city limits magazine, april 1997 issue

8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, April 1997 Issue

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Housing "Cops"Cuomo meets Clint Eastwood at the Justice Department, andlandlords shake in their shoes. Or so went the spin last monthwhen HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo and Attorney GeneralJanet Reno announced a new enforcement program targeting delinquentowners of HUD-subsidized properties. The cabinet officials evendraped a "Get Tnugh" sign over the podium."If you misuse Federal resources, we will find___---"'"'. , - out, we will track you down and we will make youpay," Cuomo said.

Let's hope he means it. The enforcement program is needed, and Cuomo deserves a nod forED ITO R AL looking more closely at landlords who receive subsidies for low-income tenants-but fail to providethem with decent housing.It's appallmg, however, that such enforcement hasn't always beenroutine. The problem Cuomo is addressing is an old one . Indeed, moreoften than not, HUD officials have been complicit in landlord abuses.Four years ago, City Limits ran a cover story titled "MalignNeglect: The federal government gives landlords high rents . .and letsthe buildings rot." We surveyed 19 privately owned, HUD-subsidizedproperties managed by one Brooklyn company, BPC Management, andfound severely deteriorated conditions in eight of them . The management company and the property owners were raking in millions of ederal dollars on these properties. The owners of he 192-unit Willard J.Price Houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant received a $1.74 million annualsubsidy from HUD to provide low-income housing. But the place wascoming apart, with a leaking roof, broken-down kitchens, inconsistentheat and little security.At the press conference last month, Cuomo said he was setting upnew procedures to make it harder for landlords to hide their sins fromregulators. Problem is, these sins were never hidden. Regarding WillardJ. Price and other developments, HUD had stacks of internal reportsoutlining the terrible housing conditions, including several that ratedthe complexes as "below average." Did that slow the federal subsidies,or bring aggressive demands by regulators for immediate repairs? Notat all. HUD filed the reports .. .and accomplished nothing.Corlandress Pittman, a 73-year-old tenant at Willard J. Price, tellsus little has changed at his housing complex since we wrote our 1993article. The same management company remains in place. The stairwells have deteriorated, the leaks persist, the playground is an asphaltlot bereft ofplay equipment.

"It's always been my opinion HUD's been working hand in handwith the management;' Pittman says . "They never punished them. Theynever did anything. They're all in cahoots ."More than two decades too late, HUD may finally be recognizing itsregulatory responsibility. The taxpayers help pay the rent for these tenants through the federal subsidies . We all deserve to be assured conditions are safe and decent, and that the landlords are not pocketing somuch in profit-or losing so much through incompetence-that theirtenants end up paying a horrible price.

Andrew WhiteEditor

(ity LimitsVolume XXII Number 4

City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly exceptbi-monthly issues in June/July and August/September, bythe City Limits Community Information SeNice. Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to disseminating informationconcerning neighborhood revitalization.Editor: Andrew WhiteSenior Editors: Kierna Mayo, Kim Nauer, Glenn ThrushManaging Edito r: Robin EpsteinContributing Editors: James Bradley, Rob PolnerDesign Direction : James Conrad, Paul V. LeoneInterns: Zhanna Agran, Mary BlatchAdvertising Represen tative: Faith WigginsProofreade r: Sandy SocolarPhotog raphers: Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz, Gregory P. MangoAssoc iate Director.

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and Environmental DevelopmentUrban Homesteading Assistance BoardBoard of Directo rs*:Eddie Bautista . New York Lawyers for

the Public InterestBeverly Cheuvront, City HaNestFrancine Justa. Neighborhood Housing SeNicesErrol Louis. Central Brooklyn PartnershipShawn Dove. Rheedlen CentersRebecca Reich, Low Income Housing FundAndrew Reicher, UHABTom Robbins, JournalistCelia INine, ANHDPete Williams, National Urban LeagueAffiliations for identification only.

Subscription rates are: for individuals and communitygroups, $25/Dne Year, $35/Two Years; for busnesses,foundations, banks, government agencies and libraries,$35/Dne Year, $50/Two Years. Low income, unemployed .$10/Dne Year.City Limits welcomes comments and article contributions.Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for returnmanuscripts . Material in City Limits does not necessarilyreflect the opinion of the sponsoring organizations. Se ndcorrespondence to: City Limits, 120 Wall Street, 20th FI.,New York. NY 10005. Postmaster : Send address changes toCity Limits, 120 Wall Street, 20th FI., New York, NY 10005.Periodical postage paid

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[email protected] 1997. All Rights ReseNed . Noportion or portions of this ournal may be reprinted without the express permission of the publishers.City Limits is indexed in the Alternative PressIndexand the Avery Index to ArchitecturalPeriodicals and is available on microfilm from UniversityMicrofilms International, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.

CITY LIMITS


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FEATURES

7 Deadly Signs of New York City'sUnheeded Housing Crisisents are rising, wages declining , and the pols in Albany are preparingto slice and dice the city's number-one housing subsidy: welfare.As activistsbattle to preserve rent stabilization, even greater threats to low-income tenantslurk just around the comer. By Glenn ThruBurned OutIs a home just a roof and four walls? Newark's 322 Irvine Turner Boulevardwas dilapidated and overpriced, but it was home to 20 families, a vesselbrimming with decades of memories . Until the day after Christmas, whenfire gutted the building. Photos and text by Helen M. StummThe Belles of St. EdwardsThe politicians want welfare moms to pull themselves out of dependency.But in the fall of 1995, with Congress crafting an end to the nation 's guaranteedwelfare benefits, Philadelphia activist Cheri Honkala and an organizedband of homele s mothers took a more creative approach to "self-help" thanthe politicians ever had in mind. By David Zucchi

PIPELINESStop Paymentcheduled cuts in Food Stamps and disability benefits have given legalimmigrants good reason to panic. By Adam FifieShowdown on Aisle FiveAchurch group leading Harlem 's Bradhurst redevelopment projectis trying to convince the city of the perils of Pathmark . Superstore supporterscharge the group being power hungry at the expense of cheap food. By April Ty

COMMENTARYCityview 12&AFitting Memorial By Charles KomanReview 127Eyeing Race By E.R. ShipSpare Change 130Escape Grace By Glenn Thru

DEPARTMENTSBriefs &. 7 Editorial 2Cloud Over BronxAir Study Letters 4Crew's Detention Period ProfessionalDawn of the Cyber-Dole Directory 28Jail-In Vote Job Ads 29


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Applications Soughtfor Ninth LeadershipNew York ProgramLeadership New York is a competitive educational and leadership training program co-sponsored by Coro and the New York City Partnership and Chamber ofCommerce. In the nine-month program, during which participants are expectedto remain employed full-time in their current professions, a diverse group ofmid-career executives from the public, private and nonprofit sectors explorescritical issues confronting the city.Through site visits, interviews and panel discussions, participants study thecity's educational, social service, health care and criminal justice systems,in frastructure, economic development and New York's changing demographics.Leadership New York welcomes applications from candidates with a demonstrated concern about New York City, a record of professional achievement andthe potential to playa significant role in the city's future. The program beingsSeptember 1997.

For further information and applications, please contact:Carol Hoffman, Associate Director,Leadership New York, Coro:(212) 248-2935Application Deadline: June 1997

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LETTERS

The March issue of City Limits waexcellent. Your magazine is one of the fepublications I always read. Howevethere are times that the magazine seemnot to pay sufficient attention to housinissues. This issue was wonderfully comprehensive , balanced and representativof the vast array of issues and concernconfronting all of those engaged in community development and affordable houing. I have made it required reading for aof my staff.

Harold DeRienzPresident, The Parodneck FoundatioNew York, N

F.b .ual'Y,TooI thought the piece on Father Giganin the February issue ["Murphy's Flaw"was very, very good. You're publishinsome of the best investigative pieces I seanywhere. The entire magazine seemmore energized than ever. I look forwarto each issue.

lonathan KozByfield, MCity Limits Is M g . . to hM .f .om you, whfth . . you Ilk..omfthlng w.'v. w .ltt.n orhat. u . for publl.hlng It. S.ndyou . Int . . . to: City Limits,120 Wall Str , 20th Floor,M.w York City 10005

CORRECTIOM:The March issue of City Limitsincorrectly stated that the organizationSRO Tenants United (SROTU) isfunded by the West Side and EastSide SRO Law Projects. In fact,SROTU does not formally receivefunds from anyone, and depends onvolunteers. The group receives a smallamount of in-kind support from theWest Side SRO Law Project.

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tLeroy and Kenneth Morrisonof Lemor Realty surveyingconstruction at W. 140th St.

