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8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, February 1978 Issue
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CITYLIMITSCOMMUNITY HOUSING NEWSFEBRUARY 1978 VOL. 3 NO.2
PROTEST BREAKS DEADLOCK
IN COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
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been it very important program for rescuing landlord
abandoned buildings in low income neighborhoods.
Since 1972, an increasing number of community
organizations have served as the managing agents for
buildings that came into the city's possession after theowners defaulted on their real estate taxes. Under con
tract with the city, the organizations have hired staffs tomake repairs, purchase equipment and arrange for services, advise tenants and collect rents. The groups
receive management fees from the city that help pay for
their own rent and other expenses.
The money for each contract comes from two sources :
rent from tenants and federal Community Development
funds from the city.Last year, some 56 buildings totalling more than
1,000 dwelling units were under community manage
ment in 10 neighborhoods in Brooklyn , the Bronx and
Manhattan. Under the new contracts, the figure is ex
pected to double to 2,000.
Community management has proved to be an
important a l t e r n a t i v ~ to management by the city of its
own properties. "The city is no better than an absentee
landlord," said one participant in the program."It
responds only when pressure is applied and even when
pressure is applied the city shows up with a band aid for aserious problem."
All of the existing community management contracts
expired last July, the beginning of a long series of
delays. Twice the contracts were extended while city
auditors examined the participating organizations'
books.In early December, the city approved 18 new con
tracts. Those that exceeded $100,000 (most of them)
went to the EFCB where they became bogged down byquestions raised by the state and tardiness of the city to
contracts centered on the existing practice of rent col
lection by the organizations in the community manage
ment program.The State deputy controller's office, which advises
the EFCB, took the view that tenants should pay theirrent directly to the city rather than to the groups. State
officials cited Section 126 of the New York City Charter
requiring all city revenue, including income from city
owned property, to go into the general treasury.
The position of the community organizations and, ul
timately, the city was that the groups should collect the
rent since they have responsibility for managing the
buildings. To turn rent collection over to the city would
undermine the ability of the groups to manage, theycontended, and mar the efficiency of the program.
On December 6, several weeks after the State con
troller's office first raised the rent issue, the city
corporation counsel's office was asked for a legal
opinion.City housing and legal officials acknowledge that the
matter languished for months before the corporation
counsel's office drafted an opinion strongly supporting
continued rent collection by the organizations. Meanwhile, the contracts missed two chances for EFCB
approval.Asked why it took so long to prepare an opinion, one
corporation counsel lawyer blamed lack of staff and the
volume oflegal work, adding, "Frankly, we take these
issues as they become critical."
On Feb. 8, two days before the next EFCB meeting,
there was no indication that the legal and accounting
dispute was being solved and-despite city pressure to
call it off-the community organizations went ahead
with plans to launch the demonstration the following
day.
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DEMOLITION BY DYNAMITE
LIGHTS COMMUNITY'S FUSE
Demolition by dynamite, which set of f an explosion of community protest when first slated for atest last month on abandoned buildings in the
South Bronx, will take place, City housing aidesinsist, after an explanation of the technique toaffected Community Boards.
"We have not junked the idea by any means,"said Frank Juliano, director of Community and
Site Services for the Department of HOllsingPreservation and Development.
The demolition-by-dynamite technique, knownas "implosion," is a City proposal to save moneyand time in demolishing buildings condemned bythe City or by court order. There is a rapidly
growing list that now contains some 10,000 build-
ings susceptible to demolition around the city.
South Bronx community l e ~ d e r s , however,protest that the first implosion experiment wasscheduled without any community consultation.
"They come in here and say, 'We're gOing todynamite your community.' There's no hearing,no communication," complained City Councilman
Gilberto Gerena-Valentin, who represents thearea.
