February 1989

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O N E M O T H E R ' S JO U R N E Y DB O B H A Y E S O N " C I T Y FO R S A L E "
2 CITY LIMITS February 1989
CitJ/ Lilftits
Volume XIV Number 2
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EDITORIAL
Will Kemp Score for Housing?
With "Silent Sam" Pierce departing after eight years as head ofthe Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Development, housing activists are reacting to
the appointment of Jack Kemp as the new HUD chief with tempered opti-
mism. While in office, Pierce oversaw a massive federal retreat from the
housing business and his low-key style epitomized the reduced role of the
agency. Despite his credentials as an ardent conservative and apostle of
supply-side economics, Kemp is seen as a front-liner, someone who will
return vigor to the agency.
But there are good reasons to keep the optimism in check. Before Kemp
took the HUD job, he was slated to go to work for the Heritage Foundation,
the Washington, D.C. policy group that formed the cornerstone of the Reagan
doctrine. Kemp has kept an office there while preparing to take over at HUD.
Heritage is in the process of releasing a new policy paper on the federal role
in low income housing, the crux of which is that the federal government
doesn't need to spend more money on housing.
The foundation says there is plenty of housing available, there's just a lot
of people who can't afford it. The problem can be solved, says Heritage, with
housing vouchers. While large numbers of apartments do sit vacant in Hous-
ton, in New York there most definitely is a housing shortage and a crying
need for billions of dollars to finance low income housing construction.
What may be even more alarming for New Yorkers is Heritage Foundation's
recommendation that the government should cut off its aid to cities with
rent regulations.
Kemp may turn away from the coach's call on this one. But his true test
will be when he huddles with other Bush cabinet members and Congres-
sionalleaders and makes his play for HUD funding.
When he was nominated to become HUD secretary, Kemp said, "I don't
believe we're going to balance the budget by cutting housing." But there's
intense pressure on Capitol Hill to reduce the federal deficit and two big
ticket expenditures have already captured legislators' attention: the federal
savings and loan bailout and clean-up of radioactive wastes at the defense
department's nuclear plants.
Over the Reagan years, the HUD budget was decimated. According to an
estimate by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, just one cent of
every dollar the government spends is for housing programs. That's why
NLIHC is sponsoring a campaign called "Two Cents for Housing," pressur-
ing Congress to allocate another two pennies of every federal dollar to
housing. It's an effort every housing activist should get behind. 0
....X.523
INSIDE
FEATURE
Still Locked Out:
Mortgages and Minority Communities 12
More than a decade after the original redlining
battles, banks are still offering black and Latino
communites small change.
DEPARTMENTS
Editorial
Will Kemp Score for Housing? ....................... 2
Short Term Notes
AIDS Report ..... ..... ............................... ............ 4
Fighting Salvation .. .. ....................................... 4
Harassment Campaign ..................................... 4
Change of Heart ........ .. ..................................... 5
Sacred Space ...... .................. .. .......................... 5
Too Generous to Drexel? ................................. 6
Neighborhood Notes ........ ...................................... 7
Profile
One Mother' s Journey .. ................................... 8
Pipeline
Shutdown Shuffle ...... .. .. .. .............. .... ...... ....... 9
Credit Unions Fill the Banking Gap .... ........ 18
Review
A Furious Book ...................................... .. .. .. 20
Letters ........ ...... .. ...... ...... .......................... ..... ...... . 22
Workshop ............ .. ... ........... ... ............... .. ............. 23
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 3
Journey/Page 8

Shuffle/Page 9
..
O\J( ('\\ ds
to CA H hoKe..
Be.
\l -\0 ' flU,
Redlining/Page 12

4 CITY LIMITS February 1989
SHORT TERM NOTES
AIDS REPORT
Callings AIDS the cutting edge
of homeless ness, a report by the
Partnership for the Homeless
describes the city's effort to house
homeless pe<?ple with AIDS as
and offers an alternative
plan to provide living spoce for
up to 20,000 people.
A recent memo from Health
Commissioner Stephen Josephs
estimated that the number of
AIDS cases will more than
double over the next five years.
He says.there are currently
some 5,300 people with AIDS
in the city. The city' s current
plan to house homeless people
with AIDS calls for adding 840
beds to the 500 now available
in hospitals and 44 funded at
Bailey House.
But the Partnership counters
that this is not enough, describ-
ing people with AIDS as the
fastest growing segment of the
city's homeless population.
According to their figures, there
will be some 30,000 homeless
people with AIDS or AIDS-
related illness by 1993. "The
city's present response can only
be described as inadequate,"
says Peter Smith, president of
the Partnership for the Home-
less. Explaining that the city' s
plan only takes into account
people with full-blown AIDS,
and does not include peaple
with AIDS-related illness, he
sees a drastic underestimation
of the number of people with
AIDS who need housing
assistance.
lee Jones, a spokesman for
the mayor, questions the
Partnership'S numbers, and
says the state and federal gov-
ernment needs to join the
housing effort-by requiring
nursing homes to admit people
with AIDS, making hospital
beds available ana increasing
federal medicaid and medicare
reimbursements to health
facilities that serve people with
AIDS. "In our view, this will
help fill the housing need," he
says. "Peter Smith thinks Ed
Koch can wave a magic
mayoral wand and create extra
housing-but many other layers
of government need to be
involved to make this happen."
With a price tag of $1
billion, the Partnership' S plan
calls for making some 9,750
beds available to homeless
people with AIDS and ARC over
the next five years. 'While fully
implementing this plan will not
be cheap, prolonging the effort
will only serve to immeasurably
increase both the cost and the
suffering," says Smith.
The report suggests that the
city use 2,250 of its aport-
ments--about one percent of
the city-owned and housing
authority stock-for housing
people with AIDS and AIDS-
related illness. The Partnership
agrees with Jones that state and
federal government must con-
tribute to this effort, as well as
private developers and
nonprofit agencies. To imple-
ment such an effort, the
Partnership recommends the
establishment of an AIDS
Resource Development and Co-
ordination Agency and an
"AIDS Czar." 0 Maika
Margolies
FIGHTING
SALVATION
Every Christmas, faithful
soldiers of the Salvation Army
jingle small bells and call into
the cold winter air: "Help the
homeless! Help the needy!
Donate!" But a coolition of
housing activists charges that
the Salvation Army is removing
many of the disabled and
elderly women tenants from its
residences to make way for a
more lucrative clientele.
"The Salvation Army, like
many other nonprofit groups,
has been bitten by the idea that
it can make money on its
buildings," says Anne Emer-
man, a member of Community
Boord 6. The protest
centers around tenants at the
Anthony Residence at 119 E.
29th St. But activists charge that
the Salvation Army has already
relocated tenants out of and
increased rents at its Parkside
Evangeline and Markle
residences. A number of
evictions have also taken place
at the Ten Eyck (see City Limits,
June/July 1988). Emerman
says the relocation push is part
of a broader Salvation Army
effort to replace poor, disabled
tenants with working adults and
students.
Craig Evans, a spokesman
for the Salvation Army,
counters that the philanthropic
organization is still aiding the
poor, and the removal of the
ailing women is merely the
result of new, more stringent
certification requirements from
the state Department of Social
Services. Under the new rules,
for example, full-time medical
personnel would have to live
on-site, he says. "The Salvation
Army has no history of being in
the medical business, apart
from Booth Memorial Hospital,"
he contends. The residence is
now in the process of losing its
certification for housing
disabled women.
Working women at the
Anthony pay approximately
$550 per month for room and
boord, while disabled women
pay the Salvation Army about
$660 a month, which comes
from state and federal benefits.
While it seems financially ad-
vantageaus for the Salvation
Army to keep the disabled
women, William Sleeve of the
Community Council for Greater
New York' s ombudsman
program says this is not true.
He explains that once the
disabled women are gone, the
Army can fill the Anthony with
transient, working tenants.
These tenants would be subject
to arbitrary rent increases and
could be forced to move on 30-
day notice. Sleeve also notes
that once the Anthony is
decertified it can be sold for a
large profit.
Two years ago, there were
90 mentally ill or physically
disabled women living with
about 80 working women in the
residence. Today, only about
35 of the disabled women
remain, unwilling to move to
homes in the outer boroughs or
beyond the city limits.
Francine Taischoff, a former
school teacher who has lived at
the Anthony for almost a decade,
is one of the remaining 35, a
stroke victim who is partly apha-
sic. She says she has close friends
nearby, and a doctor at Mt. Sinai
who she feels comfortable with.
"I don't want to go to the
suburbs," she explains.
A coolition ot advocacy
groups held two demonstrations
supporting the women
and a court bome may soon be
underway. Theodore Zeichner, a
lawyer for MFY Services,
says women are being coerced to
leave and charges that the
Anthony's decertification process
is illegal because the tenants
have not been allowed a hearing.
But Evans argues, "They (the
physically and mentally disabled)
don't really have much choice in
this matter. If they were fully in
control of their mental capacities
and were able to understand
what we are doing, they would
see they' ll be better off." 0 Tom
Matrullo
HARASSMENT
CAMPAIGN
A coolition of neighborhood
groups is trying to snarl the
efforts of Big River Realty, a real
estate company which tney
accuse of gentrifying of
West Harlem ana Washington
Heights through a campaign of
"legal harassment."
