern Spain, the ICA Group now helps set up
worker-owned businesses and arrange worker buy-outs of businesses slated
for closure. ICA assists with everything from feasibility studies and business
plan development to management and workforce training.
Midwest Center For Labor Research
3411 Diversey Ave., Room 10, Chicago, IL 60647, (312) 2785418
Dan Swinney, Executive Director
Attempting to stern plant closings in the midwest, MCLR pioneered an
Early Warning Network approach to industrial job retention. MCLR, workers
and neighborhood groups monitor local manufacturing companies and step in
as soon as there are indications that a plant may close. MCLR works with
company owners, employees and community leaders to find alternatives to
plant closings. Staffers are currently helping to set up a manufacturing reten-
tion program in Brooklyn.
National Center For Employee Ownership
2201 Broadway, Suite 807, Oakland, CA 94612, (510) 2729461
Corey Rosen, Executive Director
A leading authority on Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), NCEO
is a nonprofit membership organization that researches and disseminates
information about employee ownership. The organization has produced four
books and hundreds of articles, videos and research papers, and publishes a
bimonthly newsletter and a quarterly journal. NCEO also offers a resource
guide listing more than 150 member-consultants who specialize in all aspects
of employee ownership work. The organization holds more than a dozen
regional workshops each year. See its web site at http://www.nceo.org.
Entrepreneurshlp/Mlcroenterprl.e
Corporation For Enterprise Development
777 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 410, Washington,
DC 20002, (202) 4089788
Brian Dabson, President
An innovative nonprofit founded in 1979 to promote entre-
preneurship as a solution to poverty. CFED's assists CDCs in
setting up nontraditional financial loan funds and developing
inclusive neighborhood strategic planning. It also provides
training and technical assistance for microenterprise loan
programs and Individual Development Account (IDA)
savings programs.
CITY LIMITS
Center For Community Futures
P.O. Box 5309, Berkeley, CA 94705, (510) 5401959
James Masters, President
The Center for Community Futures is a training and consulting firm spe-
cializing in microenterprise development. Its technical assistance program
includes microenterprise workshops for community groups and neighborhood
representatives, as well as feasibility assessment of potential projects. The
center also offers assistance with grantwriting, staff training, curriculum
development, program evaluation and troubleshooting.
Association For Enterprise Opportunity
70 East Lake Street, Suite 520, Chicago, IL 60601, (312) ,
3570177
Christine Benuzzi, Executive Director
ABO is a national trade association of microenterprise
development organizations. Its principal activities include
lobbying the government, organizing an annual confer-
ence and providing technical training, referrals and a
monthly newsletter. ABO also maintains a membership directo-
ry with detailed information on members' microenterprise-relat-
ed activities.
Nttlghborhoocl-Based TKhnlcal A.ssistanctt Provldttrs
Manhattan Borough Development Corporation
15 Park Row, Rm. 510, New York, NY 10038, (212) 7913660
Jeff Deasy, Executive Director
MBDC, a nonprofit organization, provides technical assistance to small
businesses and community developers, helping entrepreneurs write business
plans, devise feasibility and market studies and arrange fmancing.
South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation
370 E. 149th Street, Bronx, NY 10455, (718) 2923113
Jean Tatge, Vice President for Development and Public Affairs
With Project SEED (Strategies for Employment and Economic
Development), SOBRO provides technical assistance to help groups establish
Business Improvement Districts, revitalize commercial strips, develop com-
mercial real estate, create small business development programs, access basic
financial services and more.
National Tradtt A.ssoclatlons
National Congress for Community Economic Development
11 Dupont Circle, Suite 325, Washington, D.C. 20036, (202) 2345009
Steve Glaude, Executive Director
NCCED is a trade association for community development corporations.
The 6OO-member association provides technical assistance referrals and lob-
bies government for support of CDCs. In addition, NCCED organizes a major
annual conference and offers two newsletters, a number of publications and
legislative alerts.
National Business Incubation Association
20 East Circle Drive, Suite 190, Athens, OH 45701, (614) 5934331
Michel Perdreau, Director of Member Services
A membership organization for managers of small business incubators and
other economic development professionals as well as venture capital
investors. Business incubators support fledgling businesses by providing
shared space and office support along with access to technical assistance.
NBIA offers members referrals, an insurance program, an annual conference,
and periodic training institutes. The organization also has a newsletter, an
information clearinghouse, publications, an on-line service, a well-connected
web site (http://www.nbia.org) and more.
APRIL 1996
1
National Council for Urban Economic Development
1730 K Street, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20006, (202) 2234735
Jeffrey A. Finkle, Executive Director
NCUED is an influential membership organization composed of public
officials, chambers of commerce, utility companies, economic development
consultants and others. The association is unabashedly focused on promoting
traditional economic development strategies such as tax abatements and other
incentives for job retention and creation. The group is an important source of
information on mainstream economic issues and legislative developments.
The group maintains an extensive list of publications on a wide range of tech-
"
nical subject matters in urban economic development.
, National Association of Community
Development Loan Funds
924 Cherry Street, 2nd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 191072411,
(215) 923-4754
Mark Pinsky, Executive Director
NACDLF is a national membership organization for
nonprofit community development financial institutions
(CDFl's) serving distressed and dis invested communities. The
association provides loans and technical assistance on how to
set up and operate loan funds. Specific areas of expertise include:
needs assessment, feasibility studies, fmancial management issues,
staffing and management, governance, underwriting skills, capitalization and
product development.
National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions
120 Wall St., 10th Floor, New York, NY 10005, (212) 8091850
Clifford Rosenthal, Executive Director
NFCDCU specializes in assisting credit unions that serve low income peo-
ple, including about 25 in New York City, and provides extensive technical
assistance to members and community groups seeking to start credit unions.
Assistance to start-ups includes planning an initial membership drive, apply-
ing for a federal charter, getting deposit insurance, preparing a business plan
and obtaining financial resources. The group publishes a number of useful
publications including a quarterly newsletter and the book, "Organizing
Credit Unions: A Manual."
RESOURCES FOR ENTREPRENEURS:
Small Busln .. s Devttlopment
New York State Small Business Development Centers
State University of New York, State University Plaza, Room S523,
Albany NY 12246, (800) 7327232
SUNY's small business centers provide training seminars as well as free
management and technical assistance for owners and prospective owners of
small businesses. For information on a SBDC near you, call the toll-free num-
ber above or contact one of the following centers: Pace University: (212) 346-
1900. Staten Island: (718) 982-2560. Kingsborough Community College:
(718) 368-4619. York College: (718) 262-2880. Bronx Community College:
(718) 563-3570.
Small Business Administration
New York District Office, 26 Federal Plaza, Suite 3100,
New York, NY 10278, (212) 2642454
Small businesses may need a consultant to deal with this behemoth feder-
al agency, but perseverance can prove valuable. The SBA runs dozens of
financing, technical assistance and set-aside programs for small business.
Financing opportunities include direct loan programs and loan guarantees.
Technical assistance programs include specialized assistance for women,
minority and veteran business owners. There are also special programs for
export businesses and for high-tech research firms. For a complete descrip-
tion of the agency's services, order the small business start-up kit.
-
A RESOUR(E GUIDE FOR (OMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMI( DEVELOPMENT.
Urban Business Assistance Corporation at Stern School of Business, New
York University
44 West 4th St. Room 561, New York, NY 10012, (212) 995-4404
Grace Kim, President,
For a nominal fee, this consulting fInn offers courses on writing business
plans, developing loan strategies, managing a small business and accounting.
Its mission is to assist minority entrepreneurs by providing consulting ser-
vices and training programs. Consulting services are offered on a sliding free
scale and are provided by MBA students.
Jamaica Business Research Center
9033 160th Street, Jamaica, NY 11432, (718) 206-2255
Timothy Marshall, President and CEO
The center, a state-of-the-art business research library, recently opened
with funds from the Small Business Administration, is sponsored by the
Greater Jamaica Development Corporation. In addition to its many publica-
tions and videos, the library offers one-on-one consultations with business
advisors as well as computer workstations with databases for conducting mar-
ket research, and software for preparing everything from marketing materials
to loan applications. The center also offers business education classes.
Business Outreach Center Network
522413thAvenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219, (718) 4361550
Nancy Carin, Director
The Business Outreach Center Network seeks to help businesses access
quality services. Clientele range from microenterprises to mid-sized fInns.
BOCs employ business counselors who make referrals and provide some
technical assistance. Five New York offices offer entrepreneurial
training programs funded by the Empire State
Development Corporation. All offer seminars and work-
shops and administer $500 business grants. Most ser-
vices are free or at minimal cost. Office locations
include Chinatown, Harlem, Borough Park, Flatbush,
Hunts Point, Rockaway and Staten Island's West
Brighton.
The Workshop in Business Opportunities, Inc.
23 Gramercy Park, New York, NY 10003, (212)
982-6925
Walter Geier, Director
This 30-year-old organization offers free, rigorous
workshops in operations, marketing, management and
other issues for people who want to start a new business or
are already in business and want further training.
The 16-week course is taught by volunteers at 10 sites city-
wide. Every year, about 500 students graduate from the
course; 70 percent are people of color, 60 percent are women.
Only charge to students is a $49 fee for the workbook.
Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation
30 F1atbush Avenue, Suite 420, Brooklyn, NY 11217, (718) 522-4600
Joan Bartolomeo, President
BEDC's Entrepreneurship Assistance Center, funded by the Empire State
Development Corporation, offers an eight-week class which covers all the
business basics: developing marketing and business plans, getting insurance
coverage, negotiating a lease, controlling inventory, incorporating, determin-
ing prices, accounting and more. BEDC assigns a mentor to work one-on-one
with each student. BEDC also oversees the Regional Economic Development
Assistance Corporation (REDAC), a citywide loan fund for women, minori-
ties and start-ups. The program is a joint venture of the city's borough-wide
-
economic development corporations, major banks and the Economic
Development Corporation. REDAC also provides technical assistan<;e and
sUPP9rt to its borrowers.
Queens County Overall Economic Development Corporation
9004 161st Street, Suite 801, Jamaica, New York 11432, (718) 262-8383
Dan Jennings, Executive Director
This boroughwide nonprofIt offers one-on-one business counseling, work-
shops on how to start a business and write a business plan, and mentorship
and referral programs. The staff has expertise in real estate, marketing,
fmancing and import/export assistance, and provides technical assistance in
the area of industrial development. QCOEDC also seeks to stimulate rein-
vestment in deteriorated commercial streets by organizing local merchants'
associations and LDC's.
Community Collaboration Program at the Columbia University
Business School
475 Riverside Drive, Room 1373, New York, NY 10115, (212) 8703543
Victor Quintana, Director
MBA students work with a small number of mom-and-pop businesses and
nonprofits in Northern Manhattan. Students provide consulting services on
organizational evaluations, marketing plans, restructuring, cash flow assess-
ment, accounting practices and other management issues. Students also work
with youth programs and on youth entrepreneurship projects.
Bu.ln Stabilization and PrH.rvatlon
Empire State Development Corporation, Ownership Transition Services
633 Third Avenue, 33rd Floor, New York, NY 10017, (212) 8032400
Jan Stackhouse, Director
Focused on keeping jobs in New York, this state agency (former-
ly part of the Urban Development Corporation) helps business own-
ers, employees and investors fmd ways to restructure troubled
businesses to help them survive hard times. To prevent shut-
downs, consultants review company and market information
and interview management, union officials, customers and sup-
pliers to assess the feasibility of having employees or other
investors purchase the business. OTS will serve any size busi-
ness, but clients typically have from 20 to 100 employees.
Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation
253 Broadway, 3rd Floor, New York, NY 10007, (212) 2406920
Sara Garretson, Executive Director
New York manufacturing fIrms employing fewer than 500 workers
are eligible for low-cost (and in some cases free) capital investment
advice from ITAC. The organization's staff of engineers and manufac-
turing professionals provides technical assistance on issues such as ener-
gy conservation, pollution prevention, plant layout, computer technology as
well as strategic planning and marketing. ITAC likes to work in cooperation
with community-based organizations to identify small fIrms that could bene-
fIt from their assistance.
East Williamsburg Valley Industrial Development Corporation
11-29 Catherine Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211, (718) 3887287
Nancy Lasher, Director
EWVIDCO provides services to businesses in the East Williamsburg In-
Place Industrial Park-home to 600 companies and 20,000 jobs. Williamsburg
WorkS, EWVIDCO's employment service, screens potential job applicants,
provides pre-employment training and matches them up with appropriate
fInns. EWVIDCO also runs a revolving loan fund in partnership with the
CITVLlMITS
Local Development Corporation of East New York,
providing loans of $2,ooo to $25,ooo to
minority and women-run businesses and start-
ups. Lasher also heads an entrepreneurial devel-
opment center at the St. Nicholas
Neighborhood Preservation Corporation,
which assists start-up businesses throughout North
Brooldyn with classroom training, one-on-one
counseling and mentoring.
MODEL PROCRAMS and STRATECIES
wage manufacturing jobs in New York City.
South Bronx 2000 Local Development Corporation
1809 Carter Ave., Bronx, NY 10457, (718) 7313931
David Muchnick, President
South Bronx 2ooo has two for-profit, community-based
recycling companies, R2B2 and Trashbusters, which gen-
erate millions of dollars in sales and provide blue-collar
The following in no way presumes to be a comprehensive list of innova-
tive community-based development programs in New York. In some cases,
many organizations are pursuing similar projects and we have only included
one by way of example. In others, the organization listed here is utterly
unique. Either way, what follows is intended as a tool for generating ideas and
making new connections.
manufacturing jobs. With the New York State Office of
Recycling Market Development and the Federal EPA, the organization has
developed the Empire State Center for Recycling Enterprise Development to
develop, incubate, commercialize and support recycling-related enterprises.
Bronx 2000's latest for-profit venture, Big City Forest, reclaims wood from
used shipping pallets and packing crates to make new products, and has cre-
ated 25 jobs.
Manufacturing
Advanced Technological Systems
Accion New York Inc.
235 Havemeyer St., 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11211, (718) 5995170
Delma Soto, Director
585 DeKaIb Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11205, (718) 7802120
Wes Ratcliffe, President
In July 1991, Accion International moved into the United States, bringing
with it 30 years of experience with microenterprise in Latin America. The
organization has made 940 loans totaling more than $2.5 million to residents
in all boroughs except Staten Island. Accion provides intensive counseling to
borrowers and typically lends to people with home-based businesses or store-
fronts who have little experience with creditors. Initial loans range from $500
to $1500 and have six-month terms. After paying off the fust loan, clients can
apply for larger sums.
The management of this 28-year-old electronics manufacturing facility set
up an employee-owned stock ownership plan (ESOP) and bought the plant
from IBM when the computer giant announced plans to close shop in 1993.
Since then, ATS has grown to employ 255 people, many from the surround-
ing Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. It is a model for maintaining living-
Meon"" ....,..
..... AIM."" E1ttIIMttf1e-:
Community Infonnation Exchange. 1029 Vennont
Ave . N.W. SUite 710. WashIngton, DC. 20005.
Tel: (202) 628-2981. Editor: Kathy Desmond.
Sold as a package, these two publications keep
nonprofits up-to-date with the latest economic
development strategies and toots. Each issue of
the quarterly Alert features analysis of a single
topic. Exchange News lists deadlines for public
and private sector funding, conferences, job list
ings and publication reviews. ($65 per year)
Economic Development 0tMrtef1y: College of
Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University, 1737
Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH, 44115. Tel: (805)
4990721. Editor: Edward W. Hill. The latest
research and reviews on all manner of economic
development subjects. (Quarterlyl$63 individuals)
Employee Ownership Report: National Center
for Employee Ownership, 1201 Martin Luther King
Jr. Way, Oakland, CA 94612. Tel: (510) 272-9461 .
Editor: Corey Rosen. A round-up of news, tips and
resources for groups interested in employee own-
ership programs. (Bimonthly/members only)
The Journal of Employee Ownership Law and
Finance: National Center for Employee
OwnerShip, 1201 Martin Luther King Jr. Way,
Oakland, CA 94612. Editor: Scott Rodrick. In-
APRIL 1996
EconoInIc D I t . . . . . , , ~
National Council for Urban Economic
Development. 1730 K St, Washington, DC,
20006. Tel: (202) 223-4735. Ecitor: Jemy
MufPhy. A pragmatic jouma! exploring and ana-
lyzing popular economic development tech-
niques. (QuarterlyI$45)
Developments: National Council for Urban
Economic Development, 1730 K St., Washington,
DC, 20006. Tel: (202) 223-4735. Editor: Andrew
Conte. Federal and state economic development
news, with analysis of various working models.
(Biweekly/NCUED members only)
Inc.: The Magazine for Growing Companies:
38 Commercial Wharf, Boston, MA 02110. Tel:
(617) 248-8000. Editor: George Gendron.
Recommended repeatedly by economic develop-
ment activists, this mainstream consumer maga-
zine offers a steady stream of valuable, real-time
advice on small business issues.
(Monthly/$121year)
Dol/ars and Sense: Economic Affairs Bureau,
One Summer St., Somerville, MA, 02143, Tel:
(617) 628-8411 . Editors: Marc Breslow and Betsy
Reed. A staple resource for left-leaning economic
LfIt ........ 0fIaMw: 250 West 85th St.
New YOIt, NY 10024. Tel: (212) 874-4020. Editor:
Doug Henwood. Insightful analysis of economic
trends from an independent perspective. (Aspires
to monthIiness: $22111 issues)
The NeighboltJoo(J WOIb: Center for
Neighborhood Technology, 2125 W. North Ave.,
Chicago, IL, 60647. Tel: (312) 278-4800, ext. 111.
Editor: Carl Vogel. An award-winning magazine
covering issues of urban economic development
and organizing in general. (Bimonthly: $3OIyear)
GEO: Gt'BSBroots Economic Organizing
Newsletter:
PO Box 5065, New Haven, CT 06525, Tel: (203)
389-6194. Editor, Len Krimerman. A resource-
packed newsletter with folksy analysis of everything
from microenterprises to Mondragon. (Bimonthly:
$15 indiv!$30 libraries and organizations)
NCRC Reinvestment Compendium: The
National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
1875 Connecticut Ave. NW Suite 1010,
Washington, DC 20009, (202) 986-7898. A must-
read for anybody interested in community rein-
vestment, banking or CDFI issues. (Bimonthly,
NCRC members only)
-
A RESOURCE GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMIC DEVElOPMENT.
Harlem Textile Works
186 East 122nd St., New York, NY 10035, (212) 534-3377
Kerris Wolsky, Director and Board President
Spun off from the Children's Art Carnival, a Harlem-
based art school, this East Harlem fabric design workshop
trains and employs students and artists interested in fabric
design and related fields. Each year, the program works
with 16 students, including people on public assistance
and economically disadvantaged students. They leam design,
screen printing, client management and business skills. Harlem
Textile Works organizes workshops and exhibitions and offers art services to
mainstream companies and community organizations.
Highbridge Community Life Center
979 Ogden Ave., Bronx, NY 10452, (718) 293-8134
Brother Ed Phelan, Executive Director
The Highbridge Community Life Center relies on brainstorming sessions
with local residents to develop its economic development programs. In its
Bluefields Cooperative, Highbridge residents grow produce in local gardens
and at a farm in upstate Goshen and sell it at a local farmers' market. The
organization also supports small home-based craft and kitchen-based busi-
nesses, helping people on public assistance supplement their incomes.
Cypress Hills Child Care Corporation
625 Jamaica Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11208, (718) 647-8100
Megan Chambers, Program Coordinator
A subsidiary of the Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation,
CHCCC provides bilingual training and technical assistance to local women
who want to become family day care providers. To date, the program has
helped 18 women register with the Department of Health. The organization
provides ongoing support, including regular site visits and monthly work-
shops on topics such as taxes, insurance and first aid and offers workshops in
bookkeeping, loan applications, marketing and customer relations.
Church Avenue Merchants Block Association
1720 Church Ave., 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11226, (718) 287-2600
Joanne Oplustil, Executive Director
Located in Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood, CAMBA provides a broad
array of services to area residents, including immigrants and refugees.
CAMBA's programs offer welfare recipients a combination of job-readiness
training, internships, job placement services and ongoing counseling. For new
immigrants, CAMBA offers language and citizenship classes and other social
services. For women, CAMBA provides a training course on the private secu-
rity industry and provides technical assistance to those seeking to become
family day care providers.
Jobs for Communltl.s
The ACORN Jobs Campaign
155 East 149th St., 3rd floor, Bronx, NY 10456, (718) 292-0700
Helene O'Brien, Head Organizer
ACORN targets corporate recipients of city and state economic develop-
ment funding to demand jobs for ACORN members. Using a mix of brash
demonstrations and negotiation, ACORN has already won promises for train-
ing and jobs from Viacom and ABCIWalt Disney and hopes to eventually win
corporate funding for a $1 rniIlion worker training center.
--
Abyssinian Development Corporation
131 W. 138th St., New York, NY 10030, (212) 368-4471
Karen Phillips, Chief Executive Officer
Harlem-based Abyssinian Development Corporation is the driving force
behind the Pathmark supermarket slated for 125th Street in East Harlem. The
retail complex, being developed in partnership with Community Association
of East Harlem Triangle, is expected to generate 200 temporary construction
jobs, 160 permanent part-time jobs and 40 permanent full-time jobs. ADC also
provides technical assistance to merchants and runs the Harlem Loan Fund
with several other local development corporations, providing small loans and
technical assistance to small businesses and start-ups in the community.
Franchising
The Fifth Avenue Committee, Inc.,
199 Fifth Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215, (718) 965-2777
Brad Lander, Executive Director
FAC is launching a for-profit, quick oil change franchise as a strategy for
training unemployed neighborhood residents in auto mechanics. FAC is also
developing an environmentally sensitive wet-cleaning franchise and explor-
ing the creation of a cooperative temporary services agency that would help
low income women achieve economic independence. FAC has launched a
youth entrepreneurship program complete with a mini-business school and
sources of venture capital.
Buslnns Incubation
Harlem Restoration Project Inc.
461 West 125t St., New York, NY 10027, (212) 662-8186
Marie Runyon, Executive Director
The organization is developing a 150,000 square foot small business incu-
bator on the site of the old Taystee Bakery at 126th Street and Amsterdam
Avenue. Construction is expected to generate 200 temporary jobs. The incu-
bator will have space for 39 entrepreneurs. HRP's other operations, which
include housing management and a revenue-generating thrift
shop, provide a total of 47 jobs-mostly held by community
residents.
ProJKts Link" to Housing
The Times Square-Common Ground HDFC, Inc.
255 West 43rd St., New York, NY 10036, (212)
768-8989 (ext. 204)
John Weiler, Director of Economic Development
This organization uses its prime location and
vast commercial space to generate employment
opportunities for residents of the Times Square
Hotel, which provides permanent housing for
CITY LIMITS
people with AIDS, senior citizens, students and other low income people. A
Ben & Jerry's franchise provides jobs and training in customer service and
retail management. The organization runs a restaurant, Top of the Times, as
well as a catering facility and a food service training program, all staffed by
residents. In addition, the Tunes Square Hotel, which has 652 residential
units, employs 50 security guards, maintenance workers and messengers.
