City Limits Magazine, November 2003 Issue

8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine, November 2003 Issue

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EDITORIALTROJAN HORSE AT THE GATES?BACK IN JANUARY, I broke news of a strikingbehind-the-scenes maneuver: Ciry Hall wasrevamping ethics laws so that officials couldraise private money for public services.

At the time, private fundraising by and forgovernment was nothing new. Many ciry agencies already depended on affiliated nonprofitsto supplement their work, particularly forexperimental projects that require nimblebureaucracy-free action.

But we've never seen New York Ciry's private fundraising explode the way it has lately.The schools have secured commitments of atleast $172 million from foundations, corporations and individual donors. Public school kidswill now develop early brand loyalty to Snappie, which for $106 million is getting exclusiverights to sell juice and water in the city'sschools. As Michael Weissenstein of the Associated Press has reported, the Police Foundation is accepting contributions from AgilentTechnologies, Motorola and other companiesto fund anti-terrorism efforts, while Coach andMajor League Baseball are bankrolling coun-

terfeit-merchandise crackdowns (and benefiting directly from the New York Police Department's extra attention). Toyota now funds literacy programs through the Department ofYouth and Community Development (butdoesn't give enough money to prevent majorcutbacks to those programs) . Time Warnerowns a piece of the parks. Citigroup and otherfinancial institutions plan to finance most of anew brownfields reclamation fund.

Hell knows we can use the money. Andoften it's not a bad idea for public and privateplayers to work in tandem-that's true in thecase of the brownfields fund, where the statefinally passed a law clarifYing what developersmust do to evaluate and clean former industrial sites. As a result, the city's housing agencyand the banks can start working quickly toclear property for housing development.

Even so, we need to take a cold, hard look atthe gift horses rolling into town-particularly atthe hundreds of millions of dollars currentlyinundating public education. As Amy ZimmerreportS on page 8 of this issue, the city Department of Education is starting dozens of smallschools, with $59 million in support from the Bill

Cover photography by Michael Berman. Cover photo illustration and design by Noah ScaiinlALR Design.

and Melinda Gates Foundation, the CarnegieCorporation and other private funders. Simultaneously, the education deparrment is undergoinga far-reaching adrninistrative overhaul. Withthese two massive changes happening at once,high schools this aururnn have been in chaos,leaving hordes of srudents wandering ftom schoolto school, unsure ofwhere to register.

The jury is still out on whether srudents insmall schools perform better than those in biggerones. So why such a rush to open the new schoolsthis year? For one thing, launching new schoolsallows the city's new education chiefs to quicklychange the leadership of low-performing largeinstirutions. But surely philanthropists and theirpassion for small schools-the Gateses alone aregiving $590 million nationally-have somethingto do with the push. Big givers have bought thepower to influence how city high schools are run.

We need the money. They'll give it to u s -with a few strings attached.

Any questions?

-Alyssa KatzEditor

The Center for an Urban FutureCentel or anFUtrnanu ure

the sister organization of City Limitswww.nycfuture.org

Combining City Limits' zest for investigative reporting with thorough policyanalysis, the Center for an Urban Future is regularly influencing New York'sdecision makers with fact-driven studies about policy issues that are important toall 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:0,1 Engine Failure: With Economic Woes That Go well Beyond 9/11, New York Needs a Bold New Vision ToRenew the City's Economy {September 2003}0,1 Rearranging the Deck Chairs? New York City's Workforce System At The Brink {May 2003}0,1 Labor Gains: How Union-Affiliated Training is Transforming New York's Workforce Landscape {March 2003}0,1 Epidemic Neglect: How Weak Infrastructure and Lax Planning Hinder New York's Response to AIDS {February 2003}0,1 The Creative Engine: How Arts and Culture are Fueling Growth in NYC's Neighborhoods {November 2002}

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CONTENTS19 BUSTED OUT

The D.A.'s Narcotics Eviction Program helps landlordsevict drug dealers from apartment buildings.It's been enormously successful. It also kicks outtenants who've done nothing wrong.By Geoffrey Gray

22 BUYING A PIECE OF HELLLured by the promise of cheap homes in the Poconos,

hundreds of ex-New Yorkers fall prey to a real estate scam.Also: Home Economics. How the downturnis tarnishing outer-borough homeowner dreams.