Sue Clyde, a member of the
Anti-Big River Realty Coolition,
soys the real estate entity is taking
tenants to court to dispute
settlements made with previous
owners and initiating a vast
number of eviction proceedings.
"They're trying to get rid of
tenants who have been in their
apartments for 15 or 20 years
and they're doing it through
frivolous litigation," she says.
"They have a policy of divide and
conquer, but we're not going to
let that happen."
Steven Kirkpatrick, a building
manager for Big River, disogrees:
"Peal?le are not being railrooded
out of their apartments. Things
just doesn't work that way in
New York." However, he adds,
"Peaple who don't pay their rent
must leave. That's how it goes."
Sue Clycle 01 tlte Antiaig River Coalition:
Trying to put 0 holt to policies of "clivicle oncl conquer."
Michael Paris, an attorney at
Harlem Legal Services, says
many tenants in Big River's 30
West Harlem and Washington
Heights buildings are unrepre-
sented in housing court and are
unable to respond adequately
to eviction attempts. "Big River
is bringing a massive amount of
non-payment cases. They
schedule eight, nine, even 10
court dates and end up catching
people at same point in the
process."
Unlike slumlords who said
and resold buildings, inAating
their value while failing to
maintain them, Paris says Big
River's owner, Alex Dilorenzo
III, has different tactics. "He' s
not abondoning buildings-just
the tenants." Paris says that
one-bedroom apartments that
once rented for $350 are now
being advertised for more than
$800, pricing them beyond the
reach of people in the predomi-
poor and minority neigh-
borhOOds.
He adds that an informal
count in a double building run
by Big River, 640-642 Riverside
Drive, shows almost a third of
the 200 aportments are being
warehoused. "In a time of
homeless ness, when fomilies
are being forced to double up
and triple up, this is
says Jeanie Dubnau of the Riv-
erside/Edgecombe Neighbor-
hood Association.
The coolition held a summer
rally in Harlem and later
demonstrated outside
Dilorenzo's midtown offices to
support Clyde Hunter, a tenant
who they say was unfairly
evicted. Another protest was
held in December after two
tenants on West 160th Street
received an eviction notice for
living in a basement aportment
the landlord charged was
illegal.
Dilorenzo is a behind-the-
scenes real -estate magnate
whose net worth is valued at
over $500 million. The son of
Alex Dilorenzo Jr., an infamous
landlord who established a
real -estate empire with
Solomon Goldman, the
younger Dilorenzo is following
in his father' s footsteps.
Dilorenzo bought at least three
of his West Harlem buildings on
Riverside Drive from Adonis
Mortesis, the "devil" landlord
who owes the city more than $ 1
million for failing to correct
building code violations, and he
hired Morfesis to work for
another of his real-estate
concerns, the midtown firm of
Huberth & Peters. The million-
a ire landlord' s Riverside Drive
buildings are controlled by in-
dividually-named corporati ons
with names like Fester Realty
and Cow Realty. "Dilorenzo
has a lot of contempt for people
in this area," says Pari s. "He' s
doing a lot of damage, but I
think we can slow him down."
The Anti-Big River Realty
Cool ition includes the River-
February 1989
side/Edgecombe Neighbor-
hood Association, the Harlem
branch of Metropolitan Council
on Housi ng, the West Harlem
Cool ition and numerous tenant
associati ons. 0 Usa Glazer
CHANGE OF HEART
After 11 years of champion-
ing massive development
projects in the face of commu-
nity opposition, Mayor Edward
Koch now says several projects
need to be scaled down to
appease local concerns before
receiving his approval. But
same local activists believe the
mayor s about-face is simply an
election year tactic.
At a recent press confer-
ence, the mayor said the
Riverwalk (see city Limits,
August/September 1988) and
Brighton by the Sea (see city
Limits, December 1987)
pro jects would have to be
substantially reduced before he
would vote for them at the
Board of Estimate. Koch's
comments seem to undermine
his previous support for these
two development proposals.
The $300 million Brighton by
the Seo project, which calls for
six high on the Brighton
Bead'; shorefront, was an-
nounced on the steps of City
Hall, with Koch standing along-
side developer Stephen Muss.
Koch spokesman larry
Simon berg says the mayor' s
appearance with the developer
symbol ized his approval of
market rate housing construc-
tion in Brooklyn. "Yes he (Koch)
was givinB it a send-off. But he
was careNI to say the project
had to go through the approval
process."
The mayor' s call to scale
bock the $600 million River-
walk development slated for
Manhattan' s East Side water-
front was even more surprising.
It was Koch who selected the
developer' s proposal in 1 980
from among four responses to a
Request for Proposals issued by
the city. The plan Koch choose
had been the third choice of the
local community board, which
CITY UMITS 5
the mayor had asked to make a
recommendation from among the
four proposals. The mayor also
engineered two tax breaks for the
project - a city 421 a tax abote-
ment and a special exemption
susper:'ded by Congress)
in the 1986 federal tax reform
act. Simonberg says the mayor
still supports the two development
proposals, but "he wants to be
responsive to community
opposition to their scale." Both
projects spowned well-organized
and widespread local opposition,
as has the Trump City proposal
for Manhattan's West Side,
which the mayor also says needs
to be scaled back.
Community opponents of the
Riverwalk and Brighton Beach
projects do not believe Koch
actually regards their concerns as
valid. "He's thinking about the
election and his popularity," says
Jean Kreiling of the Committee to
Preserve Brighton Beach.
"He's doing this as a political
expedient. This is politically
motivated," adds Sondi Simmons
of Citizens United Against
Riverwalk. Simmons thinks the
mayor has come to understand
the potential voting power of
some of the local groups
organized to fight these projects.
'We can get to 50,000 people in
48 hours," she says. 0 Doug
Turetsky
SACRED SPACE
Policy changes which would
make Mitchell-lama aportments
with empty bedrooms available
to growing fomilies are raisin9..
the ire of long-time residents of
those aportments-many of them
senior citizens whose children
have grown and left home.
Officials from the Deportment
of Housing Preservation and De-
velopment, which oversees the
city's subsidized Mitchell-lama
aportments, say there are more
than 3,000 three- and four-
bedroom apartments being
underutilized. Robert Klehammer,
an assistant commissioner for
HPD, says the new regulations
are "the only way to ensure that
6 CITY LIMITS February 1989
Empty bedrooms inside?:
Proposed re,ulotions would Iorce smoll Iomilies out of three- ond four bedroom
oportments In subsidized Mitchell-Lamo proiects.
families who need extra space
can get in." He says HPD has
waiting lists of families who
need to move into larger apart-
ments and residents in underoc-
cupied apartments would only
have to move within the same
building or complex.
At a recent hearing at One
Police Plaza, about 400
Mitchell-Lama residents, many
of them elderly, protested
effusively against the new regu-
lations. Some argued that extra
space is needed because family
structure is Auid and grown
family members often return
home. Others said they had
spent decades creating a per-
sonalized living space and
painted out that moving costs
could cause financial hardship.
Amid cheering and foot-
stomping, Murray Rothman
said, "I'm 78. My wife is 73. I
refuse to be a victim. A home is
a sacred thing."
Many resiaents charged that
the policy change, which was
requested by Mayor Koch
following a Newsday expose of
underutilized Mitchell-Lama
apartments, was merely a face-
saving gesture. Others said the
motivation was political. Robert
Woolis, head of Mitchell-Lama
Residents Coalition, said,
"Mayor Koch is doing this
because David Dinkins is said
to live in an underutilized
Mitchell-Lama apartment. That's
the only reason I can think of. "
The one point on which all
sides agree is that unusual
alliances a r ~ being formed.
Bob Hayes of the Coalition for
the Homeless supports the city's
stance, as does the Harlem
branch of the NAACP. On the
other side is a united coalition
of Mitchell-Lama tenants and
their managers. "Really, it's a
little scary," says Klehammer.
"It's like the twilight zone."
Jim Garst, lObbyist for the
New York State Tenant and
Neighborhood Coalition, says
his organization was remaining
neutral because of the complex
issues involved. Many of the
Mitchell-Lama buildings were
created in the 1960s and
1970s to provide housing for
moderate and middle income
citizens. About 135,000 of the
state's 165,000 Mitchell -Lama
units are in New York City.
Klehammer says he does not
know when the policy would go
into effect, and whether it will
be altered following the hearing
process. 0 Lisa Glazer
TOO GENEROUS
TO DREXEL?
Following Drexel Burnham
Lambert's guilty plea in a federal
securities fraud case, city officials
suspended the Wall Street firm
from participating in the next
round of city revenue bond sales.
That decision could cost the com-
pany, which agreed to pay $650
million in fines and restitution to
settle the fraud case, hundreds of
thousands of dollars in commis-
sions. Buta major sole source real
estate deal between Drexel and
the city, which includes some $85
million in subsidies, continues to
move forward.
