City Limits Magazine, December 2003 Issue

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The

Life



EDITORIAL

NO MORE EXCUSES

LET'S STOP PRETENDING these are freak incidents.

As I write this, New Jersey child welfare

authorities are trying to figure out how it could

be that the seemingly cohesive, loyally churchgo

ing Jackson family of Camden allowed their four

adopted sons to starve. A caseworker who

claimed to have made numerous visits to the fos-

ter sister who lived with them reponed that the

boys were doing fine, and seems to have accept

ed the parents' explanation that their adoptive

sons had "eating disorders." Why did this hap

pen? That's the question on everyone's minds.

It's the same question New York child wel

fare officials are asking about 8-year-old

Stephanie Ramos, a severely disabled child who

died in a filthy foster home in the Bronx and

whose foster mother dumped her in the trash.

And about the lady in Harlem whose brood

included a tiger and an alligator as well as foster

children. 0.]. lawyer Johnnie Cochran is cur

rently suing New York City for half a billion

dollars on behalf of a Bronx baby allegedly

shaken to death in foster care. As Wendy Davis

reports this month in her investigation of the

Cover photo by Joshua Zuckerman.

Centej o r an

oversight of foster homes, New York's rate of

abuse and neglect in foster care is twice the level

deemed nationally acceptable.

We can't ever know for sure why an adult

hurts a child. (How can we, when abusers them

selves rarely understand?) What we do know

much about is the multibillion-dollar institution

of foster care. We know that foster families vol

unteer for the job, and that if hey take in a large

number of kids, or children with special needs

like Stephanie Ramos or the Jacksons, the

stipend can compare favorably with pay for other

bottom-rung jobs. We know that caseworkers

assigned to supervise the homes are underpaid

for exhausting and emotionally draining work,

with caseloads that are too high to provide ade

quate supervision for every child. And as New

Jersey's human services chief has as much as

admitted, there are caseworkers who skip out on

their obligation to visit every home regularly, and

instead simply fake the paperwork.

No more excuses. Children are suffering and

dying in order to maintain a political fiction.

We remove children from their allegedly negli

gent families as an act of civic obligation, only

to dump the kids into other homes and cross

our fingers they won't get into more trouble.

If we won't make a significant commitment

of resources to ensure safe and supportive foster

care-and since we never have in the century

and-a-half history of the institution, I'm not

counting on it now-we will have to seriously

consider abolishing foster care as we know it.

That doesn't mean letting kids rot in hellish sit

uations. On the contrary, it's an opportunity to

invest resources in family preservation and

other effective interventions. Nor can we leave

families solely accountable any longer for forces

associated with child maltreatment in the first

place: poverty, overcrowded housing, intolera

ble suess, and other conditions that are as much

a responsibility of our political leadership as is

the protection of Elisa Izquierdo and other trag-

ic poster children for child abuse.

Who's responsible for the squalid death of

Stephanie Ramos, or the starving of Bruce, Keith,

Michael and Tyronne Jackson? In a way, we all are.

-Alyssa Katz

Editor

The Center for an Urban Futurethe sister organization of City Limits

www.nycfuture.org

FUtroanu ure Combining City Limits' zest for investigative reporting with thorough policy

analysis, the Center for an Urban Future is regularly influencing New York's

decision makers with fact-driven studies about policy issues that are important to

all five boroughs and to New Yorkers of all socio-economic levels.

Go to our website or contact us to obtain any of our recent studies:

01

Seeking a Workforce System: A Graphical Guideto

Employment and Training Services inNew

York (November 2003)01 Engine Failure: With Economic Woes That Go well Beyond 9/11, New York Needs a Bold New Vision To

Renew the City's Economy (September 2003)

01 Rearranging the Deck Chairs? New York City's Workforce System At The Brink (May 2003)

01 Labor Gains: How Union-Affiliated Training is Transforming New York's Workforce Landscape (March 2003)

01 The Creative Engine: How Arts and Cu lture are Fueling Growth in NYC's Neighborhoods (November 2002)

To obtain a report, get on our mailing list or sign up for our free e-mail policy updates,

contact Research Director Jonathan Bowles at [email protected] or (212) 479-3347.

City Limits and the Center for an Urban Future rely on the generous support of their readers and advertisers, as well as the following funders: The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Child

Welfare Fund, The Unltaflan Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Open S o c i ~ t y Institute, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Scherman Foundaton,JPMorganChase, The Annie E. Casey

FoundatIOn , The Booth Ferns FoundatIOn, The New York Community ~ r u s t , The TaCOniC FoundatIOn , The Rockefeller Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Ira W. DeCampFoundatIOn, LISe, Deutsche Bank, M& TBank, The Cltlgroup FoundatIOn, New York Foundation.





LETTERS

MORTGAGE 101

The lenders in Debbie Nathan's «Buying a

Piece ofHell « [November 2003] may not have

been as bamboozled as they make out. Sincemost lenders are bundling mortgages into the

secondary mortgage market, there comes a

point when they no longer take a hit, no matter what happens in terms of foreclosure. With

regard to potential mortgage fraud, this fact has

made many lenders sloppy. Some have even

become complicit. Also, if these were loans

backed by the Federal Housing Authority, and

if developers were supported by the Depart

ment of Housing and Urban Development,buyers were not legally required to have a home

inspection prior to purchase. Though aninspection is not the same thing as an appraisal,a good inspector can help add a dose of reality

to the appraised value. Though I sympathizewith people's desire for home ownership, any

buyers who signed on using phony documentsregarding income, etc., bear some responsibility for the overall fraud. As Nathan points out,

most of the buyers were working- and middleclass people. Not illiterate dupes who just madetheir mark. Mortgage and housing related

frauds have become a national epidemic. Gen

erally, they are complex affairs, which rely on achain of complicity.

Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-SolomonoffOn The QT

MISLEADING CHOICESPhilip Mangano, executive director of the

Interagency Coalition on Homelessness, is

right in his desire to focus HUD dollars on

long-term shelter residents and the creation

of more permanent and supportive housing,

as reported in Cassi Feldman's excellent «Ser-

vice Interruption." [November 2003] Like

wise, the coalition of advocacy groups and

Jeremy Rosen, staff attorney for the NationalLaw Center on Homelessness and Poverty,

are correct in arguing that many individualsand families need services and support to

end their homeless ness and remain in hous

ing once they are placed. Therefore, the Bushadministration's decision to spend on perma

nent housing poses a misleading choice inthe use of federal dollars between two veryinterrelated needs: housing and services.

Permanent housing in the absence of services, especially for the chronically homelessthat Mangano believes HUD should servefirst, whether directly or indirectly con

nected to the housing or delivered by the

provider of that housing, will not be a solu

tion. Anyone who has worked with this population for any amount of time fully under

stands that creating permanent housing willnot by itself end homelessness. Moreover,

arguing about who should pay for what partof this pie is little more than the Bush

administration's attempt to distract us fromthe real problem: chronic underfunding of

federal housing development and homeless

services. To argue over a paltry $1.2 billiondollars, when several times that annual

amount is needed to bring the promised endto homelessness, is like fighting over the

crumbs that have fallen on the floor whileignoring the mounds of food on the table.Daniel Tietz

Deputy Executive Director for OperationsCoalition for the Homeless

Reach 20,000 eaders

in the nonprofit sector

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Publisher: Kim Nauer

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Editor: Alyssa Katz

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CITY LIMITS



FRONT LINES

Carey K

Take EI "A" TrenLISTENING TO GABRIEL RAMIREZ LOPEZ play music with his son and

nephew on the subway, most passengers maintain their commuter faces.

Here and there, though, the masks crack open a bit. One woman closes

her bloodshot eyes. A lanky man hums along.

The range of people on New York City mass transit is very different

from Lopez' old audience. He used to perform for peasant commuters in

Puebla, Mexico, just southeast of Mexico City. Until two years ago

Lopez serenaded bus riders there, using the same small guitar, the samesombrero, the same Spanish to solicit donations.

Like many Mexicans in New York, Lopez left his country, his wife

and most of his kids-he has seven-to look for work. He now shares a

small apartment in the Bronx with his musician kinsmen and sends most

of his earnings home to Mexico.

The trio pulls in $30 to $100 a day, working ftom 3 in the afternoon

until 8 at night. They play four or five days a week, dodging cops and

the occasional catcall of "Ole, Ole!" On weekends, they travel to the

suburbs and work at parties for up to $200 an hour. Their clients are

mostly Latinos, but Lopez notes with some bemusement that Asians are

also big fans.

Their routine is typical of Mexican musical groups in the city, called

DECEMBER 2003

con untos, whose numbers are growing. ''The subway's a pretty g

market-an informal economy market," says Roben Smith, a sociol

professor at Barnard College who studies Mexican migration to N

York. "You get all these guys with skills that the formal economy w

accommodate. So they exploit a niche that exists, like all New York

have a tendency to do."

More and more Mexicans are flocking to the city. In 2000, they nu

bered 300,000, up from 40,000 in 1980, accordingto

Smith. Twthirds are from Puebla or the surrounding Mixteca region, an especia

poor part of the country.

Lopez hopes to return to Puebla in a year, but his son Alquilino

nephew Gabriel want to stay here. That's typical of younger-generat

Mexican immigrants, according to Smith. "We want to marry Ameri

girls," admits Alquilino, 26, with a sheepish smile.

Even though they sing almost exclusively love songs, there's no ti

for girls. The trio spends mornings, its only free time, rehearsing

resting up for the jolting and sombrero-passing ahead."I'm doing what I love and what my family has always done," s

Lopez in Spanish. "But this job is not easy. We do it because it's the oway we know to make a living. We're musicians." -Julia T



FRONT LINES

Sour DispositionKaren Murray, Brenda Brownand Kim Smith want HUD to improve

Harlem's Ennis Francis Houses--but not to auction the property off.

Tenants ask HUn

to reconsider howit sheds unwanted

property.By Cassi Feldman

JUST ABLOCK from Harlem's nouveau-chic 125rh

Street, where wig shops and soul food joints now

share rhe sidewalk wirh MAC cosmetics and

H&M, Ennis Francis Houses stands as testamentto an earlier time. Unfortunately, it shows.Apart

ment walls are stained wirh mold, ceilings are

leaking, water bugs and mice lurk benearh radia

tors. But its tenants, many of whom moved in

when rhe II-story brick complex opened in

1985, aren't giving up just yet. "We lived through

rhe slum era," says tenant leader Kim Smirh. "We

ought to be able to live through rhe renaissance."

Tired of waiting for rheir landlord, Herbert

Wright, to make repairs, tenants recently asked

rhe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development, which subsidizes rheir rent, to

6

intervene. Because rhe building has failed two

physical inspections, rhe agency is now consid

ering foreclosure-welcome news for the frus

trated residents."An enforcement action like foreclosure is

great, " says Anne Lessy, an organizer wirh rhe

nonprofit Tenants and Neighbors. "But we're

talking about tenants who have been failed.

Unless rhey have a role, a say, in rhe building's

future, where is rhe protection for them?"

For rhe past decade, buildings like Ennis Fran

cis have been moving out of HUD's domain.

They were part of a massive wave of construction

between rhe 1960s and 1980s, in which develop

ers received federal subsidies in exchange for keep

ing rents affordable for 20 years. But when a land

lord neglects a property or mismanages its

finances, HUD doesn't wait for rhe contract toexpire. It ends rhe subsidy and gives tenants indi

vidual Section 8 vouchers instead.

The question is, what comes next? If HUD

takes title to rhe property, it can transfer own

ership to someone it deems more qualified. Or,

if rhe property is in decent shape, rhe federal

agency can simply foreclose and auction it off

to rhe highest bidder.

Since 1993,37 New York City HUD-insured

properties have been foreclosed on, 11 of which

were sold to private owners at auction. But rhat

number may start to grow as HUD steps up

oversight of delinquent owners. "Landlords have

to clean up rheir act if rhey want to stay in rhe

program," said local HUD spokesperson Adam

Glantz. As of June, 48 HUD-assisted buildings

had failed two recent annual inspections, moving

rhem onto a troubled properties list-and poten

tially ontO rhe auction block.

While some landlords who buy at auction

will work to improve rhe value of rheir invest

ment and make it attractive to future tenants,

orhers may be looking for a quick profit. "In a

tight market situation like you have in New

York, people will be tempted to bid high,"

explains Michael Kane, executive director of rhe

National Alliance ofHUD Tenants. "I f rhey bid

high, rhey won't have rhe capital to make needed

repairs. Their fmancial incentive is to run rhe

properties into rhe ground and wait till rhe ten

ants move out or die. That's just economics."

Yet despite pressure from tenants and from

New York City housing officials, HUD has no

plans to give up auctions or change its policy

around foreclosure. So tenants like rhose at

Ennis Francis are going to have to fight for rhe

future of rheir homes.

CARMElLA SMITH was one of rhose tenants back

in 2000, when HUD foreclosed on her dilapi

dated Bed-Study building complex, Willard J.

Price Houses, and sold the building to Bronx

based Proto Property Services for $1 .

Developers Demetrios Moragianis and

John Lankenau had just renovated a 54-unit

building in the Bronx. But Willard J. Price,

which encompasses 192 apartments in four

buildings, was another story entirely. The day

rhey closed on rhe deal, the property's newly

fired security and maintenance staff went on

an angry rampage, setting fires and flooding

pipes. "On my way there, I saw rhree fireengines," remembers Moragianis. "I thought,

' I bet rhey're heading to Willard Price.'" Sure

enough, rhey were.

These days, rhe buildings look a lot better, but

serious problems persist. "The outside is all well

and good," explains Smirh. "But we don't live

outside-we live inside." She says rhe tenants

had to beg for a face-to-face meeting wirh own

ers, sending repeated letters to rhe city's housing

aurhority, local politicians and HUD. At rhe

October 12 garhering, rhe first in a year, an over

heated, Standing-room-only crowd bombarded

CITY LIMITS



Moragianis and his co-owners with complaints about rats

and poor security.

The landlords uied for expressions of patient concern,

but they often looked like they wanted to disappear. "It's

been a hard way going," Moragianis explained later overthe phone. "We want to make money, don't get me

wrong. But we want to make money ftom a fine-tuned

machine. We sink or swim with the building."

While Proto may be trying its best, not all of HUD's

new landlords are as conscientious. This past summer,

the agency unloaded Pueblo de Mayaguez, a 76-unit

Melrose developmem, at a speedy auction on the steps of

the Bronx Courthouse. The tenants, whose plan to turn

the complex into a co-op had the backing of the city's

housing department and housing authority, were heart

broken. And that was before they found out who their

new landlord actually was .

The mysterious buyer, represented by proxy at the

auction, was Emmanuel Ku , a Queens-based landlordwith more than 1,400 pending code violations in just 11

buildings. With the help of the Legal Aid Society, the

tenanes have now filed a lawsuit to reverse the sale.

Glantz mainrains that the tenants' plan carne too late;

the building was already scheduled for auction. But advo

cates hope the bad publicity that followed could change

HUD's approach. "Pueblo was a wake-up call," says Lessy.

"It demonstrated that the process being used to screen

potential landlords is inadequate."

There are already some signs of improvement. The ten

ants at Ennis Francis and at Nueva Era Apartments in

Washington Heights, another complex at risk of foreclo

sure, recently held meetings with local HUD reps where

they articulated their concerns. Kim Smith, of Ennis Francis, considers her meeting a success. "They were very atten

tive," she says, "They're definitely interested in assisting us."

But, at this stage, it's hard to know what form that

assistance will take, and a public auction is still a distinct

possibility. Even if New York HUD officials wanted to

rule it out, explains Victor Bach, senior housing policy

analyst for the Communi ty Service Society, they wouldn't

necessarily have the authority to do so. "Washington

wants to shed its interests and get out of the real estate

business-it's part of the whole federal mindset on hous

ing policy," he says. "There's clearly no movement by

Washington on this score."

That's disappointing for advocates like Kane, who

have spent years pleading for more sensitive disposition

of these troubled buildings. Kane points out that far bet

ter models are already in play. This spring, a nonprofit

consortium led by the Community Service Society and

including the buildings' tenants, took over ownership of

Medgar Evers Houses and the Dr. Betty Shabazz Com

plex-a total of 475 units-along Bed-Stuy's Gates

Avenue corridor. While nonprofit owners are no guaran

tee of success, they are more likely to involve tenants and

keep the buildings affordable long-term.

"Does it take a long time? Does it cost a lot of money?"

asks Kane. "Sure. But what's the alternative?" •

DECEMBER 2003

FRONT LINES

FIRSTHAND

Shotgun WeddingEric The whole problem started with living in shelters. I had my apartment; he didn't.

German: So I et him move in with me .But they told us in order for us to live together both

receiving public assistance, we'd have to be on the same budget, and we'd have

to be domestic partners.

Arthur I was just coming from losing someone after 15 years. Eric has no family and I

Thomas: have no family, so he took care of me while I was in the hospital and we kind of

bonded. So the domestic partnership thing is not something that I'm unhappy

with, you understand. The case worker told us there's no way HASA [the city's

HIV/AIDS Services Administration] is going to pay for boyfriends to live in the

same apartment without being domestic partners-which our lawyer says is just

unheard of. But it's the criteria and I igured, Let's just do it. He could have told

me anything. After you've been beaten into submission, you just comply.

Eric: When we moved into anew apartment we couldn't cook for three days 'cause the

stove wasn 't working. We went to HASA to tell them we needed a restaurant

allowance to be able to eat. They wanted to give us pamphlets to go to pantries

in Brooklyn, and we were like, "We still can't cook it. The stove is broken! "

Arthur: They're always trying to cut corners. It's stressful. I can show you asuitcase full of

medications I'm taking now. I'm 16 years HIV positive and I never took medications

until now. You figure everything will run smoothly if you do what is expected of you.

But what happens if they fall short? "OK, we just have to stop this whole process

here and start you on another train because we messed up," they say, "and this

worker won't be in this week and you'll have to deal with this one now and they don 't

have the information so let's do this again." And it's just constant, nerve-wracking .

On a whole other level , we're getting to know each other. What you eat. What

you like. When you shower. The little things. We open up everyday, a ittle more,

and a ittle more, because we 're just pulling together. -As told to Kai Wright



FRONT LINES

An advocacy

group refocuseson food.By Alec Appelbaum

HIRAM BONNER'S fans line up early outside the

Community Food Resource Center's kitchen on

West 116th Street. The tall, velvet-voiced Bon

ner-trained at the Cordon Bleu Institute in

London-arrived in February and promptly

threw out the cans that once supplied the

agency's daily meal. These days, the kitchenserves fresh fruit and salad, along with entrees

like Asian tofu and salmon with lemon-parsley

sauce. The program has caught on. Kenny Pryor,

an unemployed food-service worker, says he

comes all the way from Brooklyn for Bonner's

fare. "More people come every day," Pryor says.

That's not necessarily good news. Like most

of the city's soup kitchens and food pantries, this

one is overtaxed. Last year, the kitchen served

550 meals a day on a much simpler menu; this

year it's up to 750 meals. The pattern is visible

8

Stirring the Pot

citywide. In 2002, emergency food providers

turned away nearly 350,000 hungry New York-

ers, a 241 percent increase over 2000, according

to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger,a local umbrella group that represents hundreds

of emergency food providers.

Moving away from a basic menu that's easy

to prepare towards CFRC's finer and more

nutritious cuisine isn't easy to do on a budget,

much less in the face of skyrocketing need.

That's where Richard Murphy comes in.

CFRC's new executive director, who started

last September, has big plans to promote smart

food consumption among low-income people.

The organization is teaching clients at Bonner's

kitchen how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals.

It also won an $182,000 grant from the W.K

Kellogg Foundation to improve school mealsand help kids learn about nutrition. Meanwhile,

CFRC is working with community groups to

help clients get food stamps and Earned Income

Tax Credits. By 2005, Murphy hopes, CFRC

will receive more than half its revenue from

training, technical assistance and developing

"intellectual capital."

If Murphy has changed the group's mission

in subtle ways, he's changed its style more dra

matically. During the 1990s, when Washington

ended guaranteed public assistance and the Giu-

liani administration was purging hundreds of

thousands of New Yorkers from welfare rolls,

CFRC was a loud presence in political advocacy.

These days, Murphy chooses to work behind the

scenes instead, as an open-minded collaborator.

"We're not here to be the largest feeder of

poor people or preparer of taxes," says Murphy.

Instead, CFRC is becoming a high-proftle think

tank, one that helps strengthen the entire struc

ture of food access in New York City.

IT'S NOT SURPRISING to find CFRC at the cut

ring edge of food provision-the agency hasbeen there before. When Kathy Goldman first

founded CFRC in 1980 with a $6,000 grant to

promote school breakfasts, there were only 40

emergency food programs in New York, and

they mostly provided basics: hot meals and pre

packed bags of donated or surplus groceries.

Goldman changed that. She and her early staff

recognized that clients seeking food assistance

could often benefit from a host of other services

as well. By helping them gain access to welfare,

for example, or eviction defense, they could

prevent them from sliding further into poverty.

"For me, starting all that was about making

government work better so people can helpthemselves," explains State Senator Liz

Krueger, who served as associate director of

CFRC from 1987 until she took office last year.

Guided by Krueger's vision, the agency won

city contracts for food stamp and eviction preven

tion programs that served thousands, and spun

off the New York City Coalition Against Hunger

and the New York City Food Bank. During the

Giuliani years, Krueger and Senior Policy Analyst

Don Friedman became fixtures at City Hall and

on the nightly news, demanding more and better

benefits for low-income New Yorkers.

Murphy takes a different tack. "I don't think

we need to do the things we needed to dounder Giuliani," he says. "There's a big differ

ence between a Giuliani and a Bloomberg. You

can negotiate with a Bloomberg." And though

he still sees CFRC as a watchdog-the agency

has sued the city for vending sugary drinks in

schools-he also looks for ways to work inside

government circles, a legacy perhaps of his own

days as the city's Youth Services commissioner

under Mayor David Dinkins.

Under Murphy, CFRC, which now has a $9

million annual budget and a staff of 92, is

CITY LIMITS



evolving from a scrappy underdog organizer

into a polished training center, not unlike rhe

Academy for Educational Development, rhe

research and advocacy organization where Mur

phy worked in Washington. Over rhe summer,

wirh support from rhe United Way, CFRC

taught five community agencies to administer

Food Force software, irs own widely praised

pre-screening program for food sramp eligibil

ity. "The city isn't where it wanrs to be," says

Murphy of food sramp access, but he maintains

it's making honest efforts to get benefits to

those who need them.

Clearly, rhough, there's more work to be

done. An estimated 800,000 local families eli

gible for food stamps don't receive rhem.

"Even according to [rhe city Human

Resources Administration's] own statistics, the

agency is still failing to process at least 20 per

cent of all food sramp applications within the 30

days required by federal law," says Coalition

Against Hunger director Joel Berg, adding rhat

food stamp applications are not readily available

in about one in four offices. Says Berg, "Our

collective work is still cut out for us."

As CFRC moved away from irs role as City

Hall gadfly, the Coalition Against Hunger is

taking up the call. Berg has run media cam

paigns tied to Thanksgiving and Passover and

hopes to highlight national food policy issues,

which he worked on under Clinton at the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.That leaves Murphy's group to concentrate on

helping the city's other major food providers, who

are going through a maturation process of their

own. "There is a desperate need to share what we

know," says Doreen Wohl, executive director of

the West Side Campaign Against Hunger. This

fall, several groups convened a task force to dis-

cuss how to share data and track client visirs.

Larty Gile, whose staff at St. John's Bread and Life

has doubled since 1998, raised the idea of pool

ing health insurance cosrs. "Most of these organ

izations, including ours, started as the children of

Reaganomics," he says. "A lot of us are now mak

ing the jump from grassroors."Murphy hopes to help guide rhem. Com

menrs Goldman, who is retiring this year and

helped recruit Murphy as her replacement,

"There 's space for people to go in directions I

never would have thought o£"

But Murphy says he isn't averse to reviving the

old confrontational approach. "Nobody [on my

staff] has ever been told not to go to the steps of

City Hall ," he says. "I fneed be, we'd go." •

Alec Appelbaum writes about environmental and

neighborhood issues.

DECEMBER 2003

Tenants get bitten

by activism

(bed) bug

THERE ARE BED BUGS in the Prince George

Hotel, and the tiny, tick-like vermin won't

go away-not for the fumigators who come

to kill them twice a week, and not for ten

anrs like Goshka Grabowska, an artist who

spent her summer in a state of itchy fear,

sleeping in her bathtub and inside a sleeping

bag for full protection.

They still got her.

"I t was scary-in rhe surreal," she says.

Bed bugs might seem out of place at the

Prince George, a 414-unit hotel on East

Twenty-eighth Street rhat Common Ground

renovated a few years ago into a pristine res

idence for low-income tenants, complete

wirh yoga and tea room. But the building's

fumigator, Paul Scharff, of OutSect Inc., says

rhere was a "flare-up" of the bugs this spring

when a tenant died in a room and hotel

operators couldn't remove the body for a

number of days. The bugs feasted on the

corpse, rhen fled the room out into rhe hall."It was horrible," Scharff says

The bed bug epidemic has become so

widespread that a group of residents have

decided to form a tenant organization to take

it on. That would be a rare accomplishment

in supportive housing like the Prince George,

where turnover rates can be high, and tenants

ofren suffer histories of mental disability.

The tenanrs say they are determined to

succeed. "We're a four-legged horse in a three

legged race," said resident Rick Wells last

October at an emotional, and at times rau

cous, tenanrs' meeting in the Prince George.

Larry Schatt, executive director of Common Ground, which runs the hotel

along with Center for Urban Community

Services, says borh groups welcome formal

tenant organizations in all rheir housing

projects. "This is what we do," he says.

"Build community."

Unfortunately, that's what the bed bugs

do, too. Entomologisrs say the vampire-like

critters have been nesting in unprecedented

numbers in major U.S. cities. Fumigators say

rhe problem is often most acute in single

room occupancy hotels, where they hide in

FRONT LINES

wall cracks and bed seams.

Scharff says Common Ground has go

above and beyond what most landlords

to solve infestation problems. At first,

admits, hotel operators sought to downp

reports of the bugs. "We didn't want to c

ate hysteria," he says, adding that apar.t fr

a few isolated incidents, rhe bed bugs

now under control.

That hasn't stopped rhe bitten tena

from taking Common Ground to court, a

vice-versa. During rhe rhree months or

that her room was infested, Grabowsrefused to pay rent until the bugs went aw

In response, Common Ground has co

menced eviction proceedings against her a

Wells, who also wirhheld rent. Borh part

plan to settle rhe matter in Housing Cour

During rhe tenant meeting, several or

residenrs complained about being bitten, a

said management didn't rake them seriou

until inspectors from rhe city's Departmen

Housing Preservation and Developm

issued citations for rhe bugs. Many said th

had to pay for new clothing, manresses, she

and dermatology appointments out

pocket-a financial strain for those living public assistance.

Schatt declined to comment direc

on the cases, but said, "Ou r goal is to not

ict anyone."

