City Limits Magazine, April 1984 Issue

REBUILDING
.........
HOME /""
DEPARTMEII'I'S
Legislation: Washington ......................... 3
IlEBVlLDINC BOME
Tenants Take a New Lease on City Life . ... ..... . . . 5
The city's Tenant Interim Lease program offers an ongoing
hopeful chapter in the problem of owner-abandonment.
Keeping the TIL Prices Right ........ ..... . . . . ... 12
Can Tenants Hold onto the $250 price?
On a TIL Mission in Park Slope . ......... . ...... . 14
A Brooklyn building organizer has a goal to
block displacement.
Land Rush to Nowhere? . .. . . . . .. .. ......... .. ... 16
There's a huge demand for an affordable homesteading
program, but little city interest or support.
CITY LlMITS/April1984
2
The Last Homesteaders of 151st St ...... . ....... . . 20
A homesteading crew surveys its accomplishments
and problems.
ACORN's Brooklyn Homesteading Campaign .. . . . 22
A long fight to get single-family homes in East New York
scores its first victory.
DEPARTMENTS
City Views
Homesteading is More than Just Housing ....... 24
People
Aaron Weiss: Queens Tenant Organizer ... .. .. . 27
Review
The Co-op Process .......................... 28
Letters . ... .. ... . .............. .. . . ...... . .... . 29
Resources ....... . .......... ' . . . ............. . .. 30
Workshop .... . . .. ... .. ... ... ... .. ..... . ..... . . 31
April, 1984
Dear New York City Neighbor,
IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST LOOK at City Limits, welcome to this city's
leading neighborhood magazine. For more than eight years we've been providing
the news, the analysis and the useful information that neighbors need as
they work to rebuild their conununities. This issue, "Rebuilding Home," focuses
on low income homesteading in New York -- its successes as well its frustrations,
the resources as well as the pitfalls. We're sure you'll find it as interesting
as it is informative.
This copy reached you through one of many groups which distribute
City Limits. You should be able to receive the magazine regularly from that
source. But if you would like the convenience of a regular mail subscription,
then why not take advantage of the enclosed postage-paid card and send in your
subscription order today? You'll get ten issues of New York City's neighborhoods
for as little as $9 a year (but hurry, because the price is going up very soon).
~ .rlrt/!' O ~ Q/lrjl..,'., /f-J
Volume IX Number 3
Cit,\' limll$ is published ten times per year. monthly
.. cepl double issues in JunelJuly and Augustl
Septeml;>er. by the City Limits Community Informa-
tion Service. Inc .. a nonprofit organization devoted
to disseminating information concerning neighbor-
hood revitalization. The publication is sponsored by
three organi7.ations. The sponsors are;
A.uodalion of Housinl( Dt\',/optrJ,
Inc . an association of over thirty community-based.
nonprofit housing development groups. developing
and advocating programs for low and modeMe in-
come housing and neighborhood stabili7.ation.
Prollln,ftitult Ctnttr for Community and Envimn-
a technical assistance and ad-
vocacY office offering professional planning and ar-
chitectural services to low and moder-cite income
community groups. The Center also analyzes and
monitors government policY and performance.
Urban Homt',\"ft'ud;IIR Bourd. a techni cal
as.'iistance organi7.ation providing assistance to IC'NI
income tenant cooperdtives in management and lo.weat
equity rehabilitation.
Subscription rdtes are; for individuals and communi-
ty groups. S9/0ne Year. SI5ITwo Years: for
Foundations. Government Agen-
cies and Lin,.,ies. 525/0ne Year. S40/Two Year>.
Reduced rates arc available for low income readers.
City li",iu comment"i and article contribu-
tions. Please include a stamped . sci r-addre,sed
envelope for return of manuscript ... . Material in City
Limi'.f does not necessaril y reHect the opinion of the
sponsoring organizations. Send correspondence w.
CITY LIMITS. 424 We, t .13rd Street. New 'thrk.
N.Y. 10001. Postmaster send change of address to:
City Limit,. W. 3:1n1 St .. New Yc>rk. N.Y. 10001.
Se,'ond-clas> postage paid
New York. N.Y. 10001
City Limir. IISSN 0199-0330)

Editor ...... . . . .. . .
Marketing Director ..
.... Tnm Robbins
.. .. Jim Mendell
Copyright 1984. All Righr. Reserved.
No ponion or of this journal may he
rcprinled wilhuUl Ihe pcrmi!\!rrIion of
publisher>.
Design and Layout by Advance Graphic
Cover Photo by Marc J ahr
Design by Connie Pierce
REAGAN'S HOUSING:
Words vs. BUDGETS
By Rev. Donald' Sakano
A
N EXECUTIVE BUDGET is the acid
test of true commitment. It cuts
through all the political rhetoric and public
relations double-talk. Above all, the Execu-
tive Budget tells the story of how an
Administration responds to need and: de-
mands under its jurisdiction. .
Let's take President Reagan's budget for
housing, for example. Beyond a doubt, the
dollars allocated to low and' moderate in-
come needs are growing smaller relative
to the Administration's own attitude about
the federal role in housing production.
A glimpse into the Administration's mind
on this is the report produced by the Presi-
dent's Commission on Housing, published
in 1982. It announces triumphantly that
since the 1940's America has managed to
produce the best housed people in the
world. The availability of housing units and
the condition of the stock as a whole is no
longer a problem, the reader is happy to
discover. The only obstinate barrier to na-
tional housing contentment, the theory
goes, is the issue of affordability. Thus,
emerges the Administration's singUlar so-
lution to the problem of substandard hous-
ing and deteriorated neighborhoods -
vouchers. Indeed, housing policy for low
and moderate income people has been
3
reduced to this rental assistance approach
with only a "special case" recognition to the
need for new construction.
The President's proposed budget for fis-
cal year 1985 is a classic study in shifting
priorities. One can almost hear the floor
boards of the Office of Management and
Budget creak as staff, typewriters and fil-
ing cabinets are moved gingerly from the
human services areas to' the august offices
reserved for planners of the defense budg-:
et. Since 1981 the budget for government
assisted housing programs has taken a 2h
cut with the almost total elimination of the
production program (new construction and
substantial rehabilitation). The military
budget has absorbed what housing has lost.
Let's take a closer look at what the Presi-
dent's Executive Budget proposes to do for
housing. While the Administration is fond
of saying that it intends to add 100,00 units
to the government assisted inventory in
FY85, it is important to remember the est-
timated 7.5 million households in this na-
tion who are still living in substandard or
overcrowded conditions, pay disproportion-
ate amounts of their income for shelter, or
have no housing of their own at all.
Out of the 100,000 new units described
in the budget, 12,500 are for new construc-
tion. As one might guess, these are con-
cessions to constituencies that have a strong
hold on Congress - 10,000 units of
Sec.202 for the elderly and handicapped
(last gasp for Sec.8 new construction ren-
tal subsidies) and 2,500 units for Indian
Reservations. That's all folks. No additional
units of public housing, Section 8 Moder-
ate Rehab, Sec. 312, Sec. 235 or funds for
the newly authorized HUD Emergency
Shelter Program.
An ironic quirk to the President's FYHS
housing budget is the $265 million for the
new Sec.l7 Rental Rehabilitation Grants
and Rental Development Grants (Dodd-
Schumer) Program. The Administration's
initial opposition to this program is con-
sistent with its attitude about expanding the
supply (there ain't no need) and was only
agreed to as a result of the compromises
wrought from last November's Housing and
Urban-Rural Recovery Act of 1983.
The Administration has agreed to sup-
port a $115 million obligation in FY85 to
provide for the construction or substantial
rehabilitation of housing through the Sec.!7
Rental Development Grant program. This
money will be awarded by HUD to eligi-
ble cities on a competitive basis and is ex-
pected to produce 6,000 units of housing,
at least 20 percent of which must be afford-
able to low income households.
$150 million is also requested by the Ad-
ministration to implement the new Sec.17
Rental Rehabilitation Grant programs.
These funds will be automatically allocat-
ed to entitlement areas to provide a $5,000
per unit federal subsidy (adjustable for high
cost areas) to be matched by the locality.
Approximately 30,000 units will be assist-
ed in low income neighborhoods through
this program. Vouchers (hopefully Sec.8
Certificates!) are to be reserved to assist
those who can't afford the rents after re-
habilitation.
The only consolation to housing advo-
cates for these beggars' pickings is the hope
that Sec.l7 is a foot in the door to a legis-
lative push for increased funding in '86 and
beyond. The bad news about Sec.l7, besides
the ludicrously low funding level , is that
the program (especially the Development
Grants) is already strangling because of
regulatory difficulties and ultimately can
only work under ideal circumstances. More
on this in a future issue of City Limits.
The 87,500 remaining "new units" in the
President's proposed budget are the infa-
mous housing vouchers, 30,000 of which
may be used in conjunction with the new
Sec.!7 program. These vouchers, as they
are commonly called, are similar to the
Existing Housing Certificates except
that they will have a Fair Market Rent (FMR)
at a somewhat lower standard. This subsi-
dy is fixed for each household regardless
of the actual rent paid. HoWever, the user
is allowed to "pocket the difference" be-
tween the FMR and 30 percent of adjust-
ed income if a housing unit is found that
costs less than the FMR. On the other
hand, if the household has a housing unit
that costs more than the FMR, the differ-
ence has to come out of other. income! This
spells economic disaster for people in high
rent areas like New York.
Another planned-failure feature of the
proposal is that the vouchers would have
five-year contracts of the 15-year terms for
the present Sec.8 Existing Housing Pro-
gram. This gives the appearance of mak-
ing the program cheaper in terms of
"budget authority," the amount Congress
needs to sustain the subsidy over the life
of the contract. However, after the five
years is up, Congress would likely renew
the contracts but this way it won't look as
costly as 15 year obligations. Also, the
shorter contract term makes the program
harder to "sell" to private owners. If enact-
ed by Congress, the rather successful ef-
fort to assist households in private housing
could collapse in a heap of ashes.
The total FY85 proposed budget for
government assisted housing is $6.2 billion
in budget authority, down from $9.9 bil-
lion in FY84, a 37 percent cut. Other
budget lines reveal futher cuts in such pro-
grams as public housing operating subsi-
dies and real deep ones in the housing
programs of the Farmers Home Adminis-
tration. The Community Development
Block Grants would be kept at the same
funding level as the present year, which in
effect constitutes a cut if you factor in in-
flation and the inclusion of new entitlement
cities who will share in dividing the CDBG
pie next year.
Since the HURRA of 1983 is a two-year
authorization act covering FY84- 5, there
will be no housing bill this year. This means
that all the action in the government
assisted housing program (such as they are)
will be within the budget and appropria-
tion process. The members of the Budget
and all-important Appropriations Commit-
tee should be lobbied (letters/calls/visits)
to increase the spending levels for housing.
It is important to tell them that the Sec.8
Existing Housing program should be
preserved and the voucher concept re-
jected.
New Yorkers on key committees who
4
should be contacted are Moynihan (Senate
Budget); Df\mato (Senate Appropriations);
Solarz and Ferraro (House Budget); Adda-
bo and Green (House Appropriations) .
Congressional obsession with the federal
budget deficit continues to be one of the
chief obstacles for getting a funding level
for assisted housing programs higher than
FY84. A great deal of activity in this ses-
sion is concentrated on how to manage the
problem, including harnessing allusive tax
expenditures. The House Ways and Means
and Senate Finance Committees, not as sen-
sitive to low income housing programs as
the Banking Committees, are in the process
even as you read this article, of cutting or
eliminating tax code provisions that have
been "user friendly" to rehabilitation and
new construction development. Lots more
on this in next month's issue of City Limits.
Shifting priorities in Congress away from
housing simply must be countermanded by
the voice of the people. Don't forget to plan
to attend the National Housing Conference,
June 24- 28 in Washington, DC, sponsored
by the National Low Income Housing Coa-
lition. Bring your ideas on how we can de-
velop new policy positions on such issues
as housing production and anti-
displacement strategies. Bring your
thoughts about how to get housing issues
back on the national social agenda. Bring
your outrage and frustration at knowing of
the thousands of people who are denied the '
basic right to decent and affordable hous-
ing. O