Last June the city's Public
Development Corporation
signed a commitment with
Drexel that will provide millions
of dollars in tax abotements
and energy credits to the firm,
which is planning to build two
office complexes on city-owned
sites, one in Kew Gardens,
Queens and the otOer in lower
Manhattan. The Manhattan site
is adjacent to the World Trade
Center and just several blocks
from the new Shearson/ Ameri-
can Express complex. A recent
report on the deal by State
Senator Franz Leichter charges
that the package of subsidies is
overly generous, especially for
such a desirable downtown
location.
Drexel will receive a $44
million property tax break on
the downtown site, where it will
build its new headquarters. Ac-
cording to POC officials, that
abotement helped keep Drexel
from moving out of the city. But
Leichter charges that in a
meeting with his staff, Poe
President James Stuckey could
present no evidence that Drexel
intended to leave the city. Evan
Cooper, a spokesman for
Drexel, says, "We had looked
at many alternative sites and
among those were some in New
Jersey." But Cooper would not
provide specific information on
other sites the company had
considered, including the
names of towns.
Before agreeing to the deal
with the city, Drexel had
planned to move its headquar-
ters to 7 World Trade Center
but the securities firm pulled out
of its lease with developer Larry
Silverstein. Leichter aide Wendy
Grover notes that no major
Wall Street firm has moved its
headquarters out of the city.
Leichter also charges that
POC has inAated the number of
jobs the city incentives are
saving. A press release issued
by Poe claimed 6,000 jobs
were at risk. But in response to
requests for information from
Leichter staff, Poe later
estimated only 3,000 jobs were
at risk. Responds POC spokes-
woman Diana Concanon, "The
fact remains that no matter how
many jobs were in danger the
city is actively trying to keep
them in the city."
The deal between Poe and
Drexel is expected to begin the
city approval process this
Spring. According to Nancy
Page of the T ribeCa Community
Association, Community Board
1 opposes the project. Sources
indicate that POC is now in the
process of negotiating a similar
deal for a nearby site, the last
of those in the Washington
Market Urban Renewal Area.
o Doug Turetsky
TheBronz
The Rev. Jerome A. Greene, al-
leged piano thief and former presi-
dent of School Board 9, is executive
director of the People' s Development
Corporation. A South Bronx housing
group that achieved national promi-
nence in the early 1970s after a visit
from former President Carter, PDC
has been beset by problems in recent
years. One of the buildings that was
managed until recently by PDC, 1178
W ashington Avenue, is being threat-
ened with foreclosure for nonpay-
ment ofits mortgage. Now managing
their own building, the tenants
wonder why payments weren't made
because rent was up-to-date ...
Federal funding of $1.3 million is
being cut from the Hunts Point Multi-
Service Center, a Ramon Velez strong-
hold. Federal documents show that
in 1987 a grant request listed Velez
as president of the nonprofit health
facility, and asked for $40,000 in
federal funds to contribute to his
salary, even though the center was
being run by an executive director
and a project director.
Brooklyn
The battle between the develop-
ers of Metrotech and the community
group Stand Together for Affirma-
ti ve Neighborhood Development has
come to an end. STAND agreed to
withdraw their environmental law-
suit, the last remaining hurdle for
project developer Forest City Metro-
tech Associates, because Forest City
agreed to help the businesses and
residents displaced by the project to
relocate. Some of the businesses will
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 7
be relocated in the Metrotech com-
plex. The 18 residents threatened
with displacement will be offered
apartments in a building being re-
habbed by the developer in Prospect
Heights. Tenants also have the choice
of accepting a cash settlement. The
city has agreed to pay STAND's legal
fees ....
Homeless women in the Brooklyn
Women's Shelter are organizing for
better conditions, focusing on issues
of physical abuse, sexual assault,
unsanitary conditions and poor se-
curity. A broad coalition of advo-
cacy groups are supporting them.
For more information, contact the
Coalition for the Homeless, (212)
460-8110.
lIIIaDhattan
Josephine Lopez and her two
daughters are living in daily fear of
being evicted from their Chelsea
apartment by landlord Norman Buch-
binder because a nuisance charge
was brought against the family three
years ago. Community members and
legislators rallied to support Lopez
in January, calling on Buchbinder to
allow the Lopez family to remain in
their apartment at 233 W. 19th Street.
Jane Wood of the Chelsea Coalition
on Housing says, "The eviction is
based upon an irrelevant, three-year-
old technicality." As City Lim its goes
to press, the landlord has agreed to
meet with legislators and commu-
nity people to discuss the issue.
Queens
City officials are quarreling among
themselves about the site for an
underground holding tank that could
solve the borough's combined sewer
overflow problem. The Department
of Environmental Protection wants
to put the $75 million, 40-million-
gallon storage tank beneath parkland
near Fowler Avenue And the Van
Wyck Expressway. Parks Commis-
sioner Henry Stern favors a site close
to Roosevelt Avenue, near Shea Sta-
dium. As for the Borough President
Claire Shulman, she's just pleased
that the proposal is moving along.
Parts of Queens suffer from noxious
odors from raw sewage that rushes
into waterways after storms because
the treatment plants can't handle the
increased waste water.
Staten Island
The Koch administration' s plan
to scale down a proposed jail was
met with skeptical charges of elec-
tioneering last month. Plans for the
jail initially called for up to 4,000
beds, but city officials pledged to
limit the number of jail beds to 1,000.
Negotiations for the jail started with
a deal cut between Koch and Bor-
ough President Ralph Lamberti that
allowed Staten Island to skirt its ob-
ligation to build shelters for the home-
less under the mayor' s 1987 transi-
tional shelter plan by providing jail
space instead. 0
W4Sulpr'III' ActltJiI*"
Instead of waiting fot tenants
call in complaints for lack of
t"Jieat and hot water, the Depart-
LJl!.eJlt o{Housing Preservation and
. . . velopment sent inspee . tors on
296
with cmouicallypoor service ree-
9tds. The preemptive strike
"'(i8ainsU07buildingsin,ldanhat-
;;, tan ted in It? building own >
ere clfor heat and hot wati!tr
violatioos; of 62 buildings in the
,Bra ived viQiatio:Q$; w
;{, n BroofIyn neY':" !
"Q!;!,
Aithree were citeti; and no vioJa.:'
tions were found in the seven
Staten !Bland buildings visited.
"Ii ACC9!ding to HPD, oWJ?-el's.of
''''the bu'tJilings found to be III vlo-
.of heat and hot water re-
quirements were taken to court
'the week. afteT the surprise in-
spection. Last year, 3.,968 actions
were started in court and 32 land-
010rds Were eventually jailed fOr M
provide aeat and
water.
N w
B
' The heating season tuns each
October 1 th,roughMl;ly
. DURitgthis period, when die '"
temperature falls below 55 de-
grees"l,and1m:tis are required to
maintain indoor temperature of
at least 68 degrees between 6
a.m. and 10 p.m. Between 10
p.m. 1;l1ld 6aJll' the indoor tem-
perii'ttfit Ifiusl
l
be at least 55 de-
grees the tJ'te temperature is
below 40 degrees outside. 0
.::; **p. ;':::"
8 CITY UMITS February 1989
PROFILE
One Mother's Journey
BY RUTH YOUNG
IT ALL STARTED WITH A ROUGH
divorce, then a $92 rent increase on
an uninhabitable basement apart-
ment. The bottom line was eviction.
The children were all off to school,
except my baby son, who was home
sick with asthma. I remember clean-
ing up and fixing my son a light
breakfast and giving him his medica-
tion before he went back to sleep.
Then there was this sharp knock on
my door as if someone was going to
tear it down. I knew this moment
was coming-the rent was too much
to keep up with.
I was trying not to lose
control of my emotions.
I had to think clearly
about what to do next.
Where were my children
going to stay tonight?
Having my son out of
his bed and getting
dressed and him asking
me why we had to leave,
I remember him crying.
A marshal with a gun
said he was going to
shoot my dog if my son
didn't stop crying. I
remember asking him if
this could be resolved
and he said" No!"
Lost
When we emerged
from the train station, we were lost.
We asked for directions, and people
immediately pointed to the Brooklyn
Arms Hotel. Inside the lobby were
bright, pretty chandeliers, and the
front desk. All I could do was think
of those chandeliers and hope that
life in the hotel would not be too bad.
"One way or another, we would make
it. It would only be two weeks."
Little did I know that two weeks
would stretch into almost two years.
Finally, we went into our room.
So this was going to be home for a
little while. The windows rattled in
the cold wind. Wallpaper was
peeling and the yellow paint was
dirty with age. And the linoleum
was cracking and where it came up
in the corners it harbored roaches.
Not exactly your American Dream.
Maintenance came back with some
sheets, pillows and blankets, but not
enough. The smell of dead mice
behind the slimy, dirty, sour refrig-
erator filled the air. Not only did the
refrigerator smell, it didn' t work.
We swept and mopped and made
up the beds. There was a store to get
food, across the street, but there was
nothing to cook on, so we ate in a
Chinese restaurant. We each took a
shower and then went to
bed, exhausted.
I had just started to drift off
when the kids started screaming
because mice were running across
the floor. I picked up a shoe and
threw it at the mice. When I woke up
in the morning, all the kids had sque-
ezed into bed with me.