Juliano, who is HPD's liaison to the Community
the protest in a unanimous vote on January 18. Inhis district three tenements which were to be partof the test are now being taken down by conven
tional means."We were told by the City that there are notenough [conventional] demolition companiesavailable to do the whole job," Arce recalled. But
implosion is not the answer, he said. "This is an
issue of economic development. Minority demoli-
tion companies could be formed with City support.The City could guarantee their bonding," Arce
maintained.Implosive demolition has been used elsewhere,
mostly on large structures, but has until now beenprohibited in New York City. The techniqueinvolves setting off many small, synchronizedcharges of dynamite, placed at critical supportareas of condemned structures, to force them tocave in on themselves.
Criti cs charge that any money saved by " im-
ploding" small buildings will be offset by the
much larger insurance and bonding required than
in conventional demolition contracts. The highcost of insurance reflects the threat to public
safety from the procedure, they contend.
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CETA, CJCC GRADUATES:
TRAINING FOR WHAT
? "A Lot of Promises
• But Nothing Definite."
by Susan Baldwin
Many construction trainees in New York City com
pleting one-year programs funded by CETA and the
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) are
facing the possibility of being chronically unemployed
once again.
The programs were designed to train the graduatesin the various construction trades, thus assuring them
placement in un subsidized jobs."I don't know where you can point the finger when it
comes to assessing these programs," Alan Weiss,
director of the Adult Work Experience Program in th e
City's Department of Employment, said recently. "The
responsibility lies with the programs. and those
running the programs have to face the issue. They have
to place the people, and this is a tough one. "Stressing the job placement difficulty, Weiss noted
that the unions are themselves struggling to find jobs
for more than 40,000 unemployed men and women New
Yorkers who have many more years of experience in the
same fields.
"We cannot solve all the city's ills just through basicjob training," he continued, "and I think this is why we
have to look at these programs again to determine what
alternatives exist."
Most critics concede that the training programs, with
some exceptions, are being well run, and conscientious
efforts being made to place trainees in un subsidi zed
owned by MVDC, is slated for low-income cooperative
ownership by its tenants.
"The pay could be better," Pagan said. "For the
finished product it's much too low," he told a visitor
recently as he pointed out details of the workmanship in
a good-as-new sunlit apartment. "Why, regular construction workers don't even come to work every day
when the weather's bad, and they still get paid. But
then, they don't learn how to put in a new boiler and a
new backyard and even fight rats."
If Pagan likes his job despite the uncertain future,
less optimistic is the view of Jose Cruz, the site coordinator for the project. (Three supervisors and a book
keeper round out the payroll.)
"I believe that this program was set up to fail," heasserted. "All the workers here are from the neighborhood, and we know them. They're not making that
much money-from $120 to $225 a week. We would like
to employ them after the program ends at better wages
on a [City-supervised] housing rehabilitation program
we have, bu t the City says they don't qualify for work in
a specific trade. "This comes about, said Cruz, because the City, which
supervises the rehabilitatio}:l of City-owned multipledwellings managed by the development corporation,
does not acknowledge the training that CJCC workershave received.
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to read blueprints on the job. It is a job, Pagan summed
up, that has brought "a lot of benefits and a lot of
blisters," adding up to "a lot of knowledge, bu t
probably not enough for union jobs."
Almost everyone interviewed on the job training
dilemma emphasizes that neither the CETA nor the
CJCC programs should be treated in such a way as to
make them synonymous with "an alternate form of
welfare."Roberto ("Rabbit") Nazario is director of Interfaith
Adopt-a-Building, known for its innovative answers to
the housing problems of Manhattan's Lower East Side.
He wants neighborhoods like his to look to the future
with the idea of creating more jobs for neighborhood
residents."W e can create jobs and have created them for our
CETA graduates," he said. "They have shown the
ability to learn, have developed good work habits, and
have gone on to lead and supervise others," he said,
noting that 80 per cent of his organization's most recent
CETA training program graduates have been placed in
the group's community management program.
Nazario pointed out that the local trainees and
community residents have proven their skills in theseal-up of abandoned buildings nearby. Now they
would like to become involved in th e reconstruction of
the old amphitheatre at East River Park.
"We're going to seek jobs for community
people-many of them graduates of our CET A
program-in the construction trades to rebuild this,"
Nazario asserted. "Then, once this work is completed,
we would also like to put our people to work main
taining and managing it."Herman Hewitt, the director of Adopt-a-Building's
CETA program, agrees with Manhattan Valley's Cruz
about the time constraints of the job traning program.