J>cY"t:e
><2f Apt'i I rz13
v,,+;1
ar

(at
IVI1k*f3l"l
\,.1Je t.cl1n
P:TjDF.co
bzx-/ fwd

p.n;.-t;. .... edvca.non
In .
l"'Gi'"e- i-lro ; :;,e'2. 0" 2-1
REBUILDING HOME
Tenants Take
on City Life I
. Lease rogram has provided the most
New York's s lanJlord-abandoned housing.
hopeful chapter 0 e Cl Y
Tenants or 312 West 49th street - a combined residency or 159 years: Front
row,left to right, Louise Barlow, Joel Daniel, Hilda Urquiza; second row,
Mary Dunn, Arthur Ullrich, Artnit Siddhivain, Amelio Gonzalez.
By Julia McDonnell Chang
L
IKE THE HONEYSUCKLE that sometimes pushes its way through the shat-
tered glass and rusted tin cans of a vacant city lot, New York City's Tenant
Interim Lease program is a declaration of new life on seemingly desolate turf.
Through its unprecedented combination of tenant initiatives,
community supports, city government's advice and assistance and
federal money, this five-year old program has transformed U5
dilapidated, landlord-abandoned apartment buildings into low-
income cooperatives owned and managed by their tenants.
Tenants are managing another 92 of these "TIL" buildings, as
they're known, while the city helps repair them and prepare the
tenants for eventual ownership. (The city will sell a score of these
buildings to tenants in early 1984, officials said, and other build-
5
ings will be taken into the program to replace them.)
Most TIL tenants take a proprietary interest in the program-
they feel it truly belongs to them.
"If a [TILl building is a success, " said Yolanda Rivera, tenant
leader at 854 Intervale Avenue in the South Bronx, "it's because
of the tenants, not anything the city did. The tenants do it all." Her
opinion is shared by many TIL tenants throughout the city.
But Joan Wallstein, the Department of Preservation
and Development's assistant commjssioner in charge of the Tenant
REBUILDING HOME
Interim Lease and several other so-called "alternative manage-
ment" progr.ams, says, "everyone working together" has made TIL
a success. She named the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board,
which has a contract with the city to provide support services to
TIL buildings; numerous neighborhood agencies ; the tenant
associations and a dozen offices in the vast HPD bureaucracy.
Despite disagreement about who deserves the credit, nobody
disputes TIL's success. Since most TIL buildings are located in
the once-smoldering ruins of the city's poorest neighborhoods-
the South Bronx, Harlem, the Lower East Side, Williamsburg in
BrookJyn-many would have "gone vacant ," tenants and officials
say, if TIL had not rescued them.
As in all city-owned buildings, most TIL tenants are poor and
working class members of minority groups. At least one-third,
according to recent studies ar.e female-headed households with
incomes of less than $7,300 per year.
Along with a handful of other programs, TIL was created in
1978 at the height of the city's residential real estate tax foreclosure
crisis. Tenants sought to save their homes which were among the
city's drastically dwindling supply of cheap rental units. City
government sought to relieve itself of some responsibility for
managing them.
Changing Buildings, Changing Lives
But the alchemy that turned these deteriorated wrecks into safe,
comfortable homes has also resulted in other unexpected benefits:
Each TIL building, city officials and community leaders agree,
. has helped vanquish urban decay in the area surrounding it. At
the same time many tenants, through their struggles to save their
homes, have become vociferous neighborhood activists and skilled
managers for many community agencies.
"People who take control of their housing experience positive
change," said Theresa Kilbane, who recently left the Urban
Homesteading Assistance Board, after working for five years with
its TIL support programs. "Their talents sharpen and increase."
"I used to be a little mouse hiding in a hole", said Mary Dunn,
tenant leader at 312 West 49th Street of her TIL experience. "Not
anymore." In addition to managing her own building, Dunn is now
superintendent of the two adjacent privately owned buildings. She
is a founder of the Clinton Mutual Housing Association and is
active with the Clinton TIL Coalition.
Dunn was also an ardent warrior in the 1982 battle that pitted
tenants and their community allies against the Koch administra-
tion and its bureaucracy. At issue was the purchase price tenants
would have to pay for their reclaimed homes. The city insisted
that price reflect some portion (or even all) of the buildings' mar-
ket value, while tenants insisted that the city's original commit-
ment of $250 per unit be honored. Tenants won a somewhat
marred victory: $250 per unit is the price, but a city "tax" of 40
percent of the resale price was placed on the apartments. The effect
of that levy is to eventually push the buildings out of the low income
market they seek to serve.
It's not only in escalating real estate markets like Clinton's that
TIL makes its mark.
Some TIL buildings like 1021-1017 Avenue ofSt. John and 35-31
Third Avenue in the South Bronx, are the only occupied build-
ings on their blocks. Yet their salvation in the face of devastation
6
makes residents optimistic that the neighborhoods will survive.
Angel Garcia, 41, the tenant leader of 1021-1017 Avenue of St.
John, gave up his bodega five years ago to become a fulltime hous-
ing activist. A trained court-appointed 7A administrator for trou-
bled buildings, Garcia manages his own 77-unit building "and
another large multiple dwelling nearby. He mimeographs a hous-
ing newsletter for tenants and brought busloads of them to City
Hall to support the $250 sales price for the Clinton buildings.
"Mama" Green, 77, the leader at 35-31 Third Avenue, is a
respected fixture in nearby Morrisania. "The landlord dumped
it in 1CJ77," she said of her building, "and so I picked it up." Pullum
Fuel , a local company, delivered fuel on credit as long as the build-
ing needed because its owner admired Green. That fuel, she said,
helped save the fully occupied, 18-unit structure.
"My years is telling on menow," said Green, a retired domes-
tic worker. "I ask the Lord to give me the strength to keep (the
building) up."
Unlike these isolated South Bronx buildings, both 431 West 121st
Street at the edge of Harlem and 800 Riverside Drive in Washing-
ton Heights were among the first on their blocks to be taken by
the city for non-payment of real estate taxes. Many believe their
rescue through TIL staved off further blight on those blocks.
But many TIL buildings, including 172 Delancey Street on the
Lower East Side, 854 Intervale Avenue in the South Bronx and
my own building, 2674 Valentine Avenue in the Fordham-Bedford
neighborhood ofthe Bronx, actually helped catalyze the rebirth
of their blocks.
Yolanda Rivera of 854 Intervale told how it works. "We turned
this building around;' she said, "and it had a stabilizing effect on
everything." Tenants convinced an adjacent store and nearby
church to stay on, Rivera said, "and now there's a lot of other rehab
going on."
Most of her fellow tenants are women with children who receive
public assistance, Rivera said. Like the former tenants-now
shareholders - of other TIL buildings, they've been changed by
the responsibility of cooperatively managing a building, Rivera
said. They're proud of what they've done to make life in the neigh-
borhood better.
Evolution of a Program
In ICJ78, Philip St. Georges, then the HPD assistant commis-
sioner charged with developing management programs for
hundreds of city-owned building, called it, "the greatest collapse
of privately owned real estate in the history of the world." 8,000
properties were seized by city government because of their own-
ers' chronic failure to pay real estate taxes. St . Georges predicted
that the problem of non-payment of taxes would "grow geometri-
cally" and give rise to new forms of housing ownership and
management.
He was right : the city's stock of tax-foreclosed properties has
grown to over 10,000 in spite of numerous programs to move them
back into private ownership. And the Division of Alternative
Management has developed a handful of programs for owning and
managing them that are unique in the nation.
Among them is the Tenant Interim Lease program.
But TIL was not really conceived by either city planners or hous-
ing officials. Rather, it is a hybrid housing program that took root
all by itself in the seemingly barren soil left by the thousands of
city landlords who abandoned their properties in the 1970s. For
when they did, many tenants, rather than leave their longtime
homes, took things into their own hands. They opened bank ac-
counts, collected rents, bought fuel and made repairs.
Faced with responsibility for thousands of occupied apartment
buildings, the city, working with concerned neighborhood organi-
zations, made official the form of tenant-management that had
already evolved. They called it TIL.
But the city added a couple of incentives to spur tenants on:
it would spend about $2,5OO-per unit on repairs while training
tenants in management and maintenance skills; it would eventu-
ally sell the buildings back to tenants for $250 per unit. Tenants
would thus become homeowners and the buildings returned to the
tax rolls. This process might take from one to four years.
''We had to relieve the (city's) management burden:' said As-
sistant Commissioner Joan Wallstein in a recent interview.
"Tenants had been telling us for years, 'Hey, we can do this better
than you.' We decided to give them that chance."
Kilbane believes city government made the decision reluctant-
ly - only because it was "freaking out" over its sudden load of
properties. "Nobody ever thought tenants would be as successful
as they've been," she said.
Of all the programs for city-owned buildings, TIL was to be
the easiest to get into and the easiest to get back out of. To quali-
fy, tenants needed only to: form a tenants association, open a bank
account , buy liability insurance, and fill out a TIL application.
But even five years ago, during the dizzying triage of urban
blight, it was clear that only the strongest buildings could make
7
it in this self-help program. Tenants had to be highly motivated
and competent. The buildings, because there was so little repair
money, had to be structurally sound with at least some good work-
ing systems.
Despite these criteria, there were many eager candidates. At
the beginning of 1979, 85 buildings were enrolled in the program,
and by year's end there were almost 200 containing over 4,500
apartments. The number levelled at 250 through 1982, growing
again to 300 in 1983. But indications are that it has been the city's
lack of funding for the program which holds back the numbers,
not a slackening in the number of willing tenants. So far, U5 build-
ings have been sold to tenants.
Changing Some Rules
When Wallstein took charge after St. Georges' departure in 1981,
two more requirements were added: buildings had to be at least
70 percent occupied; city inspectors had to verify their sound phys-
ical condition. Intake seemed to grind to a halt and many feared
TIL's days were numbered.
But Wallstein insists the city's commitment to tne program re-
mains firm. "St. Georges' philosophy was, 'Get 'em in and worry
about it later,'" she said. "I thought it was time to get a handle on
what we had, to institutionalize the program and make sure it
worked."
A two-year period of retrenchment has achieved these goals,
she said, and promised that "intake will pick up again" in 1984.
Organizers, tenants and community activists are split over WalI-
stein's stringent entrance requirements. Many support them, but
others, including Kilbane, ~ l i e v e buildings can survive only half
occupied at the start.
. . .Qne South Bronx activist believes the new regulations are harm-
ing four buildings he has helped to organize.
"I'm stunned by this iU percent rule," said Ken Ferrin of the 163rd
Street Improvement Council. The buildings -1225, 1230, and 1233
Boston Road and 639 East 169th Street-are in good condition,
have strong tenant associations, but are only about 55 percent oc-
cupied.
But underoccupancy is not Ferrin's only problem. The Koch
administration recently declared a freeze on the rental of apart-
ments in city-owned buildings. According to an executive order,
all vacancies must be reserved for' homeless families who will be
referred to the buildings by the city's Human Resources Adminis-
tration. So far, Ferrin said, "No homeless have been placed." But
HPD will not process his TIL applications because the buildings
are underoccupied.
"I have lists of people begging for apartments," he said. "If we
could get into the program, We could rent those apartments. We
could make it."
Tenants are angry and frustrated over this Catch-22 and are los-
ing faith that they'll eventually manage their own homes, he said.
Ferrin offered this dismal prediction if the dilemma continues
much longer: "The tenant associations will fall apart," he said.
"The (vacant) apartments will be vandalized or set on fire. Peo-
ple will start to leave. Eventually, (the buildings) will go vacant.
That's the tragedy."
*****
TIL receives about $5 million a year of HPD's Community De-
velopment Block Grant money - just over three oercent of the
$150 million it spends each year on its tax-foreclosed housing
programs.
The program has a staff of jJ headed by leasing bureau chief
Bill Smith. Ben Bell oversees the intake process. Most familiar
to tenants are the four unit chiefs in charge of geographical terri-
tories and the dozen coordinators who work for them, each with
responsibility for a score of TIL buildings.
Wall stein calls TIL "the most cost effective housing program
ever created . . :' Yet her Division of Alternative Management
wages an annual struggle for TIL's meagre funding.
Both the level offunding and the fight to obtain it have resulted
in the widely held belief that the Koch administration is at best
indifferent to the concept of low income tenants managing and
eventually owning their own bUildings.
John Glynn, executive director of the Clinton neighborhood's
Housing Conservation Coordinators, called TIL "a new kind of
economic system."
City officials, he theorized, are often suspicious of this un-
precedented brand of quasi-public housing that becomes a kind
of quasi-subsidized private housing.
Margarita Fournier, a tenant organizer and 7A administrator
with Pueblo Nuevo Housing and Development group on the Lower
East Side expressed a view held by many organizers and activists:
"I don't think the city really wants tenants to be able to run their
own buildings;' she said. "TIL today is very lax about services.
You gotta put a lot of pressure on. Then they move a little. The
reality, when it comes down to it, is that the city doesn't do much."
8
Wallstein said such complaints are inevitable because of the pro-
gram's nature. "It's a self-help program," she said. "That's what
tenants asked for. That's what they've got."
* * * * *
My building, 2674 Valentine Avenue in the North Bronx, is an
extreme example of the program's self-help nature. In the sum-
mer of 1978, a group of us helped ourselves as illegal squatters
to an entire empty building. Among us were tenant and commu-
nity organizers, several welfare mothers and their children, stu-
dents, a Jesuit chaplain from Rikers Island and a Red Cross
disaster specialist in charge of relocating burned-out or frozen-
out city families.
Despite our varied ages, races, and educational backgrounds,
we shared low incomes and a commitment to preserving the
Fordham-Bedford neighborhood.
The 10-unit building had been vacant seven months, but aban-
doned by its owner years before. Built in 1904, it was in need of
many major repairs. We formed a tenants association, began to
pay $175 a month rent each to it and used the rent roll to buy
supplies.
Throughout that sweltering summer, we sheetrocked, plastered
and painted. We replaced some floor, sanded and polyurethaned
others, installed windows, doors and an intercom system and
repaired vast gaping holes in the roof.
To accomplish such things on our shoestring budget, we
scrounged money and materials from several organizations. The
Inter-Neighborhood Housing Corp. spent $6,000 on boiler repairs.
Operation Open City's federal weatherization program gave us
more than $3,000 in roofing materials and windows.
We also scrounged-shamelessly-technical advice and
assistance from friends who were skilled carpenters and plum-
bers. They joined us for grueling "work weekends" that were fueled
by loud music and endless quantities of Miller Lite.
But in September, just after most of us had moved in, we were
notified that that city had taken title to 2674-along with nearly
4,000 other Bronx buildings - through real estate tax foreclosure.
We panicked: what would happen to our home? Would we lose
control of it just as our dream of rehabilitating it had been real-
ized? We pondered these questions during long, loud tenant meet-
ings. In the end, we decided to refuse to pay rent to the city. We'd
become a test case in court if necessary.
Our imagined stand-off never happened. Instead, we learned
of the nascent TIL program and were among the first group of
buildings to enter it.
St. Georges, a West Side homesteader himself at the time, visit-
ed and drank beer with us one Saturday in October. He left en-
thusiastic about our accomplishment. By December 1978, the city
had spent $25,000 on plumbing repairs and electrical rewiring.
In June 1980, we joined four other buildings to become the first
in city history purchased by their tenant associations. The event
was marked by a champagne celebration in City Hall hosted by
Mayor Koch.
Our transformations from squatters to homesteaders to TIL
tenants to co-op owners took less than two years. Since we made