Changes
Each day in the hotel I watched
my children change. They took on a
new posture to survive. They be-
came cold and hard. Their once
bright eyes filled with hopes and
dreams started to become lifeless.
To hold my family together, I took
my little ones to group therapy ses-
sions because I knew they needed to
vent some of their fears and anxi-
eties. As I sat and listened to how the
children perceived the hotel , and
how much they had seen, I was
devastated. It hurt so much.
The scariest part was that they
began to believe this was how they
were supposed to live. Their role
models were security guards who
took young girls behind staircases,
young men stashng drugs and other
young men drawing guns and knives
and fighting over drug territory.
Learning
I had to observe and feel my way
when I first arrived at the hotel, but
I could not keep still. People had to
know that we had a voice and it had
to be heard.
Parents on the Move existed be-
fore I arrived at the Brooklyn Arms
Hotel, but the organization was at a
lull. I joined. When people had to
stand up to management in the Hotel
to deal with problems
with rooms, Parents on
the Move would help.
One of our main tasks was
to open up the lines of
communication between
tenants and management.
After the social service
providers went home at
5 p.m., Parents on the
Move was the support
system.
We started empower-
ing ourselves by doing
voter registration and by
meeting with local poli-
ticians to discuss our
needs and demands. We
met with community
groups who fought for af-
fordable housing, and we
became a part of the ATURA Coali-
tion-fighting along with other
groups for improvements in all of the
Atlantic Terminal area of Brooklyn.
We marched and demonstrated until
we were heard. We had dreams that
we could change the homeless situ-
ation. And we had pride. We were
homeless, but not helpless. 0
(This is excerpted from "One
Mother 's Journey, A Work-In-
Progress" by Ruth Young. The first in
a series entitled "In Our Own Voices,"
it is available for $5 through Ruth
Young, Housing Justice Campaign,
236 W. 27th St., NYC 10001; or Terri
Suess, Green Pepper Graphics, POB
6382, Newark, NJ 07106.)
PROFILE
ShutdoltVn
Shuffle
BY DOUG TURETSKY
AFTER SPENDING MILLIONS OF
dollars to warehouse homeless fami-
lies in run-down hotels, the city's
long-awaited plan to move them out
of the hotels is being met with skep-
ticism. Families don' t want to re-
main at the hotels, but after too
many years of promises and press
releases, the homeless do not trust
the city's intentions.
When Koch administration offi-
cials announced that the city would
begin moving families out of the
Brooklyn Arms Hotel, more than
100 people jammed the lobby de-
manding permanent housing and
some 30 individuals barricaded
themselves inside the city's Human
Resources Administration office at
the hotel. The city responded by
sending 100 cops clad in riot gear to
reclaim its office.
The decision to move the 268
families residing in the Brooklyn
Arms is the latest step in the city's
two-year plan to end its use of ho-
tels to shelter the homeless. Koch
administration officials insist they
have adequate plans to rehouse the
families and that hotel residents are
being misled. "It's not a matter of
simple reshuffling," says HRA
spokesman John Beckman.
But that ' s exactly what Brooklyn
Arms residents, and many home-
less and housing advocates, believe
will be the result of the city's pull-
out from the hotels (see City Limits,
November 1988). They say the city's
effort is a sham. "More than half the
people (from the Brooklyn Arms)
will be shuffled to congregate shel-
ters or transitional housing and
another quarter will be forced into
substandard apartments," charges
Ruth Young, executive director of
Parents on the Move, which spear-
headed the hotel protest. "People
want to move out of the Brooklyn
Arms, but to permanent and decent
housing, not another shelter."
Many homeless leaders and other
activists charge that the city has no
February 1989 CITY UMITS 9
Sending 0 m ... oge:
8roo'dyn Arm. re.id.n,. prole. led th. city" p'on for .hutting down ,h. hole'.
concrete plan or schedule to end its
use of hotels. "We have a plan but
we don't have to release it to prove
it," says Beckman. Activists also
claim that what plans the city does
have are inadequate to meet the
need for permanent housing. A large
part of the two-year plan simply
counts on the homeless leaving the
city's shelter system on their own.
Shrinking Numbers
According to HRA, the city has
reduced the number of hotels it uses
to shelter the homeless from 62 in
March 1987 to 41 now. Butthe city's
two-year plan to end the use of the
hotels was not launched until Au-
gust 1988, in response to threats
from the federal government that it
was going to stop its funding of
families placed in hotels for long
stays. Federal funds cover half the
tab for keeping families in the ho-
tels, which often amounts to more
than $3,000 a month.
City officials originally had a five-
year plan to get the families out of
the hotels , but turned it into a two-
year plan as a compromise with
Congressional leaders. That expe-
dited effort began with the closing
of the Martinique Hotel, which had
become a national symbol of the
plight of the city's homeless hotel
families.
Over a four month period begin-
ning last September, HRA moved
448 families out of the Martinique.
Despite assertions that HRA's Of-
fice of Family Services was coordi-
nating the continuation of social
services to families who had left the
hotel , by the end of December offi-
cials could not give an accounting
of where those families had been
moved. Eventually the Human Re-
sources Administration announced
it had moved 241 of the families to
apartments renovated by the De-
partment of Housing Preservation
and Development, 37 to housing
authority projects and 136 to transi-
tional shelters run by nonprofits
like HELP 1. HRA also reported that
27 families left the hotel on their
own, prosecutors asked that two
families be sent to other hotels and
10 CITY LIMITS February 1989
five families were axed from the
welfare roles.
But many remain skeptical of
HRA's claims. Parents on the Move
leaders say as many as 10 families
formerly residing in the Martinique
are now at the Brooklyn Arms. Mary
Boyd, who worked for the Coalition
for the Homeless lunch program at
the Martinique before being trans-
ferred six months ago to the Prince
George, says she recognizes some
15 families at the Prince George as
former Martinique residents. Ac-
cording to one official, the Board of
Education had figures indicating 333
families were gi ven permanent hous-
ing and 139 families were placed in
dormitory-style, Tier II shelters.
Dr. Irwin Redlener, who' s New
York Children's Health Project pro-
vided free health care service to
children at the Martinique, offers
additional evidence that HRA's
numbers may not add up. Redlener,
with the help of Council Member
Abe Gerges, requested the addresses
of 141 children with serious medi-
cal problems so he could provide
follow-up care or forward records
to new doctors. According to Gerges,
HRA was able to provide addresses
for only about half of the children.
Substitution
It is facts such as these that lead
many activists to charge that the
city has no real plan at all. Steven
Banks of the Homeless Family Rights
Project argues that "the city essen-
tially proposes to substitute a not-
for-profit shelter system for the for-
profit system." He adds that the
plan, which calls for providing per-
manent housing for all families who
have been in hotels for more than
12 months, does not provide a suffi-
cient amount of housing for all those
that are homeless.
Beckman guarantees that HRA
will have the necessary number of
apartments. "We're not going to
shove them somewhere else. We're
going to find permanent housing
for them."
Banks and others contend that
the numbers do not support that
promise. When Koch announced the
expedited plan at a Congressional
hearing, he told the panel that the
city expects to shelter 19,500 fami-
lies over two years. The mayor's 10-
year housing plan, which is the
source of the vast majority of per-
manent housing for the homeless,
projects the creation of 15 ,600 units
for the homeless-6,230 during the
two years corresponding to the ho-
tel plan. Clearly, a huge gap exists
between the number of homeless
families and the number of apart-
ments available. Comptroller Harri-
son Goldin's recent report charging
that the city has renovated far fewer
apartments than it claimed in pre-
vious years makes these projections
appear even more speculative.
But discussion of the two-year
plan solely in terms of numbers
obscures other, more human, issues.
Hotels had always been presented
as something temporary-after 18
months hotel families became eli-
gible for permanent housing. While
the two-year plan promises perma-
nent housing to families who have
been in the hotels for 12 months or
more, it makes no such guarantees
to the other families sent to transi-
tional shelters.
"No Light"
"When you're in transitional
housing there's no time frame for
how long you're going to be there,"
says Young, adding, it offers "no
light at the end ofthe tunnel." With
stays at the Tier II shelters generally
limited to six months, Jean Chap-
pell, a Parents on the Move leader,
says, "It's a shell game with people's
lives, especially with the kids." And
Gerges, who chairs the City Coun-
cil's Select Committee on the Home-
less, warns that the Tier II shelters
are already nearly filled.
Although many argue that these
nonprofit shelters are better than
the hotels, the homeless aren't buy-
ing the line. Young sees shelters
like Andrew Cuomo's HELP I or
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February 1989 CITY UMITS 11
Homes for the Homeless as an es-
cape valve for the city. "The nicey,
nice nonprofits have to take a stand"
and support the demands for per-
manent housing, she says.
Young and other homeless activ-
ists are also concerned by the the
loss of tenant protection in the Tier
II shelters. In the Tier lIs a family is
a client, not a resident, and can be
evicted-what the nonprofit shel-
ter operators term involuntary dis-
charge-without legal representa-
tion. While shelter operators say
families are only asked to leave for
egregious problems like drug use or
fighting, some activists contend
families are evicted for such things
as failing to make beds or not seeing
caseworkers.