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Moving in the right directionBuilding like father, like son.Leroy and Kenneth Morrison are a father and son team that is working with Chase's Community Development Group to make a difference in the community they ~ I I home.The Morrisons are part of New York City's NeighborhoodEntrepreneur Program. Working closely with the city and the NewYork City Housing Partnerst'\ip, Chase helped create this program,which is designed to transfer ownership of clusters of city-ownedvacant and occupied buildings to experienced neighborhood-basedproperty managers/owners.It all boils down to desire and commitment. The Morrisons' desire todo the tough things it takes to be responsible contractors and building managers. The Chase Manhattan Bank's commitment to have along-term relationship with people who invest in themselves and theircommunities.Through innovative financing programs and relationships with peoplelike Leroy and Kenneth Morrison, Chase's Community DevelopmentGroup is redefining the concepts of affordable housing and localentrepreneurship. We call that doing business right.

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APRIL 1997


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Last month, workfare workers at a Sanitation Department garage In theBronx told Michael Melendez of Borough President Fernando Ferrer'soffice tlley thougll! the program was no better than 'legalized slavery"ACORN organizers asked Ferrer to show, but he sent Melendez Instead

(LOUD OVER BRONX AIR STUDYPeople in the South Bronx com munities of Hunts Point, MottHaven , and Port Morris say theydon 't need a study to know theyhave a problem with asthma . Theydo wonder about the causes, howeve r, and they are demandinggreater involvement in a new state

study designed to determine exactly that.Given the 31 waste-transfer andgarbage disposal centers in thearea, residents have long assumedthe high rates of upper respiratorydistress are a direct result of aircontamination. Yet they lack hardscientific evidence. With an$800,000 research grant from thefederal Toxic Substances andDisease Registry, the stateDepartment of Health hopes tochange this. The agency is plan ning a three-year study, beg inningin May, to find the relationshipbetween specific air contaminants

Resour(esPERHAPS THIS IS WH Y MAYOR GIULIANIWAS NEVER EXCITED ABOUT THE IDEAof anonpartisan city IndependentBudget Office (lBO): lBO's first salvo atCity Hall says the mayor's sanguinebudget predictions for 1998 through2001 ignore a huge $700 million budget gap for next year alone. Worse,

and asthma attacks.But community leaders say theproject is seriously flawedbecause its designers neversought community input. "We havesomething to add . There is a lot ofknowledge [about asthma) in thecommunity." says Marian Feinburgof the South Bronx Clean AirCoa lition . "One of the th ings thathappened as a result of communi ty agitation [in the past) is thatthere started be ing money aroundfor asthma prevention andresearch .... fs really important tous that it gets done right. " Shesays it took 25 persistent calls toAlbany justto get DOH representa tives to come to the Bronx inFebruary to explain their plan.Coalition members fear thestudy may be useless because ofwhere the air monitoring station islocated, on the roof of IS 155 onJackson Avenue . " IS 155 seems like

the IBO predicts a steadily rising citybudget deficit, culminating in a nearly$4 billion shortfall in 200tThe agency, which Giuliani unsuccessfully sought to kill, says the citywill likely bring in $258 million lessthan predicted next year and will

spend $443 million more thanplanned. IBO says part of the problemis an underestimation of the impact ofwelfare reform and an overestimation

7

(REW'S DETENTION PERIODNew York City schools chief RudyCrew apparently didn 't enjoy beingcalled in for a parent-chancellorconference last month .On March 3, Crew met with

around 2oo members of the ParentsOrganizing Consortium, an umbrellagroup of parents groups inManhattan, Brooklyn, Queens andthe Bronx. Meeting at a Tribeca elementary school, the parents posteda six-foot-tall report card to recordCrew 's responses to questionsabout school construction projects,textbook shortages and efforts togive parents new powers in theirchildren's schools.The meeting- which took placeafter he postponed two previouslyscheduled POC pow-wows-wascontentious from the beginning . Butthe most heated exchange tookplace when Bronx parents compla ined about the SchoolConstruction Authority 's long de layson Bronx school projects . Parentssuggested that Crew, who is one ofthe SCA's three trustees, make PS 54in Bedford Park a "test case" for thecontinued existence of SCA. Theyurged Crew to call for the abolition

it may not be whe re the most pollution is and where the sick peopleare," Feinburg says .The state researchers will col lect air contamination data from theSouth Bronx and compare it toinformation gathered at MabelDean Bacon High School in lowerManhattan . They will compare thedata with local emergency roomdata from asthma attacks. Over 16contaminants thought to affectasthmatics will be measured ,includ ing ones not previously measured in relation to asthma .Faith Schottenfeld, a publichealth specialist for the healthdepartment, explains that theprocess of obtaining grant money

of revenues from airport rent. Giulianipredicts the city will bring in $310 million from airport rent payments in IT98 but the IBO says that number isreally closer to $40 million. For a copyof the report call (212) 442-0629.LOOKING FOR AJOB? ON THE FACE OF IT,NEW YORK LOOKS LIKE A REASONABLEBET, what with its economy growingby 3.6 percent last year. But don't

of the independent agency ifthe 600student school now under construction isn't ready to open on schedulin early 1999."You can't just issue ultimatums," Crew shot back.The schools boss also refuseparents request to push the mayor treinstate funding for another BedforPark elementary school constructioproject, which was defunded bMayor Giuliani early in his term . "Thanswer," he intoned, "is no."The multi-ethnic District 1wh ich stretches from Riverdaldown to Fordham, is among the moovercrowded in the city. Many paents are angry that the problemnot being solved."He was not respectful of people 's frustration, their fear or thelong suffering," says Lois Harr, aactivist with Northwest BronCommunity and Clergy Coalition .Crew wasn't exactly enchanteby the encounter either. Referringfuture meetings, he says, "[Netime, I want) a little more to do witthe agenda and how we hold thmeeting."--Jordan Moss and Glenn Thrus

was so rushed that it was virtualy impossible to involve the community.According to Schottenfeld, thsite will not be changed becauthere are no other state -certifiemonitoring stations in the area .After getting an earful of cricism at the February meetinSchottenfeld said the state wouaddress some resident concernFor example, she said, the stawou ld consider collecting dataparticulate emissions from thBronx-Lebanon Hospital WasIncinerator in a bid to determ inethere are any links between themissions and asthma .-Mary Blat

start spending your paycheck till youland that gig. Over the course of theyear, the total number of jobs citywide grew a paltry 0.7 percent. Andmore people than ever are competinfor the few that are available . For asobering, fact- filled quarterly reporon the state of the city's finances, geon the mailing list for ComptrollerAlan Hevesi's"Economic Notes." Call(212) 669-2939,

CITY LIMIT


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DAWN OFTHECYBER-DOLEThe state's massive effort to turnfood stamps and welfare checksinto ATM-type debit cards could

result in unforeseen dangers forlow-income New Yorkers, advocates charge."It's not an inherently bad idea,but it has a lot of scary problemsthat are going to have to be fixed,"says Liz Krueger, a welfare activistwho sits on the state committeeoverseeing the implementation ofthe electronic benefits transfer(EBT) system .Krueger and other welfare advocates believe the new system, whichis mandated by the federal welfarelaw and is due to begin in parts of thecity in July, should be carefully scrutinized before it is implemented.Sarah Ludwig , executive director of the Neighborhood EconomicDevelopment Advocacy Project,points to the fact that CongressionalRepublicans eliminated all consumer protections from the welfarelegislation, leaving welfare recipients liable for debits run up onstolen cards . And while Congressplaced a ban on fees for use of foodstamps, they left open a loopholethat allows Citicorp-which will runthe system-to impose an 85-centfee on each welfare account trans-

JAIL-IN VOTEA Harlem group is hoping toensure that people who are locked

up aren't unfairly locked out of theirvoting rights.The Community Justice Center,founded by a group of ex-prisonersconcerned with criminal justiceabuses, is targeting a voter education drive to the 30,000 peoplehoused in New York county jails, inthe hopes of getting the largely disenfranchised group in touch withtheir political power.

Short ShotsTHE GREEN APPLE DOESN'T ROT FARFROM THE GRIZZLED TREE.Last week, the New York Postreported that young DeCostaHeadley, Jr" was fired for dippingtwice at the public trough-first asan aide for deposed Brooklyn state

Council Speaker Peter Vallone tflPS to tell IllS side of the rent reuulatlon story to skeptical Queens tenant activistshortly before the Council voted III favor of renewing rent stabilization and rent control last month The speakerrefused to go along With the tenants call for a roll back of vacancy and luxury decontrol measures that Vallonepushed through the council III 1994 Still, the real rent regulation battle will be III tile state legislature, which musrenew the laws before they expire III June

action that exceeds the four freewithdrawals per month granted bythe company.In addition, Krueger says, thereare no prohibitions against local merchants from gouging welfare recipients who use their cards to buy gro

ceries or other products off their card .Under state law, convicted felonsare barred from voting for the duration of their sentence and parole. Butalleged offenders with no prior convictions who are awaiting trial in jailare still eligible to vote. The problemis that they rarely exercise their fran chise, says Eddie Ellis, a foundingmember of the center."It's an invisible constituency thatcan make a serious difference inmany local races," says Ellis, a one

time Black Panther who himselfserved 19 years in prison .According to recent research, themajority of men stowed away in New

Senator Howard Babbush, second asa constituent services specialist forManhattan Borough President RuthMessinger.