it, each of us has reaped this benefit: a monthly maintenance of
under $200 for an airy five-room apartment with oak parquet
floors, French doors in the living room and nine large windows.
It was easy for us to get repairs and take title. Every TIL build-
ing should have our experience. Few do.
"We knew how to manipulate the system," said Gerry Mooney,
a 2674 shareholder and former organizer and president of the
Fordham-Bedford Community Coalition.
But Megan Chariop, another organizer who lives at 2674 with
her husband Rich Powers and their three children, sees it a little
differently.
"I think it was because most of us are white and well-educated,"
she said. "We knew how to make the program work. But they
(HPD officials) also liked us. They understood us."
(A number of us met HPD officials through work at not-for-
profit neighborhood housing agencies. One of us subsequently
went to work at HPD and has since become an assistant commis-
sioner at the state Department of Social Services in charge of state
housing programs for the homeless.)
Can it Work for Everyone?
Chariop believes other buildings were as deserving of speedy
treatment as ours. Among them is Mama Green's building, 35-31
Third Avenue which Chariop organized while at the People's De-
velopment Corp. in the mid-I970s. Back then, she and Green and
a dozen black and Hispanic tenants were hauling water from a
nearby hydrant so tenants could wash, drink and flush toilets. With
help from PDe's work crew, tenants made repairs. They also paint-
ed the halls, installed a front door and intercom system, secured
the roof door and fixed up many apartments.
The building joined TIL just after we did but has received noth-
ing since, Green and Chariop say. The city repaired the roof, "But
it still leaks; said Green. Talk of ownership has long-since ceased
and the feeling of tenant unity has dispersed.
"The city just doesn't care;' said Chariop.
Meanwhile, the PDC has changed and now,
rather than being an ally, it has become a drain on the building.
Angd Garcia of 1021 Avenue or St. John.
9
Green said. Its Community Management program, funded by
HPD, has occupied the storefront at 3531 for nearly six years. It
is consistently behind in rent, Green said, and at year's end, owed
$1200. Half was paid in January, Green said, but PDC adminis-
trators have shrugged off her requests for the rest of the money.
Gary Curtis, head of PDe's Community Management program,
disputed Green's allegation. "We got a couple of months beh.ind;
he said. when the city failed to pay PDC on time. The rent is now
paid up, he said. and insisted that non-payment of rent is "abso-
lutely not" a chronic problem.
Later, Benjamin Jennings, PDe's director of operations, con-
ceded that "some in rent is still owed. He also said the agency
occasionally falls into arrears when the city is late in its payments
to PDe. But Jennings said PDC in angered by Green's statements
because PDC is "the only tenant that pays rent consistently." Jen-
nings termed the $400 "a minor issue" in the overall status of 3531.
"The issue," he said, .. is that that building is not going any
place in TIL." Community would provide a better solution, he said
and added that PDC would be glad to take over management if
tenants agree. Green laughed at this suggestion. Turning her books
and the rent roll over to an agency that doesn't pay its debts would
not make sense, she said.
Wallstein said she would look into the PDC situation, but made
no other promises. The building can't make it as a cooperative,
she said, "if Mama Green is the only one keeping it afloat ... More
interest (by other tenants) must be kindled."
My building and Mama Green's seem to represent the extremes
of the TIL experience. In between are dozens of successes gleaned
from a crazy patchwork of tenant initatives and outside sources.
It often seems there are as many combinations for financing repairs
as there are buildings in the program.
For example, 312 W. 49th Street in Manhattan's Clinton area,
won a Self-Help Neighborhoods Award Program-SNAP-grant
i"' =:::.z.:'_
REBUILDING HOME
for basement and roof doors that tenants believed would secure
the building against thieves, junkies and vandals. ''The deal is,
you have to do it yourself," said tenant leader Mary Dunn. So one
frosty day in 1981, she and fellow tenant Lillian Horney dragged
one 2oo-lb. door to the basement and another to the roof and hung
them as a strapping "technical advisor" looked on. "He told us
how to use the level;' Dunn said. ''The building didn't have 25
cents . .. what else could we doT'
Tenants at 1372 Franklin Avenue in the South Bronx were luck-
ier. The Bronx Job Corps Center, as part of its construction train-
ing program, agreed to gut and rehabilitate four first floor
apartments that were destroyed when a boiler exploded. The city
provided the materials. The rest of the 47-unit building is occupied
CITY LIMITS ON TIL
The evolution of the city's Tenant Interim Lease Pro-
gram has been chronicled in the pages of City Limits
since the progrom's inception. Because there are far more
detailed questions involved in how the program works
than we've covered in this issue, we've listed below some
of our reporting and analysis on the program. Copies
of issues containing these TIL reports are $1 each and
are available from City Limits, 424 W 33rd St., New
York, N.Y. 10001.
City Reneges on $250 Sales Policy by Susan Baldwin.
Buildings in Manhattan are refused $250 sales price
commitment letters. (March, 1980).
Sales Controls Pose Problems by Bernard Cohen and Su-
san Baldwin. Analysis of initial sales policy for TIL and
community management program buildings. (Jan.
1980).
Tenant Management at 280 Dean Street by Peg Byron.
Account of a TIL building in the Boerum Hill section
of Brooklyn. (March, 1980).
Fist TIL Buildings are Sold by Bernard Cohen. Report
on first five buildings to be sold to tenant-managers.
(June/July 1980).
Requiemfor a Housing Policy by Bonnie Brower. Criti-
cal survey of the evolution of the TIL sales program by
a former HPD attorney in charge of co-op sales and cur-
rent director of the Association for Neighborhood and
Housing Development. (October, 1982).
New Alternatives for City-Owned Property by Ani Hur-
witz. Analysis from the Task Force on City-Owned
Property recommending changes in city policy towards
the TIL program. Also in same issue, New Limits on
Tenant Management by Tim Ledwith. (February, 1982) .
Tenants Win $250 Sales Pledge by Susan Baldwin. Board
of Estimate decision on Clinton'S TIL buildings. Included
is a chronicle of city TIL sales decisions. (December,
1982).0
CITY lIMITS/April1984
10
and tenant leader Walter Avery reports there is a waiting list for
the new apartments. (The city may expand this pilot program to
other TIL buildings.)
Back in Clinton, at 444 West 54th Street, a group of skilled
tenants, including carpenters and electricians who work in the
theatre district, is rehabilitating the building apartment by
apartment.
In Angel Garcia's 1021-1027 Avenue of St. John, prospective
tenants must agree to learn how to paint and plaster and then
promise to maintain their own apartments before being allowed
into the building. (There is a waiting list of 27 families.) The city
provided new windows and repaired a courtyard while tenants,
with the rent roll, paid for new doors, new skylights, stucco for
a rain damaged wall , and roof repairs.
Ken Eaton, tenant leader at 405 West 48th Street reports a simi-
lar system there. Tenants take care of their own apartments, while
the rent roll has paid for repairs to the parapets and structural
beams. The city has provided electrical rewiring.
At 241 West l11th Street in West Harlem, a state weatherization
program paid for new windows while tenants contracted out the
wiring and plumbing repairs and paid for them with the rent roll.
So far, tenant leader Mabel Smith complained, the city has failed
to make many promised repairs. The city wanted to sell the build-
ing in 1982, but tenants are still fighting for the repairs they be-
lieve should be made before they take title.
Gripes and Obstacles
TIL's many successes notwithstanding, tenants and organizers
throughout the city share two cOJIlplaints: repairs by city contrac-
tors are shoddy and take too long to complete; money and serv-
ices provided by the city vary drastically from building to building.
"The city scrapes the bottom of the barrel when it hires con-
tractors,"complains Fran Sullivan, the tenant leader at 2656
Decatur Avenue, a Bronx TIL co-op, and the manager of two other
TIL buildings, including my own.
Her building's new windows "full out" and its new roof "is a
catastrophe;' she said.
Similar complaints were sounded by dozens of tenants through-
out the city.
"It's absolutely true," Wallstein acknowledged, that some con-
tracted work is poor. The slipshod work results, she theorized,
because "contractors know the city can't monitor them the way
a private owner would." Improving the quality and speeding the
delivery of repairs are her goals for 1984, she said.
A new "construction manager" scheme has alleviated some of
the problems, she said. These managers, hired through competi-
tive bidding, perform on-site monitoring on behalf of the city on
a fee-per-job basis. On 36 jobs in eight months, Wall stein said,
"the work was done faster and better. The tenants 'were very
pleased."
But Wall stein said her plans to use construction managers on
more jobs may be stymied by the lack of response to bids by quali-
fied contractors. If the program fails, she said, "it's because the
contractors just aren't out there."
Sullivan, however, along with workers at Pueblo Nuevo and the
Fifth Avenue Committee in Brooklyn all believe tenants could do
better to hire contractors themselves. Wallstein said such a
proposal is unlikely to receive much support from city
government.
As for the distribution of repairs, Joe Restuccia, a TIL tenant
and organizer in the Clinton neighborhood said, "There is no
equality of treatment. So much of the progress you make is due
to the relationship your group establishes with HPD. It can range
from incredible cooperation, to real obnoxiousness."
Yolanda Rivera attests to how difficult the city can be. Since
joining TIL three years ago, she said 854 Intervale has received
no repairs or services. The city has rejected the building's request
to leave the program to join Banana Kelly's Community Manage-
ment program which has promised to make $7,500 per unit in
repairs.
"The city won't help us and it won't let us into a program that
will,"said Rivera. "It's been a war .. :'
Frances M. Fuselli, an organizer with the Crotona Commun-
ity Coalition, has a different view. "The inconsistency derives from
the building's level of organization; she theorized. "The more you
bug HPD, the more you've got your own stuff in line, the more
you'll get from them."
Fuselli has mounted telephone and mail campaigns that full just
short ofharrassment . The technique gets results, she said. "there
is no way the money they've got can be spread equally among all
the buildings," she added. "I'm amazed they've accomplished what
they have."
Wallstein's view echoes Fuselli's. Most often, she said, "the
squeaky wheel gets the oil." But she acknowledges that situations
like Rivera's can and do exist.
*******
Few recent New York City movements have created more polit-
ical commotion in pursuit of their goals than TII..:s supporters when
the Koch administration threatened the $250 purchase price, the
foundation of the program. The Clinton TIL Coalition, the Associ-
ation for Neighborhood and Housing Development, along with
scores of other tenant and community groups launched a public-
ity campaign that forced the issue into the city's major media and
onto the agendas of every city political leader. Although there was
plenty of technical assistance along the way, it was the tenants
themselves who flocked to repeated hearings and meetings. And
even though it was Clinton's buildings which were on the line,
groups from the Bronx, Harlem, the Lower East Side and Brook-
lyn descended on City Hall in droves.
Elected officials like City Council President Carol Bellamy and
Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein were hounded into
support. After months of acrimonious debate and repeated stalls,
tenants emerged at least partially victorious with a universal sales
price of $250.
Transforming what was an unconnected series of individual
tenant organizations into some fresh political muscle and clout
did not take place overnight. It came from patient and arduous
work carried out by tenant and community groups around the city,
all of whom found themselves confronting the same dilemma at
the same point in time.
Pueblo Nuevo, HCC, the 163rd Street Improvement Council,
the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and the
Metropolitan Council on Housing (in spite of its continuing oppo-
11
sition to all forms of privately owned housing) 'were instrumental
in introducing TIL to confused, angry and even frightened tenants.
Their organizers navigated the often dizzying courses through
Housing Court and the city and federal bureaucracies that are the
standard forerunners of entrance into TIL.
The trunk of the TIL support network is UHAB. Since the pro-
gram's creation, it has had a contract with HPD to teach TIL
tenants both bookkeeping and home maintenance proceedures.
It also helps tenants apply for loans, an often complex and
intimidating proceedure, and it operates an emergency loan
program.
UHAB's coordinators were intended to provide a link between
the city and tenants. As such, they're often caught in bitter cross-
fires. Yet tenants throughout the city heaped praise upon Kilbane,
Ann Henderson and Edward L. Moses who, they said, also
provided large measures of moral support in hard times. .
Housing Conservation Coordinators bulk purchases smoke
detectors, burglar gates and liability insurance to lower costs for
TIL buildings. It also runs a federal/state weatherization program
which provides windows. It runs classes in management and main-
tenance and provides legal assistance.
Elsewhere, groups like Pueblo Nuevo and the Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition perform some similar services.
In terms of policy, the Association for Neighborhood and Hous-
ing Development's Task Force on City-Owned Property has played
a similar role. Since 1978, it has carried out the research and forged
the network and alliances which have battled for greater city sup-
port of in rem tenant-managed buildings.
But mostly, TIL tenants help themselves. Mabel Smith, leader
of the 241 West lllth Street tenants association, founded the
Harlem TIL Coalition more than five years ago, "because we had
common goals and needs. We needed to share our experiences
and help one another." Now, a Brooklyn TIL Coalition is being
organized.
******
The word "till" means to cultivate or prepare the soil for plant-
ing. It seems somehow appropriate, then, that tenants and city
officials always refer to the Tenant Interim Lease program as
TIL-for through it, a new kind of tenant pride has emerged.
Phrases like "It's a TIL building," or "They're TIL tenants," con-
note something special- unusual organization, strength, motiva-
tion and responsibility.
The program is not a cureall: buildings like Mama Green's South
Bronx walk-up show how far the program has still to travel before
it can assist all of the tenants seeking help in salvaging their build-
ings. As Green says, "This is not no easy job."
So far, TIL has provided a bridge between that sort of stubborn
spirit and our city's immense housing needs. 0
Julia McDonnell Chang is a freelance writer. Her last City
Limits article, '7he South Bronx's Troubled Homes" (May, 1983)
detailed problems in a major new home construction program.
CITY LlMITS/ApriI1984
REBUILDING HOME
Keeping the Prices Righi
on TIL ApariDlenls
voted a minImum sales price of $25,000
apiece for the 25 apartments. Dissident
shareholders blew the whistle, however, and
meetings were held with the technical as-
sistance groups which had aided the co-op.
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
was outraged and vowed to block the build-
ing's application for a $125,000 Article 8A
loan at three percent interest. Barry K. Mal-
lin of the Community Development Legal
Assistance Center, which provides legal aid
to many TIL buildings, threatened to drop
the board as a client. Bonnie Brower, a law-
yer and executive director of the Associa-
tion for Neighborhood and Housing
Development, assisted a small group of
shareholders who opposed the plan.
After lengthy meetings with these groups,
the board rescinded its resolution. "We real-
ized it insulted the program;' said board
treasurer Betty Cangelosi, an opera singer.
A new policy is being worked out now, she
said.
~ The co-op board's attempt to reap wind-
~ fall profits was not a violation of any law.
Rather, said LJHAB's Theresa Kilbane, it
W
HAT HAPPENS WHEN this first
. generation of TIL purchasers sell
their apartments to the next round of cooper-
ators? That single issue has dogged the TIL
program since its inception as city officials
have insisted that the low initial purchase
price ($250 in designated areas) could
represent a potential windfall to speculative
co-op members.
As a result, Mayor Ed Koch sought and
won the imposition of a 40 percent recap-
ture of the sales price of apartments ap-
praised at over $2000.
Tenants and their advocates have steadi-
ly responded that the overriding concern is
affordable housing and that the city should
aid them in constructing resale agreements
which bar speculation, not just fill the city's
coffers.
Groups have also pointed out that the city
has shown no commensurate concern about
recapturing its much larger subsidies to real
estate developers and corporations through