Chris Jackson, a Brooklyn Demo-
cratic district leader who's area in-
cludes the Brooklyn Arms, charges
that the shelters are run with a
"punitive approach." He and others
attribute this in part to the fact that
although the vast majority of fami-
lies in the nonprofit shelters are
black or Hispanic, the managers are
overwhelmingly white.
The Tier lIs are seen as just one
more part of the treadmill, which
does not necessarily stop when a
family gets an apartment. Stories
abound of shoddily repaired apart-
ments. Former Martinique resident
Jackie Pittman and her four chil-
dren got an apartment after nine
months at the hotel through the
highly-touted Emergency Assis-
tance Rehousing Program. After
months of living in a three-room
apartment that was only partly reno-
vated, the family left and is now
living at the Prince George.
When Koch announced the re-
moval offamilies from the Brooklyn
Arms, he also presented plans to
make the EARP program more at-
tractive to private landlords, few of
whom had taken advantage of the
program in its original form (see
City Limits, December 1988). But
many activists are skeptical that
the revamped program, even with
more lucrative terms for owners,
will significantly increase the num-
ber of apartments for the homeless.
With the number of homeless the
city expects to shelter over the
course of the two-year plan far out-
stripping the number of units it can
produce, officials are counting on
one important factor to keep their
plan in balance-that thousands of
homeless families will simply dis-
appear. The city' s plan rests on the
the assumption that 44 percent of
the families entering the system will
simply leave of their own accord.
Theoretically, they're finding their
own housing. But even HRA spokes-
man Beckman admits, "It's quite
clear a lot do go back to an unstable
setting." Or as Steven Banks says,
"Some families simply disappear
from the system, but don't disap-
pear from being homeless."
As City Limits goes to press, HRA
is set to release an updated version
of their hotel plan. And Brooklyn
Supreme Court Justice William Bel-
lard has granted the Brooklyn Arms
residents' request for a temporary
. halt to the plan to remove them
from the hotel. Only the hotel's
owners, who have raked in millions
for sheltering the homeless, are the
winners in the city's continuing
hotel havoc. 0
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12 CITY LIMITS February 1989
FEATURE
Still Locked Out:
Bank Loans and
Minority Communities
BY ERROL T. LOUIS
I
n this election year, there are
signs that the issue of commu-
nity reinvestment may add some
extra spark to the
usual heat of city
politics. For the
first time since the
fiscal crisis of the
mid-1970s , com-
munity activists
are beginning to
put bank poli-
cies-the founda-
tion of the finan-
cial system-
squarely on the
public agenda.
They're doing it so
forcefully that
elected leaders are
beginning to no-
tice.
tions) must offer services- especiall y
loans-in the areas they were origi-
nally chartered to serve. This law,
the Community Reinvestment Act of
1977, was enacted as a response to
low income or black and Hispanic
neighborhoods, then refused to make
loans within the boundaries. This is
still a nationwide phenomenon and
New York, the "capital of capital," is
no exception.
Redlining is
often difficult
to prove be-
cause regula-
tory agencies
keep records on
mortgage lend-
ing, but the in-
formation is
scattered, com-
plicated and
hard to inter-
pret. Therefore,
when people
take the time to
pull together
lending data, it
is an event
worth noting-
and a sure sign
that communi-
ties are becom-
The cornerstone
of this renewed
movement is the
most detailed
analysis of mort-
gage lending in
New York ever
done by a commu-
nity organization.
Other signs in-
clude the forma-
tion of city- and
statewide reinvest-
ment coalitions ,
and the steady
growth of alterna-
tive, community-
based financial in-
stitutions.
!
! ~ ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ; ; ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ing serious
about holding
banks account-
able to those
A
report on mortgage loans offers evi-
dence of continuing discrimination.
Activists say it's time to hold banks
accountable - and politicians are
starting to listen.
they serve.
Early last
December, on
the steps of
City Hall, two
representatives
of the Center
for Law and
Social Justice of
Medgar Evers
College did just
The immediate subject of all this
activity is redlining. According to
federal law , banks (both commercial
banks and savings and loan institu-
the American banking system' s long,
shameful history oflending discrimi-
nation. Historically, banks have
drawn a fateful "red line" around
that. Peter M. Williams and Esmer-
elda Simmons announced the release
of "Race and Mortgage Lending in
New York City," the center's year-
long report on
citywide lend-
ing patterns. It
is easily the
most complete
study of redlin-
ing in New
York.
Comparisons
February 1989 CITY UMITS 13
building, while
Bed-Stuy had 833.
Yet Flatlands/
Canarsie received
nearly 2,400 mort-
gage loans that
year, while Bed-
Stuy got a little
more than 200.
Williams,
who researched
and wrote the
report, looked
at lending in
each of the
city's census
tracts for 1985
and 1986, com-
paring census
tracts that were
at least 80 per-
cent white with
tracts that were
80 percent or
more black and
Hispanic. In
Peter Williams of the Center for Law and Social Justice:
Or consider
Queens' Board 11
(Auburndale, Bay-
side, Little Neck),
which had one
city-owned aban-
doned building in
1986. This
wealthy Queens
district got over
3,000 mortgage
loans that year.
Meanwhile, in
Bronx Board 3
(Crotona Park
East, Claremont
and Morrissania),
1985 and 1986, the census tracts with
mostly white residents received
seven times as many mortgage loans
as predominantly nonwhite areas.
Confronted with these figures,
Williams checked to see if the banks
were simply refusing to make loans
to poor people, regardless of their
color. He compared middle income
white census tracts with nonwhite
areas in the same income range. Once
again, the evidence of discrimina-
tion was clear: in 1986, primarily
white middle income areas in New
York got three times as many mort-
gage loans as nonwhite neighbor-
hoods of identical income.
A final area considered was age of
housing stock: perhaps the banks
didn't want to make loans in areas
with old property because they are
more prone to default. Here, too, the
study found that in areas with
housing stock of the same age,
white neighborhoods got two to three
times as many loans as nonwhite
areas.
"There is no financial justifica-
tion for the lending disparities, " the
report quietly notes. "The only sig-
nificant variable appears to be race."
As Williams stood on the steps of
City Hall with Esmerelda Simmons,
director of the Center for Law and
"Redlining is back on the agenda."
Social Justice, there were promises
of future action: people would be
meeting, a coalition formed, perhaps
with an eye toward targeting specific
banks for public criticism. Under
the Community Reinvestment Act,
citizens with documentation ofred-
lining can file formal charges against
a bank, which then runs the poten-
tially expensive risk of being prohib-
ited by the government from open-
ing new branches until it has ad-
dressed the challenge.
"The report will provide people
with a tool to organize, and to edu-
cate themselves and the powers that
be on race-based lending," says
Williams. "The impact it has had so
far is to put the issue of red lining and
discriminatory lending back on the
agenda of issues that progressi ves in
New York and the black and Latino
community in New York must ad-
dress. "
The Williams report is especially
explosive when data on specific areas
are isolated. In Brooklyn, for in-
stance, consider the difference be-
tween lending in community Board
18 (Flatlands and Canarsie) and Board
3 (Bedford-Stuyvesant). Both areas
have about 210,000 people living in
them. In 1986, Flatlands/Canarsie
had only one city-owned abandoned
there are 289 va-
cant city-owned buildings, but the
area got only 27 loans in 1986.
A Self Fulfilling Prophecy
In such situations, the banks' role
in underdeveloping certain neigh-
borhoods becomes clear. Long blocks
of empty buildings indicate a crying
need for mortgages-precisely the
areas where the banks have shut
branches and refused to make loans.
This is not a coincidence. As an Urban
League study has noted, "In those
neighborhoods where abandonment
has occurred, capital flight has al-
ways preceded actual abandonment
by three to 10 years." Redlining is a
self-fulfilling prophecy. The areas
where banks refuse to make loans are
sentenced to slow death, while neigh-
borhoods that are already prosper-
ing get even more capital with which
to thrive.
New York is not alone in facing
this crisis: redlining is a continuing
feature of the American banking
system. Last Spring, a week-long
expose in The Atlanta Constitution
on discrimination in bank lending
revealed that white neighborhoods
in Atlanta were getting five times as
many mortgage and rehabilitation
loans as black neighborhoods of
identical income. So acute was the
14 CITY LIMITS February 1989
problem that even prominent, up-
per-middle-class black politicians
had been refused loans. The series
led to a public uproar, and a negoti-
ated agreement with the banks to
commit about $60 million to a spe-
ciallending pool.
Such events have not gone unno-
ticed in New York. In Brooklyn, in-
formal meetings among black politi-
cal activists are crystallizing into
regular strategy sessions and discus-
sion about long-term alternatives to
banks-economic institutions such
as land trusts, community loan funds
and community development credit
unions. A two-pronged approach is
being advanced: banks will be pres-
sured to meet their reinvestment ob-
ligations, while communities simul-
taneously work to develop an alter-
native, locally controlled financial
infrastructure (see story, page 18).
At least one organization, the Crown
Heights Neighborhood Improvement
Association, has already hired an or-
ganizer to see if a community devel-
opment credit union is feasible.
