Our Twentieth Year

EDITORIAL
T fi""'= 'f ""'dIm",,,,,,,,,,d """ tJwj
flattened wide expanses of New York City's poorest neigh-
borhoods in the 1970s did more than signal the failure of
national urban policy. They also ignited an activist com-
munity movement that started out scrappy, rebuilding abandoned tene-
ments, organizing tenants, demanding resources from the government.
City Limits Community Housing News, as we were once known, was
born of that movement in early 1976 as a newsletter for the members of
the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers, headed by the late
Bob Schur. Early issues included updates on the politics of housing and
the how-to of sweat equity, grand strategies for redevelopment, profiles of
the personalities making change happen.
Many of those folks are still active in
New York housing, and in the interven-
ing years the movement has evolved
into a multimillion dollar nonprofit
industry responsible for the rejuvena-
tion of many, if not most, of those once-
decimated low income communities.
Today, poverty and disinvestment still
wreak havoc in these neighborhoods,
yet, at the same time, they are alive with
a luminous urban culture where mil-
lions of New Yorkers raise and educate
their children, pursue their businesses,
live out their lives.
CITY LIMITS
COMMUNITY HOUSING NEWS
149 LEADS THE WAY
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-.--.. ---.. -..... -...... -.... -, ... _._-_ ..... _--_ .. . _-_ .... -
--_ ....... _---_._---.. - :.:,:-..... -.. _-.... _-_ ....... _ .... --

In many ways, community developers, organizers and antipoverty
advocates can be credited with saving this city's skin. Andfor 20 years,
City Limits has told their stories. Today we are an independent news-
magazine still devoted to the steady rebirth of New York's neighbor-
hoods. True, we don't bear much resemblance to the old newsletter, but
then, New York doesn't much resemble the land of Mayor Beame any-
more, either.
The political challenges are as tough as ever and the prospects for
overcoming poverty at least as frightening as in years past. Still, it's
good to be here. We hope you enjoy reading the magazine this year more
than ever.
Cover photo by Nick White
(ity Limits
Volume XXI Number 1
City Limits is published ten times per year. monthly except
bi-monthly issues in June/July and AugusVSeptember. by
the City limits Community Information Service. Inc .. a non-
profit organization devoted to disseminating information
concerning neighborhood revitalization.
Editor: Andrew White
Senior Editor: Kim Nauer
Special Projects Editor: Kierna Mayo Dawsey
Associate Editor: Kevin Heldman
Contribu1ing Editors: James Bradley. Rob Polner.
Glenn Thrush
Design Director: David Huang
Assistant Designer: Paul Leishman
Advertising Representative: Faith Wiggins
Busi ness Manager: Winton Pitcoff
Proofreader: Sandy Socolar
Photographers: Ana Asian, Gregory P. Mango,
Nick White
Intern: Julian Camilo Pozzi
Sponsors:
Association for Neighborhood and
Housing Development. Inc.
Pratt Institute Center for Community
and Environmental Development
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
Board of Directors*:
Eddie Bautista. New York Lawyers for
the Public Interest
Beverly Cheuvront. City Harvest
Francine Justa. Neighborhood Housing Services
Errol Louis, Central Brooklyn Partnership
Rima McCoy, Action for Community Empowerment
Rebecca Reich, Low Income Housing Fund
Andrew Reicher, UHAB
Tom Robbins, Journalist
Jay Small , ANHD
Doug Turetsky, former City limits Editor
Pete Williams, National Urban League
"Affiliations for identification only
Subscription rates are: for individuals and community
groups, $25/0ne Year, $35/Two Years; for businesses,
foundations. banks. government agencies and libraries.
$35/0ne Year. $50/Two Years. Low income, unemployed,
$10/ 0ne Year.
City Limits welcomes comments and article contributions.
Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for
return manuscripts. Material in City Limits does not neces-
sarily reflect the opinion of the sponsoring organizations.
Send correspondence to: City Limits, 40 Prince St., New
York, NY 10012. Postmaster: Send address changes to City
limits, 40 Prince St., NYC 10012.
Second class postage paid
New York, NY 10001
City Limits (lSSN 0199-0330)
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Copyright 1996. All Rights Reserved. No
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out the express permission of the publishers.
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CITY LIMITS
,
.,
JANUARY 1996
THE GRID ~
,

FEATURE
Sleeping Rough
Giving a hand to the down and out: is it selflessness that drives benevolence-or a
ish appetite for virtue? At a homeless shelter in London, a reporter explores the tension
between charity and need. By Kevin Heldman
PROFILE
Street Corner Labor
Miguel Maldonado and the Immigrant Workers Association organize in the isolated
of esquinas: day labor pick-up sites where workers compete with each other, confront
contractors who don't pay and face the hostility of the community.
By Julian Camito Pozzi
PIPELINES
Perception vs. Reality
Policymaker's paradox: researchers now know most people use city homeless shelters as
a last-ditch, short-term resource in hard times. But officials have had to shape a system to
fill someone else's needs. By Andrew White
A Better Bootstrap
Raise them up-with money in the bank! Savings incentives for the poor are one version
of the new welfare future. Question is, how do you sock money away when you can bare-
ly afford to pay the bills? By Kim Nauer
COMMENTARY
Cityview
Middle Oass Instability By Michael Leo
The Press
Ranking Rudy By James
Review
Sins of the Fathers By Geoffrey
Spare Change
Of Progress and Pain By Rob
DEPARTMENTS
Briefs 6,7 Editorial 2
Mall Mania Letters 4,26
Some Bull, Lots of Doze
Professional 28
Student Union
Directory
Job Ads 29

B
MoCholce
My husband and I are very puzzled as
to why we were not interviewed for your
article about the death of my son, Jay
Sharav ("Live Free or Die," December
1995), Is it not a fundamental tenet of
good journalism to get aU sides of a story,
especially when there are different points
of view? Are parents, in this case grieving
parents whose gifted but disabled son died
as a result of a dysfunctional pubbc system
of care, disqualified from being heard?
their patients, Readers should be informed
about this cover-up,
You failed to mention that Community
Access had no viable emergency proce-
dures that would have gotten Jay to the
hospital in time to save his life. Jay was
left to die on the stairwell outside his
"intensive supportive" apartment. Why
did the agency fail to provide the super-
intendent with a weekend telephone
number in case of an emergency? Why
did a Community Access case manag-
... -. ...... - ,...., .. '.-,-
Omitted from your article is the
Commission on the Quality of Care
Medical Review Board's opinion
about the care Dr. Robert Levine
provided to our son, What did they
opine about the doctor's apparent
failure to follow the "Physician's
Desk Reference" ClozariJ guide-
lines? What did they opine about
er fail to show up that morning, as
promised the day before?
These are the factors that con-
tributed to our son's death, not the
smoke screen discussion about
"choice" or "empowerment." What choice
did Jay have when he was left to die with-
out dignity? The commission's attempt to
side-step the issue of accountability by the
state and its licensed providers, or to soft-
peddle the facts, does not alter those facts
or the fatal outcome of negligence. In a
deceptive and particularly offensive state-
ment, the commission's report states: "A
generation ago, a man like [Jay Sharav]
would have spent his years confmed to a
state institution," thus implying that dis-
abled persons are somehow better off dead
'.
LETTERS
the lack of medical follow-up, or the doc-
tor's failure to diagnose and treat neu-
roleptic malignant syndrome? The board's
opinions and deliberations are kept secret
under the same "confidentiality" excuse
that is used by New York City's Child
Welfare Administration, Thus, doctors are
shielded by a state agency from having to
be accountable for the wrongful deaths of
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as a result of the current
mismanaged system than alive a genera-
tion ago,
Vera Hassner Sharav
Manhattan
The editors reply: In our article, we delib-
erately did not seek to delve into the ques-
tion of responsibility for Jay Sharav's
death. That question is important and
should be addressed by the press. But it is
peripheral to the article we sought to write.
We intentionally left out most of the
details of the case and decided not to
speak with the Sharav family, as well as
the psychiatrist and others. In hindsight, as
far as the Sharav family is concerned, it
was a callous decision and we regret it.
What we addressed in the article was
the issue that Vera Sharav calls a smoke
screen: the movement for consumer
choice in mental health care. We agree
with her assessment that consumer choice
had bttle to do with the foul-ups that led to
Jay Sharav's death, and said as much in
our article. In that sense, the issue is
indeed a smoke screen for some of the
players involved,
However, the Commission on the
Quality of Care chose to make consumer
choice a focus of its report on the Sharav
case, catalyzing a conflict that raised core
questions about the philosophy of many
community-based mental health care orga-
nizations including Community Access. It
is a topic of immediate concern to thou-
sands of advocates, consumers and their
families in New York, given the amount of
publicity given to recent calls for a more
coercive mental health system, And it is a
topic that needs to be explored further by
journalists and the public.
Vera Sharav's points about examining
[Colltillued 011 page 26]
CITY LIMITS
R
Stick
Together.

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JANUARY 1996
BRIEFS ~
,
Short Shots
MALL
MANIA
It's a deal sealed in con-
crete. After nearly a decade of
wrangling over the future of
the Atlantic Terminal site in
Brooklyn's Fort Greene neigh-
borhood, local activists are
apprehensively watching
workers complete the steel
frame of what will soon
become the area's first subur-
ban-style retail mall. Atlantic
Center, as it will be called, is
scheduled to open next fall.
located east of the busy
Flatbush-Atlantic Avenue
intersection, the 365,000-
square-foot building is slated
to house a massive Caldor dis-
count department store, a
Pathmark supermarket and
seven other discount chains
including an Old Navy clothing
store, Office Max, The Sports
Authority and Marshalls.
Although the Caldor chain,
which has agreed to rent 40
percent of the mall, has filed
for bankruptcy protection, the
mali's developer, Forest City
Ratner, is not publicly worried.
"Caldor is still one of the
anchors," says spokesperson
Joyce Baumgarten.
Ted Glick, a longtime
activist with the ATURA
Coalition, which fought to
block an earlier version of the
development, says that many
residents welcome the
prospect of new jobs and
cheaper retail prices. Still, he
notes, some have discovered
that the mali's entrances will
face south and west, leaving
Fort Greene residents facing a
blank back wall that, they fear,
will attract loitering and crime.
The Fifth Avenue Committee,
CUNY STUDENTS NEm
MOTIVATION? Try this.
Georgia state universities
offer free tuition to
Georgia-resident students
who maintain a "8" aver-
age or better. As a result,
grades are up and universi-
ties in neighboring states
are losing their Georgian
students so fast, they
aren't sure what to do.
Quality incentives work, it
seems.
GOT A CIVICS QUES-
TION? Ask an immigrant.
Polls show most Ameri(ans

a neighborhood group, is plan-
ning a campaign to convince
the mali's retailers to hire local
residents and implement train-
ing programs so workers can
rise quickly to management
positions, says Executive
Director Brad lander. "I feel
like this can be one minimal
community benefit from this
whole thing," he says.
Kim Nauer
have no idea that nine jus-
ti(es sit on the Su preme
(ourt, or that the
(onstitution is the
supreme law of the United
States. Immigrants have to
know these things to pass
the federal citizenship
test. (an you name the 13
original states?
SOME BULL,
LOTS OF DOZE
In Bronx School District 10,
the School Construction
Authority (SCA), a quasi-state
agency created in 1988 to take
over the Board of Education's
property development role, is
adopting its predecessor's rep-
utation for working at a snail's
pace.
PS 20, a l,200-seat school
under construction since 1991
in the Norwood section of the
Bronx, was slated for comple-
tion in September 1993. The tar-
get date has been pushed back
five times. As of today, students
aren't expected to move in until
September 1996.
At the outset of construc-
tion, the work site remained
idle for months after it was dis-
covered that the fill poured to
support the school's foundation
was too soft. The SCA then
spent months trying to fire the
general contractor, Koren
DiResta Inc., putting the project
on ice for months. After the
contractor was dismissed in
the spring of 1994, more delays
ensued due to problems which
the SCA blames on fumbling
subcontractors. All the while,
children in a nearby school
have been forced to attend
school in shifts to alleviate
severe overcrowding.
When Norwood parents
CITVLlMITS
r
STUDENT UNION
A small collective of City
University of New York (CUNY)
students on public assistance
are proof positive that the best
way out of poverty is through
education.
After witnessing a succes-
sion of federal and state cut-
backs to both public universi-
ties and welfare funding,
Hunter College students have
begun organizing to fight back.
Driven by their determination
to maintain their welfare bene-
fits and continue going to
school, a dozen women have
started the Welfare Rights
Initiative (WRll. an organiza-
tion challenging the notion that
people on welfare, especially
heard rumors recently that
another promised deadline
was in jeopardy, they got
together with parents from
another school also plagued by
the same contractor's con-
struction delays, PS 15, and put
the heat on SCA. With organiz-
ing help from the Northwest
Bronx Community and Clergy
Coalition, parents invited SCA
President Barry Light to an
October meeting. Light sent
two subordinates who admit-
ted that there would be still
more delays.