tax breaks, insured bonds and below mar-
ket property sales. They add that the city was
less concerned with dampening speculation
than with sharing in potential spoils since
the effect of its 40 percent "tax" is to drive
up resale prices that much more.
~
Since city policy was set in November,
1982, most apartment resales have been car-
ried out with the aim of benefitting the low
income co-op. But a number of apartment
sellers have sought to cash in on a hefty
profit through resale and manipulation of the
program. As a result, program advocates
have stepped up their efforts to formulate a
resale clause which would bar this sort of
speculation.
"Most (re)sales have been in the range of
$500 to $1,000 per room;' said Edward L.
Moses of the Urban Homesteading As-
sistance Board. Prices have varied from the
identical $250 purchase price at 684 East
189th St., to $500 per room at 2025 Aller-
ton Avenue in the Bronx and $1,000 per
room for a three-bedroom apartment
676-678 St. Nicholas Avenue. "These prices
have reflected purchase price plus the cost
of capital improvements," said Moses. "Each
apartment has generally been sold to recoup
some of the cost of repairs."
Perhaps the most grievous violation of
TIL's low income nature was an upper West
Side building at 431 West 12lst Street. Last
fall, just months after tenants paid the city
$250 apiece for their small four- to six-room
apartments, the co-op's board of directors
12
violated "the spi rit of the law" and the "moral
basis" of TIL.
While TIL advocates believe that build-
ing is an anomaly they have an increasing
concern that, unchecked, speculation could
grow. Working with Mallin and the legal as-
sistance center, UHAB is seeking to draft
legal language to place in the proprietary
leases of the individual shareholders which
would bar speculation.
While that legal avenue is pursued,
UHAB voices other concerns as well. Build-
ings purchased without adequate repairs by
the city must be borne by shareholders.
Higher resale prices than desired can result.
This has been the case with 302 Convent
Avenue in Harlem where one apartment
sold for $10,000, and another for $25,000.
Also, at 800 Riverside Drive, known as the
Grinnell, which was sold to tenants for
$250,000 by the city (an average of $3500
for each of 83 tenants) resale prices have
soared to $35,000 and asking prices are as
high as $75,000.
Both buildings face massive repair needs
and have looked to sale prices as the major
source of funds. The Grinnell needs some
$800,000 of work, estimates Moses, to fix
its elevators, water tower, roof, and other
major projects.
While 302 Convent Avenue has an Arti-
cle 8A loan pending, that will still leave them
with substantial roof and sidewalk repairs
/
to tend to, said Moses.
This resale conundrum, said Bonnie
Brower, "simply prices these apartments out
for low and moderate income famlilies." I
But Brower, a former attorney who drew
up the city's original sale policy,
doesn't fault the co-op boards. Rather, she
said, the city's pol icy of "cutting these build-
ings loose from city ownership" without
essential repairs "is preposterous." Worse,
she said, "There is virtually no resale policy."
But Joan Wallstein, HPD's assistant com-
missioner in charge of the Division of Alter-
native Management Programs, said city
policy is unlikely to change. "I don't want
the poorest people forced out." she said, but
added that an occasional high-priced resale
used as revenue "isn't such a bad thing. It's
called leveraging in some places."
City hesitation to interfere with possible
speculation isn't limited to post-sales situa-
tions, either. For several years a few build-
ings still in the interim lease program have
sublet apartments for exhorbitant rents
unconnected to building repair needs. The
city has steered clear of these pricklish sit-
uations as well , a position which may help
PAYING
TOO
MUCH
set the stage for resale speculation later on
after buildings are transmitted to the share-
holders.
Despite these dangers, the overwhelming
majority of tenants in the program have
proven that dedication to TII..:s goals will be
their guide.
Ken Eaton, tenant leader at 405 West 48th
Street, said he and his wife Courtney just
bought a larger apartment in their building
for $9,000. Their old apartment is selling for
$8,100. Of that , Eaton said he will receive
something under $2,000 while the building
will net "about 15,000 clean dollars" from the
sales which will be used for repairs to the
aging structure.
Deluged with applicants for the apart-
ment, Eaton said shareholders decided upon
additional criteria to judge prospective
buyers: contribution to Clinton, length of
time in the community and their potential
contribution to the building.
Eaton said shareholders are determined
to maintain the apartments as a resource for
the neighborhood's working class people-
and as a possible reward for those who have
demonstrated a commitment to the area.
They believe the area's working class fami -
lies can afford apartments that cost about
$9,000.
Others shared his view. Said Mary Dunn
of312 West 49th Street, "we refuse to make
a profit on our resales. Where could poor
working people go?"
Down the road apiece, Efrain Rodriquez,
tenant leader at 322-326 West 17th Street
said, "We' re all of the idea that these build-
ings will be maintained for poor people. If
it wasn't for these buildings, the blacks,
Puerto Ricans and Dominicans would be out
of Chelsea . . . ain't nobody gonna pull us out
of here."
But given the physical condition of many
TIL buildings, that philosophical commit-
ment by shareholders will need the added
assistance of funds and policy
changes. DJulia McDonnell Chang and
Tom Robbins
LOW COST ACCOUNTING
Financial Management Center is pleased to
announce its Low Cost Accounting Program.
Each client will meet at our office with an ac-
countant with extensive nOh-profit experience.
The cost may be as low as $720 for the year,
billed at $60. per month.
FOR
ACCOUNTING?
Each client may choose from
any of the following services:
Unlimited phone calls to our accountants
For more information about Low Cost Accounting
contact Francie Meth at
F , ~ C FlNANaAL MANAGEMENT CENTER
36 WEST ~ ' h STREET NEW YORK. NY rao:M
13
to answer any questions.
Set up books.
Prepare quarterly tax filings.
Review l.edger quarterly.
Preparation of W-2, W-3 forms, 1099
forms.
Fiscal year and preparation of 990, 6750,
1120.
Prepare year end compilation.
m (212) 575-1816
CITY LlMlTS/ApriI1984
REBUILDING HOME
VIC'IOR MALDONADO:
On a TIL Mission
in Park Slope
T
HERE'S A HUB OF TIL activity along
the Fifth Avenue corridor of lower Park
Slope in Brooklyn, thanks in large part to
a local neighborhood preservation group
and its industrious organizers. One of those
organizers is Victor Maldonado, a 42-year-
old local resident, who, from beneath a
bushy shock of black hair and behind a pair
of heavy homrirns, surveyed the community
six years ago and decided that getting dilapi-
dated buildings out of the hands of poor
owners and into those of the tenants was the
surest course towards neighborhood im-
provement.
Since making that observation, Maldona-
do has plugged an impressive number of
.buildings into TIL's energy grid. As a result,
while Park Slope's phenomenal gentrifica-
tion boom continues to swell, a couple
hundred low income, mostly minority resi-
dents won't be facing the threat of losing
their homes. FAC's and Maldonado's accom-
plishment with the TIL program are all the
more notable since the focus of city policy
in that area has been to capitalize as much
as possible on the increasing marketability
of owner-abandoned property which dots
that section of Park Slope. Community
Board Six,which encompasses the area ,has
provided a major chunk of the properties
sold at city auction.
Fifth Avenue Committee organizer, Victor Maldonado foreground with TIL tenants Antonio Torres,
Sophie Fausto of 345 Third SI. and neighbor Maria Ruiz.
Since late 1977, however, Maldonado has
been intervening in building deterioration
and has brought ten Park Slope buildings
into TIL. Those buildings began with 49
Fifth Avenue. "The owner there was a gam-
bler," said Maldonado, "and he just let the
building go." Eventually he lost the build-
ing,along with another he owned which also
went into tenant management, 345 Third
Street. By the time the TIL program opened
its doors in mid-1978, there was a tenants as-
sociation in place for eight months already
and it was a prime applicant.
"In the beginning, it was easy to get build-
ings into the program," Maldonado recalled.
But restrictions are tighter now, and rents
must be at a level high enough, as HPD sees
it, to carry the operating costs of the build-
ing. For his part, however, Maldonado en-
courages tenants to take their time, get as
much repairs as possible from the city's cen-
tral management office. When the TIL
doors open again, he says, those buildings
will be in better shape. There are five build-
ings he is now coaching as they await en-
trance into the program.
One of the buildings Maldonado and FAC
have worked with, 280 Dean Street-the
most independent of the group, says
14
Maldonado - has been purchased by its
tenants. The others have been brought along
more slowly. They've had to go slow, he
says, for, in many cases, tenant-management
has to overcome major obstacles.
As an example, Maldonado tells the sto-
ry of23l Fifth Avenue, a building where in-
itial tenant enthusiasm waned. The
association president announced that, in his
opinion, it was a lost cause and threw in the
towel. The stumbling block was getting
enough tenants to contribute their rent to
open a bank account in the association's
name. Most residents didn't want to take the
step without universal participation.
"The old president said, 'Let me know if
"-.
you get the others,'" recalled Moldanado.
The vice-president was more adventurous,
was willing to take over and, with his and
two other rents, opened the account. That
act made others into believers. Some,
however, who were welfare recipients, still
were unwilling. "We said we'd get welfare
to put them on two-party checks (where the
building manager must co-sign with the
tenant for the rent check)," said Maldonado.
They went looking for other apartments,
couldn't find anything, and came back and
signed up. The building is scheduled for sale
to the tenants this year.
Leadership for tenant-managed buildings
is where you find it according to
Maldonado. At 386 Second Street, a tene-
ment on a much-battered block between
Fourth and Fifth Avenues, another local
assistance group couldn't handle the build-
ing anymore. Half of the tenants weren't pay-
ing rent and the two or three willing to work
were dispirited. Maldonado remembers that
a woman with a young child came to the
office one afternoon, in desperate need of
an apartment.
"She looked like she could be a good
leader," says Maldonado who told her about
the TIL program and urged her to look at
a vacant apartment at 386. She was
interested.
"She went to see the apartment and called
me up. She said, 'You want me to take that
apartment? It's all messed up!' But I told her
we could work together and fix it up. She
was convinced. With the three others we
formed an association and today she's the
president. She also got ajob working with
the city's management office."
There are other obstacles as well. At 345
Third Street, one of a string of buildings fac-
ing 1.1. Bryant Park, fire and abandonment
claimed most of a row of once attractive
five-story walk-Ups. 345 survived and the
building is slated to be sold to the tenants
this year. If so, it will probably be the only
low income dwelling on the block. Local
developers have snatched up every other
Subscribe to the
structure and plans call for market-rate ren-
tals or co-ops.
Maldonado's organizing success hasn't
gone without notice from city housing
managers who have made more than one
losing bid to lure him to a city job at higher
pay. "I started on this thing of getting build-
ings into TIL," he says. "I can't leave."
"Victor's an extraordinary organizer and
human being," said Rebecca Reich, FAC's
development director for five years until this
past February. Ofthe fifty-odd buildings in
the TIL program in Brooklyn, Reich notes,
Maldonado is responsible for a full fifth of
them entering the program. "He is plenty
dedicated," agreed Francine Gerace, FAC's
new co-director.
As for his own self-evaluation, Victor
Maldonado says, "I followed my goals.
When I started out we said our goal was to
assist tenants and landlords and keep peo-
ple from being displaced, I've folloWed that
through:' DTR
Association of Neighborhood Housing
Developers'
a digest of late breaking information on: Legislative
Developments, Housing, Budget News, Neighborhood
issues, Economic Development and Fundraising.
Each weekly issue also carries a calendar listing
critical hearings, demonstrations, conferences and
workshops.
o Individuals and community groups: $20/1 year.
o Citywide nonprofits, banks, foundations,
government agencies: $3511 year.
Please send me a subscription to The Weekly Reader.
Name
Address/Zip
Make check payable to:
Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers.
Send to: Weekly Reader, ANHD, 424 W. 33 SI.
New York, NY IOOO\.
Sorry. co",hil!mion subscriptions 10 Ht-"kl,
Read", olld City Umits arc' 110 lonx", amilahle.
15 CITY LlMITS/April1984
REBUILDING HOME
NYC'S HOMESTEADING PROGRAMS:
A LAND RUSH
TO NOWHERE?
The city's latest homesteading program announcement brought a
barrage of applicants. But there's funding enough only for a trickle of
buildings, and those now in the pipeline say it's a rough way to get
some h9using.
By Tom Robbins
H
OMESTEADING SHOULD HAVE BEEN synonymous
with New York City. A city with a decade's bumper crop
of abandoned yet salvageable buildings of every size and shape,
its habitable housing already packed to the gills with rent-poor
families of every economic stripe and cultural hue; a place with
almost no other affordable housing alternatives and which boasts
many practiced and dedicated nonprofit providers of develop-
ment assistance, New York should have been a pathbreaker in
merging housing need with housing options long ago.
Instead places like Minneapolis (with a miniscule amount
of housing abandonment and hence homesteading candidates) ,
and Baltimore, with still only a shadow of New York's resources,
have the homesteading results and the reknown. In New York
City, homesteading still has yet to get the backing and support
it needs from City Hall. As a result , initiatives have sprouted
repeatedly, only to gradually wither.
The push for homesteading has a whole dynamic of its own,
however, and people wanting to take over and rehab the empty
buildings they saw going to ruin while they themselves lacked
decent homes, have continually barraged the city housing depart-
ment's office of property management with pleas to help them
do it.
Whether by calculation or error, the city tapped a vein of
that craving for self-help shelter last December when its pitch
for its latest homesteading entry went out over the airwaves.
Land Rush at Police Plaza
A few days before Christmas, on December 21st, some 1,500
to 2,000 New Yorkers descended on Police Plaza across the street
from City Hall. The crowd ranged from would-be speculators,
the homeless, the wealthy looking for a second home seasoned
community rehabbers, those with substantial means and those
with few means at all. All tI:Ouped through the Municipal Build-
ing's towering arches, each with a vision of new rehabbed homes
dancing before their eyes.
16
Originally scheduled for the upstairs press room, the infor-
mational c,onference on the new program had to be quickly
shifted to the auditorium. There, police were forced to close the
doors on several hundred frustrated homeseekers. It was a turn-
out which dwarfed the plaza's usual budget hearings and auc-
tions, comparable only to the annual raucous rent guidelines vote.
Most of these New Yorkers came in response to several days
of a multi-media blitz which, in the crudest journalistic fashion ,
had boiled a complicated and difficult housing program down
to a few bite-sized chunks: vacant, city-owned buildings, dirt
cheap, with homesteader grants of $10,000 per apartment-Come
and get 'em.
Missing were any cautionary clauses about the required
years of sweat and effort , the general low to moderate income
guidelines, the need for self-generated construction expertise,
the huge gap in financing, or even mention that homesteading
Wils a group activity. Instead, what went out every half-hour over
radio stations like WNEW was a message every bit as glowing
as the handbills which lured pioneers to the western land rushes
of old.
"By the time I heard it on public radio," said Simon Kiefer,
"I was interested." That was notable because Kiefer is the direc-
tor of the Urban Homesteading program that was being adver-
tised. But even as the media barrage took on a life of its own,
the city housing department did nothing to intervene. And by
the time the scheduled pre-proposal conference rolled around,
a huge number of people had had their housing appetites whetted.
At the meeting, Kiefer and Bruce Dale, rehabilitation direc-
tor for city-owned property, did what they could to dampen the
ardor of those wholly unaware of what was entailed in the offer-
ing. Still , some 3,000 applications were snatched up before every-
one could get one. Charyl Edmonds and Jorge Palombo of the
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board who, as longtime
homesteading advocates have patched together many of the pieces
which went into the program, were trapped outside and had to
convince police they were with the city (they're not) in order
to get into the auditorium. "It was frenzied," said Edmonds.
co,ysrW'TION COST
t.
OEMo.L.'T'ON
LI4HT
3EGVI(,.rY