The EBT contract is one of thelargest welfare privatization contracts in the country. Under anunusual arrangement, Citicorp hasreceived contracts with a consortiumof seven northeast states that will beworth nearly $1 billion over its firstseven years, according to AmericanYork City jails come from just nineneighborhoods-Hariem, WashingtonHeights and the Lower East Side inManhattan, Bedford-Stuyvesant,Brownsville and East New York inBrooklyn, the South and Central Bronxand South Jamaica, Queens."Given the extreme number ofpeople you've seen incarceratedfrom poor communities over the last20 years, it does begin to have animpact on access to political power,"says Bob Gangi, executive director ofthe Correctional Association, anadvocacy and research organization.Giving the vote to even a sma!1

DECOSTA THE YOUNGER, WH O WASFIRED FROM HIS MESSINGER JOBwhen the news broke, happens to bethe son of East Brooklyn Democraticpower broker DeCosta Headley, Sr., thefeatured subject of aFebruary 1996(jty limits expose about political corruption in East New York. The father,we reported then, was fond of bro-

Banker magazine. In February,group of New York City check-casing vendors successfully suedblock the system , but staDepartment of Social Services hthe right to proceed with EBT untilappeal is heard later this year.-Glenn Thru

percentage of the behind-bars eletorate could conceivably have signicant political impact. In those ninneighborhoods, which elect 20 reresentatives to the State Assemband six to the State Senate, typicturnouts for state races are 5,00010,000 people. In contested racethe margin of victory can be as smas several hundred votes.

In the coming months, the ceter's workers, most of them ex-conwill hold voter education sessionscity jails. Eventually, they hope to gthe AFL-CIO interested in the projec

-Sasha Abrams

kering jobs with his friends in govement. The son seems equally adepttaking them-including a specialelection appointment to CommunitySchool District 19, a position hisfather once held. Ah, fresh blood.


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might have to return to her abuser.

Inna Arolovich, who helps run a Manhattanbased advocacy group for Jewish immigrants fromthe former Soviet Union, says she has receivedthousands of letters since news of the cut-offbegan circulating. Many of them are frightening.One elderly woman wrote: "I don't have anychoice [butl suicide. I measured already-and Iam short and can drown in my bathtub ." Theneighbor of another woman who attempted suicide the night before a naturalization interviewwrote: "That night...she cut blood vessels and ligaments on hands and legs .When emergency came,she was in blood bath.""This is government-assisted suicide," saysArolovich. ''These people are Holocaust survivorsand people who were persecuted in Stalin 's gulag.Now they are persecuted by the American government." After attaining American citizenship IIyears ago, she says that for the first time in her life,"I am ashamed to be an American." .Adam Fifield is a reelance writer basedin New York.

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PIPEliNE ,

Reverend PrestonWashington, CEOoJHarlemCongregations JorCommunityImplVvement, ar155th Street andBradhursr Avenue,the alrernariveParhmark site PIV-posed by HCCIand CommunityBoard 10.[

7

Showdown on Aisle FiveA Harlem church group says it won't surrender to the mega-market fans. By April Tyler

Rebuilding Bradhurst hasalways been a contentiousbusiness, so no one expectedthe development of theneighborhood's first majorsupermarket in years to go forward without a fight.After becoming a symbol of urbandecay in the 1970s, the section of CentralHarlem that stretches from about 140thStreet and Edgecombe and Bradhurstavenues to 155th Street has been comingback. Over the last 10 years, the neighborhood has seen the rehabiUtation ofover 1,000 units of housing, commercialrevitalization of 145th Street andFrederick Douglass Boulevard and therenovation of Jackie Robinson Park.No one can speak of this resurgencewithout crediting the central role playedby Harlem Congregations forCommunity Improvement (HCCI). Acoalition of 60 churches and mosquescreated in 1986, the group has been theprimary movers of the BradhurstRedevelopment Plan, which has spearheaded much of the progress. HCCI,which wrested its initial funding from theKoch administration and was heartily supported by Mayor Dinkins, stands out as theonly large-scale black-run low-incomehousing developer in that part of Harlem .HCCI also happens to have controlover one-square block of city-owned landat the corner of 145th Street andBradhurst Avenue. Officials plan to develop into a supermarket with housing above

it. And that has put them at the center of agrowing neighborhood food fight.Last year, HCCI began work on plansto build a small supermarket run by theKrasdale chain, which already operates anumber of Bravo and C-Town markets innorthern Manhattan. The idea was toconstruct a building that would accommodate the market as well as a string ofsmaller stores to be filled by local entrepreneurs.For reasons that are not entirely clear,the city put forth a proposal last year torezone the site to accommodate the construction of a much larger supermarketprobably a Path mark, the only chain withan established track record of buildingmega-markets in inner-city neighborhoods. On March 5, in what could be thefirst step in taking the site out of HCCl'shands, the City Planning Commissiongave the rezoning its thumbs-up .Unlike the battle over the development of the Pathmark on 125th Street inEast Harlem, the debate that has dividedBradhurst is not about whether to have asupermarket-but what size it will beand who will get to control it.HCCI and its CEO, Reverend PrestonWashington, are leading the oppositionto the rezoning plan. Washington , pastorof Metropolitan Baptist Church, maintains the small market plan is the key toBradhurst being able to control its redevelopment and how the community willlook in the future ."A arge market on 145th would snarl

the economic development that is alreadunderway," he says. "We planned to hava number of smaller stores on that sitand a small supermarket. That fits into thneighborhood, not a megastore."Community Board 10, which voteagainst the rezoning scheme in Decembeagrees with HCCI. "We want to developmore entrepreneurial focus within thcommunity. The commercial spaceshouldn 't be taken up by huge stores,says Willy Walker, the board's chair.Price and ConvenienceBut the groups who support thPathmark idea are also gearing up to maktheir case. Yuien Chin , co-chair of thWest Harlem Community PreservatioOrganization , says price and conveniencfor local shoppers should outweigh whthey consider to be vaguer concerns aboucommunity control. The HamiltoHeights Homeowners Association ansome members of Community Board 9which contains parts of Bradhurst, arsupporting Chin 's position."This neighborhood can use a largsupermarket," she says. "Who is reallbeing served [by the small market]?it 's the community that we want to servewhy hasn ' t there really been an investgation into all of the options and a surveof the residents to see what they want?"Pamela Fairclough of the CommunitFood Resource Center, who has beestudying the placement of supermarkeand their use by low-income communties, also thinks this is a perfect site forlarge supermarket. "It is rare that th[quantity of land] is available iManhattan. And to have it right inneighborhood that historically has nohad its supermarket needs met makesan opportunity not to be passed up ."According to a study done by CFRC$50 million food dollars in the Bradhurarea are lost to Westchester and NewJersey because of the dearth of adequatmarkets in Harlem. The group estimate$117 million in grocery buying poweexists in the 70,000 households in tharea-while only $47 million of that sumis currently recaptured by communitmerchants. Fairclough also claims thamarkets over 30,000 square feet typically offer more than three times as manitems as Krasdale-scale markets.


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That experience is echoed in otherstudies . Recent findings by the city'sDepartment of Consumer Affairs showedthat poor people pay 8.8 percent more fora typical food basket than their counterparts in middle-income neighborhoods . Areport by Consumers Union in Californiashowed that 92 percent of middle-incomepeople traveled five minutes or less forshopping, while only 28 percent of lowincome people could get their goods without amajor trek. The majority had to travel more than 15 minutes to get to a store.Many in Harlem know this all too well."I shop in New Jersey," said MoniqueWashington, a mother of three. "I wouldlike a large market in my neighborhood . Icome to Fairway [a 35,000 square-footstore on l33rd St. near the Henry HudsonParkway] but they don't have everythingand it has a bad traffic problem ."

But opponents of the Pathmark ideasay large stores don't necessarily meanlow prices or quality."It's up to the community to monitorany store that is in the neighborhood,"says Rev. Washington. His sentiments areechoed by Michael Adams, a local historian who wonders why this communityneeds superstores when other neighborhoods in Manhattan have high qualityand low prices without large stores andthe off-street parking that they require."It's analogous to those hideous malls inthe suburbs that you don ' t want toencourage in an urban setting."CB lO's Willy Walker believes the siting of mega-market would make middleclass residents less likely to buy the oneto-four-family homes being renovatedacross the street from the market site. "Noone will buy a house right next to a hugemarket with noisy trucks, vermin, and alarge number of cars all the time."It would destroy the efforts we havemade over the last decade to improve thisarea."

Management FeesChin and her allies say such arguments are a smoke screen. HCCl's realagenda, she maintains , is all about thegroup's determination to have controlover the project-and to capture management fees that would inevitably flowfrom the development of the smallerretail spaces.Rev. Washington admits he wants thefees but insists a smaller market is better."We are under attack because we arethe major players here ," he told CityLimits. "[People outside the community]want to take that control away from us.