Pratt Area Community Council
201 DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11205, (71S) 5222613
Vivian Becker, Executive Director
PACC is one of a growing number of community development corpora-
tions seeking to convert years of housing development and tenant organizing
experience into an economic development strategy. The group has developed
a program linking 12 local entrepreneurs with technical assistance, flnancing
and vacant commercial space in buildings the organization has renovated.
PACC also provides one-on-one technical support to start-ups.
Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation
80 Fifth Ave., Suite"S05, New York, NY 10011, (212) 2559325
Nancy Biberman, President
WHEDCO, in conjunction with the Institute for Urban Family Health, has
devised a holistic approach to community revitalization. In the former
Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx, WHEDCO will provide 132 apartments for
low income families as well as job training, day care and a primary health care
clinic, among other things. One program will offer training in food prepara-
tion and retail management in a take-out food business. A business incubator
will support 10 new food businesses. Other programs will offer in-depth
career assessment and job-readiness preparation, training for jobs in day care
and health care, and family support.
Association for Neighborhood Housing and Development
305 Seventh Ave., Suite 2001, New York, NY 10001, (212) 4639600
Jay Small, Executive Director
With assistance from the Apartment Housing Institute of New York City
Technical College, ANHD offers property management training courses dur-
ing the fall and spring semesters. Graduates work with nonproflt community
groups that manage housing. The institute also trains supers for work in the
private sector.
New York City Housing Authority, Office of Economic Development
11 Park Place, Room SOl, New York, NY 10007, (212) 3068642
Margaret Ruiz, Deputy Director
NYCHA established its Office of Economic Development in 1991 to help
public housing tenants achieve economic independence. As the city's largest
housing provider, NYCHA has the power to buy thousands of dollars in ser-
vices-particularly in construction and maintenance-from residents. After
consultants teach residents the fundamentals of business, the OED helps them
become contractors who can do business with NYCHA and other flrms.
Between 25 and 30 program graduates currently have contracts with NYCHA.
Thanks to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, OED
also has a $500,000 revolving loan fund, administered by Community Capital
Bank in Brooklyn, that has made 62 loans ranging from $500 to $25,000 to res-
ident-owned businesses for start-up costs and working capital.
Special MMd.
Community Access
200 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009, (212) 7801409
Steve Coe, Executive Director
Community Access, a nonproflt providing housing and supportive ser-
vices to homeless people with psychiatric disabilities, offers job training in
food service, maintenance, computers, creative arts and clerical work, and
provides jobs within the organization for many who've completed the train-
ing. Community Access also offers skills assessment and job-readiness train-
APRIL 1996
ing, outside job placement and ongoing counseling
and assistance. The nonproflt helps clients open their
own businesses: so far, a small maintenance compa-
ny and catering business are up and running. The
former has a contract with Community Access and
the latter works out of a commercial kitchen
facility owned by the agency.
Housing Works
594 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10012,
(212) 966-0466
Charles King, Executive Director
While Housing Works' primary rrusslOn is to
serve homeless people with AIDS and HIV by pro-
viding housing, support services and advocacy, they've
also succeeded in creating jobs and generating revenue for the
organization through a set of retail development projects. Two "upscale"
thrift shops, one in Chelsea and another on the Upper East Side, have
attracted the attention of fashion industry personalities and others who
donate merchandise. Along with a used-book store and cafe (which also
sells furniture, selected antiques and rugs woven by Housing Works resi-
dents), these enterprises provide jobs for people who graduate from the
organization's job-training programs. They also generate a steady income to
support Housing Works' activities.
Home Care Associates Training Institute
349 East 149th St., Bronx, NY 10451, (71S) 9937104
Peggy Powell, Executive Director
This nonproflt training institute is a key to the much-touted success of its
close affiliate, Cooperative Home Care Associates, a Bronx-based, worker-
owned home health care agency employing more than 300 women of color,
mostly former public assistance recipients. The institute trains 125 women a
year to become home health care aides and guarantees a job with CHCA to all
graduates of its four-week classroom course and two-month on-the-job train-
ing period. The mission of the institute and of CHCA is to generate jobs, raise
industry wage standards and improve the quality of home health care.
undlng
Central Brooklyn Federal Credit Union
1205 Fulton St., Brooklyn, NY 11216, (71S) 3991763
William S. Wilkins, Senior Loan Officer
This community development credit union's loan strategy is unusual in its
business-oriented strategy, in particular its focus on clients whose businesses
are "job multipliers," such as individuals seeking to create day care centers
(which enable local parents to go out and flnd jobs themselves). The credit
union also works with people hoping to keep businesses in the community
and assists small flrms, helping them expand and tap into markets outside of
central Brooklyn.
Community Capital Bank
111 Livingston St., Brooklyn, NY 11201, (71S) 802-1212
Lyndon Comstock, Chairman
Merton Corn, President
Community Capital is an FDIC-insured, state-chartered community
development bank that provides loans to nonproflts, small businesspeople
and housing organizations. In 1995 the bank closed 67 commercial loans
worth $8.4 million; 87 percent of them were to people and organizations in
economically distressed neighborhoods in New York City. Borrowers
include a nonproflt's spin-off thrift shop in lower Manhattan, a day care cen-
ter in the Bronx and 29 tenants of public housing establishing their own con-
tracting businesses.
-
A RESOURCE GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
Venture Capital and Job Creation
LEAP, Inc.
111 Livingston St., Brooklyn, NY 11201, (718) 802-1606
Pat Swann, President
its participants for creative economic development ventures. With CCRP's
assistance, the MBD Community Housing Corp. is developing a shopping cen-
ter; the Mid-Bronx Senior Citizens Council has started a catering enterprise
that employs 22 people; Mount Hope Housing Co. has opened a thrift shop
that employs five neighborhood residents; Phipps CDC and Promesa have
begun innovative job training projects; and two of the groups have joined with
Bethex Community Credit Union to start a microloan program. The collabo-
rative structure provides for a direct and rapid match between available
LEAP's Food Venture Center is a licensed commercial kitchen facility
which serves as an incubator for start-up food production companies. Another
subsidiary, Community Kitchen , is a food service company providing cater-
ing and food preparation and packaging. In collaboration with five South
Brooklyn community organizations, LEAP also helped develop a commercial
driver training and placement program that works with local businesses to
train and hire licensed, qualified drivers. LEAP is collaborating with five
health care providers to create a community-based Medicaid managed care
plan in north and central Brooklyn. It also supports a fledgling venture capi-
ta! fund-Community Ventures, L.P.-which provides community-based
start-ups and established businesses with badly needed equity financing.
funds and new project ideas.
Funder/CDC Collaborations
Neighborhood Strategies Project
The New York Community Trust
2 Park Ave., New York, NY 10016,
(212) 686-0010
Patricia Jenny, Project Director
The NSP is a comprehensive communi-
ty building initiative combining resources
from several foundations to help local organiza-
Comprehensive Community Revitalization Program
tions create economic opportunities in Washington
Heights, Mott Haven and Williamsburg. The participat-
ing groups are developing strategic economic plans for
their neighborhoods and beginning small, innovative
projects promoting local businesses, job training and job
opportunities. _
330 Madison Ave., 30th Floor, New York, NY 10017, (212) 557-2929
Anita Miller, Director
This collaborative of five community-development corporations and a
number of funders provides planning, technical support and start-up funds to
...... 11AMUMI
,.,.To:
"PuttIng Democracy to Work: A Practical Guide
for Starting and Managing Worker-Owned
Businesses by Frank Adams and Gary
Hansen. (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler
Publishers, 1992) Nearly 300 pages of hard-
core advice on how to set up a worker-owned
business.
Community Reinvestment Fair Lending
Training Manuar by New York Law School's
Community Reinvestment Clearinghouse.
(New York, NY: Community Reinvestment
Clearinghouse) A guide for bringing better
banking services to low income neighbor-
hoods; includes a legal overview, worksheets,
model forms and a resource guide.
"Credit Union Organizing Manual" by the
National Federation of Community
Development Credit Unions. (New York, NY:
NFCDCU) A community banker's MBA, the
manual includes step-by-step instructions for
starting a credit union and getting through the
federal application process.
Policy:
"Who Benefits from State and Local Economic
Development Policies?" by Timothy Bartik
(Kalamazoo, MI : W.E. Upjohn Institute, 1991)
-
For hardcore wonks, 8artick attempts to
answer the eternal question: How well do the
various economic development policies really
work?
"No More Candy Store: Local and State
Policies for Responsible Economic
Developmenf by the Federation of Industrial
Retention and ReneWal. (Chicago, IL: FIRR,
1994) How to force those corporate feet to the
fire when they receive public subsidies;
includes a useful overview of corporate wel-
fare policies along with case studies and
model legislation.
"Assets and the Poor: A New American
Welfare Policy" by Michael Sherraden.
(Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe: 1991) The author
outlines an ambitious plan to shift the empha-
sis of welfare policy to encourage thrift and
savings. Most usefully, it offers an elegant
economic analysis of current welfare policy.
"Streets of Hope: The Fall and Rise of an
Urban Neighborhood" by Peter Medoff and
Holly Sklar. (Boston: South End Press: 1994)
Considered a primer for anyone attempting
neighborhood revitalization, this book traces
the complicated social and economic develop-
ment work of the Boston's Dudley Street
Neighborhood Initiative.
Aspen Institute: P.O. Box 222, Queenstown,
Maryland, 21658. Tel: (410) 820-5326.
Corporation for Enterprise Development:
m North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 410,
Washington, DC, 20002. Tel: (202) 408-9788.
Community Information Exchange: 1029
Vermont Ave., N.W. Suite 710, Washington,
DC, 20005. Tel: (202) 628-2981
National Center for Employee Ownership:
1201 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, CA
94612. Tel: (510) 272-9461.
National Council for Urban Economic
Development: 1730 K St., Washington, DC,
20006. Tel: (202) 223-4735.
National Congress for Community
Economic Development: 11 Dupont Circle,
Suite 325, Washington, DC, 20036.
Tel: (202) 234-5009.
CITY LIMITS
At The East New York Savings Bank,
we put our moneg
where OUI' neighborhoods are.
We are now accepting applications for our Community
Action Assistance Plan (CAAP) Grants Program.
We believe that the continued success of the East New
York Savings Bank is tied directly to the quality of life in our
neighborhoods. That's why, for the eighth year in a row, we're
renewing our commitment to community organizations that
are striving to make our neighborhoods better places in which
to live and do business.
We're offering grants of $500 to $5,000 to eligible organi-
zations which provide essential neighborhood services,
including housing preservation and improvement, youth,
senior citizen, anti-crime, substance abuse, neighborhood
organizing, arts and cultural and commercial revitalization
activities.
In 1996, prospective applicants should be aware that the
Brooklyn:
East New York (Atlantic and Pennsylvania Avenues)
Park Slope (Ratbush at 8th Avenue)
Bay Ridge (5th Avenue & 78th Street)
Manhattan:
Sutton Place (East 55th Street & 1st Avenue)
Lenox Hill (East 75th Street & 2nd Avenue)
Forty-Second Street (41 West 42nd Street)
Peter Cooper (East 20th Street & 1st Avenue)
Kips Bay (East 31st Street & 2nd Avenue)
bank will be focusing its community financial support efforts
on projects related to housing and economic development ini-
tiatives. Therefore, CAAP applications featuring such activi-
ties will receive priority consideration.
In the past seven years, over 200 organizations throughout
our service area were recipients of CAAP grants.