"The recruits get started, and by the time they are
beginning to be trained, the program is over," he said.
"What we need is a program based on apprentice
ship training which lasts at least two years and may
extend to four," he added, noting that this format
would resemble the one followed by constructionunions, and would provide a structured a.1ternative for
entry to the skilled trades.
Hewitt also said that CET A funds could be used to
organize neighborhood trade unions if the traditional
labor organizations refused to recognize this apprentice
training program.
Ronald Grey, director of the management and work
experience program at Brooklyn's Oceanhill-Browns
ville Tenants Association, disagrees with the critics ofthe CET A train ing program who claim that money is
being wasted in construction training.
"The main problem now is that there is not enough
time to train them all to be skilled laborers," he
asserted. "But it's impossible to agree with those guys
who say that our guys are not being trained at all."
Grey believes that the hardest part of th e current, too
short program is finding a way to end it gracefully.
"Oceanhill-Brownsville is just as bombed-out as theSouth Bronx, and we have a lot of people out here who
haven't worked for so long," he said. "A s a reSUlt, it's
really hard to explain to them when the project is over
that there's no work."
Grey is presently trying to find work for CETA
workers whose program ends next month. "I'm hoping
that some of the smaller developers who are becomingmore interested in rehabilitating housing, since there is
not money for new construction, will hire our graduates,"he said.
"We also found out by testing the guys here that
there were serious problems with reading," Grey
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SOLAR SEENAS TOO COSTLY
FOR POORER
NEIGHBORHOODS
Solar panel atop 1186 Washington Ave. in the South Bronx.
by Bernard Cohen
At dusk, when the thick line of clouds to the northgrows dark and the new moon is a bright sliver, the glass
panel sheets that angle up from a rooftop in the South
the present, is nowhere on the horizon.Right now, "solar energy is not a worthwhile
economic investment for anybody, much less for low
,
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about forming businesses more centered on energy
conservation."I think we've all had our eyes opened , " said
Michael Bobker, of Peoples Development Corporation,
sponsor of the 1186 solar project. "We're a lot more
realistic about energy issues and have moved into weatherization , which is much less glamorous than solar
but much more cost effective."At the same time, he said , "We're trying to develop
real low cost solar energy that uses a more passive
design and materials available to any community groupand tying these things clearly into other energy
issues. "Advocates of alternative energy stress that ways
must be found to make solar cheaper through a combination of government support, redesign of the tech
nology and local production."There is no question that solar energy has produced
savings," said Michael Freedberg of the East 11thStreet Housing Movement and a resident of 519. "The
question is how can we achieve these savings with the
smallest capital up front investment." I t is not that the cost of labor is too high or that th e
cost of materials is too high, although obviously reducing those would be helpful as well. The principal problem is that the cost of money is too high," Freedberg
said.All agree that there must be a meaningful federal
urban energy policy that combines more commitment toresearch and development of solar techniques appropriate for low-income neighborhoods with an activeprogram of grants and other subsidies to solarconsumers.
The solar units atop 519 East 11th Street and 1186Washington Avenue are called optimized glycol sys
tems. They consist of flat plate solar collectors mounted
interest. the cost per apartment would have worked out
to between $5 and $7 a month if tenants had had to payfor the solar systems. " It's not worth it when you're
already at the margin" of what you can afford , saidCharles Laven of the Urban Homesteading Assistance
Board.Because of the uneven monitoring of the solar equipment, it is harder to know accurately how much it ha s
saved on fuel costs. In a manual called No Heat No Rent
published in September, 1977, ERF estimated that the
11th Street solar system cut each apartment's fuel bill
by $2.54 per month.Assuming a ten percent annual increase in the cost of
oil, the manual estimated that it would be 1988 beforethe savings on fuel exceeded the cost of the solar
equipment. However, the book warned that monitoring
of the solar system was done sporadically by hand and
called the data inconclusive.EFT has a brand-new economic analysis of the opti
mized glycol system and four solar variations that
weighs initial cost, annual BUT output, maintenance,
fuel savings, inflation, interest rates and projected oil
and electricity cost increases to arrive at what the task
force calls a " present value benefit!cost ratio."