We are working for the empowerment ofthe community, and some people don ' twant that ....We should have control andownership of the development in ourcommunity as well as the revenue projects generate."Whether Washington gets his way isnow up to the City Council. The coun-

cil's permits committee-chaired byHarlem councilwoman C. VirginiaFields, who reportedly favors the re-zoning proposal-is scheduled to hold hearings on April 8 April Tyler is aDemocratic district leaderin Harlem.

Mega-Market vs. SupermarkeIshaving ahuge Pathmark in the neighborhood really much better than having asmallesupermarket?An informal City Limits price-check on March 17th suggested the difference is signicant but not overwhelming. We priced a typical food basket of 11 common items at thePathmark store on 207th Street in Inwood and compared the results with the prices at thBravo Supermarket on 148th Street in Central Harlem . The result? Pathmark items, totali530.03, were only 51.40 cheaper than Bravo 'sprices-a 5percent difference.What Pathmark has that Bravo-which carries Krasdale brands-doesn't have is alarger line of store brand products which are cheaper than the name brands. While cus-tomers at Pathmark can buy a pound of Pathmark butter for 52.19, Bravo customers haveshell out 52.99. In addition to its Pathmark line, the store also has an aisle of "No Frills"brand products that is even cheaper. And Pathmark has more bulk items, like a 2 b. 6 ozbox of "Crispy Rice" for 54.69, while Kellogg's Rice Krispies of the same size go for 57.19But Pathmark customers are not always there just for the price. "I'm not going to saeverything here is priced reasonably. Compared with other stores, maybe not," says SheSmith, a37-year-old telephone operator who lives in the area. "I shop at Pathmarkbecause it is convenient and there is more variety. "As for customers at Bravo, they also say they shop there because it is convenient towhere they live or work. -Mary BlatchITEM PATHMARK BRAVOGerber 2nd Foods Peas 4 oz 5.53 5.57Whole Chicken (3 Ibs.) S2.97 (S.9911b. on special) 53.27 (S1.09/lb.Ground Chuck (3 Ibs.) 55.97 (51.9911b.) S4 .77 (S1.6911b.General Mills Cheerios 10 oz 52.99 53.19Family Size Chips Ahoy 11b , 8 oz 53.79 53.99USDA Grade ALarge Eggs, 12 51.29 81.49Store Brand Rice 10 Ibs 83.49 (Pathmark) 84.19 (Krasdale)One Gallon Whole Milk 82.64 S2.79Wonder Bread 11b, 6 oz S1.69 S1.69Store Brand Enriched Bleached 8.88 (special) 51.79Flour 51bsStore Brand Sugar 5 bs S2.49 S2.29

TOTAL Pathmark: S28.73 Bravo: S30.0


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In New York City, crisis is routine.But in the cotmtry's largest Rent-tropolis,no c has becOme n e a r l ~ so routineas the housing cnsis.

DEADLYS G SOF NEW YOR CI Y'SUNHEEDED HOU ING CRISISBy Glenn Thrush

here wasn't exactly whatyou'd call an air of revelation in the old City HallBoard of E$timate Chamberwhen a tesfy throng of elderly tenants, rumpled landlords, politicians and reporters gathered to hear theofficial mid-March pronouQcement from theGiuliani administration that,yes, the city is still in a housing crisis.It's not as if anybody was there to do anything new about it.The crowd had come to hear Richard Roberts. the new housingcommissioner, give a formal statement that the city s apartmentvacancy rate is still below 5 percent-and that therefore, by statestatute, rent regulations are still in effect.Because upstate Republicans are threatening the elimination ofrent stabilization and rent control when they come up for renewalin Albany this spring, Roberts ' declaration marked the officialstart of the triennial upstate-downstate contest over the future ofrent regulation, a sort of ceremonial first pitch.The importance of the rent regulation fight is not to be underestimated: more than half of New York renters live in a million rent-sta-

bilized or ren -controlled units. The loss or erosion of rent protectionwould likely mean large rent hikes for multitudes across all economic and social classes. Yet behind this well-publicized political battlurk increasingly frightening warning signs of a much more substantial crisis affecting millions of working-class and poor tenants."Everybody's focusing on rent regulations as the key issuForget about rent regUlations-you have a huge problem loominfor affordable low-income housing ," says Michael Schill , directoof NYU Law School 's Center for Real Estate and Social Polic"You have rent increasing as a percentage of income and then yoadd welfare reform. It all hits low-income people."Schill'sobservation is backed up by the numbers. Accordingeliminary data from the U.S. Census Bureau 's Housing anVacancy Survey (HVS)--on which Roberts ' testimony wabased-affordable housing in New York City is disappearing at aalarming and accelerating rate. Rents are exploding, tenants' reincomes are falling and proposed cuts in state welfare benefitwhich few people realize is the single most important housinsubsidy for poor New Yorkers-could force thousands of publassistance tenants out of their homes.All this, while the business of landlording has become almoas profitable as it was before the deep recession of the early 1990according to statistics just released by the Rent Guidelines BoarThe signs of the crisis are here. You just have to read them.

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I In the last three y:ears,the city has lost 113,000 of its most affordable apartments.The days of the $500 apartment are over,even though many New Yorkers can't afford topay even that much.The new Housing and Vacancy Survey

(HVS) found that the number of cheap apartments has taken a huge plunge since 1993. Infact, the number of units whose rent and utilities tallied less than$500 dropped from 566,000 in 1993 to 452,000 in I996-a precipitous 20 percent fall.The greatest drop in numbers took place in the $3OO-to-$400range, with a loss of nearly 40,000 of the 133,000 apartments thatrented in that low price range three years ago.Analysts and community organizers say the numbers jibe withtales they 've heard of rent hikes in poor and working class communities citywide. The loss is almost entirely attributable to renthikes. Other factors contributed, including the loss of 30,000 rentcontrol units primarily due to the death or relocation of elderlytenants. Under state law, those apartments automatically revert torent stab ilization and are subject to significant rent increases.It is surprisin g to hear that rents in poor neighborhoods wouldbe rising rapidly, especially when the HVS itself shows that localpoverty rates are apparently growing (See Number 3, below). Therent hikes in low-income housing appear to be clustered in areasthat benefited from sign ificant housing construction or renovationin the 1980s and early '90s, such as Highbridge and Morrisania inthe South Bronx and Fort Greene and East New York, according aRent Guidelines Board summary of 1995 rent hikes.According to an informal Daily News survey of 30 real estatebrokers, one-bedroom apartment prices in parts of the SouthBronx have shot from sub-$400 rents five years ago to an averageof around $650 today."If you want to move into a nice place you are going to haveto pay a lot," says Dana Broussard, a 30-year-old Highbridge resident, who was forced to find a new apartment when her landlordjacked her rent from $572 to $700 last year. Broussard, who hadbeen raising her four kids in a one-bedroom apartment on $1 ,200a month in welfare and Food Stamps, was lucky enough to moveinto a three-bedroom apartment in a tenant-owned cooperativethat costs around $450 a month.Still , she knows many families who are stuck paying highrents even though they can't really afford it. "If the building isnew and clean, people don't really mind. But people are paying$700 a month for rat holes," she adds.

RENTS +, WAGES

Z Citywide rentsshot up 18.4 percent since 1993 ..Even if poor renters are suffering the worst, rents across theboard are rocketing skyward at a rate far outpacing inflation.

APRIL 1997

The HVS reports that the citywide medianmonthly rent, not including utilities and otherexpenses, increased 18.4 percent during thethree-year survey. Meanwhile , the nationalConsumer Price Index inched up only 7.8 percent, thanks to historically low inflation rates.How dramatic is that rent rise? Between 1981and 1993-a 12-year stretch-New York's median rent rose just $100 dollars in inflation-adjusted dollars. But from 1993 to 1996 alone, themedian rent jumped nearly another $100, from$501 to $593 a month.This acceleration is a very recent phenomenon. Between 1991and 1993 the city's median rent only increased by about 5 percent,and rent increases actually lagged behind the consumer price index.Again, the reasons for across-the-board rent rises can 't be precisely explained until more detailed data comes in. But it is happening at a time when landlords have been taking greater profits,perhaps to compensate for the lean years of the early 1990s."Unless you own a bad building in a really poor neighborhood ,it's a great time to be a landlord," says Ken Rosenfeld, a tenantmember of the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB ). "People are takingbigger profits on Wall Street and the economy's a little better now,so I think landlords believe they, too, can take higher rents."Landlord expenses are shrinking for the first time in years:"[There has been a] remarkable drop in the 'core' rate of inflationfor owners ' ...operating and maintenance costs," reads the RGB'sreport titled "1996 Rents, Markets and Trends." This month, theboard-which is authorized under rent regulations to set rentincrease guidel ines for stabil ized and contro lled apartments eachyear-plans to release another report detailing the drop in landlord expenses and the increase in rent-hike profit-taking.