A month later, Light
announced at a school board
meeting that PS 20 would not
be ready until the end of
March. That effectively pushed
the school's opening to next
September, because children
cannot be moved in the middle
of a term.
Since his appearance, Light
has yanked his Bronx staff out
of the borough, replacing them
with their Brooklyn counter-
parts. That might help if the
SCA's troubles were limited to
the Bronx. A 1994 investigation
of the SCA, initiated by State
Senator Roy Goodman (R-
Manhattan) who sponsored the
legislation that created the
agency, documents similar
foul-ups in school districts
around the city. Goodman's
staffers are working on a fol-
low-up report and will not com-
ment on their latest findings
until it is completed.
JANUARY 1996
students, drain taxpayer dol-
lars.
Of the 240,000 students
currently in the CUNY system,
27,000 are on public assis-
tance. At Hunter, approximate-
ly 1,200 of the 22,000 students
enrolled depend on Home
Relief or Aid to Families with
Dependent Children in order to
stay in school. WRrs eventual
goal is to form a kind of student
union. Problem is, finding the
time to organize is tough, says
Melinda Lackey, an adjunct
professor at Hunter College
and director of the initiative.
"Many [students) have fami -
lies to support and are the pri -
mary caregivers and bread-
Meanwhile, Bronx parents
continue to organize and
demand accountability from
the agency. Gail Walker, a
Norwood parent, co-president
of District 10's Presidents'
Council and a member of the
coalition's new education com-
mittee, says this may be the
beginning of a long-term cam
paign to improve the local
schools. "Issues like this are
really bringing parents togeth-
er," she says. "This is just the
jumping-off point." Jordan Moss
Resour(es
YOU'VE BEEN EVICTED,
but no doubt your Internet
account is still intact, right?
So log on to Tenant Net
(point your WWW browser to
http://ursula.blythe.org/
TenantNetj) and find valu-
able answers about tenants'
winners," she says. "Students
in this program have poverty to
overcome. They don't know
from one week to the next. in
some cases, if they are going
to be in schooL"
Lackey and two other pro-
fessors at Hunter College's
Center for Family Policy spon-
sored the initiative last fall.
Attempting to shoehorn orga-
nizing into these mothers' busy
schedules, WRI was struc-
tured as part of a course in
organizing last fall. Students
planned their first "student
speak out" on welfare issues,
with. guest speakers including
Manhattan Borough President
Ruth Messinger and Council-
man Stephen DiBrienza. Next
semester, the students are eli-
gible to take a four credit
internship, where they will
have time to reach out to other
students and their neighbors.
The hope is that they can
recruit dozens more to join the
organizing effort, Lackey says.
Ladon James, a WRI
leader, is a 25-year-old sociol-
ogy and urban studies major at
Hunter. She is also the single
mother of two boys. In the
past, she says, she supported
herself and her family through
odd jobs. Now that she has
gone back to school full-time,
however, she and her two chil-
dren live on an AFDC grant of
$560 a month. It is barely
enough to get by, she says.
That is why it is important to
fight for the benefits, James
explains. "Through my educa-
tion," she adds,"1 will move up
and out of poverty."
Jeremy Quittner
rights and housing regula-
tions, as well as regular
updates on housing news
and resources. "These are
trying times for tenants,"
begins the page. No lie. But
at least we can still surf the
'Net.
SOME GOOD NEWS, how-
ever slim: the city's economy
is growing, ever so slowly.
Retail sales are up and job
growth was extraordinary in
September and October,
according to (omptroller
Alan Hevesi. Still, he points
out in "the State of the
(ity's Economy" issued last
month, the intensity of the
recession that hit in 1990
put the city in a deep hole-
and we're a long way from
climbing out.
s
PROFILE ~
,
Miguel Maldonado,
center, is on the
streets by dawn
meeting with Latino
day workers.
:M
Street Corner Labor
Latino day laborers are exploited by fly-by-night contractors.
The Immigrant Worker s Association is demanding a fair day s
wages for a fair day s work. By Julian Camilo POZ2i
A
Paint-spattered station wagon
pulls up to the corner of
Roosevelt Avenue and 65th
Street in Queens. The driver
leaves the engine running. Like iron filings
around a magnet, immigrant tradesmen
surround the car. In heavy Spanish accents,
they shout out their prices, beginning at
$80 for the day. But the driver is looking
for someone who will work for $40. When
he doesn't budge from his offer, angry ten-
sion fills the workers' voices. One man in
the crowd lifts the ladders roped to the top
of the car and drops them with a disre-
spectful bang.
Finally, a young man gets in the car and
shuts the door. The others open it again.
From the passenger seat, the young man
smiles sheepishly at the crowd, and per-
suaded by their pleas, steps back out onto
the street. The vehicle pulls away empty,
bearing a few new workboot scuffmarks.
"Forty dollars for a day's work!" says an
indignant Salvadoran man. "That is what
we have to fight against!"
Day laborers, as they are called, are
rarely this unified. The incident at the
Roosevelt Avenue esquina, or day labor
pick-up site, was as unusual as it was spon-
taneous, but it may have had something
to do with the growing presence of
Miguel Maldonado and his year-old
Immigrant Workers Association (IWA).
Supported by the Center for Immigrant
Rights, Maldonado has spent three years
standing on street corners, speaking with
immigrant day laborers and attempting to
change the rules in one of the city's most
exploitive labor markets. "To coordinate,
empower and educate workers so they can
resolve their problems themselves .... That's
what we hope to do," he says.
Understaffed and underfunded, the
IWA, according to Latino day laborers, is
the only organization willing to do this
work. There are other immigrant rights
groups, like the Chinese Staff and Workers
Association and Latino Workers Center, but
their turf is primarily in the city's sweat-
shops and restaurants. Maldonado has cho-
sen to focus on construction companies and
contractors, many so shadowy they don' t
have addresses or phone numbers.
Calnful Employment
It is daunting organizing work. For
immigrants searching desperately for a
paycheck--especially those without visas
and green cards-the street corners offer a
rare chance at gainful employment. Here,
at least, the work is a dignified mix of high-
skilled tradesmanship, like plumbing and
carpentry, along with lower-skilled jobs,
like painting.
To get a day job, however, the men must
compete aggressively against one another.
On a typical day, only one in 20 men gets
work. And there is no guarantee that, at the
end of the day, the employer will pay.
Maldonado has a stack of dozens of bounced
checks in his backpack, wri tten to laborers
by contractors who have disappeared, leav-
ing behind empty bank accounts.
"It's an uncomfortable life, every day
enduring the insecurity of waiting," says
one worker, Jose Romero. "We don't know
who they are, we can't speak English with
them, and they make us work like animals."
Meanwhile, residents of the neighbor-
hoods surrounding the esquinas are doing
some organizing themselves-to move the
workers out. Neighbors intimidate both
workers and contractors with photo sur-
veillance of corner activities. Whenever
traffic gets heavy, they call the poLice. And
in some of the worst cases, local residents
taunt the workers, making racist remarks
and threatening their lives.
Still, no one is looking for pity, Maldonado
says as he gazes down the boulevard, rubbing
his cold hands slowly. 'The problems won't be
solved by immigration experts or sociologists.
They won't be resolved from the outside or the
top. This has to come from the participation of
the workers."
The esquina is a New York institution
begun in the 1940s by Italian immigrants
and carried on by the Irish and Greeks.
Today, Latinos from different countries
stand on the same corners as their prede-
cessors, typically in front of hardware
stores frequented by contractors. All in all,
there are about a half dozen Latino
CITY LIMITS
esquinas that Maldonado knows about. He
visits some of them daily and others
monthly, depending on the strength of their
relationship with the IWA.
With a black mustache and a smile that
cuts deeply into his brown cheeks,
Maldonado has the look of a fox who has
outwitted the hounds. Arriving from the
Dominican Republic 17 years ago with a
degree in economics, he found, like many
other undocumented immigrants, that the
only work available was in a garment
sweatshop. His first organizing effort
began in 1982 as a protest against a boss
who was three weeks delinquent in paying
wages. He got the money-and he got
fired. He then worked as a shop steward in
a Liz Claiborne warehouse, and from there
began a job at the local needleworkers
union as an organizer. He lost the union job
when he tried to organize the organizers.
Maldonado says his early experiences
convinced him that immigrant workers know
little about their rights and are
receptive to organizing. However, in taking on
the esquinas, Maldonado is venturing into vir-
tually uncharted territory-for both union
organizers and federal labor investigators.
Unscrupulous Contractors
Any worker, documented or not, can
file wage claims against a contractor under
the Fair Labor Standards Act, explains
Joanna Bowers, an investigator for the
U.S. Labor Department's Wage and Fair
Labor Division. Employers, she notes,
don't have the right to break wage laws
simply because they hire undocumented
workers. She says her division would be
willing to pursue cases against the
esquinas' more unscrupulous contractors
regardless of the immigration status of the
complainant.
However, labor officials also admit that
the department's investigative unit is
extremely short-staffed. There are only 12
investigators in New York City, five of
them bilingual. Given the lack of man-
power, investigators prefer to pursue large-
scale cases against the city's garment
industry employers. Sadly, day labor cases
are simply too time-intensive, says John R.
Kelly, assistant district director of the
Labor Department's New York City office.
"We'd have to get someone undercov-
er at 6:30 a.m. to stand on the corner, wait
for [the contractors) to come by, then fol-
low them with a van and confront them,"
Kelly says, adding wearily that, even then,
JANUARY 1996
liThe problems
won't be solved
by immigration
experts or
sociologists.
This has to
come from
the workers. "
there's no guarantee that a worker will step
forward to testify against the contractor in
court. "I could have spent this time
collecting thousands of dollars for workers
from employers I can easily identify."
Maldonado is well aware of this. He
maintains that real change in this under-
ground economy will not be driven by
some dramatic Labor Department investi-
gation. lnstead, he is looking for small,
pragmatic ways to improve the lot of the
workers here.
For the time being, his focus is on edu-
cating workers to overcome their language
barriers and their slim knowledge of the
American labor and immigration systems.
Based in a sparsely equipped office at the
Sixth Street Community Center in
Alphabet City, the organization is staffed
by volunteer unemployed workers and
funded by donations from the workers
themselves.
One key staff member is a broad-shoul-
dered, 38-year-old Peruvian named Cesar
Monzon. His story is much like those of
the other day laborers. Monzon came to
the United States hoping to find work that
would support his family. Struggling with
the language barrier, he worked l2-hour
days, seven days a week at a fish process-
ing plant in Brooklyn. Every week he sent
home a little money. But after a month of
being paid below the minimum wage with
no overtime and no benefits, he quit and
began looking for work at the esquinas.
Monday through Sunday, he waits from
4:30 a.m. into the late afternoon for jobs. "I
wake up every morning and I go [to the
esquinas) knowing I have to work. I am
fighting to bring my family here. I ask God
that he help me, that he won't abandon me."
Storefront SltH
For Maldonado, the next goal of the
IW A is to move the workers into storefront
sites near their esquinas. Provided he can
find the funding to pay the rent,
Maldonado believes that that this idea
could go a long way toward solving many
of the problems that plague day workers.
By bringing the workers indoors, he
expects to ease tensions in the neighboring
communities. He hopes to reduce the
debilitating competition by forcing con-
tractors to pick up workers at one site
instead of letting them roam the block for
the best deal. And an office would give
workers some chance of screening con-
tractors. The IW A is compiling a list of
legitimate contractors so workers can have
some assurance that they will get their
money at the end of a day's work.
Maldonado says he has already found
several buildings suitable for the local
centers. The main problem is convincing
the laborers that this idea will work. "In
the esquinas, the price is fixed by desper-
ation and ignorance," he says. "If you
need to pay rent tomorrow or if you've
just arrived from a small village, you'll
work for even $40 a day."
Complicating matters is an inherent
mistrust among workers of different
nationalities. This is clear when one visits
the different esquinas and begins talking
with the workers. The South Americans
blame the Mexicans for undercutting their
bids. In turn, the Mexicans blame the
Guatemalans, saying they are willing to
work for even less. The contractors take
advantage of this. ''There's no friendship,
no bonds," says Fernando Reyes, a 29-
year-old worker from Honduras. "There is
just a tendency to group by country."
Maldonado maintains that the workers
will have to overcome their fear of orga-
nizing if they hope to make any lasting
wage gains. "[They have to learn) when
they arrive here they're not Peruvian,
Mexican or Salvadoran. They are just one
more worker, and that's how they're going
to be treated," he says. "Sometimes the
[workers) drop the ball, and that's what
I'm here for, to pick it up and throw it back
to them." .