A ratio of less than ONE means the cost exceeds the
projected life cycle benefits. All five systems come in
under one with the optimized glycol type looking the
worst at .15 or a harsh 15-cent return on a $1 investment. The analysis concludes that solar hot water "has
a ways to go " before it can be considered economically
attractive in New York City.The task force is now trying to design a more passive,
less elaborate solar system that would be both cheaper
and more adaptable to local production.Called the direct gain heater, it is a compact model
that puts the storage capacity on the roof and
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people have, you would be looking at a whole differentpicture," said Freedberg.
For fiscal year 1978, Congress has appropriated $411
million for solar or about 15 percent of the total energy
budget. Solar amounted to about 10 percent of the 1977
budget..Writing last year in The Nation, Bruce Welch,
director of the Environmental Biomedicine ResearchInsti tute in Baltimore, state that by the end of 1975, the
federal government had spent $8.25 billion to developcivilian nuclear power, the equivalent of more than 85
percent of the capital the industry itself had invested.
A spokesman for the federal Department of Energy,acknowledging the enormous past federal expenditures
for nuclear development, said "the same thing is beingstarted with solar but we're not yet up to the stage
where we're spending that kind of money."
The money the government does spend on solar re
search and grants, critics assert, favors expensive,"active" technologies more appropriate for large-scale
commercial manufacture than for decentralized,
locally-based production. "Big companies (Exxon and
the like) are moving rapidly," says ETF. City Limits
was unable before going to press to get a breakdown offrom the Department of Energy on how research funds
are being spent.The Department of Energy has an appropriate tech
nology small grants program with a two-person staff
and $3 million to spend. So far, all the grants have gone
to Region 9, California, Arizona and Nevada. Beginning
in April, the office will begin soliciting applicationsfrom Regions 1 and 2 including New York and New
England.
Of the 330 demonstration solar grants given so far by
the Department of Housing and Urban Development,
10 percent to 15 percent have been for low-incomeprojects, a handful of them sponsored by neighborhood
organizations doing housing rehabilitation, accordingto a HUD spokesman.
The spokesman said that the guidelines for the next
cycle of grants state for the first time that special consideration should be given to projects sponsored by
low-income non-profit community development groups .An example cited by critics of how poor people are
losing out on solar is President Carter's proposed 40percent credit against income taxes since poor peoplepay little or no taxes.
"The government is virtually guaranteeing that low
income people are not going to be able to capitalize significantlyon solar energy," said Norris. "I see solar as
principally a political issue in that it's critical that lowincome communities not only conserve bu t also produceenergy."
What many predict for the next five years is thatunless there is a change in policy, low-income neighborhoods will probably see a small increase inindividual grants, the utilities and large corporations,
like Exxon and Westinghouse, will monopolize the solarfield and poor people will have lost a valuable chance to
recoup some control over their lives. 0
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PARTICIPATION LOANS
STUCK IN BOTTLENECK
The City's participation loan program is 16 months
old, but, contrary to the Department of Housing Pre
servation and Development's earlier predictions, it has
not been booming.
To Jan . 13, the City's figures show that only seven
buildings, totaling S60 units, have gone into construc
tion. This represents the addition of only one building
since Aug. 31 to the total work load.
There have been no formal closings since the pro
gram's commencement, these figures show, although a
closing for a seven-unit rehabilitation of SS St. Nicholas
Avenue in Manhattan is slated for completion in the
early spring, according to Christopher Hook, operations
director of the participation loan program at HPD.
Why have there been so many problems with the
participation loan program?
When questioned last September, Alexander Garvin,
assistant commissioner for rehabilitation and neigh
borhood preservation, said that the loan process was
taking longer than it should, bu t that a new push was
then under way to get more projects under construc
tion. He also predicted that the number of applications
submitted to the HPD counsel's office would be double
that of August by October, and that there would be a
significant increase in the number of projects receiving
feasibility approval.