The East New York Savings Bank's CAAP Grants
Program for 1996 is open to community-based, not-for-profit
tax exempt organizations located in Brooklyn, Manhattan,
Queens and Nassau County. To obtain an application or fur-
ther information, stop by anyone of our branches or mail your
request to the address below. Applications must be submitted
by April 12, 1996 for consideration.
Rfth Avenue (West 32nd Street & 5th Avenue)
106th Street (1925 3rd Avenue)
135th Street (498 Lenox Avenue)
Nassau County:
Great Neck (23-25 North Station Plaza)
Oceanside (12 Atlantic Avenue at Long Beach Road)
Queens:
Forest Hills (101-25 Queens Blvd. & 67th Drive)
THE EAST NEW YORK SAVINGS BANK MEMBER FDIC
THE EAST NEW YORK SAVINGS BANK Community Action Assistance Plan Grants Program
350 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10022, 5th Floor
Rebuilding the structures of community:
Two Philadelphia neighborhoods set out to
unify the old and the new.
-
BY RITA GIORDANO
chilling rain soaked the streets, but that didn't keep
the voters away from a makeshift polling place in a
housing complex in the northwest Philadelphia
neighborhood of Germantown.
Inside the front door sat a woman with thoughtful dark
eyes and campaign flyers in a neat stack on the table
before her. She smiled when folks she knew came in and
gazed shyly, and a bit hopefully, at those whom she did
not. Her name was Rose Samuel, a 42-year-old nurse, and
she was a candidate in a fIrst-of-its-kind election for a seat
on the Germantown Community Collaborative Board, a
brand-new governing body for a broadly focused, founda-
tion-funded community project designed to boost the
neighborhood and involve residents in
mapping its future. "-
It's heady stuff. And in a soft voice,
Samuel confessed that, win or lose, she
was a little nervous. She'd never run for
show off posters
anything before. This civic action busi-
Members of a
Frankford anti-
graffiti squad
depicting their
ness was new to her.
work.
"I've lived in Germantown for a
long time," Samuel said, watching
wind-blown voters step inside, shake off the rain and pro-
ceed toward the cardboard ballot box. "I was a single par-
ent, raising two kids, and often I had to work two jobs and
I didn't have time."
But then she heard about this new board and the project,
and its plan to bring the neighborhood together. With her
kids all grown, she thought she would like to be a part of it.
She put her name in, and then learned she had to run in an
election. Oh, Lord.
"I couldn't back down; I couldn't think of an excuse,"
she admitted. And in spite of her fears, Samuel got into it.
She spent her own money to print up flyers. She cam-
paigned: "It was a lot of walking." She had to give a
speech: "I did that, and nearly died." Her family cheered
her on. "My kids were like, 'What a way to go, Mom. '"
The morning of the election, with everything coming
down to the wire, Samuel had a touch of the butterflies.
'This is how President Clinton must have felt," she whis-
pered. Even so, she felt that there was something else to
this whole involvement thing. Something more valuable
CITY LIMITS
than she expected. "It's excitement," Samuel said, breaking into a
smile. "It's, like, energy."
cross the country, community-based organizations, fueled
by foundation dollars, are trying to seize the energy of
neighborhood people-and generate renewal in the
process. Private foundations and charitable trusts are fund-
ing about 50 so-called "comprehensive community initiatives"
nationwide, all of them aimed at organizing urban neighborhoods
to do strategic planning and pursue broad-based revitalization and
change.
Philadelphia is the home of two such initiatives. One is in
Germantown, led by the Germantown Settlement, a lI2-year-old
settlement house. The second is in Frankford, a working-class
neighborhood in the city's northeast section.
Both projects aim to reframe the way communities interact
with government and other institutions, enfranchise residents, fos-
ter leadership and explore innovative models for social programs
and services in low income neighborhoods. Implicit in all of these
new initiati ves nationwide is the realization that troubled neigh-
borhoods need help on multiple fronts-not just in the individual
areas of housing development, welfare casework or job creation.
"You cannot continue to address problems categorically or nar-
rowly when whole communities of families are in trouble," says
Sandy librell, associate director of the Annie E. Casey Foundation,
which funds the Germantown initiative. With five "Rebuilding
Communities" projects underway in five different cities, the Casey
Foundation hopes to learn if these community-directed programs
can be more successful than large government agencies when it
comes to providing for the needs of low income people.
"We know things aren' t working as they are, and we know
there are service providers in these communities that have been
the last resort, the safety net," says librell. These providers,
linked tightly with community people and institutions, may be
the best infrastructure for community revitalization, she says.
The Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts are funding the
Frankford project with a grant to the Frankford Group Ministry, a
APRIL 1996
At the Northeast Boy's and Girl's Club. Frankford youngsters find
an after-school haven.
coalition of Methodist congregations with a background in orga-
nizing and housing development. Pew funds similar projects in
nine communities around the country. One of its missions is to
explore how to reverse the decline of civic involvement. In fact,
the foundation 's policy arm recently turned its focus from Eastern
Europe to the United States.
"Our feeling was the flame of democracy wasn't burning so
brightly here at home," says Pew's Paul Light.
Frankford and Germantown are both seeking to mend the
frayed neighborhood fabric by building on strengths, forging part-
nerships between residents, government agencies, civic groups,
churches and hospitals, as well as the business community. In
Frankford, a budding activist movement has been lifted to new
heights thanks to the philanthropists' involvement. In
Germantown, the Casey foundation's interest in the community
sparked the revitalization initiative, and participants there are
crafting entirely new structures for public participation.
Central to all of this is motivating individuals like Rose Samuel
to get involved. The foundation dollars are intended for communi-
ty and social infrastructure building and will not flow forever. The
foundations acknowledge that their grants alone cannot possibly
repair the widespread ills of urban neighborhoods. People will
have to do that themselves. And government.
But the goal of building civic involvement is not merely prag-
matic. It also has to do with finding power and hope. For the many
people who live in America's struggling communities, these are
n small things.
he Frankford Elevated line, part of Philadelphia's city train
system, reaches over a landscape straight out of the lyrics of
a Bruce Springsteen song. Old water towers and silenced
factories stand as painful reminders of the once-great indus-
trial American northeast. The last 20 years have seen great
-
-
changes in this neighborhood. Many residents can recall when
Frankford Avenue was a bustling commercial corridor. Now,
about a third of its storefronts are vacant. The flight of manufac-
turing jobs has left behind a lower-paying service economy. And
Frankford's 30,000 residents have seen the rise of unemploy-
ment, poverty, drugs and abandoned houses, and a loss of hope.
In 1991, SEPTA, the city's public transportation agency,
announced a plan to begin a long-term reconstruction of the
Frankford EI that many local people thought would destroy the
neighborhood economy. It was the last straw. Rallied by the
charismatic Reverend John Schol of the Frankford Group
Ministry, residents came out in force and convinced SEPTA to
change its plan. But their activism didn't end there. Brought
together by the crisis, people began to talk about the future and
concluded that the fragile community needed serious help. Some
100 of them carried on to pen the Frankford Plan, a comprehen-
sive strategy for revitalization.
Enter the Pew Charitable Trusts, whose directors had watched
what was happening in plucky Frankford and were, they say
today, very impressed. In fact, Pew was so intrigued that it creat-
ed its Neighborhood Preservation Initiative program with
Frankford in mind-and in 1994, they gave this community
NPI's most generous grant.
"The NPI has paid for the nuts and bolts of getting things
done," says Connie DeLury, who was elected by neighborhood
residents to serve as chairperson of the Frankford Plan.
The $1.2 million initiative has been underway for two years
now. Participants are scrubbing graffiti off walls, tidying up res-
idential blocks and planting greenery. They've started a health
program at Frankford High School in collaboration with the
Frankford Hospital, held promotional events to attract shoppers
to the area's commercial district, and begun work on a marketing
strategy to improve the neighborhood's image. The ministry is
also rehabilitating housing, creating a mentoring program for
youth and developing a center for community-watch groups.
DeLury, 38, got involved with the Frankford Plan early on. At
the time, she was a manager with Tupperware and a recent arrival
to the neighborhood, having found a lovely old home at a price
she and her husband could afford. But within three months of
moving in, their new home was broken into and the burglars
made off with the family's belongings,
still in the moving boxes. Then both
their cars were stolen.
"In 90 days, I was almost literally
out of my mind," she says. In despair,
she decided to get involved.
Germantown Settlement
President Emanuel
Freeman says pulling
together the community
is no simple task. "We've
been spending a lot of
time out on the streets."
Today, DeLury is an employee of
the Frankford Group Ministry. And she
feels much more hopeful. "I'm always
trying to talk people into moving here. You can feel the change."
And the changes go beyond the physical. Roger Tennant got
involved in the block beautification project through his church,
the Campbell African Methodist Episcopal Church. The cleanup
work was going well, but Tennant, a 38-year-old city streets
department employee, thought the volunteers could accomplish
something more.
When he was young, his mother would go shopping on
Frankford Avenue and chat with everyone, black or white, he
recalls. "Over the years, this changed." Race had become a barrier.
So, Tennant says, the Lord "blessed" him with the idea of
pairing off blocks: residents of predominantly African-American
East Frankford would do beautification work on blocks in West
Frankford, which is largely white, and vice versa. "They got to
know each other," Tennant says. 'Their kids got to know each
other. They're in and out of each other's houses. To me, isn't that
what a beautiful community is about?"
Still , residents recognize that the Pew money provides
no magic spell to reverse years of decline. Mike Hoch, 40,
runs Howard's Caterers, a business his father began near-
ly three decades ago, and is a chair of the Frankford
Plan's marketing committee. He acknowledges that nearly
a third of Frankford Avenue's storefronts remain vacant,
and that while new businesses have opened, others con-
tinue to flee the neighborhood.
Nevertheless, Hoch is hopeful. Soon, he plans to open a side-
walk cafe-the kind of establishment Frankford has not seen in
many years. He reports for work at his catering business every
day at 4 a.m., but that's just his day job. He figures he spends
another 15 to 20 hours every week trying to rally his fellow busi-
ness people and attending meetings. Sometimes only three peo-
ple may show up, but other times, he says, there's 20 or more. It
keeps him going.
"I'm not a quitter," says Hoch. "Never have been. Never will be."
CITVLlMITS
n the other side of the city is Germantown, home to old
Quaker families, some of whom live in Germantown's his-
toric stone mansions, and to more recent arrivals attracted
by the neighborhood's racial diversity. Not far from the
stately homes are prostitute walks and youths selling drugs on
street comers. Like Frankford, Germantown has felt the impact of
lost industry and resident flight. It has changed from racially
mixed to increasingly African-American, and shifted from being
a step-up neighborhood for working black families to one with
sizable concentrations of the poor.
Add to this the fact that Germantown, with a population of
about 70,000, is a neighborhood composed of many smaller com-
munities that have their own civic groups. Thanks to past rivalries,
disappointments and slights, they do not all trust or even like one
another. Unlike Frankford, where a single crisis helped galvanize
the neighborhood, Germantown's coming together was sparked
from the outside, by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Germantown Settlement won a place in the Casey Project in
1993, after a long period of research by foundation staff and dis-
cussion with city officials and Philadelphia non profits. It's slated
to receive $3.3 million over the course of seven years. For the
moment, the organization's biggest challenge has been to organize
a wide base of support among community residents-while get-
ting the often fractious multitude of local organizations to join in.
The initiative is still in its planning stages. The settlement has
hosted meetings of community residents and local leaders to
determine what projects the neighborhood should tackle. Some
immediate possibilities include buying bicycles and equipment
for pobce officers assigned to the neighborhood's mini-station,
funding town-watch groups, and improving recreation and sports
facibties. Germantown Settlement, in cooperation with city agen-
cies, currently runs a family center providing health and social
services at a local middle school, and may expand the effort to
APRIL 1996
include other schools even as they work with city officials on
issues such as truancy, academic performance and youth violence.