3 .. while the real valueof people's paychecks is going down.If most people were getting steady pay raises, the big renthikes wouldn't be such a disturbing phenomenon. But the realearning power of the average New York family continues to fall.While Mayor Giuliani glowingly points to a growing economy, the fact is real incomes for New Yorkers declined by 2.3 percent between 1993 and 1996. There were killing blows leveled onwage earners in the early 1990s, when the city lost 330,000 jobsand real wages declined by nearly 12 percent adjusted for inflation . And in 1996, the economy generated only 23,000 new jobs,according to city Comptroller Alan Hevesi.The net loss of jobs in the 1990s, combined with the continueddecline in the value of paychecks, means more people are becoming poor even before the city embarks on federally mandated wel

fare reform. Indeed , between 1993 and 1996 the number of rentalhouseholds with incomes below the federal poverty line increasedto 628,000, or almost one-third of all renters. This is 40,000 morethan in 1993 , and all of them are barely scraping by.

4 orget new hikes, peoplecan't even afford the rents they're paying right now.Add shrinking incomes to skyrocketing rents and what do youget? Afast-tightening vise squeezing tenants ' budgets.In what is probably the most telling single statistic in the HVS ,the percentage of income New Yorkers use to pay their rent andutilities has jumped from 30.8 percent to 32.8 percent in the last


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three years. Factor inthe 2.3 percentincrease that tookplace between 1991and 1993, and youhave the most rapiderosion of housingaffordability in NewYork since the cataclysmic housingabandonment era inthe mid- '70s.ironically, housing was a lot more affordable then, since at thattime rents typically cost people only a quarter of their income.In fact, when held to the longtime federal affordability standard-which considers rents at an appropriate level if they are setno higher than 30 percent of a family's income-NewYork is nowan officially unaffordable city. ''The bad news on the income-torent ratio is the thing that really stands out this year," saysColumbia University urban planning professor Peter Marcuse,who has long studied the city's housing policy. "There's the crisis."Although neighborhood-by-neighborhood affordability information hasn 't yet been released, the picture in 1993 was dismal enough.

The poorest tenants, according to the survey, were paying nearlythree-quarters of their income on basic shelter, and some unluckysouls were actually spending more on rent than they brought home.Nor was the rent-income squeeze felt by the very poor alone: In1993, working-class renters not covered by rent regulation wereshelling out, on average, nearly half of their pay in rent."And that's going to keep getting worse," Marcuse predicted.But at least we're not alone in our suffering. "It's not just aNew York thing," Michael Schill adds. "It continues a trend incities throughout the United States. Paychecks are going downand rents are going up."

5 Governor Pataki'swelfare cuts could triple the number ofhomeless New Yorkers.Most people think of welfare aswalking -around money for food,clothing, utility bills and other expenses. In fact, it's the city's largest butleast recognized low-income housingsubsidy.According to two chilling newreports, Governor George Pataki's proposed welfare reform measure willeliminate much of that assistance andpotentially throw tens of thousands of the poor onto the streets.In addition to the federal mandate for a five-year lifetime limiton benefits, Pataki has proposed cutting welfare payments forlongtime recipients by 15 to 45 percent over the next four years.In addition, he has opted for a "housing allowance consolidationplan" that will likely lead to the elimination of the $75 millionJiggetts benefit, a court-ordered relief program that providesmuch-needed rent payments to more than 25,000 public assistance recipients threatened with imminent eviction.The Community Service Society, a research and social serviceorganization, estimates that of the $2.4 billion paid out in welfarebenefits to nearly a million city public assistance recipients, $1.4billion covers housing costs. Since most of those on the rolls livein privately owned apartments, welfare tenants pay a remarkably

high 57 percent of their incomes on rent, according to CSS.The Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a more businessoriented housing research group, recently convened a committeeincluding representatives of the real estate industry and bankexecutives-and they reached conclusions similar to those presented by CSS. Pataki 's welfare scheme, CHPC said, "could displace thousands of public assistance tenants."If the Pataki cuts are enacted, CHPC predicts the number opeople seeking lodging at city homeless shelters will triple from

9,400 this year to 30,000 in 2002."The impact of [pataki's] welfare-to-work plan on housingwill be disastrous," says Frank Braconi, CHPC's executive director. "It would be wonderful if you could move half a million welfare recipients into well-paying jobs, as the governor plans to doBut you look at the job market and you know there aren 't enoughjobs for people to be able to pay their rents."If that all sounds a trifle apocalyptic, then just look toMichigan, says housing analyst Victor Bach, author of the CSSstudy. He points to a 1994 report showing that when Michigan terminated general assistance-the equivalent of New York's HomeRelief program for childless adults-the homelessness rate amongrecipients rose from 2 percent to 25 percent."The city will experience an escalation in precarious doubled

up situations and growing demand for emergency shelter," Bachwrites in the CSS report. "Neighborhoods with high concentrations of assisted' households will suffer devastation as curtailedrent streams worsen the spread of housing deterioration, ownedisinvestment and abandonment, and decline of the local retaieconomy."

6 The city's In Rem policy has created a"permanent underclass"of over 10\000 deteriorating apartment build-ings in poor neighborhoods.In a triumphant press releaseaccompanying the HVS ,MayorRudolph Giuliani trumpetedthe fact that vacancy rates forlow-rent apartments hadincreased . "[T]he vacancy[percentage] for low-rentunits increased considerablybetween 1993 and 1996."On the surface, that seems like

good news , as though it's easier for ................. .....poor people to find cheap apartments.But it 's not. The administration's spin is deceptive.While the percentage of low-rent apartments may have spiked statistically, thetotal number of low-rent units has dwindled to an all-time lowThe net result: There are fewer low-rent vacancies, not more.Says Rosenfeld: "You've got poor people getting poorer.You've got a shrinking low-income housing stock. You've golandlords complaining that they don ' t make enough money torun their buildings in very poor neighborhoods. So, all of a sudden you have a huge rise in the vacancy percentages? It doesn'tmake sense."Part of the explanation is a statistical glitch. In 1993, becauseof a one-time sampling problem, the city was unable to quantifythe number of vacancies for apartments renting for $400 amonthIn fact, an examination of the 1991 vacancy data compared to the1996 HVS shows that there was actually a significant decrease inthe number of sub-$5oo vacancies over the intervening years.And Peter Marcuse thinks he's found another, more ominous,

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Rental AnguishA t first glance, PatriciaWilliams' two-bedroomapartment in Central Harlemseems like apretty good deal. Twobedrooms, right near the train station,only 5430.30 amonth.But like agrowing number of poorand working-class people in New York,the 43-year old single mother of twopays most of her monthly income justto keep ashaky roof over her head. Inaddition to sending her entire 5352monthly welfare check to the landlord,Williams dips into the extra 5489 amonth in survivor'sbenefits she 'sbeenreceiving since the father of herdaughter died ofa bad heart six yearsago . Williams hoped to save that moneyto help the 12-year-old go to college."I feel guilty using that money topay the rent," she says softly. "Eventhough it's or her also , to keep theroof over her head."In 1993, Williams quit her 520,000-a-year job as a receptionist as shestruggled through adifficult pregnancy.

After her son was born , she decidedto stay home, take care of the kids,and collect public assistance and FoodStamps. Over the last three years shehas taken bookkeeping and computercourses, but hasn 't been able togetoft' welfare. Her rent nightmare camealong with the welfare check. In NewYork City, public assistance reCipientsspend an average of 57 percent oftheir income on rent-a situation thatis likely to get even worse if GovernorGeorge Pataki'smassive reductions inwelfare benefits are approved by thestate legislature this spring."I have to pay my phone bill andmy cable bill," Williams explains. "I'mlucky if I have 525 left. And with that525 I have to buy detergents, soap andeverything like that. It'sreally hard... Ican't even buy my children shoes orclothes for Easter."Her apartment is no bargain at anyprice. Teal green wall-to-wall carpetcovers buckling wood floors in her livingroom , where she takes a ong drag on a

cigarette before starting her morningjob hunt. Her son usually sleeps withher, and her daughter has a room downthe hall with no heat. Williams leavesthe stove on sometimes to stay wann.The walls are blotched with paint andplaster from ahistory of water damage.

"We were sleeping and the ceilingfell on us at about three in the morning ," she says, after showing avisitorher bedroom. "We weren't hurt. Mydaughter cried for like an hour and shewas frightened."Meanwhile, her applications forsubsidized housing have been tossed tothe end of the Housing Authority'syears-long waiting list. And no matterhow hard she looks in the privaterental market, Williams says she can'tfind anything better in Harlem or theBronx, where she grew up."Rent is high wherever you go,"she says. "For a three-bedroomapartment-that's like 5650 and up."-Beth FertigBeth Fertig is a reporter for WNYC.

explanation: some buildings are so bad no one wants to live inthem. "There 's a good chance poor people just don 't want to takethese units ," he says. "We've allowed a class of buildings to rundown to the point where they are almost uninhabitable but notquite abandoned."

third-party landlords or nonprofit groups, was foundering for lackof funding and planning.