By Debbie Nathan

28 RECORD TIMEVideotaping criminal interrogations helps somepolice forces prevent false confessions.But New York brass are holding out against it,

even as detectives rack up a string of bogus cases.By Curtis Stephen

5 FRONTLINES: UNION DUES WITH THAT? ..WELCOMING FOSTER CARE ...A TALE OF TWOSISTERS .. .THE SMALL SCHOOLS SQUEEZE . PATAKI'S UNDELIVERED CHILD WELFARE COMMISSION

..REBREWBABLE ENERGY IN BROOKLYN INDENTURED VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC HOUSING

13 JOINT PURPOS EFacing dwindling budgets and costly overhead,

nonprofits explore an unthinkable synergy:merging with the competition.

By Tracie McMillan16 RAC IAL DOWNS IZING

Can minority providers survive thechild welfare system 's shrinkage?

By Hilary Russ2 EDITORIAL43 JOB ADS

49 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY51 OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY

NOVEMBER 2003

The Future ofPublic Life33 THE BIG IDEA

The Bush administration thinks that spending more on housing andless on social services could help end homelessness.

At local nonprofits, providers try not to panic. By Cassi Feldman36 CITY LIT

Crossing the Blvd: Strangers, Neighbors and Aliensin aNew America, by Wa rren Lehre r and Judith Sloan.Reviewed by Debbie Nathan.40 NYC INC.

Data shows New York 's economic pulse has been flat liningfor years. What urban wonks can learn from unlikely recoveryzones in Los Angeles and Houston. By Joel Kotkin

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LETTERSINCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS

In the recent "The Growth Dividend" [Sep-tember/October], " reporter Alex Ulam quotesreal estate consultant ]aye Fox stating "all of thesites where the New Housing OpportunitiesProgram (HOP) has succeeded are in placeslike Harlem, where developers have gotten theproperty from the city for a dollar or substantially less than market rate."This is not correct. Not only have a substantial number of New HOP developmentsbeen financed on acquired property bur so haveLow-income Affordable Marketplace Program(LAMP) developments, which target muchlower income families. Furthermore, thesedevelopments are located all throughout NewYork City, not just in Harlem as Fox suggests.Since 1997, the Housing DevelopmentCorporation (HDC) has financed 83 affordable housing developments consisting of 5,987

WANTONE

OF THESE?

apartments through LAMP (formerly knownas "100% LITE") and its New HousingOpportunity Program. All of these projectshave involved the acquisition of privatelyowned property. In addition, HDC hasfinanced 38 affordable housing developmentsconsisting of 3,103 apartments through thesesame programs on city-owned land, which hasgenerally been provided at a nominal price.

The programs are flexible and structuredto work on both privately acquired land andon city-owned land. We have been enormously successful in increasing the stock ofaffordable housing in all five boroughs withthese programs, and we expect the same success in the portions of Williamsburg andGreenpoint, Brooklyn that have been proposed for re-zoning. -William TraylorActing President,New York City Housing Development Corporation

----------------,IIIIIIt

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FRONT LINES

No Taking Orders AnymoreALL SUMMER LONG, former busboys, waiters, and other volunteers roamedthe meets, paced up and down subway platforms, and dawdled in backalleys, stopping passersby and asking, "Do you work in a restaurant?"

Very often, the answer was "yes." Yet despite their numbers, New YorkCity's 160,000 restaurant workers are all but invisible in the local political landscape. Only a fraction are unionized, and thousands are immigrants with few avenues for political or legal support.That's where the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New Yorkcomes in. Founded just after September 11 by displaced staff fromWindows on the World, ROC has far fewer members than HotelEmployees and Restaurant Employees Local 100, the city's primaryrestaurant union. Yet the new group has turned its low profile into anasset. Rather than organizing the white-tablecloth crowd, it focuses onsmaller establishments. Most recently, ROC used a series of protests topressure a Brooklyn deli to hand over $200,000 in overdue wages toMexican workers.ROC, in collaboration with the Urban Justice Center's CommunityDevelopment Project, initiated this summer's survey to investigatehourly wages, work schedules, benefits, and commonplace labor abusesin restaurants. Some questions tested respondents' knowledge of workplace rights. Workers were asked, for instance, whether they could belegally fired for complaining about working conditions, or to state theminimum wage. "Most don't even know that there is a minimum wage,"NOVEMBER 2003