As of Jan. 13, 31 buildings totaling 1,391 dwelling
units had received formal feasibility approval. Twenty
three buildings with 1,274 units were approved by last
August.
Buildings reaching the feasibility evaluation stage by
CITIZEN TASK FORCE
OFFERS IN REM ADVICE
Community groups interested in solutions to the
rapidly increasing epidemic of abandoned buildings
formed a citizens' task force this month on the matter.
The " In Rem" task force meets each Friday after
noon in the office of City Councilwoman Ruth Mes
singer (D .-Man.) at 250 Broadway.
By the end of February, the group planned to release a
working position paper on problems involving "In Rem"
buildings which it will send to Mayor Koch. The study
will also be available to any community groups orindividuais who are interested in pursuing the sub
ject-one that is expected to reach crisis proportions by
the beginning of next year, if no action is taken. Most
recent citywide figures for abandoned buildings show
more than 20,000, with about 24,000 more projected by
January 1,1979.
Commenting on the group's reasons for forming the
task force , Messinger said, "A number of community
groups came together because they wanted to talkabout legislative issues, and, once they began talking,
they realized that there were among us a number of
people with expertise on city-owned, abandoned
buildings. As a result, they decided to make this topic
our area of concern. "
Responsibility for the "I n Rem" buildings is sche
duled for transfer from the Department of Real Estate
to the Department of Housing Preservation and
Development on April 1.Some of the groups involved in planning the task
force's policy are: Renigades, Pratt Institute, Operation
Open City, United Tenants Association, East 11th
8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, February 1978 Issue
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TRIMMING THE FAT
FROM "DAVIS-BACON"
Poor inner city neighborhoods seeking help promised
by federal law to reclaim their housing from the arson
ist's torch and the wrecker's ball are finding that still
another federal law stands in the way of the help they
seek. This classic Catch-22 goes by the name Davis
Bacon.
Enacted 43 years ago in the midst of the Great
Depression to protect local labor building a post officein Richmond, Virginia, from the builder's attempts to
bring in lower-paid workers from outside the area, the
Davis-Bacon Act requires that construction workers on
federally supported projects be paid "prevailing
wages." These are in practice determined by the
Secretary of Labor from the wages paid to workers on
union-contracted jobs, the highest paid in the industry.
Although construction unions only recently have
begun to compete for the tradesmen's jobs to be had inhousing rehabilitation projects, all but the very tiniest of
these projects (seven units or less) must, under Davis
Bacon, pay the union scale for journeymen if federal
money is used.
H. • • Davis- Bacon is killing neighborhoods
because the costs are so high . . . It pits
neighborhood people against the union . . . We
will have to overthrow Davis-Bacon."Why do community groups oppose a provision that
promises high pay to trained workers? First, because
trained workers are hard to find in the city's poor
Community Management program.
"Our emphasis has been on employment and train
ing, and everyone does make the prevailing wage in the
maintenance component," Moncrief noted of the han
dymen and janitors who maintain tax-foreclosed
multiple dwellings while Community Management
prepares them for return to private ownership by com
munity groups or tenant cooperatives.As to the rehabilitation of some 1 000 dwelling units
that the 18 Community Management groups will
undertake this year, Moncrief wondered ,"What is a
journeyman worth?"-in terms of time saved and
higher performance standards anticipated. He agreed
that the employment question creates tension in the
community.
Moncrief voiced his hope that next year will see more
than the one-trainee-to-five-journeymen called for inthe present contract, in order to provide at least an
adequate share of job opportunities to community
residents.
Meeting the Davis-Bacon requirements on pay scales
will not afffect the rents tenants will pay when rehabili
tation is completed, Moncrief asserted. "It's a grant
program-fairly reasonable. Tenants won't have to pay
back the salaries in the mortgages.
"I'd like to hear just how [Davis-Bacon] hurts. I'mnot an adversary of Davis-Bacon," Moncrief said.