r"' ARCNITICoT
:$ ISO-
lOO
ts-o-
7.500-
SjDOO-
$ 15.000-
l ..

--....-... -,,;;, ---.--_ ..... --..:---- --- --
A He-W 1(001" . .. . .

$Z.92S
Tor.'
f'Ji" in
.... - -.'. - .- - - --- ---
rA'<
Ere..
$ 750-
5"00'
%60-
aOI1-
Ii 1.810-

- .- -, --.--.: - - ... --. ---. -- -
!..M ..-- _ - - .,.--- - - .. .,;-- .. - - -
t
1

:i
J
i TOTAL
, 5;400 I
r.-:....::......::....:::...:....:.. -=--- --- - - .- - -- -

'.4%0- .
tS"o6-
.
---
The City's Suggestions vs. Homesteading Reality
Here's how the cash flow would (not) work for a group of homesteaders using HPD's suggested $50 per month 'rent'
contribution to finance the first phase of their project. The example is based on a standard five-story walk-up building
with three exi sting apartments per floor being made over into a total of nine units. By the end of one year's work, be-
fore the city is likely to have spent one dollar in the building, homesteaders costs have reached $25,746. Meanwhile,
through their $50 per month contributions they raised only $5,400 - leaving them $20,346 in the hole. This example
was compiled by the New York Coalition of Homesteaders.
17
REBUILDING HOME
Inside New York Coalition of Homesteaders president Lee
Chong's c ~ p i e s of a single-page warning to would-be participants
ran out almost immediately. "A lot of people walked out angry:'
she said.
A Double-Edged Message
The many who stayed, however, learned at least the out-
lines of the program. HPD is indeed going to sell vacant build-
ings at $250 per apartment, with grants that go up to $10,000
for the homesteaders who take them on. Eligible are city-owned
buildings in designated (approved for federal Community
Development funds expenditure) areas, ranging from three to
twenty units and which are not targeted to other programs.
Dale and Kiefer also told the throng that the amount of hard
work, self-reliance, technical and financial resources which
homesteaders would be called upon to generate is considerable.
Those still not headed for the exits got two last and vital bits
of information: with only $1 million total allocated to the pro-
gram, no more than ten to fifteen projects could be funded; there- .
fore preference would be given to those who could pull off their
homesteading with the lowest grants.
This last was a double-edged message. To the better-heeled
and already skilled in the crowd, it meant their chances were
measurably improved; while to Chong, Edmonds, Palombo and
low income homesteaders and advocates, it meant the cards were
stacked against them.
In the weeks after the Police Plaza meeting, the New York
Coalition of Homesteaders wrote an open letter to potential
homesteaders which suggested that many were about to embark
on an ultimately frustrating mission. "Hundreds of groups; stated
the letter, "will be crawling through abandoned city-owned build-
ings, trying to put together a scope of work . .. find someone
to do a cost estimate ... find an architect willing to sign an agree-
ment with no money down, and a lawyer to do the same; they
will work on mountains of paper, produce W-2 forms and l040s,
run madly to community boards, local churches and civic groups
asking for support, pool their money to open a bank account ,
create a letterhead and take off work. ALL/or what? Ninety-eight
percent of them will be rejected! Not because their proposal isn't
good, but because they never had a chance in the first place!"
Still, 519 would-be homesteading groups met an initial Janu-
ary 12th deadline to pre-screen their selected buildings. All but
167 of these were shot down immediately. According to Kiefer,
some of the buildings proposed were not city-owned, others were
fully-occupied and many were in other programs, most com-
monly slated for auction to the highest bidder.
Those still in the running continued their paper chase. Some
were lucky enough to hook up with supportive local groups.
Others shopped on their own and many wound up calling UHAB
for aid. "Our position," said Charyl Edmonds, a veteran of every
incarnation of homesteading in New York, "has been we can't
in good conscience give assistance. This just isn't a low income
program, we are already overloaded, and this is doomed to fail."
By the March 23rd deadline, nearly ninety proposals were
submitted to HPD. Some time in late spring the names of the
winners will be announced.
Evolution of a Program
The precursor to the Urban Homesteading program was
Sweat Equity, a plan which matched a one-percent thirty-year
loan with homesteader labor contributions. Sweat Equity,
CITY LlMITS/April1984 18
however, was dubbed too expensive by housing commissioner
Tony Gliedman in 1980 when costs crested $30,000 per unit.
Although the pipeline opened again briefly in 1981, the build-
ings which entered were almost immediately dead in the water,
stuck between growing out-of-pocket expensese and a city reluc-
tant to fund them.
What has become the Urban Homesteading program grew
out of the frustrations of one of the groups which found itself
stymied when sweat equity was killed. Having already done the
interior demolition of a row of upper Columbus Avenue build-
ings, the group, working along with Edmonds and UHAB,
decided to go after a similar strip along Amsterdam Avenue
between 108th and 109th Streets. These still had a certificate
of occupancy and one had been partially renovated by the city
as a relocation resource building.
The group proposed that the city make a straight out grant
to cover the cost of the highly skilled systems installation. The
estimate was that this could be done for $4,000 per unit (cost
overruns quickly brought this to $5,000). With short term financ-
ing from the Consumer Farmer Foundation and $100 each month
from the participants (this too rose rapidly to $150) the build-
ings would be affordable because they would carry no mortgage.
The city balked initially, then (amid rumors the buildings
would be squatted) signed the group to the same interim leases
given to occupied city-owned buildings. Then-HPD assistant
commissioner Philip St. Georges (himself a founder of UHAB)
gave the plan a name- Urban Homesteading, and programmatic
structure evolved as work progressed. As a result, while they
had few resources, the 36 homesteading families had room to
maneuver. When they could no longer afford their dual rents,
they moved into the unfinished buildings amid stark living con-
ditions. Since the 'C of 0 ' was still in place, no architectural
plans were filed. Despite these problems, the Amsterdam Avenue
buildings won a HUD prize and general acclaim at HPD.
Soon, several Lower East Side buildings were signed up
under similar arrangements-systems installation, but no city
loan. In January 1982, a 'Request for Proposals' was announced
and, without any ofthe media hoopla that accompanied the more
recent RFP, 30 proposals were received and 11 buildings
accepted.
But by then, several restrictions had been introduced:
homesteaders couldn't move in without a new 'C of 0' (as the
law itself states) , certified architectural plans had to be filed and
homesteaders had to meet set construction schedules.
Almost four years after this program was launched in the
wake of sweat equity's demise, eight buildings (including the four
on Amsterdam Avenue) have been sold; another 14 are in vary-
ing states of construction.
City selected contractors are now installing systems in two
buildings which entered the program before formal proposals
were requested. None of the 11 accepted in 1982 have had any
city funds spent on them yet , although systems work is expected
to begin in three by this summer. But for the rest, the dilemma
of stretching time, energies and finances into (for many) a third
year of homesteading is wearing on them. "This program can
just make your life hell," said one highly proficient yet irate
homesteader.
A List of Problems
In May, 1983 some of the groups organized a coalition both
to be better able to present their case to the city and enable them
to fundraise and make bulk purchases of materials. That group-
NYCH - set about right away to identify the common problems
homesteaders were confronting, and to inform wideyed groups
preparing to answer the new RFP about what to expect. The
group prepared a laundry list of program shortcomings.
Although the $10,000 per unit fiture is commonly used,
NYCH points out that few, if any, groups will actually get it.
Administrators respond that the figure became a maximum
instead of an average after the Board of Estimate ruled that to
give some groups more would be unfair to those who may have
decided not to apply because their own cost estimates were over
the $10,000 figure. This led to the downward revising of several
project scopes of work. The city pared its contracting contribu-
tion down until it reached $10,000 or below. In the latest round,
however, the stress is on getting the grant down even lower. This
is simply a matter of making a limited pot of funds go further,
say officials. They may well find a number of projects which
require no grant at all . Homesteaders argue that the lower the
grant, the less low income groups can compete.
Groups ridicule the $50 per month minimum contribu-
tion HPD mandates homesteaders should make to pay for their
needs as preposterously low. Some are paying as high as $175
already while they are prohibited from cutting their expenses
by moving in before the 'C of 0' is obtained. HPD officials point
out that the $50 figure is a minimum and not to suggest an aver-
age contribution.
Before moving in, homesteaders must obtain a new cer-
tificate of occupancy. The city's rule simply acknowledges the
law, administrators say, and they have no choice. Homesteaders
are quick to point out that in some matters, such as aspects of
the construction which technically require licensed craftsmen
at every step, the city acknowledges reality and doesn't insist
that the letter of the law be observed. So too, with the 'C of 0 '
issue, say the groups. If not , then HPD should get the Build-
ings Department to issue Temporary Certificates of Occupancy.
Architects can cost upwards of several thousand dollars - a
cost beyond the reach of low income homesteaders. Again, there's
the issue of the law here, one most homesteaders feel would be
better observed in the breach. But the architectural requirement
is just one piece of a whole array of technical work homesteaders
must provide or purchase, including cost estimates and construc-
tion assistance. NYCH is already looking. at ways to pool funds
to retain architects collectively.
The real Catch-22 of homesteading, say participants, is
discovered when the groups go looking for financing. So far,
no private lenders, other than the Consumer Farmer Founda-
tion and the National Consumer Co-op Bank (at market rates)
have loaned homesteaders in the program money. Since they have
only a license to work in the buildings and an agreement that
they can purchase, hence no control or equity, lenders haven't
considered them as reasonable risks. This is why homesteaders
have invariably turned to savings: friends or family to bankroll
them until the building is sold. Even after sale, however, the
resale restrictions apply (as Article XI Housing Development
Fund Corporations) which limit incomes of new purchasers to
six or seven times the maintenance and operating costs. HPD
officials say the loan problem is simply a matter of getting banks
accustomed to dealing with this type of building. "They just don't
have a box to check off on their loan forms yet that says HDFC,"
said Bruce Dale. Secondary mortgage markets, used by most
lenders, are equally suspicious. Consumer Farmer, says assis-
tant director Harry DiRienzo, is steadily 'loaned out; most of
it in short term notes to projects which need it for specific tasks.
Who's This Program For?
The underlying question of the city's current homesteading
program seems to be just who the program is aimed at.
According to Dale, this form of homesteading is best for
a certain strata of moderate income people who are skilled
enough to parlay a small amount of capital and a somewhat larger
measure of construction expertise into a new and affordable
home. Just how broad that segment is, adds Dale, is hard to say.
"Clearly," he adds, "the response to the RFP indicates there's a
need for a large low income program. This isn't it."
With no control or equity in the
buildings, lenders haven! consi-
dered homesteaders reasonable
risks; invariably they have turned to
savings, friends or family to bankroll
the work.
This may not be the program, but as the thundering response
proved, it's about all there is. And while many flocked to Police
Plaza on the strength of a whim and a thirty-second news clip,
there were also many determined homesteaders from places like
East Harlem where numerous groups long ago identified build-
ings they sought to homestead as a bulwark against a rapidly
encroaching gentrification. As a reflection of that low income
need, City Council members Carolyn Maloney and Fred Samuel
of East and Central Harlem, have introduced a council resolu-
tion to raise homesteading funding to $5 million.
Jorge Palombo of UHAB, a homesteader himself in the
Amsterdam Avenue buildings, insisted it was virtually impossi-
ble for those of low and moderate income to make the current
program work. Other government programs, he points out, have
specific income guidelines, while the six- or seven-times rent
and maintenance leaves much more leeway. Working backwards,
this means homesteaders whose final costs are high can have
correspondingly high incomes. "It's a trick;' said Palombo. "If
you combine this trick with the next trick "':the groups that ask
for less [of a grant] have a better chance' -you are creating a
middle income program."
Palombo, along with Charyl Edmonds, are both leaving
UHAB this month after several years of providing assistance to
homesteaders. Their decision is partly based on a frustration
at not being able to get a stronger commitment from the city
for low income homesteading.
Pauline Bostick, a homesteader of 517 West 151 Street in
Harlem's Hamilton Heights, summed up the problems she says
her group has encountered: "Homesteading is just the unwanted
stepchild of this city. We feel like it's desperately important. The
city just couldn't care less."
19
Adds one homesteader whose group has already purchased
their building but now struggles along looking for the financing
to help finish it, "What we're doing is building a stage set for
the mayor to make an appearance on. But that's all it is, a set." 0
REBUILDING HOME
TBEnFTB
AND LAST
BOMESTEADERS
OF 151st ST.
T
HERE ARE AT LEAST a couple
of different ways of gutting out the in-
terior of a New York tenement. Profession-
al demolition crews, when operating under
a watchful public eye, build the required
chute which empties into a street-side
dumpster. Where the law is less vigilant,
the more common down and dirty demo
method is to take the shortest and cheapest
route from building to street: usually a toss
from an ,upper window preceded by a cur-
sory glance to see if anyone is in range.
But in the waning sunshine of a recent
Saturday afternoon, on a side street of
Broadway in Harlem's Hamilton Heights,
six workers walked armfuls of broken wall
studs and floorboards down four flights of
stairs, a front stoop, and then a hundred feet
up the block. There, they deposited it in
a neat pile at the basement entrance to an
occupied tenement.
On his way back from one of these trips,
one worker was asked if this wasn't a slow
and inefficient way to empty a building.
The worker, James Perry, straightened
himself, squared his feet and looked seri-
ously if slightly scornfully at his question-
er: "First, we don't have the money for the
dumpsters. Second, even if we did, we
would be wasting the wood. That building,"
said Perry, pointing up the street, "has a