Scharff is sympathetic ro rhe tenanrs, b

says they are also partly to blame. Bef

fumigating, he says, unirs must be clean

and cleared, but many stay cluttered. "Th

bugs can be very tricky," he says. "We're t

ing to help these people out as quick as po

ble, but they need to help us too."

-Geoffrey G



FRONT LINES

Bias in the Bathroom

ALANDMARK EVICTION CASE moved forward this

fall when the New York Supreme Court ruled

that the Hispanic AIDS Forum (HAF) , a local

nonprofit, could proceed with a discrimination

suit against its former landlord, the estate of

Joseph Bruno. What comes next, experts say,

could set a precedent for the rights of trans

gender individuals across the nation.

For nine years, HAF ran a community out

reach center in Jackson Heights, offering coun

seling and education to Latino clients withHN/AIDS. But in 2000, as the agency was

renewing its lease, another tenant in the building

allegedly complained about having to share bath

rooms with "those men who look like women."

HAF had recently started a small bimonthly

support group for transgender clients.

HAF's executive director, Heriberto Sanchez

Burn This!

NEW YORK CITY has moved a step closer to

building its first municipal incinerator in more

than four decades. In October, the Depart

ment of Sanitation announced it would enter

tain proposals for new technology to handle

Staten Island's trash and recycling-including

"waste-to-energy" plants that combust

selected refuse to create electrical power. The

decision represents a complete about-face for

the department, which until recently insisted

that no existing type of high-tech facility couldhandle the city's trash.

It also opens the way for Staten Island-based

Visy Paper, which handles 40 percent of the

city's paper recycling, to make the leap into

handling all of Staten Island's trash and recy

cling for the next 20 years.

Environmental groups, which have praised

Sanitation for opting to issue 20-year contracts

on the city's recycling of metal, glass and plas

tic, have reacted cautiously to the news.

"There are real environmental, public

health and economic concerns about moving

10

Soto, says he tried to discuss the marter with the

building's manager, but to no avail. "He wanted

us to assure him that they would use gender

appropriate bathrooms," Sanchez Soto says. "I

said that I couldn't refuse bathrooms to clients

based on their genitalia. He said we berter do

something or he wouldn't renew the lease."

When the group was evicted, Sanchez Soto

took his case to Housing Court, but lost. HAF

was forced to relocate its Queens office to

Woodside. But he didn't stop there. HAF flied

a civil suit in 2001 , alleging discrimination.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, the case is

finally moving forward-with the help of some

high-profile allies.

"We are hoping this case will make it clear

that landlords cannot do what he did, " saysJames Esseks, litigation director of the Ameri

can Civil Liberties Union AIDS project. 'The

point is twofold: We are trying to make sure

transgender individuals are covered under the

law. We are also trying to hold the landlord

accountable for his actions and recoup the

losses suffered by HAF."

forward any incineration proposal in New York

City," says Marc !zeman, senior attorney for

the Natural Resources Defense Council.Besides, he adds, it may be more expensive.

"From the preliminary details that have been

released it's not clear that this is a good eco

nomic deal for New York City."

Under Visy Paper's proposal, the company,

a subsidiary of Australian paper giant Prarr

Industries, would build a "recycle and recovery"

plant that would dry waste and turn it into fuel

pellets, which would then be burned to power

its paper recycling mill. Visy spokesperson

Mike O'Regan asserts the new method is a far

cry from traditional incineration. "This is not

normal combustion," he says . "Less oxygen is

used, which in turn means lower levels of

nitrogen oxide" emissions.

This isn't the first time alternative technol

ogy has been proposed to ease the city's trash

burden. Several companies have introduced

similar plans [See "Hot Trash," July/August

2003). But it is the first time Sanitation has

gotten serious about the idea. Agency

spokesperson Kathy Dawkins declined to give

specific reasons for the change of direction. "I

think we are just looking at different ideas , and

i fsomeone has a proposal we will take a look at

it and see if it fits our needs," she says.

As part of their strategy, the landlord's attor

neys, Risi and Associates, demanded intimate

information about each client's physical gen

der, but that request was denied in January by

Justice Marilyn Shafter. 'The status of a trans

gendered individual is not dependent upon

their anatomy," she wrote.

Arrempts to reach Bruno's estate or its

lawyers for comment were unsuccessful.

In the new ruling, Judge Shafter dismissed the

defendants' suggestion that state and city human

rights laws do not apply specifically to rransgen

der people. "Defendants' counsel's difficulty

grasping the concept of rransgendered persons as

expressed in his affirmations is irrelevant," she

wrote. "Plaintiffhas met its pleading burden."

The case will now go into its discovery phase,during which both sides will hear testimony and

gather facts; it should proceed to trial in about a

year. Sanchez Soto hopes the case will raise aware-

ness, and encourage the creation of unisex bath

rooms. "It's a marrer of socializing people to these

things ," he says. "Sometimes we have to force

open-mindedness." -Christine Marie Hintze

That's good news for Staten Island Borough

President James Molinaro, who in September

traveled to Germany to learn more about thenew technology, and Staten Island Co un

cilrnember and Sanitation Committee Chair

Michael McMahon. In their borough, the

alternative possibility that the Fresh Kills land

fill could reopen would be a politician's wors

nightmare. "I think the city has to take a seri

ous look at the developing technologies for

long-term planning," says McMahon, a fre-

quent and outspoken critic of DOS' waste han

dling. "Sooner or later landfill space is going to

run out, and unless the city actively pursues

this, we are going to be stuck."

Meanwhile, on Staten Island, at least one

community group says it has no problem with

an "alternative" energy plant. "We were very

happy to hear about this idea," reports Angela

D'Aiuto, vice president of the North Shore

Waterfront Conservancy, which was formed

two and half years ago to fight the expansion o

waste transfer stations in Port Richmond and

West Briton. "We are concerned about Fresh

Kills, and any garbage transfer facility there

could be more of an issue for Staten Island air

quality. We like Visy, because it's a cleaner way

to [deal with) garbage."

-Ruth Ford

CITY LIMITS



INSIDE TRACK

L.A. ConfidentAfter helping build aWest Coast movement for community-friendly

corporate subsidies, an activist is working to win real deals for

New Yorkers. By Bobbi Murra

Organizer Adrianne Shropshire is mobilizing city residents to demand that communities, and their low-wage. workers, gain too whe

government aids big business.

FOUR YEARS AGO, a grassroots coalition pulled

off a remarkable coup. City Hall lavishly subsi

dized a gargantuan development project near

the shore: The developer was to receive more

than $400 million in public subsidies, with

another $90 million for a high-profile enter

tainment company that had set its sights on

locating its operations there.

It took a two-year campaign and some sud

den-death, last-minute negotiations, but the

coalition, called the Metropolitan Alliance,

sealed a compact in which the entertail11Jlent

DECEMBER 2003

company agreed to fund media technology

training academies at nine comrnuniry college

campuses. Heavy-hitter companies in theentertainment industry eventually committed

to placing 1,000 academy graduates in jobs

during the first phase of the project.

Don't be surprised if you haven't heard

about this groundbreaking agreement. It hap

pened in Los Angeles.

The development project, on bluffs over

looking the Pacific, is called Playa Vista, and the

entertainment company was DreamWorks

SKG, founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeff

Katzenberg and David Geffen. "First, $90 m

lion in public money was going to be giaway without any guarantees of what the co

munity would get," recalls Adrianne Shrshire, who helped pull together Metro Allian

successful campaign. "Second, it was going

an industry where poor people and peoplecolor are for the most part locked out."

Metropolitan Alliance is made up of

organizations stretching across L.A.'s spraw

435 square miles, mostly in the blue-collar



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no-collar neighborhoods where jobs evaporated

long ago. Taking the lead was AGENDA, Action

for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood

Action-and Shropshire as a chief organizer.

Along the rocky road of negotiations, Metro

Alliance members made impressive demonstra

tions of grassroots support. They sent hundreds

ofletters and postcards to DrearnWorks to per

suade company representatives to come to the

table; made mass mobilizations at public meet

ings; put pressure on political allies when talks

broke down.

DreamWorks eventually located elsewhere

but kept its word on financing the academies to

the tune of $5 million over five years; other com

panies brought the total to $12.5 million. And

the payoff was even bigger than that. Metropoli

tan Alliance's success had activists across the

country craning their necks to see how the L.A

organization pulled it off.Two of those activists were Jonathan Rosen

who until last month was executive director o

the New York Unemployment Project, and

Simon Greer, who heads New York's Jobs With

Justice office. They decided New York City had

a lot to learn from L.A. A little over a year ago

they began talking with Shropshire about mak

ing the move to New York to help run their two

organizations-and launch a similar organizing

campaign here. Says Rosen, describing thei

national strategic thinking: "We started talking

about, 'This is a chess board. What are the pieces

on the ground, and how do we arrange them?'"

Now interim executive director of the Unemployment Project and co-director of Jobs With

Justice, Shropshire has her work cut out for her

New York City has seen few campaigns to leverage

benefits for communities affected by publicly sub

sidized development projects, and even fewer tha

have succeeded. Good Jobs New York estimate

that the state and city combined have doled ou

$2 billion in tax breaks and other major incentive

in the name of job retention since 1990. Those

deals call for companies to retain specified num

bers of jobs. They are not well-enforced, however

and few of the jobs that are retained go to com

munities with high unemployment.

The Bloomberg administration has vowed iwill not replicate the wild corporate giveaways

New York saw in the 1990s. "We've essentially

ended corporate welfare as we know it," Mayo

Bloomberg declared in October. But in fact i

hasn't given up the retention game entirely

What's more, 9/11-recovery bond dollars are

opening up new opportunities, which continue

to be subsidized by taxpayers. In recent months,

the city has made retention deals with Pfizer

Bank of America and other major companies.

From her work in L.A., Shropshire says, she

"learned lessons about coalitions, moving public

officials and engaging a baseover long-term cam-

CITY LIMITS



paigns that last." The Unemployment Project is

starting that process in East Harlem, which has

seen an influx of young professionals and interest

from retail developers. Along the FDR Drive at

116th Street, the Long Island-based Blumenfeld

group is about to construct a shopping complex

called East River Plaza, with the help of $3 million in loans at 1 percent interest from the

Empire State Development Corporation plus

$15 million more in state tax breaks. The pro

posed anchor stores-among them Target, Old

Navy, Starbucks and Costco-promise low-wage

jobs and not much of a career ladder.

Unemployment Project organizers have

already knocked on a couple thousand doors,

engaging neighbors in discussions of the com

munity's needs. On a recent Wednesday evening,

organizer Erica Waples went knocking on doors

at the Jefferson Houses on 113th Street. There

she met Graciela, a 25-year resident. With new

stores opening, Graciela told Waples, the neigh

borhood was starting to look better, but she was

still distressed about noisy teenagers and decrepit

housing conditions. Graciela was surprised to

learn about the plans for East River Plaza and a

proposed Auto Mall on Second Avenue at 127th

Street, and listened with interest as Waples told

her about the government subsidies.

I f Graciela were to talk with elected officials

about the neighborhood, Waples asked, whatwould she tell them? "Oh, I don't go to these

people's places," Graciela replied. Waples

reminded her that she pays taxes and is entitled

to speak. "If it was just the three of us, do youthink they would listen to us?" Waples asked.

"No."

"But if t was 500 people?"

"Yes , maybe," Graciela said, her eyebrows

rising. Waples got Graciela's phone number and

her promise to provide names and numbers of

like-minded neighbors. The women agreed to

keep in touch.

About 15 Unemployment Project members

showed up at an October meeting of the Industri

al Development Agency, which was deciding on

$1 7 mi1lion in bonds for the Auto Mall-they

were the only community presence at the meet

ing. "I live in East Harlem and I am the mother ofa young man ," testified Judith Manning, a resi-

dent of the Wagner Houses on First Avenue and

122nd Street. "If hese businesses want to come to

East Harlem and get tax breaks, they need to

inves t in the community."

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oped a strong membership base in much thesame way. Organizers went door to door, took

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private sector foundation giving v o l u n t e e r ~ YOU ARE :h news legal aid affordable housing Labor laBush administration Democratic Republi ants Social services Bronx Brooklyn Quee

Manhattan Fort Greene Harlem Bloombf lies HIV/AIDS Services Banana Kelly housidevelopers lobbyists school system hiring HERE )yment training programs Post-9/11 living waworkforce development affordable apartm _ 3ddiction charter school shelter system familevicting housing project public hearings minority pr lending financial plan homeless economic developmebudget government officials ethics social programs w 3form low-income neighborhoods private sector foundatisystem hiring freeze federal funds unemployment programs Post-9/11 living wage workforce developmeaffordable apartments Lower Manhattan drug addicti te r school shelter system families evicting housing projpublic hearings minority predatory lending programs learings minority predatory lending financial plan homeleeconomic development budget government officials ;ocial programs welfare reform low-income neighborhooprivate sector foundation giving volunteers legislation ear research news legal aid affordable housing Labor laBush administration Democratic Republican Comrr .ervices Grants Social services Bronx Brooklyn QueeManhattan Fort Greene Harlem Bloomberg Union orking families HIV/AIDS Services Banana Kelly housidevelopers lobbyists school system hiring freeze fed ds unemployment training programs Post-9/11 living waworkforce development affordable apartments Lowel lttan drug addiction charter school shelter system familevicting housing project public hearings m i n o r i t ~ · - . ~ . . . I - ~ . . . I : - - ~ : n a n c i a l plan homeless economic year research nelegal aid affordable housing Labor laws Bush at. .Iocratic Republican Community services Grants Socservices Bronx Brooklyn Queens Manhattan Fort ..rlem Bloomberg Union rally Working families HIV/AIDServices Banana Kelly housing developers lobbyists . system hiring freeze federal funds unemployment trainiprograms Post-9/11 living wage workforce development c. .0rdable apartments Lower Manhattan drug addiction charter

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ern California economy moved toward aerospace

and the suburbs. Traditionally an Mrican-Amer

ican neighborhood, South L.A. has shifted

demographics in the last decade to half black and

half immigrant Latino.

The organization did more than bring bodies

out to meetings. "One of the challenges," says

Shropshire, "is to develop people's analysis of the

problems, the causes and conditions-not just

'Our community doesn't have jobs,' but 'Why?

Who's making the decisions?'" To make that dia

logue happen, organizers have to dispense with the

arcane jargon usually associated with government

subsidies and instead talk about facts that speak

more direccly to what's at stake-like $50 billion in

corporate welfare, the national annual total of fed-

eral, state and local subsidies.

Metro Alliance is just one of several influen

tial groups doing innovative grassroots organiz

ing around corporate accountability in Los

Angeles. Two years ago, the Figueroa Corridor

Coalition for Economic Justice, an alliance of 29

Los Angeles community organizations and five

union locals, sealed a landmark deal that was

officially recognized by the city. It required 70

percent of the 5,400 permanent jobs created by

a downtown sports arena expansion to either pay

a living wage or be covered by a collective bar

gaining agreement. The developers also pledged

$1 million for the creation or upgrading of parkswithin a mile of the project, which takes in some

of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles andportions of the most densely populated area west

of

the Mississippi.And the Los Angeles Alliance for a New

Economy, now celebrating its 10-year anniver

sary, has established groundbreaking "commu

nity benefits agreements." In a 2001 deal, for

example, LAANE leveraged $29 million in city

subsidies to one mixed-use development in the

North Hollywood area, winning affordable

housing, a developer subsidy of 50 spots forlow-income children at a planned child-care

center and free space for a community health

clinic. Seventy-five percent of the 2,000 most

ly retail and office jobs expected from the

development must pay a living wage (defined

as $7.99 an hour with health benefits, and$9.29 without).

LAANE and its community base have so far

negotiated six community benefits agreements

with individual developers who benefit from

public funds. LAANE's ultimate goal is to make

such agreements part of all publicly subsidized

developments in the city of Los Angeles.New York grassroots leaders want to see the

same kind of subsidy accountability here,

with community organizations having a true

voice in the debate that surrounds economic

continued on page 42

DECEMBER 2003

LEGAL ASSISTANCEFOR NONPROFITS & COMMUNITY GROUPS

N Y L P I

New York Lawyers For Ttte Public Interest 151 W 30 St, New York , NY 10001 212-244-466



The girl was 5. She set a kitchen garbage can on fire. Her mom, who had abused cocaine when she was

pregnant with the girl, hit her with a belt. And then the girl and her 7 -year-old brother both missed

about 45 days of school apiece.

Last November, the city's Administration for Children's Services

removed the two children from their mother, Elizabeth Norwood, and

put them in foster care.

One might think this would improve the kids' lives. One would have

to think again.

Norwood doesn't deny she hit her daughter, or that she used drugs

some years ago. But it was only when they started living in foster homes,

that the two children had those prolonged absences from school.

And that wasn't all that was allegedly wrong in their foster homes.

When the children did come to class, there were signs they were living

in terrible circumstances. "Prior to their removal the children had

attended school regularly. Both students were always groomed and well

behaved," wrote the principal in a letter this June. "Their quality of life

16

has deteriorated dramatically. They no longer attend school on a consi

tent basis," continued the letter. "Their teachers .. .have complained

me that the children appear to be neglected-<:oming in poorly dresse

and unclean. Most distressing is the fact that these two children, wh

were once content and cheerful, are now either hostile or withdrawn."

Norwood's daughter, a student in the gifted and talented program

P.S. 191 on Manhattan's West 61st Street, landed in a psychiatric hosp

tal not once, but four times. Her son is now repeating second grad

Until they were removed from their mother's care last November, th

children had maintained nearly perfect attendance.

Between the two of them, they had ended up in six different fost

homes in just nine months. It appears that those foster parents couldn

or wouldn't, take the kids to school on a regular basis. Perhaps it was ju

CITY LIMITS



too far for the new caretakers to travel. Their foster homes were all in

Harlem, more than 80 blocks uptown from P.S. 191. Norwood had

secured a court order keeping her children enrolled there. The result was

they often didn't go to school at all.

There were other problems. The children "were not treated good,"

says Norwood. "If they didn't eat their dinner, the foster parents made

them stand in the corner all night," she recounts, still outraged. One fos-

ter mother hit her son for urinating in the bed. "I offered to buy her a

new marrress cover," Norwood sighs. One of the homes, Norwood

reports, was so dirty the children had to throw out their clothes after

they left because their bags were filled with roaches . (The agency respon

sible for the children's care, Edwin Gould Services for Children, did not

return calls seeking comment.)

In July, a Family Court judge learned of the situation and ordered

the children returned immediately to their birth mother. Now Nor

wood wants to know how her children could have fallen apart so badly.

She suspects the caseworkers were not supervising appropriately or

checking regularly with the school, in violation of foster care regula

tions, considering the children had missed so much school. Otherwise,

she surmises, "they would have caught the educational neglect on the

kids," before the principal got involved. (ACS says no one ever called

in a report of suspected educational neglect to the State Central Reg

istry.) The author of the letter is no longer principal of the school and

couldn't be reached for comment.

On e thing is clear: The Norwoods are not the only children in foster

care to suffer in the city's custody. Even as the number of children over

all in foster care has decreased dramatically in the last five years, the pro

portion of children neglected or abused while in care may have increasedduring that time.

In fiscal year 2003, ACS' Office of Confidential Investigation, which

ptobes all reports of abuse or neglect within foster homes, determined that

approximately 284 children out of a toral of25,701 were likely abused or

neglected in foster care--or a total of 1.1 percent. Federal standards set

0.57 percent as the maximum acceptable rate of abuse and neglect in fos-

ter care. New York State ranks eighth-worst of the 29 states that report

their rate of children abused or neglected in their foster homes.

What's more, the mistreatment may have gotten worse in recent years,

even as ACS has undertaken major reforms to promote better care. In

1999,436 of the kids under ACS' supervision-in both foster care and

day care-were found likely to have been abused or neglected. (Until this

DECEMBER 2003

year, the agency did not release separate numbers for abuse and negle

foster care.) The current rate is as much as 15 percent higher.

Wh y does neglect in foster care persist? Child welfare experts

many theories, including a bad economy pushing households into

foster care business, high stress on low-income families, and paym

that remain extremely low. There's also the city's effort to house fo

children in the neighborhoods they were previously living in, or at

the same borough. The hope was that by keeping children in their c

munities, they could continue to go to the same schools and chur

and more easily visit their parents. But foster parents from these ma

low-income neighborhoods are often struggling with the same sor

problems as the natural parents.

Earlier this year, the Bloomberg administration announced a m

advertising and outreach campaign to recruit new foster parents,

acknowledged that it did not have enough homes in several neighborho

"We never have enough foster parents," says Barbara McMu

assistant executive director of Cardinal McCloskey Services, a pri

child welfare agency that supervises foster homes in the Bronx and M

hattan. "Many of the [community districts] that we work in are

income communities where people live in apartments or projects." T

is, says Murray, a "space issue."

Bt it's also clear that there's also a supervision issue-a big

Part of the challenge in keeping an eye on New York City's

of thousands of licensed foster homes is that the city doesn't m

tain direct responsibility for supervising them. It hires private nonp

organizations to do the work--42 of them, currently, down from 6

1999. With the number of foster children decreasing rapidly-therenow one-third fewer kids in care than in 1999-ACS will alm

undoubtedly cut that number down again very soon. [See "R

Downsizing," November 2003.]

ACS judges these agencies primarily based on their measurable "

comes," including how quickly, and successfully, children are mo

from foster care into permanent homes. But about one-quarter of

agency's score is still based on a qualitative review. According to A

spokeswoman MacLean Guthrie, city auditors scrutinize about 50

dom cases at a time. Interviews with foster parents are part of the rev

So is the rate of substantiated abuse or neglect in foster homes superv

by that agency.Really, though, it's all about the paperwork: "Uniform Case Repo



and other documents in a family's me. These records contain "progress

notes"-assessments of foster home safety and comments based on

meetings with children.

"There's a tremendous amount of pressure," says Gladys Carrion,

executive director of the agency Inwood House. "It's pressure over the

wrong things-that's what galls me." Auditors, she says, are looking to

make sure progress notes are in the proper part of the report forms, and

in the proper format; the actual quality of care doesn't enter into it.

And that pressure may be a big problem. In theory, the close scrutiny

of paperwork serves to make sure agencies are doing the work they're

paid to do. But it actually creates an incentive for those contractors to

make sure their paperwork is in perfect order---even if that doesn't reflect

the real story.

For instance, a report that simply states that a caseworker visited a

child and determined he was "thriving"-a ubiquitous word in case

records-can satisfy the city's demand for paperwork, even i f he reality

is that the homewas

mthy and thechild was emaciated. After all, who is

ever going to know what the actual

conditions in the home were that day,

other than the caseworker, foster par

ent and children themselves? For that

matter, who will be the wiser if the

caseworker didn't even make the

home visit?

Caseworkers have some of the

hardest jobs that exist. They deal not

only with children, but also birth parents and foster parents. One case can

easily involve eight to 10 people, all ofwhom need some type of assistance.

This means that workers with 25 cases-the estimated average in New

York City-are easily dealing with dozens of people on a regular basis.

"We're mother, father, therapist and it's not just to kids-it's to thebirth parents," says Tanya Barnes, a caseworker with Seaman's Society for

Children and Families. High caseloads and low salaries-"we're one pay

check away from being homeless," says Barnes--drive many workers out

of the field. The resulting high turnover means families have to adjust

continually to new caseworkers, who in rurn have to get up to speed on

complicated family histories very quickly.

McMurray of Cardinal McCloskey Services acknowledges that high

caseloads mean "some contacts can fall through the cracks"-and with that

some essential monitoring, like making sure children attend schoo!.

One former caseworker who has worked at a private agency says the

cracks were sometimes chasms. Caseworkers are required to visit foster

children in their homes at least once a month. More often than anyone

18

likes to admit, this individual says, they don't. "A lot of caseworkers look

for shortcuts," says the ex-caseworker, who notes that the information in

the records "wasn't verifiable." Others are downright negligent. On Fri

day afternoons, two colleagues used to say they were going on field vis-

its, but would actually go to the racetrack-and managed to keep "per

fect records." The loud and clear message from management was that the

paperwork had to be in order, no matter what.

In the most grievous of foster care neglect cases, it's hard not to ask

whether a caseworker actually showed up with any ftequency to inspec

the home. Take the death of Stephanie Ramos this past summer. Ramos

a disabled 8-year-old who was blind and had cerebral palsy and diabetes

was found dead in the Bronx, her corpse in a plastic bag in a garbage

truck. In October, the city's health examiner determined that she died o

natural causes. But there's also evidence that where she lived was not the

most suitable of homes for such a severely disabled child: Law enforce

ment authorities said the foster mother's house in Queens was squalid

carpeted with clutter, trash and dirt.

Ramos' foster mother, Renee John

son, was also caring for two other foste

children. The little girl was supposed to

receive home visits from a nurse but

according to the New York Times, the

nursing service was terminated las

November. The agency responsible fo

Ramos' care, the Association to Benefi

Children, did not know the nurse ser

vice was canceled.

A host of other questions remain unanswered. Why didn't the Asso

ciation to Benefit Children-rated as "satisfactory" in its last evalua

tion-notice the situation was abnormal? Did caseworkers think the

foster mother was falling apart under stress and cut her some slack? O

was she exceptionally good at hiding her problems? The case is stilunder investigation.

In New York and New Jersey, cases that heartbreakingly testify to

inadequate supervision of foster homes are piling up. In Newark

Faheem Williams, found dead in a box. In Camden, the four starved

Jackson boys. Earlier this year, 0.]. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran

sued New York City for half a billion dollars on behalf of an 8-month

old girl who allegedly died of shaken-baby syndrome in foster care.

And then there was the tiger. And the alligator.

The Harlem apartment that housed the most notorious pets in recen

New York history was also home to five foster kids, and there's evidence

that until the matriarch of the house picked up with them and fled to

Pennsylvania, at least one foster child cohabited with the animals. Who-

CITY LIMITS



ever the caseworker was, he or she didn't spot the wild animals-assum

ing, of course, that the caseworker was in the apartment at all.

ACS has made one very important improvement, among many in

recent years: The agency has become aggressive about making

sure that every foster home is properly certified. In May 1996,

7,341 kids in foster care lived in homes that were not licensed. By 2000,

that number had decreased to 510.

Licensing involves running background checks on the adults in the

home, and making sure they have a source of income and enough room

for children. But having a license doesn't guarantee a home is fully

checked out. Ifadults move in after the initial certification is done, case-

workers have to do a background investigation on them, too.

That doesn't always happen, says Madelyn Freundlich of the legal

advocacy group Children's Rights, Inc. Her organization recently exam

ined child fatalities in New York City that occurred between 1999 and

mid-2001, based on records obtained from the state Office of Children

and Family Services. "Fatalities, obviously, are the most extreme and

dramatic results of services and systems that aren't working well," says

Freundlich. Fatalities overall have fluctuated in the last several years, ris

ing in 2000 and 2001, then declining again last year.

One of the cases examined by Children's Rights was that of an 11-

placed in the home, say attorneys with Lansner & Kubitschek, w

represents families suing the city for neglect and abuse in foster care

ACS says it now now tracks families by computer to make sure

have no more kids than they're licensed to house.