7 Worsening cutbacks in federal housing aidmean less money to help fix bad buildingsThe numbers seem to back him up. Although the vast majority of buildings on the survey reported tolerable structural conditions , the HVS also reports slight increases in the di lapidationrates and in the number of buildings with major maintenanceproblems .Marcuse argues that these numbers indicate there is a hardening division between the good housing stock and the permanent"underclass" of deteriorating apartment buildings in poor neighborhoods.The existence of the distressed buildings is borne out by ananalysis of tax records by Frank Braconi, who found the numberof apartment building in tax arrears has been at around14,000 for several years. "I think that it's a goodrough measure of the number of buildings thatseem to be in trouble," he said.

or help the poor stay under a roof.New York relies heavily on federal money to subsidize affordable housing. About 40,000 households on welfare receiveSection 8 vouchers to help pay their rent on the private market, asdo tens of thousands more low-income working people .But the federal money faucet has been fitted with a new cutoff val ve. Last year, for the first time in more than 20 years,Congress and President Clinton zeroed-out a proposed increase inthe number of Section 8 rent vouchers. With no new vouchersavailable, tenants have to wait for current voucher holders to die

or become ineligible under the income guidelines.In New York City, the waiting list for Section 8ouchers is 236,000 families long--every oneIn years past, the city would have takenthese buildings under In Rem tax foreclosure SECTION EIGHT

of them qualified for the program under federal rules.According to a recent analysis by theNational Low-Income Housing Coalition,Congress cut funding for poor tenants from$24.9 billion in 1992 to $15.7 billion this year.and, over time, applied federal and cityfunds to their maintenance and renovation.But since 1994, when Mayor Giulianiannounced a permanent stop to tax-arrearsvesting, those buildings have languished inlimbo while the city figures out what to dowith them . Last month , City Limits reported thatHPD's anti-abandonment program , which wouldhave transferred many of these buildings to responsible

00 "I f this continues, it's going to have disastrous effects," predicts Jay Small , executive director of the Association foreighborhood and Housing Development."Government has to recognize that providingdecent housing is a core function again."


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IIs long as anyone living at 322 Irvine TurnerBoulevard in Newark's Central Ward canremember, their building never looked good.The facade was always worn and tired and nomatter how many times the brown and whiteinterior was painted, it always looked and feltlike a dungeon. The stairs were rotted, thelong, dark hallways were dingy and bleak, and the heat and hotwater were inconsistent. Even so, the rents were high-$350 to$700 a month. Families doubled up or spent their entire welfarecheck on rent in order to live there.Until 8 p.m. on the day after Christmas, when Maxine smelledsmoke, the building was home to 20 families, including 45 children. The fire department responded immediately, smashingthrough the top-floor windows, breaking out the walls and ceil

ings to expose smoldering wires. Water and smoke destroyed furnishings, clothes, hopes and dreams.Officials shut off the building's electricity, and that meant theheat wouldn't come on. Candles, flashlights and gas stoves werethe only light and heat the families had for more than a week. "It's

IThe building is privately owned. Aclerk at Newark City Haltold me the landlord lives in Morristown, an affluent New Jerseysuburb. He had racked up several code violations on the building. But the clerk said that's nothing unique .After all, the finefor code violations are very small, and aren't much of a botheto the landlords.I tapped lightly on an open apartment door and walked intMildred's first floor apartment. This frail, elderly woman had haa devastating year. In May, her second foot wa amputatedbecause of diabetes and her only daughter, Cocoa, was shot tdeath while walking on the street. "I don't want to move," shkept repeating in her quiet voice. "I want to stay here. Cocoa'memory is here."As the building slowly emptied of its inhabitants, the familiecarried away their possessions in large, black garbage bags

Echoes drifted through the halls as old pick-up trucks loaded withmeager belongings pulled away from the curb. Afterwards, thbuilding became still. As 1walked through one empty apartmenafter another, I felt as gloomy as the dreary winter fog that surrounded the area. All around me were signs of the fife: shattered

FORCED OUT BY FIRE, A GROUP OF NEWARKTENANTS LOST MORE THAN THEIR HOMES.THEY LOST A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY.a nightmare," said Shmooze, Maxine's youngest son, a few daysafter the power went out. "The halls are pitch black at night. It'sreal scary. All the noises! You can't see anything!"Many of the tenants had lived there for more than a decade.Their children were born and raised in the building. Some of theirneighbors died there. It may have been expensive, but there wasn't much else available in Newark, and few of them could affordto move. To get a new apartment, they would have had to give alandlord at least two and a half months ' rent up-front, and no onehere had that kind of money to spare.For 15 years I have been photographing this building and thepeople who lived there amid the rot and decay.Over the years, oneby one, the other buildings along the block had fires and wereeventually bulldozed. At last it was 322's turn. The December fIfe,and another that followed a few days later, have been termed"accidental" by city officials, though many of the residents havetheir doubts about that.Maxine, who lived there nine years, told me how the Red Crosscame and put most of the families in a hotel. "I'm comfortable inthis place. I don't want to move," she said softly, as she leanedagainst the broken door frame. "No one wants to move. My rootsare here. I'm used to this building. Why isn 't someone responsible?Why can't someone [LX it up?" Every tenant I spoke to in the daysafter the fire was sullen, stoic or stunned. Some could hardly move,as though paralyzed by fear, as they were forced to face one of theworst realities of poverty: being "burned out."

glass, broken walls and ceilings , scattered remnants of clothes anfurniture, a forgotten Teddy bear. Some rooms still felt warm withtheir history, their memories.

It was like photographing the last portrait, clinging to a neefor a keepsake or a document to remember a loved one 's lasbreath. Only the packaging was left, the superficial. The ingredients, the guts, the emotions, the life of the place was dying.What is a home? Is it only a shelter from the rain and snow,pile of bricks and cement, boards and nails? Or is it a sanctuary? Amember of the family? A place where loved ones gather? Aplacto live one's life, to see the children grow? A place with a heartbeat, a spirit, a soul that heaves and sighs with hope and despair?Over the years that I've spent with the people here, I havshared in some of their moments , some of the sounds of their liveand their tears and laughter. There are many memories: the firsand last days of chool, the long hot summers, the problems , thjoys, the deaths as well as the births.And now, an empty shell, the place stands open to the elements, to the onslaught of scavengers and the city bulldozers. Ar urned to go, I whispered good-bye. r elt as though somethingvery important has been left behind. For a long time, I stared at thfacade , and wondered how easily a stranger could see only a sadtired , broken down old building.Helen M. Stummer's recent book oJphotographs, "No Easy WalkNewark 1980-1993, " was published by Temple University Press.

PHOTOS AND TEXT BY HELEN M. STUMMER


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January 1997


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e glar alarm was ringing, ringing, ringing. Leonardo, the soft-spoken ca etaker of St. Edward the Confessor Church, wished itwould st p. It was the third time the alarm had sounded in the pasttwo days. t was probably pipers again, Leonardo thought. Theywere alwa s breaking in, looking for a place to smoke crack orscrounging around for something to steal. There wasn 't much totake at St. Edward 's. The massive old church was abandoned. Andit was Leonardo's job to guard it.Leonardo stepped out from the rectory next to the church andlooked toward the stone steps of St. Edward 's and its towering redfront doors. At the corner of Eighth and York, a few steps from thechurch , he saw a young woman with flowing brown bair leadinga little girl by the hand. Behind them walked a group of about 20men and women toting blankets and babies and placards. The

brown-haired woman directed everyone to the front steps of StEdward 's, where they sat down. The alarm was still wailing, buthe people on the steps did not seem concerned. Leonardo walkedback inside the rectory to call the police.In the brilliant morning sunshine, Cheri Honkala stood on thepale gray church steps and addressed her most loyal supportersMariluz and Elba, two homeless welfare mothers, were there withtheir six children, including Mariluz ' daughter Destiny, who held he

book bag in her lap even though she was not yet registered in schoolJ.R. and Tara were there, holding hands. Katie was there too, smoking a cigarette next to Aaco who, on this late September morninghad loaded women and children on the back of his truck and driventhem to St. Edward 's from an encampment called Tent City in anearby section of Philadelphia's notorious Badlands neighborhood.

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Cheri stubbed out her Marlboro. Then she laid out the plan."Listen up, people," she said, "the police will be here prettysoon. Our message to them is: We are borrowing the church for awhile to keep warm and keep all our families together. The copswill ask us to show permission to be here. I say that God gives uspermission to live in his house."It was Cheri Honkala 's idea to organize these homeless families and-very publicly-provide them makeshift housing. Withgreat fanfare , she built Tent City earlier that summer on a vacantlot near an old Quaker Lace factory. But as summer gave way toautumn's cold winds, Honkala and the families needed warmerspace. She thought St. Edward's was perfect. The neighborhood 'srecent church closings had generated extensive and not entirelyfavorable publicity for the Roman Catholic archdiocese, and

APRIL 1997

Cheri thought it would be difficult for the archdiocese to evicthomeless families from an unused church in a poor neighborhood.Cheri, founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union(KW RU) and awelfare mother herself, loved to create politicallycharged pectacles. This was the summer of 1995, when a newlyelected conservative Congress was crafting the landmark legislation that would eventually end the nation 's guarantee of welfarebenefits for children. Cheri was now at war with society over itstreatment of the poor, seeking new ways to dramatize how city,state and federal policies had set destitute people adlift. She knewjournalists had lost all interest in Tent City. Taking over St.Edward's would once again put the plight of the city's homelesson the nightly newscast and in the pages of the local dailies.After the group broke in, they set up cribs for the babies andlaid blankets on the tloor for the toddlers. Mariluz found a box ofpink plastic flowers and handed them out. Cheri gathered everybody at the pulpit and led a brief prayer. Then everyone sat quietly and waited for the police. Cheri took Mariluz ' hand and said,"Keep calm." Within minutes, someone at the front door criedout: "The cops are here!"