wood-burning furnace. This way, we get rid
of the wood, and they get free heat. I con-
sider that a productive and useful ex-
change."
Just about all of the wood and the rest
of the debris has been carried out of 515
West 151st Street now. The ten homestead-
ers who have labored each of their
weekends since joining the city-authorized
urban homesteading project, are now work-
CITY L1MITS/ApriI1984
The homesteaders of 515 West 15Ist Street: Frpm left, Salah, Terry Smith, Steve
Lottie Porch, and Moe Person.
ing on beam replacement and finishing off
the new subfloors they've had to construct
in place of old rotted and water damaged
floors. After that , as an outside crew is
hopefully installing new windows, there is
the framing of the walls and placing insu-
lation. The second major milestone in the
homesteading process is the installation of
new basic systems - electric, heating and
plumbing. This is still several months away.
And it's not until all of that is done that 515
West 151st Street will actually be sold by
the city to the homesteaders who, by then,
will have contributed from two to three
years into the project .
515 is lucky compared to some
homesteading buildings. It is slated to get
the full $10,000 per unit that the city makes
available - $100,000 for the entire build-
ing which the city will spend from its fed-
eral Community Development funds
allotment. Out of that the city will try to
squeeze as much as it can: 100 percent of
20
' the heating plant and system, approximate-
Jy 80 percent of the plumbing and electri-
cal work. Whatever $100,000 won't stretch
to cover will be the homesteaders' problem:
to pay for or construct themselves the best
they can.
That large potential cost is just one Qf
several major obstacles along the path
towards completion of the building. There
is also meeting the construction timetable,
learning how to do what has to be done,
and, hopefully, locating some outside
financial aid. Everyone in the group knows
by now that they are looking down a road
where the expenses are about to rise dra-
matically as the workload similarly in-
creases.
Why would a group of young, talented
people pursue what could ultimately be a
full three years of work, taking up the lion's
share of their free time not to mention
energies?
"I decided I was going to own some-
thing in New York or leave," ~ a i d Moe Per-
son, an artist who says that the area around
Manhattan Valley where he currently rents
is rapidly changing as buildings go co-op
at prices beyond his reach.
Terry Smith, the president of the group,
cited an added reason. "A lot of us aspire
to be able to live and work in this commu-
nity. Quite simply, I wanted to live in
Harlem."
"Yeah," agreed Salah, a soft-spoken com-
puter consultant who is looking to help
nonprofit community groups adapt their
needs to new technology. "If you don't do
something it's hard to hang on there. I've
gotten used to living in New York."
Another homesteader, Lottie Porch, was
seeking to live among a group of people
she knew and with whom she felt secure.
"Being a single woman," she said, "it's real-
ly important to know your neighbors."
For James Perry, who was born in
Brooklyn and grew up over a launderette
on Lenox Avenue, and is currently unem-
ployed, homesteading was a chance to com-
bine getting a home with contributing to
his community. Steve Hyman, also a
homesteader, currently lives a few blocks
away and wants to be able to stay in the
community where he works as a choir
director at a Baptist church.
An Assist with Section 8 Tax Shelter
The five-story brick building with round
arched windows is next door to another that
is being homesteaded. Both of them were
drawn into the homesteading program by
Luana Robinson, the feisty leader of the
Coalition of Hamilton Heights Tenants As-
sociation. A completed Section 8 substan-
tial rehabilitation project sponsored by
Robinson's group is directly across the
street. Another called Sinclair House is
further down the block towards Broadway.
"It didn't make sense to rehab buildings
and leave some across the street that were
falling apart ;' said Robinson recently. She
said attempts to salvage the buildings from
negligent owners went on for several years
but when the city seized them for back tax-
es their decline, instead of being reversed,
was accelerated. Robinson said she ap-
pealed directly to Mayor Koch for help with
the buildings and a few months later they
were taken into the homesteading program.
To help the buildings along, Robinson
pledged $20,000 of her group's share of the
sale of the tax shelter which investment in
the low income Section 8 project afforded
upper income investors. Also, the Neigh-
borhood Work Program, which employs
ex-offenders in community projects,
provided much of the demolition labor as
well as the dumpsters, thereby saving the
homesteaders a major expenditure.
Robinson sought people to join the
project through notices posted around the
area. Still , even with the headstart provid-
ed by the demolition and the cash contri-
bution from the tax syndication, four other
groups of homesteaders made brief stabs
at working the buildings before bailing out.
The current crew recognizes the frailty of
a project and a group held together at this
point with little more than a wish and a
promise.
"We are the final homesteading group,"
insisted Terry Smith emphatically. Keep-
ing the grouptogether has meant attention
to the process of work as well as the
amount. The group meets formally once a
month, more often when emergencies
arise. Criticism, particularly leveled at
members of the group, is encouraged to be
specific. According to Salah, ".It's grown
into a kind of family."
The roughest jolt this family has taken
thus far came when the city sharply
reduced its earlier promise of systems in-
stallation, a pledge the homesteaders had
built their cost estimates around.
The city's promise was delivered around
Christmas of 1982. "They said they had a
Christmas present for us," recalled Lottie
Porch. "They were going to give us full
heating, full electric and plumbing and
windows as well. as fixtures for the
bathroom. Then, a few months later - I
remember it was a day when it rained and
rained - we were told that due to a Board
of Estimate decision, they could no longer
deliver all of the systems to us."
Both of the 15lst Street buildings are slat-
ed to get the full $10,000 contribution from
the city, but the figure is now a ceiling, not
an average. If the full systems couldn't be
purchased for that amount, the homestead-
ers would have to make up the difference.
According to Lorena Robinson-Saeed,
who toils at HPD trying to make sure that
the program delivers what it promises, the
systems work should begin ill a few
months. The city will definitely provide the
heating, and then use all that is left over
to do other work.
The buildings have also been pledged
replacement windows through the Commu-
nity Management and Training Coalition,
a division of the New York Urban Coali-
tion. The windows, which average $145
21
ape ice, are being provided through that
group's contract with the New York Depart-
ment of State. Buildings will get 72 win-
dows apiece, still 36 less than each needs.
Getting most of the windows provided
may ultimately make a big difference for
the project. But meanwhile, homesteaders
remain in a state of high agitation about
their own lack of control over the coming
selection process of the contractors who
will do the work in their buildings. It will .
be the responsibility of their architect to
sign off on contracted work, but picking
who is actually going to do it depends upon
who is on HPD's list and who bids the
lowest. "Don't you think we should get
some input into this?" suggested Terry
Smith. Added Salah, "There's a paternal at-
titude here."
Finally, the prospect of continuing to pay
the two rents necessitated by the project has
placed several members in a tough finan-
cial place, one they don't expect to get
much better. The group agreed to contrib-
ute $75 per homesteader, half again as
much as the 'city's $50 minimum figure.
They expect their second rent to go much
higher soon as they get closer to finishing
work. "To call this program low and
moderate income is a misnomer," said
James Perry. .
They also bemoan being in the same spot
as all other homesteaders in the program:
without legal title to the building - some-
thing they can't get until the city finishes
the systems work - they have nothing to
offer a bank towards a loan, even were they
able to interest one in lending to them.
"We're hanging here in limbo," said Smith.
The bright spots have been many,
however. They point to UHAB's patient
tutoring in the needed construction skills
as well as faithful provision of techni-cal as-
sistance on how to deal with the day-to-day
tasks of rebuilding. Similarly, the New
York Coalition of Homesteaders holds out
the hope of being able to affect not just city
policy, but to carry out joint fundraising
and group bulk purchasing. There is also
the promise of completing the building,
even though that is off somewhere in the
distance yet. But in the meantime, the sense
of "family" and community that has already
been built among the homesteaders of 515
looks like it will carry them there.o T.R.
REBUILDING HOME
ACORN'S HOMESTEADING CAMPAIGN
WINS A FIRST ROUND IN BROOKLYN
GUliller'mo Colon, left, and neighbor, on the
stoop of the Wyona Street building in East New York
they intend to homestead with ACORN's help and a city loan program.
By Michael Henry Powell
T
HE VACANT, TWO-SlDRY brown-
stone on 325 Wyona Street stands amid
both structural and human devastation.
Across the tree-lined street is a deserted,
four-story brick apartment building, a gut-
ted flower-printed sofa lying in its lobby.
Around the corner, derelicts nose through
acres of rubble-filled lots. And on nearby
Sutter Avenue, shabby grocery stores cater
to a slowly diminishing population.
But for Guillermo Colon, a 46-year-old
upholsterer, 325 Wyona Street represents
the culmination of a dream. He wants to
homestead the property, turning it with his
own sweat into a home for his family of six.
Twenty years after emigrating from Puerto
Rico, Colon stands next to a glassless win-
. dow and says, "I will do this because a home
for my family is my dream."
Colon and over 200 East New York,
Brooklyn residents, all members of the na-
tionwide organizing group ACORN, hope
to participate in a soon-to-be announced city
homesteading program. It will be ad-
ministered by the City Department of Hous-
ing Preservation and Development, which
last June received $1 million in federal
homesteading funds.
However, initial details of the program
have already stirred anger within East New
York. Colon and other residents worry that
high income guidelines, a lottery system for
participants and targeting of money for cer-
tain blocks will keep most ACORN mem-
bers, who have pressured the city to start a
program for two years, out of the homes.
HPD officials profess little concern about
the complaints of ACORN's local members.
These officials say that HPD is trying to de-
velop a successful program for the entire
city. East New Yorkers counter that planned
expansion to Harlem and the Bronx could
fatally dilute an under-funded program.
22
They are also insistent that homesteaded
dwellings fit into the agency's target areas
and that participants have incomes high
enough to run a home. HPD will likely set
lower income for a family of four at $16-
$18,000, with an upper income limit of
$46,000.
Other proposed guidelines, however, will
undoubtedly be more to ACORN's liking.
HPD plans to offer homesteaders
$15-$25,000 loans at three percent interest
rates. ACORN organizer Fran Streich said
those rates were "better than we had hoped
for." Loan payments would start after three
years and taxes could be deferred for up to
ten years.
Herb Siegel, HPD's director of Brooklyn
development, cautioned that the generous
loan terms only underline the need for tight
income guidelines. He said, "You have to
pay oil, pay electricity, make sure the pipes
don't freeze. That takes money and not all
people can afford it."
"This is a City program, not ACORN's;'
Siegel said later when asked about
ACORN's criticism. "It may meet their
needs and it may not. They don't really un-
derstand the program."
Louise Stanley, a 50-year-old mother of
six and chairperson of an East New York
chapter of ACORN, bridles at talk that the
homesteading program was HPD's idea. She
'rattled off numerous demonstrations which
ACORN had mounted around the issue, in
addition to incessant lobbying of HPD and
Brooklyn Borough President Howard
Golden.
"It was Golden, not HPD, who got the
money targeted for East New York," Stan-
ley said. "And I don't think that he would
have done it without our pressure."
National Homesteading Campaign
ACORN (its name stands for Association
of Community Organizations for Reform
Now) also points to over ten years of suc-
cessful homesteading and squatting battles
fought across the nation. Mixing street
politics - building seizures, sit-ins and sym-
bolic tent cities - with high pressure lobby-
ing, ACORN last year convinced its
congressional allies to allocate $20 million
in the HUD budget for homesteading. An
additional $12 million in federal Section 312
low interest loans will also be tied to
homesteading. None of this money is relat-
ed to the $1 million HPD received last year.
Since launching an organizing drive in
Brooklyn two years ago, ACORN has ac-
quired 2,000 dues paying members in
Crown Heights, Fort Greene and East New
York. Its members, at ACORNs suggestion,
have made homesteading their overriding
concern.
ACORN has been criticised by HPD and
others in the housing field for not having the
technical expertise to push homesteading.
Seigel said ACORN has been "a little dis-
honest. They are not telling people what is
really happening out there, how much it
costs to rehabilitate a house."
Organizers for ACORN freely ac-
knowledge that they cannot provide techni-
cal expertise. Their approach, they say, is
to organize residents to demand money and
buildings. Technical expertise should be
provided by the city. Indeed, in East New
York, the Pratt Institute for Community and
Environmental Development will use some
of its city funding to target buildings and
provide basic work plans.
"There are people out here who have no
hope without a homesteading said
Louise Stanley, touching on ACORN's bas-
ic approach. "These are the people who will
strive twice, three times as hard as the nor-
mal person to acquire a house."
Stanley and Guillermo Colon stressed that
normal cost estimates should not be applied
to East New York. "In ACORN we have
plumbers, electricians, carpenters;' said
Colon . "Everybody has agreed to put
together their skills.
"I've talked to all the neighbors here;' he
continued, pointing to six cars on Wyona
Street with ACORN bumper stickers. "They
said they will do anything to help, that they
want to see the homes occupied."
If the income floor of $16,000 is imposed,
Colon, like many other residents, could not
take part in the program. His income does
not exceed $10,000.
Equally grating to ACORN members is
the planned lottery and the limited number
of homes available. HPD will offer
homesteaders only 35 to 40 of the over 200
structurally sound buildings in the neighbor-
hood. And HPD has refused to give a first-
come, first-serve preference to ACORN
members, many of whom spent over a year
scouting and researching homes.
"To have these people that have fought so
hard thrown into a lottery with everyone else
just is not fair," said Stanley. "Most of them
will have nothing to show for two years of
hard work."
HPD says it wants to inclilde as many
ACORN members as possible. But Herb
Seigel said, "If we cannot get ACORN peo-
ple in, it would not necessarily mean the