Casey officials say tensions among individuals and institutions
exi st in all the neighborhoods in which the foundation is involved,
and that Germantown is not the worst of them. Part of the prob-
lem is what Casey initiative manager Garland Yates calls "the cul-
ture of community groups" and the pressure to compete for limit-
ed funding from foundations and government. "Everything push-
es these groups to be more competitive than collaborative," says
Yates.
Emanuel Freeman, chief executive of the settlement, is among
the first to say organizing hasn' t been easy. "We've been spending
a lot of time out on the streets," he says.
So how do you bring competing factions-not to mention the
plain uninvolved-together? Casey requires all the groups in its
comprehensive community initiatives to create some sort of com-
munity governing board. Germantown Settlement decided to go
all out by creating the Germantown Community Collaborative
Board, which will ultimately have 47 members, including repre-
sentatives from the business community and private and public
institutions. Over half will be community residents elected by res-
idents of five sections of the neighborhood, including parts of
Germantown not directly targeted by the Casey initiative but
which have asked to be involved. So far, two sections have held
their elections, including the Wister area, where candidate Rose
Samuel lives.
At this early stage, however, there still isn't consensus-not
about the collaborative board, not about the Casey project, not
even about the settlement agency chosen to lead it. Certainly, there
is a lot of interest and excitement about the project in the neigh-
borhood, as well as in City Hall. But the shades and nuances of
opinion run the gamut. Many residents applaud its planning-based
approach. Others feel it's too much talk. They want to see results.
Still others who started out cooperating with the Germantown
Settlement have since become disenchanted. The leaders of three
Connie DeLury,
elected by the com-
munity to be chair-
person of the
Frankford Plan,
oversees housing
rehabilitation wi th
cont ractor Henry
Spector.
well-established civic associations-the Block Captains Association of
Southwest Germantown, the West Central Germantown Neighbors and the
Westside Neighborhood Council-have disassociated themselves from the
project, saying they don't like the settlement dominating the process. Their
leaders complain that they were invited to offer suggestions at community
meetings last year, but the settlement staff determined how their input would
be used.
Freeman counters that if the effort is to succeed, someone has to be in the
driver's seat. The settlement has to meet deadlines and requirements set by
the Casey Foundation, he says. Once the collaborative board is up and run-
ning, it will be making many decisions, and he says the settlement would like
the board to have direct control over a large portion of the funding.
Indeed, a large number of Germantown residents feel the project presents
too good an opportunity to pass up. "You have to look at what's good for the
whole community, not just personality conflicts and what's happened in the
past," says Dolores Moragne, 47, a Southwest Germantown block captain and
a home day care provider. "You've got to look at the broader picture."
How that picture will emerge remains to be seen. At this point, three of the
five neighborhood districts still have to elect representatives. So far, the elec-
tions have been a bountiful expression of democracy in formation, as the old
guard mixes with newly motivated participants. The program's creators say
their aim is to bring all these different elements together, harnessing the expe-
rience and savvy of those already civically active with the new ideas and
energy of those not previously involved.
Joanne McCauley, a 42-year-old nurse's assistant and Germantown home-
owner, had not been involved in civic activity before a neighbor told her of a
local church meeting about the Casey project. She went, and found herself
volunteering. She served on the committee in charge of nominations for the
collaborative board elections. Most of the other people there had a history of
community involvement. But in the end, new faces came forward. Some even
got elected, but McCauley had hoped to see more. "I would have liked to have
more new people only because some of these [old] people have been involved
for years and years."
Even so, McCauley says she feels more connected to her community now,
and she's willing to keep involved. "It makes you feel kind of important," she
says. "You stay involved with something and you see the results."
W
hen all the ballots were counted that rainy Saturday of the first col-
laborative board elections, the results were mixed. Veterans of civic
groups and the political process won their races, as did newcomers
to activism. In Southwest Germantown, John Connelly, a business-
man and community activist who had run for the state legislature, took a
board seat. But so did the Reverend Marva Strother, who runs a music pro-
gram for neighborhood children and was making her maiden voyage into
public life.
In the Wister section, James Chisholm, who billed himself as "a protege
of David Richardson," a late state legislator who represented the community
in Harrisburg for more than 20 years, won his bid for the board. Chisholm
said he also did some campaigning for his niece, Latrice Yvette Bryant, who
was victorious in the Southwest Germantown election, and he joked about
rustling up votes at one of the local chicken joints.
"James is used to working in politics," says Rosalind McKelvey, a front-
line community and church activist. She won a Wister seat, too.
Rose Samuel, the demure newcomer to community life, did not. But her
defeat didn' t leave her disillusioned. Samuel says her taste of civic action has
whet her appetite. She isn' t sure if there will be a place for her with the Casey
project, but she is looking into organizations that could use her volunteer sup-
port. The bottom line, she says, is that she liked of being involved.
"It's a right feeling. It's like the feeling I get when I go to church," Samuel
explains. "I know I won't ever be the rich person I once thought I would be,"
she says, chuckling. "But I can be a good person."
And that, anyone can tell you, isn't a bad place to start in rebuilding a
community .
Rita Giordano is a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
8Bankersliust Company
Community Development Group
A resource for the non-profit
development community

-
Gary Hattem, Managing Director
Amy Brusiloff, Vice President
280 -Park Avenue, 19West
New York, New York 10017
Tel: 212 .. 454 .. 3677 Fax: 212 .. 454 .. 2380
CITVLlMITS
Black
Community-based
planning can be a
painful experience.
Some activists wonder
whether it's worth
the effort.
By James Bradley
and Winton Pitcoff
Bluepnnts
S
ince the 1960s, labor groups and government officials have
been trying to bring jobs back to Red Hook, a Brooklyn water-
front neighborhood suffering from poverty, crime and the long
decline of a once-vital port economy. The past is papered with
grand but failed schemes for redevelopment of the port and regeneration of
profitable industry. What has remained is a community of public housing
tenants, artists, old-timers and a few enterprising small business owners.
Four years ago, Red Hook residents and the local community board
decided to outline their own vision of the future. An ad hoc committee of
neighborhood residents met in public school auditoriums and church base-
ments for two and a half years. In the end, they drafted a widely-praised 88-
page plan they believe creates the foundation of a Red Hook renaissance. It
calls for rezoning the district to allow residential and industrial uses to exist
side by side; building a new high school and 500 units of housing; creating
a new greenway through the heart of the area, as well as a number of other
sweeping development goals.
None of this would have been possible without the 1989 revision of the
New York City Charter, which gave new strength to community planning by
APRIL 1996
codifying a specific
process for developing
neighborhood plans, and for winning their
approval from government agencies and the City Council. Since then, com-
munity boards have labored to create detailed blueprints for the development
of their neighborhoods, in the hope that the city's powers-that-be will listen.
But there are no guarantees. In fact, there is no legal requirement that
government enact any part of the community-devised plans, even after they
have won approval. Some activists have argued that the whole planning
process is a false promise, lulling communities into spending years-and
vast storehouses of energy and goodwill-to create wish-lists that can be
easily ignored. They wonder if communities should devise new and different
modes of community planning outside the auspices of government, or,
instead, channel more energy into organizing around specific causes and less
into broadly defined planning documents.
There's no doubt the process can be grueling, even divisive. In Red
Hook, despite overwhelming support from most leaders, the community plan
is currently under attack by a small number of business people who origi-
--
--
nally supported it. Now the plan must be dramatically altered
before it can even proceed to the City Council.
"It's an enormous expenditure of resources," says Brad Lander,
executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, a housing group
based in Park Slope, Brooklyn. "You spend a lot of political capi-
tal getting the plan through the community board, the borough
president's office, the Department of City Planning, the City
Council. And at the end of the day, the plan mayor may not work.
You are still not guaranteed resources."
Lander's misgivings are increasingly common in a process with
a short, sketchy track record. So far, the Bronx's Community
Board 3 is the only district to win City Council approval of a plan
devised under the charter's newly defined powers. Since the coun-
cil voted more than three years ago, the plan has served no official
Section I 97-a itself was not established until the city charter was
revised in 1975. It was a small provision, giving formal power to
community boards to plan for the "development, growth and
improvement" of their neighborhoods.
For years, few paid much attention to it. "Nobody sought to
test the power," recalls Elliott Sclar, an urban planning professor
at Columbia University. But by the late 1980s, some Manhattan
neighborhoods, besieged by large-scale development, began try-
ing to find a way to stop the unwanted building-and to explore
how far community boards could go with their own planning ini-
tiatives. In 1987, with Sclar's help, Manhattan's Community
Board 4 developed a 197-a plan for Chelsea, and Board 2 did the
same in Greenwich Village. Board 3 in the South Bronx soon fol-
lowed suit.
"It's an enorm.ous expenditure of resources.
You spend a lot of political capital
getting the plan through, and at the end of the
day, it mayor may not work."
governmental function.
Yet it has not been without value. By providing a structured
framework for the neighborhood's thinking about its own future,
the plan guides the community board's response to development
proposals, says Bernd Zimmermann, director of planning and
development in the Bronx borough president's office. When a
developer or city agency proposes a new project for the area, the
board gives its go-ahead only if the development fits the guidelines
of the community's plan.
Proponents of community planning maintain the process is
valuable-and would be more so if the Giuliani administration
were willing to cede more power and resources to community
boards. Even without this, they add, strategic planning is a critical
step in organizing for a better future.
''The fundamental lesson is that planning is closely related to
the struggle of communities to gain control of the land and
resources," says Tom Angotti , a professor at Pratt Institute in
Brooklyn, who was an advisor on the Red Hook plan. ''The plan
by itself can only be one instrument in that struggle. It is not a
magic wand."
Bi
eneration ago, Jane Jacobs and other activist-the-
oreticians called for a new, democratic approach to
rban planning, radically different from the top-
down approach that led to the disastrous slum
clearance and urban renewal projects of that era. In New York, this
philosophy has been partly realized through a process known as
"197-a," named for the section of the City Charter that defines the
right of the city's 59 community boards to pursue comprehensive
planning efforts.
Community boards, which meet every month, are the most
localized form of government in New York City but possess only
advisory powers. The boards were created in 1963, largely as a
counterforce against Robert Moses, who planned to level lower
Manhattan neighborhoods to build highways and high-rises.
The main obstacle, as with many community empowerment
initiatives, was money. Under the old charter, community boards
could plan to their heart's content, but they had to pay for the
required environmental impact statements, which could cost hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. When a new round of charter revi-
sion passed by popular vote in 1989, that stipulation was reversed.
Now, the Department of City Planning has to pick up the EIS tab.
Yet the lack of resources remains a daunting problem for commu-
nity boards; without pro bono help from the private sector and
support from foundations and universities, 197-a plans would be
impossible. Hunter College has played a pivotal role in recent
plans emerging from East Harlem and Central Harlem. The
Parodneck Foundation was heavily involved in the Bronx CB3
project. And the Pratt Institute Center for Community and
Environmental Development worked on the Red Hook plan and
several others.
Since the current 197 -a rules were formally adopted five years
ago, only one community board has made it completely through
the process and earned the City Council's stamp of approval. Five
others are awaiting city approval, and another eight are in the
works. Community boards have completed 197-a plans in every
borough except Staten Island. East and Central Harlem even won
prestigious American Planning Association awards for their plans.
The goals differ for each community. In more affluent
Manhattan neighborhoods, the primary focus of 197-a has been to
block over-development. In Chelsea, residents did not want to see
the area's district of historic row houses surrounded by hulking
high rises.