If caseworkers don't know who or how many people are living in

home, it's doubtful they'll have a clear picture of what's really hap

ing there. Orenstein says the Public Advocate's office, which issu

report last year on child fatalities, examined records in one case w

three children in foster care died in a fire. The fire marshal had fo

the home "fraught with hazardous conditions."

Caseworkers can dutifully show up at a home every month and

fail to get an accurate picture. Elie Ward, executive director ofState

Youth Advocacy, an Albany group, says that workers become compla

once they get to know a foster parent. "If there are no obvious probl

the caseworkers don't look for problems," says Ward. If they did,

points out, they might be forced to find a new home for the kids.

good foster parents are so hard to find that agencies don't want to m

children "i f there isn't something staring you in the face."

The dual mandate to keep children safe but also minimize disrup

in their lives also makes it hard for caseworkers to know when to

cate children, says Freundlich. "You don't want to precipitously mo

child if you're simply having an instinct, but you can't quite get the in

Caseworkers are under orders to visit every foster home

least once a month. But "a lot of caseworkers look f

shortcuts, "says one. Some go to the racetrack

month-old who died of a cocaine overdose while in foster care. The fos-

ter mother's boyfriend-who used drugs-lived part-time in the home,

but there's no evidence caseworker ever investigated him.

Freundlich says the problem is at least twofold. Caseworkers don't

always visit often enough to know everyone who is living in the home.

And foster parents don't volunteer the information. Overall, the Chil

dren's Rights report identified several themes in cases where foster chil

dren died, including poor communication between the agency and fos-

ter parents, poor training of foster parents and inadequate monitoring of

foster homes.Hank Orenstein, director of the city Public Advocate's child advoca

cy project, C-Plan, agrees that foster care agencies don't always have a

good grasp of who's living in the foster home. "We're talking about thou

sands of foster homes," says Orenstein. "Unless you have really tight

monitoring of all these things, they're going to be risk factors."

But whether homes and foster parents are licensed is only one piece

of the picture. In some cases, a license limits the foster home to having

two children, but there are four, and sometimes a foster parent's own

children as well. In one recent incident, a foster mother who had more

children than she was licensed to house accidentally ran over and killed

one of them with her car. Other licenses limit a home to children with

out special needs, but children with severe problems are nonetheless

DECEMBER 2003

mation," she says. She agrees that the shortage of good foster homes

suades caseworkers from moving children without rock-solid evidenc

a problem. "Presumably, if you want to move a child out of a hom

says Freundlich, "you want to be sure you can move that child into a

ter setting."

And some foster parents are very good at hiding problems, notes

Wulczyn, a former analyst for the New York State Department of So

Services who helped design ACS' current agency evaluation sys

"The likelihood that [a caseworker) will see something that trigger

them an appreciation that it's a high-risk situation"-a gut feelinsense that a foster mother is overwhelmed-is small, Wulczyn says.

But there are some signs impossible for caseworkers to ignore. Wson Coakley's son entered foster care in November 1999, at the

of 3, after a police officer found him home alone in the Bro

The following February, he was taken to Lincoln Medical and Me

Health Center, with bruises allover his body. One month later, he

returned to his father-with bruises, two black eyes, cracked teeth

head injuries, according to a lawsuit settled with the city and a pri

child welfare agency last year. (Neither admits liability.)

When ACS removed Coakley from his mother's home, it placed

continued on page



IRACLE

ON33RD STREET

This Christmas, poor NewYorkers will send more than 200 ,000 letters to the

North Pole. More affluent New Yorkers will intercept them at Manhattan 's

General Post Office. Some kids will get things like computers, coats, bikes and

hope. The rest learn the hard way: Santa Claus doesn't care who 's naughty or

nice, just who can convince him they're the neediest. By D EBBIE N ATHAN

Dear Santa,

I am the rrwther of three (3) beautiful

childs of the 5, 13 years old and one of

eight rrwnth (8). .. 'The most important

thing I want is to give my childrens hap,piness sadly enough I can't buy the basic

thing in life. I would be so grateful i f

Santa Claus would send things. Luis is

13, pants size 16,18 sneakers 9 coat

sweaters = 1 6,1 8. Magdalena is 5

years old Pants = , sneakers = 3, coat

and sweathers = 6 Emiliano is (8)

month old pants 18,24 m sneakers = ,

5 Coat and Sweathers = 18,24 m.

'Thank you, Santa Claus for making

dream be come true.

Three years ago on Christmas Eve,

the New York Times ran a story

about adults who encourage

young kids' faith in a roly-poly

fellow who delivers toys rhrough chimneys

even as grown-ups feel sheepish about promul

gating the fib . A psychologist from Yale was

quoted, reassuring parents that tots abandon

the fantasy in a few years. Nevertheless, he

warned, anyone "who still believes in Santa

after that probably needs professional help."

The Yale man obviously hadn't considered

Operation Santa Claus, an elaborate New

20

York City ritual in which thousands upon

rhousands of locals write to rhe bearded leg

end each year and earnestly address him in

the second person, though most writers are

themselves old enough to have whiskers, orfertile wombs.

Consumers of populist media like the

Daily News, The Post and Fox Channel 5

News are bombarded each December with

stories about Operation Santa Claus, so they

know it's a seasonal charity drive run from the

colossal James A. Farley General Post Office,

on 33rd Street and 8th Avenue by the Macy's

flagship store. The same locales were featured

in the film Miracle on 34th Street, and for the

past several years, reporters have been urging

New Yorkers to nurture Kris Kringle's spiri t by

visiting the main post office berween Thanks

giving and Christmas.There, in a room decorated with cardboard

Donners and Blixens, you can dip your hands

into cardboard boxes overflowing with hand

written missives to Santa, penned by the indi

gent of rhe Bronx, Brooklyn, Washington

Heights, Harlem and the Lower East Side.

You can spread the letters on school cafete

ria-style tables and pore over them for hours.

Soon, according to one Operation Santa pro

moter, a letter will make you weep by

"singing" to you.

Whether unbearably tragic or poignantly

winsome, the song always includes a return

address, and a request for a dizzying array of

items: rhings like sweaters, X-Boxes, Play-Sta

tion 2s, Timberland boots, Game Boy Mega

man Extreme 2's, Yu-gi-oh trading cards,

Bratz dolls, Phat Farm down coats, even computers and tuition for private high school.

After wiping your eyes and shrugging off the

big-ticket items, you take the letter to H&M

or Toys R Us or O ld Navy and buy what you

can. Then yo u giftwrap your purchases and

send them parcel post to the return address.

Or, if you enjoy dressing like an elf and are

not too fearful of places like Bed-Stuy and

Fordham Road, yo u deliver in person on

Christmas Day.

Last December, the tables were crowded

for weeks with people waiting to be sung to,

and the cardboard boxes spilled over with an

estimated 260,000 letters-20 times as manyas when the count was first publicized, nearly

rwo decades ago. As always, the media last

year implied that most letters were written by

very young, low-income New York kids of all

the darker-skinned ethnicities. In fact, as

postal workers will reluctantly admit if you

ask them point blank, many come from

Latino teenagers- and even more are from

Latina moms, like the one whose letter opens

rhis article.

Writers like her are far past the age when

people in cozy circumstances deem it normal

to correspond with a nursery school myth.

CITY LIMITS



But like everyone else during the

Christmas season, the poor want and want

and want. In addition, they need and need

the things they need all year: food, clothes,

entertainment, education, a sense that someone among the unseen powers that be knows

they exist-and cares. "Some years around

Christmas time, I feel sad and lonely and

need something to cheer me up," says Judi

Cabral. A quiet, round-faced 13-year-old,

she lives with a big sister, a little brother and

a mother whose husband left and who tries

to survive by decorating cakes in the family's

down-at-the-heels apartment in Inwood. In

past years after Judi has written letters to the

post office, "people have brought me toys,

sweaters and Barbies." She shrugs while spec

ulating that "maybe there's a Santa some

where."But the city's middle and monied classes

also seem needy. If the Topsy growth of Oper

ation Santa Claus is any indication, more and

more require contact these days with their

socioeconomic inferiors, even if only once a

year through the mail, and even if they care

fully omit from the package their own name

and address.

It should not surprise that these mutual

needs play out so grandly in the Big Apple.

Historians say the generous, gift-giving

Santa Claus we know today was invented in

Manhattan, expressly to help the poor and

DECEMBER 2003

L " , 4 ·

not-poor coexist

with fewer tensions. Even today,

that ambition may be St. Nick's greatestlegacy.

Sharon Glassman is one of the not-poor.

Petite and chatty, with red, Amy

Irvingesque hair, she pours her heart

and professional energy into Operation Santa

Claus each year, though she's not a postal

worker. Glassman's a performance artist who

appears at corporate Christmas parties, where

she delivers a promotional monologue about

the program that's based on her life story.

It starts with a witty description of growing

up suburban and Jewish in the 1970s, in a

barely observant family that not only lit themenorah in December but also exchanged

Christmas presents and sang carols . As a

teenager, Glassman wanted to feel Jesus in the

holiday-something spiritual-which was

missing even from Jewish practice in her

home. She tried to "boyfriend" her way to

holiness by cadging invitations to the houses

and churches of her Christian beaux on

December 24 and 25. She still didn't feel

inspired. She joined a Unitarian church. She

spent a month at an ashram. Meanwhile, as a

single, childless, thirty-something woman in

New York, she was turning into a shopaholic.

" L " ,

She wasted money

on two lipsticks of virtually the same

shade because one might look better in su

light. She imagined that cashmere garmen

were whispering to her from store windows.

Then she found Operation Santa Claus.

In Love Santa, her recently published boo

about her experience, Glassman writes th

one of the first letters she pulled from th

boxes melted her with its direct request

Santa Claus for a modest gift.

"I walk around all day in these meticulo

casual ensembles from SoHo and I'm lucky

somebody on the street says: 'Nice red chenilsweater, baby! ' .. . And now this little kid w

offering me love .. . in exchange for a plastic to

castle in the mail."

Glassman went shopping, with a fe

things on her mind. One was the sense th

she'd finally connected with her spirituality b

recalling something she learned in religio

school as a child. It was the Jewish ritual

tsedakah, or charitable giving, in which effor

are made to insure that the receiver nev

learns the name of the person making th

donation. The post office encourages dono

to send gifts through the mail while identif

2



ing themselves simply as "Santa. " Glassman

liked the tsedakahness of it all. She liked the

selflessness of spending for someone besides

herself. And she loved fantasizing that the kids

she was shopping for were her own children.Chatting with salespeople, she would pretend

to be a harried but loving mom.

By the time Glassman started her benefit

monologue for Operation Santa Claus, in the

late 1990s, she was calling herself "Tsedakah

Santa" and, more frequently, "Undercover

Mother." She had campaign-style buttons

made with a cartoon image of a trenchcoated

woman, a la Natasha in Rocky and Bullwin-kle. She started distributing the buttons at

employee Christmas parties given by corpo

rations like Nickelodeon. She covered

tables at these gatherings with hundreds of

letters supplied by the post office. The

idea was for partygoers to pick one or

two, then become "Undercover Mothers"

themselves. Glassman is still doing the

parties, and she's pleased at how the let-

ters move young New York profession-

als like her to perform acts of charity

for the poor.

Her favorite indigent writers are

those who express gratitude unre

servedly and in advance. Often their

thankfulness comes not at the start

of the letter but at the end. Glass

man recalls that one of the firstmissives that "sang" to her suf-

)

thing about his book The Battle forChristmas-a meticulous analysis of Santa

Claus as a New York City invention. For cen

turies Christmas had been a bacchanal, a car

nival, when peasants and servants-particularly young men-wandered around in inebri

ated gangs in late December. As they staggered

about, they "wassailed."

Today, dictionaries define wassailing as an

early English custom that involved boisterous

drinking during the Christmas season and

toasting to someone's health. This is not the

whole story. Often, wassailing songs included

"trick-or-treat" style lyrics that threat

ened local poobahs

fered from a ho-hum beginning. I ~ U : Y " ~ c > ' ~ ; , t : : r d c - d a e ~ ' ~ ' b ~ + ' ~ " . "Dear Santa," it said. "I will be U' - . ' 0 '-.! • V<;::{\-.::, ,happy if you bring me just this ~ Y { ? r G CJ ric W 'H,castle for Christmas. But if you ! b ~ { - ~ J...eSwrr'bring me a different toy, that ,J 90 G-c; r Y ' ( ) h . ~ \ . j . J : . . . ~ ' D i2Vwill be OK, too. I will leave I~ I j ~ 1: asK r e n t - ' c Y ( - 8 c t , ~ e . your cookies in the same p l a c e p o . \ - h ~ r , . . . J j ; : - 0 ; ; - ~ , , c . 8 - ~ + ' - Q ~ _ c Y c o - : : ; e - ~ ( r t o Jas last year." . r n ~ ---LJ\..IQ:), I iJ h":: ~ l J 8 e .

" ul ' v .. I V ~ 9"" ' ICN e .an co d resist that," remarks v a C'il'nd '!Y JYlOrx:;!

Glassman in her book. ~ : ; : ~ : : : : : ~ ~ = ~ ...~ O ~ - - ~ ~ Y 1 " Q : : + ~ h ~ : r ~ ) ~ ~ :ut when she got to "PS: I

love you, Santa," she couldn't not go shop-

ping. "There was no way," she writes, "to give with harm ifup on somebody this accepting." they did not serve the wassail-

And that's the whole point of a ritual like

Operation Santa Claus, suggests Uni

versity of Massachusetts historian

Stephen Nissenbaum. In return for taking

from more affluent New Yorkers during the

holidays, the lower classes offer people like

Glassman acceptance-even good will.

"It's like wassailing through the mails! " Nis

senbaum chuckles gleefully.

To get the joke, you have to know some-

22

ers their very best food and liquor. "We've

come to claim our right," goes one such song.

"And if you don't open up your door, We will

lay you flat on the floor. " Indeed, wassailers

would bang on the doors of mansions and

even break in. Lords and ladies were expected

to welcome this misbehavior and to personally

serve the ragged revelers high-quality viands

and alcohol. When that happened, the songs

praised the rich. "God send our mistress a

good Christmas pie .... With my wassailing

bowl I drink to thee."

According to anthropologists, wassaili

was a "social inversion" ritual: a seasonal eve

when a group of people in power switch rol

with the powerless. At first glance, writes Nsenbaum, it can seem egalitarian, even revol

tionary, to see the rich wait on the poor an

the poor eat like the rich. In reality, he poin

out, such role-switching helps perpetuate t

status quo. It lets the poor blow off steam

even as it allows the rich to feel like good, ca

ing people. Social inversion turns the wor

upside down for a few days in order to keep

aright the rest of the year.

But sometimes, changing economic an

social conditions destabilize the ritual. Wh

that happens, all hell can bre

loose--or at least it feels like

might. This, writes Nissenbaum

is what happened in early 19t

century New York City. Peop

like Clement Clarke Moor

owner of a large tract of land no

known as Chelsea, worried th

about roving bands of Christm

drinkers. Not only did they bang o

the doors of mansions and barge i

they also filled the stree

with besotted aggressio

More ominously, th

were young, male an

poor; and if they were nvisibly resentful of t

rich, the rich still stewed

their own imaginings. A specter w

haunting Manhattan: the specter of t

mob and the riot.

So Moore and other powerful men of t

city-better known as Knickerbocker

invented a new rite designed to keep t

riffraff at home during Christmas by redefi

ing how goods should be distributed duri

the holiday. Heretofore, rich adults had giv

to poor adults. Now, grown-ups of all class

were to give to their own children-and not

the streets, but by their own hearths.But how to persuade people to do som

thing novel for Christmas, when the holid

and its traditions are supposed to be ancie

and unchanging? Moore came up with th

solution: Santa Claus.

He started by publicizing a poem h

claimed to have written: "A Visit from S

Nicholas," which everyone still knows tod

("T'was the night before Christmas, and

through the house ..."). St. Nicholas was

4th-century saint who was honored o

December 6 in Holland. But the Dutch S

CITY LIMIT



Nicholas was skinny and grim-faced, and he

was as likely to give a bad child a birch-rod

beating as a good child a gift. To retrofit him

for 19th-century New York, Moore moved

St. Nicholas to Christmas Eve , plumped himup, provided a sleigh and reindeer, and

dropped his noir side. Within a few decades,

St. Nick had become Santa, and Christmas

was recast as a holiday mainly for kids-one

that required lots of shopping in the city's

emerging plethora of stores.

To be sure, adults celebrating the new,

Santa-ized Christmas also began with

exchanging presents with their grown-up

friends and relatives. And haves still gave to

have-nots . But now, the favorite impover

ished beneficiaries were children,and the goods they received

were called charity. Unlike

luxury goods that the rich

had once handed to wassailers

and now gave to their own

children , charity consisted of

necessities, such as basic cloth-

ing and food.

By the mid-19th century, a

Victorian image had developed

of the individual deemed worthy

of charity. The ideal recipient was

a version of Dickens' Tiny Tim: a

patient and selfless young child

who displayed profound gratitude

when receiving a donation, and

whose appreciation bridged the gap

between rich and poor.

By the 1890s, lavish and bizarrely

voyeuristic events were being orga

nized so affluent New Yorkers could

observe children getting charity. On

Christmas day during the first year of

that decade, lunch was served to 1,800

poor boys at multi-story Lyric Hall, on

Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street. Every

floor was ftIled with well-heeled adults

watching the hungry youngsters eat. Next

year, the wealthy were invited to MadisonSquare Garden to watch 10,000 needy boys

and girls pluck gifts that hung from the

ceiling by ropes.

Then there was the post office.

"Children have been sending letters to

the North Pole at least since the

1870s," says historian Nissenbaum. Tradition

ally, they were written by the very young, or by

mothers of as-yet illiterate preschoolers, acting

as scribes. Typical missives greeted Santa,

assured him the writer had been good all year,

DECEMBER 2003

and ended with a wish-list of gifts and a

promise to leave refreshments for the reindeer.

Some writers mentioned being poor and

unable to afford presents unless Santa brought

them. But in post office jargon, every letter wasa "dead letter," destined for destruction after

the holidays.

It wasn't long before the wealthy got a yen

to read them.

In 1914, a New Yorker named John Duvall

Gluck started the Santa Claus Association,

whose goal was to boost belief in Santa

by answering letters sent to the North Pole

by poor kids . Several local charities

encouraged the

g r

2

of them presents. Soon, the public was bei

encouraged to assist by sending mone

Then , in 1962, the post office decided to l

people walk in off the street and choose the

own letters. Operation Santa Claus wborn.

It started as a low-key affair.Then came t

1980s. "I went to the post office and got m

first letter after I heard Johnny Carson rea

ing some on TY," remembers Richie Aron

mail carrier in Manhattan's Murray Hill di

trict who today is an Operation Santa Cla

stalwart. Like Aron, many longtime dono

say they first learned of the project wh

watching The Tonight Show 20 years ag

Perhaps it's no coincidence that Carso

began publicizing Operation Santa Cla

then. Mter all, Ronald Reagan was slashi

public spending on anti-poverty programs

policy later extended by the first Preside

Bush as he urged Americans to downsi

government and help the poor throu

"thousand points of light" acts of charit

Such acts were predicated on the idea th

one ordinary individual could direc

help another, without a passel of soc

entitlement policies, bureaucrats a

social workers interferin

The new aid was up clo

and personal.

Meanwhile, things we

also changing at the po

office. In 1984, the fi

year the local papers paid attentio

to such things, Operation San

Claus reported receiving 13,000 le

ters during the Christmas seaso

Subsequently, the increase w

dizzying . Eighteen thousand

1989. One hundred seventy-fi

thousand in 1995. The numb

peaked in 2000, when 280,00

! ! ~ ! ! ~ = : ! I ! ! I ! ! ! ! ! ~ ~ ~ ~ ! I ! ! I ! ~ letters arrived. The next yehe post-September 11 anthr

scare made people leety of strange mail, an

children they only 210,000 letters were received. But laserved to write letters, then year, the tally had climbed back to 260,00

passed them to the organization, which This Christmas, Operation Santa Claus of

answered with gifts . In addition, the Santa cials say they will not be surprised if almo

Claus Association took poor boys ' and girls ' a third of a million letters pour in.

letters from the main post office. In 1928,

however, the group was investigated for fraud,

and the New York City postmaster stopped

sending it letters.

The following year, New York City clerks

in the postal service's Money Order Division

picked up the slack by culling letters from

poor kids and pass ing the hat to send some

If this year is like earlier ones, most le

ters will be from the poorest zip codes

New York City. Which means that

you hang out in these neighborhoods, a hig

percentage of the moms and kids you me

will be writers to Santa. For some reason, th

is particularly true in heavily Latino area

2



There, a tradition seems to have developed in

which mothers with young children learn

from women friends how to write to Opera

tion Santa Claus-though they have no idea

where their letters go, or who reads them. Asthe children approach adolescence, they start

writing on their own. They, too, are clueless

about the giant cardboard boxes on 33rd

Street.

According to postal employee Pete

Fontana, who has headed the program for

several years, some 10,000 donors are

expected to make the trek to midtown this

year to read letters, and they will choose

30,000 to 40,000 to respond to. In addition,

hundreds of corporations will ask for as many

as 500 letters each, to give to

their executives and staff.

And Fontana hopes for a

replay of last year, when sev

eral Broadway productions

took 20,000 letters-actors

passed them out to audiences

after the shows. In all,

Fontanta estimates that a

fourth to a third of the letters

will be answered.

which letters are sincere and which are fake.

They might as well try to figure out the exact

meaning of a Rorschach blot. The more they

mull over the ink, the more they reveal of

themselves."You can tell the scams," insisted Westch

ester resident Adam Fuchs last December, after

he had read several letters at the post office and

picked a favorite to answer. "Like one says,

'Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm 2 years old. My

mommy just went through a divorce; she's

very sick. Can you please send a fur coat?'"

It wasn't the fact that a 2-year-old can't

write. Rather, Fuchs implied,

it was the fur

like that." Another was from a 17 -year-ol

boy lamenting that he got only one presen

the year before, and asking for a North Fac

coat this time around. He "annoyed" her, th

young woman said, because "at 17 he shoulknow" not to be complaining and asking fo

trendy clothes.

Donors also get nervous when a chil

requests a toy they consider vulgar, antisocia

or frivolous. "One letter asked for 'Gran

Theft Auto,''' noted Jemma Roberson,

Harlem resident who was studying for a rea

estate career last year when she visited th

post office with her toddler and toy Yorkie t

read letters for the first time. Roberson wasn

sure she wanted to give the boy the violen

video game he asked for. "But is it right t

substitute something else if the request

from the heart?" she mused. "Or is an adu

taking these gifts-and maybe even sellin

them? I'm torn."

Universally, donors say they are moved t

go shopping by letters that express selfless

ness and the desire for goods that are usefu

uplifting and not too ostentatious.

"Here's one from a girl who says, 'All

really care about is my family and don

worry about me,'" said on

- -- . - of the Sarah Jessica ParkeThat means up to three

fourths will be ignored. These are

the letters that, in performance

artist Sharon Glassman's words, are

"resisted" by people like her because

they fail to "sing." Abandoned after

Christmas in the big cardboard

boxes, tone-deaf missives are eventu-

W ~ ' : { ' · ~ ' S ' o . . . C A . . V ' \ ~ - ¥ V \ 1 . ~ ~ ~ C A . ' r J o . . . . types. "I might adopt her."

()..vY\ \JJY"'\\e.,\'Y\.cl YtJU - I - . h ; ~ .JeJte- "Once we took a lette"'I(

oJ

I from a girl who wrote fo......_ ......._IiiI.. Iii...... lliIilIlli............her sisters but didn't ask fo

ally destroyed. Meanwhile, out in the

) " ~ \ ' \ I anything for herself. We got her a Ga'" gift certificate," said Flushing residen

""s. Cathy Webster, a graduate student i

zip codes, their authors are sorely dis

appointed."I don't know if I still believe in

Santa Claus," says Cristina Gomez. She

( \ ' - l \ S ' ~ " V " French literature at NYU. With he

i / t ? ; 4 . . . . . "\ psychologist husband, Webste: r"\\ ...:V' rV ' C>J.jI.&. answers four to eight Operatio£ 0 ~ ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

is a high school student from Washing

ton Heights who wrote last year when

she was 15, asking for patterned panty

hose. "I don't know where the letters go

- - - - - . C ; ~ ~ « . . \f'O,Jl(6... letter we ever took," she said, "wa

.. : I ! I ! I ! I ! I ! I I I ! I I " . I ! I ! I I ! I I ! I ! ! I ! I I ; v , ; . ~ ~ ~ ~ : : from a single mom with a child i

or who reads them, but I thought some

body would come to the house. OnChristmas I stayed home all day. Every

time the doorbell rang I thought it was him.

I gave up at two the next morning."

Nevertheless, many letter-writers eventu

ally learn how to make their letters sing-to

"wassail through the mails." They are extraor

dinarily sensitive to their donors' emotional

needs-which are nowhere more apparent

than at the cafeteria-style tables on 33rd

Street in December. There, as some letter

readers wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs,

others purse their lips, struggling to discern

24

kindergarten and an infant. Sh

asked for some clothes for herself, bu

co at , mostly for the kids. It was very compelling."

which he considered "In the one I'm taking this year," said Adamtoo luxurious for a poor woman to re- Fuchs, "the kid is looking for a teddy bear fo

quest from charity. his sister and a teaching game-somethin

For a mother or adolescent to ask for styl- that will help educate. That's legit."

ish, brand-name clothing indicates selfish- "The ones I respond to," says Bill Cressle

ness and cynicism to many donors-even "start with 'Hi Santa, how ya doing?' Which

though the Santas may themselves be fashion love. And they end with 'Take care, Santa. Te

plates. Last year, two young women in their your wife I said hello. Love,' and then the kid

twenties, who could have been extras on Sex name. Beautiful! Beautiful!"

and the City, pored over letters and grew Cressler is a tall, bald, bearded man in hi

wary. "This one wants a specific pair of sixties who usually is executive assistant t

shoes, with this and such color," one said, the president of a real estate company, bu

frowning. "I get strange feelings from letters takes o ff during the Christmas season t

CITY LIMITS



work at Radio Ciry. For the past dozen or so

years, he has been visiting the post office

during the holidays and reading up to five

dozen letters at a sitting. Participating in

Operation Santa Claus, he says, takes himback to his own childhood in an impover

ished but loving family in post-World War IIPhiladelphia. Unmarried and with no sonsor daughters of his own, he enjoys conjuringa sense of family by participating in Operation Santa Claus.

him. "I am writeing you this letter to let you noisy, scruffy apar tment building in Inwooknow that for Christmas if you can seand me and whose husband struggles to support ta bike for Christmas. My name is Steve and I family as a wholesale candy salesman. "Th

am 13 years old.... Think you! P.S. Merry had two children and they were weari

Christmas. Your &iend, Steve." strange hats. " ("Mom, those were elf hatsCressler didn't trust the postal service with Cabral 's 7 -year-old 'daughter explained,

a bicycle, and he couldn't find Steve's phone Spanish.) "A woman came and broughtnumber through Information, which he Christmas tree," recalled cake decorawould need to arrange a personal delivery. Dionora Fernandez, Cabral's sister-in-la

Normally he calls the letter-writing child's who lives in the same building with hmother so he can "meet her outside the apart- daughter Judi and two other childrement building and give her the box; I want "Another time, a man came with a boy aher to get the credit for being Santa. " Since a girl."

he couldn't contac t Steve's Donors who enact these visitations ta

mother about pleasure-and o&en feel a sense of comm

=Imon with-the reciprocal performance

their beneficiaries. Cathy We

ster remembered delivering p

- sents to a single mother in As

Besides, he says , it's essential to show dis

advantaged New York kids that more affluent people care about them. "They're notlike I was when I was young. I didn't know

I didn't have anything. Now they all watchTV and know what they're missing! Wecannot leave them feeling like that!"