Other communities are organiz-
ing as well. One week after the
Williams report was released, the
Community Financial Network-a
statewide coalition of community
development credit unions-met at
the Federal Reserve Bank of New
York with representatives of the
8om&.h
;\:
,,,State rules li;l<ing bank banks newlilvestment ers, the
ments in teal estate with lending governor's office celebrated with a
for,low income community slick gathering at the World Trade
expireditlast Centel'. Public relationa
!ivists describe ,the bill that created RIossy posters mctures of
.oricks em and
merits as"a booittloggle andiesr it'%"billions fOf"'rebuUdi
may be re-enacted. slPgan of the moment.
Assemblyman Herman Farrell, As well as giving
wJio chairs banking powets to invest in
committee, sayshe will introduce uity. the hill
islation of other
won ror'opl8Jlln!rOlo. cllosiJljtbtllll
state-chartered,," banks agree to branches.ay{l the ability to give
greater <;>f sm. all bu'tiness COUJltly.
loans. Hedgmg hIS bets, he adds, CommunIty actlVlsts protested
ntheIllmiGtchangemy,Jllind. the new ,.' to, the
<blItWasnleant to be avooon banu,;tan Bu ' aentof
1 apple pie.' "But it just didn't BanksVincentTese.respondedwith
McKee, executive direc-
tor of the New York State Tenant tive real estate venture' had to be
Neighbo balanqed .
unity
r guard, fa to lobby in case
the legislation, known as
bus Banking Bm, gets back ontrack.
"I'm tired of bills which give ex-
pensive t?
'b pron:).lsmg
b 'ts to consumers'and low in-
CQ'me commurl;ities that never
materialite," he, says. ..",'
Back in 1984, when legislation
was passed givi,!lg state-chaTtered
,:;(i'i #@;::,
major New York banks. The meeting
pointed out the perennially unmet
financial needs of poor communities
and suggested ways in which sup-
port for grassroots institutions like
community credit unions can help
redress the imbalance.
The Community Financial Net-
work was also one of the more than
25 community groups whose repre-
sentatives met in Albany last No-
vember, at a day-long conference on
reinvestment issues. The meeting
was jointly sponsored by the Com-
munity Training and Resource Cen-
ter, the New York State Tenant and
Neighborhood Coalition, the Com-
munity Service Society, the New York
State Division of Human Rights and
the Department of Urban Affairs and
Planning at Hunter College.
The community groups that at-
tended discussed past successes-
notably, the $10 million loan pool
that the Bank of New York created
for low income housing as a result of
pressure from the Association of
Community Organizations for Re-
form Now. A representative of
Syracuse United Neighbors described
how the organization filed a formal
Community Reinvestment Act chal-
lenge to stop a local institution, Key
Bank, from simply closing a branch
and walking out of a low income
area. The challenge led to a $5.5
million commitment from the bank
for commercial and housing loans,
under special terms to benefit low
and moderate income borrowers.
A Statewide Coalition
The Albany meeting resulted in
the creation of a statewide reinvest-
ment coalition. The overall message
was clear: organizing to confront
banks can result in tangible, dollars-
and-cents victories for redlined
communities.
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 15
In Atlanta, activists forced banks to create a
$60 million loan pool after revelations of redlining.
Same income, same housing stock:
In communities with similar incomes and housing, predominantly minority neighbor-
hoods received lor fewer loans than their mostly white counterparts.
Politicians are slowly responding
to this ground swell of activity. A
few officials, most notably Manhat-
tan State Senator Franz Leichter, have
$1 million ,--...,
or more
900,000
Mortgage Len
New York Ci
long championed measures to
strengthen bank disclosure of lend-
ing patterns, making it easier for
neighborhoods to discover and chal-
lenge redlining. Others may be join-
ing Leichter. Manhattan Assembly-
man Herman D. Farrell, chairman of
the state legislature'S banking com-
mittee, is planning to hold a series of
public hearings on redlining in
March. Harlem State Senator David
Paterson has expressed a similar
interest, and there may be joint hear-
ings.
800,000
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
Manhattan
All numbers are in
hundreds af thausands
Bronx Brooklyn
D
Number of mortgages
given in white census tracts
Queens Staten Island

Number of martgages
given in minority census tracts
Source: 'Race and Mortgage lending in New York City: Center for law and Social Justice
If Farrell, as rumored, is still con-
sidering running for Manhattan bor-
ough president, such hearings could
generate a large amount of media
attention, which would contrast the
press silence that remains a major
roadblock to the rein vestment move-
ment. In New York, for instance, the
Times ran a short story on the Wil-
liams report-but it only appeared
in the national edition, which is not
distributed in New York. The city's
other dailies devoted a few dutiful
paragraphs to the report , but there is
no sense of continuity-no recollec-
tion that the same banks now docu-
mented as redlining much of the city
also shut down dozens of branches
in low income and nonwhite neigh-
borhoods throughout the late 1970s
16 CITY UMITS February 1989
"Any mayoral candidate must address the issue of the banks not
lending on an equal basis to blacks and Latinos," says Williams.
and early 1980s (see City Limits,
October 1986). The closings. in fact,
continue (see sidebar).
Tax Breaks for Banks
Even while engaging in redlining,
banks are getting massive govern-
ment gifts. Activists watched in
fascination as the state and city gave
Chase Manhattan the largest pack-
age of tax breaks and other incen-
tives ever offered to a New York
company-$235 million-to relocate
5,000 workers in Brooklyn. The
package includes a 22-year real-es-
tate tax break, special subsidized
more than
any other
bank.
-A year be-
fore the latest
Chase give-
away, an
October 1987
New York
Times article
power costs
and other tax
credits, all on
the assump-
tion that
Chase is a re-
sponsible
corporate
citizen
whose ac-
tions benefit
the city as a
whole. But
.. - a p pea red,
I, talc IHInlc '_n. ta help revitalilfe neig"&orItood.. noting that
consider the following:
-Between 1977 and 1984, Chase
closed 39 branches in New York, far
Chase was on
a campaign of firing people simply
to make profits. The headline read:
"Chase's Profits up 63.4%; Staff Cuts
are Planned."
- Two years ago, Chase announced
the closing ofits East Harlem branch.
A community group born in response,
the East Harlem Community Coali-
tion for Fair Banking, tried friendly
persuasion, encountered indiffer-
ence, then resorted to more creative
tactics like a call-in campaign (resi-
dents discovered how to dial Chase's
president directly). After long nego-
tiations, during which time the
branch stayed open, Chase agreed to
make a $500,000 low interest loan to
a homesteading group and to give a
$36,000 grant to a local credit union.
The branch is now closed.
As more information on lending
and other bank activities is made
known, anti-redlining activists in-
tend to zero in on the practices of
specific banks. When reason fails,
however-as it so often does with
banks-political power becomes the
tool of choice. Williams says, "I
don't know what effect the report
will have on the actual election, but
it will have an effect on a public
policy area that has not been ad-
dressed." He continues, "Any may-
oral candidate must address the is-
sue of the banks not lending on an
equal basis to blacks and Latinos.
Any progressive candidate can take
this issue and charge that the banks
must help address the question of
affordable housing. If not, there are
billions of city government funds
deposited in the banks that can be
taken out." D
Errol T. Louis is a Ph.D. candidate at
Yale University and a consultant on
community reinvestment issues.
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 17
The Inside Deal ...
. for
just
$30!
"A dark vision of what can
happen to any American city."
- Seymour Hersh
" ... an excellent real estate and
housing journaL .. "
- Columbia Journalism Review
Take out a one year subscription to City Limits, the sole
source for inside information on housing and development
in New York, and get Jack Newfield and Wayne Barrett's
"City for Sale," the book rocking City Hall, for one-third
off the hardcover price.
,------------------------,
I 0 YES! Start my subscription and send me one copy of I
I "City for Sale" (allow 3 to 4 weeks for delivery). I have I
I enclosed a $30 check or money order. (This offer is I
I limited to new subscribers only, please.) I
I I
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I Address I
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18 CITY LIMITS February 1989
PIPELINE
Credit Unions
Fill the Banking Gap
few places that blacks could make
deposits. And in New York City in
the 1980s they often serve poor. pre-
dominantly minority neighbor-
hoods-places where banks have an
extensive history of neglect.
BY LISA GLAZER
WHEN CHEMICAL BANK CLOSED
its Tremont branch in December
1987. the only other financial insti-
tution within walking distance of
the Bronx neighborhood was a store-
front check cashing joint. The blue-
gray bank with 50-foot ceilings had
been a lone sign of stability for a
community struggling to revitalize
after years of arson and abandon-
ment.
Instead of letting the stately
structure turn into an empty shell-
with the neighborhood disintegrat-
ing around it-Chemical Bank de-
cided to hand it over to the Mid-
Bronx Desperadoes. a coalition of
nine church and civic organizations.
They vowed to turn the branch into
a community credit union-a
symbol of self help for the neighbor-
hood's future.
The Desperadoes. formally known
as the MBD Community Housing
Corporation. are the sponsors of the
project. but busy with their low in-
come housing project on Charlotte
Street and creating apartments for
the elderly. they turned hands-on
leadership over to a committee re-
cruited from the community. After
more than a year of monthly meet-
ings. the committee completed the
complex chartering process. With
their federal application approved
last month. the credit union will open
its door for business in the Spring.