In low income neighborhoods, however, the 197 -a proposals
are far more ambitious. They focus on broad land-use strategies
that involve housing, economic development, educational and
human service facilities, transportation, open space, and infra-
structure improvements. These communities have used their plan-
ning powers to push for nothing less than the economic and social
transformation of their neighborhoods, seeking to reverse the
decades-old ravages of blight, neglect and abandonment.
CITY LIMITS
here is no doubt such work has focused community
energy on solutions to long-standing problems. But has
it led to concrete change in the same way that grassroots
organizing around specific issues has?
"By and large, planning is not a good organizing tool," says
Lander. "You want to have people plan around concrete things.
That 's hard to do while you're saying, 'Hey, we want everyone to
come out for a whole bunch of meetings over two years to devel-
op a comprehensive plan that will take fifteen years to implement.'
It's not a good way of getting people involved in their civic insti-
tutions."
But Sclar thinks planning is an effective way to build a strong
community-empowerment movement.
"Wh'ich comes first, an organized community or a 197-a plan?"
he asks. "One of the things you do in processing a 197-a plan is
organize and help build community cohesion. One of my first rules
is that I limit the planning process to issues that are not divisive in
the community."
In Chelsea, Sclar kept all discussion of the waterfront out of his
197-a work, since residents could not agree what to do with the
deteriorating piers. Instead, he focused on an issue nearly everyone
agreed on: over-development.
Some organizers agree. "To be relevant, planning has to be polit-
ical, and, by nature, 197-a is political," says Harry DeRienzo, pres-
ident of the Parodneck Foundation, which helped put together the
Bronx's Community Board 3 plan. DeRienzo, a former housing
organizer in the South Bronx, notes that the 197 -a process builds
links between neighborhood residents and their institutions-
churches, hospitals, political leadership-and with businesses. And
it gives people first-hand experience of how government functions,
a crucial element of any organizing campaign, he says.
Still, some of the most effective community-based planning
initiatives have taken place outside the community boards and the
I 97-a process. One is Melrose Commons, an effort led by Bronx
residents who blocked a city plan to raze their neighborhood and
ended up, through a deft combination of political pressure and
activism, convincing the city to adopt major elements of their plan.
Yolanda Garcia, a founder of Nos Quednmos ("We Stay"), the
group that spearheaded the Melro e Commons project, says com-
prehensive planning is an absolute necessity, particularly in vul-
nerable low income areas. "Planning means everything that will
make a neighborhood sustainable, that will make it endure, that
will give people equity," she says. "All of these issues have to be
planned into the process. If not, then we're going down the same
old road, always pulling down a building here and there, whether
it fits with the community interest or not."
Some New York neighborhoods are working on a hybrid
approach that may end up harnessing the long-term vision of plan-
ning and the passion of activism. The community board in East
New York has begun work on a traditional 197-a plan. Meanwhile,
The Pratt Institute Center is helping to form the East New York
Planning Group, which aims to integrate long-term planning into
the consciousness and everyday work of several community orga-
nizations. The organization is assembling town hall meetings
where residents can speak about what they would like to see in
their community. "What we're trying to do is implement a new
process that may use elements of the classical 197-a plan," says
Sean Robin, a neighborhood planner with the Pratt Center, "but
we're not locked into that strategy."
he complex relationship between organizing and plan-
ning is nothing new, according to Bernie Jones, former-
ly with the University of Colorado's Center For
Community Development and now a consultant based in
Vancouver. ''Traditionally, [political and community 1 organizers
pooh-poohed planning because it was too vague, not something
people would get excited about," he explains.
Yet today, many organizers agree with planning activists that
the long-term work is imperative, says Jones, if only because plan-
ning is going to go on whether people like it or not. And if plan-
ning occurs only within government, then communities may be
dealt out-and development-mad power brokers like Robert
Moses will fill the breach.
Jones has been an adviser on many neighborhood efforts,
including an innovative Seattle program in which the city govern-
ment will allocate $4 million among 30 neighborhood groups over
the next four years for a comprehensive community planning
experiment. Under the plan, which enjoys support from both the
mayor and the city council, neighborhood groups selected via a
competitive bidding process will use the funds to hire a profes-
sional planner and a project manager to serve as liaison between
the community and the government. The city will supply other
support as well, including maps, statistics and other background
data. Because the government is investing so many of its own
resources, officials say they will give very strong credence to com-
munity demands.
Government has also played a collaborative role in other
cities. Five years ago, Minneapolis initiated its Neighborhood
Revitalization Program, a 20-year experiment that distributes
funds to neighborhood organizations for planning efforts.
Elliott Park Neighborhood, Inc., based in a mostly low
income Minneapolis community sandwiched between two
highways, is one of 30 groups whose plans have been
approved under the program.
"We've been able to forge partnerships with the city and its
departments which allowed us to bring them into the neighbor-
hood," says Loren Niemi, the group's director. ''That actual ly helps
shape how they approach policy issues."
If planning occurs OnJy within government, then
communities mBiV be dealt out-and development-mad
power brokers like Robert Moses will fill the breach.
APRI L 1996
-
Elliott Park has taken a two-tiered approach, combining small organizing
efforts with the larger goal of a strategic plan. "It's valuable for a commu-
nity to look at the large vision, the principles underlining that vision, and
then proceed with practical steps that will achieve that goal," says Niemi.
Right now, the group is figuring out a plan to convert parking lots back into
residential and commercial space. "The big picture," he explains, "is to
reclaim that space for commercial and economic development. The small
piece is to buy that parking lot as a blighted space. So we put forth a spe-
cific proposal asking the city to adopt an ordinance which puts a surcharge
on cars that park downtown and then use the money in the neighborhood."
In East St. Louis, Illinois, the Winstanley/Industry Park
Neighborhood Organization devised a broad five-year plan, but opted to
organize around specific projects within the plan, such as building afford-
able housing, renovating a park, developing a food co-op. "We use this
broad model, but what we' ve actually implemented has been on a project
by project basis," says Tom Shields, the group's interim executive direc-
tor. But he adds, "The act of putting together the five-year plan gave us
direction and a sense of confidence in the people involved in the organi-
zation. It was quite helpful."
hatever approach is used, no one disputes that if com-
munity planning is to succeed in New York, the city
government needs to commit itself to providing sup-
port and resources to local groups. The Department of
City Planning has not been a willing partner, as evidenced by the adminis-
tration's refusal to supply community boards with professional planners-
despite the city charter's mandate to do so. ''To plan adequately requires
access to professional skills," says Peter Marcuse, a professor of urban plan-
ning at Columbia University. "And the planning department has not been
encouraging."
Why the government hostility? "One reason is old-fashioned bureaucrat-
ic turf," says Sclar. ''They basically see community people as rabble.
Community interests are always parochial and the city is always serving
larger interests"-notably real estate, Sclar laments, particularly in
Manhattan, where community boards have often opposed private develop-
ment projects.
Nevertheless, 197-a efforts playa role in forcing the city to listen to com-
munity perspectives on development. "It forces the debate finally onto the
community's terms," says Sclar. ''The city has got to explain why they can't
do what they want to do. It's the first time that has ever happened. I see it as
a beginning."
The next step, activists say, is to push for reforms that will improve the
197-a process, while at the same time, developing broader strategies that
strengthen the organizing side of community planning. The most important
ingredient is money. "Communities should be given the resources to devel-
op 197-a plans and to monitor them," says Marcuse. "Also, city planning
should actively encourage 197-a plans and work towards getting them adopt-
ed and implemented."
The other key is to give local plans some real legal force, so arrogant pub-
lic officials won't file a community's 197-a effort in the garbage pail.
Y e ~ the momentum the 197-a law has spurred is unstoppable, adds Mitchell
Silver, director of the Northern Manhattan Office of the Manhattan Borough
President. "It has been the most powerful, galvanizing process that 1 have ever
seen in a community," he says. ''They seem so focused now that they have this
document, they have a direction, they understand where they are going."
And Red Hook, a community long divided by race and class, has been deeply
changed by the planning effort. "It allowed for people to discuss values in a way
that you rarely see in community organizing," says Eddie Bautista. an organizer
with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. "To see public housing residents,
homeowners, artists, to be able to get them in the same room and see people
agree on stuff, you could see the bonds being created."
Winton Pitcoff is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer and planning student.
Applications Sought for Eighth
Leadership New York Program
Leadership New York is a competitive educational and training program co-sponsored by the New York City Partnership and Chamber of
Commerce and Coro. In the ten-month program, during which participants are expected to remain employed full-time in their current pro-
fessions, a diverse group of New Yorkers explores critical issues confronting the city.
Issues studied include housing policy, the city's educational, social service, health care and criminal justice systems, infrastructure, and the
city's changing demographics and power structures.
Leadership New York welcomes applications, which must be accompanied by two letters of recommendation, from the public, private and
non-profit sectors. Candidates should have a demonstrated concern about New York City, a record of professional achievement, and the
potential to playa significant role in the city's future.
For further information and applications, please telephone the program's sponsors:
At Coro: Carol Hoffman, Manager, Leadership New York, (212) 248-2935
At the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce: Eve Levy, Director of Leadership Development Programs, (212)493-7505
Application deadline: April 26, 1996
/.IJ)tIerl J./lH'r""
CITY LIMITS
S
choolteachuh. The word unfastens itself from Rita
Fecher's tongue reluctantly, like a peanut butter-and-
nothing-else sandwich. Years back, one of her down-
stairs neighbors at the Chelsea Hotel called her that, and
it has stuck.
"I guess it was intended as an insult," she recalls. "Then I
said to myself 'Yes, that's exactly what I am. That's exactly
what I want to be. '" Fecher is a high school art teacher. She's
also a painter, a filmmaker, printmaker, saloniste, a Newark
rabbi' s daughter, courtroom artist and a bit of a yenta.
Somehow, every morning she puts on an entirely black set of
clothes and rolls up all her selves into schoolteachuh.
"These kids are beautiful. More than that, they are artists,"
she says, stroking her distracted cat, who doesn't seem to rec-
ognize how lucky he's been to live his life atop the Chelsea
Hotel. For years, Fecher has been bringing art and history
books to her 7th-floor classroom at Washington Irving High
School. The black kids can read about Masai warriors. The
Mexican kids get turned on to Diego Rivera. The Puerto Rican
kids find out about the Young Lords.
"I started reading the books she gave me," says Sashine
Rita, Educating
By Glenn Thrush
APRIL 1996
NOTOR IOUS
Rivera, a tall, soft-spoken 16-year-old who shows off a drawing
depicting herself wearing Lords' regalia and marching in a
mythical South Bronx protest. "It's about me being part of what
happened before. In the front is a woman leading the march ....
It's about what Puerto Ricans did before, in about 1970."
Fecher was there. She got a job at a school in the South
Bronx and met the kids who hung out beyond the schoolyard.
"It turned out that the most intelligent and community-centered
kids were the gang leaders," she recalls. Throughout the early
1970s, Fecher shot hours of videotaped talks with members of
the Savage Skulls, Young Immortals, Savage Nomads and the
Young Lords.
For about 20 years, the tapes collected dust. Then, in 1988,
Fecher decided to track down those kids from the Bronx. She
found that many of her old friends retained their youthful aspi-
rations despite years of disappointment, unemployment and, in
some cases, imprisonment. The result was a one-hour 1993
fLim, "Flyin' Cut Sleeves," produced with filmmaker Henry
Chalfant.
"We do a lot of good .... We like to help everybody," Benjy
Melendez, a president of the Ghetto Brothers, tells Fecher on a
grainy, 25-year-old videotape. "I always fantasized about being
a leader of a great organization." But it was also a brutal time,
and the film chronicles its
share of killings, stompings
and violent initiation rituals.