These days, Cressler avoids letters fromsingle mothers. "They're often hard andself-centered: just I, I, I," he said. At the

same time, he is drawn to letters fromchildren who seem to be living withoutfathers. "The kids never mention

< . / ria. "She came out to meet us a-.... " ' > t t _ ,'. started crving, and I started cr! ! ! ~ i t 1 c r - " ~ I I I " " " , , ; ; '"tl'ii .!!-- ing, and she hugged us. "<t..x / J e e d n A - . :

"'e. - ' < ~ U ; ; Sometimes beneficiaries disa

...... t-b point their donors. Fuchs recalldads," he says-another reason men - r d ~ h:;:- .&lC:!iLl:..4o.:v.c; dressing up as Santa a few years a

like him should help. 1 C . ~ b , , , --: and going to Jamaica, Queens,But the help comes strictly during ~ O I ' l 6 Q s deliver a package to some childr

the Operation S a n t ~ ritual: Cressler ~ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' >-<L. ,... . ,t . _ - r:J. w h o ~ e mother had writtnever tells letter-wrIters hiS name, - -La { ! on their behalf. Wh

addr:ss or phone num?er, because - -!Y( l . I / r i : l : 1 ~ g : - c ; r ~ n 1 : J . . k ! . . . U J ~ U . . J u . . . . ~ ! d , j I ~ r - 1 he gave her the gi

heanng from them dunng the rest -<.JL,. .b fh ' "she started screaming

of the year can provoke intense-

£ -i 1 e e c ; ~ d. d - - , u L a a . ~ " ' ~ ! . J ' u t t~ 1 - - & . . u . .

__~ ' =

___ me because she didanxiery. "Six years ago ," he said, ----+-- ..------------------IIIIIII!III---.. get what she wanted"I sent a package with $200 r l - - - - : . _ C/ Ingrates like this mother, Fuchs sa

worth of gifts to a single mother l make him "a little jaded."

~ n d put my p h o ~ e number on I '(lIP II £. -

It . She starred callmg me two or -i - - - lhree times a week with 'I have - I __ ___

a $260 medical bill that wel- - - - __ ____ ('" _c ' ' C - - »1# ---are s not paymg. an you i 0 - --- • ----..... i ..pay? ' This went on for -._ _ ____ --_ _ _ _months. I said, 'You 're abus- - ____ - ____

ing a wonderful program.' - -

She said, 'If you have enoughmoney to send me the stuff you did, why

can't you spring for another $260?' I said,'Why?' She said, 'Because I don't have it! ' I

said, 'But my taxes take care of that.' I feltlike Scrooge! Other people I've spoken to atthe 'post office have told me they made thesame mistake, of giving their phone number,

and people called them for months afterward, asking for money."

Shortly before being interviewed for thisarticle, Cressler had spent several hours digging through the cardboard boxes until he

found just what he wanted. "Dear Santa and

Miss Santa," began the missive that sang to

DECEMBER 2003

the bike, he optedto send smaller gifts through

the mail. He had no desire to actually meetthe boy. Cressler never lays eyes on his youngbeneficiaries; instead, he enjoys "fantasizinghow happy they're going to be when theyopen my presents'."

Other donors pu t on Santa outfits and go

-into children's homes. "Two years ago, awhite couple from Long Island woke us up at7 in the morning on Christmas," recalls Josefina Cabral, a 35-year-old Dominican immigrant who lives with her three children in a

BUt more often, supplicants pltheir roles perfectly, even whthey compose their letters. Whi

is an amazing feat, considering that mahave spotry writing skills, and such sparcontact with elite New York that they

never been to midtown, much less the JamA. Farley General Post Office.

Take Steve Rivera, the 13-year-old w

charmed Bill Cressler by greeting "MSanta" in his letter, and signing off as "Yofriend."

"Miss Santa was my idea," says Dan

Rivera, Steve's big brother. City Limits inteviewed the two recently in Bedford Park,rough part of the Bronx where graffiti oftsports the word "gunz," and apartment builing foyers reek of urine.

Daniel and Steve, now 15 and 14 respetively, are friendly, talkative boys still waiti

for their growth spurts. Their two-room apament is so cramped that their parents sleep

2



the living room. Their mother is disabled, and

their father, who worked for years as a machin

ist, now has arthritis and asthma and is jobless.

The brothers have been sending letters to

Operation Santa Claus since they were toddlers; their mother used to write for them.

Some of her women friends showed her how,

and suggested model wording.

Some of the language may have corne

from boilerplate letters-such as the epi

graph of this article-that circulate through

out New York City. Each year, people sitting

at the post office's cafeteria tables cluck in

bemusement at all the different pages torn

from notebooks and all the various hand

writings that say exactly the same thing: The

most important thing I want is to give my

childrens happiness sadly enoughI

can't buythe basic thing in life ... . Thank you, SantaClaus for making dream be come true.Postal workers are stymied about where

this letter, and many other models, corne

from. Some are xeroxes of xeroxes of

xeroxes, passed out at welfare offices,

homeless shelters and schools.

Joseline Ovalles explains her tech

nique. A Washington Heights mother

of two preschoolers whose husband

earns minimum wage in a factory, she

learned about Operation Santa Claus

shortly after immigrating from the

Dominican Republic a few yearsago. "Some friends told me about

it," she says. "I don't write English,

so at first my 10-year-old niece

would translate for me and write

the letter. Now a friend's little girl

does it."

Last year, Ovalles began her

letter by talking about how her

two sons "are what I love the

most," but "because of some

"Santa has a wife, so mention her," advises

Steve. ''And when you ask for a gift, you

should write, 'I really need it, but if you can't

send it I'll understand.' And don't ask for

nothing too expensive.""I asked for Allen Iverson sneakers last year

and didn't get anything," comments Daniel.

"That's because you were greedy-they cost

too much!" retorts Steve.

In Washington Heights, IS-year-old Cri

stina Gomez has similar advice. "A good letter

is one that asks, 'How are you doing, Santa? '"

she declares.

"The most important thing," says

13-year-old Judi Cabral,

"is to

economical problems I can't ~ : ; ! I 1 ! ! I ! l : l ! ! a ~ . ~ ~ . ; ; ; ' = ! ! ! : ~ ~ ~ J ive them what they ask for

they need a little bit of everything which

is the reason why I'm writing you this hum- write thatble letter." After listing the children's clothing you'll be grateful whatever

sizes, Ovalles asked for coats for herself and they send."

her husband. She closed with, "Happy "And it's not just about yourself You should

Christmas and a Happy New Year! We thank ask for things for your mother and brothers and

you beforehand." sisters. Ifyou do that, they'll ~ e n d something for

With letters like this, she gets packages you, too," says Cristina.

every year. In addition, a little girl learns how "Ifyou want a brand-name sweater like Old

to pen the maximally effective missive to Navy, never ask for Old Navy, because you'll

Santa. never get it," says a Mother Cabrini High

Boys learn, too. Today Steve and Daniel School student who didn't want her name

Rivera write their own letters, and take pride used. But if you don 't ask for a brand-name,

in corning up with just the right tone. they'll probably like you and send you a gift

26

certificate. From Old Navy."

Who is they? For Steve Rivera, Santa "u

to be this rich man in England who help

the poor, but he died a long time ag

Now, we think of Santa as good people wlove us ."

But just being Steve doesn't guarante

present. Nor does just sending Santa a lett

Sure, it helps to write a good one. But it's ev

better to write a good one, and a good o

and a good one, and a good one ....

"It's like the lottery," says Steve. "The m

letters you write, the more chance you have

someone seeing some. Then you have a be

chance of getting presents."

With that in mind, Steve and his brot

each hand-write as many as 50 iden

cal letters every year to Ope

tion Santa Claus. This is

an unusual number, and

blizzard of multiples bedev

the post office. To combat the

visitors to Operation Santa H

are instructed to bring their ch

sen letter to a clerk sitting a

computer. She keys in the bene

ciary's name and address , th

checks to see if they have alrea

been selected. If so,

donor is advised to t

the letter and find som

one else to send gifts tProblem IS, ma

people simply walk o

of the post office with their favor

letters, without bothering to check

computer first. In addition, accord

to Operation Santa spokesman Fonta

corporations and Broadway call ask

for thousands of letters on very sh

notice. "We can't weed them then, "

says.

As a result, people who write lots a

lots of charming, heartrending letters c

in on Christmas day. "If! send six or 10

ters I get two or three boxes, " said Ovall"The time that we got a personal visit fr

people dressed like Santa," notes Dion

Fernandez, "we also got two packages in

mail. " "It's wonderful to see the joy on

little sisters' faces when the presents corn

says 13-year-old Manuel Cabral, who h

written dozens of letters for them.

But what about all the kids whose famil

are as needy as the Riveras, Cabrals a

Ovalleses, but haven't learned to wassa

Often in one family, not all children w

write receive an answer. This has happened

CITY LIMI



Steve and Daniel. "It's hard," they say,

"because then Mom has to buy for the onewho didn't get anything." Kids also compare

notes after Christmas with their friends. Sad

ness and jealousy can plague those who didn'thear from Operation Santa Claus, while oth

ers did.More often than not, even the unlucky

can rely on parents and relatives for modestgifts that serve as consolation prizes in a bad

Operation Santa year. That's no t true,

though, when the writing is done as aca

demic work.

,S CHOOL LETTERS? ANYBODY WANT SCHOOL LET-

TERS?" yell postal workers

during the waning days ofDecember as Christmas drawsnear. These are gian t manila

envelopes, each crammed

with dozens of missives from

the city's impoverished P.S.s

and 1.S .s.

The packages represent whole

classes of young children with rickety writing and serious needs. Each

reflects a teacher's attempt to help

her indigent charges get warm coatsfor personal use-as well as pencils,

even books, for their resource-starved

classrooms. Few individual donors canafford to act as Santa for a classroom,

so the post office tries to find corporations to sponsor the packets. But with a

dearth of willing businesses, teachers are

hard pressed to write letters that "sing."

Often it's clear that students have

dutifully parroted their instructor'sembarrassed idea of what one should say

to the nonexistent Santa. ("I would highly

appreciate it if you can use your strength toget me a set of reading books with tapes,"

wrote evety 6-year-old in one class in the

Bronx.)Teachers-and

sometimes principals-typically append their own appeal,such as this one from the Bronx's P.S. 68,

"The Edward A. Fogel School for Critical

Thinking and the Arts," where writing toSanta has become a schoolwide language-arts

project:Many ofour parents tell their children you do

not exist so that the children will not be disap

pointed on Christmas day. Imagine, Santa, how

painfol and difficult this season is to many of

our children. The heartache of waking up

Christmas morning and finding that even you

Santa could not make their wishes come true .. .

DECEMBER 2003

Our school uniform is burgundy so a burgundy

pullover sweater for boys and a burgundy but

ton-down sweaters for girls would complement

their uniform.

Some teachers are superbly attuned to thedemands and desires of corporate charity.

Ellen McGovern is a reading specialist at P.S.

306, an impoverished grade school in the

West Tremont section of the Bronx. Shestarted having her students write to Opera

tion Santa Claus several years ago, when she

was teaching in a poor neighborhood in

Manhattan. It wasn't long before a company

responded. In subsequent years, she soughtout more firms and began

helping

getting letters from children in their handwriting. And businesspeople like lethat refer to them as "Santa" and "

Claus.")

But other teachers are like the teenawho stay up all night waiting for the Swho never comes. Udelia Price teaches

ond and third grade at P.S . 270 in Cli

Hill, in Brooklyn. Back in the late 19when Ellen McGovern first told her a

Operat ion Santa Claus, Price was teachin

Manhattan and had good luck with the

office program. "Once I got a check for $

to buy the kids stuff. I got notebooks becwe didn't have enough. And I took the kid

Chinatown," she says. Price keeps her

letter short and low key: "Dear Santa,

writing to you in hopes that you can some of my students .... Whatever you

to share would be greatly appreciaThat used to be enough. But now she's in Brooklyn, "We haven't go

anything for the last four years."

Price is beginning to question she's doing and its effect on her

dents. "It's not like children in thisreally believe in Santa. I tell them w

writing to him and that the pe

answering letters arehelpers. But then n

ing comes, even tho

sometimes another in this school gets so

thing. Last year my

dents asked, 'Ms. Price, why d

we get anything?' I told the

didn't know. They asked me

and over. I'm starting to t

we're writing these lettersnothing."

Those who trek to

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I ! I ~ : Street each Christmas seould no doubt disagree.

find more Santas, they'd

After all, for people like postal wo

Richie Aron, Operation Santa is all aboutther

teachers organize letter-wntmg. Today, McGovern estimates that

annually, 700 classes in New York City solicithelp from Operation Santa Claus. McGovernis such a pro at recruiting corporate donorsthat "I've had years when every student in my

school has received a gift." She works hardeach year to renew commitments from com

panies such as insurance firm CBS CoverageGroup, Inc., the magazine Southern Accent

and the watchmaker Rolex. She knows what

makes a good pitch. ("Companies really enjoy

serving "that innocence children have bthey face the world."

But is it innocence to teach kids a

form of wassailing-one that bears a remable if addled resemblance to grant writThanks to Operation Santa Claus, the

are now pitching themselves as magical ist schlemiels, and the not-poor are pret

ing to be realpolitik magicians. Maybeis what philanthropy has come to in

York and the nation. Maybe it's wh

always was.•





Teaching Fellows learn on the iob, and students pay a pric

By Penelope DudaIllustrations by Mat Vincent

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE LESSON in this sixth-grade class at a Bushwick mid

dle school is to "be able to use similar figures to find out the length of

an unknown side." The teacher gives the class a quiz, where the students

have to find the length of a side of a triangle. Then she goes over theanswers with them.

Except there's a problem. The quiz has a mistake and now the stu

dents are confused, and she's losing them. One girl, who didn't even

bother to write the answers to the quiz, has been sitring with her coat

over her head for 10 minutes. The girl next to her is messing with her

cell phone. Another boy is wandering around the classroom, bothering

other students and trying to steal their pencils. Th e teacher tries to bring

students back into the lesson, but to no avail. She's lost them.

This teacher works hard. She arrives at school early, stays late and takes

a lot of work home. In her 10 months on the job, she has built a bond

with her students, even rushing out during her prep period to buy lunch

at McDonald's for two students who were particularly good that week.

But the truth is she's still figuring out how to be a public school

teacher day by day. She is a brand-new teacher, freshly graduated fromthe New York City Teaching Fellows Program, which allows new school

instructors to get trained and certified in less than a summer.

The only preparation she received before she entered the classroom

consisted of an intensive seven-week training and several weeks of student

teaching in a summer-school class. There, like all Teaching Fellows, she

learned the basics of discipline techniques and classroom management.

While she's been teaching school, she's also been working on her master's

degree at night (and making an entry-level salary of $39,000).

Yet she was hardly prepared for this. At this school, everything feels

tentative. There's a new principal, many new teachers and a frustrating

lack of organization. There are people available to help her-the pro

gram assigned her a mentor and a "homeroom buddy," and there is a

staff developer in the school each day. Gerting to them is another story."There is very litde time for people to help me," the new teacher says.

"There are people who mean to, but they have no time to do it. "

A screwup with her students' grades-she discovered late in the

spring that she was supposed to have been tracking them cumulatively

since September-was the capper to a trying year. "It's been really hardand kind of horrible," she says of her teaching experience. "It's horrible

for any new teacher-you're supposed to just accept it. What we (neo

phytes] need to do is to start with an experienced teacher"-a mentor,

or what educators of educators call a "master teacher."

I am experiencing similar challenges myself right now, as a first-year

Teaching Fellow at a Manhatran middle school. As part of the new city

wide curriculum, I'm expected to use "workshops" to teach. Teachers

start a class by giving a mini-lesson on a topic-say, the use of capital let-

DECEMBER 2003

Is there a better wa

ters. Then the students break up into groups, some working inde

dendy while others sit with the instructor.

That would be nice. Really, though, there's no way I can imagine w

ing with small groups of my sixth- and seventh-grade special educationdents while the others work on their own. Not unless chasing each

around the class is considered independent work. I haven't even figure

how to collect homework and make sure kids don't go to the bathroom

times per period. Instead, I've spent a lot of ime in front of he students

ing, while they listen to me (or don't) and copy what I write on the b

Sometimes I've given them worksheets to keep busy and, if 'm lucky, q

The few times that I've tried to use the workshop method, the clas

quickly broken down. I divided the class up into small groups to

books, based on each member's reading level. I set up each group wit

assignment and then spent the whole period running back and for

answer questions and discipline students who were just sining aro

talking. Meanwhile, the ones who needed my help-- those who hav

most difficulty reading-got no attention at all. I know the work

method makes sense, but I don't know how to manage it. And I'msure how I'm going to learn.

While we are learning how to teach, our students are paying what s

educators call a "learning tax." Katie Haycock from the Education T

a Washington nonprofit that encourages institutions of higher educ

to support K-12 reform efforts, asserts that on average, teachers in

first two years on the job see markedly lower gains in student learning

do those with more experience. "Researchers are finding that in the

two years there's a real impact for students. So kids in hard-to-staff

high-poverty schools serve as training fodder for teachers who will m

on and teach in other places. They are paying a price educationally."

Dr. Gail Foster, a longtime teacher in the New York City public sch

and founder of the New York-based Toussaint Institute Fund, which a

cates for improved access to quality schools, has helped train Teachinglows. She says she's seen the effects firsthand. Many of her students, F

says, became overwhelmed and dropped out-some even before

entered their own classroom. (Of the cohotr that entered the progra

September 2001, 22 percent of he fellows did not return to teach in20

an attrition rate only slighdy higher than that of the system as a whole

The rest, she's sure, face an uphill battle. "What happens when

come in new and not trained properly, and overwhelmed by class m

agement, and maybe come from a different socioeconomic backgro

All you want is order in the class."

There is, Foster avers, "no remedy for what the students are lo

during that year. n

IN NEW YORK CiTY, where about 9,000 new teachers arrived in c



rooms mis fall-an untold number of them having never taught

before-we're about to find out exactly how high mat price is. More

man 3,000 are Teaching Fellows or were trained mrough another "alter

native certification" program.

There will likely be many more of mese fast-tracked new teachers in

years to come. New York City public school teachers are retiring in

record numbers: In September alone, 477 followed 3,868 who left over

me summer. The average age of New York City's 80,000 school teachers

is 49, and more man a quarter are 55 or older. Thousands more are still

uncertified, and under a new state edict shouldn't even be teaching any

more; me Regents have given New York City permission to keep mose

teachers on mrough 2005, but no longer man mat.

The Teaching Fellows program was launched under departed Schools

Chancellor Harold Levy and aimed at attracting successful professionals

to city schools. It is run with assistance from a nonprofit called me New

Teacher Project, which has designed and implemented teacher recruit

ment, training and placement programs in a handful ofother cities including Los Angeles and Baton Rouge.

In New York, mose teachers are put right into hard

to-staff schools-places wim especially high teacher or

agement and lesson-planning, "teachers mat are not prepared are less effec

tive wim studentS," she says.

Speak wim Teaching Fellows, and you see what Darling-Hammond

is talking about. Abigail Rao, a fellow in her second year of teaching a

an elementary school in Harlem, laughs when asked about her pre-ser

vice training experience-in summer school, where classes were smalle

and me day shorter man during me regular school year. "I felt so unpre

pared after going mrough mat program mat I mought, 'I couldn't do

mis.' 1 couldn't imagine having my own class. It was kind of a joke and

a waste of time. 1 felt like it was unfair to kids we were going in to teach

It was infuriating."

Minimal preparation can lead to a disastrous first year. Zach Berman

a fellow who entered the program in the fall of 2002 and taught in

Brooklyn, dropped out by mat Thanksgiving. "I felt ill-prepared for m

rigors of planning me classes," he explains. He wanted to teach high

school history but was placed in an elementary school. He adds ma

principal turnover, lack of organization, high poverty

rates, linle parental involvement. More-experienced

teachers don't want to work in mese schools, and because

of me teacher's union seniority rules, mey don't have to.

There wi I likely be ma ny more

Dr. Nicholas Michelli is Dean of Education at me

City University of New York, where most Teaching Fel-

lows obtain meir master's degrees. He's fond of me fel-

lows-because of its substantial advertising and market

ing budget, the Teaching Fellows program can pick the

best candidates from a large applicant pool. As he sees

it, me program's "biggest weakness is mat [teachers] areassigned to high-needs schools."

fast-tracked new teachers in

But Michelli and omer educators of educators admit

mere's a lot we still don't know about what it means to

parachute a new teacher into a troubled classroom.

They're eagerly awaiting me results of a major study just

gening underway, which seeks to answer me question

years to come. New York City

public school teachers are retiringin record numbers: nearly 500 In

September alone.

evetyone's asking: What, exactly, happens to kids when

meir teacher shows up wim barely any training? Con-

ducted by a team from me University at Albany, me

research will probe a massive amount of school person-

nel data and survey teachers entering me New York City education system

to determine me effects of each different "pamway" to becoming a teacher

on student achievement-whemer teachers entered mrough alternativecertification, a BA in education, a master's program, or off me street. The

study should be completed in me next two to three years. Anticipates

Michelli: "We'll find out whemer or not your pamway maners."

Previous research suggests it does. Stanford University education pro

fessor Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford, cites

several studies, including one of her own conducted in New York City,

which found mat teachers admined wim no preparation or mrough vety

short alternate routes tend to be less satisfied wim meir preparation and

less confident about meir abilities. Her study also found mat teachers who

felt well-prepared were usually more satisfied wim meir performance in me

classroom. Darling-Hammond, a frequent critic of fast-track programs like

me Teaching Fellows, says me fellows ' assessment is accurate. Because mey

often spend meir first year trying to figure out me basics of classroom man-

0

"support was really inconsistent. Everything was inconsistent. "

Berman received conflicting advice from me school's sraffdevelopers and

mentors on issues as fundamental as seating arrangementS. Recalls Berman

"Some people said put mem in rows, some said put mem in groups of sixes.

Each choice would have promoted a radically different classroom environ

ment, one teacher-dominated and me omer highly interactive. Berman

never serried on which he wanted. He was too busy managing a classroom

where me studentS had advanced skills in throwing paper wads. In one inci

dent, a projectile inflicted retinal damage on one student. In anomer, during

an exam, one kid threw anomer's answer sheet out me window.

Dr. Richard Elmore, a Harvard University education professor and

aumor of an upcoming book on New York Community School Distric

2's renowned professional development, has seen a lot of teachers trying

to wing it. He's observed a pattern: Brand-new educators associate good

teaching wim classroom order and a lot of energy on me teacher's part

Basically, mey end up imitating meir own teachers.

CITY LIMITS



Yet the type of instruction that many educators believe promotes high

achievement-where students "create meaning," instead of just gercing

it all from their teacher-requires a lot of professional training, both

before a teacher enters the classroom and throughout his or her career.

Take reading. The National Center for Educational Statistics has docu

mented that teachers who use real literature and heavily integrate read

ing and writing through workshop-type lessons-the kind the Depart

ment of Education would like us to teach-also see higher levels of

achievement in their students.

But new teachers, Elmore has seen, especially those with lircle train

ing, often try to do all the work themselves. So the classroom looks

orderly and the students may (or may not) be listening to the teacher,

while there is actually little learning taking place.

Elmore says that teachers who have dropped out of alternative certifica

tion programs sometimes enter the education program at Harvard, and "we

then need to get them to unlearn these methods" they have picked up, so

they can keep order in the classroom and get the students to learn.

"I've seen some good people in the Teaching Fellows program," Dr.

Elmore continues, "but they are C- to D+ teachers because they know

nothing about teaching and are not getting much help."

IT TURNS OUT THAT Department of Education administrators are well aware

that the Teaching Fellows program has its limitations. The department's

director of alternative certification, Vicky Bernstein, lists some ways her

staff tries to mitigate the impact of having thousands of new teachers learn

on the job: "Communicating more realistic expectations" to the incoming

fellows, with the message "Don't expect to be a success on day one"; assign

ing mentors to new teachers; retooling university master's curriculums so

they statt with a course on how to teach literacy and follow with practical

seminars on how to cope in the classroom. (When the fellows program first

launched, it began with a class on "School in American Society.")

Even these measures, Bernstein concedes, are less than perfect. "A bet-

DECEMBER 2003

ter model would be an apprenticeship model," she says . "But we nee

give a living wage during that period. No one has those resources

can't ask people with debt and expenses to take on the burden."

Another big city with a troubled school system is wagering that it

The Boston Teacher Residency is a 12-month teacher apprentice

program, based on the medical residency model. It is the result of a

nership between Boston's public schools and two foundations ,

Boston Plan for Excellence and Strategic Grant Partners, which is

tributing $2.2 million for a two-year startup. The program launched

fall with 16 new teachers and plans to enroll 120 by 200B-about

third the number of new teachers Boston anticipates hiring that yea

then, the residency is supposed to be a fully public program.

"Teacher residents" are spending three-and-a-half days a week for

school year in a classroom, co-teaching with a master teacher. The re

the time, and during the summers before and after that year, they

courses tailored for teachers who are already working in an urban c

room. By the end of 12 months, the teacher residwill have a master's degree in education , and will

teaching on their own the following fall. They'll

get a $10,000 stipend.

The program is structured to provide strong in

tives to continue teaching in Boston. Trainees tec

cally have to pay $10,000 in tuition, but for eac

the first three years they work in the Boston scho

one-third of that fee is forgiven. If they leave, they

to pay.

There are no guarantees, of course, that Bos

program will fill the training gap. Harvard's Ric

Elmore, who was actively involved in the Teacher

idency program's formation and serves as a b

member of the Boston Program for Excellence, sa

takes three to five years of teaching-and, ide

strong mentoring the whole time-before new ed

tors have an understanding of how to engage stud

in the learning process, as well as how to manage

fering learning styles and levels of understanding

large classroom.