Leila Long, assistant commissioner at HPD for Equal
Opportunity, suggested that the harsh effects of Davis
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James Harris, a lawyer who has closely studied the
Davis-Bacon Act for both the Association of Neigh
borhood Housing Developers and U-HAB, said,
"Davis-Bacon has become a terrible political problem.
Unions are suffering from high unemployment; they do
not like minorities and they consider them scabs."Most rehabilitation work is non-union, anyway,"
Harris observed, "s o what is the 'prevailing wage'?
Housing people should get the courage just to goahead."
As pressure mounts on government from neighbor
hood groups to permit a break in the "prevailing wage"
scale for housing rehabilitation in poor neighborhoods,
equal opposing pressure is applied from labor and from
"traditional" liberals, to whom such labor cost-cuttingis anathema.
Stanley Friedman, assistant area director of the
Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of
Labor, said recently, "Just because it's a minority
contractor doesn't make any difference to us. We go to
the contractor and ask, 'Who's funding?'" Friedman
emphasized, "What we will tell you is that prevailing
wages must be paid."
"Most rehabilitation work is non-union
anyway, . . . so what is the 'prevailing wage'?
Housing people should get the courage just to
go ahead."
As a way out of the impasse, Harris has recommend
ed that U-HAB support amendments to the
Davis-Bacon Act as it applies to federally assisted
"sweat equity" projects. These are likely to make theirway into the hands of inner-city and rural Congression
al representatives who are beginning to speak out for
change in the law.
"Just because it's a minority contractor doesn't
make any difference to us. We go to the
contractor and ask, 'Who's funding?' " . . .'What we tell you is that prevailing wages must
be paid."
pass a law declaring that the development of a viable
'sweat equity' program is 'in the public interest,' and
thus strengthen the hand of any project seeking an
individual waiver from the Secretary of Labor."
St. Georges, whose U-HAB-sponsored Section 312
demonstration program obtained such a waiver, is,nonetheless, pessimistic about the chances of a
coalition of union-alienated urban representatives and
anti-union rural representatives mounting a successfulchallenge to Davis-Bacon.
He believes that due process and equal opportunity
litigation, based on the exclusion of the entire class of
urban poor from the opportunity of becoming urban
homesteaders and homeowners, is worth trying al
though the outcome is equally uncertain.Waivers ought to be sought for all "sweat equity"
projects, even under present regulations, as a means of
keeping up the pressure for change, St. Georges urged.
A major omission in the Housing and Community
Development Act of 1974, into which most previous
housing assistance programs were subsumed, is the
absence of a provision permitting the HUD Secretary to
waive Davis-Bacon requirements. And, in an opinion
dated July 29, 1977, HUD Assistant Secretary RobertC. Embry, Jr., stated that "the legislative history pro
vides no indication that the omission of a waiver pro
vision was unintentional. "
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SOMEBODY UP THERE
LOVES ARAMIS GOMEZ
by Susan Baldwin
Every time there is a major change at City Hall, or at
the Department of Housing Preservation and Develop
ment, that's the time for community groups once againto gird up their loins , rally the troops , and work to one
end-the removal of Aramis Gomez, the durable
deputy commissioner now in his fifth year at HPD's
Office of Relocation.
What happens? Everyone gets excited. There is aflurry of emergency meetings, extensive letter writing
campaigns , community protests. Nothing happens.
Gomez remains."I don't think I've ever heard a nice thing about
him," said Doris Rosenblum, president of the
Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council, the Project AreaCommittee (PAC) that monitors sites in Manhattan's
West Side Urban Renewal Area where about 50 title
vested tenants still remain on urban renewal propertiesunder the jurisdiction of the Office of Relocation.
"He always seems to have to prove that he's got a lotof power," Rosenblum continued, noting that her
experience in countless dealings with Gomez has been,
" 'Poor people aren't worth anything. I pulled myselfup from the streets, so why can't they do the same
thing?' I really think he has a vendetta against a class of
people . . . In order to behave the way he does toward
people, he must have someone pretty strong protectinghim in his job."
Community pressure for Gomez's removal surfaced
somewhere else. And then we read the newspapers."