All of the quotes in this article have been
translated from the Spanish.

e

Perception vs. Reality
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For years, policymakers assumed most single adult homeless
used the shelters like a turnstile or a home. A new study finds
otherwise. By Andrew White
B
y most conventional accounts,
the city's homeless shelters for
single men and women are
demoralizi ng and dangerous
places where most people spend months,
even years stuck in the rut of dependency.
For more than a decade, officials have
based their shelter policies on studies
which seemed to show that most of the
people in the shelters are chronic, long-
term homeless with high levels of mental
illness and drug abuse and slim employ-
ment histories.
Yet according to the calculus of govern-
ment intake statistics, dependency is only a
distraction in a system that provides a des-
perately needed, short-term safety net for
tens of thousands of low income New
Yorkers. Four out of five single men and
women who enter the city's shelters remain
there for only one or two short stays within
a three-year period, totaling an average of
about two months, and then leave for good,
according to a soon-to-be-released study
based on city shelter intake data.
The study, by Dennis Culhane and
Randall Kuhn of the University of
Pennsylvania, concludes that the vast
majority of people using the system are not
chronically dependent on shelters, nor are
they so severely disabled that they can't
find more stable alternatives on their own
after a short hiatus in the city system. The
researchers say the shelters appear to be
providing a critical resource for New
Yorkers coping with short-term crises such
as eviction or fire, the loss of a job, the
break-up of a family, a medical problem or
similar events. At the same time, they say,
a relatively small group of chronic users is
consuming most of
The vast majority of men and women who enter the New York City homeless
shelter system for singles stay for a very short time and then leave, accord-
ing to a new study by ressearchen at the Univenity of Pennsylvania.
the city's shelter
resources.
And by being pre-
sent in the system so
consistently, the
chronic users also
tend to shape the way
policymakers and
shelter operators view
the shelters and their
residents.
70,000
56,000
42,000
28,000
14,000
0
Transitional Episodic Chronic
Transitional: Men and women who enter the shelter system an average of
1.3 timas over a three year period, and stay, on average, a totel of 58 days.
Episodic: Men and women who enter the shelter system an average of 4.9
times over a three year period, end stay, on average, a total of 2&4 days.
Chronic: Men and women who enter the shelter system an average of 1.8
times over a three year period, and Itay, on average, a total of 638 daYI.
Source: University of Pennsylvania. Data is from the New York City Single Client
Information Management System, collected from 1988 to 1994.
Research through-
out the 1980s and
early '90s always
used a "snapshot"
approach, one day in
the life of the shelter
system, and conse-
quently found a high
percentage of long-
term users with severe
disabilities represent-
ed in the population.
The Culhane and
Kuhn research, how-
ever, tracks data over
a period of years, pro-
ducing a more com-
plete view of shelter
use. (Some of this
ground was covered
in a study Culhane
I.M
published two years ago, which found that
a quarter million New Yorkers had spent
some period of time in a homeless shelter
during a five year period ending in 1992.)
In the new study, the researchers show
that from 1988 to 1991 , more than 73,000
men and women entered the New York
City shelter system for singles. The study
traced the comings and goings of each of
these 73,000 people for three years after
their first entry into the system, up until
1994. Almost 60,000 of them entered the
shelters only once or twice, leaving for
good soon thereafter.
The small proportion of chronic users
surprises a number of experts, including
many shelter providers.
"These numbers run contrary to what
our general impression is," says Joel
Sesser, president of the Partnership for the
Homeless, which coordinates shelters for
about 1,500 single men and women in
churches and synagogues throughout the
city. "That's very fast turnover compared
to what most people believe happens in
the system."
Temporary Emergency
The analysis raises the question: where
have all these people gone after leaving the
shelters? The study provides few definite
answers because the government data
includes no follow-up information. "I
know that in the ethnographies we've
done, a lot of people resolve family prob-
lems," says Culhane. "They may have
more resources than the people who stay in
the shelters longer. They may just be
recovering from a temporary emergency."
For at least some of these people, there
are other Likely possibilities. Advocates
argue that the shelter system is so unap-
pealing and overcrowded that at least a few
thousand homeless men and women sim-
ply decide to avoid it at all costs, choosing
abandoned buildings, shanties and subway
tunnels instead. Others spend time in flop
houses and smal ler shelter programs that
are not included in the city's data.
Yet the vast majority do not show up
again, even on the coldest nights of the year
when shanty dwellers and others are driven
into places like the Bellevue and Bedford
Armory men's shelter intake centers.
"I think some of them take a migratory
path among families and friends and
migrant type jobs," speculates
Commissioner Joan Malin of the
Department of Homeless Services (DHS).
CITY LIMITS
"These are folks with minimal skills and
not an awful lot of access to jobs beyond an
entry level. We see them in the shelters
depending on how the economy plays out."
Culhane and Kuhn write that the answer
may be even more simple: Most people
leave the shelters because they find "a more
stable housing arrangement, and in most
cases, they do not return to homelessness."
"The sheer size of this group," they
write in their report, "raises serious ques-
tions about the sufficiency of the current
'safety net. '" If so many people who are
apparently capable of fending for them-
selves most of the time hit the skids at
some point and can't remain housed, they
say, then our traditional safety net of
unemployment insurance, social security,
public assistance, housing subsidies and
other programs has holes so big that we
pay for them in the shelter system.
What can be done? More programs
based in communities to prevent home-
lessness in the first place, say some
observers. "The obvious question is
whether there are cost-effective prevention
options that would forestall the need for
these 60,000 people to spend time in the
shelters at all," says Kim Hopper, a med-
ical anthropologist at the Nathan Kline
institute in Orangeburg, New York, who
published ground breaking research on
homeless ness in the 1980s. "It's common
sense. But it's [also] a question of mobiliz-
ing resources at a time when they are get-
ting tighter."
Overflowing Capacity
The study also confirms that a small
but significant number of shelter residents,
about 10 percent of those who come into
the system, become "chronic" users of the
shelters and don't leave for years. By
remaining so long in the system while
other homeless people come and go, these
chronic users-who are more likely to be
severely disabled, older and mentally iII-
consume nearly half of the city's shelter
resources, the researchers say.
A third group-about the same size as
the chronic category-is described as
"episodic" in the study. This group is made
up of people who have gone in and out of
the system, using the shelters repeatedly
over a long period but not staying for
extended stretches of time. These men and
women are also likely to be disabled or
substance abusing and may be spending a
great deal of time in drop-in centers, drug
treatment programs, halfway houses, cor-
rectional institutions, hospitals or the street.
These long-term shelter residents take
up so many beds that there isn't always
JANUARY 1996
enough room for newcomers, officials and
others say. In recent months, the city's
$151 million shelter system for single men
and women has been in crisis, overflowing
its capacity of about 7,000 beds during cold
snaps and snowy weather. On some nights
in November and December, more than a
hundred men slept on the floor of the intake
center at Bellevue on East 30th Street in
Manhattan and dozens more stayed at
drop-in centers around the city because
beds were not available elsewhere.
It seems paradoxical: while only about
one-fifth of the people who enter the shel-
ters ultimately become long-term users,
their numbers are substantial enough that
they can fill most of the system's beds on
any given night.
This also accounts for the common
perception of providers and policymak-
ers that most homeless people are
chronic users of the shelter system and
have major disabilities, Culhane
explains. "The short-stay people are the
least visible even though they are the
most numerous, because they leave so
quickly," he says.
Supported SRO.
Culhane and Kuhn argue in their study
that targeting alternatives for the chronic
and eposodic groups could significantly
reduce the amount of time people spend in
the system, redirecting funds in a way that
might provide better care in more perma-
nent housing.
Since the latter half of the 1980s, New
York City nonprofits have developed sup-
ported SROs and other residences for about
10,000 low income men and women, many
with AIDS or mental disabilities. Between
one-half and three-quarters of those apart-
ments have gone to homeless men and
women, says Maureen Friar of the SRO
Providers Group, a statewide coalition of
nonprofits. The average cost to government
of housing a formerly homeless person in
these supported SROs is about $12,500 per
year, Friar adds. Meanwhile, it costs the
city and state about $20,000 per year to
house a person in a homeless shelter,
according to DHS.
Over the years, many homeless men
and women, including a large number of
long-term shelter residents, have also
found apartments in city-owned, tax-fore-
closed housing. Others have been placed
in public housing or received federal rent
subsidies to pay for apartments on the pri-
vate market.
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There are complicated problems with
permanent housing programs for the long-
term homeless, however. All require some
degree of mental stability, and, at the very
least, no substance abuse. "The people that
are left in the shelters for the longest time
are people with active crack problems,"
says Ellen Baxter, Director of the
Committee for the Heights Inwood
Homeless, which develops and runs sup-
ported SROs. "Providers tend to screen
those people out."
"People fall between the cracks," adds
Greg Shinn, director of social services at
John Heuss House, a 24-hour drop-in cen-
ter for mentally ill and frail homeless peo-
ple. "We can't place people who have a
criminal record, arsonists, child molesters,
or the ones who have walked away from
psychiatric hospitals a number of times."
"Nobody wants these people," adds
the Reverend Win Peacock, executive
director of John Heuss House. "They're
hard to manage and they aren't good for
the image of the community housing facil-
ities that are under tremendous pressure to
succeed and have had to overcome neigh-
borhood opposition."
The Department of Homeless Services
has set up a new program focused specifi-
cally on encouraging long-term residents,
many of whom resist leaving shelters
where they have lived for several years,
YESI Start my subscription to City Limits.
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into supported housing. The program also
seeks to help the many men and women
released from state hospitals during waves
of deinstitutionalization over the years
who have nowhere to go other than the
homeless shelters.
Roof Ov.r Th.lr Head
The landscape revealed by the Culhane
study, then, includes two separate groups
of people mixed in one massive shelter
system: the short-termers on their way up
and out, and the rest, who depend on the
shelters for years at a time. In the old days,
many in the latter group would have been
housed in state mental institutions,
observers say.
"You could ask, 'If the state had pro-
vided better community-based services
following deinstitutionalization, would
this number of people have fallen into our
system?''' says Commissioner Malin.
"That's a reasonable question. What I'm
about right now is trying to take our shel-
ters, create them as structured programs,
be it mental health or substance abuse,
with the ultimate hope that the programs
link up," she continues. "In essence I'm
trying to recreate that community system."
Her comments underline how the needs
of people with major disabilities, chronic
dependency and other difficulties are guid-
ing the evolution of the entire shelter sys-
F
tern. During the last year and a half, 32 of
the city's 39 shelters have been turned over
to nonprofit social service organizations
that also have specialized support pro-
grams. Malin says: "The idea is to have a
clear message of 'You won't be able to
move through the system and out. You stay
with us, or never use us.'" Some wonder
what that means for those who simply
need a paycheck and a place to stay for a
month or two.
Advocates continue to call for a focus
on community-based services for people at
risk of losing their homes, so they can
remain housed while still getting whatever
counseling or job training they might need.
James McDaniel, a 40-year-old home-
less man who has recently been spending
time at a the John Heuss drop-in center in
downtown Manhattan for chronic, hard-
core homeless people, says he could use
some kind of community help. Every time
he gets up and out of homelessness, he
says, he finds himself without resources in
a universe filled with the temptations and
troubles that lead him to failure.
"Real services aren't available for the
people who have the best chance of mak-
ing it," he says. "At a place like this drop-
in center, they' ve got counselors, all that.
When you go above this, you' re clean, and
then, if you're poor, there's no help for
you. There's nothing."
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Me
B
A Better Bootstrap
Sometimes, a penny saved is a dime earned. Nonprofits nationwide are giving
low income people poweiful incentives to invest in a better future.
By Kim Nauer
A
year and a half ago, the only
savings Genell D. was thinking
about was saving her life. Four
months pregnant with two
young children, Genell drained her fami-
ly's tiny bank account to buy three plane
tickets out of Atlanta after, she says, her
husband put a gun to her head and threat-
ened to kill her.
She landed in Indianapolis at a battered
women's shelter run by Eastside
Community Investments (ECI), a $6.2
million, community-based nonprofit hous-
ing and multiservice organization.
Counselors there talked about more than
simply getting her family into a safe
home-they helped her take control of the
family finances, supported her return to
school and provided the stable base she
needed to get a job with a local social ser-
vice agency.
They also convinced her to start sock-
ing money away to buy a new home. It
seemed far-fetched at first, but when they
offered some powerful incentives, she
realized the counselors had a method to
their madness. ECI offered to give her a
base deposit of $250 and to match every
dollar she saved with a $9 contribution
from the organization, up to $1,000. The
only condition was that she had to use the
money to purchase a new home, further
her education or start a business. GenelJ
says it was enough to get her hooked:
Today, she has nearly $6,000 deposited in
a credit union and she plans to buy her first
home later this year.