The credit union will offer much-
needed banking services to 70.000
area residents. Mike Kon. owner of
The American Restaurant at 920 E.
174th Street. has to send an employee
on a 10-minute drive every time he
wants to deposit the daily receipts.
Mike Nenbard. a 21-year-old college
student. works part time in the neigh-
borhood to save for a motorcycle.
When he tried to set up his first
account at a commercial bank. he
was turned away. "They said I needed
$500 to start with. I don't have that
much money." he explains.
The credit union. operating in an
area with a median income of
$10.000. will allow residents to open
savings accounts with as little as $10
or $20. Eventually. the credit union
plans to offer business and personal
loans to people whose credit worthi-
ness will be judged by factors such as
involvement in local organizations
and length ofresidence in the neigh-
borhood.
Assisting many of these "people's
banks" is the National Federation of
Community Development Credit
Unions. which provides technical
and financial assistance to the coop-
erative institutions serving low in-
8everly Lydeatte, project director for the M8D credit union:
Six hundred community people have pledged .upport.
Intangible benefits are also in the
works: a sense of community spirit
and involvement. because everyone
who belongs to the credit union can
vote for the board of directors. and a
chance for those directors to acquire
financial skills. Most of all. members
know that money deposited in the
credit union will be reinvested in the
Mid-Bronx-not midtown Manhat-
tan.
Long History
The MBD credit union joins a long
line of cooperati ve banks established
to meet the needs of low income
people. The first credit union in the
United States was created by Ed-
ward Filene. a Boston merchant who
wanted to help employees whose
only source of credit was loan sharks
and usurers. In the 1950s. credit
unions in the South were one of the
come communities. In New York
City. the NFCDCU is in the midst of
expansion-the number of credit un-
ions they serve has doubled from
five to 10 in the last half decade.
These 10 credit unions have 8.700
members and a total of $17 million
in assets. with much of that money
put back back into the community
in the form of loans for home repairs.
school tuition. payment of medical
bills and other personal expenses.
Often the loans are less than $1.000-
an amount that most commercial
banks won't even consider distrib-
uting. Investments that fuel commu-
nity revitalization-homesteading.
small businesses. local nonprofits-
are also given priority.
Some of the credit unions. like the
Lower East Side Peoples Federal
Credit Union. have paid staff. offer
cash and checking services. and are
open during the week. Others, like
the Bethex FCU, have walk-in hours
on the weekend and are staffed
mainly by volunteers. Payments are
issued in the form of withdrawal
checks.
As New York credit unions grow,
alliances are being formed with banks
as a way to tap into a vast pool of
capital resources-even while battles
over branch closings and lending
pnictices continue (see story, page
12). And the New York Community
Financial Network was formed just
last year as a support group for the
specific needs oflocal credit unions.
"We're trying to bring financial co-
operation to a level higher than we've
ever seen in New York City," ex-
plains Cliff Rosenthal, executive
director of the NFCDCU. "We have a
vision of a very powerful resource."
Three More
Last year, three new credi t unions
were chartered in New York City: the
Artists Community FCU, serving low
income arts workers citywide; the
Self Help Works Federal Credit
Union, which provides loans and in-
surance to tenants served by the
Urban Homesteading Assistance
Board and Self Help Works Mutual
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 19
Housing Association members; and
the Northwest Bronx Coalition FCU,
sponsored by the Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition. A
handful more are in formation.
The momentum of the credit
union movement in New York
springs from a grassroots response
to the closing of bank branches in
poor and minority neighborhoods
(see City Limits, October 1986). A
bank's decision to close a branch can
mean the only neighborhood finan-
cial institution is a check cashing
office and the safest place to save is
the space between a mattress and the
bedsprings.
This could have been the case in
the Bronx, except that Chemical Bank
undertook a policy of enlightened
self interest. The bank donated
$250,000 to the NFCDCU, handed
the bank building at 174th Street and
Boston Road to MBD and agreed to
pay $15,000 a year for three years to
cover maintenance. Robert
Rosenbloom, senior issues analyst at
Chemical Bank, explains, "Credit
unions serve groups which banks
find difficult." He adds, "They pro-
vide a very important service and
we're interested in strengthening that
service. "
Beverly Lydeatte, project director
for MBD, says the credit union has
pledges of support from 600 people,
and business will be done, in the
beginning, by a staff of volunteers.
After a year she hopes to hire a full-
time manager, an accountant and a
teller, working in offices once con-
trolled by Chemical Bank.
Edwin Greene, vice president of
the credit union' s board of directors,
once owned a neighborhood busi-
ness-a small delicatessen on East
174th Street. With his business suf-
fering amid the community' s dete-
rioration, he went to local banks for
a $10,000 loan. "I went to the big
banks and they said I had to apply for
a loan of at least $50,000," he re-
members. "They wouldn't even en-
tertain a loan the size 1 wanted. The
paperwork just wasn't worth it."
Greene says he wants to make sure
local people can always have access
to money. "People won't need to beg,
lie or prefabricate stories just to get a
loan," he promises. "People are
always blaming outsiders for prob-
lems. Well, this is an opportunity for
us to help ourselves. We're talking
about the control of this commu-
nity's destiny." D .
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20 CITY LIMITS February 1989
REVIEWS
A Furious Sook
BY ROBERT M. HAYES
"City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Be-
trayal of New York, "by Jack Newfield
and Wayne Barrett, Harper &- Row,
1988, 466 pages, $22.50.
A KILLER WIND BLEW THROUGH
New York one night last month,
leaving two more homeless people
dead on the city's frigid streets. But
on that same night the Village Gate
was the scene of a hot political
gathering: a reunion of Ed Koch an-
tagonists celebrating the publishing
of "City for Sale," a book written to
make the mayor the mayor no more.
Author Wayne Barrett was on
stage. "We were sitting with Stanley
Friedman," Barrett began, referring
to the fallen Bronx Democratic leader
who corrupted the Parking Viola-
tions Bureau in exchange for stock in
the fraudulent Citisource company.
Friedman held stock for the crooked
leader of Queens as well as himself.
Barrett continued: "Stanley Fried-
man said, 'I know I can't get a fair
paragraph from you guys in this book.
But what can I do to get just one line,
a single good line?'" Co-author Jack
Newfield looked Friedman in the
eye, recalled Barrett, and said, "Tell
us you were holding the stock for
Koch."
The anti-Koch convention at the
Village Gate cheered. Such is the
tone of "City for Sale."
A Masterful Tale
"City for Sale" is a masterfully
woven tale of deceit by the dean of
New York investigative journalists,
Jack Newfield, now deputy city.editor
at the Daily News, and Wayne Bar-
rett, the colorful writer for the Vil-
lage Voice. Together they bring to
life the shabby corruption of New
York's government during the 1980s
as they reconstruct the lives and
conversations of the hollow indi-
viduals who disgraced themselves,
and in turn disgraced Ed Koch,
dubbed the "mayor who didn't want
to know."
There is no element of Greek trag-
edy in this tale, no great figures fall-
ing from grace. The players in New
York's political scandals are shabby
little men of fatuous greed, pot bel-
lies and no character. The county
leaders are all two bit characters from
the start. Even an aging Miss Amer-
ica is no fallen goddess-she just
gets caught after years of chasing
money, power and men like sewer
contractor and wife beater Andy
Capasso and pre-eminent narcissist
and immaculate deceiver Ed Koch.
Disgust is the prevailing sentiment
because the schemes of Koch's cro-
nies are what we of the Rudolph
Giuliani school of morals term ve-
nial sins. The sums stolen were as
paltry as the souls of the schemers.
The mortal sins of the Koch admini-
stration are much more devastating.
More money is frittered away each
day through stupidity and medioc-
rity by commissioners of the Human
Resources Administration, the De-
partment of Housing Preservation
and Development and the Buildings
Department than the likes of Meade
Esposito and Stanley Friedman ever
lusted after.
Polyester Thieves
More people are harmed by the
perfectly legal giveaways of neigh-
borhoods to luxury developers than
the thieves in polyester suits out on
Queens Boulevard could ever hurt.
A ruined housing market, a crum-
bling infrastructure, city streets that
even The New York Times dub the
New Calcutta, and worst of all, a
poisoning of spirit-these are the
mortal sins of Ed Koch.
Maybe Victor Botnick, the mayor's
young friend, was never convicted of
stealing money from the Health and
Hospitals Corporation, which he
headed, although he had no medical ,
managerial or financial experience
(nor apparently a college degree).
Appointments like Botnick are re-
lated to many of today's tragedies:
the mentally ill who cannot get into
hospitals, surgical patients languish-
ing in hospital hallways and the
people who die waiting for an ambu-
lance.
One wishes Newfield and Barrett
had made a bit more ofthese connec-
tions. Tony Gliedman, the mayor's
long-time housing commissioner,
protege of convicted f e ~ o n Esposito
(and now Donald Trump' s senior
Authors: Jack Newfield and Wayne Sarrett.
executive), gets off lightly, described
as "capable. " The development give-
aways ofthe early 1980s could not be
unrelated to the death grip held by
the corrupt machine politicians.