[Maxwell Kauffman is director of operations under
Gomez.]
A false report in early February that tenants on urban
renewal holding sites should expect imminent evictionnotices is what finally mobilized the groups yet another
time against Gomez.
One site tenant in the Clinton Urban Renewal Areaon Manhattan's Mid-West Side had been told by the
site manager that he would be evicted if he did not paythe disputed arrears for increases tacked onto past
rents, and begin to pay the increased rent each month.The City is asking for arrears back to Aug. 1, 1975.Clinton has some 50 vested tenants.
The tenants in these three renewal areas are currently paying old rents that range from $14-30 per room.
They are not required to pay more than 25 percent of
their income in rent, under guidelines established bythe federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for tenants residing on sites slated fordemolition and new construction. I f they were to paythe arrears the City asks for, some tenants would oweseveral thousand dollars.
The unauthorized demand by the Clinton site manager, coupled with the fact that urban renewal sitetenants did not receive their February rent bills ontime, proved to be the sources of the tenant alarm.
"W e are just telling people here to continue to pay
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alarm goes, the groups are just telling the tenants to
continue with the old plan and pay the old rents . . . It's
too bad that this one [Clinton] tenant panicked and paid
the new rent along with the arrears."
"This is just another example of why we have been
trying to use political pressure to get rid of Gomez,"
said Peggi Winslow, an actress who lives on one of the
Clinton sites. She had alerted the other groups to the
potential evictions.
"W e can't continue to live like this, from day to day
worrying about being thrown out by Gomez," she con
tinued. She stressed that the Clinton tenants believe
they are being harassed even more than the tenants of
other renewal areas because they are not as well
organized.
Noting that Gomez's typical response to any question
is, " ' I f you don't like it, ge t out,' " Winslow added,
"It's taken me a while to realize that all the things I've
heard about him are true. Whenever you talk to him,
you have an insane conversation. It's the same as if you
were talking to Idi Amin . . . He's an irrational, mean
man, and he makes it quite clear that he can make any
decision he wants. The last time I talked to him, I was
shaking afterwards."Neighborhood groups recite details of past
"atrocities" suffered at the hands of the Office of Relo
cation under Gomez's command with such passion and
in such detail that it would give most observers pause to
explain why he has remained in this position of author
ity for so many years.
The city has a serious shortage of housing suitable
for relocation of poor families burned out of or other
wise forced to vacate their homes, say communityleaders, yet relocation crews enter urban renewal
"holding" site buildings whenever a tenant moves out,
"If you recall, last year was the worst winter in the city's
history, bu t still we did not have any buildings that
were without heat for more than 48 or 72 hours under
our management.
"We keep daily reports on how all our buildings are
doing," he added , noting that he had been with the
office for 12 years , with a background in real estate.
"What we have here is 'blood equity,' not 'sweat
equity,' " he said. "Our workers go into neighbor
hoods trying to find places to relocate families, and fre
quently their lives are endangered. We check every
location before we put a family in. We have a good track
record. In the last 15 years this office has placed over
100,000 families, and I believe at least half of them
were put in public housing.
"Let's face it ," he concluded, referring to the var
ious duties undertaken by the relocation office, "No-
body likes somebody who wants to throw you out of
your house . Noboy likes the sheriff, the marshal, or the
landlord, and, in our job, we are all three. You can't
expect them [the community groups] to like us for
that. "
At press time, CITY LIMITS called Commissioner
Leventhal's office, and received a return call from his
special assistant, Edgar Kulkin, who released the fol
lowing statement for Leventhal: " At this point in the
game, he [Leventhal] has not made any changes in his
staff. He has asked those people who want to remain for
the time being to stay."
Asked whether the commissioner plans to keep
Gomez on indefinitely as his deputy commissioner,
Kulkin added, "This is a decision he will make in due
time. Gomez is not the only one who has gotten a hard
time. There have been other commissioners criticized.
At this point, he has made no decision. Gomez will stay
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C ~ A - C 1 C C c o n r i n u e d revealed. To counter this problem, the program has
retained a tutor who gives lessons in basic reading and
mathematics Monday through Friday from 3 to 9 p.m.