The newspapers called Cheri a homeless rights advocate or a welfare rights advocate. The bureaucratsresponsible for welfare, housing and the homeless inPhiladelphia said worse things , chiefly that Cheri wasa publicity hound , that she lied and schemed, that shewas all mouth and no results.It was not surprising that that they said such things , for Cheriwoke up almost every morning with a new plan to confront andembarrass some poor city functionary. She would gather welfaremothers in a city office and chant and scream until the bureaucratin charge came out to take a painful and very public tongue-lashing. After the city spent millions to build a new convention center next door to a soup kitchen, Cheri led a group of homelesswelfare recipients who bedded down for the night on the center 'spolished marble floors . Later, she and a gang of homeless peoplecamped out a city housing official's front lawn. That same year,Cheri issued an arrest warrant for the governor, saying he hadcommitted crimes against the poor. And just recently Cheri hadbeen seen chasing the mayo r down a City Hall corridor, engaging him in a rousing shouting match as press photographerssnapped away.Abig focus of Cheri's wrath was the city's shelter system. Nohomeless person could receive housing assistance without firstgoing through the system, which the city used as a vast tatterednet to collect the homeless so they might be more easily sortedand catalogued. Only then were they eligible to be placed on waiting Ii ts, containing thousands of names , for scarce rent-subsidyvouchers. By requiring all housing voucher applicants to enter theshelter system, the city was able to determine not only whether theapplicant was truly homeless but also what mix of social pathologies-


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Adept at manipulatingboth the police andthe press, CheriHonkala negotiateswith Capt. HerbLouieI' on the day of[he chu reh wk eover.

committee-had recruited homeless people from the shelters andhelped them break into and take over abandoned houses. In 1993and again in 1994, she forced the city to back down and awardabout three dozen KWRU families rent vouchers for the privatelyowned houses they had taken over without going through the shelter system . But by the summer of 1995, the city had tired ofCheri 's tactics. It was taking a stand. There would be no moreexceptions . Cheri's people had to go through the shelter systemlike everyone else. Cheri responded by building Tent City.A t the church , Cheri was waiting for a police supervisor. News camera crews, alerted by the policeradio , were milling around, filming sleepingbabies and taking long shots of the magnificentcathedral ceilings.Finally, Captain Herb Lottier of the 26th District appeared nearthe altar steps .He stood with his hands jammed into his rear pock-

ets, gazing around at sculptures of the saints and the intricatelycarved buttresses beneath the high windows. He saw Cheri belowthe pulpit and asked , ''Who are you with?""The Kensington Welfare Rights Union," Cheri said . "We'reseeking shelter in the church . It 's abandoned. It's got warmth forthe kids."The captain stroked his chin . He seemed to be a man of fewwords. He told Cheri that someone from his district was trying tocontact the archdiocese. He wanted to find out the archdiocese 'sposition on people living in church.Cheri asked if the police intended to let the families stay."I'm not the ultimate authority," the captain said. He looked upat the vaulted ceiling. "Who's to say who the ultimate authority is?"At the offices of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the call fromthe police caught everyone by surprise. It was late afternoon beforefour church officials arrived. The four men asked Cheri if they

could "have a dialogue" beneath the pulpit, away from the reporters

and TV crews. Cheri summoned Mariluz, Elba, Tara and Katie, andthe women sat in a tight circle, facing the men from the archdioceseThe men told the group they were breaking the law. They couldnot stay. St. Edward 's was not designed for habitation, particularlyfor children. The families would be much more comfortable inchurch-run hospices. There the families would have warm beds, hofood and working toilets. They could put their names on the city'waiting lists for vouchers for transitional housing. Wouldn't thamake more sense? Couldn ' t Cheri be reasonable?Cheri told the men they had missed the point. The point wanot the services the archdiocese provided for the poor. The pointshe said , was the city 's failure to provide affordable housing tpoor families at a time when their primary source of incomewelfare-was threatened by politicians in Washington andHarrisburg. Putting the families in church-run shelters was nobetter than putting them in city-run shelters. They neededhomes, not shelters. The men from tharchdiocese repeated thaCheri was breaking thlaw. Cheri raised hevoice and said, "There's

higher law involvedhere."The monsignor said"Cheri, you're an educated person. You can't lookme in the eye and say oulaws aren't just.""I'm saying our lawaren't designed to protecthe interests of the poor,she replied.

The monsignor shookhis head. "You 're wrong ,he said.

"I thought a man othe cloth would want tdiscuss spiritual andmoral issues, not the law,Cheri said. "You havevery narrow viewpoint.""You're not leavingare you?" the monsignoasked abruptly. Cheri didnot respond.

Curch officials, sensing the makings of a publicitynightmare, did not attempt to evict the families. Thiwas good news for Mariluz who appreciated the relative warmth and security of the church after living ia tent on the Quaker Lace lot. The mother of threyoung children-Destiny, Desiree and Demitre-she was onKWRU 's war council and with each passing month grew morskilled at helping lead the organization.Mariluz was finishing her fifth year on welfare. She was wearyof her own dependency. She had fallen into motherhood accidentally, while addicted to crack . But she kicked the habit during hepregnancy and her first child, Destiny, was born as normal andhealthy as a baby could possibly be, given her mother 's circumstances. Mariluz had managed to stay off drugs since. She said shewas willing to pay for her mistakes, but it pained her that her children were suffering because of her inadequacies . The longer shestayed on welfare, she thought, the more likely it was she would

CITY LIMITS


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condemn her children to the same sort of bleak existence.As a result , she longed for a home and a job , the two stabilizing fulcrums of life she had denied her own children. She hadworked as a grill cook at Burger King and as a sales clerk at athrift store, but those were minimum wage jobs that did not payany more than welfare-and they did not provide medical coverage. If she ever found an affordable home, Mariluz promised herself, she would find day care for the kids and go back to school.She wanted to be a pediatric nurse.The statistics, however, were not in her favor. Altogether, morethan $2.4 billion a year in welfare benefits poured intoPhiladelphia, much of it directed to North Philadelphia. At least550,000 people, or one-third of the city's popUlation , receivedsome form of public assistance. Philadelphia 's welfare outlay wasbigger than that of 38 states.Despite the politicians' rhetoric, the chances of moving thesehuge numbers of people from welfare to work were not good,given the economic realities of the city. Philadelphia 's threedecades-old economic slide was accelerating, continuing to drainthe lifeblood of the poor-blue-collar and service industry jobs-from the urban core. Since 1970, Philadelphia had lost a quartermillion jobs; since 1979, it had lost more than half its factory jobs.Between 1985 and 1994, the city posted 68 consecutive months ofjob losses.At the bottom of the welfare pipeline were single, homelessmothers like Mariluz. She wondered how anyone on welfare couldafford housing,much less food and clothing. She could only imagine that they had family and friends to rely on, or husbands andboyfriends who gave them money under the table. Mariluz had nofamily, no boyfriend. Her only true friends were Cheri and Elba,who were as destitute as she was.L ater that week, I encountered John Wagner, one of thearchdiocesan officials responsible for homeless andhousing issues. I asked Wagner what the archdioceseintended to do about the families living at St. Edward's."I think the archdiocese has been wonderful aboutthis whole thing." He spoke in a weary way, tinged with theearnest intensity assumed by church people when peaking of thenon-devout. "We want to help these people, not throw them out.Just about everybody in there has some sort of special need-AIDS , mental illness, drug abu e, alcoholism. We want to addresseach person's needs ."His argument summed up perfectly the fundamental conflictbetween Cheri and the people who run homeless services inPhiladelphia. The officials thought people's problems need to berepaired before they could be housed. Cheri didn 't.I told Wagner that not everybody inside the church was anaddict or an alcoholic or a mental patient. While many of thehangers-on were indeed former or current drug users, or sufferedfrom mental or emotional problems, I said the core leadershipconsisted of sober, competent people. Their resourcefulness andsurvival skills were obvious enough.He agreed, but he added that the housing vouchers Cheri wasseeking wouldn't solve most of these people's problems . "Youthink they 're capable of handling a house and running a household, some of them? It wouldn't be fair to them . They have serious problems ," he said. "Giving some of these people voucherswould be like a doctor giving a cancer patient painkillers to makehim feel better but not doing anything to treat the cancer."After speaking with Wagner, I decided to visit Bill Parshall ,whose formal title was deputy city managing director but whowas better known as the city's "homeless czar." I wanted tohear his views on Cheri and KWRU . I met him in his office on