"City for Sale" is a wonderful read
for political insiders or outsiders.
It's a book written to topple Koch
from power, and its onl y major fault-
like Wayne Barrett's tale at the Vil-
lage Gate-is that at times it tries too
hard. Ed Koch probably could have
been treated with a bit more gentle-
ness. Some weeks ago Special Prose-
cutor Charles Hynes said that if he
runs for mayor he will run against
Koch with sadness, not anger. That's
how I feel, and it's the problem I had
with "City for Sale's" depiction of
Koch. No matter how poorly one
views Koch's performance as mayor,
he always seems to me more like a
target of sympathy rather than hate.
Then I think back to that bitter
cold Sunday before Christmas when
10,000 New Yorkers marched across
57th Street demanding housing for
the city's homeless. As we waited for
the Reverend Jesse Jackson to speak,
I was crushed in the crowd among
100 homeless men from the Fort
Washington Armory. The men kept
getting more excited, chanting louder
and louder, "Koch Must Go, Koch
Must Go. "
They weren't sad about Koch. They
were angry at Koch. They were furi-
ous at Koch. Just like "City for Sale"
is angry and furious. Newfield and
Barrett have captured New York and
they deserve a Pulitzer-if not for
their writing, then for their love of
this city. D
Robert M. Hayes is counsel to the
Coalition for the Homeless.
February 1989 CITY UMITS 21
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22 CITY LIMITS February 1989
LETTERS
Firmer Base
To the Editor:
In "Disabled Agency" (October
1988), you discussed the restructur-
ing of the New York City Commis-
sion on Human Rights. This reor-
ganization has not left the agency
'crippled' but has given it a firmer
organizational base on which to
rebuild itself. This includes increased
financial resources , staffing and a
more clearly defined strategy to
achieve its goals,
To accommodate these changes,
the commission spent $2,8 million
more in Fiscal 1988 ($6,6 million)
than in Fiscal 1985 ($3.8 million)
and its FY89 budget of $8.4 million
is a significant increase over FY88,
From June 1987 to to June 1988 full-
time employees increased from 179
to 191. By the end ofFY89, the agency
plans to be fully staffed with 238
employees.
The agency has also set up three
bureaus-Law Enforcement, Com-
munity Relations and Management
and Budget. The Fair Housing Divi-
sion, which is part of the Law En-
forcement Bureau, will continue
identifying systemic and individual
discrimination in housing and pub-
lic accommodation. Under the Com-
munity Relations Bureau, the Neigh-
borhood stabilization Program has
actually been strengthened, The field
offices will continue to handle is-
sues such as housing, crime preven-
tion and economic development.
The Human Rights Bias Response
Team, formed in the wake of the
Howard Beach incident, investigated
over 450 cases in 1988 and will
expand as it works with other agen-
cies.
The commission is planning to
develop a viable Research Division,
responsible for conducting research
and identifying trends on human
rights, supplying data and evaluat-
ing programs. The Reinvestment
Unit, contrary to your article, con-
tinues to specialize in research and
technical assistance in community
reinvestment, mortgage lending,
financial service and bank regula-
tion.
The commission has come a long
way since the new administration
and executive management team
came on board. We recognize the
challenges that lie ahead and are
resolved to do our best in our com-
mitment to serve all New Yorkers.
Dr. John E. Brandon
Commissioner/Chairperson
NYC Commission on Human Rights
City Limits replies : We spoke to
many former and current commis-
sion staffers and civil rights advo-
cates. The story reflected their con-
cern that the commission is being
used as a political football for the
mayor's upcoming campaign. Weare
glad to have on record the commis-
sion's commitment to continue NSP
and the Reinvestment Unit 's hous-
ing work.
No Money
To the Editor:
I would love to subscribe but I am
poor myself and every month realize
that I could be homeless, too. I have
a master's degree in city planning yet
have trouble finding employment-
either I am too well educated or have
too sketchy a job history (I spent time
as a parent!) or am not specialized
enough. So if I'm having problems,
think of all those other folks with so
much less than me.
Norma Cady
Durango, CO
Editor's note: City Limits wel-
comes letters from our readers.
But we ask that you try to keep
your letter to 300 words in length
or we may be forced to make
drastic cuts, unintentionally
changing what you meant to say.
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11217. (718) 789-5960 9a.m.-noon.
DIRECTOR OF HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. (Search re-
opened.) Manage the devlpt of supportive housing programs
for people with AIDS in multiple sites. Lead technical assis-
tance team in creating new housing under sponsorship by
independent nonprofits. Exp in joint planning & enterprise
devlpt a must. Min of 3 yrs mgmt exp in housing devlpt
required. EOE. Resumes: Mark Ketcham, Personnel , AIDS
Resource Center, 24 W. 30th St. , NYC 10001 .
BUSINESS ASSISTANT. Light bookkeeping, general ledger,
billing, subscription list maintenance and other administrative
tasks. Part time, approx 10-15 hrs per week. $9/hr. Schedule
flexible. MARKETING INTERN. Assist in promotion, ad sales,
special projects. No stipend but great exp for marketing or
urban affairs student interested in nonprofit environment.
Creativity a must. Resumes: City Limits, 40 Prince St , NYC
10012. Att : Business Di rector.
February 1989 CITY LIMITS 23
PUBLICATIONS DIRECTOR. For The Low Income Housing
Information Service. The director will be responsible for pro-
ducing the organization's monthly newsletter, Low Income
Housing Roundup, occasional special Memoranda on specific
topics throughout the year plus coordinating & supervising the
devlpt, production & distribution of written materials for the or-
ganization. EOE. Applications available at L1HIS, 1012 14th St
NW, 15th Fir, Washington, D.C. 20005. Applications accepted
through February 28.
TENANT ORGANIZER. Mt. Vernon United Tenants, a city-
wide community-based nonprofit org seeks 2 full -t ime tenant
organizers. Qualifications: professional org or housing exp,
good writing & oral communicat ion skills. Minorities & women
preferred. Salary: $17,500. Resumes: MVUT, PO Box 2107,
Mt. Vernon, New York 10551 .
COOPER ASSOCIATES
FUNDRAISING CONSULTANTS
Housing, Economic Development,
Social Services, Arts
and Cultural Organizations
Call 718-789-5773
Competitively Priced Insurance
LET us DO A FREE EVAWATION OF
YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
have been providing low-cost insurance programs and quality service
for HDFC's, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT and other NONPROFIT
organizations for the past 10 years.
Our Coverages Include:
LIABILITY BONDS DIRECTORS' & OFFICERS' LIABILITY
SPECIAL BUILDING PACKAGES
ilLiberal Payment Terms"

306 FIFTH AVE.
NEW YORK, N.V. 10001
(212) 279-8300
Ask for: Bola Ramanathan
2 CENTS FOR HOUSING:
A CAMPAIGN FOR HOUSING JUSTICE
A Major National Conference Sponsored by the:
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Low Income Housing Information Service
National Neighborhood Coalition
February 23-26, 1989
Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Arlington, VA
Plenary Speakers will include:
Hon. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA)
Hon. Jack F. Kemp, HUD Secretary Designate (invited)
2 Cents More Out of Every Federal TaxDollar Could Make
Decent, Affordable Housing a Reality for All Americans
POLICY WORKSHOPS WITH
CONGRESSIONAL STAFF
CAPACITY AND SKILL BUILDING
WORKSHOPS
Low Income Housing Preservation -
Public and Privately Owned Housing
Rural Housing
Low Income Housing Tax Credits
Community-Based Housing Programs
Community Reinvestment Act
Homeownership Opportunities: Realizing the
Dream of Low Income Families
From Shelter to Permanent Housing: Making
the Organizational Transition
Displacement Strategies: Community-Based
Responses in Public and Private Housing
Community Reinvestment: Generating
Money for Affordable Housing
State Policy: How to Develop Effective
Agendas and Campaigns
Fundraising for Grassroots Activities
Computers/Desktop Publishing/Telecommunications
Managing the Non-Profit Organization
Meetings with Key House and Senate
Committee Representatives
Individual Visits to House and Senate Offices
Congressional Reception
REGISTRATION FORM
o I enclose $125 registration fee for an NLIHC/
LIHIS member/subscriber
Members of the National Low Income Housing
Coalition and subscribers to the Low Income
Housing Information Service are eligible for a
discount on their registration fee. o I enclose $150 registration fee for a non-
member or subscriber.
Individual members/subscribers are entitled to ONE
(1) registration for themselves at the reduced price. Please send this registration form along with
a check made out to "National Low Income
Housing Coalition" at: NLIHC/LIHIS, 1012 14th
Street, NW, 15th floor, Washington, DC 20005,
(202) 662-1530, ATTN: Sybil Mitchell
Organization members/subscri.bers can apply the
discounted rate to STAFF ONLY, PLEASE. Each
registrant must use a separate form.
NAME
ORGANIZATION _
STREET _
CITY STATE ZIP
PHONE _
*Participants must make their own reservations
with the hotel; $80 for single or double occupancy.
Mention NLIHC or LIHIS when making
Reservations. Contact: Holiday Inn Crowne
Plaza, 300 Army Navy Drive, Arlington, VA 22202,
(703) 892-4100.