"At frrst, I couldn't believe it," Genell
says. "I couldn't believe that they were just
going to give away money like that." But
in retrospect, she adds, it makes sense.
"It's like a chain reaction. You want to
keep on saving. They give you a taste of
what you can have if you're willing to do
what it takes to become self-sufficient."
Eastside Community Investments,
based in Indianapolis' low income
Highland-Brookside neighborhood, is
sponsoring one of the country's first
demonstrations of an idea that is catching
fire in Congress and across the country:
individual development accounts, or IDAs.
The theory behind the two-year-old
IDA program is not exactly radical; sav-
ings and investment incentives have long
been institutionalized in the United States
tax code through mortgage deductions,
IRAs, pension plans and reduced taxes on
capital gains. But poor and working class
people have never had the income to take
advantage of these benefits. The hope is
that IDA programs will give a financial
boost to people like Genell, who like the
idea of saving but have felt that the
rewards, like a new home, would always
be out of reach.
"Most people feel like they are just not
able to save anything, so they don't even
think about small goals that require [sav-
--.-... - ~ ... ",. -
PIPELI NE
ings]," says Michael Sherraden, director of
the Center for Social Development at
Washington University in St. Louis. The
results, he says, can be self-defeating. "You
can't make a jump. You can never get from
where you are to someplace else."
Wld.spr.ad Support
Sherraden, author of a seminal book on
the subject called "Assets and the Poor,"
argues that current welfare policy is
flawed because it discourages savings. He
says that restrictions that prevent people
on public assistance from opening savings
accounts and accumulating assets are
counterproductive, and he advocates IDA
programs like the one run by ECI.
Importantly, these savings programs must
also be available to the working poor and
anyone else who falls below the income
levels required to take advantage of exist-
ing tax incentives.
Around the country, both liberals and
conservati ves are interested in the idea,
and IDAs are expected to gain ground as
states shape new welfare policies in the
corning year. Already, Iowa and Oregon
are funding IDA demonstrations.
Proposals for IDA plans are headed for
state legislatures in Virginia, Illinois,
Texas, Colorado and California. Most
recently, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun
(D-TIl.) and Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.)
have co-sponsored a bill that would fund a
four-year, $ 100 million national IDA
demonstration. Under the plan, non profits
would administer 50,000 new IDA
accounts. Every $10 put into an IDA
would be matched with $10 from the non-
profit and $20 by the government, with the
government contributing a maximum of
$8,000 over four years. Like ECI's pro-
gram, money from the federal IDA
accounts would have to be spent on a new
home, higher education or the creation of a
small business.
The political appeal of IDAs, at least
in this demonstration stage, is obvious. It
is an idea that harkens back to the coun-
try's most basic Jeffersonian values. By
being thrifty and saving for a new home
or business, Americans buy into their
neighborhoods and communities, eventu-
ally becoming more active and produc-
tive citizens.
The obvious question is, where is all
this money for saving going to come
from? A family of three receiving Aid to
CITY LIMITS
Families with Dependent Children typical-
ly receives no more than $500 a month.
Those with minimum wage jobs can
expect to earn $85 to $210 per week,
depending on what state they live in and
how many hours they work. And even if
federal and state lawmakers agree to fund
IDA matching grants, advocates note that
the money for such a program is likely to
be part of a larger welfare package that
would cut back already slim cash benefits.
"We're all in favor of family initiative
efforts. That makes a lot of sense," says
Dow Chamberlain, executive director of
the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public
Policy. "But this needs to be placed in
context."
Draconian W.lfar. Cuts
Virginia's conservative Republican
Governor George Allen, for example, has
proposed the biggest IDA demonstration
in the country. His program would encour-
age as many as 10,000 low income and
working class families to contribute
$1,200 a year into an IDA for five years.
Corporations, nonprofits and individuals
would match this deposit with up to $600
a year and earn a state tax credit in return.
Altogether, a family could accumulate up
to $lO,OOO---free of state income tax-
over five years. Like the federal proposal,
the IDAs would be supervised by non prof-
its and the money would have to be used
for a horne, education or business.
However, Governor Allen's IDA pro-
posal comes in the wake of a legislative
session in which he pushed through one of
the nation's most draconian welfare pack-
ages. Virginia's plan cuts off the state's
74,000 AFDC recipients after two years,
allowing only one more year of transition-
al medical and child care benefits. An addi-
tional 726,000 of the state's low income
people can also expect to see their food
stamps, fuel assistance and medical bene-
fits reduced if, as expected, Congress cuts
support for these programs.
Given this reality, any low income sav-
ings initiative is likely to be seen as a cruel
joke, Chamberlain says. "Is a family living
on earnings of five dollars an hour really
going to save $5,000? It's like telling peo-
ple that they can fly as much as they want
to. They don' t have wings."
Unmi Song, a program officer at the
Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, which
has financed five local IDA demonstra-
JAHUARV 1996
tions, says that no one is claiming that
IDAs can replace the welfare system.
However, she adds, research done by
Sherraden and other social scientists
shows that the poor and working poor will
sacrifice to save if motivated to do so. "We
don't want to shortchange the idea that
poor people can save because a tremen-
dous number of poor people do. The idea
of IDAs is to help those who are already
saving-and fmd those who are really
struggling and help them, too."
So how exactly does someone like
Genell Dean, starting out broke with three
pre-school children, climb out of the hole
so quickly? Her experience at ECI shows
IDAs can work-and work well-for a
motivated individual supported by a broad
social service and counseling program.
In Atlanta, Genell had worked in a
thrift shop for $5.25 an hour. At first, her
family did well because her husband had
always held good jobs. But that changed
after he began doing drugs, she says.
Suddenly, she became the family's sole
provider. Even then, she adds, she tried to
save for a used car, but her husband always
managed to fmd the money and spend it.
She says it was a relief to arrive at ECI
where she had access to numerous ser-
vices, got her high school equivalency
diploma and secured a full scholarship at a
nearby community college. The organiza-
tion gave her a $]00 a week stipend and
she supplemented her income with a small
crafts business.
Today, she is a full-time student making
about $800 a month working part time at
her social service job and for ECl. Her rent
is less than $200. She says she saves $75 to
$100 a month now but is no longer willing
to scrimp on certain things, like weekend
outings for her children. She admits her
saving has slowed. At her peak of enthusi-
asm, Genell decided she would buy a car
with whatever money she could save in one
month. She pulled together $700.
Making th. LHP
Genell credits the counselors at ECI,
who she says talk relentlessly about the
importance of financial planning and
future investment. The organization also
offers extensive help for low income home
buyers. Genell is now working on cleaning
up her credit record. She says she is confi-
dent she'll be able to get a mortgage as
soon as she is ready to make the leap.

IIWe don't want to
shortchange the idea that
poor people can save,
because a tremendous
number do."
The IDA program is still quite small,
cautions ECI President Dennis West. So
far, only 12 people have cashed out their
IDAs: six to start businesses, three to buy
homes and three to pursue higher educa-
tion. Another 92 are building their
accounts. Despite its size, ECl's program
is widely viewed as a model for other non-
profits. Nationwide, nearly a dozen other
nonprofits are experimenting with their
own specially-tailored IDA programs,
according to the Corporation for
Economic Development, an organization
funded by the Joyce Foundation to evalu-
ate and promote various IDA experiments.
A key lesson from the ECI experiment
is that IDAs work best in conjunction
with broader programs. The six people
who have used their IDAs to start busi-
nesses were, for example, participants in
ECI's micro-enterprise program. West
maintains that IDAs will do little to
reduce welfare dependency if they are not
linked in some way to permanently
improving a person's income.
"Families cannot afford to have a sta-
ble, month-to-month existence if they're in
low-wage jobs. None of us can make those
numbers work," he says. "So an IDA alone
is not likely to move a family from pover-
ty. But having an IDA at the same time that
the family is building education and skills
is great. Those two things, I think, really
complement each other nicely."
Me
(M
practically
But there are
By Kevil1 Heldmal1
Photographs by Nici White
Kerill Carsc:tll( 21 years old( was a diabetic alld oll-agaill, off-
again junkie who sometimes carried a syringe behind his ear and occasion-
ally claimed to have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. He wore a
woolen cap, fingerless gloves and spent his days huddled up on a plastic
bread crate in the comer of a foot bridge selling the Big Issue, a newspaper
sold by more than 2,000 homeless or ex-homeless vendors for 35 pence-
about 50 cents-profit per copy. All day long he repeated the phrase, "Buy
the Big Issue ... help the homeless," in a tone so affectedly earnest, so filled
with contempt, irony, amusement and pathos that his pitch seemed almost
camp, a parody of his role as a homeless character.
Actually Kevin wasn' t homeless when I met him, but he had "slept
rough" (outdoors) in London for five years and then spent a year in jail on
murder charges, accused of fatally injecting a fellow rough sleeper with
drugs (Kevin blamed the crime on a homeless woman known as "The Fixer"
who had a habit of sticking both herself and others with everything from
CITY LIMITS
hypodermic needles to safety pins). After the charges were
dropped he came through the Simon Community homeless shel-
ter where I was living and working as a volunteer. When I met him
he had been living in a council flat for about four months.
He still came to Simon once a week to pull night duty and steal
small household supplies. He carried around a tin filled with
tobacco and chunks of hash which he would usually smoke before
his shift. He hated Simon, mocked the idea of charity and would
spend his nights writing critical commentary in the shelter's log
book, slagging off the "caring sharing Simons." He had alienated
or intimidated most of the Simon workers and was contemptuous
of those who used the shelter.
Yet he kept coming back. At 3 a.m. he'd say for the hundredth
time, "Brown [heroin), mate .. .I'm bored, mate," telling me he
wanted to shoot up again. I'd say stick to the hash and we'd talk
and talk to keep him distracted. It was a constant effort to keep him
occupied, to keep him from ridiculing your efforts or your concern.
He was too smart for the cliches, too sensitive to solicit help from
an indifferent system, and too proud to become just another home-
less man, so he opted for being a bastard.
I'd tolerate his sarcasm, his steady ironic patter, his playing
with my head and his initial hatred of yet another volunteer who
was supposed to be able to help him. He gave me countless oppor-
tunities to not like him, ordering me to make him cup after cup of
tea, demanding more and more of me until I refused and then he'd
say, "I thought you're supposed to care about the homeless,
mate," his "mate" sounding very much like an epithet.
When another resident locked himself in the Simon bathroom
for a long period of time, Kevin suddenJy became the responsi-
ble, concerned citizen, asking what I was going to do: "He might
be dying in there of an overdose." But if I banged on the door (I
did), then I was the oppressive system and Kevin would be the
first to call me on it. Kevin himself did nothing. He'd sit back and
watch you fail.
At one point, much later in our relationship, I asked about tak-
ing photos of him for this article. "So what, you want a picture of
me banging [shooting) up?" he asked, playing the appeal of a dra-
matic photo against the ethics of me condoning his heroin use.
And he was right.
So I gave up my ego, answered his challenges with ridiculous
honesty, afforded myself as little pride as the circumstances and
the relationship afforded him, admitted the seeming absurdity of
my role (I'm here to help you, Kevin. How? I'm attempting to
forge a community with the homeless. Why? Because I care), and
maybe most importantly, listened to his stories and asked him
endless questions. Eventually he stopped the mind games and he
stopped hating me.
After a while he started making me cups of tea, shared his
tobacco, and we started having authentic conversations. By way
of friendship he offered me a tobacco tin given to him in prison by
a man serving a life sentence. It's corny sentiment now, but in the
insular world we were living in, where even sentiment and expres-
sion were ghettoized, corniness had currency.
And we got along. We'd tramp around London together, making
each other roll-ups, playing with social service jargon. I'd ask for his
advice, ask him foolish questions and he'd make me laugh, though I
could never return the favor. I'd huddle up next to him on the ground
at London Bridge station, hoods and hats, letting the passersby buy
us McDonald's tea, troubling the crowd with our presence.
JANUARY 1996
When a f;harity val1 pulls up; the
street comes alive. It's a frel1-
lied; f;harged f;rowd of people
swirlil1g aroul1d; smotil1g spliffs;
tellil1g Pati jotes; slaggil1g off
the latest media il1trusiol1s.
This is part of the attraction of the street life: those moments
when you're curled up on the pavement, freedom gear slung over
your back, cocky in your rebel-as-Ioser pose. You're the outsider
who can sit on the sidelines and laugh at the misguided straights
rushing by with their ridiculous attempts at charity (go ahead, try
and help me), and at the parade of journalists, urban anthropolo-
gists, volunteers, caseworkers, clergy who are somehow depen-
dent on you. If Kevin were to take the next step up and, say, get a
job sweeping the footbridge instead of playing homeless on it, all
the power and attention he commanded would dissipate and peo-
ple would likely pass him by without a word.