The movie has been wide-
ly circulated to schools
across the country and has
won several awards at for-
eign film festivals. Ironically,
it has never been shown on
New York public TV or in a
local movie house.
"Yeah, but that's old
news," Rita says, pulling a
gently spiderworked pen-
and-ink portrait from a stu-
dent's portfolio. "Here let me
show you this .... "
Wi
......... --.-: ...... -
CITYVIEW
I
t's election year again, time to reexamine the political
culture that has made our state a national disgrace-this
time, in the just-barely-contested Republican primary-
h_ .... ~ ! I ' ! ! ' ! l e ! ' l l J ! l l ! ! ! ..... Jg. and how we as citizens can work to reform the system.
The details are shocking:
New York accounts for more than half the election lawsuits
in the nation. Senator Bob Dole's opponents have been only the
latest victims of an outrageous set of hurdles and obstacles to
reaching the voters. The bizarre rules of New York's election
law are legendary: Candidates have been thrown off the ballot
for delivering their petitions an hour early or for using the
wrong type of paper clip to bind them.
Challengers who do make it to the ballot must overcome well-
financed incumbents. The number of campaign fundraisers held
by state legislators in Albany has risen dramatically in the last
year. Under state law, individual contributors can, and frequently
do, give up to $37,500 to statewide candidates. Moreover, state
Ballot Boxing
By Gene Russianoff
Gene
Russianoff is
a staff attor-
ney at the
New York
Public
Interest
Research
Group.
n:i
party committees can accept a staggering
$62,500.
This rigged system has taken its toll:
There are only three states in the nation
with a lower percentage of registered
voters. Other states have made the
most of the federal "Motor Voter"
law, which allows voters to register
when applying for government ser-
vices, like driver's licenses or
Medicaid. Registration rates have
doubled elsewhere, but not in New
York. In 1995, New York signed
up only 471,000 voters. Texas,
with about the same population,
registered 1.3 million. New
York registered 11 percent of
those applying for public assistance,
while Missouri netted 31 percent.
The severity of the problem is obvious. So what are the
prospects for reform? Many are skeptical about incumbents
changing the very system that put them in office. But there are
signs of hope.
Republican leaders received a typhoon of criticism this
year for locking out popular presidential candidates like
Patrick Buchanan with the state's ballot access laws. Many
have since pledged to seek reforms. This, of course, could
simply be posturing. Four years ago, Democrats faced similar
criticism for election laws that almost prevented Paul Tsongas
from getting on the ballot-yet nothing changed. However,
there is one difference now: a federal court has strongly ques-
tioned the legality of New York's ballot access laws.
Moreover, a lawsuit is in the works to compel the state to reg-
ister more voters.
There is also the specter of a constitutional convention.
Every 20 years, New Yorkers vote on whether to hold a con-
vention. A yes vote would allow a constitutional free for all,
opening up the prospect of fundamental election change in the
law. The next vote will be in November 1997-and the legisla-
ture should beware.
Finally, a diverse coalition has come together to press for
change. Traditional civic groups-like Cornmon Cause and the
League of Women Voters-have been joined by independent
political parties, like Ross Perot's United We Stand America. In
January, the coalition issued a "Five-Point Platform to End
Politics as Usual." In this politically unsettled time, elected offi-
cials who don't want to alienate independent voters should
watch this effort closely. The coalition won its flrst victory this
year: a commitment by state officials to computerize records of
campaign contributions.
Whatever the chances of reform, City Limits readers should-
n't despair. They should organize. Here's a quick run-down of
the coalition's "Five-Point Platform" along with legislation that
would make the reform possible:
Make it easier to get on the ballot: Pending bills would
lower the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot,
allow candidates to correct petition deflciencies, and "liberally
construe" election law to keep candidacies alive. Support:
Assembly Bill A. 1173, sponsored by Assembly Democrat
Jeffrey Dinowitz, and Senate Bill 1616, sponsored by
Republican Senator Roy Goodman.
Reduce the influence of special interest money: Proposed
legislation would dramatically lower campaign contribution
limits and provide for public flnancing of campaigns. Support:
Assembly Bill 5051-A, sponsored by Assembly Speaker
Sheldon Silver.
Dramatically strengthen state ethics laws: The coalition
proposes placing a prohibition on top officials from raising
campaign contributions and banning lawmakers from soliciting
campaign contributions from lobbyists. Support: The "Integrity
in Government Act" to be introduced shortly by Assembly
Democrat Pete Grannis.
Require strong oversight of lobbyists: The coalition seeks
to prohibit lobbyists from making campaign contributions, a
total ban on gift-giving between lobbyists and top officials, and
stronger state monitoring of lobbyist activities.
Make it easier for New Yorkers to run as delegates to a
constitutional convention: Currently, an Assembly Task Force
headed by Assembly Elections Committee Chair Paul Tokasz is
contemplating legislation to reform how delegates are chosen
and increase the odds for a representative convention.
The legislature will be in session until June, at least. If you're
fed up with the political system, it's time to contact the powers
that be in Albany. Computer-savvy readers can get more details
or call up bills on the state legislature's Internet database at
gopher.senate.state.ny.us. Or call the New York Public Interest
Research Group at (212) 349-6460 for more information .
CITY LIMITS
"The End of Affluence," by Jeffrey Madrick,
Random House, 1995, 223 pages, $22.
A
t last, a mainstream commentator has come up with
an assessment of recent United States economic his-
tory that doesn' t blame the victims: workers,
women, the poor, blacks, immigrants. Nor does he
offer paeans to the vitality of the American free enterprise sys-
tem in hopes that it will pull us out of the hole of high unem-
ployment and stagnant incomes. Instead, economics writer
Jeffrey Madrick identifies the culprits behind our sagging rates
of economic growth: short-sighted corporate management,
ever-fiercer international economic competition and the blink-
ered right wing social policy embodied by the ill-fated
Republican "Contract with America."
In "The End of Affluence," Madrick belittles easy solu-
tions such as budget-balancing and welfare reform (like many
moderates, he likes the idea but scoffs at its economic signif-
icance). Similarly, Madrick has little patience for the doctrine
The Pay We Were
By Stanley Aronowitz
APRIL 1996
that technological change has been the
motor driving American prosperity.
Rather, he argues the fairly dry-eyed
proposition that America will probably
never regain the great economic
growth rates it enjoyed during the
first century of industrialization,
until 1973, when the oil crisis sent
growth into a tail spin from which it
has never really recovered. Get
used to stagnation, he says, at least
for the foreseeable future.
Despite some analytic and
descriptive defects, "The End of
Affluence" weaves a rich, statis-
tic-enhanced narrative of
America's economic decline in
highly readable style. Madrick lays out how
American corporations failed to react to a changing economy in
time to slow the slide. Even as Japan and Europe introduced
new production methods, American car makers clung to their
Ford-era mass production mindset and amassed huge invento-
ries of unsold products. When Japanese auto makers produced
no more than a half million cars of a given model, American
corporations turned out 2 million. This dogmatic, inflexible
approach to business prevented many U.S. industries from
diversifying their product lines to attract consumers, Madrick
argues. It was not low wages that gave Japan the advantage, it
was Japanese imagination. When American manufacturers
finally wised up, it was too late. Their failure is central to
Madrick's explanation for America's economic woes.
Madrick's realism is refreshing, especial-
ly when it comes to his critique of the REV lEW
American ideology of "individualism,"
which has spawned proposals for smaller
government, wars on the poor and misplaced moral invocations
of "bootstrap" self-improvement through saving.
There's a lot missing here, however. Madrick is content to
ascribe the near free-fall of industrial and service-sector wages
to slow economic growth, his favorite catch-all. He seems to
have completely overlooked the impact of declining union
power on American paychecks.
There is no mention here of the devastating effect of Ronald
Reagan's decision to fire 11,000 striking air-traffic controllers,
for example, or of the litany of subsequent lost strikes and weak
contracts that surrendered hard-won union gains.
In fact, in an extended footnote, Madrick even argues that
while unions are important for workers' incomes and other pro-
gressive causes such as education, organized labor has a mini-
mal effect on broad economic trends. Like too many other busi-
ness writers he has his eyes fixed on the bosses and govern-
ment, not the workers.
For the past 20 years, workers have been losing
their jobs to mergers, plant closings, companies fleeing
the country and the widespread downsizing of com-
mercial enterprises. Yet Madrick regards all of these
measures as inevitable-mostly because he cannot
imagine where the opposition or alternatives might arise. For
this reason, his book offers absolutely no hope that social
movements could somehow have a role in reversing the coun-
try's decline.
It is one thing to jettison false panaceas. It's another to offer
no political direction from which answers might be generated.
Only in passing does Madrick even faintly reproach American
unions for not being aggressive enough in following the
European practice of work-sharing in hard times. He also fails
to explore the possible benefits of a European-style fight for
shorter work hours with no reduction in pay. The conventional
argument against shorter hours-that it would place this coun-
try at a competitive disadvantage-simply doesn't conform to
the facts; French and German unions are currently campaigning
to cut working hours as a means of combating joblessness.
Similarly, some European countries have already enacted mea-
sures that amount to a guaranteed income for the unemployed.
Not a word from Madrick about any of this.
In the absence of an analysis of alternatives such as these,
Madrick's unsentimental essay succeeds only in convincing
Americans to lower their expectations. A responsible commen-
tator should not fail, as Madrick does, to identify the possible
agents of alternative solutions-even if such groups are not yet
prepared to take power.
After all, the radical potential of Americans is that we have
always expected the good life .
Stanley Aronowitz is professor of sociology at the Graduate
Center of the City University of New York. His latest book, with
William DiFazio, is The Jobless Future (University of
Minnesota).
C ommunity D evelopment Legal A ssistance C enter
a project of the Lawyers Alliance for New York, a nonprofit
Real Estate, Corporate and Tax Legal Representation to Organizations
Tax Syndications Mutual Housing Associations
Homeless Housing Economic Development
HDFC's Not-for-profit corporations
Community Development Credit Unions and loan Funds
99 Hudson Street, 14th FI , NYC, 10013 (212) 219-1800
Advertise your services in the
CITY LIMITS PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
Reach thousands of potential clients.
LOW RATES.
Call Faith Wiggins at (917) 253-3887 (a local call)
or call (212) 925-9820
SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
J-51 Tax Abatement/Exemption. 421A and 421 B
Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All forms
of government-assisted housing including LISC/Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey, and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Bronx, N.Y. New York, N.Y.
(718) 585-3187 (212) 682-8981
COMPUTER SERVICES
Hardware Sales:
IBM Compatible Computers
Okidata Printers
Lantastic Networks
Software Sales:
NetworkslDatabase
Accounti ng
Suites! Applications
Services: NetworkIHardwarelSoftware Installation,
Training, Custom Software, Hand Holding
Morris Kornbluth 718-857-9157
Grad & Weinraub, LLP
Attorneys at Law
Catherine A. Grad David A. Weinraub
Experienced attorneys specializing in individual and
group tenant representation, genercil. civil litigation and
problems of the elderly.
305 Broadway! Suite 500
New York, NY 10007
(212) 732-0400
LAWRENCE H. McGAUGHEY
Attorney at Law
Meeting the challenges of affordable housing for 20 years.
Providing legal services in the areas of General Real Estate,
Business, Trust & Estates, and Elder Law.