says Saru Jayaraman, ROC's director.Though the survey won't be finished uncil October, preliminary resultsshow that opportunities for promotion are scarce in the restaurant industry. Less than a quarter of the 200 respondents said they had ever ascendedin position in their jobs. In general, Latinos are overwhelmingly relegatedto back-of-the-house positions like delivery and dishwashing.And restaurant workers are often underpaid. More than 40 percent ofrespondents reported not receiving overtime wages, and nearly 60 percentsaid they did not receive regular raises. Only about one in 10 had full healthinsurance coverage ftom their employer, and 70 percent had none at all.Finally, workplace conditions received tepid reviews. Over 40 percentof respondents had not received workplace safety instruction, and nearlythe same percentage reported fire hazards in their restaurants. Over athird-most of them Latino workers-reported verbal abuse by theirbosses in the past year.Raul Escobar, a ROC member from Mexico who has worked on andoff for 10 years at restaurants, pushed the volunteers to visit neighborhoods like Jackson Heights, where many restaurant workers live, insteadof trying to find them at restaurants, where they might be reluctant totalk. He hopes this sensitive approach will help build ROC's membership."This association gives you the chance to grow, to experience manythings, and to get informed," says Escobar. "That's what we need."- Michelle Chen

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FRONT LINES

Parentadvocates easethe pain offoster care.Will their jobssurvive?By Rachel BlustainTHE FIRST TIME the caseworker came to RobinMcCutheon's door, shortly afrer the city tookher son into foster care, she refused to open it.For the previous 10 .years, McCutheon hadbeen addicted to crack, and she knew that inorder to bring her son home, she would haveto do what the man at the door required of6

Mothers' Helper

her: attend a drug treatment program and getclean. She already felt guilty, angry and overwhelmed, and his presence only made her feelworse. So she didn't let him in the next timeeither. When he arrived the third time, sheopened the door only to tell him, "Don'tcome to my house no more. When I'm ready,I'll call you."But that day, the caseworker wasn't alone.He had brought a colleague from his agency,St. Christopher's, Inc., who once had a child infoster care herself. ''I'm not a caseworker," shetold McCutheon. "I'm somebody who's beenthrough this whole ordeal." Then she gaveMcCutheon her phone number. Soon afrer,McCutheon called her to say she was ready toenter a drug program. She spent 27 months intreatment before she brought her son home.That was 1996, rwo years afrer St. Christopher's became the first agency to hirebirth-parent advocates-women who hadexperienced the foster care system firsthand,and who could act as mediators berween theagency, the city, the courts, and parents, as wellas do duty as case aides and role models. Sincethen, scores of birth parents have been hired byagencies throughout New York. McCutheonherself was hired by St. Christopher's in 2000.

Many of their positions were funded by aspecial program designed to speed up adoptionand family reunification-a program theAdministration for Children's Services wasforced to eliminate last year due to budget constraints. Now dozens of advocates have beenlaid off. While both the agencies and the cityhope to reinstate the positions in the furure, forthe time being, they have no funding to do so.THE IDEA OF EMPLOYING birth parents took holdin the mid-1990s, afrer the crack epidemictripled the number of children entering fostercare in New York City. Subsequently thosenumbers fell, but in 1994 there were still about40,000 children in care, some who had beenthere for years.In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption andSafe Families Act, legislation meant to reducethe number of children in foster care by speeding up adoptions. But other people in the fieldwere wrestling with ways to have childrenreturn to their biological parents more quickly.A few agency directors, like Luis Medina at St.Christopher's, believed that if birth parentshad someone to turn to whom they didn't seeas an authority or bureaucrat-someone whohad been in their shoes-they might spend lesstime fighting the system and more time doingwhat they had to do to get their children back.The number of advocate positions grew in2001, when the city established the Safe andTimely Adoptions and Reunifications Initiative, or STAR. The program offered foster careagencies a financial incentive to send childrenhome or have them adopted, by paying them apercentage of the money they would otherwisehave received for keeping that child in fostercare. For fiscal years 2001 and 2002, the citypaid agencies $900,000 and $4.2 million,respectively, to be used for new initiatives tofurther reduce the time children spent in care.One of the most common ways of spendingthe money was on birth-parent advocates.Still, fewer than half of all agencies contracting with the city had advocate positions, and each agency generally had onlyone or fWO advocates. Even so, their influence was often profound. In 2001, shortlybefore Good Shepherd Services hired its firstbirth paren t advocates, clients in a substanceabuse group at the agency told their socialworker they had never heard of a parent