When I last saw him he told me he was going to steal a van
and seek out a community of witches in Wales and eventually fIX
up a derelict cottage to live in. Before I left England I gave him
my poncho and a tartan overshirt and we exchanged addresses.
Less then a month later he died in his flat of a drug overdose. He
lay there for three weeks, his dog barking inside the apartment,
before his body was discovered.
F.,r tw., m.,lIths Ilired as a r(llUllteer ill the Sim.,11 com-
munity homeless shelter in London. Or more accurately, I was a
reporter acting as a volunteer, in the odd position of trying to
alternately report on and alleviate the problems of the people I
met. The idea was to see why people were attracted to volunteer
work and explore the intersection where charity and need met,
an area most famously characterized by Orwell in "Down and
Out in Paris and London" with the comment, "A man receiving
charity practically always hates his benefactor."
Is there a way to overcome that hate? To eliminate the
inequality and the contrivance that usually surround the
relationship between the caregiver and the cared for? How
much of the volunteer's impulse to help is voyeurism,
eagerness to get a good seat at the homeless freak show? Or
is it the idea that being with people so close to the abyss
somehow affords meaning to everybody involved? And
how do you dispense charity when the people you work
with know the talk, the system, the game, so well (one
man on the street always hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on
his sleeping bag so the early morning tea runs wouldn't
wake him), in an age when helping and denying help to
Charlie issues 11011 sequiturs;
f;urses UP at God alld has
fUll with the f;harity woriers
who f;Olne by; offerillg his
f;all of glue ill respOllse to
their offer of a salldwif;h.
the homeless have become as much a cliche as yet another article
on how the other half lives during December?
Simon is named for Simon of Cyrene, a stranger conscripted
to help Christ carry the cross, but it's now basically a "godless
organjzation," as one volunteer complained. Founded in 1963,
Simon defines itself in contrast to traditional organizations that
attempt to help the estimated 5,000 to 8,000 people who sleep
rough in London and the 20,000 living in hostels. Simon consid-
ers itself a community, aspiring to break down the division
between helping and being helped. Its philosophy is strictly non-
rehabilitative: "Simon does not aim to pressurize people from the
streets to return to normal society .... Many of the people we work
with are at rock bottom and will never rise far above it," reads a
passage from their literature.
The idea is for the volunteers to "share the poverty of the res-
idents ... living with and alongside the most needy and rejected ...
sitting in the gutter and smoking a fag and listerung."
In addition to the shelter, Simon runs two longer term houses
and a farm. It's staffed entirely by volunteers who are for the most
part in their early to rrud-twenties and who live in the houses with
the residents. "Coworkers," who have been involved with Simon
longer than most of the volunteers, are usually older people who
live in London and come in regularly to pull rught duty and go on
the tea runs.
The shelter, a three-story converted pub, is in an industrial area
of warehouses, taxi depots, and squatted buildings. Every day, on
the ground outside the shelter, are piles of empty cans of lager
(Super Strong Tennents. 9%), cigarettes smoked to the filter, mat-
tresses, cardboard, discarded blankets. Inside is bed space for
about 18 people. Residents can stay for 5 days. They have to be
out by lOin the morning and can return any time after 6 p.m.
Most usually spend their days in one of the 35 day centers around
London. They can arrive in any condition they want, but no drugs
or alcohol are allowed inside.
Search the rooms in the morning and you find stashed bottles
of alcohol, makeshift weapons under pillows, syringes, bottles of
amyl nitrate, caked up vomit on the floor, bedside buckets of
feces. At rught cans fall out of coat pockets, protrude from socks,
rocks of crack are pulled from crotches, cubes of hash from tobac-
co tins. Guests sit outside the chained door getting drunk, slagging
off Simon ("And you call yourselves charitable people ... "). In
every bathroom are bottles of Quellada lotion, "gamma benzene
hexachloride in a pleasant perfumed base for the destruction and
elimination of scabies, body lice and their eggs."
I was assigned to the street work team with 20-year-old Jan,
my very jovial partner from Siovokia, who at Simon lost his vir-
ginity and tried hash for the flrst time. He had a keen nose for
hypocrisy, thought some of Simons's slogan-like philosophies
("Never ask anyone why they are on the street") were a bit of a
joke, and resented the self-congratulatory attitude of some of the
workers. He also said things like, "A lot of people think sleeping
rough is so bad and depressing. I think it's excellent. These guys
are joking around and laughing. It's much better than having a
house and two kids and a job." He was well meaning, though, and
got along with people on the street and in the shelter.
I spent my days wandering around giving out tobacco, going
to the day centers and skippering sites (places where people sleep
out). At night, Jan and I would walk the streets, down alleys,
under bridges, through train stations and parks, approaching peo-
ple who were NFA (No Fixed Abode, occasionally corrupted to
No Fucken Answer), asking, "Want a roll-up?" If they said yes
and invited us into their space or their bash (makeshift shelter),
we would sit with them, talk, bring them back to the shelter if
they wanted to go. Sometimes they were inordinately grateful,
thanking us profusely as they hung on me, staggered, and
sprawled onto the floor of train cars. Sometimes they'd offer a
simple, "Fuck off, hypocrite."
I met lee early (til ill the shelter. He's 21 years (tId, been
on the streets interrllittently since he was 16, and says he's on the
run from the police. I stayed up all rught listening to his macho
posturing (more Dennis the Menace than threatening), the stories
of his prison days and crack habit (both exaggerated). He took
great pleasure in schooling a Yank in British culture, in playing
street urchin (been there, seen it, done it) to my innocent. He
showed me how to make prison weapons, spending an hour trying
to break apart a disposable razor for the blade. He taught me how
to make a proper cup of tea and played Risk with a fervent British
nationalism.
I followed Lee out one morning and let him give me a tour of
London. He introduced me to the people he sleeps with in the
doorway of the post office: Dave, who Lee calls his street father,
a 67-year-old man who's been on the street for about eight years;
and Charlie, a glue sniffer who's been using since 1979 and sits
with his ever-present plastic bag and can of Evo-Stick, continual-
ly huffing, glue stuck to parts of his face.
During the spring and summer Dave travels around England
picking fruit for farmers, sleeping in the woods and in monasteries.
In the winter he comes down to London where there's a steady sup-
ply of handouts. He used to be an alcoholic, but he's been sober for
10 years, one of the few men living on the street who don't use. He
carries himself with dignity, makes sure he's always neat in appear-
ance, carries a bag on his back (his "coffin") that must weigh about
40 pounds and never "goes in" (to a shelter or hostel), as he and the
others tell me with pride, even in a foot of snow.
Dave has a daily routine: he wakes around 7 a.m. before the
post office opens for business, stashes his blankets, straps his duf-
fel bag on his back and goes to the London Embankment Christian
CITY LIMITS
Mission (known informally as
Webber Street) a day center where you have to
listen to 30 minutes of preaching before each meal .
Dave stores his bag there along with the scores of others piled
up on the side of the room and then goes to another day center, has
a shower, gives in his clothes to wash, sits in a park, has a bit of a
"walkabout," kills time until 4 o'clock when it's back to Webber
Street for cups of tea and dinner. Afterwards, he goes to a nearby
college to search the grounds for dog-ends (partially smoked cig-
arettes he uses for his tin of "road tobacco," an extremely harsh
blend). He gets new cardboard for the night and then back to the
post office, where he settles in the same spot each evening around
seven and, because he has to watch his bag, doesn't move from
that spot until morning.
He chats with the postal workers about mail delivery, watches
the people go by, says hello to them all, waves at the tourist buses
(they invariably wave back, delighted), and waits for the hand-
outs. Lee smokes his hash and reads his paperback with the killer
rat on the cover, Charlie issues non-sequiturs, curses up at God
and has fun with the charity workers who continually come by,
offering his can of gl ue in response to their offer of a sandwich.
When a charity van pulls up, the street comes alive; dossers
walk down the block screaming "Hand-out," socializing, clown-
ing, the older men making Sugar Daddy jokes toward the young.
People come out from all over, spilling into the alleyway where the
van is parked, 50 or 60 people crowd around getting blankets, cups
of tea. It's a frenzied, charged crowd of people swirling around,
smoking spliffs, telling Paki jokes, slagging off the latest media
intrusions.
JANUARY 1996
Fralltie Ol)yle
f
alml)st 60
f
an ex-boxer who's been sleeping rough off and on
for about 35 years, is in the shelter singing old dosser songs,
bragging, "I was a dosser before you were bom .. .I' m a bigger
tramp than you." On the streets he's a bit of a legend, but the alco-
hol and the lifestyle are destroying him. He loiters in Kings Cross
station raging at police, drinking cans of beer and turning crazily
belligerent on the younger men who come up to him with their
amused Hey Frankies. Now he's become an object of mockery,
the men begging his dole money, asking for his can, teasing him,
pinching his cheeks as he tries to lash out at them, unsteadily,
screaming, "I'll kill you, I'll kill ya you fucken cunt." I walk him
back to Simon when he's either drunk or withdrawing from drink,
Frankie repeating "Here we go again," amused and exhausted.
"You' re a good person Kevin. Will they let me in, are you sure
it's all right, young Kevin? 1 don't want to get you in any trouble,"
Frankie's telling me as 1 guide and reassure him to the door. Then
he comes in to the shelter to cheers-''Tough Frankie, good 01'
Frankie," a dosser's dosser-and he takes his seat as the war sto-
ries, hobo songs and prison poems begin anew.
And yes, within the misery there is the collection of colorful
characters that every report from the streets inevitably catalogues.
What's often ignored is the fact that the colorful characters them-
-p
a1
selves know and cultivate that image. The homeless romanticize
themselves as much as any writer might, with talk of freedom,
mean streets, survival and comments like, "It's a wicked world,"
and "Ninety-nine percent of the men sleeping rough in London
are there because of a woman. A man needs a woman to keep him
at even keel ," said to a chorus of ayes.
The romance keeps the misery interesting. This is essential, for
as much as the homeless have a need to romanticize, to stave off
the monotony, the volunteers have the same need. The color and
charisma is what elicits the most attention from a volunteer, the
most visits on streetwork, the most help. And the well-liked vol-
unteer is the one who plays the correct role in this drama; innocent
do-gooder having his Pollyannaism set straight, listening in gee-
whiz respectful horror to the tales of the street.
The maj.,rity ." Sim.,n ,.,Iunteers are willing t., W.,rrf,
but apart from housekeeping are often at a loss as to what they're
supposed to be doing aside from chatting with the homeless.
Severe alcoholics and drug addicts who' ve spent years on the
street or in prison are in the care of people sometimes away from
home for the fust time, who have no understanding or experience
with abuse or addiction. This is an endless source of humiliation
and anger for the people who use the shelter.
In Simon there's no real structure, no set rules, no one in charge,
very little training and no adequate supervision or screening of vol-
unteers. There are those volunteers-and many of the coworkers-
who are fully committed to Simon, but many others are just out of
university looking for something to put on their social work resume.
Or they want a bit of adventure: smoking a little hash with the exot-
ic street people, securing liberal bragging rights that will sustain
them throughout their 20s. They choose for themselves the funkiest
clothes from the bags of donations, and are eager to go on the early
moming tea runs where one can see larger-than-life characters in
their natural habitat and even get to feed them.
Going through a cabinet in Simon I come across diary entries
from former streetworkers in years past:
"He was weird. He was telling me how there's no happiness in
his life, only hatred and where be comes from nobody smiles. Just
The r(lmal .. :e teeps the misery
interesting. The f:(ll(lr and
f:harislna is what elif:its the
m(lst attenti(ln fr(lm v(llunteers;
the m(lst visits; the m(lst help.
at that moment I was smiling-bad move. He just stared at me
with this evil expression and then burst out laughing. Weird."
Steve, an older man who sleeps in a doorway with his mate
Johnny, regarding Simon volunteers: "These bloody high school
tarts playing with people's lives. Chaz,"-for some reason he
always called me Chaz-"how do you put up with it, these mid-
dle class kids who want a freebie, have Mommy and Daddy to fall
back on and are going to tell me about being homeless ... 'Project
leader,' 'door policy,' six people standing around having a meet-
ing when a man is freezing outside. These silly fucken bastards,
silly pratts, sitting there on the phone talking about what clothes
they' re going to wear on their day off when there's a homeless
man sitting next to them."