APRIL 1997

the fourteenth floor of a drab Center City high-rise filled withsecond-tier municipal agencies. He was pleasant and accommodating, eager to discuss his little niche of city services-thethankle s job of dealing with the poor, the miserable, the lost,the homeless.Parshall stre sed what other city officials had been saying inthe newspapers. Cheri's days of circumventing the shelter systemwere over. Her people had to wait in line with everyone else fortransitional housing vouchers. (The vouchers committed the cityto paying a portion of the rent in a private apartment , usually for12 to 18 months , while a recipient waited for federally subs idized

housing.) Parshall pointed out that of the roughly 38 KWRU individuals or families who had received transitional hou ing vouchers in 1993 and 1994, nearly half had later dropped out of thevoucher program. Many did not fulfill city requirements that theyremain drug-free and find jobs or further their education. "Nowwe have a baseline position," Parshall said. "People have to gothrough the shelter system to get the goodies."As for Cheri's argument that the city should throw open its27,000 abandoned properties for poor people to fIX up, Parshallsaid most of the places were beyond repair. About 20,000 hadbeen abandoned 0 long that they had been stripped clean. It

M l l r i l u Ihe mOlheoj Ihree, has spe/ll jyears on welfare.She plans 10 pursuenursing degree assoon as her childrelire old enough 10 bpUI in school.


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Mariluz' SOil Demitrelooks 011 as KWRUactivists illegally movethe family illto allempty HUD home.

would cost at least $100,000 each to make them habitable.Another 6,000 homes would cost about $45,000 a piece to rehabilitate. That left only about 1,000 homes in good enough condition that only $5,000 to $10,000 in repairs would be needed tomake them habitable. But Philadelphia was a city with at least24,000 homeless people and the waiting list for federally-backedSection 8 housing more than 15,000 families long.Ceri wasn't homeless herself. She lived in a row hou ewith her son Mark. At first, like the others, she hadsurvived on welfare. But eventually, Cheri found thesystem's endless demands too time-consuming andhumiliating. While the group was still in Tent City atthe Quaker Lace lot, Cheri dropped off welfare and quietly took ajob in a local strip club. it paid the bills and allowed her to work allday on the KWRU campaign. None of her patrons revealed this tothe press, which for Mark's sake she was grateful.As fall gave way to winter, Cheri knew she would have to comeup with new homes for everyone living in St. Edward's. The warcouncil had a plan. For weeks, Katie and others had been scoutingout houses owned by the federal Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment. From HUD offices downtown, they had obtained theaddresses of HUD properties listed for sale or rent. These wereprime row houses, taken over by HUD, typically for foreclosure onan FHA loan or failure to pay taxes, and considered in sufficientlygood condition to be repaired and put on the market. HUD owned260 such homes, all unoccupied . Katie had scouted out the mostpromising location s, carefully noting whether they had active gasand electric hook-ups . She and Cheri prepared a list of 19 housesthey believed were ready for instant occupancy and could be broken into with little effort. The war council assigned the 19 addresses to KWRU members who had been with the group the longest andwho had displayed loyalty and commitment to the struggle. Thefust names on the list were Mariluz and Elba.Cheri set moving day for two weeks before Christmas. She

knew several factorswere in her favor. Forone thing, the savagelycold weather made itunlikely that HUD or thecity would try to evictpeople from the takeoverhouses , with homelesspeople dying in thestreets and the sheltersfull. For another, bureaucrats were not inclined toforcibly remove destitutefamilies from otherwiseunoccupied homes justbefore Christmas. Cheriimagined the newspaperheadlines: Officials PlayGrinch, Evict HomelessFamilies at Christmas.The day before themove, Cheri held a warcouncil meeting at herhouse on Randolph Streetto make final plans for theoperation. Cheri turned toMariluz and Elba. She toldthem that their housewould be consideredKWRU 's "public house.""It 's going to be stressful for you two ," Cheri said."Everything you do will be watched closely, right down to whatyou put in your trash. Just remember it's important to let the public know there are thousands of empty houses going to waste inthis city and you are willing to pay for the right to live in one ofthem and fix it up."The next day, people tore down the partitions they had builtinside St. Edward's from plywood and donated sheets, and packedtheir belongings for the big move. Mariluz and Elba were drivento their new home. As they walked up the steps, each with a babyin her arms, they found someone from KWRU had already usedbolt cutters to slice open the HUD lock on the front door.AfellowKWRU member appeared from the inside and threw open thedoor and said, "Welcome to your new house!"M riluz and Elba made plans for Christmas Eve.They put the children's presents under the treeand plugged in the tree lights. Elba cooked riceand beans on the kerosene heater, and Mariluzbrought out salami and cheese and bread. As theycooked, Destiny came downstairs and complained that it was too

cold in her room. Mariluz reminded her that she had worn herovercoat and boots inside the church. Now she walked around thehouse in her pajamas and sLippers.Mariluz swore she would never go back to the church, even ifshe got kicked out of her HUD house. "I think we can stay herefor a while. Katie told me she stayed seven months in a HUDhouse. That would be paradise to me." As long as the governmentdid not cut her off from welfare, she said, she could survive ."This is where I want to be," Mariluz said. "I'm going to haveChristmas Eve right here with my kids in my new home. That'swhat I've been working for ever since we set up Tent City."We'll be the perfect little American family, at home, all warmand fat, singing Christmas carols and opening the presents underthe tree." .CITY LIMITS


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r . - - . .C I Y ~ V ' E Fitting Memorial

CharlesKomalloff, alleconomistspecializing illenergy andtransport policy,was presidentof the bicyclistalld pedestrianadvocacy groupTransportationAlternativesfrom 1986 to1992.

aa

By Charles KomanoffWth the recent federal court convictions in the1991 murder of Yankel Rosenbaum in CrownHeights, it is time to address the death thatpreceded his and helped provoke it-that of7-year-old Gavin Cato, who died in what hasbeen euphemistically termed an "automobile accident."Because Gavin was black and was run over by a car in anHasidic motorcade-one of many that habitually sped throughhis predominantly African-American neighborhood-andbecause the ensuing riots were violently anti-Semitic, everything that transpired that day has been viewed in racial terms.But if we lift the heavy veil of race, we will see that Gavin'sdeath , while not the result of an intentional or racially motivatappalling and arguably criminally negligent , resembled that indozens of other fatalities where drivers seeking to gain a fewseconds of saved time for themselves ended up grievouslyharming others .Our community suffers greatly from car violence, not onlyin lives lost or injured but in the wholesale theft of our publicstreets. Yet we maintain few restraints against automotiveendangerment. Excluding limited-acces s highways , policeissued fewer than three dozen speeding tickets a day in onerecent year. Motorists routinely encroach on pedestrians, intimidate bicyclists and otherwise operate their vehicles heedless oftheir power to maim or kill with the flex of the gas pedal or theflick of the steering wheel. Only a handful of those who actualed act, was still an expression of violence, exerted through the crushingweight of an automobile.It was a Sunday evening inAugust and Gavin was in front of hishouse, tinkering with his bicycle,when a station wagon, the third andlast car in the Lubavitcher

Motorists routinelyoperate vehicles heedlessoftheir power

ly injure pedestrians or cyclists areever stripped of their driving privileges, much less charged withcrimes.To this condition ,which isbotha qUality-of-life disaster and anunacknowledged crime wave, citygovernment typically respondswith victim-blaming and complacency. A recent transportationcommissioner repeatedly decried

Rabbi 's weekly motorcade, accelerated througha red light at the nearby to maim or kill.corner. The car collided with another vehicle andcareened onto the sidewalk, pinning Gavin and hiscousin Angela Cato against awindow grate. Gavinwas killed instantly and Angela was badly injured.The incident touched off a spate of mob behaviorthat culminated three hours later and three blocksaway with the fatal stabbing of YankelRosenbaum, an Hasidic Jew unrelated to the driver of the station wagon.Lost in the aftermath of the Rosenbaum slaying, and still overlooked almost six years later, isthe pervasi veness of the type of car violence thatkilled Gavin Cato. In New York, a city wherecar owners are a minority, automobiles mostoften kill and maim persons unprotected by car bodies and

airbags. And they do so without regard to race. Of 609 trafficfatalities in New York City in 1991 , the year Gavin was killed,296 were pedestrians and 21 were bicyclists. Among the pedestrians, 49 percent were white , 28 percent black, 18 percentHispanic and 5 percent Asian-a fair mirror of the city as awhole. Based on available statistics, the racial breakdown of thedrivers in these incidents appears to have been similar.Nearly one-tenth of the pedestrians killed that same yearwere child

city limits magazine, april 1997 issue

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