Elmore warns that the worst possible thing

could happen is if the residency program "reprod

the problem they are trying to solve." One key is m

ing sure that the teacher residents are working

master teachers who model good practices. This would overcome on

the common criticisms of apprenticeship-type programs: that new te

ersjust learn bad habits from old ones.One district in New York is giving apprenticeships a chance.

dean of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College,

Jon Snyder, is currently working with New York's Region 9-the sc

district covering lower Manhattan, the Upper East Side, East Ha

and a chunk of the South Bronx-to create an internship program.

der describes it as "something in between" the two years of full-

preparation Bank Street usually gives (including an immersion in B

Street's on-campus lab school) and the 200 hours teaching fellows

Snyder hopes that the program can start recruiting new teachers as

as January.Last year and the year before that, Bank Street accepted Teaching

lows into its master's program, but Snyder decided not to take them

past fall. "Being a full-time student and a full-time teacher, it's jus



much for them," says Snyder of the fellows his school has worked with. "Itjust leaves them physically and emotionally exhausted." More urgently, he

also had misgivings about sending new teachers into the trenches so

quickly. "Without sufficient preparation, without a lot of support from

fellow teachers and students, it's very easy to fall into bad habits-trying

to control the kids instead of teaching the kids," says Snyder. Any alterna

tive training, he maintains, must make sure that before a teacher takes con

trol of a classroom he or she has the knowledge and skills to plan lessons,

assess student progress and understand how young people learn.

There's another reason Snyder didn't enroll Teaching Fellows in Bank

Street's master's program this year, he concedes: The fellows program

didn't quite cover Bank Street's own costs. That's no small change-a

Bank Street degree costs $29,000 to $43,000.

Snyder says there are still plenty of teachers heading to private schools

who want to spend that kind of money for a two-year Bank Street edu

cation. But with the Teaching Fellows' fast track effectively paying

trainees $100,000 during their first two years, it's harder to find highquality wanna be public school teachers who will do the same.

To keep Bank Street an attractive option for prospective public school

dents to pay tuition and study for months, his program nonetheles

received 200 applications for 45 slots.

ApPRENT ICESHIP PROGRAMS aren't unknown in New York. Sylvia Gross,

teacher at a K-through-8th-grade school in the South Bronx, starte

teaching after a year-long apprenticeship in her school. She is the type o

teacher that most of the city's schools would scramble to hire. After grad

uating from Yale she received a Fulbright to study arts education i

Brazil. Upon returning to New York, she realized she wanted to be

teacher, so she applied to a program called Teachers for Tomorrow. Dur

ing the apprenticeship, for which she was paid (Teachers for Tomorro

had private funding), Gross also filled in for absent teachers.

According to Gross, the apprenticeship taught her how to make stu

dents feel productive from the first day of class. "You have to learn ho

to do the routines with them, because that's what keeps the cla

together," she explains.

The apprenticeship didn't necessarily make her first year any easieBut "it helped that I already had support from the community. Peop

knew that the teachers and parents were behind me because I had alread

been there for a year. I had a reputation."

Apprenticeships might not bring new teachers into th

"I've seen good people In the Teaching

Fellows program," says professional

training expert Richard Elmore. "But

they are C- to D+ teachers becausethey know nothing about teaching and

are not getting much help."

schools as quickly-but they may keep them around longe

With nearly 50 percent of new teachers leaving the system

within five years, New York City's inability to keep teacher

is a driving force behind the worsening teacher shortfall. ''Areports are saying that we don't have a shortage-we have

retention problem," says CUNY's Dean Michelli. "There a

enough certified teachers. They're just not willing to come t

our schools." In 1999, the most recent year surveyed by th

state Education Department, the city's teacher turnover rat

was 19 percent, twice as high as in suburban school district

Adds Michelli: "We produce highly qualified candidates, bu

if we don't fix retention, we'll be doing this every year."

It is too soon to determine what the Teaching Fellow

long-term retention rates will be. National research sugges

the future is not promising. A 2000 report by the Nation

Center for Educational Statistics finds that 29 percent of ne

teachers who have not done student teaching leave the profeteachers, Snyder has developed a fast track of his own. He plans to offer

classes at night, allowing teachers-to-be to keep their day jobs. Follow

ing about a year of coursework, trainees will get paid to teach for a sum

mer in partnership with a master teacher, then take over their own class-

rooms in the fall. While that's basically the same in-class training expe

rience the Teaching Fellows get, the Bank Street students will move intofull-time teaching at the same Region 9 school they were trained in, and

will be able to get advice and guidance from their master teachers as .they

go through their first years. The project will be paid for with trainees'

tuition dollars, supplemented with funding from Region 9 and addi

tional support from the Charles Evans Hughes Foundation.

The next challenge is fmding new teachers willing to participate-as

Snyder notes, the Bank Street internship is "still not as good a deal finan

cially as jumping in and having all your courses paid for" by the Depart

ment of Education. He's not too worried, though. Snyder developed a

similar program at Universiry of California-Santa Barbara, a district so

desperate for teachers that uncredentialed applicants could walk in and be

hired "in 20 minutes." (In California, some 80,000 teachers have no cre

dentials or work on emergency permits.) Even though it required stu-

32

sion within five years, compared to only 15 percent who had studen

teaching as part of their training.

Boston's residency program was created with retention in mind: Mor

than halfofBostons new teachers leave the city's school district-or qu

teaching entirely-within three years. Says Boston Teacher Residenc

director Jesse Solomon, "If we do a good job preparing and supportinthem, we hope to do a better job in keeping them."

In New York, for now, most new teachers are on their own. In m

school, some have huge, overcrowded classrooms. Most of those I've spo

ken with are feeling pretty ineffective. One speaks fondly of returning t

grad school. We all feel lost.

But I'm very lucky. In late September, I started a new position, teachin

English as a Second Language to small groups ofstudents outside and withi

their classes. Because I spend a few periods every day in another classroom

I get to see how more experienced teachers teach and manage classes.

And I'm going to stick with teaching in the city public schools . Aftmy first year, there's nowhere to go but up. •

Additional reporting by Cassi Feldman, DavidJason Fischer andAlyssa Katz



INTELLIGENCE

THE BIG IDEA

Citizen Planners

The realpoliticalpower

ofhigh-tech public meetings

and the IIdeliberative

democracy" movement.

By Francesca Polletta

IT WAS ASPECTACLE to warm the heartS of democ

rats. Last July, about 4,300 New Yorkers gathered

to deliberate over the future of the World Trade

Center site. The organizers hired a recruiting firm

to ensure as demographically diverse a group as

possible; professional facilirators led participants,

neatly arranged in rabIes of 10, in discussions of

rebuilding priorities; staff recorded both individ

ual and group preferences on computers and peri

odically projected them onto giant video screens

around the auditorium-all with the goal of giv-

ing everyday citizens a say.

People at the forum, dubbed Listening to the

City, later approvingly characterized their discus

sions as respectful and calm. As parr of a follow-

DECEMBER 2003

up study on the event's impact, my colleagues and

I interviewed 60 participants, and many said they

rethought their views as a result of he discussions.

One person, who described herself as from a

higher income family than some of the people at

the rabIe, said she came to see the importance of

purting affordable housing at the site, explaining,

"You can't ignore it when there is someone in

front of you rather than just a sratistic."

People also described themselves as exhilarated

by the give and rake. 'l\£i:er a couple of minutes of

seeing where someone was going," said one per

son, "it opened my mind to a different point of

view, and perhaps a more valid point of view than

what I was holding." Best of all , no one was "cam

paigning," as one participant put it, and as many

others added, the event wasn't "political."

These comments capture the promise of a

new brand of citizen participation that has swept

the country in the last decade, one that relies on

carefully structured conversation among stran

gers to forge areas of unanticipated consensus.

We can all identify with the characterization of

politics as a kind of interest-oriented advocacy

that so ofren leads to rigidity and stalemate

particularly given today's increasingly polarized

political environment. Proponents of what h

been called "deliberative democracy" say forum

like Listening to the City can rebuild the publi

damaged faith in the policymaking process.

But by providing the spectacle of demo

racy-the impressive numbers of people gat

ered in one place, the electronic tabulations

individual preferences, the presence of decisi

makers-and by carefully organizing co

tention out of the process, forums like Liste

ing to the City risk restyling democracy as co

sulration. Th e people speak, bu t there's n

guarantee anyone is listening. Th e questio

then, is: Must participants actually make a d

ference in the policies they discuss for the

forums to have impact? The jury's still o

among researchers, but New York's recent exp

rience should make us both optimistic and ca

tious about the enterprise.

ASKED BY LOWER MANHATTAN rebuilding officia

and civic groups to comment on plans for t

redevelopment of Ground Zero, New Yorke

did so enthusiastically. Since 9/11, thousands

people have participated in public hearing

workshops and online deliberations. Listenin

3



INTELLIGENCE

THE BIG IDEA

34

NEW REPORTS

To afford aone-bedroom apartment in New York

City, someone working 40 hours a week must

earn $18.15 an hour-that's a 141-hour week

at minimum wage .This provocative report cal

culates a"housing wage" for each metro area

in the country by figuring out how much you've

got to pull in to make rent without spending

more than 30 percent of your income. It uses

the feds' Fair Market Rent as the standard for

each city.Out of Reach 2003:America's Housing Wage Climbs

The NationalLow Income Housing Coalition

www.nlihc.orgor202-662-1530

Large urban school districts are plagued by

shortages of Qualified and proven teachers ,

but they've got no one to blame but them

selves , this study argues . Researchers looked

at the hiring processes of four (unnamed) city

districts-one from each region of the coun

try-and found that all received hundreds

more applicants than positions they had to

fill. But all four waited until late summer to

make job offers, by which time 30 to 60 percent of the applicants had withdrawn to take

other openings.Missed Opportunities

The New TeacherProject

www.tntp.orgor212-590-2484

Low-wage workers are rarely on the front page

and don't often make it into broadcast news

at all, according to this media analysis. What

coverage they get comes largely from the

metro pages of the major dailies in five large

urban markets-Boston, Chicago, D.C., L.A.

and New York City-which accounted for 65

percent of stories reviewed in a six-month

period in 2001. As for content, researchers

found 11 percent of the coverage in their sam

ple focused on local living-wage campaigns,

but reporters rarely discussed the role of cor

porations. The findings are predictable, but

it's nice to have the data.Between aRock andHard Place

Dougtas &Gould Co. for the FordFoundation

www.economythatworks.orgor914-833-7093

to the City was to some observers the most

striking, for both its scale and outcome: Partic

ipants decisively rejected preliminary plans and

sent rebuilding officials back to the drawing

board. It was, however, only the highest-profile

example of the new civic dialogue.

This dialogue has taken diverse forms. Col

laborative planning exercises, for instance, bring

together competing stakeholders--developers

and preservationists, say, or residents and small

business owners-to preempt costly battles over

development projects. The "deliberative polls"

designed by political scientist James Fishkin

recruit a demographically representative sample

of the population to discuss issues like abortion,

immigration policy, and campaign financing,

fust in small groups and then with candidatesfor political office. Visioning workshops invite

residents to craft long-term plans for their

regions. And foundations and civic groups now

sponsor hundreds of study circles and issue

forums, in which ordinary citizens debate hot

button political issues.

The scale, format and even purposes of these

efforts vary. Some are oriented primarily to civic

education, others to policy input, still others to

conflict resolution. What unites them is the

belief that improving the character ofpublic con

versation yields public decision making that is

better informed, less polarized and more in tune

with citizens' priorities. Giving people the oppor

tunity to reason together in an informed way and

in an atmosphere of mutual respect opens up

new possibilities for forging areas of agreement.

Even if participants don't reach consensus, the

logic goes, they often gain an appreciation for

views different from their own. That, in turn,

makes them more likely to be satisfied with

whatever decisions are eventually reached, even i f

they don't match their preferences exactly.

In planning contexts, say proponents, delib

eration can help avoid the familiar experience of

gridlock, with interest groups dug into inflexi

ble positions. In civic life more generally, participation in citizen forums can increase citi

zens' trust in their political institutions. In fact,

the participants from Listening to the City we

surveyed were almost all enthusiastic about

their experience, and it was the deliberative

character of the discussions that hooked them.

The July 2002 forum was sponsored by the

Civic Alliance, a coalition of civic and environ

mental groups, in partnership with the chief

rebuilding organizations: the Lower Manhattan

Development Corporation and the Pott Author

ity. The sponsors hired AmericaSpeaks, a Wash

ington-based nonprofit that runs "electronic

town meetings," to put it on. The LMDC and

Port Authority ponied up for the event

weighed in on its agenda, but they commi

only to listening to the exercise's findings,

necessatily implementing them. AmericaSpe

usually insists that decision makers commi

acting on forums' recommendations, but i

context in which it was unclear just who wo

make the final decisions about Ground Zero,

endorsement was deemed sufficient.

When they signed up for Listening to

City, many interviewees expected a conventio

public hearing, with people lined up behin

microphone to speak for three minutes

"rant," as more than one put it. Instead, t

said, they found something very different. "T

most amazing thing happened," one per

reported. "I was in this town meeting and no argued, and I was listened to. It was a great d

Thirty percent of our interviewees cited the

cussions' civility when asked what they li

most about the forum.

These individuals were by no means na

about their likely impact on the rebuild

process. The participants wanted the C

Alliance and AmericaSpeaks to force LM

and Port Authority representatives to mak

firmer commitment to honor the forum's

ommendations-to "strip them bare," as

man pu t it. "They were still wear

their skivvies when they walked ou

he complained.

The skepticism was not without ba

Granted, by the following week, rebuild

officials announced that they were in

shelving the original plans and launchin

new design process. Surely, the vocifer

public response gave LMDC planners

leverage they needed to press a resistant P

Authority to agree to a new design proc

But subsequent news reports suggest that

governor's determination to put his stamp

the process, and the degree to which particu

architects were willing to alter their plans

satisfY the Port Authority's original objectivplayed much more of a role than did pub

input. Since the decision to shift gears w

made, substantial alterations have been m

to the Liebeskind design chosen from the s

ond round, making it uncomfortably sim

to a plan that was so roundly rejected by L

tening to the City participants.

PROPONENTS OF THE "deliberative democra

trend have been criticized for their failure

specifY just how it fits into the policymak

process. Before abandoning ttaditional mec

nisms of citizen input-like legally manda

public hearings and, ultimately, l i t i g a t i o n ~ CITY LIMI



ics say we must guarantee that citizen forums

come with mechanisms for holding decision

makers accountable. Indeed, it is hard to imag

ine that participants would feel more confident

in government-one of the touted benefits-if

they felt that their joint recommendations were

being ignored. "If they back off and let them

maneuver and manipulate this situation," one

Listening to the City participant said of rebuild

ing planners, "what we did will be null and

void." Yet, it is equally hard to imagine that deci

sion makers would commit in advance to hon

oring forum's recommendations unless they

were to define its agenda very narrowly. In that

vein, critics complain that the city "visioning"

plans that have been launched with great fanfare

around the country have too often ended with aset of vague-ifadmirable-principles, calls for

more meetings and a return to business as usual.

But forums like Listening to the City also

offer an interesting, if unintended, opportunity

to counter that problem: Civic coalitions and

advocacy groups can listen in, too. For groups

representing priorities that they believe are get

ting short shrift, gaining approval for their per

spectives during these deliberative forums can

offer a powerful leveraging tool against intransi-

Commitment is

gent policymakers. For example, when Oregon

held a series of community meetings to solicit

public input on health care priorities, the exer-

Small businesses

and Chinatown

residents used

the process to

get heard.

cise produced not only a new health care plan

but also a coalition of health care reformers and

citizens dedicated to protecting the plan.

It is likely that as citizen forums continue

ro proliferate, diverse interest groups will

mobilize to shape their agendas, choose who

INTELLIGENCE

THE BIG IDEA

participates in them and impact what pol

makers do with the outcomes. In fact, sev

groups managed to have an informal o

nized presence at Listening to the City: sm

businesspeople, Chinarown residents an

group lobbying for rebuilding the row

among others. They came ro get media co

age as well as ro raise public conscious

about their concerns-and they were effec

in doing so. In the following mon

they invoked the forum's findings ro prom

their agendas.

And that, of course, brings us right bac

the contentious politics that the people we

veyed found so unappealing. This is the real c

lenge facing deliberative democrats. The idea

space for political discussion that is remoftom rough-and-tumble political contentio

attractive-but virtually guarantees its poli

irrelevance. The task is to restore civility to p

lic debate without quashing contention. •

Francesca Polletta is an associate professor ofs

ology at Columbia University and is the autho

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democrac

American Social Movements (University

Chicago Press, 2002).

Tomorro\N starts todayDeutsche Bank's commitment to

global corporate citizenship recognizes a

responsibility to improve and enrich the com-

munities throughout the world in

which we conduct business.

With a focused strategy of support for com-

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ronment, Deutsche Bank partners with local

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leading to results""Our commitment to a better tomorrow

starts today.

Deutsche Bank IZIDECEMBER 2003



INTELLIGENCE

CITY LIT

Action and ReactionWhat did aheady decade ofanti-racism activism win?

By Kai Wright

To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City

By Martha Biondi

HalVard University Press; 360 pages; $39.95

REMARKING ON THE destruction wrought during

the 1943 Harlem riot, James Baldwin com

mented, "It would have been better to have left

the plate glass as it had been and the goodslying in the stores. It would have been better,

but it would also have been intolerable, for

Harlem needed something to smash."

This and other contemporary cultural

observations-from Richard Wright's angry

Native Son to Ralph Ellison's eerie Invisible

Man--capture the mid-century political zeit

geist of black urban America better than any

activist's tracts or historian's studies ever could.

Simply put, the mood was one of frustration.

The Harlem riot started with an all-too-

familiar incident: a white police officer attack

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inspired WE.B. DuBois' dream of a "talented

tenth"-the belief that if elite blacks proved

themselves in fields revered by white America,

the prejudices that allowed Jim Crow to thrive

would fade away. But as proud black soldiers

strutted about in their uniforms, the gate

keepers of America's racial caste system

responded with growing disdain rather than

respect, and violent clashes between law

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The faculty, which includes practitioners from every arena of planning, introduces students to the real-life challengesof urban development by engaging them in projects in New York City.

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• Master of Science degree in City and Regional Planning

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Pratt InstituteGraduate Center for Planning and the Environmen200 WilloughbyAve., Brooklyn, NY 11205(718) 399-4314 ext. 100 e·mail: [email protected]





Allinthe FamilyNurturing the One,

Supporting the Many: TheCenter for Family life in

Sunset Park, Brooklyv

By Peg McCartt Hess,

Brenda G. McGowan and

Michael Botsko

Columbia University

Press, $26.50

WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION for Children's Ser-

v i ~ shifted to a "neighborhood-based" approach

a few years ago, it sounded like a matter of mak

ing physical changes: clump family services in one

place, link them to nearby foster homes and trou

bled families, and, voila, you've got a far less dis-ruptive system. The Center for Family Life, a rel-

atively low-volume ACS contractor in Sunset

Park, is renowned for its success in keeping fami-lies strong and kids at home using this localized

approach. But as becomes clear in Nurturing the

One, Supporting the Many, it is philosophy, not

location, that can truly bind family services to the

people they are supposed to help.

The authors call the Center "a remarkable

example of the power and possibility of neigh

borhood based services.» A closer truth is that it

38

attests to the power of two women's vision of

how families can seek and receive support.

Instead of assuming that they knew what the

poor need, the Center's founders, Sisters Geral

dine Tobia and Mary Paul Janchill, began byask

ing Sunset Park residents what they wanted.

Underpinning every program is the sisters'

philosophy that good social work helps not just

families but the community as a whole to iden

tifY their strengths and build upon them. So

rather than boxing participants into stigmatiz

ing categories (by running a domestic violence

support group, for instance, or anger manage

ment classes), the Center offers a range of more

holistic counseling-leaving the dividing lines

simple: Women's Group, Men's Group or Teens'

Group. The Center also puts a heavy emphasison intergenerational contact. In its after-school

programs, for instance, adult staff mentor teen

counselors while the teens help younger kids.

The Center's nonjudgmental approach

allows mothers to feel comfortable asking for

support when their families are in trouble

about a third of parents in the Center's preven

tive services programs entered voluntarily. And

when kids do end up in foster care, they stay in

the neighborhood, continue using Center ser

vices and are spared the blur of temporary

homes that many foster youth endure. Indeed

only 13 of the 146 youth who have been in th

Center's foster care since 1988 lived in mor

than one place, and none moved through mor

than two homes.

At its most helpful and engaging, Nurturinthe One shows how these approaches play ou

We hear from parents and teens who explai

how particular services helped them and the

families. Social workers and administrator

describe their complex cases (families partic

pate in an average of nine different Center pro

grams) and explain why they are willing to sta

on those cases for years. In an industry tha

struggles with rapid caseworker turnover, th

Center succeeds by encouraging flexibility

autonomy, interconnectedness and respecamong clients and counselors.

Though burdened with overly clinical lan

guage, and held back by a lack of depth abou

individual families and staff, Nurturing the On

is an important blueprint for any kind of wor

that attempts to strengthen families and suppor

communities. It shows why the Center is no

just another collection of programs, but a

anchor for Sunset Park-and a model for th

sort of philosophy that can enable organization

to truly serve poor communities. -Nora McCarth

CITY LIMITS



' € l J i l l m j l ~ ' I : l i a i t 4 J : I I t 1 W l n C A project of the Center for an Urban Future

Twilight ZoningNew land-use rules will end

industry's days in GreenpointWilliamsburg-an economic

mistake the city might never

be able to reverse.

By Laura Wolf-Powers

IN THE "MIXED USE" neighborhood of Green

point-Williamsburg, industry may not be in

the mix much longer.

Under the rezoning framework, representatives of the Department of City Planning

announced to a crowd of hundreds at Green

point's Polish & Slavic Center this past sum

mer, large portions of this neighborhood are

slated to receive the city's new "MX" zoning

designation-a change that seems conceived to

encourage industry in Greenpoint-Williams

burg to fade quietly away.

While the new mixed-use designation theo

retically allows industry to remain in these

areas, it also lets property owners convert man

ufacturing spaces to non-industrial uses when

ever they wish, or "as-of-right"-a shift from

the old system, under which such conversions

were restricted to one degree or another. With

this change, industrial occupants will undoubt

edly be driven out by more lucrative residen

tial, office or retail uses.

If they allow Greenpoint-Williamsburg

where manufacturing, warehousing and trans

portation uses have traditionally blended with

retail, housing and offices-to be overtaken by

a more expensive, less diverse type of mixed

use, city officials are making an economic mis

take that they might never be able to reverse.

This is because Greenpoint-Williamsburg is

just the type of neighborhood in which light,

DECEMBER 2003

clean, specialized industry can thrive-helping

to make the city's economy more diverse and

more competitive overall.

To understand what makes Greenpoint

Williamsburg so good for light manufacturers,

it helps to consider its history. With the declineof New York's role in the regional maritime

economy, manufacturing companies streamed

out of the city in the second half of the 20th

century, seeking cheaper land, utilities and

labor. After a century of vitality, heavy industry

in Greenpoint and Williamsburg plum

meted-blessedly from the perspective of resi-

dents who had suffered from the pollution and

noise produced by "dirty" industrial uses. Some

parts of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, how

ever, survived as mixed-use communities, with

apartment buildings, retail strips and light

industry interspersed.

In the 1970s and 1980s, factory lofts began tobe occupied by smaller, custom producers cater

ing to niche consumer markets such as custom

furnishings, specialty food and fashion apparel.

Observers grew to believe that the persistent suc

cess of food firms such as the Brooklyn Brewery

and music equipment specialists like Frantone

Electronics showed that some kinds of industry

could thrive in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and

other mixed-use districts just across the river

from Manhattan. In fact, some industry

depended on these neighborhoods' eclectic, cre-

ative character and their proximity to markets.

In the early 1990s, the resurgence of light

industry in mixed-use outer-borough neigh

borhoods began to draw notice. The Depart

ment of City Planning's 1993 Citywide Indus

try Study acknowledged this seeming paradox:

The densest, most vibrant concentrations of

industrial jobs outside of Manhattan were not

in the "modern," suburban-style, low-rent

industrial parks that the city had created in

eastern Brooklyn and Queens and the north

Bronx, but in higher-cost mixed-use areas in

western Brooklyn and Queens--areas where

crime was low, where creative people wanted to

live, where Manhattan was a short truck trip or

a subway stop away. The study also cautioned

INTELLIGENC

NYC INC

that "strong industrial areas where grow

occurring also tend to attract investment f

the commercial and/or residential sectors, l

ing to competition for the land located inmanufacturing-zoned areas."

The juxtaposition of light industry to

dential and commercial uses in Greenpo

Williamsburg during this period was not

good for manufacturing; it was also welco

by the area's other occupants. Commu

plans published by residents in the late 1

cited job-creating light industry as a lo

complement to residential and comme

uses, and urged planning officials to ensure

non-polluting industrial uses could remain

So why the change to "MX" in Greenp

Williamsburg? The decision stems, at leapart, from a widely shared philosophy

holds that the city's future prosperity lies in

expansion of pricey residential enclaves

office districts, and that many mixed-use ne

borhoods, particularly those closest to Man

tan's central business district, are undergoin

inevitable, unstoppable transformation

entails the dispersal or disappearance of

industrial land uses . Dozens of "commonse

outlets, ftom the business press to the adve

ing materials of local economic developm

agencies, advance the idea that land and b

ings should operate as pure commodities

that local officials must do everything posto facilitate the extraction ofvalue from the

that is, to promote their "highest and best

It s true that the high price ofland in the

leads developers to seek out the highest pos

return on their money, which, particularly in

near the central business districts, tend

involve either commercial or high-end reside

development. But there is a chicken-and

issue here. One reason these uses are most

itable is because the city suppons this tren

does so by offering a generous array of subsi

incentives and low-interest loans to develope

high-end residential and commercial prope

Allowing industry to be displaced by other

uses, as will occur in the new "MX" zones, is

ically referred to as "letting the market alo

But that characterization is inaccurate, sinc

city intervenes plenty to create the condi

under which developers will build office s

and luxury housing. This raises a questio

industry really dying a natural death, prop

by inescapable market forces, or has it si

failed to gain the favor of policymakers wh

constantly intervening in the development

ketplace, promoting some uses at the exp

of others?

Indeed, in Greenpoint-Williamsburg i



INTELLIGENCENYC INC.

by declining to respond to the real-estate

dynamics rhe 1993 industry study predicted,

planning and economic-development officials

have arguably exacerbated market forces.Wirh rumors of rewnin g in rhe air, rhe poten

tial financial value of loft and even one-story

industrial buildings as residential and retail

properties so outstripped their value as indus

trial parcels in the mid-1990s rhat developers

and owners discouraged otherwise viable

industrial tenants from remaining, and some

times even evicted them ourright. Industrial

firms were given month-to-month leases or

faced skyrocketing rents . When firms left vol

untarily, property owners kept the land off rhe

market in anticipation of selling to residential

developers at a windfall. Industrial firms rhatsought to expand were quoted exorbitant

prices. On top of this came rhe conversion

phenomenon: Alrhough rhe development of

residential units in industrial wnes was tech

nically prohibited by the zoning code, devel

opers bid for and acquired industrial property

at prices more applicable to residential prop

erty. Their often-accurate assumption was

that rhat they would succeed in obtaining

variances - exceptions to rhe zoning code -

from the mayorally appointed Board of Stan

dards and Appeals.