217 Broadway, Suite 610
New York, NY 10007
(212) 513-0981
DEBRA BECHTEL - Attorney
Concentrating in Real Estate & Non-Profit Law
Title and loan closings 0 All city housing programs
Mutual housing associations 0 Cooperative conversions
Advice to low income co-op boards of directors
100 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, (718) 624-6850
Twenty-seven years experience ready for you
CALVERT ASSOCIATES, INC
Consultants to the Inner City Housing Movement
George E. Calvert, President
165 East 104th Street, Suite 2-C, NYC 10029
Call 212 427 0362 or Fax 212 427 0218
William .Jacobs
Cntified Public Accountant
Over 25 years experience specializing in nonprofit housing
HDFCs, Neighborhood Preservation Corporations
Certified Annual Audits. Compilation and Review Services,
Management Advisory Services, Tax Consultation and Preparation
Call Today For A Free Consultation
274 White Plains Road
Eastchester, N.Y. 10707
914-771-9902 Fax 914-771-9698
IRWIN NESOFF ASSOCIATES
management consulting for non-profits
Providing a lull-range 01 management support services lor
non-profit organizations
o Strategic and management development plans
o Board and staff development and training
o Program design and implementation 0 Proposal and report writing
o Fund development plans 0 Program evaluation
20 St. Johns Place, Brooklyn, New York 11217 (718) 636-6087
CITY LIMITS
HOUSING DEVnOPMENT SPECIALIST. ACORN Housing Corporation of
New York seeks experienced, well-<>rganized, self-motivated individual
with a commitment to social change and extensive housing develop-
ment experience to identify housing development opportunities and
undertake all aspects of housing development including: underwriting,
proposal writing, coordinating development professionals and over-
seeing development process. Underwriting, public/private leveraging,
tax credit experience, excellent verbal and writing skills, computer
skills and management supervision required. Mail/fax resume to:
Ismene Speliotis, AHCNY, 845 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11226.
Fax: (718) 693-3367.
RESIDENT COORDINATOR AND TRAINER. ACORN Housing Corporation of
New York seeks bilingual , organized, self-motivated individual to: over-
see and coordinate the implementation of a low-income cooperative
conversion project; interface with residents around building mainte-
nance and financial issues; establish and coordinate a system of
ongoing communication among residents. Previous organizing and
training experience; commitment to and understanding of need for
social change; excellent communication skills required. Mail/fax
resume to: Ismene Speliotis, AHCNY, 845 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn,
NY 11226. Fax: (718) 693-3367.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT. Growing nonprofit lender seeks adminis-
trative assistant with strong word processing, phone, organization
skills. Required: excellent typing speed; MacjWord proficiency; peo-
ple/communication skills. Ability to manage multiple tasks, respond
to deadlines. Salary mid-$20s, plus benefits. Women/people of color
encouraged to apply. Resume ASAP to: Program Manager/NY, Low
Income Housing Fund, 29 John Street, NY 10038. Fax: (212) 346-
9793. No calls.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR. Community-based organization seeks highly com-
petent committed individual to run its day care and microenterprise
creation program. Responsibilities include: arranging/providing train-
ing, nurturing development of new micro-businesses, monitoring safe-
ty/quality of child care provided, fundraising, overseeing grants/con-
tracts. Requirements: excellent writing and interpersonal skills, com-
petent in Spanish, highly organized, Master' s or Bachelor's degree.
Preferred: experience in social work, early childhood and/or commu-
nity economic development, knowledge of public assistance system.
Salary: $27-$31,000 (based on experience) plus benefits. Send
resume and cover letter: CHCCC, 625 Jamaica Ave. , Brooklyn, NY
11208. Fax: (718) 647-2805.
PROJECT MANAGER: Responsibilities include all phases of project devel-
opment: investigation of potential properties, property acquisition,
financial feasibility analysis, preparation of funding application
requests, and administration of construction drawdowns. Expertise in
property acquisition techniques, BA and market analysis is required.
Excellent computer skills, Lotus and Word Perfect and self-motivated.
Send resume and salary requirements only; no telephone calls, to
Executive Director, Fairmount Housing Corp., 270 Fairmount Ave.,
Jersey City, NJ 07306.
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER. The Housing Authority of the City of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (PHA) is seeking a Chief Operating Officer
(COO). Reporting to the President/CEO, the COO will plan, direct, and
review all activities, operations, and budgets of all housing manage-
ment, resident services, maintenance, and public safety in conven-
tional developments and scattered sites. Qual ifications: The COO will
help forge a new model of public housing in which the quality of the
properties and services help to empower and integrate residents into
the mainstream social and economic community beyond the develop-
ment. The qualified candidate should poss-
es: a minimum of seven years of increasing-
ly responsible work experience in a large pub-
William .Jacobs
lic housing authority or similar agency with at
least three years in a senior-level administra-
tive role; comprehensive working knowledge
of legal and regulatory agencies' policies,
programs, and budgeting processes, involv-
ing low-income housing management and
( : l' n i fi l'll l'lI h I i ( :-\ l' l' l ) II 11 L 11 H
Over 25 years experience
specializing in nonprofit housing
HDFC's, Neighborhood Preservation Corporations
Certified Annual Audits
Compilation and Review Services
Management Advisory Services
Tax Consultation and Preparation
Call f'odar For A Free Consultation
274 White Plains Road
Eastchester, N.Y. 10707
.1 ... 771-_2 Fax .1 ... 771-....
APRIL 1996
reporting; a Bachelor's degree, graduate
degree preferred. Salary: Starting salary for
this position will be $65,OOO/year-plus. To
apply: Contact Monroe "Bud" Moseley, Vice
President, Isaacson Miller, 334 Boylston
Street, Suite 500, Boston, MA 02116-3804.
Telephone: (617)262-6500. Fax: (617) 262-
6509. EOE.
LOAN OfFICER for national community devel-
opment organization. Underwrite affordable
housing loans and monitor caseload, related
administrative and other tasks. Requires
strong financial management, excellent com-
munication and analytical skills; knowledge
of nonprofit housing development. Salary
based on experience; excellent benefits.
Send cover letter and resume to: Carol
Lewis, ICE, 57 School St., Springfield, MA
01105 Applications considered immediately.
People of color encouraged to apply. Equal
Opportunity Employer.
-
Enemy
By Nick Chiles
didn't do anything. I swear. See, I'm not a criminal. Sure, when I lived in Manhattan, my car had been towed on
numerous occasions. I once got a speeding ticket for exceeding the 40 miles-per-hour limit on the FDR Drive-
who knew? And, get this, I was even audited by the IRS.
But now that I have moved to Fort Greene, it seems like my
picture must have gone up at the post office. In fact, in the
County of Kings, it seems like every member of the buying
public is viewed as a criminal until proven otherwise.
Let me explain. All I needed to do was stock up for my son's
birthday party by stepping into Toys 'R Us. So I headed down
to Fulton Mall, bounced through the front door and was quick-
ly met head-on by the security guard. He pointed to my small
satchel, carried over my shoulder to hold my wallet, car keys,
hairbrush and a tube of Chapstick.
"You'll have to put that in a locker," he said matter-of-fact-
ly, with no patience for my ignorance.
"Huh?" I answered.
He repeated his statement and waved his hand towards a
wall of small lockers that I had not noticed until that moment.
"What, you think I'm going to steal something and squeeze
it in here?" I said, pointing to the sack, my disbelief plain. "Do
you also tell women to put their pocketbooks in the lockers?" I
tried again, summoning my most aggrieved tone.
He pointed at the lockers.
I walked over and stood in front of them. There were no
keys sticking out of the locks, nor any instructions telling me
what to do. I turned around.
"You need a quarter," the guard called out to me.
"I have to pay a quarter?" By now my outrage was drawing
disinterested glances from the sales clerks.
"You can ask for the quarter," the guard said, pointing at the
aforementioned clerks. There were at least six people already in
line. I would have to wait.
But I didn't. "I'll just go to Manhattan," I said, on my way
out the door.
The problem isn't just toy stores, either. Good luck if ever you
are in need of banking services in Brooklyn. Never mind the 15-
day wait while the bank clears your first deposit-that is if they
even deign to approve your application for a new account. Even
when they have your money, they still don't trust you. Did you
sign the back of the check before you reached the teller window?
Oh, too bad, you'll have to do it again in front of the teller. You
understand that it's just for your own protection, right? Oh, does
that "L" in your signature dip down differently than it did before?
We'll have to call the manager.
That's the state of commerce in our overpopulated city:
They want your money, but trust isn't included with the receipt.
When I decide to enjoy a day of indoor frivolity and fun
with my three-year-old son without destroying my apartment,
my instincts tell me to head for the nearest Discovery Zone, the
McDonald's of new-age playrooms. That would be in the
Fulton Mall, right near the Toys 'R Us. Child in tow, I see the
entrance but I see something else, too: Metal detectors. The
mind boggles, the temples pulsate. Why does my son have to go
through a metal detector? The inspection isn't necessary across
the river in Manhattan-although I presume the Discovery
Zones and Wonder Camps of Manhattan would have to demand
residency papers to screen out us Brooklyn criminals.
Okay, maybe it's just the Fulton Mall, with its packs of
teens and frightened merchants. I'll head back to my neighbor-
hood. Enjoy the bonhomie of the well-trodden path, the trusting
salutations of the neighborhood tradesman.
I have probably stepped over the threshold of my local video
store more than 100 times in the past couple of years-I have
even managed to develop a pleasant relationship with one of the
managers, though he has his salty days.
But now, after all this time, I have to wait for them to decide
whether they want to buzz me in.
I smile. I am warm. I am unthreatening .
Nick Chiles is a reporter with the Newark Star-Ledger..
CITY LIMITS
APRIL 1996

wS ",'s Own

Last year, NatWest was one of only two
New York commercial banks to receive an
"Outstanding" Rating for our community devel-
opment efforts. For Mr. Montanez, that meant
a vacant shell was transformed into a home.
NatWest has a long, successful record in
community development. Our services include
low-income housing credit investments, afford-
able housing financing,cash management
services, municipal financing and mortgages
designed for first-time home buyers.
Want to know more?
Just call
212-602-2201
NatWest Bank
NatWest Bank N.A. Member FDI C @
LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION
OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
We have been providing low-cost insurance programs and
quality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
and other NONPROFIT organizations for over 75 years.
We Offer:
SPECIAL BUILDING PACKAGES
FIRE LIABILITY BONDS
DIRECTOR'S & OFFICERS' LlABILTY
GROUP LIFE & HEALTH
"Tailored Payment Plans"
PSFS,INCo
146 West 29th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001
(212) 279-8300 FAX 714-2161 Ask for: Bala Ramanathan
ME
April , 1996
The Chase Community Development Group
is proud to announce as part of the new Chase Manhattan Corporation's 5-year $18.1 billion
community investment commitment:
$3.4 billion in loans and investments to assist small
businesses and community-based organizations:
Small Business Administration guaranteed (SBA) loans
Small business loans using other credit enhancement programs
Loans to community-based nonprofit organizations against public sector contract payments
Loans to houses of worship in low- and moderate-income communities
Commercial loans to businesses with annual revenues of $1 million or less
and
$1.2 billion in loans and investments for affordable housing
and commercial and economic development including:
Low- and moderate-income housing development and rehabilitation including special needs
housing and homeless shelters
Construction lending, interim financing, and letters of credit
Commercial revitalization in low- to moderate-income communities
Technical assistance to intermediaries
and
$13.5 billion in affordable mortgages nationwide provided by
subsidiaries of the Chase Manhattan Corporation:
Full array of mortgage products and services to meet the needs of first-time home buyers and
low- and moderate-income earners
Participation in home buyer seminars, education and counseling workshops
Involvement with community-based organizations, houses of worship, city and state officials,
real estate brokers, mortgage brokers and developers
Chase looks forward to a continuing relationship!
For information, call :
Ruth Salzman
Commercial Lending
(212) 332-4060
Dan Nissenbaum
Real Estate Lending
(212) 552-9737
Deborah Johnson
Mortgage Lending
(212) 552-9070