program is unsuccessful."
If these differences are not soon resolved,
ACORN members say they will begin squat-
ting in buildings, regardless of city guide-
lines. How the city would react to such an
action is unclear. But to Stanely, who has
owned a home in East New York for 17
years, the issue is quite simple. "We have all
these buildings out here, just sitting there;'
she said. "That is the real total write-off for
the city. Doesn't it make sense to take a
chance on people?"D
Michael Henry Powell has been a Brooklyn
tenant organizer and is a frequent contribu-
tor to City Limits. His article, ':<tCORN
Comes to Squat," appeared in the January,
1983 issue of the magazine.
Low Cos1Insurance!!
LET US DO A FREE EVAWATION 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 the past
8 years.
,/
Our Caverages Include:
FIRE. LIABILITY. BONDS. DIRECTORS' & OFFICERS' LIABILITY
SPECiAL BUILDING PACKAGES.
/'
23
306 FIFTH AVE.
NEW YORK, N.Y. 10001
(212) 279-8300
Ask for: Jean Carbonari
i I I I I ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
HOMESTEADING IS MORE
THAN JUST HOUSING
By Andrew Reicher
I
N THE MID-NINETEEN SIXTIES
a nationwide study revealed that one out
every five single-family homes was owner
built . This self-help housing was evenly
spread across the population by region, in-
come and urban, suburban and rural areas.
Through their self-help efforts, these
owners were able to reduce the cost of their
housing, gain control over the work and its
quality, and acquire skills and experience
which lowered their future maintenance
and operating costs. Later studies indicat-
ed similar or higher proportions of self-
help in renovation and home improvement.
In 1973, the Urban Homesteading As-
sistance Board (UHAB) was founded to
provide technical assistance to self-help ef-
forts in multi-family buildings. UHAB did
not invent urban homesteading - it was al -
ready undf.rway in East Harlem, Manhat-
tan Valley and elsewhere, and would
continue. Rather, it was UHAB's goal to
make homesteading opportunities available
to a larger number of low income New Yor-
kers - those without special skills, unique
strengths, or resources.
At the time, homesteading was changing
the face of many older neighborhoods in
Wilmington , Delaware, Baltimore,
Maryland and other cities across the
country.
24
Urban homesteading was clearly
possible.
But could homesteading lower the cost
of housing for people of lower incomes?
Could it offer ownership to residents
without cash down payments? Could it
offer its residents control and stabilize
building management? For that matter,
could homesteaders build decent housing?
Ten years of experience provides affir-
mative answers to each of these questions.
Over that period of time, virtually every
possible program has been bent to
homesteading's purposes: Participation and
Municipal Loans, Sweat Equity and Direct
Loans, CETA and Criminal Justice funds,
Community Development money and Sec-
tion 312 Multifamily loans. Trying to use
each of these tools has taught us valuable
lessons.
There are three basic criteria for a suc-
cessfullow income homesteading program:
I) affordability, 2) affordability, and 3) af-
fordability.
Affordability #1: A homesteading pro-
gram must provide adequate resources for
the completion of necessary rehabilitation.
These can be a combination of the owners'
sweat equity, cash equity, grants and loans.
But the sum total must meet the project
needs and be readily available and afford-
able to the homesteaders:
Affordability #2: The time, sweat, cash
and sacrifice required of homesteaders
must be affordable in human terms. In the
early studies of self-help housing and
throughout the literature, it has been found
that families involved suffered a significant-
ly high incidence of problems leading to
separation and divorce. Homesteading is a
high-stress undertaking. It is also a major
strain on budgets and time and often re-
quires giving up evenings, weekends, holi -
days , entertainme.nt , recreation and
relaxation.
Affordability #3: The skills and ex-
perience acquired during self-help rehabili-
tation can significantly reduce maintenance
and operating costs through self-
management. Often thi s is the largest cost
savings. A number of program elements
must be present, however, to be able to take
advantage of thi s opportunity.
Homesteaders must be involved and in
control of the development process if they
are to benefit from the intense learning ex-
perience it can provide.
Many of homesteading's failures can be
attributed to such program flaws. Time and
again, community organizations and city
agencies decided to do this development
and to manage the rehab for the homestead-
ers - turning over control only when the
job is done and they exit. This is also the
point where technical assistance, skills and
experience depart, usually because fund-
ing has ceased and contractual obligations
are over. The homesteaders take over, but
without experience, skills, practice or as-
sistance.
How can we avoid this common pitfall?
Technical assistance and training must be
available during development, rehabilita-
tion and on into the management phase.
That assistance must not interfere or disa-
ble the homesteaders, but instead support
and enable them to be in control, to en-
counter problems, make mistakes but ulti-
mately succeed. It requires patience and
vision on the part of sponsoring organiza-
tons and city agencies to allow this often
slow, inefficient and certainly difficult
process to take place.
Nor does it end when the construction
work is completed. Technical assistance
and training is essential during manage-
ment as well. The lessons of New York Ci-
ty's Tenant Interim Lease program (TIL)
speak clearly to this point. TIL also indi-
cates the ongoing need for education and
support as co-op leadership changes, as
government requirements are altered, and
as the economy fluctuates.
Back at the Start
But in 1984, homesteading is right where
it was ten years ago - available only to
those with special skills and access to
resources and time not commonly availa-
ble. In no sense is there an affordable city
or federal homesteading program. This is
in spite of a remarkable and growing need
and interest. The time is right for a new
program initiative.
What should that program look like?
Like any housing program, homestead-
ing should provide a solution to a problem
and an opportunity for participation. The
problem is decent and affordable housing,
the solution is homesteading and
homeownership.
Because the housing stock and the
homesteader groups are diverse, the pro-
gram has to be flexible ; but the solution and
the opportunity must be constant.
A workable homesteading program must
have three major features : access to the
housing stock, financing and technical as-
sistance.
The mechanisms for providing access to
buildings are already well established. At
the established $250 per dwelling unit
price, sale should be offered either at the
beginning of rehab or following a lease.
With thousands of buildings available a
homesteading program should be designed
to discourage competition for a readily
available resource.
While only one of several essential fea-
tures, financing is the most visible and
volatile element of a program. With its
enormous allocation of federal Communi-
ty Development Block Grant funds, HPD
has the resources for an affordable
. homesteading program. What is lacking is
the political will and commitment.
Now that New York State is talking about
funding homesteading, the resources ex-
pand and the opportunities to leverage pri-
vate funds increase.
Financing can take the form of loans or
grants. Both should be available. "Hard
costs" are eligible for 1-51 tax abatements,
and are thus better financed by loans, while
the soft costs of rehabilitation - profes-
sional fees, taxes, insurance and the like -
could be covered by grants.
With a real commitment from city and
state, the power and influence of govern-
ment could be used to secure commitments
from private lenders and investors.
These financial resources can then be
mixed and matched for each project . Each
homesteader group should be dealt with in-
dividually in order to develop a financing
package that makes the project a success
at the least public cost, but with afforda-
bility as the bottom line.
Homesteading has always offered the ef-
ficient use of public subsidy.
Cooperative ownership offers still further
efficiencies through the method of "share
loan financing." Whereas traditional project
financing subsidizes all units in the project
at the lowest common denominator, using
the share loan financing concept, the sub-
sidy is tailored to the income of each
individual occupant. This way, those
requiring more or less subsidy can be
equitably served at the same time.
Minneapolis is soon to make its first
loans from a share loan financing pool
made up of a variety of public and private
funds. While each co-op member has an
individual financing plan with the fund, the
maintenance charge collected by the co-op
25
is equalized for all members. Upon resale,
the financing is recalculated and subse-
quent co-op owners can have the subsidy
tailored to their specific needs. This kind
of financing, from whatever sources are
available, uses subsidies more efficiently
and preserves the integrity of the co-op at
the same time.
Technical Assistance or
Human Services
While it may seem self-serving for a
technical assistance organization like
UHAB to advocate for technical assistance
in a homesteading program, ten years of
struggling with projects both with and
without it have taught us some convincing
lessons.
Homesteading is a program for people.
More than developing housing, it develops
the potential and capability of people and
their organizations. The needed technical
housing development skills-cost esti-
mates, construction help, architectural
plans etcetera-are only a small part of
homesteading'S technical assistance.
Homesteading'S needs should not be con-
fused with those of a regular housing
development program. It is a deadly mis-
take to design any homesteading program
without attention to how those needs are
to be met.
Finally, if homesteading is ever to have
a significant impact on this city's housing
problem, we must stop allowing home-
steading to be defined by the funding which
government makes available to it. Those
involved in homesteading efforts must
develop a program independent of the on-
again, off-again funding stream. This pro-
gram must continue to develop homestead-
ers and their organizations, to seek and
develop opportunities (both public and pri-
vate) and stand ready to take advantage of
any opportunities which arise.
Only when we see homesteading as our
program-not HPD's-when we see Urban
Homesteading, Sweat Equity and Tenant
Interim Lease and all the rest as one and
the same; when we see homesteaders, not
buildings, as the goal of our program, will
homesteading begin to line up to our ten-
year-old goals and expectations. 0
Andrew Reicher is executive director o/the
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board.
THE NEW YORK HISPANIC HOUSING COALTION
THIRD ANNUAL CONFERENCE
THE FUTURE OF HOUSING:
PUBLIC/PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS
MAY 3-4, 1984 NEW YORK PENTA HOfEL 401 SEVENTH AVE., N.Y.C.
Thursday May 3
Morning
A: Homesteading: A housing alternative for low and moderate in-
come people. Panelists: Simon Keifer-Urban Homesteading Pro-
gram. Department of Housing Preservation and Development, Eugene
Rodriquez-Community Planning Board #11 , Howard Brandstein-
Catholic Charities- Homeownership Project, Nilda Pimental - Lower
East Side Homesteader.
B: Housing the Homeless: (Pt.\) A forum to exchange ideas on the
homeless problem. Panelists: Lucy Buther- Legal Aid Society, Mar-
celia Silverman, Esq.- Legal Aid Society, Nancy Wackstein -Citizens
Committee for Children of New York, Inc. , Ellen Ferber-Catholic
Charities, Fred Giebach-Coalition for the Homeless.
C: Managing the Not10r-ProjiJ Corporation: Experienced managers
will share their know-how. Panelists: Jean Barber Bucek -
Management Consultant, Hippocrates P. Kourakos, Esq.- Kourakos
& Associates, Inc., David M. Muchnick-President, South Bronx
2000 L.D.C., Andrew Reicher-Executive Director, Urban
Homesteading Assistance Board, Yolanda Sanchez, East Harlem
Council for Human Services.
D: Inclusionary Zoningflousing Trust Fund: An overview of these
concepts. Panelists: Ron Shiffman - Pratt Institute, Paul Davidoff-
Center for Metropolitan Action, Manuel Ortiz- Executive Director,
Lower East Side Economic Development Corp.
Afternoon:
E: Tenants Rights: Discussion and exchange of ideas on tenants rights.
Panelists: Elizabeth Gonzalez, Esq.- MFY Legal Services, James
Frances IV-Legal Aid Society, Jose Alberto Alva'rez - Executive
Director, Accion Latina, Jane Levine-Assistant Attorney General,
State of New York.
F: Co-op Conversion Process: The conversion process: Red Herring
and the Fund Offering Plan. Panelists: John Dandola -Office of the
Attorney General.10hn Samalot-Citibank N.A., Al Drummond -
Community Service Society. Kevin Plunkett. Esq.- Plunkett &
Jaffee, P.C.
G: Housing the Homeless: (Pt.2) Public initiatives to address the
homeless problem. Panelists: Wilfredo VargaS-Assistant Commis-
sioner of Relocation, Department of Housing Preservation and De-
velopment , Nancy Travers-New York State Department of Social
Services, Robert Jorgen - Human Resources Administration.
H: Housing Legislative Initiatives Symposium: A briefing session
of planned, proposed or pending housing legislation will be present-
ed, discussion on these iniatives will be examining their intent and
impact.
Friday: May 4
Morning
I: Financing Multi-Family Housing: The focus of the workshop will
be on non-conventional sources of multi-family financing. Panelists:
Arthur Abba Goldberg-Matthews and Wright, Michael Lappin-
President, Community Preservation Corporation, Scott Doughrery-
Vice President ofInvestor Marketing, Federal Home Loan Mortgage
Corporation, Rose Nooran-Center for Community Development,
Jay Lustig - Director of Development, New York State Housing
Finance Agency.
J: State of New York Mortgage Agency: Use of SONYMA's mort-
gage insurance and mortgage loan programs as financing vehicles
Panelists: Dana Cohoon - Vice President of Single Family Housing
Program, Alan Segan - Chief Development & Planning Officer, Mort-
gage Insurance Program, Lisa Caton - Director for Research and De-
velopment.
K: New Housing Production Program: An analysis, and a discus-
sion, of the new program. Panelists: Sandra Ruiz-Butter- Puerto Ri-
can Legal Defense and Education Fund; Carol Lamberg - Executive
Director, Settlement Housing Fund; Charles Reiss- Deputy Com-
missioner, Officer of Development Department of Housing Preser-
vation and Devel opment.
Afternoon
L: Awards Lucheon: Keynote address and award presentations to
several notable individuals from the housing industry.
M: Policy and Issues Symposium: Federal. state and city officials
will join publ ic and private sectors representatives in an open dis-
cussion of the conference theme, Public/Private Partnerships.
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FORM
Please make check payable to New York Hispanic Housing Coalition, Inc.
Mail to: New York Hispanic Housing Coalition, Inc. , p.o. Box 880 Stuyvesant Station, New York, NY. 10009
Enclosed is my check for $ . This is for person/s at the appropriate rate (see below).
o Individual $12.00 0 Not-for-profit corp. $20.00 0 Corporate $50.00 (Fee includes Registration and Lunch on May 4, (984)
Please list below agency or organization, address
Agency/Organization
Address __________________________________________________________________________ _
City _______________________________ State
Zip Code
CITY LIMITS/April: 1984 26