The general climate is a mixture of chaos, oblivion and petty
bureaucracy, where rules and policy are often just comments that
someone once said, got passed around, repeated, and are then
adhered to unquestioningly. Workers will call a meeting to discuss
whether taking in a crippled old man who's sleeping in his urine
outside the door violates Simon policy. (Is he too close to the shel-
ter to be brought in on street work? Is he subtly manipulating us
to take him in by sleeping so close to our door?) Homeless people
are turned away from the door and given slips of paper with phone
numbers that won't help them and addresses of hostels that won't
take them in. I talk with a man who's been sleeping outside the
door for days and find out that a few years ago he was prosecuted
for lighting the Simon van on fue. Now he's threatening to break
in and slash people's throats. There's nobody to tell, no one to call,
so I regularly smuggle him out food and blankets, hoping to keep
him placated.
lee is sh.,wing .,ff between the legs ." Sabrina, an
Italian girl he met on the streets and is now skippering with. He
takes her to day centers where he'll conspicuously kiss her in full
view of his mates. He says she cries at night and he wants to find
a place where they can live together, so we go begging.
We go down to Leicester Square, a tourist spot, and Lee tells
me to wander around whille he begs and whistle if I see the
police, since begging is illegal. We do this for a while but there
are too many police and it's starting to rain. We move to a well
traveled alleyway where Lee sits in the doorway saying in his
most earnest voice "Excuse me mate ... Excuse me luv ... Spare
the price of a cup of teaT' as I sit in a doorway across from him.
He keeps up a running commentary about the begging, tells me
women are less likely to give and often stop their men from giv-
ing, that it's best if you look like scum, and he tries to lower his
posture, his demeanor a bit. A black man goes by and Lee begs
him. The man very politely says no, "Sorry, haven' t got it
mate." Lee turns to me, "I hate asking blacks." Later, "Orientals
never give you a damn fucken thing." As an almost reflexive
response, right after Lee begs someone he turns to me and den-
igrates them.
"You've got to throw yourselves at them, they'll give up just
to get you out of their face. Watch this." And he does throw him-
self at the next woman who walks by, following her for about IO
steps until she gives him some change. He looks at me proudly.
An old man comes by drunk and offers us some of his can and
some begging tips. Lee has no time for him, barely pays attention,
takes a few sips off the can and then moves to a doorway around
CITY LIMITS
the comer across from a pub, leaving me with the old man. In a
little while I join him as he's cursing some passerby who asked
him if he wanted tea and hasn't returned. I huddle behind him in
the doorway, sitting on a piece of cardboard, hood on my head,
occasionally coughing for effect during his pitch. After about 10
minutes a middle-aged man comes up to us carrying two cups of
tea (Lee ordered one for me) in a tray from McDonald's. He very
gently places it down, setting us up with stirrers, cream, sugar.
I'm overly grateful, almost embarrassed by his consideration.
Lee's casual about it. After the man leaves, Lee starts begging
again. I point out that he can't use the "Spare the price of a cup of
tea" line while he's drinking the tea. He's amused and tries out a
few alternatives to see how they sound until we get moved on by
a guard.
That's one side of Lee. There's also Lee days later trying to get
accommodation, spending the whole night going to advice centers,
calling help-lines, waiting for the hostels to open, cowed by the
bureaucracy. He's walking the streets almost crying out loud, "I'm
tired of this life, I feel like an old man, I just want to be a normal 20
year old," and then, mostly to himself, he goes off on a non sequitur
about the action figures he played with when he was a child.
Or Lee sliding over, patting his blanket when I'm sitting next
to him on the pavement, buying cans of Coke for me and his
mates with the 36 quid of income support he got that week, play-
ing Ping-Pong at a day center, giddy over a good volley, making
corny offers to protect me if something happens ("You run, I'll
stay here and fight them off.")
As time gC)es C)n, YC)U becC)me less and less afraid of the
people you're dealing with, deluding yourself with the fantasy
that your past good works are universally acknowledged. And you
become more confident that you've earned the right to interfere in
their lives without apology. But you also develop that much tout-
ed goal of Social Work 10 1: you start seeing the homeless as indi-
viduals. One result, however, is that as individuals the people you
meet are no longer protected by the canonical label of "home-
less," and you become less democratic in your charity.
There's also the tendency to feel like a hero to the homeless,
stepping into the middle of fights (ridiculously thinking, "Hit me
instead, I have a home"), breaking rules about giving out blan-
kets at the door, not ousting people for the drugs or alcohol that
you see them using in the shelter. You start participating in the
slagging off of the charities, accepting drinks off people's cans,
trying to rid yourself of the taint of volunteer while still being one.
Among the homeless, as much as there is the need to hate the
charity giver, there's a subsequent need to deify as well. People
start buying you cups of tea with scrounged money, tell you to
keep the 50 pence piece that's thrown from a car window at your
feet, thank you over and over for saving their lives. They come up
to you, shaved and sober, the day after you found them drunk in a
tube station and dragged them back to the shelter, and proudly talk
about their plans for a new life. By then you've become almost
crazed with loyalty and affection and guilt. And the next day you
wade into a crowd of dossers like a messiah.
One of my last nights in London I go down to the Bullring with
a Simon coworker and a photographer to do streetwork and get
some pictures. Street mythology-and deprivation-reaches its
zenith in the Bullring, the last cardboard city in London. A former
JANUARY 1996
underground car park, there are about 40 people Ijving in bashes or
on mattresses, ranging in age from 16 to over 65. It's been called
the place where God stops, where the outcasts of the outcasts live,
and it has a history of stabbings, murders, charity vans overturned.
There's a group sitting around a fire, their faces covered in
black soot, drunk, high. We give out cigarettes, make small talk.
A young skinhead girl whose face is disfigured from a recent fight
is lying on a mattress with her boyfriend. I don't know him so it's
the usual challenge, "Why don't you give me that coat you' re
wearing." He knows I'll demur, hesitate, explain, ultimately
refuse-confmn my hypocrisy, validate his contempt. But I think
I know the score at thjs point; I'm going to slap him in the face
with all my charity.
"I can't, but what about this sweatshirt?"
"Does it have a hood."
"Yeah."
"All right."
I start to peel off layers of clothjng, playing to the crowd
around the fire, giving rum the shirt off my back. The sweatshirt
is almost immediately tossed to the side, forgotten.
Eventually, I bring up the idea of photographs. They say they
want money. I pullout all the change I have and hand it over, turn-
ing my pockets inside out. Then I sit down and Mick, who was
stabbed in the back with a screwdriver two weeks ago and taken
away in an ambulance, starts mocking me, adopting a fake foreign
accent, asking for a cigarette, grabbing at my own cigarette, grab-
bing for my ass, telling me to smell his hand, abusing me more
and more. I let him do what he wants, repeating "You got it, you
got it," waiting for it to end, waiting until he's reduced me to noth-
ing, until he offers, "I'm only joking with you, you gotta laugh
otherwise you'll die down here." He throws the money I gave him
up in the air and the others, laughing, drunk, throw themselves on
it, rolling around on the ground.
But it's not over. Mick is talking about the stabbing, showing me
the wound, reenacting the fight. He tells me the man stabbed him
from behind, tells me that he's a boxer and starts shadowboxing
with me. He's getting more and more worked up, throwing punch-
es, staggering, pretending to stab me, tellrng me what he would've,
could've done to the man. Then-whether his imagination got car-
ried away, or he snapped for a moment, or it was the drugs and alco-
hol, the excuse to hurt someone other than himself, the price I had
to pay to get his photo-he slams his fist squarely into my face. I
have no idea how to react, so I try to ignore it, pretending nothIDg
happened as he continues talking, my head throbbing.
After a few moments he takes my head in both rus hands,
says he's sorry if he hurt me and starts screaming: "Go your own
way, never listen to anyone, never let these wankers get to you,
fight them .... I don't give a fuck if I was shot dead right now, I
don' t care if I die .... I've seen a lot, I've been down here 14
years, listen to me." I tell him that I will , that I appreciate his
advice, and he reaches his arms around me in an awkward hug
and kisses my neck. _
CITY LIMITS
N
ewt Gingrich and fellow conservatives delight in
retelling tales of crumbli ng, crime-ridden neighbor-
hoods of black pathology. They also seem fascinat-
ed by the notion that government is a problem in
the lives of most African-Americans. Liberals, too, have
accepted this conventional wisdom. Many remark that the
Great Society was a dismal failure in terms of both race
(expanding opportunity for blacks) and place (bettering urban
neighborhoods).
They couldn't be more wrong. A look at the relationship
between race, place and public policy reveals that government
is a key element in the stability of working and middle class
black families and their neighborhoods, especially in New
York City. If current plans for increasingly severe cuts in gov-
ernment go through, many heretofore solid communities will
CITYVIEW
rate of home ownership and are more highly educated.
Not aU of New York City'S black neighborhoods can
claim the economic and social gains achieved in Cambria
Heights, St. Albans or Springfield Gardens. Yet government
has contributed a great deal to the residents of other com-
munities by supplying much-needed services and programs,
subsidizing mortgages and rents, scrutinizing private sector
hiring practices and offering opportunities for educational
and career advancement.
There was a time when crime and failing schools were the
major worries of residents in these neighborhoods. Today,
new fears are being realized. Since July, more than 1,700
social service positions in New York City have been cut.
Nationwide, at the federal level, more than 144,000 jobs held
by blacks were eliminated between January and July. The
Institute for Puerto Rican
Middle Class Instability
Policy estimates that
nearly half of all New
York City government
workers accepting sever-
By Michael Leo Owens
Mi chael Leo
Owens is a
seni or research
aide at the
Rockefeller
Institute of
Government i n
Albany.
JANUARY 1996
see their fragile balance upset.
Just look at Southeast Queens.
The area is known for its impres-
sive median black household income,
which surpasses that of white house-
holds in Queens. The secret to its
stability is a combination of low
unemployment, large concentra-
tions of middle income families
and households with multiple
wage earners, high rates of home
ownership and active social and
community networks. But gov-
ernment employment and
investment, along with affirma-
tive action policies such as
contract set-asides, provided the extra mortar
needed to construct such stable black neighborhoods.
One out of three employed blacks residing in Southeast
Queens was a government employee in 1990, according to the
federal census. The proportion of government workers in
some parts of the district was as high as 40 percent. Most of
them occupied positions as nurses, teachers, police and cor-
rections officers, secretaries, social workers, bus drivers and
subway operators. Overwhelming majorities of the area's
black professionals-70 percent of the female lawyers, 85
percent of male physicians and 100 percent of female psy-
chologists-were also employed by government.
Compared to their private sector counterparts, the
area's public employees have lived in the area longer;
report higher median household incomes; have a higher
ance packages from the
city have been black, one-
third of them black women. As fiscal deficits continue to rise,
along with shrill antigovernment voices, the public sector will
shrink even more. AU the while, the black unemployment rate
rises and economic vulnerability spreads, block by block.
The proponents of smaller government give short shrift to
these concerns. To them, government is inefficient, financial-
ly strapped and must contract.
True, public employees should not be hired for "make-
work" positions. In fact, they are not. Bus drivers, nurses'
aides and postal clerks provide valuable services expected and
demanded by the public. Sober minds know government ser-
vices and programs are a direct response to the private sector's
inability to provide for public needs. They also know that if
money were shifted from public subsidies for commercial and
corporate development to more progressive priorities, govern-
ment could again promote and sustain new commitments to
people and communities.
Residents of stable black neighborhoods need to identify
strategies for overcoming public sector contraction in all of
its forms. They need policy makers to explore innovative
ways of preserving public sector employment opportunities
while expanding private sector opportunities that too often
remain closed to them. Savings from downsizing could go
towards retraining, job creation and wage improvements in
the nonprofit sector. Or New York City could create a prior-
ity placement program, similar to the federal Defense
Department's, to match laid-off public sector workers with
available private sector posi tions.
Southeast Queens and other stable and successful majority
black residential areas should represent the future of black
New York, not its past.
Wi
THE PRESS
I
n his rhapsodic profile of Rudolph Giuliani in the
December 3 issue of The New York Times Magazine,
John Tierney tells readers that the mayor "has trans-
formed the city's political debate." Tierney might have
noted that Giuliani has also transformed-perhaps terrified
is a better word-the local media. How else to explain a sup-
posed "liberal stalwart" like the Times Magazine running a
lengthy opus on the greatness of Rudy Giuliani that mea-
sures the mayor's achievements solely according to his own
agenda? Page after page, "The Holy Terror" (a nickname
meant as a compliment) is lavishly praised for bringing
down crime, downsizing government, getting rid of
squeegee pests and making welfare deadbeats get off their
Ranking Rudy
By James Bradley
Why is this man
smiling?
butts and work-actions all described
as "tough," "decisive," "firm," and
"strong."