"It 's ridiculous to expect the men to be able to read
blueprints if they can't even read at the fourth grade
level," Grey said. "That's part of why we're offering
these lessons. We also want to develop self
confidence. "
Self-confidence seems to be the key word when one
attempts to identify the most important aspect of the
job training programs. "I know that a lot of the men
would like to be eligible for union jQbs in construction,
but I don't think that's everything to them," Grey
explained.
"We've had representatives from New Jersey unions
coming here to explain to them about joining, and most
of the guys are not interested in paying the dues to the
union. After all, there's no guarantee, even if they
make it possible for them to join, that they will get w9rkfor them."
The Department of Employment's Weiss has
stressed repeatedly the need to re-examine the present
training program with an idea to making it less
expensive and more relevant.
Hewitt of Adopt-a-Building commented on the issue,
"I don't think anyone would deny that there are
problems with these job training programs, but they
are ones that can be worked out. What we have to keep
in mind is that these programs are essential to the
survival of the communities where they provide the
only answer for generating employment.
• These programs are the key to getting those people
back to work who have not worked in such a long time, "
Hewitt concluded. "So they get in the habit of working
IITOWN MEETING"
TERMED SUCCESS
About 100 community residents attended the tenth
quarterly "Town Meeting" February 20 conducted by
Interfaith Adopt-A-Building at "Loisada," 177 East 3rd
Street, Manhattan.
The conference lasted from one until five p.m., and
featured a general town meeting, workshops, and guest
remarks from Councilwoman Miriam Friedlander and
Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein.
Friedlander is the Council representative for the Lower
East Side. Refreshments and entertainment, including a
slide s.!tow, followed.
The meeting had been called to introduce candidates
running from the area for the Community Corporation
elections. Although these have been postponed indef
initely by Mayor Koch, the elections were still
discussed.
Commenting on the successful turnout, Roberto
("Rabbit") Nazario said, "The people came here and
participated. I think they are showing interest in their
neighborhood problems... There are five areas in
housing that we received as our mandate from the peo
ple to carry out in the community." Nazario is director
of Adopt-A-Building.
Elaine Binno, training officer for Adopt-A-Building's
CETA program, added, "I think this is a very good
thing. People showed a great deal of interest in the
central issues facing us here. They spoke up at the
meeting and participated in the workshops."
Problem areas deemed important for follow-up
8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, February 1978 Issue
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Anne Hartwell
Anne Hartwell, a specialist in tenant manage-ment, has joined ANHD as director of technical
assistance.
Hartwell comes from MFY Legal Services Inc.where she has spent the past six years as projectcoordinator in the community developmenthousing unit.
"Whatever it took to get a building from theloan stage to the point where tenants were able to
take over the management," was how she des-cribed her former job.
She said nine buildings with 161 units have beenrehabilitated and converted into tenant coopera-tives under her coordination . Four others are in
the pipeline.Hartwell joined MFY in 1971 as a welfare advo-
cate. She is a founder of radio station WMCA's
" Call fo r Action" program in which listeners with
housing and other problems can call for
assistance.
The technical assistance position was created as
part of a reorganization plan designed by the
ANHD membership late last year.
The new director said her program will dependon the technical assistance needs expressed by the
member organizations.
First on the agenda, she said, is a program that
will make available 10 CETA-paid bookkeepers toANHD member organizations that want help with
accounting and record keeping.The CETA bookkeepers will help establish
sound and workable financial systems for housing
programs and will train staff in the community
based organizations in basic fiscal practices.
The goal of the program is to help the organiza-tions run their own programs more effectively. It isexpected to get under way in March. 0
DICKSTEIN LEAVES HPD
FOR THE POLICE DEPT.
Paul Dickstein, who served for one year as first
deputy commissioner of the Department of Housing
and licensing functions.Prior to joining HPD in February, 1977, Dickstein
8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, February 1978 Issue
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IN THIS ISSUE
• Community Management
• Dynamiting Buildings• CETA and CJCC Graduates
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