~ ~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Aaron Weiss: Queens Tenant Leader
By Victor Besson
On March 1st, Aaron Weiss, a long-time
Queens tenant leader and political activist,
died of a fatal heart attack. Born in 1922,
J#iss was active in the carpenter's union
for many years but was driven out for his
political beliefs during the McCarthy era.
He owned a carpet store in Flushing for
over twenty-fiye years, and was co-chair of
the Flushing Democratic Club in the 1970s.
The following remembrance was written by
Victor Besson who is on the steering com-
mittee of the Queens League of United
Tenants.
S
HE MA, the beginning of the First
. Commandment in Hebrew, is for the
Jewish people, the symbol of Abraham's
Covenant with God. This pact imposes
upon the Jewish people the serious respon-
sibility for moral behavior in relating to all
others. Violation of this ... Covenant il> the
source of the proverbial "Jewish Guilt."
Aaron Weiss' core was built around the
conscientious resolve to behave morally.
He saw tenants being oppressed and he
became the founding president of the
Greater Flushing Tenants Council. He
noted the increasing multi-ethnicity of the
Flushing community and he conceived and
was the primary mover of "Flushing Fan-
tastiC In the fall of 1978, close to 200,000
Aaron \\elss
watched Koreans dance in costume and
Chinese, Indians, Japanese and other eth-
nic groups celebrate their native cultures
in a spirit of friendship and unity. He
observed that more could be accomplished
as an elected representative of his commu-
nity and organized the Queens Citizens
Coalition for Political Alternatives which
was the base for his try for the City
Council.
The entrenched politicians (Manes,
Fink, et al) used state resources to block
his efforts. He sued them all. He was very
conscious of the need to struggle against
racism and tried to unite all groups with
the black community of Flushing. He met
in a black community church to sponsor
a nuclear freeze resolution and to mobilize
people to protest United States opposition
to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
Fittingly enough, he had just left a peace
meeting in Greenwich Village when he
suffered an asthmatic attack which trig-
gered a fatal heart attack.
On Yom Kippur, the Jewish people are
required to fast to atone for sins commit-
ted the previous year. Sins not only for
what they did that was immoral, but also
what they omitted to do for others. If they
failed to act to bring justice to others when
others were being treated unjustly, they
were gUilty. So too, if they withheld mercy,
compassion or anything else we owe to
others who are struggling or suffering.
We had some political differences, but
in his context , Aaron Weiss, in a deeply
human way, upheld Abraham's Covenant. 0
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Housing Conservation Coordinators,
a grassroots housing organization
founded in 1971 and supported by
private, corporate and public
sources, seeks chief administrator to
provide direction to staff and volun-
teers engaged in neighborhood proj-
ects' fundraising and community
liaison. Leadership and administra-
tive skills essential. Experience with
low income housing desirable. Attrac-
tive salary and benefits.
Send resumes to: Dan Cooper,
Chairman Search Committee
Peat Marwick, 345 Park Avenue,
New York, NY 10022. Please respond
by April 16th.
-An Equal Opportunity Employer-
kot
0$8 Regular o $12 Supporting
o $ __ Sustaining
Make checks payable to:
Reproductive Rights National Network
17 Murray Street
New York, New York 10007
27
Name ________________________ __
Address ______________________ _
City _______ State ________ Zip __ _
CITY LIMITS/April 1984
The Co-op Process
GOING CO-OP: The Complete Guide to
Buying and Owning Your Own Aparlment,
by William CoughLan, Jr. and Monte
Franke. 1983, Beacon Press, $15.00 cloth;
$7. 50 paper, 206 pp. and appendices.
By A.E. Dreyfuss
I
N AN UNUSUALLY READABLE
"how-to" book, Coughlan and Franke
have combined necessary information
backed up with reasons why anyone would,
and should investigate owning housing on
a cooperative basis. Rather than deal with
the differences among various types ofhous-
ing co-ops (union-sponsored, tenant-
sponsored, developer-sponsored, luxury
high-rise, scattered site, mutually-owned
housing - to name just a few of the many
categories that usually divide one type of co-
op housing from another) , Going Co-op ex-
amines process: from the initial interest in
what to look for when buying into a co-op
(finances, physical aspects, structure ofthe
organization); to what you need to know to
set up a housing co-op; and how to insure
through initial structure that the co-op will
survive. In a positive vein, the authors dis-
cuss similarities by examining commonali-
ties. It is a refreshing change, because a
housing co-op is at heart a democratically-
run business, and in that it is one of the most
unique forms of business, and of housing.
Coughlan and Franke's bias eliminates ar-
guments of high income vs. low income and
looks at the critical questions in buying into,
or starting a housing co-op. If correctly set-
up, as with the models afforded by the
authors, the co-op should be off and run-
ning, with full member involvement. The
book does not go into problems that occur
after time - when carrying charges have to
be increased, or the reserves are inadequate
for the new boiler, but that is for another
book. This book does steer the reader clear
of many pitfalls, suggests when outside help
is necessary, and stresses the responsibili-
ties of members . .
Social Capital
The authors' stress is on at least examin-
ing self-help as a means of reducing hous-
ing costs. This is useful in rehabilitation
work, leg-work in organizing, and in the
post-conversion need for management so-
lutions. Suggested outlines are provided to
demonstrate how each proposed sol ution
can be made to work. In addition, there is
presented the newly-coined notion of "social
capital;' an intangible asset, which comes
from members' participation. It "benefits
both the co-op and its individual members.
People reap financial and emotional rewards
from the co-op. Social capital sustains the
co-op in hard times because the members
remember the good, and feel a responsibil-
ity to the other members to work together
and endure the more difficult times." The so-
cial side of co-ops is stressed, not in the
pedantic manner that so usually accom-
panies the concept of "constant education;'
but in practical suggestions for activities that
created the social bonding that is at the basis
28
of a healthy co-op community.
And co-ops are different, and can be the
housing hope of the future. "Co-ops go into
business to provide affordable housing to
members. As a member, you should be
more concerned about minimizing monthly
housing costs than maximizing future in-
vestment return. Part of your return will
come every month in the form of lower
housing costs."
The language and structury of the book
are meant for the layperson, as well as the
professional who is not yet conversant with
housing co-ops (thi s can include local
government officials, bankers, architects,
accountants, and others). The chapter on re-
habilitation, for example, covers such topics
as whether to repair or replace, planning for
rehabilitation, dealing with construction and
sweat equity. The chapter on house policies
deal s with collections of carrying charges
and other income, management main-
tenance, capital improvements, resale and
transfer value and other house policies. It
is aimed at the member, to provide skills that
will allow that new member to see the pos-
sibility of being a leader, in taking charge
of some part of the co-op's operation, as well
as having enough knowledge to monitor the
co-ops's overall functioning.
Going Co-op is an excellent step-by-step
guide, with knowledge and information ac-
cumulating the more the reader progresses.
The co-op concepts are introduced as prac-
tical means to an end, and with only one-
half million units of co-op housing in the
country (of no matter what income brack-
et), there is much room for expansion and
putting these ideas to the test. Models are
cited. There is need for greater communi-
cation among housing co-ops, to help more
get started. Indeed, the issues surrounding
affordable housing are complex, but with
this guide as a base from which to act, co-
op housing may well become the important
answer it has always promised to be. D
A. E. Dreyfuss has been invoLved with hous-
ing co-ops for fifteen years, and Lives in one
in New York City.
A Rush to Boycott
Dear City Limits:
As an avid reader of your publication,
I am impressed with the insightful cover-
age of the housing crisis in New York from
the tenant's point of view. While I am aware
that City Limits has a specific viewpoint,
in that it exposes some groups' activities
more readily than others, I was nonethe-
less shocked and revolted to see such a
direct ethnic slur as appears in your Janu-
ary 1984 issue. I am referring to the car-
toon on page 16.
The images of the greedy landlords are
clearly anti-Semitic. They are reminiscent
of the same figures with long hook noses
in vile Nazi propaganda of the 1920's and
1930's, and the intent is obvious. This is
as offensive as if a magazine were to por-
tray blacks with large round lips and pop
eyes.
This cartoon is a crude invective directed
against aU Jews. I am therefore cancelling
my subscription to your magazine immedi-
ately. Please cease delivery at once. If other
Jewish readers react as I have, you can take
some satisfaction in having added to the
demise of that already moribund entity
which is black-Jewish relations in New
York City.
Michael Porter
Piermont, NY
When two other readers raised the same
criticism of the cartoon we agreed and
offered our apologies for offending them
and others (Letters, February/March
1984). Michael Porter thinks nothing short
of a boycott will teach us a lesson. Okay.
But what's this about helping undo black-
Jewish relations? Neither the "victimized"
tenant in the cartoon is black, nor are cur-
rent members of the staff. Whatever the
logic here (it escapes us) it seems some
conclusions can swiftly be reached by any
route you choose, if that's where you want
to wind up anyway. Editor.
From Outside the Kingdom
Dear City Limits:
I am a housing activist here in D.C.
involved in the struggle for rent control and
1001 other things. Our City Council will
soon be considering an extension of D.C.'s
existing rent control law. In that context,
I would be extremely interested in examin-
ing the draft RSA rent code. Could you
arrange to have a copy sent to me at the
above address? I think your mag is excel-
lent. Its usefulness extends well ~ o n d the
borders of Koch's Kingdom. Keep up the
good work.
Henry H. Leland
Washington, D.C.
Fallout on Fox Street
Dear City Limits:
The article by Susan Reynolds on tax
foreclosures in the January issue
("Neighborhoods Pay the Price of
Slower Tax Foreclosures,") was of par-
ticular interest to me. The building
cited as an example of what can happen
when the city doesn't foreclose, 800
Fox Street, is across the street from
where I have lived for the past 17
years. But the quote by Getz Obstfeld
of Banana Kelly, that the building is
rented to "alcoholics, junkies and other
undesirables ... a sweatshop or some
other illegal manufacturing" and is
"used by prostitutes" from Hunts Point
is far from the truth. To my knowledge,
the only "undesirables" in that building
happen to be people who are unem-
ployed or who are poor and can't afford
decent housing. The part about the
sweatshop and the prostitution is simply
untrue.
It's a shame, considering how many
people in the community praise the out-
standing work that Banana Kelly has
done in the past, that Mr. Obstfeld
would say this. Particularly since there
are people in the building and around it
who would have been supportive of the
group's efforts to take 800 Fox Street
away from the owner who has been
exploiting it.
Ricky Flores
Fox Street
The Bronx
Susan Reynolds responds: Getz Obstfeld
reports that the description of some of
the residents of BOO Fox Street is not
only his own. A new merchant's aSSQ-
ciation has formed on that block (and
Longwood Avenue), and has identified
"junkies and thieves" in that building as
its main issue.
Energy Audits, SpecHlcations and technical
assistance, Investigated contractors. Complete line
of conservation projects at discount, Financing
options.
BROOKLYN ENERGY COOPERATIVE 562 Atlantic Ava. (naar 4th Ava.) 858-8803
29 CITY LlMITS/April1984
HOMESTEADING AND MANAGEMENT GUIDES FROM UBAB
UHAB-the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board-has
written a number of guides to various aspects of urban
homesteading. Each publication is available for the price in-
dicated, plus postage. Order inquiries should be directed to
Ray Brockington, UHAB, Cathedral House, 1047 Amsterdam
Ave. , New York, NY 10025, (212) 749-0602.
- A Guide to Tenants Who Manage Their Own Buildings, $10.00
(plus postage). This guide discusses all aspects of management for
tenant-managed buildings in the New York City Tenant Interim
Lease program. but is appHcable to any situation where tenants
manage an unrehabilitated building that is owned by a city or pri-
vate landlord. It starts with discussion of decison-making in a build-
ing and then details the basic policies necessary for good
management : rent collection, leases and security, non-payment,
budgeting, maintenance and repair and others. This guide is cur-
rently being revised and will be available soon. It is now available
in Spanish.
- A Guide to CooperaJive Ownership, $8.50 (plus postage) . This
manual is the last in the Homesteader's Handbook series and is a
complement to the series of seminars offered by UHAB in Cooper-
ative Management, Accounting procedures for Cooperatives,
Financing Capital Improvements and Dealing With Governmen-
tal Agencies. It is designed to help new owners meet the tasks and
responsibilities that need to be addressed in a housing coopera-
tive. A component of the manual is a series of technical supple-
ments which include sample forms and applications useful to
housing cooperatives.
- A.Guide to Coopemtive Self-Management, $7.50 (plus postage) .
This guide is very similarto A Guide for Tenants Who Manage Their
Own BUildings. but is oriented toward "sweat equity" buildings that
have undergone rehabilitation and are owned by a cooperative. This
guide covers several topics that are not found in the other guide
such as debt service, fire insurance and apartment transfer. There
is also a discussion of what is a cooperative. This guide is some-
what outdated.
A Guide to Payroll Bookkeeping, $3.00 (plus postage) . This guide
is designed to assist tenant-managed buildings with employees to
prepare payrolls, maintain records of pay roll and related expenses
and fulfill reporting requirements to federal, state and local a u t h o ~ i
ties. This guide will also be made available in Spanish.
-Managing Money and Keeping Records, $7.00 (plus postage). This
guide covers all aspects of a bookkeeping system developed by UHAB
and implemented successfully by nearly 300 tenant-managed build-
ings in New York City and around the country. A revised edition of
this manual is now available for tenants who manage buildings in New
York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development's
Division of Alternative Management Programs (DAMP) . Also in
Spanish.
- Becoming a CooperaJive, $9.00 (plus postage). This guide, used
by UHAB in New York City's DAMP programs, out I ines the steps
involved in buying your City-owned, tenant-managed building. It
gives information on transferring title. definitions of different types
of cooperatives and help in determining how much it will cost to
run the building once it is yours.
- Resources for CooperaJives, $4.50 (plus postage) . This handbook
lists mQre than 40 programs that assist New York City's low and
moderate income cooperatives and tenant-managed buildings in
reducing their maintenance and operating costs. Programs are
cataloged by service area, such as "legal services" or "loan pro-
grams." Each program description includes fees and payments,
management/business structure, elegibility requirements and con-
tact information.
- What Is a CooperaJive?, $4.50 (plus postage). This guide in draft
form answers many questions raised by tenants and community
members interested in housing cooperatives. It also raises issues
that need to be addressed by a cooperative group in the early stages
of a project.
- A Guide to Maintenance and Repair, $11.50 (plus postage) . This
guide provides information that will help tenants take care of their
building's regular maintenance and repairs, handle emergencies
and make the best possible use of tenant association resources. The
guide explains a building's basic systems and how they work, and
includes discussions about forming a maintenance policy, general
maintenance procedures, what to do when you can't do something
yourself and how to look for and hire a contractor. 0
New from UHAB - WHERE YOU STAND: A Shareholders'
Guide to Cooperative Ownership. 60C each. An excellent brief guide
for new members of housing cooperatives. This booklet is intended
as an introduction to some of the legal and social responsibilities of
living in a co-op. It also helps answer some of the questions con-
cerning the rights of co-opers and where to turn for assistance.
30
--
~ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
Experienced person sought capable of managing the
total renovation of a five-story bUilding in East Harlem.
Responsibilities include: working with architects on
drawings and specifications, hiring sub-contractors and
superyising their work; planning the entire job; working
with the project organizer to coordinate the t r a i n i n ~ of
young people; and researching vendors and purchasing
materials.
Salary is competitive. Fringe benefits are included in the
IS-month contract.
To apply contact: Milo Stanojevich
1280 Fifth Ave. , New York, NY 10029
860-8170
HOUSING COUNSELOR
To work with first-time homebuyers in an innovative,
nonprofit single-family home project in Queens.
Counseling experience and skills required. Must have
initiative and ability to work independently.
S end cover letter and resume to:
R. Pontone, GPO Box 651, Brooklyn, NY 11202
Put the
community
housing
professionals
to work for you
31
Director of
Community Management
N.lghborhood based non-proftt housing management
and rehabilitation organization .... penon with the
following qualification.:
Thr.. y.ars .xperl.nce In management of
neighborhood PfOSiIram. for low and moderate Income
re.ldents. Experlenc. with housing cooperatlv .. and
t.nant organizing .... nHal. Strong fiscal and ad-
ministrative .kllls; demonstrated abilly to supervIM a
moderate .Ized IfafI and to coordinate all program
funcHons. Knowledge of building maintenance and
rehabilHation Important. familiarity with governmental
agencl.s and funding IOUI'C.' desirable. ResIdent of
Clinton n.lghborhood and fluency In Spanish prefer-
red.
Salary: low $20,000'.
Send re.um .. to: Clinton Housing DevelOpment C0m-
pany Inc.
664 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10036
Attention: Charle. E. Abney
Richards and Fenniman, Inc., specialists in
insuring tenant and community groups a/l over
New York City, has some new and innovative
ways of helping you reach your housing goals.
For over 10 years we've been committed to
helping community housing groups like yours
evaluate their special needs and requirements
and get the best insurance financing available
at the best prices.
For more information about how our new
programs can help your group call:
Ingrid Kaminski, Account Executive
(212) 2678080
Richards and Fenniman, Inc.
156 William Street, New York, New York 10038
Your community housing insurance professionals
CITY LlMITS/April 1984
Special Oller lor lIew Readers
Subscribe CO
CiCy Lilllics and
Learn How co Fishe
is ne.
HOW TO
F'GHT'T
Chester Hart.m
an
oennis KeatIng
RiChard LeGates
lith St .... e Turner
.... r
A publ,C;1t1ll0 of (he
AOfl _Displacemenf
WITHANEW
SUBSCRIPTION
TO CITY LIMITS
':5
ver
y neighborhood activist in -the country
this book."
Gale Cincotta, Chairperson,
National Peoples ActIon
Displacement: How to Fight It was written by housing activists and experts Chester Hartman, Dennis Keat-
ing and Richard LeGates along with the Legal Services Anti-Displacement Project. Still the most thorough
exploration of the causes of displacement, the book contains a wealth of sources and details on how
tenants and homeowners across the country are resisting displacement pressures. Handsomely illustrated
and excellently written, it's a book you will find yourself returning to constantly for reference and resources.
We Cover The
Other
New
York.
Yes! Please enter my subscription to City Limits!
Individuals and Community Groups:
o $9/0ne year (10 issues) 0 $151two years
o $30 for 5 subscriptlons/one year
Businesses, Foundations, Banks, Government Agencies, & libraries:
o $25/0ne year 0 $40/two years
o Plus $3.50 for my copy of Displacement: How to Fight It
(Sorry, New Subscribers Only).
o Payment enclosed
Name ____________________________________________________ __
Address _________________________________________________ _

City Limits Magazine, April 1984 Issue

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

City Limits Magazine, April 1984 Issue

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

REBUILDING

You might also like