Tierney's article is similar to the-
analysis presented in much of the
national press and in this city's
other glossy weeklies, consumed so
hardily by readers who don't live
here. Which is appropriate, con-
sidering how bizarre this analysis
reads for those who daily con-
front the apparently passe issues
as extreme poverty, falling
wages, the shortage of afford-
able housing. These issues
have no place in Tierney's
world, since they have no
place in Giuliani's. Instead, we get familiar
right-wing nostrums about the wonders of privatization and
lock 'em up law-and-order policies. Revering Giuliani as the
"operatic operator" is all the more ironic on the heels of
Elisa Izquierdo's death-a tragedy that must be partly attrib-
uted to the management follies that have left the city's Child
Welfare Administration a shambles.
Straw Antagonist
"Giuliani today faces a political establishment that makes
Tammany Hall look like a mom-and-pop operation," Tierney
writes, setting up an antagonist made of straw. And who's
running this feared establishment? Real estate interests?
Powerful corporations? Financiers, banks and insurance
companies? No, it's big government, nonprofits and-
gasp!-the intellectuals.
With a bit of gimmickry, Tierney floods us with compar-
isons between Giuliani and Fiorello LaGuardia. This is a
wildly misplaced analogy: LaGuardia, after all, recognized
the limits of the private sector and responded by building
parks, roads, bridges, airports, schools and housing (with a
little help from Robert Moses, of course) and by establishing
a safety net. Nevertheless, Tierney equates Giuliani with the
Little Flower for essentially one reason: their combative per-
sonalities. This same drivel, you may recall, was peddled by
the press during Ed Koch's fLrst few years in office. If you're
mayor of New York, nothing ensures better coverage than
being unrelentingly offensive.
Which brings us to Tierney's only serious criticism of the
mayor: that he's too irascible and strident. Giuliani can't just
disagree with people, the lament goes. He's got to call them
idiots as well. This has been a recurring theme in the media's
coverage of Giuliani. The New Yorker, New York Magazine
and others have consistently pleaded with Giuliani to drop
the chip from his shoulder and be a kinder, gentler mayor. In
other words, the Rudyphiles want him to act like Ronald
Reagan: go ahead and dismantle the social safety net, but do
it with a warm smile on your face. This criticism, for the
most part, is meant as constructive advice, warning Giuliani
that he (along with his communications director Cristyne
Lategano) is alienating the press and other potential sup-
porters through his hot-headedness. These writers seem
more concerned about how well they and their colleagues
are faring under this administration than how well the
administration is serving the city.
Bri nging Balance
For the most part, the dailies have been doing a better job
than their glossy counterparts in providing some sharp
reporting on the effects of Giuliani's budget cuts. A hard-hit-
ting, page I story in the Times on November 10 reported
with great detail the decline in the city's basic services,
including subways, parks, human services and libraries,
under this administration. The havoc Giuliani has wrought
on the city's public schools has also received much-needed
attention from the Post and the Daily News.
For the greatest contrast with Tierney's puff piece, how-
ever, check out Joe Conason's analysis of Giuliani in the
December 18 issue of The Nation. Unlike Tierney, Conason
brings balance to his piece, correctly taking the left to task for
failing to provide viable alternatives to old-style New York
liberalism while showing how Giuliani's "reforms" are little
more than half-baked Reaganism.
This is the first in an occasional series of columns on the New
York media.
CITY LIMITS
"All Gods Children: The Bosket Family and
the American Tradition of Violence" by Fox
Butterfield, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, 389 pages.
Willie Basket was solely responsible for changing the juve-
nile justice laws in New York State. In 1978, as a 15 year old,
he was convicted of two cold-blooded murders committed on
the city subways. At the time, existing juvenile laws seemed
too lenient for a teenager destined to be branded the most vio-
lent criminal in New York history, so the New York State leg-
islature created what was euphemistically called the Willie
Basket Law, allowing children as young as 13 to be tried as
adults.
What happened to Willie Basket? How did a slight little boy
whose teachers remarked on his charm and presence become
Bellevue for psychiatric evaluation. Both were
imprisoned for homicide. But to really appreci-
ate the complexity of Willie and his father's
violent world, Butterfield takes us back, past
R E V I E W ~
,
Willie, past his father, past his grandfather, to where it all
began for the Basket family: a small town in South Carolina
called Edgefield.
Butterfield's research led him to the flfst Basket he could
trace, a slave born in Edgefield. "Bloody Edgefield," as it was
known during the pre-Revolutionary era, sounds a lot like many
of today's inner-city communities. Men carried guns and were
quick to use them. Minor conflicts revolving around issues of
"honor" often led to murder. The senseless murder and mayhem
so often associated with blacks and other minorities today was
the norm for white men in Edgefield, among the most violent
towns in the old South.
Sins of the Fathers
Reign of Terror
Butterfield's fine work gives us a new prism
through which to view violence. Today, young
black boys are willing to kill one another over
being disrespected, or "dissed." But this is not a
By Geoffrey Canada
JANUARY 1996
the epitome of the child gangster-mur-
derer that we hear so much about
today? It was the search for answers
to these questions that led Fox
Butterfield, a reporter for The New
York Times, on the intriguing jour-
ney that culminated in "All God's
Children."
Willie grew up on I 14th Street
between Lenox Avenue and St.
Nicholas Avenue in Harlem.
Many years later, in 1989 and
'90, I lived on that same block,
only two doors from Willie's
former home. Butterfield
describes 114th Street as a
block where "over time, it
seemed like sooner or later every boyan that
stretch of I 14th Street went from reform school and then to jail,
or got himself killed. It was a natural fact of life." For children
without a strong family and a bit of good luck, he is not far
wrong. In "All God's Children." it becomes clear that Willie
had neither.
Remorseless
Butterfield started out writing this book to explain how
Willie became so violent, so remorseless. He ended up giving
readers a glimpse of the roots of violence in America, and of the
attitudes in our culture that foster and allow for that violence. In
many ways, America's embrace of violence is deeply rooted in
our history, and history can and does repeat itself.
Willie's life seemed to tragically mimic his father's. Both
were sent to reform school at age nine. Both were taken to
new phenomenon. It has a history as old as America.
The book points out that the emancipation of slaves quick-
ly ushered in a reign of terror, and places like Edgefield
became killing fields where blacks were the victims.
Immediately after the Civil War, whites-already desensitized
to killing each other-turned on blacks with a vengeance. As
part of the dehumanizing existence southern blacks led during
Reconstruction, they developed their own codes of "honor"
and began to imitate the white men's readiness to use extreme
violence when they felt their honor impugned. In this environ-
ment, Willie Basket's violence would not have been the aber-
ration that it was in the 1970s.
Butterfield makes us think about subjects that might be
uncomfortable. Is there a genetic predisposition to violence?
Are children like Willie Basket salvageable? Was Willie creat-
ed by the institutions where he spent much of his life, first
locked away at the age of nine? More importantly, Butterfield's
book sounds the alarm for a society that has grown accustomed
to violent and homicidal youth. We all know the places and peo-
ple that failed Willie: a mother who was distant and cold, insti-
tutions that were more interested in getting rid of a problem
than saving a little boy, and the cold-hearted poverty and vio-
lence of the mean streets of New York.
Willie didn't become what former Mayor Ed Koch called a
"mad dog killer" without our complicity or our indifference. We
should have helped him, as we should the other young men and
women who right now are on the borderline of a life of crime
and violence. Before we give up, lock them up and throwaway
the key, we should remember Butterfield's title; these are all
God's children .
Geoffrey Canada is the author of "Fist Stick Knife Gun: A
Personal History of Violence in America. "
Wf
s
[Continued from page 4] issues of confidentiality, account-
ability and the lack of emergency
procedures at Community Access
are legitimate, especially at a time
to effect changes in Housing Court similar
to those sought by the HDFC Coalition.
lETTERS
when government officials are
withdrawing resources from com-
munity providers and contemplat-
ing further deregulation of the
health care system. Too often a
tragedy in the mental health care
system occasions vilification through
hindsight of many of the parties involved:
agencies, providers, doctors, parents and
sometimes the consumers themselves.
Reform demands that the focus shift to
conscientious concern beforehand, rather
than assignment of blame afterward.
Equal Justice
For the record and for your edification
please note the following facts in reference
to your article "Justice For A\l?" (Briefs,
December 1995):
The Coordinating Council of
Cooperatives, the Council of New York
Cooperatives and the Federation of New
York Cooperatives membership includes
some HDFCs [low income cooperatives),
including my own building. These three
organizations have been working together
Although tenants and shareholders are
able to obtain free legal representation from
several sources, the HDFCs' boards of
directors must engage attorneys at market
prices. My building has expended approxi-
mately $68,000 in the eight years of our
existence. Each one of the cases was spuri-
ous on the part of the tenant, each of whom
took advantage of the court's confusion.
We neither believe nor accept the statis-
tics that 45 percent of HDFC residents are
tenants. Sixty percent of the tenants in any
city-owned building are required to become
shareholders [for the building to convert to
a cooperative). Usually the number of
shareholders exceeds 90 percent.
Regardless, all residents must pay their
maintenance fees or rents in order to pre-
serve the viability of our buildings, which
survive at a marginal economic level. When
a tenant or shareholder is in the wrong, we
expect the court to correct that situation.
The same is true when a board acts erro-
neously or arbitrarily.
We regret that Legal Services of New
York is dismayed by our position but we
must do what is necessary for the stability
and well-being of our constituency.
Specializing in
Community Development Groups,
HDFCs and Non Profits
Low ... Cost Insurance and Quality Service.
NANCY HARDY
Insurance Broker
Over 20 Years of Experience.
270 North Avenue, New Rochelle, NY 10801
914,654,8667
However, we do admire and support Legal
Services and David Robinson's work and
will continue to do so. We only wish they
would give some support to the right of
cooperative tenant ownership or at least
not interfere with our efforts.
Jorge Reyes-Montblanc
HDFC Coalition
CWA Fact Finding
The people of the city are understand-
ably shocked and upset about the death of
Elisa Izquierdo, especially since the city's
Child Welfare Administration (CWA) and
others responsible for addressing child
abuse had information about her situation.
What is important at this time is whether
investigations into the case will result in
necessary change.
Perhaps with the public focused on
child abuse, several questions will now be
answered: What has been the impact of
four years of budget cuts at CWA? What
has been the capacity of the child protec-
tive services training academy to prepare
staff for their work as it has been cut from
over 70 to fewer than 30 people? How far
have caseloads grown beyond the national
standard of 12 cases per worker? Is the fig-
ure the city provides of 16 to 17 cases per
worker accurate? Has the state child abuse
hotline become difficult to access? Are
reports of abuse being assessed over the
phone, contrary to statute, prior to the start
of an investigation?
Where are the hundreds of staff that
CWA sent to graduate school to get social
work degrees? How many are being uti-
lized in direct line and supervisory posi-
tions? How many took the severance
package or were transferred out of CWA to
other parts of the Human Resources
Administration?
The experiences of our members sug-
gest negative and troublesome answers to
these questions. If Elisa's death allows us
to get accurate information about how the
city deals with child abuse, perhaps gov-
ernment will invest in meaningful reform.
Robert Schachter, Executive Director
National Association of Social Workers
New York City Chapter
Send your letters to:
The Editor, City Limits
40 Prince St., NYC 10012
or bye-mail to:
HN4360@handsnet.org
CITY LIMITS
Social Workers and
the Challenge of Violence
Join journalist Charles Kuralt and the social work community in a
National Video Conference and Week-Long Teach-In
Schools of social work and social service agencies in the New York City area will participate
in a nationwide teach-in and video conference aimed at learning about how the
United States and underdeveloped countries are inextricably connected by the issue of violence.
Come to NYU, Tuesday, February 6,1 to 4:30 p.m. for the video conference and workshops;
Tishman Auditorium, Vanderbilt Hall, 40 Washington Square South
Workshops on: Poverty, Violence & Youth. Perspectives on Oppression
International Work for Social Workers. Sustainable Development
Mental Health & the Epidemic of Violence. Militarism & Economic Conversion
To attend, call the NYC National Association of Social Workers Center for Poverty,
Violence and Development at (212) 2742217. There is no fee for this event.
JANUARY 1996
N$7 New York City Chapter
mBankers1rust Company
Community Development Group
A resource for the non-profit
development community

Gary Hattem, Managing Director
Amy Brusiloff, Vice President
280 Park Avenue, 19West
New York, New York 10017
Tel: 212 .. 454 .. 3677 Fax: 212 .. 454 .. 2380

Wi
Community Development Legal Assistance Center
a praiect of the Lawyers Alliance for New York, a nonprofit organization
Real Estate, Corporate and Tax Legal Representation to Organizations
Tax Syndications Mutual Housing Associations
Homeless Housing Economic Development
HDFC's Not-for-profit corporations
Community Development Credit Unions and loan Funds
99 Hudson Street, 14th FI , NYC, 10013 (212) 219-1800
Wnll ll ntID]]]l 1 r @ I r I r ~
Attorney at Law
Specializing in
Tenant and Real Estate Law.