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reclaiming a child from foster care. "Their impressionwas that their children were gone forever, no matterwhat they did," explains Susan Kyle, administrativesupervisor at Good Shepherd Services. Having parentmentors on staff who had successfully beaten the system proved otherwise.But rhen STAR 's funding was cut. Of 13 agencies contacted by City Limits rhat were known to have birrh parentson staff, five had laid off all who worked in rheir foster careunits--nine workers in total. Anorher five agencies hadreduced rheir number of birrh parent advocates. Thisincludes St. Christopher's, which cut its staff from 20 to 10 .Ernesteen Sinkler's three young children were livingwirh her morher for two years in kinship foster carebefore Sinkler grew so tired of missing out on rheir livesrhat she asked to be put in an inpatient drug program.Before that, she was wild, she says, walking the streets tosupport her drug habit, blacking out and waking up instrange places, angry at everyone and everything.Sinkler's anger sraned at age 8, after a cousin molestedher. As she got older, she used alcohol, marijuana, speedand crack to dull her pain. But her anger simply grew. "Ihad so much hatred inside me, I couldn't stand nobody.My morher was doing what she could to keep my familytogerher, but I just rhought she was controlling. Therewas a time when I told my worker to get my children outof her house. I was so angry I was ready to take themfrom rhe only family setting they knew. "But in her drug program, Sinkler learned to talk aboutrhe problems that led her to start using. After rhree and ahalfyears, she was allowed to bring her children home. InJanuary 2001, rhe Carholic Guardian Society hired her asits flIst birth-parent advocate for $7 an hour. During heryear rhere, Sinkler co-managed a parenting class , madehome visits and filled in as a case aide. Most important,she was someone who could intervene when orher parents' anger seemed likely to erupt. She was laid off inDecember 2002.Parents rights' activists fear rhat fewer birth-parentadvocates will mean fewer successful reunifications ofparents and children, but they're hopeful rhe reformwon't be reversed completely. "This is definitely a setback, but I can't believe it's a fatal setback," says MikeArsham, who runs rhe Child Welfare Organizing Project, a parent advocacy group that has trained manybirth-parent advocates. Arsham believes the city shouldrequire agencies to hire birth parent advocates, or offerthe organizations an incentive by establishing a newfunding stream. As of now, though, the city has nosuch plans.McCutheon, like Arsham, still hopes it will happen.''A caseworker understands rhe drug mentality logically,from reading from a book," she says. "But rhe birrh parent had been there. I rhought, 'I f she could do it, I coulddo it.' After a while, that's all I wanted." Rachel Blustain is a former editor of Foster CareYouth United.NOVEMBER 2003

FRONTLINES

FIRSTHAND

Growing ApartHEYDV CASADO: I heard there 's a awsuit against the schools for not letting kids stay in high school

and telling them to get GEDs. lt'snot fair that the city did this to me. Icame to New York withdreams of finishing school, but I couldn't. And my sister and I-we're not close like before .

lEYDv CASADO: Nothing 's he same for us since we were separated.HEYDv: We've gone down different paths . .. My sister and I are two years apart. I'm older, but in

the Dominican Republic we were in the same grade at school.lEYDv: We had the same classes. Same friends . Even the same boyfriend .HEYDv: [Laughs] Not true! But our boyfriends were brothers , ust like we're sisters.lEYDv: We came to New York City six weeks after 9111. I was 15 and Heydy was 17.HYov: We had both finished 11th grade in the Dominican Republic and we were going to do our

senior year here .We went downtown to register and they sent us to Martin Luther King HighSchool. The counselor there said Leydy could enroll but I couldn 't because I was going tobe 18 soon. I was told to just go somewhere else and get my GED.

lEYDV: Our mother didn't understand why. She was almost fighting with the counselor but itdidn't make any difference. She was really sad about it.

HEYDv: I got sent to George Washington High School to register for aGED class . I ook the test there,but when Icalled to find out the score , hey said they'd lost it. They said they would get backto me but they never did . I ound another GED place but it was only four hours aweek and allmath . I quit after the first week. Then I went to a community organization in WashingtonHeights, he New Heights Neighborhood Center. They sent me to [a GED program at] ColumbiaUniversity.But Columbia told me Icouldn't begin until I urned 19.

lEYDV: I started Martin Luther King . The first day I was scared and lost. I'd never done anyth ingwithout my big sister and it was very sad for me .