City officials (in rhe Department of Build

ings and rhe BSA) might have curbed rhesepractices. But rhey did not-probably, in part,

because rhe "indusrry is dead in New York" rhe

ory dominated minds of local opinion-makers.

Zoning tools are available rhat could support

indusrry wirhout sacrificing residential and

office expansion. Groups like rhe Brooklyn

Coalition for Equitable Development, drawing

on research done at Pratt Institute, rhe New

York Industrial Retention Network and else

where, have argued for a so-called "sustainable"

or "non-transitional" mixed-use wne that gives

stricter protection to industrial properties. This

wning would make it harder for rhe owner of a

loft building to evict manufacturing tenants,

and would provide a modicum of security and

stability to industrial users when it comes to

rents. A similar measure has been successfully

implemented in rhe King-Spadina district of

Toronto. BCED also advocates more concerted

efforts to develop and nurture new indusrry in

mixed-use areas. Projects like the Brooklyn Navy

Yard (vacancy 2 percent), the Brooklyn Army

Terminal (vacancy 5 percent) and rhe Green

point Manufacturing and Design Center (no

vacancy) demonstrate that when city officials or

non profits sponsor industrial development, they

can produce vacancy rates lower rhan those in

40

many office markets.

But subscribers to rhe so-called "highest and

best use" philosophy would argue rhat if the

"MX" designation is indeed rhe death knell of

light indusrry in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and

other mixed-use communities, we are silly to

care. According to them, rhe city's industrial

base is little more rhan a relic, any factory is

more effectively used as housing or offices

because rhose uses yield more rent, and we

would do better to sever our sentimental attach

ment to rhe city's industrial past. From rhe per

spective of real-estate value, rhis makes perfect

sense. However, rhere are orher ways to imagine

rhe future--and rhere are compelling economic

reasons to do so.

First, connections between industry andsectors such as tourism, finance, fashion and

Some industries

depend on these

neighborhoods'

eclectic, creative

character.

rhe arts are hard to ignore. Firms in mixed-use

areas supply rhese sectors wirh products rhat

would often cost more if obtained ftom outside

rhe city, and rhat sometimes are difficult to

substitute. Allowing service sectors to displace

industry altogerher could, paradoxically, make

service sectors less competitive.

Second, mixed-use neighborhoods that

include light industry are arguably more effec

tive rhan homogeneous communities at

attracting creative, entrepreneurial people to

rhe city. The mass migration of artists, per

formers and orher "creatives" to Greenpoint

Williamsburg offers evidence rhat innovative,

entrepreneurial professionals, even if they work

in service indusrries, want to live near a variety

of activities. But as professionals who can pay

high rents increasingly seek out the eclecticism

of a community rhat houses restaurants, con

struction conrractors, artists in residence, and

makers of high-concept lighting fixtures, the

mixed-use (and mixed-income) character of

rhat community becomes less stable. Many res-

idents and firms rhat imparted a distinctiv

character to Williamsburg's Norrhside neigh

borhood have already been driven away by ris

ing rents, congestion and orher costs.

Finally, while the city before the recession o

rhe early 1990s seemed securely specialized i

finance and business services, rhe recovety o

rhese sectors during rhe post-recession boom di

not bring employment levels to what they ha

been in the late 1980s. Finance and advance

services are more significant in New York City

economy today not because they have grown i

absolute terms, but because with rhe depletio

of industry rhey have increased as a proportio

of total economic activity. Thus, it might pay t

think about nurturing light indusrry rhat has

competitive advantage here, such as design-oriented manufacturing. It might even pay to pro

tect this type of indusrry from the real-estat

pressures that threaten to eradicate it. Many in

the economic-development field go to grea

lengrhs to develop from scratch the sorts o

"indusrrial enclaves" rhat characterized Green

point-Williamsburg in rhe mid-1990s, an

which continue in a muted form today agains

market odds.

For all these reasons, advocates would like th

city to apply land-use and economic-develop

ment policy differently in Greenpoint-Williams

burg-to see wning rhat, unlike "MX,

acknowledges the role that indusrry plays in mixed-use neighborhood. Based on his com

ments in rhe press, it appears rhat the city

deputy mayor of economic development an

rebuilding, Daniel L. Doctoroff, concurs that

development policy rhat keeps indusrry in rh

mix is a smart choice for rhe city. But official

should move quickly. Already, in response to ris

ing residential rents in western Williamsburg

middle- and working-class tenants have indi

cated to landlords rheir willingness to live ille

gally on industrial real estate in East Williams

burg-until recently a solidly industrial area

Alrhough East Williamsburg is not being offi

cially rewned, deindustrialization will occu

there wirhout deliberate policies to prevent it.

Policies to increase the viability of indusrry i

rhe mixed-use neighborhoods where it has th

greatest chance of rhriving should be a high pri

ority for city officials. The fact that these neigh

borhoods are also appealing spots for high-en

residential and commercial development make

the challenge harder-but it is a challenge tha

should not be ignored.•

Laura Wolf-Powers is an assistant professor in th

Graduate Center for Planning and the Environ

ment at the Pratt Institute.

CITY LIMITS



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Called

Safe

L.A.Confidentcontinued rom page 15

development. "We want to change the way the

city thinks about development," says Greer,

codirector, with Shropshire, of Jobs With Justice. To achieve that, observes Rosen, policyadvocates can't act on their own: "A coalition

and a base-building arm need to work closely

together." A successful campaign takes long

term grassroots pressure to keep rolling;

knowledgeable activists to pack public meet

ings; smaller delegations to city and state agencies to tell officials the issue won't go away;

postcard campaigns that don't stop until the

public is allowed into the debate.Since Rosen founded it two years ago, the

New York Unemployment Project has put

together small but influential organizing and

advocacy campaigns, taking on New York

State's hostile unemployment insurance

agency and other strategically selected targets.

The four organizers now working on the EastHarlem subsidies will home in on leverage

points, such as agencies that give the subsidie

These could be tough nuts to crack; the city

Industrial Development Agency, for instanc

which ratifies bond financing for businesse

has in its history denied only two applications

Another pressure point can be the developers themselves. In Los Angeles, LAANE ha

successfUlly negotiated with developers, prov

ing that community groups and builders cahave mutual interests. For one thing, unde

the right circumstances, both want development projects to go forward, even when NIM

BYist neighbors oppose them. East Harlemwhich is part of the Upper Manhatta

Empowerment Zone, also presents a speci

opportunity to push companies and the city t

commit to job creation, because businesses i

the zone get a $3,000 tax: credit for each loc

resident they hire.

Shropshire says she's energized by thpotential of cross-pollinating L.A. organizerexperience with the lessons New York activis

have learned. There's good work in both citie

Shropshire says, but "none of us has come uwith the answer to reverse the trends. Decision

that impact lives are made increasingly on

global level." •

Bobbi Murray lives in Los Angeles and writes fre

quently on labor and economic developmeissues. Additional reporting by Megha Bahree.

says Orenstein. "There is a high degree of inconsistency in terms o

quality of casework and assessments, so what you get is extremes," hsays. "We also get complaints from foster parents saying the childrewere abruptly removed from their homes for no reason."

continued rom page 19

with a private agency, St. Christopher's, Inc. St. Christopher's was

recently ranked third to last of private agencies and given a grade of

"needs improvement."

What's also clear is that the Office of Confidential Investigation

has a narrowly defined role: It tries to make sure kids don't stay i

unsafe situations. But it's not there to more fundamentally address th

systemic problems that keep its investigators busy. Asserting a need fogreater scrutiny, the Public Advocate's office maintains there should b

an independent inspector general to monitor foster care agencieChildren's Rights made a similar recommendation in its report.

Orenstein is also a strong proponent of including families in th

assessment process. Children age 10 and older have the legal right tbe present when their cases are reviewed, but this rarely happens

"We're at a crossroads with the foster care system," says Orenstein. Th

city, about to cut the number of agencies, can take this opportunity tassess caseworkers for quality of services. One way is by asking chidren, parents and foster parents to participate in rating their workers

When Coakley ended up at Lincoln, hospital personnel reportedtheir suspicions of child abuse, and the Office of Confidential Investi

gation launched a probe of the Bronx foster home. The recommendation was that the foster mother should be trained in non-physical

methods of discipline. (In fact, St. Christopher's closed the home. Chris

Pardo, associate executive director of St. Christopher's, says his agency

fingerprinted adults in the home and cleared them, finding no priorcriminal history or other warning signs. The foster parent had 18 hoursof training, in accordance with policy at the time.)

The internal investigations office is not always this easy on foster parents. It can also recommend that the children be removed and the homeclosed-meaning that the foster parents are no longer eligible to care forfoster children. Much is left to the discretion of the individual workers,

Why doesn't the city already do this? One reason is that even thoug

ACS stresses family preservation as an agency priority, saving childrefrom their parenrs often remains the underlying ethos in practice. Unt

the city succeeds in shifting the paradigm to preserving families, say

Orenstein, children will continue to enter an overburdened foster car

system that can't adequately protect them. "Until we can evolve a fun

damentally different type of system," he says, "there are always going t

be these kind of problems." •



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its NYC office, provide executive ass istance,

and coordinate program administration. ESR

is a eading national center for training, staffdevelopment and curricular resources thatfoster the social, emotional , and ethical development of children. Qualifications: BA; 3-5

years experience as administrative coordina

tor, office manager and/or executive assistant;experience managing budgets using Excel;

excellent computer, and verbal and writtencommunication skills; ability to manage mUl

tiple tasks; interestlbackground in education

and social and emotional learning. Salary:

$33,000 - $38,500 plus excellent benefits.Deadline for Applications: September 26. Apply

to: Administrative Coordinator Search Com

mittee, ESR, 40 Exchange Place, Suite 1111,

New Yorll, NY 10005. Fax: 212-509-1095 ; e

mail: [email protected]. ESR recog

nizes and appreciates the benefits of diversityin the worllplace. EOE.

ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR - The Public

Health Association of NYC (PHANYC) seeks

Administrative Director for management and

operations , including supporting the Board

and its Committees, maintaining membership,

financial records, conducting communica

tions, and supporting events. Part-time 3

days/week. Beginning late fall, early winter.

The Administrative Director is the sole paid

staff, must be self- directed , well organized,

flexible, energetic. Must have excellent people,

communication skills. Candidates should have

demonstrated interest, experience and aminimu m of a bachelor's degree in public health,

non -profit or business administration.

PHANYC is a small nonprofit organization

seeking to strengthen and improve public

health in NYC. It operates through a volunteerBoard and Committees and is affiliated with

the American Public Health Association . Full

position description at www .phanyc.org. Sub

mit letter of introduction and CV to Domenica

LoVerme at [email protected] , fax: 212-245-8738, phone: 212-974-8811.

ATHLETICS INSTRUCTORS- FEGS continues to

sets the standard for excellence and innovation.

We are the largest, not-for-profit health related

and human service corporation in he US withan operating budget in excess of $170 million,

over 3,000 employees , welve subsidiary c0rpo-

rations and operations in 280 facilities through

out the metropolitan New York Area . FEGS also

provides consulting services and technical

JOB AD

assistance nationally and internationallare currently seeking experienced applican

join our TASC Program,which is an after-s

program, serving the youth in Far Rock

Queens. Applicants must be energetic, cre

and have experience in an educational or

munity based setting. All positions are

time and require HS/GED . Implement an aic program for teens, train participants i

rules and performance of a variety of s

ensure successful outcomes relating to t

work and conflict mediation. FEGS offers a

petitive salary and benefits package. P

send by mail or email acover letter and res

indicating SPECIFlC POSmON of interest

salary requirements, o our HR Consultant

Dynamics , Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS),

William Street, 4th Floor, New Yorll, New

10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E

sgsmalls@hr-dynamics .com .

BI-LiNGUAL CASE MANAGER - The H

Center on AIDS, Drugs and Community H

is seeking ahighly motivated, responsible

caring worker, bilingual fluenUbicuSpanish, o work with adolescent males aers Island and in the community at a pa

agency in an HIV preve

intervention/research project. Must be

fortable facilitating groups, conduintakes, keeping careful notes. Must be a

get DOC clearance and willing to travel.

rience with CJ, HIV preventionadolescents a plus. Please email

resume to:[email protected]@yahoo .com , put

MANAGER SEARCH in the subject line of

email or via regular mail to: Hunter Coll

CADCH, 425 East 25th Street, 8th floor,

Bldg., New York, NY 10010. AnN:

Manger Search. NO FAXES OR PHONE C

PLEASE. EOE.

CASE MANAGER - HELP USA, a natiorecognized leader in the provisions of trtional housing, residential &social servic

seeking a CASE MANAGER. Great oppor

for a professional to play an essential ro

helping families achieve permanent hous

self-sufficiency. BA Degree, computer lit

& case management experience requ

Bilingual skills (English/Spanish) highly d

able. Salary in the mid $20s & negotbased on experience. Please send resum

HELP I , Attn: Gena Watson, 515 Blake

Brooklyn , NY 11207 or faX: 718-485-5

EOE. ADrug Free Workplace.

CASE MANAGER - Our organization is

ing a Case Manager with aMasters deg

Social Work and significant experience pr

ing a full range of Case Managemen

concrete services (group and individual)special needs population. You should

familiarity with issues of substance a

homelessness, HIV/AIDS. This po

requires excellent computer skills in a

dows environment. You will need to be

mitted and energetic and be able to com

nicate on a hgh level both inwriting and

ly. The compensation package is excelle

is the worlling environment. Please res

with a detailed cover letter and resume

cating your salary requirements to:



JOB ADS

Raphael, ax 718-602-9107.

CASE MANAGER - The Citizens Advice Bureau

(CAB) is a arge, multi-service non-profit orga

nization serving the Bronx for more than 31

years. The agency provides a broad range of

individual and family services, ncluding walk

in assistance and counseling, services to spe

cial-needs populations, such as immigrants,

children , adolescents, seniors, homeless families and singles, individuals and familiesaffected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides excellent

benefits and offers opportunities for advance

ment. Resumes and cover letters indicatingposition of interest ma y be mailed to 2054

Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as

directed. CAB's Nelson Ave. Family Tier II Shel

ter seeks a Case Manager. The position

requires a bachelor's degree in social work or

related field. Position also requires excellent

skills in welfare advocacy, communication,time management, conflict resolutions and

knowledge of the foster care system . Bilingual

(Spanish) is aplus. Fax credentials to E. Neira

or B. Lewis at 718-299-1682 or e-mail it to

[email protected]. CAB is an equal opportunitylaffirmative action employer.

CASE MANAGER - The Citizens Advice Bureau

(CAB) is a arge, multi-service non-profit orga

nization serving the Bronx for more than 31

years. The agency provides a broad range of

individual and family services, ncluding walkin assistance and counseling, services to spe

cial-needs populations, such as immigrants,

children,adolescents,seniors, homeless families and singles, individuals and familiesaffected by HIVIAIDS. CAB provides excellent

benefits and offers opportunities for advance

ment. Resumes and cover letters indicatingposition of interest may be mailed to 2054

Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed asdirected. CAB seeks aCase Manager to assist

individuals in awalk-in capacity on social ser

vice needs. Responsibilities include working in

the Single Stop Project to assist individual'saccess to public benefits, legal assistance,

family assistance services, and low or no-cost

tax preparation . The Single Stop Project seeks

to provide awide range of services for familiesin the area. The position requires abachelor's

degree, and a broad knowledge base in social

services especially in the area of housing and

eviction prevention. Fax credentials to John

Weed at 718-590-5866 or email [email protected]. CAB is an equal opportunity laffirmative action employer.

CASE MANAGERS - The Citizens Advice

Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non

profit organization serving the Bronx for more

than 31 years. The agency provides a broad

range of individual and family services, nclud

ing walk-in assistance and counseling, ser

vices to special-needs populations , such as

immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,homeless families and singles, individualsand families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB pro

vides excellent benefits and offers opportunities for advancement. Resumes and cover letters indicating position of interest ma y be

mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or

faxed as directed. CAB 's Homeless Prevention

Program seeks four (4) Case Managers. The

44

positions require a bachelor's degree, good

communication and organizational skills, and

the ability to work in a ast paced environment.

Knowledge of public entitlements and bilingual English/Spanish is aplus. Fax credentials

to M. Edwards at 718-293-9767 or e-mail her

at [email protected]. CAB is an equal

opportunity laffirmative action employer.

CLIENT SERVICES COORDINATOR - Leading

advocacy and direct service organization has a

unique opportunity for an organized, clientfocused individual to be an integral part of its

inter-disciplinary team in our 24 hour multiservice center for frail, older homeless individ

uals. Assist with initial client screenings and

referrals and oversee general day-to-day facility operations, including ensuring compliance

of center's policies, and supervision of some

front line staff. The Client Services Coordinatorwill interact with clients on a egular basis and

manage multiple tasks in abusy environment.

Direct social service experience required, bilingual a plus. We offer excellent salary and

benefits. Work schedule is Saturday - Wednes

day, 4 p.m . to midnight. Send resume andcover letter to: Human Resources Rep., The

Partnership for the Homeless, 305 Seventh

Ave. NY NY 10001. AAlEOE M/FIDN/sO

CLINICAl COORDINATOR - The Clinical Coor

dinator is responsible for the supervision and

direct oversight of Vocational Counselors in

employment program that serves mentally ill,former substance abusers , hose with HIVIAIDS

and individuals with other disabilities living in

supportive housing. This position has significant decision-making, supervisory, administrative, and program management responsi

bilities. Inter- team coordination and contract,regulatory and policy compliance are key func

lions to this position. Reqs: CSW. Aminimumof 3years post-masters direct experience with

population(s) served by the program including

administrative and supervisory experience;

strong writing and verbal communicationskills, and computer literacy. Salary: $46,459.

Benefits: compo bnlts incl $65/month in transit checks. Send resumes and cover letters by

9/29/03 to: Carlene Scheel, CUCs/Career Net

work, c/o The Prince George14 E. 28th Street,

New York, NY 10016. Fax: 212-471- 0790,

Email:[email protected]. CUCS is committed to

workforce diversity. EEO

CLINICAL SOCIAl. WORKER - HELP USA, anationally recognized leader in the provisions of

transitional housing, residential &social services,has aposition avail foraClinical Social Worker. As

part of the interdisciplinary team , the Clinician

will provide assessment, short &ong term coun

seling, as well as crisis intervention for families &

groups, ncluding children, who reside in ashelter

for survivors of domestic violence & heir families.Will also facilitate referrals for services to support

those offered on- site & to continue with post

placement. Requirements: MSW or related degree

will only be considered. Excellent oral communica

tion skills as well as clinical skills are necessary.

Proficiency in computers &Windows based software required. Bilingual skills (English/Spanish)

are highly preferred. NYS driver'S license (unre

stricted) also necessary.Salary: starts in the low to

mid $30s but commensurate with experience.

Please send resumes to: Ted McCourtney,

Team Leader, PO Box 641, NY, NY

10037, via fax at 212-862-4376 or email:

[email protected]. EOE. A drug free

workplace.

COMMUNITY AFFAIRS & E-ADVOCACY COOR

DINATOR - Yes, Planned Parenthood! PPNYC

is currently recruiting for a Community Affairs

& e-Advocacy Coordinator. Reporting to the

Associate Vice President, the Coordinator willbe responsible for mobilizing people both in

communities throughout New York City and

within PPNYC to support and secure full access

to reproductive freedom and sexual health .

Identifies key constituencies and develops and

carries out mobilizing strategies. Works closely

with other staff members to coordinate activistrecruitment, retention and activation efforts in

line with agency lobbying and legislative goals.

Works closely with other departments to lever

age agency resources in support of grassroots

advocacy goals. Trains current and potential

activists, mentors other organizations, and

coordinates lobbying events. Recruits and

retains activists through diverse activities,including strategic use of the PPNYC GetAc

tiveAction Network on-line communication sys

tem, tabling at various outside events, speaking to community and campus groups, and

direct mailings. Develops recruitment and

retention materials, including regular activistupdates. Plans and executes outreach, educa

tion and appreciation events, leveragingagency and community resources. Bachelor'S

degree and 2 3 ears of related and/or applicable experience . The ideal candidate must

have strong speaking, writing, organizational

and people skills. He or she must be able to

work effectively in coalitions and with economically diverse communities. Must have working

knowledge of on -line advocacy systems. Musthave knowledge offend demonstrated commitment to reproductive health care issues. Inter

ested candidates should submit their resume

and cover letter with salary requirement to:

Human Resources Department - Fax 212-274-7243 or Email [email protected]. Planned

Parenthood of New York City, Inc. is an Equal

Opportunity Employer committed to a diverse

workforce. For more information on our programs and services, please visit our website atwww.ppnyc.org.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPER - Direct a hree tierCommunity Service Program that provides

emergency food ,clothing, and advocacy assistance . Manage multiple funding sources:

(FEMA, HPNAP, EFAP). Responsible for commu

nity outreach and relations and establishing

agency networks. Organize advocacy efforts

with staff, other community based organiza

tions, community members, and elected officials. Supervise Site Coordinator and Ameri

corps Volunteer. Coordinate special projects:Community-wide ElTC assistance. Lead grassroots community organizing parent and teen

advocacy group (ATAG). Design and provide

workshops to community residents: Health

Care, Housing, Subsidy Education for landlords, and Becoming a Family Childcare

Provider. Attend frequent evening and daytime

community 1 citywide meetings and events.

Contact [email protected] or FAX to J. Jean-

Francois at 718-788-2275.

COMMUNITY FOUOW-UP WORKER - The Ci

izens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multservice non-profit organization serving th

Bronx for more than 31 years. The agency pro

vides a broad range of individual and famiservices, including walk-in assistance an

counseling, services to special-needs popula

tions, such as immigrants, children , adoles

cents, seniors, homeless families and singlesindividuals and families affected by HIVIAID

CAB provides excellent benefits and offeropportunities for advancement. Resumes an

cover letters indicating position of interest ma

be mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx,NY 1045

or faxed as directed. CAB 's COBRA Program

seeks a Community Follow-Up Worker to wo

as part of an intensive case manageme

team working with HIV positive individuals an

their families. Responsibilities include hom

office, and field visits, filing, and writinprogress notes. The position requires goo

organizational skills. Bilingual English/Spaish is a plus. Fax credentials to J. Smith-Hou

at 718-293-9767 or e-mail her [email protected]. CAB is an equal opportunty laffirmative action employer.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - St. Nichola

Neighborhood Preservation Corporation seek

an Organizer to staff the Wiliiamsburg!Green

point Co-op Network, a peer support networ

for limited equity (low-income) co-op residen

in Williamsburg! Greenpoint. Knowledge

Housing Development Fund Coop manage

ment, governing documents and organization

al structure good written and verbal commun

cations skills, HS diploma or GED required

Organizing and/or training experience , spoke

Spanish, and some college desirable. Sala

commensurate with experience and excellebenefits package. Fax resume to Alison Corder

at 718-486-5982 or e-mail t

[email protected].

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - The CitizenAdvice Bureau (CAB) is a arge, multi-servic

non-profit organization serving the Bronx fmore than 31 years. The agency provides

broad range of individual and family services

including walk-in assistance and counseling

services to special-needs populations, such a

immigrants , children, adolescents , seniorhomeless families and singles , individuaand families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro

vides excellent benefits and offers opportun

ties for advancement. Resumes and cover leters indicating position of interest may b

mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453,

faxed as directed . CAB's Children and Yout

Department seeks aCommunity Organizer. Th

position requires a bachelor's degree . Expe

ence in organizing preferred. Responsibilitie

include recruitment of parents in the commu

nity, facilitation of committees and their wordeveloping campaigns around school issue

and making educational information access

ble to parents and the community. Fax creden

tials to R. Parithivel at 718-590-5866 or e

mail her at [email protected]. CAB is a

equal opportunity laffirmative action employe

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - This is a ull-tim

CITY LIMITS



position responsible for organizing CUCS staff

and consumers to influence public policies thataffect the CUCS community. The Community

Organizer is an agency-wide position that works

with all of the CUCS service sites including two

transitional service programs and nine permanent supportive housing programs. Resp : Coor

dinate and provide administrative support to

the CUCS Advocacy Committee. Develop tenant

and staff leadership. Plan advocacy- relatedevents and activities.Coordinate voter registra

tion/education/get out the vote efforts. Prepare

summaries, updates and correspondences on

policy issues.Develop and maintain systems for

the efficient dissemination of informationthroughout the organization. Represent theagency at various community meetings. Serve

as a resource on public policy issues. Reqs:Bachelor degree. Experience in advocacy andlor

community organizing. Minimum of two years

experience working with people who have expe

rienced homelessness, mental illness, or HIV

disease. Excellent verbal and written communi

cation skills-public speaking experience helpful.Computer literacy and strong organizational

skills. Supervisory experience preferred . Benefits: compo bnfts incl $65/month in transitchecks. Send resumes and cover letters by

9126/03 to: Vuka Stricevic, CUCs/Housing

Resource Center, 120 Wall S. 251FL, New York,NY 10005. Fax: 212-635-2191. CUCS is com

mitted to workforce diversity. EEO

COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER - Sylvan

Education Solutions is seeking a Community

Relations Manager for our No Child Left Behind

supplemental tutoring programs in New York

Cty. Responsibilities include promoting pro

grams to parents of eligible children, develop

ing relationships between Sylvan and key com

mun ity leaders and organizations and estab

lish ing a network of school sites, communitysites and faith-based sites as appropriate forthe delivery of Sylvan 's programs . For more

information and to apply, please visit Careers

in our K 12 Education Services section at

ww w.sylvan.net. EEO

COMPUTER INSTlIUCTOR - FEGS continues to

sets the standard for excellence and innovation.We are the largest, not-for-profit health related

and human service corporation in the US with

an operating budget in excess of $160 million,over 3,000 employees, twelve subsdiary corpo

rations and operations in 280 facilities through

out the metropolitan New York Area . FEGS also

provides consulting services and technical

assistance nationally and internationally. Weare currently seeking experienced instructos to

join our Career Development Institute serving

youth in the Bronx. Responsible for instructing

students on usage of personal computers utilizingvarious Windows-based software and facilitating on-line remedial education programs.Bachelors in Computer Technology or related

field preferred . Prior experience working in acomputer lab or other educational settingrequired. FEGS offers acompetitive salary and

benefits package. Please send by mail or email

a cover letter, indicating salary requirements,wth your resume to our HR Consultants: HR

Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS) , 161 William

Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York 10038. E

mail sgsmalls@hr-dynam

ics

.com

.

CONTROUER - The Controller will serve as

the financial executive responsible for AAFE

and its affiliates ' financial , reporting and

internal control systems. The Controller wi ll

report directly to the Executive Director and willbe responsible to the Board of Directors for the

timely and accurate production of financial

statements. Please view full job description at

ww w.aafe.org.