50 East 42nd Street, 18th Fl, New York, NY 10017
212-687-9455
SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
J-51 Tax Abatement/Exemption . 421A and 421 B
Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All forms
of government -assisted housing including LISC/Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey, and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Bronx, N.Y. New York, N.Y.
(718) 585-3187 (212) 682-8981
COMPUTER SERVICES
Hardware Sales:
IBM Compatible Computers
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Software Sales:
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Morris Kornbluth 718-857-9157
Grad & Weinraub, LLP
Attorneys at Law
Catherine A. Grad David A. Weinraub
Experienced attorneys specializing in individual and
group tenant representation, general civil litigation and
problems of the elderly.
305 Broadway! Suite 500
New York, NY 10007
(212) 732-0400
LAWRENCE H. McGAUGHEY
Attorney at Law
Meeting the challenges of affordable housing for 20 years.
Providing legal services in the areas of General Real Estate,
Business, Trust & Estates, and Elder Law.
217 Broadway, Suite 610
New York, NY 10007
(212) 513-0981
DEBRA BECHTEL - Attorney
Concentrating in Real Estate & Non-Profit Law
Title and loan clOSings 0 All city housing programs
Mutual housing associations 0 Cooperative conversions
Advice to low income co-op boards of directors
100 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201, (718) 624-6850
Twenty-seven years experience ready for you
CALVERT ASSOCIATES, INC
Consultants to the Inner City Housing Movement
George E. Calvert, President
165 East 104th Street, Suite 2-C, NYC 10029
Call 212 427 0362 or Fax 212 427 0218
William ,Jacobs
Cl'rtifil'd Puhlic Accountant
Over 25 years experience specializing in nonprofit housing
HDFCs, Neighborhood Preservation Corporations
Certified Annual Audits. Compilation and Review Services.
Management Advisory Services. Tax Consultation and Preparation
Call Today For A Free Consultation
274 White Plains Road
Eastchester. N.Y. 10707
914-771-9902 Fax 914-771-9698
IRWIN NESOFF ASSOCIATES
management consulting for non-profits
Providing a lull-range 01 management support services lor
non-pro lit organizations
o Strategic and management development plans
o Boord and stoff development and training
o Program design and implementation 0 Proposal and report writing
o Fund development plans 0 Program evaluation
20 Sf. Johns Place, Brooklyn, New York 11217 (718) 636-6087
CITY LIMITS
The Corporation for Supportive Housing, a national not-for-profit inter-
mediary organization dedicated to expanding the supply of service-
enriched permanent housing for homeless and "special needs" indi-
viduals, is seeking to fill the following positions in its New York City
office: PROGRAM OFFICER. Assist not-for-profit sponsors to develop sup-
portive housing; partner with public and private agencies to review pro-
ject feasibility, sponsor capacity and finanCing; design new models;
evaluate funding requests and prepare investment proposals. Strong
skills needed in financial packaging, speaking, writing, and project man-
agement. ASSISTANT PROGRAM OFFICER. Assist in developing supportive
housing, evaluating funding requests and preparing investment pro-
posals. Strong skills needed in financial analysis, computers and writ-
ing. Please send your resume with cover letter to: Constance Tempel,
The Corporation for Supportive Housing, 342 Madison Ave., Suite 505,
New York, NY 10173.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Utica, New York, citywide housing partnership
seeks professional leader with superb organizational management and
communication skills to direct six-member staff in expanding first-time
homeownership, rehab and sale, and block club organization in
low/moderate income neighborhoods. $340k administrative budget
and $2.1 million lender pool. Strong knowledge of housing programs
preferred; financial oversight & staff management experience a must.
Salary based on experience. Resume & cover letter to Utica Search,
Box L345, 2160 W. Charleston, Las Vegas, NV 89102 Fax: (702)259-
0244. EOE.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST. Brooklyn CDC is seeking an ener-
getic self-starter experienced in economic and/or housing development
to join this growing multiservice neighborhood-based organization.
Responsible for managing all aspects of the development of partially
funded commercial retail projects and working on planning of new pro-
jects. BA/ BS degree and at least two years related economic devel-
opment experience required. Strong writing/verbal skills, project man-
agement, planning, construction monitoring and finance skills and
proven experience in retail development preferred. Salary low to mid
$30s commensurate with experience. Mail/fax resumes to Director of
Housing and Economic Development, East New York Urban Youth
Corps, 539 Alabama Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207. Fax: (718) 922-
1171.
CONTROLLER. Growing Brooklyn nonprofit housing/youth services
agency seeks energetic controller to oversee fiscal operations of mUl-
tiple corporations and partnerships. Responsible for general ledger,
budgeting, cash flow, analysis, reporting, and audits. BA/BS degree in
accounting, five years experience including at least two years supervi-
sory experience, and experience with nonprofit fund accounting & mul-
tiple government contracts required. CPA or MBA preferred. Salary
level is competitive and commensurate with experience. Mail/fax
resumes to Executive Director, East New York Urban Youth Corps, 539
Alabama Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207, Fax: (718) 922-1171. No
phone calls, please.
PROJECT COORDINATORICOMMUNnY ORGANIZER. The Citizens Advice
Bureau is looking for a coordinator/organizer to work with tenants of
a large TIL building in the South Bronx. The goal of the project is to
work with tenants to stabilize long-term plans for building manage-
ment, maintenance and overall stability. The coordinator will be
responsible for the overall development and implementation of the
project, working in collaboration with CAB administrative staff,
HPD/TIL local housing management and central administrative staff,
project funders and technical support consultants. The applicant
should have a bachelor's degree and preferably a master's degree in
social work, community organizing, community development, public
administration or a related field. He/she should have at least three
years of tenant organizing and program coordination or management
JANUARY 1996
experience. Please send resume to: John Weed, Citizens Advice
Bureau/Girls Club, 1130 Grand Concourse, Bronx, NY 10456. Or fax:
(718) 590-5866.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Skid Row Housing Trust, a nonprofit developer
and manager of affordable housing, is recruiting an Executive Director
to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of the corporation. The
Executive Director reports to a 12-member board of directors, over-
sees a staff of 20, and directly supervises the project development
and administrative staff, and the Director of Property Management.
Salary will be commensurate with experience. Please send resume
and a cover letter to Skid Row Housing Trust, 1317 E. 7th Street, Los
Angeles, CA 90021, Attn: ED Search, or fax to (213) 683-0781.
DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. The Pratt Area Community
Council seeks an individual to coordinate its Entrepreneurial Training
Program and develop and oversee commercial revitalization strate-
gies. Previous economic development and/or business experience,
strong writing and organizational skills. Development or real estate
finance skills preferred. Fax/mail resume and salary requirements:
Executive Director, PACC, 201 DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11205.
Fax: (718) 522-2613.
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT. Progressive church/community center
seeks to fill a senior-level position to write grant proposals, plan
fundraising events (benefit auction), coordinate annual fund drive, and
work with staff to promote church programs and community ministries
(homeless, HIV / AIDS, Peace and Justice) . Salary and benefits package
includes housing. Send resume and writing sample to Rev. Jan Orr-
Harter, Jan Hus Presbyterian Church, 351 East 74 St. New York, NY
10021. (212) 288-6743. Fax (212) 879-0929. Job opens early 1996.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. The People's Economic Opportunity Project of the
Lower East Side (PEOPLES, Inc.) is an innovative community develop-
ment corporation consolidating one of the nation's largest mutual
housing associations, a community development credit union, a com-
munity development loan fund, a social service agency, and a small
business training program. Responsibilities will include new program
development, staff supervision, board development, oversight/moni-
toring of all operations, budgeting, government-foundation-bank liaison,
contract letting, and community outreach. The successful candidate
will have experience in at least one of the following disciplines: hous-
ing, community financial services, economic development or social ser-
vices. Ability to successfully manage a wide array of activities and coor-
dinate staff is essential. The candidate should possess a proven com-
mitment to community development, excellent written and verbal com-
munication skills, and a Bachelor's Degree (minimum). The salary is
$50-$55,000 depending on experience. A full benefits package accom-
panies the position. Resume: L. Levy, PEOPLES, 209 East Third Street,
New York, NY 10009. PEOPLES is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT for The People's Economic
Opportunity Project of the Lower East Side (PEOPLES, Inc.).
Responsibilities include micro-enterprise lending, small business tech-
nical assistance, community outreach. BA minimum. Bilingual
Spanish/English preferred. $25,000 negotiable, full benefits. Resume:
L. Levy, PEOPLES, 209 East Third Street, New York, NY 10009.
RENT ADMINISTRATOR. Innovative nonprofit housing organization in mid-
town seeks experienced individual to monitor rent agreements and
work with tenants to eliminate their rent arrears, including legal action
in Housing Court as needed. Record of achievement and demonstrat-
ed success in working in team-oriented settings required. send resume
and salary history to: Common Ground Community, 255 West 43rd
Street, New York, NY 10036.
wp
55 and Pain
By Rob Polner
n a winter day, a soup kitchen on Harlem's l25th Street is open for business. The dinner menu
reads macaroni and cheese. Two dozen early arrivals dig in as the line stretches out the door and
halfway down the block.
I've grabbed a safe spot next to a slight, polite man in a bicy-
clist's cap who introduces himself as Lazar Moore. Maybe
because my reporter's tape recorder is out on the table, other
people are watching and listening. I'm only picking at my plate
when someone accuses, "You with Giuliani," and another man
asks me how much money I earn, saying he makes roughly $1
an hour in welfare benefits exterminating pests for the city. I
know any amount I say would be too much, so I refuse to say.
Harlem is still known for its poverty and its dependence on
public assistance born of Depression-caliber unemployment
rates. Hundreds of millions of dollars in city and state aid have
been invested in low
income housing construc-
tion here over the last 10
years.
Less known, perhaps, is
the spirit of gentrification in
Harlem. It brings cheers
from those who stand to
benefit, with money to
invest in storefronts and
handsome brownstones. It
even brought out Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani for pre-
Christmas shopping pub-
licity along l25th Street.
Signposts of gentrifica-
tion are growing. The Black
United Fund is working on
a development plan for
West l37th Street to house
about 100 families with
incomes of $26,000 a year
and up, together with a
computer services store. The 100 Black Men, a prominent civic
group whose roster includes David Dinkins, is sponsoring a
middle income housing and commercial development; talks
with the city are continuing, as the delinquent site is controlled
by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development
(HPD). Several hundred condominium units have been sold in
recent years, mainly south of l25th Street, with the now-
defunct Harlem Urban Development Corp. helping to pave the
way. HPD is looking to sell as much bankrupt, in rem housing
as possible. Politicians are jostling over nearly $300 million in
"empowerment zone" funds headed for Harlem.
Harlem's main drag is brimming with new discount outlets,
shoppers, tourists and merchants. Even Fairway, the gourmet
produce market on the Upper West Side, has opened a super-
store on West 133rd Street. A neon sign marks the site off the
West Side Highway.
Change, for all its value, raises the anxiety and cynicism of
those who do not stand to gain. Cash-poor Harlemites fear they
will be dislocated or pushed deeper into the shadows of every-
day life as rents and prices rise-and opportunities for scraping
by on marginal incomes in the informal economy lessen.
Witness the removal of vendors from I 25th Street in 1994.
These concerns are only heightened by city, state and
national proposals for radical reductions in almost every gov-
ernment benefit that a poor person, working or not, might get.
Few are fool enough to think that in this conservative season,
the government might invest in low-wage jobs or public works.
"Some people seethe but otherwise contain their animosity,"
says Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League.
"Others act out, sometimes subtly, but occasionally violently."
Tragically, that animosity culminated in the fatal inferno of
Freddy's Fashion Mart last month. Seven low-wage workers
and the gunman-arsonist, Rowland Smith, perished in the blaze.
Last October, Sikhulu Shange, owner of the Record Shack
and a subtenant of Freddy's owner, Fred Harari, turned to
Morris Powell of the l25th Street Vendors Association for help,
saying Harari, a white man, was trying to displace a black
man's business by doubling his rent. Harari was responding to
pressure from his landlord, a black-owned church. The United
House of Prayer, in turn, was merely trying to extract as much
profit as possible from its landholdings.
So goes life in the food chain.
''I'm aware of the pressures that build when people feel they
can't make a decent living and don't have money to go into
business for themselves," said Kermit Eady of Harlem's Black
United Fund. "But I really don't know what you do about it.
Doing business for ourselves is something we have to do. We
have to compete. That's just American capitalism."
Lazar Moore sees it a bit differently. Finishing his meal, he
says, "I'm an optimist: Poor people will get it together and
make their point collectively, one of these days. Until we do
that, we're just in the way."
And people living on the edge will continue groping for rea-
sons that explain their marginalization. Some as far over the
edge as Rowland Smith will, no doubt, force us to face the con-
sequences .
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