COORDINATOR - Full limelPart lime AfterSchool program based in school. Recruit, rain ,supervise staff, program development. Work

closely with school administration and parents.Bachelor's degree and previous administrativeexperience preferred. Fax resume to 914-963-4566 Attention: After School Coordinator

COORDINATOR OF ADULT EDUCATION

Responsibilities include: recruit students ;design curricula ; each English,Spanish,com puter literacy and GED classes; supervise project staff; undraising.Salary based on experience, generous benefits. Bi-lingualEnglishlSpanish a must. Adult education and

organizing experience preferred . Ema il/faxresume and cover letter to And rew Friedman:[email protected] or 718-418-9635 .

DANCE INSTRUCTOR - The Citizens Advice

Bureau (CAB) is a large, mUlti-service non



range of individual and family services,including walk-in assistance and counseling,services to special-needs populations , such as

immigrants , children, adolescents, seniors,homeless families and singles, individualsand families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro

vides excellent benefits and offers opportunities for advancement. Resumes and cover let

ters indicating position of interest ma y bemailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453,or

faxed as directed . CAB 's Families TogetherProgram seeks a part-time Dancer. Responsi

bilities include teaching and providing dance

instruction to program participants. Fax cre

dentials to F. Thomas at 718-716-1065 or e

mail her at [email protected]. CAB is an

equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.

DANCE INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues to

sets the standard for excellence and innovation. We are the largest, not-for-profit health

related and human service corporation in the

US with an operating budget in excess of $170


sidiary corporations and operations in 280faci lities throughout the metropolitan New York

Area . FEGS also provides consulting servicesand technical assistance nationally and inter

nationally. We are currently seeking experienced applicants to join our TASC Program ,which is an after-school program, serving theyouth in Far Rockaway, Queens . Appl icants

must be energetic, creative and have experience in an educational or community based

setting.All positions are part- time and requireHS/GED. Teach African dance, ballet andlormodern dance. Experience organizng

shows/recitals is mandatory. FEGS offers acompetitive salary and benefits package.Please send by mail or email acover letter and

resume, ndicating SPECIFIC POSITION of inter-

est and salary requirements , o our HR Consultants: HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS) , 161

Will iam Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York

10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or [email protected].

DATABASE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER - Man

age development/maintenance of database

applications; Supervise programming staff;Provide programming support especiallyimplementing Team Approach fundraising sys

tem; Design databases to facilitate other

departments' work;Software application training.Bachelor degree in Computer Science;Five

years relevant experience; Full project cycle

management experience in database develop

ment; Experience with Oracle, SOL query language; Supervision experience. letter of inter

est, resume, salary requirements to AClU

Human Resources-DDMIIT, 125 Broad Street,18th Floor, New York, NY 10004.

DATA-ENTRY PROFESSIONAL - The Citizens

Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service

non-profit organization serving the Bronx for

more than 31 years. The agency provides abroad range of individual and family services,including walk-in assistance and counseling,services to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,homeless families and singles, individuals and

families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides

excellent benefits and offers opportunities for

advancement. Resumes and cover letters indi

cating pos ition of interest may be mailed to

2054 Morris Ave . Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed asdirected .CAB 'sPositive Uving Program seeks aData-entry Professional. The pos ition requires

GEDIHS Diploma and must have excellent com

munication skills and at least one year of data

entry andlor secretarial experience. Bilingual

of Spanish is a plus. Fax credentials to R Bowens at 718 -716-1065 or e-mail it to her [email protected]. CAB is an equal opportu

nity /affirmative action employer.

DAY CARE DIRECTOR - The Ctizens Advice




range of individual and family services,including walk-in assistance and counseling,services to special-needs populations,such as

immigrants, children, adolescents , seniors,homeless families and singles, individualsand families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB provides excellent benefits and offers opportuni

ties for advancement. Resumes and cover letters indicating postion of interest ma y be

ma iled to 2054 Morris Ave .Bronx,NY 10453, or

faxed as directed. CAB 's Community Center

seeks a Day Care Director. The positionrequires a Master's degree in early childhood

education with aminimum of 2years of supervisory experience licensed by the NYC Board ofEducation or certified by the NYS Education

Department as a teacher in early childhood

education . Responsibil ities include operation

of the learning center, supervision of staff,staff training, classoom activity preparation,enro llmen t procedures, and fiscal manage

ment. Cand idates must possess knowledge of

day care routinesand policies and have strong

organizational, writing and verbal skills. Fax

JOBAD

credentials to J.Weed at 718-590-5866

mail her at [email protected]. CAB is an

opportunity /affirmative action employer.

DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR - The CitAdvice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-se

non-profit organization serving the Bron

more than 31 years . The agency provid

broad range of individual and family ser

including walk-in assistance and counsservices to special-needs populations, su

immigrants, children, adolescents , se

homeless families and singles, ndividualfamilies affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB pro

excellent benefits and offers opportunitie

advancement. Resumes and cover letters

cating position of interest may be mail

2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or fax

directed . The Citizens Advice Bureau

seeks a Department Director for Childr

Youth Services. Incumbent oversees prog

serving over 1,000 children and teens in

munity center and school-based locations

operates several after school, summer

and adolescent development programs, n

ing tutoring programs and a parent orgaproject, sponsorship of a small public

school. Incumbent supervises four pro

directors,who supervise ten program coo

tors. Responsible for program develop

supervision, fund raising, staff develop

monitoring income and expenses , and co

management. Requires Masters degree

years experience supervising large prog

budget management and grant writing eence, knowledge of youth development is

background in education , understandi

program and staff development, and exc

communication skills. Competitive s

Resume, cover letter & salary history to

Courtney at 2054 Morris Avenue , Bron

10453, fax 718-365-0697, or [email protected] . No calls. CAB

equal opportunity /affirmative action emp

DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE - Awa rd wsupportive housing program in down

Brooklyn seeks Development Profess

Responsible for expanding base of privat

ing;working with volunteers to develop sp

events; developing marketing plan inclnewsletter and annual appeal; preparing

motional materials. Report to Executive

tor. Send cover letter including salary h

writing sample, and resume to H

Resources, Fax: 718-625-0635

DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE - The New an award-winning not-for-profit book pub

er, seeks a ull-time Development Associ

support the Press 's fundraising efforts

foundations and individual donors. Resp

bilities include: Assembling and some drof grant proposals; Tracking all grantsgrant payments, renewals, etc.; Mainta

updated accounting of all grant income;T

ing and drafting grant reports; Coord inspecial events, including managing itions , guest lists, catering, rentals, follocorrespondence, and collections ; Ke

development mnutes, tracking foundcontacts; Managng all foundation-redocuments&database iles;Conducting

dation-related research; Coordinatin



JOBADS

development-related book mailings; Draftingand mailing annual report; Managing mailingsand contacts database of the Press's subscription program; Serving as point person for

interaction with foundations and individualdonors. Previous fund raising experience in a

not-for-profit setting required. Position

requires excellent verbal and writing skills,

diplomacy, attention to detail, pro-activeness,

discretion, high energy level. Minorityapplicants are strongly encouraged to

apply. Please submit resumes tonewpress@thenewpress .com

DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR - North Star Fund

(NSF: www.northstarfund.org), a progressive

foundation, seeks dynamic fundraiser to support grassroots,social justice activism in NYC .

The DO must provide vision/strong leadership

to: create and implement annual fund raising

plans; expand NSF donor base ; manage

events, among other tasks.Qualifications:Pro

gressive values, 3 o 5years fund raising expe

rience in non-profits, or culture/arts, excellent

written/oral communication skills. Compensa

tion : 40- 45k including an excellent benefitspackage. To Apply: Cover letter and resume to

NSF/ 305 7th Ave, 5th FI / N.Y., N.Y. 10001. Or,

e-mail [email protected], "Devel

opment Director Candidate" in subject line.

DIRECTOR - The Correctional Association

seeks a committed activist to lead its Women

in Prison Project. Duties include developing

and initiating advocacy strategies: organizing

a coalition of organization and individualsconcerned with women in prison issues; and

preparing public education materials. The

successful candidate must be able to do

research and policy analysis and write clearlyand concisely. Compensation including salary

commensurate with experience plus excellentbenefits. Interested persons should send writing samples and a resume to Robert Gangi,

Correctional Association, Attn: WIPP Search,

135 East 15th Street, New York, NY 10003

DIRECTOR OF ADULT SERVICES - Responsi

ble for management, administrative oversight,

supervision and coordination of existing and

future shelters/programs for adult popula

tions. Responsibilities include direct supervision of program directors, grant writing, iscaladministration and community relations.Experience in program service forthe homeless

and multi-site administration necessary.

MAIMS degree, computer literacy and excellent

communication skills a must. Sal $68+ benefits . Fax 212 -337-7279 or e-mail resumes to

[email protected] . NO

PHONE CALLS.

DIRECTOR OF CONSTITUENT SERVICES -

Seeking staffer to address local issues, build

relationships with local organizations and

leaders, liaison to agencies, manage con stituent services. Need high energy, attentionto detail. Experience and knowledge of Brook

lyn helpful. Salary DOE. Women, people of color

urged to apply. Email cover letter and resume

to [email protected] .us or fax 718 -

854 -1146

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT - Astraea Les-

46

bian Foundation for Justice seeks aDirector of

Development. The Director of Development willoversee all fundraising activities, member ser

vices and philanthropic education and advo

cacy programs. Salary is commensurate with

experience. Excellent pension, vacation and

health benefits. For details please visitwww.astraeafoundation.org. Mail, e-mail(please include resume in body of e-mail) or

fax a cover letter and resume to: Laura Miller,Assistant to the Executive Director atthe Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

116 E 16th Street, 7th Floor, New York,

NY 10003/fax 212-982-33211e-mail :Imiller@astraeafoundat ion.org. No phone

calls, please.Only applicants being considered

wi II be contacted.

DIRECTOR, AFFILIATE DIVERSITY AND MAN

AGEMENT SERVICES - Working with 53 affiliates, Provide leadership for Executive Direc

tors and Affirmative Action Officers to ensure

compliance with ACLU's internal affirmative

action policy; Initiate programs to enhance

goals of diversity; Evaluate development of

internal affirmative action policies; Assessannual affirmative action reports; Serve as

Chair of ACLU 'sDiversity Working Group; Main

tain Staff Recruitment Resource Manual.

Advanced degree; 8 years experience at a

senior management level with focus in financial management, human resources; Experi

ence preparing financial analyses. Letter of

interest and resume to ASD Dir D&M Svcs, 125

Broad Street 18th FI., New York, NY 10004.

DIRECTOR, AFFILIATE MARKETING AND COM

MUNICATIONS - Working with 53 affiliatechapters to identify opportunities for promo

tion ; Develop marketing programs accordingly;

Enhance communication between affiliates

and national office; Oversee affiliate events;Create written promotional materials for adap

tation ; Provide marketing for national events;

Conduct site visits. College degree, 8 years of

marketing, communications, public relationsexperience. Superior writing skills, knowledge

of web -based communications ; experience

managing major events. Letter of interest,

resume to ASD Dir M&C , 125 Broad Street 18th

FI., New York, NY 10004.

EMPLOYMENT COORDINATOR - The South

west Brooklyn Industrial Development Corpora

tion - a Brooklyn-based, industrial economic

development organization , seeks a qualified,

motivated individual to work as its Employ

ment Coordinator. The Employment Coordinator will implement SWBIDC's employment ser

vices program, designed to link individuals in

the neighborhood to jobs in the industrial park.

Fax or mail cover letter, resume and salary

requirements by October 17 to Employment

Coordinator Search, SWBIDC, 269 37th Street,

Brooklyn , NY 11232. Fax: 718-965-4906. See

www .swbidc.org for job description.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - GIRLS INCORPORAT

ED OF NEW YORK CITY, an independent affiliate of Girls Incorporated, seeks a new Execu

tive Director. Incorporated in 1999, its missionis to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and

bold and its primary emphasis is reaching the

underserved girls of NYC ages 6-18 through

direct service programs and partnerships.The

Executive Director reports to a self-perpetuat

ing Board of Directors; currently ten staffmembers report to the Executive Director. Suc

cessful candidates will demonstrate experience in managing planning and implementa

tion, n working with New York City's non-prof

its, youth organizations,corporate and govern

ment partnerships and political advocacy net

works, in major donor fundraising and inunderstanding the needs of the underserved

as well as people in all stations in life. Highly

valued personal attributes include acollabora

tive leadership style, effective communication

skills ,energy and an entrepreneurial spirit and

a sense of humor. Qualified applicants should

send a cover letter, resume and a ist of references to: Leah S Rhys ; Resource Group 175 ;

236 Mississippi Avenue; Sewanee, TN. 37375.

Email: [email protected]; Fax: 931-598-9786.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - The Coalition forAsian American Children and Families (CACF)

is an advocacy organization that speaks out

for underserved Asian American children in

New York City. CACF is seeking a full-timeExecutive Director to lead the organization intoa new phase of growth. Responsibilities

include: fundraising, financial management,

public relations, research and informationgathering , program planning, evaluation ,

coalition building, and government relations.

The ideal candidate will be passionate about

CACF's mission ; knowledgeable about Asian

American communities; and experienced in

fundraising, public policy and nonprofit man

agement. The candidate should have a Mas

ters degree in a relevant field ; have demon

strable leadership experience; and reputabilityin the nonprofit sector, Asian American com

munity and/or child advocacy world. Salary is

commensurate with experience. Interestedcandidates should send resume and cover let

ter with salary history and requirements via e

mail ASAP to search@cac/.org. No phone calls,

please. For further information, please visit our

website at www.cacf.org.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/CEO - Tucson Al.: Pri

mavera Foundation, broadly-respected non

profit providing a continuum of affordable

housing ranging from homeownership/ afford

able rental to emergency housing! relief ser

vices for the poor, seeks talented CEO to

expand rental opportunities while sustaining

the corporation's position of community lead

ership, advocacy & service following a merger

with Primavera Builders &Primavera Services .60-person staff; 9 facilities ; 5.lMbudget. EOE Fax 520-623-6434 OR E-mailadmin@primavera .org Detail athttp://www.nonprofitjobs.org

FAMILY WORKER - The Citizens Advice



than 31 years . The agency provides a broad

range of individual and family services, nclud

ing walk-in assistance and counseling, ser

vices to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants, children, adolescents , seniors,

homeless families and singles, ndividuals and

families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB provides

excellent benefits and offers opportunities for

advancement. Resumes and cover letters ind

cating position of interest may be mailed

2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed

directed. CAB's CAPS Program seeks a Fam

Worker. Responsibilities include working w

students that have a history of absenteeis

calling students homes, communicating w

parents about the students future, and co

ducting home visits. Other responsibiliti

include providing ongoing counseling with stdents and family members, reporting to scho

personnel, and participating in meetings. F

credentials to J. Weed at 718-590-5866 or

mail him at [email protected]. CAB isan equ


FIELD ACCOUNTANT - The Field Accounta

prepares accounting and financial reports a

assists in ensuring accurate accounting sy

tems and record keeping. He/she willresponsible for preparing journal entrie

expense vouchers, bank reconciliations, a

conducting internal control audits. Reqs: BA

Accounting , Business Administration, Finan

or related field . Minimum of three years

direct experience in the areas of accountinbudgeting,or finance in not-for-profit. An Ass

ciates degree + 3 years of experience may

substituted for the Bachelors degree. Demo

strated skill in, and experience with, accouing software (American Fundware a plus)

well as database and spreadsheet softwa

Strong customer service and interperson

skills required. Salary: $38,799. Benefi

compo bnfts incl $65/month in transit chec

Send resumes and cover letters by 9129/03

David Rivera ,CUCS Administrative Offices, 1

Wall St. 251FL, New York, NY 10005. CUCS

committed to workforce diversity. EEO

FINANCE MANAGER - The Amethyst Wome

Project is a apidly growing nonprofit providicrisis intervention and prevention services

Coney Island for people with HIVIAIDS and su

stance abuse.The Finance Manager will repto the Executive Director, developing the bu

get , implement fiscal systems, manage a

process all financial activities includiaccounting and contract management, dev

op and implement internal controls , iscal pocies and procedures, coordinate annual a

regulatory audits and provide regular financreports to the Executive Director, he board a

funders. The position will also oversee IT a

perform administrative and human resour

management functions. The ideal candida

will have a BA in Finance or Accounting,

years progressively responsible nonproaccounting and management experience, pr

ficiency in nonprofit accounting softwa

preferably FUND-EZ and excellent written a

oral communication skills. Salary: Up

$55,000+ benefits, depending on qualific

tions. Send resume and cover letter to: Searc

CRE, 39 Broadway, 10th floor, NY, NY 1000

Fax: 212-616-4994 or [email protected].

FINANCE/ACCOUNTING - Large not-for-proseeks individuals with the following finaciaVaccounting experience at all levels: HU

section 8, HUD section 8 202 , Knowledge

CAMS, HUD regulatory reporting, Budgetin

Financial reporting. Send resume to: WA BO

N-249,

555 Kinderkamack Road, Oradell,

CITY LIMIT



07649. EOElAA.

FISCAL DIRECTDR - Non-profit social service

agency in Southern Weschester, $4 million bud

get. Fund Accounting experience, supervisory

experience and a elated degree required. Com

puter literacy amust. Salary negotiable - range

$65 - $70's. Resume to: Fiscal Search, PO Box

1248, Yonkers, NY 10702 Fax: 914-963-4566.

FRDNT DESK STAFF - Affordable Housing.

Community-based nonprofit housing organi

zation seeks weekday/weekend on-call front

desk staff, various locations in west midtown

for all shifts. Answer phones ; control building

access , type letters, data entry, filling ; Com

puter Skills AMust (MS OFFICE). Fax resume to

212-582-9029.

FUNDRAISING DATABASE MANAGER, DEVELOP

MENT DEPARTMENT - Oversee record keeping

for top donors!high dollar gifts; Create quality

control reports; Generate donors' information for

solicitation/reporting; Develop coding logic to

track information; Supervise processing staff.

Three years experience administering fundraising databases; Experience creating queries;

Knowledge of Microsoft Word mail merge; Profi

ciency Excel and Outlook; Attention to detail.

Letter of interest, resume to Director of Develop

ment, Fundraising Databa se Manager 125

Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004.

GYMNASTIC INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues

to sets the standard for excellence and innova

tion. We are the largest, not-for-profit health

related and human service corporation in the

US with an operating budget in excess of $170



facilities throughout the metropolitan New York

Area . FEGS also provides consulting servicesand techn ical assistance nationally and inter

nationally. We are currently seeking experi

enced applicants to join our TASC Program,which is an after-school program , serving the

youth in Far Rockaway, Queens . Applicantsmust be energetic, creative and have experi


setting.All positions are part- time and require

HS/GED. Develop and implement agymnastics

program. Familiar with USGA sanctioned com

petition routines, appropriate spotting tech

niques and skill development. Experience as aphysical education instructor, competing gym

nast or a certified gymnastics coach. FEGS

offers acompetitive salary and benefits pack

age. Please send by mail or email acover letter and resume, indicating specific position of

interest and salary requirements, to our HR

ConSUltants: HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept.

SS/ECS) , 161 William Street, 4th Floor, New

York, New York 10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E

mail [email protected].

HOMEOWNERSHIP COUNSELOR - Bridge

Street Development Corporation ,a aith-basedcommunity development corporation seeks ahighly-motivated homeownership counselorand marketing coordinator. S/he will market

and sell newly constructed and renovated 2to4

family homes ,assist in mortgage prequalification, train groups on topics such as financial

readiness for homeownership and mortgage

DECEMBER 2003

products , and participate in programs and

events to reduce "predatory lending." Qualifications: BS/BA, 2 years experience in home

ownership counseling or sales; superior com

munication skills; solid quantitative and ana

lytical skills, and Word , Excel and Access pro

ficiency. Salary: Commensurate with experi

ence. Forward resume and cover letter and

salary requirements to: Bridge Street Develop

ment Corporation , 266 Stuyvesant Avenue,Brooklyn, NY 11221 Attn: Homeownership

Counselor Search Fax: 718-573-6874 . E-mail:[email protected].

HOUSE MANAGER - Housing works, an innov

ative non-profit agency is seeking a prof'! to

work for client-centered supportive housing

facilities serving special needs population . We

are a NYC community-based non-profit org &desires employees committed to quality service

and advocacy, able to exercise good judgment

in problem so lving and thrive in astressful and

active team environment. Requirements

include college degree , specialized certifications or equivalent 5+ yrs in residential man

agement and hands-on exp property administration, including rent collection & leasing.Individual must have knowledge of Federal ,State and local sources of rental subsidy,multi-family property procedures and regula

tions, proficiency in Microsoft Office, Bilingualcapability and excellent communications skills

are highly desirable. Must be able to work flex

ible hrs if needed. Duties & Responsibilit ies: -Responsible for the safe management and

daily operation of the residence. - Supervises

residential staff (5-7 people) and assists with

training - Insure adherence to administrativeand regulatory requirements - Work coopera

tively with clinical program staff and executive

director - Respond to emergency situations outside normal business hours. We offer a com

petitive compensation package. Please send

resume , cover letter with list of major profes

sional accomplishments, & salary history, in

confidence to: FAX: House Manager, GA, 212-868-4222, Email: [email protected].

HOUSING SPECIALIST - HELP USA, anationally recognized leader in the provisions of transi

tional housing, residential & social services , is

seeking a Housing Specialist to assist families

in sec uring permanent housing. Real estate

and/or government low income housing, leasing

negotiation skills &experience required. Bache

lors Degree preferred. Must have avalid drivers

license. Bilingual skills (English/Spanish) high

ly desirable. Salary in the low to mid $20s &based on experience. Please send resumes to:

HELP I, Attn: Gena Watson, 515 Blake Ave,Brooklyn, NY 11207 orfax: 718-485-5916. EOE.

ADrug Free Workplace.

HOUSING STABILIZATION CASE MANAGER -Help Yonkers ' tenants with history of housing

crises to devise/implement plans to stabilizetheir households and improve self-sufficiency;

assist agency's paralegal and tenant organiz

er in eviction prevention cases; use data base

to track clients ' progress and make reports to

funders. Send cover letter and resume to 914-

376-1336.

INDEPENDENT LIVING CASE MANAGER - Bronx

Supported Housing Residence seeks case man

ager experienced in working with special needs

populations. Member of support services team

with responsibilities of caseload , group work,and service planning in collaboration with

clients.Must have Masters degree in social work,psychology, counseling , or public health. Track

record in substance abuse and HIV preferred ;excellent listening and communication skills;

patience; energy; computer proficiency. Salary40K+ commensurate with experience. EOE. Fax

cover letter and resume: 718-508-3013.

INTAKE SPECIALIST - Multi-service agency

for people with disabilities seeking bilingual

(EngJSp.) intake worker. Must be empathetic

w/ good communication skills. Quick learner.Knowledge of Access preferred but not neces

sary. Salary $23-$26k. Good benefits .Resumes to [email protected] or fax to

212-496-5608, Attn. Joscelyne.

LEGAL ADVOCATE - UJC's Homelessness Out

reach and Prevention Project seeks a legal

advocate to run one of our legal clinics , where

JOBAD

we provide advice, referrals, advocacy,representation for low-income New Yor

College degree, strong written/verbal com

nication and organizational/administraskills, and endless patience are essen

Spanish or Mandarin and/or Cantonese flucy (or at least aptitude) are very helpful.

mit cover letter detailing public interest e

rience/interest, resume, and references

10/15/03 to HOPP Advocate Search, Broadway, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10

Salary commensurate with experience; ge

ous vacation, full medicaVdental benefits

LEGISLATIVE-COMMUNITY AIDE - Comm

ty Liaison for State Assemblywoman.

bright, iterate, articulate college grad for

stituent work,correspondence ,community

reach and representation in exciting multitural district. Must have car. Fax cover leresume, writing sample to 718-266-5391.

MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER - Astraea Les

Foundation for Justice seeks aMajor Giftscer. The Major Gifts Officer, who reports to

- PRO F ES S ON A LD IRE CTOR y

SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATEJ-51 Tax Abatement/Exemption 421A and 421B

Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All formsof government-assisted housing, including USC/Enterpr ise,

Section 202, State Turnkey and NYC Partnership Homes

KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS

Attorneys at LawEastchester, N.Y.

Phone: (914) 395-0871

. J U L I A R E I C H G R A P H I C D E S I G N

212.721.9764

.J R EI C H 2 @ E A R T H L I N K . N E T

WWW.C R EATIVEH O TLIST .C O M / .J REICH

A D S , A N N U A L REPORTS, a O O K D E S I G N , B R OC H U R E S , C A T A LOGS ,

OFFICE SPACE PROBLEMS?

lI.WIdCS1

CS I CONoSULTANToS INC .

(845) 566-1267

Expert Real Estate Services - once

available only to major corporations and

institutions -No w offered to NYC's Non-Profits . . .

at no out·of.pocket cost,

or at specially reduced rates.

Visit ou r web site: www.npspace.com

Call ·for a free, no-obligation consultation .

www.npspace.com

4



JOB ADS

Director of Development and works closely with

the Executive Director and anational Board of

Directors, will lead Astraea 's major gift and

planned giving programs. Salary is commen

surate with experience. Excellent pension,

vacation and health benefits. For detailsplease visit www.astraeafoundation.org. Mail.e-mail (please include resume in body of e

mail) or fax acover letter and resume to: aura

Miller,Assistant to the Executive Director at theAstraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. 116 E

16th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003/fax212-982-3321/e-mail: Imiller@astraeafoun

dation.org. No phone calls, please . Only applicants being considered will be contacted.

MUSIC INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues to

sets the standard for excellence and innovation. We are the largest. not-for-profit healthrelated and human service corporation in the

US with an operating budget in excess of $170million, over 3,000 employees, twelve sub


facilities throughout the metropolitan New York

Area. FEGS also provides con sulting services

and technical assistance nationally and internationally. We are currently seeking experi

enced applicants to join our TASC Program,

which is an after-school program, serv ing the

youth in Far Rockaway, Queens. Applicants

must be energetic, creative and have experi


setting.All positions are part- time and requireHS/GED . Teach drums or other musical instruments to encourage participants in expressing

their creativity. Must be able to prepare participants for performances in shows/recitals.

FEGS offers a competitive salary and benefits

package. Please send by mail or email acover

letter and resume , indicating SPECIFIC POSI-

TION of interest and salary requirements, to our

HR Consultants: HR Dynamics, Inc . (Dept.SSlECS) , 161 William Street, 4th Floor, New

York, New York 10038. Fax 212 -366-8555 or E-

mail [email protected] .

NATIONAL SERVICE MANAGER - Habitat for

Humanity New York City is seeking a National

Service Manager to run its AmeriCorps Nation

al Direct program and its StateAmeriCorps*VISTA program, both at Habitat

NYC and at affiliate sites around New York

State. Responsibilities include funding and

management of all National Service programs,

recruitment of VISTA and AmeriCorps members,

training and orientation, evaluation and grantreporting. Strong preference for candidate with

at least 2 ears of experience working in Corpo-

ration for National Service programs. Salary

$35,000 - $40,000 per year, depending on

experience. Resume to Jenry Polner, Habitat for

Humanity NYC, 334 Furman Street, Brooklyn ,

NY 11201 , or [email protected].

OPERATIONS MANAGER - The National Hous

ing Institute/Shelterforce magazine, a small,progressive nonprofit, seeks operations man

ager to provide administrative and other sup

port for publishing, fundraising and research

activities.Duties include office administration ,

bookkeeping, marketing and logistical support.

Excellent nonprofit management learningopportunity. Apply at www.nhi.org.

48

PHYSICAL PLANT MANAGER - Responsible

for overall maintenance of three hundred units

of housing across six buildings in the Wash-

ington Heights and Harlem area. Supervision

and administrative responsibility for astaff of

ten. Responsible for oversight of routine main

tenance, building repairs, maintaining yearly

calendar, as well as compliance with required

permits, including Section 8. Certification in

related fields , computer literate. Spanishspeaking preferred . Must have seven years

experience of which three must be in asuper

visory capacity. Fax resume and cover letter

with salary requirements to 212- 568-2038,

Attn. Mr. Vance E. Granby

PLUMBER HELPER - Two (2) years experi

ence. $20 per hour. Call 718-292-4099.

Employer Satellite Plumbing Corp .

PROGRAM ASSISTANT/CHILD CARE WORKER

- The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a arge,

multi-service non-profit organization serv ing

the Bronx for more than 31 years . The agency

provides abroad range of individual and fami

ly services , including walk-in assistance and

counseling, services to special-needs popula

tions, such as immigrants, children , adoles

cents, seniors , homeless families and singles,

individuals and families affected by HIVIAIDS.

CAB provides excellent benefits and offers

opportunities for advancement. Resumes and

cover letters indicating position of interest may

be mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453,

or faxed as directed. CAB's Families Together

Program seeks a part-time Program Assis

tant/Child Care Worker. The position requires a

high school diplomaiGED, and enjoyment from

working with children. Responsibilities include

providing child care for children whose parents

participate in the program. Bilingual

EnglishiSpanish preferred. Fax credentials to F.Thomas at 718-716-1065 or e-mail her [email protected] . CAB is an equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The Citizens


non-profit organization serving the Bronx for

more than 31 years. The agency provides a

broad range of individual and family services,

including walk-in assistance and counseling,

services to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,homeless families and singles , individuals

and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-

vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni

ties for advancement. Resumes and cover letters indicating position of interest may be

mailed to 2054 Morris Ave . Bronx, NY 10453, or

faxed as directed. CAB 's Tenant Relocation

Program seeks a Program Coordinator.Responsibilities include directing service

delivery systems including the implementation

of surveys and case management services.

Other responsibilities include being a liaisonwith HPD, communicating with Section 8 en

ants and landlords receiving the subsidy, and

supervision of three to four workers. The position requires a Bachelors Degree and some

social service and eviction prevention experi

ence with a minimum of two years of supervisory experience. Please fax credentials to John

Weed at 718-590-5866 or email to

[email protected]. CAB is an equal opportu

nity /affirmative action employer.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The CitizensAdvice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service

non-profit organization serving the Bronx formore than 31 years. The agency provides a


including walk-in assistance and counseling ,

services to special-needs popu lations, such as

immigrants, children , adolescents , seniors,

homeless families and singles , individuals

and families affected by HIVIAIDS . CAB pro-


ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let

ters indicating position of interest ma y be

mailed to 2054 MorrisAve . Bronx, NY 10453,or

faxed as directed. CAB 'sAfter School Program

seeks a Program Coordinator. The positions

require a bachelor's degree in a related field,

and experience working with youth. Responsi

bilities include supervising staff, overseeing

day-to-day operations of the program , and

working closely with teens and the principal of

the school. Fax credentials to R Parithivel at

718-590-5866 or e-mail her [email protected]. CAB is an equal oppor

tunity /affirmative action employer.

PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The Citizens


non-profit organization serving the Bronx formore than 31 years. The agency provides a


including walk-in assistance and counseling ,

services to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants, children, adolescents , seniors,

homeless families and singles, individuals

and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro



ters indicating position of interest ma y bemailed to 2054 Morris Ave . Bronx, NY 10453, or

faxed as directed. CAB 's Safe Passage Pro-

gram seeks a Program Coordinator. The posi

tion requires aBA in a related field and experi

ence working with youth . Responsibilities

include supervising staff, overseeing day-today operations of the program , and working

closely with teens. Fax credentials to J. Gold-

smith at 718-590-5866 or e-mail her at [email protected]. CAB is an equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT - Search reopened , prior applicants need not apply. Large

Social Services Department seeks candidate to

write RFP's for new and existing shelters/programs; provide technical assistance on pro

grammatic enhancement for established shel

ters/programs; manage department statistics ;

write and edit quarterly newsletter. BA

required, low $40s. Resumes to PatriciaDeLouisa, The Salvation Army, 120 West 14th

Street, NY, NY 10001 or fax to 212-337-7279.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Astraea Lesbian

Foundation for Justice seeks a Program Direc

tor. The Program Director, who will oversee and

provide leadership for all grantmaking pro

grams and related activities,will playa primary role in the redesign of Astraea 's grantmaking, grantee services and philanthropic advo

cacy activities as outlined by our recently

approved three- year strategic plan. Salary

commensurate wth experience . Excellent pe

sion , vacation and health benefits. For detai

please visit www.astraeafoundation.org . Ma

e-mail (please include resume in body of

mail) or fax acover letter and resume to: Lau

Miller, Assistant to the Executive Director

the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justic

116 E 16th Street, 7th Floor, New Yor

NY 10003/fax 212-982-3321/e-maImiller@astraeafoundation .org. No phon

calls, please.Only applicants being considere

will be contacted .

PROGRAM MANAGER-HOMELESS PREVENTIO

SERVICES - CAMBA seeks aProgram Manag

er to manage homeless prevention and aftecare programs. This program manager will b

responsible for contract development an

implementation, hiring and training staff, po

cy and systems development, implementin

quality assurance measures, measuring an

documenting appropriate outcomes for cu

tomers , and evaluating program 's effectivness. Responsibilities: Supervise, evaluate

and trains the Program Directors , Coordinatoand Supervisorystaff. Assist in the preparatio

of proposals and negotiation of contracts. Man

age all employee relations including recruitinretention and recognition and incentive pr

grams, counseling and discipline, investiga

tions and terminations to ensure a air workin

environment in conjunction with CAMBA huma

resources department. Act as agency represe

tative working with public officials and oth

non-profit organizations to recommend pr

gram and policy improvements. Effectively pla

and develop agency's homeless preventio

aftercare and anti-eviction legal serv ices pr

grams. Ensure that all performance outcome

agency and funding source policies aQd proc

dures are met on amonthly basis byestablishing standards, directives and policy guideline

Determine the knowledge skills and abilitierequired to perform specific services an

assign qualified staff to perform such fun

tions. Supervise and instruct staff on work pr

jects, program directives and the implement

tion of policy. Evaluate staff and program effe

tiveness and modify directives to ensure th

prevention of homelessness and that potentia

ly homeless families are afforded quality sevices . Develop management systems to ensu

effective delivery of services. Develop databas

system to insure collection of programmin

statistics. Manage special projects. Act as liason to funders . Proved crisis management a

needed . Completes incident, weekly an

monthly reports. Facilitates interdepartment

communication and conducts regular stameetings. Other duties as assigned. Qualifica

tions: Masters Degree in Social Work, Pub

Administration, law or related field. 5years

non -profits management, preferably in hom

less prevention services. Measurable Outcome

New York City Department of Homeless Se

vices, and Human Resources Administratioand NYS Office of Temporary Disability an

Assistance expectations are to be met. Variou

grant requirements as specified. Location

Position:The poSition is located in Brooklyn. Th

position requires travel throughout the 5 bo

oughs, as well as work at other CAMBA sites a

necessary. Send cover letter & resume t

CAMBA, Inc. 1720 Church Avenue, 2nd floo

CITY LIMITS



Brooklyn, NY 11226. E-mail :[email protected] or fax: 718-693-3576

PROGRAM OFFICER , BEACONS TECHNICAL

ASSISTANCE - The Youth Development Insti

tute (YDI) is seeking an experienced individual

to assist the Beacons Centers with strengthening their programs and build ing organizational

capacity. The Beacons are school-based com

munity centers that provide a ull range of supportive and challenging activities and services

for young people and their families, based on

youth development principles.The Program Off icer is responsible for providing technical ass is

tance to help Beacons meet youth and community needs. Strategies include: developing acooperative practitioner network of sites to

strengthen their work ; helping sites to increase

their program, technological and fiscal

resources;working with public funding agencies

to strengthen their support and understanding

of the Beacons and youth development; and

integrating the Beacons initiative with projects

in education, youth employment and other

areas . Successful candidates will have sign ifi

cant experience with youth deve lopment work inurban communities, skills in curriculum devel

opment and adult learning and be computer literate . Acomplete job description and informa

tion about YDI is posted at www.fcnY.org/jobs.Send resume and cover letter including salary

requirements to Human ResourcesIYDIIBPO;

FCNY; 1216th Ave.,6th Floor; NY,NY 10013.YDI

is aprogram of the Fund for the City of New York,

aprivate operating foundation focused on civic

innovation. The Fund for the City of New York is

an equal opportunity employer.

PROGRAM SPECIALIST - The Citizens Advice




range of individual and family services,including walk-in assistance and counseling ,services to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,homeless families and singles, individuals

and families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB pro


ties for advancement. Resumes and cover letters indicating position of interest ma y be

mailed to 2054 MorrisAve . Bronx, NY 10453,or

faxed as directed. CAB 's Positive Uving Pro-

gram seeks a Program Special ist to work wth

clients that are affected by HIV/AIDS.The posi

tion requires abachelor'sdegree, and the abilityto perform intensive field work.Responsibilities include creating service plans and

assessments to meet client's needs. Fax credentials to M. Cortes at 718-716-1065 or e

mail her at [email protected] . CAB is an

equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.

PROGRAM SPECIALIST - The Citizens Advice




range of individual and family services,including walk-in assistance and counseling,services to special-needs populations, such as

immigrants , children, adolescents, seniors ,homeless families and singles, individualsand families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-

vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-

DECEMBER 2003


ters indicating pos ition of interest ma y be

mailed to 2054 Mo rris Ave. Bro nx, NY 104 53, orfaxed as directed. CAB 's Food Stamp AccessProgram seeks a Program Specialist. Respon-

sibilities include food stamp prescreen ing and

work in the community to pre-screen clients inthe community, performing outreach, pre

screening potential clients,assisting the cl ien

tele with making appointments with HRA, andprovide follow-up. The program spec ialist will

carry a aptop in the field and work in a eam

of four food stamp program specialist. The

position requ ires a high school diplomalGED.Fax credentials to John Weed at 718-590-5866

or email to [email protected]. CAB is an equal


PROJECT COORDINATOR - Sought for overall

coordination and implementation of parent

resource center. Requirements: MasterslBachelors - social work/education/related field ;experience community building, supervising

volunteers, working independently and with

coalitions, computer/research skills, excellent

interpersonal and leadersh ip skills. Washington Heights or Bushwick resident ,Spanish/English bilingual preferred. Fax: Ali

son Harte, 212-487-8581. Ema il:[email protected].

PROJECT DIRECTOR - Project Director forone-year innovative training program for frontline HIV/AIDS outreach workers at Hunter Col

lege. Will be responsible for project oversight,staff supervision, report ing and evaluation.Qualifications: Master's in public health or

related field, 3-5 years project management

experience, work with community-based orga

nizations, knowledge of HIV/AIDS and outreach

issues. Details : Email resume to David

Kotelchuck [email protected] or fax

212-481-5260 .

PROJECT DIRECTOR (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

LEGAL PROJECTI - CONNECT Inc., seeks aculturally sensitive Program Director with aminimum of three years experience litigating

on behalf of domestic violence survivors. Fam-

ily court litigation necessary, immigration and

criminal practice important. Some experience

with program planning and development is

necessary; strong writing skills required. Con tact [email protected] Attn: Rose.

PROJECT MANAGER - Common Ground Com munity, a not-for-profit affordable housing

development and property management orga

nization seeks a Hartford or New Haven Con-

necticut-based Project Manager to plan and

implement projects in CT and NYS. Responsi

bilities include preliminary design; locating

and evaluating potential sites; budget preparation; securing predevelopment and development financing;and setting up and overseeing

project schedules .Valid drivers license and car

will also be necessary. At least two (2) years

experience inaffordable housing development,including establish ing and monitoring timetables , budget preparation and management,and preparing applications for governmental

and private funding required. Resume with

cover letter that MUST include salary history to

CGCIHR,Attn JF, 505 Eighth Avenue, New York,

New York 10018. Facsimile: 212-389-9313.

PROPERTY MANAGER - Catholic Charities,Brooklyn is seeking aProperty Manager for all

aspects of building management in multiple

Family Housing projects . Responsibilitiesinclude: Maintain full occupancy, collect/post

rent, complete regular recertifications and

supervise maintenance staff. Ensure full com

pliance and on-going reporting, for all regulatory agencies, (Enterprise, HPD , DHCR). BA

w/housing management/business experience

preferred.Excellent organization ,oral and writ

ten skills a must. Bi-lingual Spanish and Sec-

tion 8 experience a plus. Fax cover letter and

resume to: 718-722-6045 . Attn : AssistantDirector, POP Management. EOE.

QUALITY ASSURNACE SUPERVISOR - Gra

ham Windham , he nation 'soldest non-sectar

ian child care agency serving NY'schildren and

families, is seeking an experienced quality

assurance professional for our Manhattan

office. Candidate will coordinate and oversee

QI-related activities to ensure that accredita

tion and funding standards are met. Track andreport program outcomes and compliance .Computer experience a must. Knowledge of

ACS regulations, COA standards, and prior

welfare experience required . Master's degree

preferred . Graham Windham is committed to

rewarding performance excellence with highly

competitive compensation, generous benefits

and amerit-based evaluation and reward sys

tem. Graham Windham encourages a diverse

workforce. Send resume and salary require

ments to: Graham Windham, 33 Irving Place,7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. Att: Human

Resources Fax : 212-358-1724 E-mail:

[email protected]

QUALITY CONTROL MANAGER - Quality Con-trol supervisor for community-based, public

health insurance enrollment program . Experi

ence with supervision,managing workflow and

deadlines, and troubleshooting public benefit

problems. Knowledge of Medicaid,Child Health

Plus and Family Health Plus desirable . Fax

resume and cover letter to 212-681-6315.

QUALITY IMPROVEMENT SUPERVISOR - Gra

ham Windham, the nation'soldest non-sectar

ian child care agency serving NY'schildren and

families, is seeking an experienced quality

assurance professional for our Manhattan

office. Candidate will coordinate and oversee

ai-related activities to ensure that accredita

tion and funding standards are met. Track and

report program outcomes and compliance .Computer experience a must. Knowledge of

ACS regulations , COA standards, and prior

welfare experience required. Master's degree

preferred. Graham Windham is comm itted to

rewarding performance excellence with highly

competitive compensation, generous benefitsand amerit-based evaluation and reward sys tem. Graham Windham encourages a diverse

workforce. Send resume and salary require

ments to: Graham Windham, 33 Irving Place,7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. Attn : Human

Resources Fax: 212-358-1724 E-mail :[email protected]

SCHEDULER - Maintain schedule,assist with

JOBADS

administration , some events and policy w

Contact with governmental, community, ad

cacy organizations. Four-year degree,exce

written/oral communication , attention

detail, discretion under pressure. Mid-tw

ties, 40-plus hours, immediate start. Resu

letter: [email protected] (Word, P

Rffi. No calis/faxes.

SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISOR - The social wsupervisor's primary responsibility will be to

direct and provide social work assistance

attorneys , paralegals and parent advocates tcomprise CFR's interdisciplinary commun

based representation teams. CFR 's commu

representation teams will provide legal re

sentation and social work assistance to pare

in Central and East Harlem as well as to pare

who have acriminal justice history that impa

their child welfare involvement. The teams

be available to advocate for parents from

time at which they first become involved with

Administration for Children's Services and

continue their work up to and throughout

and all family court proceedings involvin

family. This supervisor will provide direct sowork to clients, .c., referrals, home visits, ad

cacy with ACS, etc. in addition to co-directing

efforts of the teams along with a supervis

attorney.As core staff ineach team expand

is expected that this supervisory role will

grow. This supervisor will also recruit and su

vise social work interns, and will assist w

training and other practice assistance CFR

vides. Last, his supervisor will work closely w

CFR 's executive and deputy director to deve

CFR's social work unit and in other efforts

develop CFR's nterdisciplinary teams. This p

tion represents a unique opportunity for afessional interested in engaging innova

approaches to parent representation and

guiding the integration of social workers ina

organization. Applicants must have a masdegree in social work, and at least three ye

experience in Article 10ITPR family court p

tice. CSW and prior experience supervising s

or students prefemed. Ruency in Spanish

des irable. Individuals who apply should be a

to demonstrate strong interpersonal and c

munication skills, an ability to work as part

team , a keen interest in program developm

and adesire to share in both the exhilaration

challenges of a new and growing endea

Salary is commensurate with experience; ex

lent benefits package . CFR is an equal oppo

nity employer. Applicants should send or em

cover letter, resume, writing sample and th

references (including phone and email conta

before October 24, 2003 to Selina RobinExecutive Assistant, o the above address, o

[email protected]. No phone inquiries ple

SOCIAL WORKER - The Citizens Ad

Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service n

profit organization serving the Bronx or m

than 31 years. The agency provides a br

range of individual and family services, inc

ing walk-in assistance and counseling,vices to special-needs populations , such

immigrants, children, adolescents, sen

homeless families and singles, ndividuals

families affected by HIV/AIDS . CAB prov

excellent benefits and offers opportunities

advancement. Resumes and cover let

4



JOB ADS

so

I L L U S T R A T E DM EMO S

F ~ ~ ~ OFFICEOFTIIECITYVISIONARY:. ,: '

, , - [ '" ~ " , .

Home ownership, not a

government funded social

service program, is the

gateway to salvation'from

poverty.Maybe it's time to close

down the shelters and put a

prefab, low cost, supportive

housing unit on every block

in every neighborhood of

the city.

GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLT11'IONTO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?

SEND IN 1i'@[W[Fl [ M J ~ u ~ l l © T O D A Y ! Office: or -THE ciTY ViSIONARY

CIT'{ llMlTS MAGAZINE

120 WALL ST., 20TH FLOOR.NY NY 10005

ootcv® citylimitS.org

CITY LIMIT



indicatingposition of interest may be mailed to

2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as

directed. CABsNelson Ave . Family lier II Shel

ter seeks aSocial Worker. The position requires

a MSW. Excellent clinical experience , welfare

advocacy and excellent communication skills,knowledge of compuers, time management

and conflict resolution skills. Knowledge of the

foster care system is aplus. Fax credentials to

B. Lewis at 718 -299-1682 or e-mail her [email protected] . CAB is an equal opportuni

ty /affinmative action employer.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE (MICA) SPECIALIST - The

Center for Urban CommunityServices (CUCS) ,anational leader in the development of effectivehousing and se rv ice initiatives for homeless

people , seeks dedicated staff for its new

Assertive Community Treatment (ACn Team in

the Northeast Bronx. ACT is a service delivery

model with proven success in serving adults

with psychiatric disabilities in community

based settings. Resp : Fieldwork and on-callservices . Reqs : MSW required; CSW preferred .For non-masters candidates: BA + 2 yrs rele

vant exp ; BSW + 1 yr relevant expo excluding

fieldwork); HS+ 6 yrs relevant expo Note: For

candidates without college degrees, every 30

credits can be substituted for 1 yr exp oSub stance abuse treatment experience required .CASAC preferred. Bi lingual SpanishlEnglish

pref. Valid NYS Drivers License a plus. Salary:

$38-$411<, commensurate with post-masters

experience; $31 ,696 for non-masters candi

dates. Benefits: comp o nfts incl $65/month in

transit checks. Send resumes and cover lettersby 10/6/03 to : Kristin Yavorsky, CUCs/Assertive

Community Treatment (ACn Program , 665 Pelham Pkwy North(Suite 402), Bronx, NY 10467.

Fax: 718-881-8714, Email:[email protected].

CUCS iscommitted to workforce diversity. EED.

TEAM LEADER - HELP USA, anationally recognized leader in the provisions of transitional

housing, residential &social services, has aposition avail for aTeam Leader. Experience in

the supervision of Case Management, Assess-

men!, Counseling and Crisis Intervention. Will

collect,analyze and report on team statistics asindicated by organizational and regulatory bod

ies .Coordinate specific areas of service deliveryas equ ired . Requirements:MSW (preferred) or arelated degree required . Three (3) plus years of

supervisory experience necessary. Should have

computer literacy specifically with Microsoft

applications . Must have understanding of team

concepts, preferably in a residential setting.Bilingual in SpanishlEnglish is a plus. Salary:sarts in he mid thirties.Resumes for his position should be sent to: HELP Bronx Crotona , 785

Croton a Park Nort h, Bonx, NY, via fax at 718-901 -3310 or via email at etumer@helpusa .org

TESTERS, CIVIL RIGHTS WORK - The AntiDiscrimination Center of Metro New York is

seeking cand idates to work part-time as

"testers. " Testers are trained to act in the role

of an apartment or house seeker. Testers must

be articulate, conscientious, detail-oriented,able to enact a role according to guidelinesgiven , and comortab lewi thdealing with people. Testers are paid $15/hour ($10/hour for

travel time). Call 718-422-0066,oremail us at

[email protected] .

TRAININGITECHNICAL ASSISTANT SPECIALIST

- Job Description: Conduct training for PBRC

on government benefit programs. Develops

and maintains training evaluations . Assist

with writing monthly department newsletter.

Maintain and update current client based

brochures. Develop new low-literacy resource

guides and brochures for client. Develop and

coordinate outreach efforts and on site CSS

training workshops. Assist with researching

and developing training materials. Job

Requirements: Master's degree in Social Work

or related field preferred . Minimum of two (2)

years of experience in conducting trainings

with one (1) year experience working with public benefits or satisfactory combination of edu

cation and experience required . Excellent written , oral and interpersonal skills required .Strong computer skills required . Submit

resume and cover letter to : Community Service

Soc iety of New York, Human Resources Depart

ment PP-36 , 105 East 22nd Street, New York,NY lDOlD . Fax 212-614-5336 or e-ma [email protected] .

VOCATIONAL SPECIALIST - The Center forUrban Community Services (CUCS), a national

leader in the deve lopment of effective housing

and service initiatives for homeless/formerlyhomeless individuals invites applicants withexperience providing serv ices to the mentally illpopu lation to apply for the position of Voca tional Specialist. Focus of position is on providing clinically based vocational treatment

planning, support, advocacy, assessment, and

referra ls for partic ipants desiring to work or

return to work . Reqs : BA + 2yrs . direct service

exp with indicated populations, BSW + 1 yr.

(excluding fieldwork), High School Diploma (or

GED) + 6yrs exp (Note: For applicants without

college degrees , every 30 credits can be substituted for 1 yr exp). Applicants should have

experience working with fo rm erly homeless, or

with individuals with mental illness or otherdisabilities, work well with a team and have

experience managing a caseload . Computer

literacy required. B lingual Spanish/English

pref. Experience working with groupslfacilitating workshops a plus. Salary: $31 ,696. Bene

fits : comp obnfts incl $65/month in transitchecks . Send resumes and cover letters by

10/6/03 to: Carlene Scheel, Fax: 212-471 -0790, Email:[email protected]. CUCS is com

mitted to workforce diversity. EED

VOLUNTEER - The Community Deve lopment

Project (CDP)of the Urban Justice Center works

in partnership with community-based organi

zations and groups throughout New York City

creating positive social change in low-income

communities. CDP provides a range of skills

and strategies to bear in support of our clientsincluding litigation, transactional assistance,communty-based research and policy ana ly

sis, echnical assistance and legislative advocacy.We are in immediate need of many active

LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION

OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS

JOB AD

volunteers for the following project: Restaur

Industry Analysis for Workers ' Rights. Vol

teers are needed to work with CDP and

Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Y

(ROC-NY- aworkers' center made up of fon

Windows on the World workers) o conduct s

veys as part of an ana lysis of New York Ci

restaurant industry that would improve

working conditions of restaurant employe

This groundbreaking research projectinvo lve surveys and interviews of restaurworkers and employers . Fall. Surveying

begin the week of September 15 , 2003. Vol

teers wi ll also be needed to do data entry w

the ROC surveys. Orientation/Training forROC-NY project will be held on Wednesd

October 1st from 6p-8p.Though we encoura

all volunteers to attend this training , ot

arrangements can be made if you are

available. Please RSVP to Laura (lday@urb

justice.org) if you are interested. Voluntee

schedules are flexible; however acommitm

of 3-5 hours per week is preferred . Volunte

with asecond language are especially need

For further information, please contact La

Day (646-459-3021 , [email protected]

WRITER - The De Fund ,AHomeless Servi

Organization - An innovative non-profit serv

the homeless, seeks individual with excell

writing and communication skills to draftcorrespondences for the organization ,Founder and President and key staff.The qua

fied ca ndidate will possess outstanding wr itskills and have the ability to communicate

message of the organization creatively a

effectively.Specific responsibilities include w

ing and tracking a variety of correspondenc

including letters to key donors , press materia

solicitations, hank you 's and articles for annal newsletter. BA with ademonstrated focus

writing, excellent attention to detail and orga

zational skills .Salary commensurate with exrience. EDE Send resume and salary requi

men ts o Human R sources,The Doe Fund, 2

East 84th Street, New York,NY 10028,or by F

212-249-5589 ,or e-mail at [email protected]

We have been providing low-cost insurance programs andquality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

and other NONPROFIT organizations for over 15 years.

DECEMBER 2003

We O ffer:• SPECIAL BUILDING PACKAGES •

• FIRE • LIABILITY • BONDS •

• DIRECTOR'S & OFFICERS' LlABILTY •

• GROUP LIFE & HEALTH •

"Ta ilored Payment Plans "

ASHKAR CORPORATION

146 Wes t 29 th Street , 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001

(212) 279-8300 FAX 714-2161 Ask for : Balo Ramanathan

Sl



John,

on-line broker

HE MAY BE JUST THEEMPLOYEE YOU NEED.He is one of the other victims of9/11: some 45,000 men

and women who lost their livelihoods in lower Manhattan

as a direct result of the attacks of 9/11. They worked in

restaurants, in factories, at financial institutions and

other organizations. Many are still looking for work.

Help them, help New York. The September 11 th

Fund and The New York Times Community Affairs

Department have joined forces to form "9/11 Rehire

New York," a one-stop resource making it easy for you to

draw on this pool of extremely worthy job seekers to fill

a position.

You can find their resumes by visitingwww.nytimes.com/rehirenewyork.

Documents

City Limits Magazine, December 2003 Issue