HEYDv: I was sad , oo . I started working at Burger King for minimum wage .lEYDv: Meanwhile, I'm n high school . I go six hours aday and I study English for three periods.HEYDv: Her English is better than mine.lEYDY: E s p e c i a l ~ my writing, because Iget to practice. I'mgraduating next year, hen I'll go to college .HEYDv: I finally got into the Columbia GED program when I turned 19. But the instruction was in

Spanish. I'mstill working at Burger King. --As told to Debbie Nathan

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FRONT l lNES

Small schoolsgrow in Brooklyn,but seats arescarce.By Amy ZimmerAMALIA MARTINEZ felt assured mat her 15-yearold rwins, Ernestine and Edgar, were going tostart ninm grade this September just a few blocksfrom her apartment, anending one of me newsmall schools located in me Irving Avenue building mat until now housed Bushwick HighSchool. The Bushwick School for Social Justice,me Harbor School and me Academy for UrbanPlanning have opened this fall wim classes ofninm graders, while Bushwick High School's10m, 11 m and 12m graders finish out meir finalyears. The new academies aim to transform a dismal school of last resort, wim a 23 percent graduation rate, into a home for quality education.These new schools are part of New Visions'

8

Class Dismissed

network of 42 New Century High Schools,designed to replace large, failing schools likeBushwick. New Visions received a $30 milliongrant from me Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, me Carnegie Corporation of New York,and me Open Society Institute, and wim community partners it opened its first 17 of mesesmall new high schools last year. New Visionsrecently received an additional $29 .2 million tocreate 30 more small schools as part of a $51.2million grant from Gates, and Mayor Bloomberg has said that he hopes to create an additional 200 new small schools.

But as mey move into me old buildings, mesmall schools are finding memselves in a bigsqueeze. The new Bushwick schools have 375seats, just over half me number of slots for ninmgraders mat Bushwick High School had. Sowhile me schools give priority to neighborhoodkids, not all students who apply can get in. ThisSeptember, Bushwick's student-transfer officeturned away more man 300 ninm graders whotried to enroll mere-including Edgar Martinez.

He discovered that although his familyreceived paperwork back in June saying mat hewas registered at me Harbor School (and his sisterat me School for Social Justice), when me schoolyear started he wasn't on me Harbor School roster. Bushwick's transfer office passed Edgar alongto anomer school's office--men anomer, and

anomer, for weeks. In late September, Edgar stilldidn't have a school to go to. ''I'd ramer be homeschooled," he says. Edgar worries he'll be farbehind, especially since he's in special ed.Students who didn't make it into smallschools are being sent out of me neighborhood toremaining big ones in Brooklyn and QueensFranklin Lane, Lincoln, Grover Cleveland,Canarsie. Even mese schools are at capacity andturning away students wim transfer orders, say-ing mat me students aren't wned for memo (AtGrover Cleveland, in Ridgewood, Queens, aBushwick parent says an administrator told hermat Brooklyn kids aren't admined because"mey're bad kids and we don'r take bad kids.")

The community organizing group Make meRoad By Walking is a partner wim New Visionsand Brooklyn College in creating me School forSocial Justice. Now Make me Road is raking onme tough question of what's going to happen tostudents locked out of Bushwick. It has convenedme Community Coalition for Bushwick HighSchool, a collaborative of parents, teachers, students, churches and omer neighborhood organizations. Make me Road codirector Oona Chatterjee agrees mat it's exciting for me small schoolsto have students who want to be mere. But, sheadds, "School choice means people should have achoice-including a school close to home."

The coalition crunched me numbers forBrooklyn and estimated mat 1,600 seats werelost among the three Brooklyn schoolsWingate and Ptospect Heights are me omertwo-mat broke into small ones this year.Demand for me seats in me new schools isextremely high: In the Bronx, 15,000 studentsapplied for 3,000 New Visions slots.

The introduction of me small high schoolscomes as the whole system is going mrough anadministrative overhaul. It's been a chaoticautumn. At least 10,000 students were still inlimbo at me beginning of me school yeareimer because mey didn't want or didn't knowmeir assigned school. Transfer centers were setup to refer students to high schools wim seats,but some centers started wimout phones orcomputers. Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum'soffice and me organization Advocates for Children have fielded a flood of calls from parentshaving difficulty placing their kids.

"Who takes responsibility?" asks JillChaifetz, executive director of Advocates forChildren. "Who does me numbers? Nobody

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said small schools are a bad idea, but the problem is the fast rimeline." The current round ofschools was announced in April.

Some administrators are blaming the NoChild Left Behind Act, which allows students infailing schools to switch to better ones. But mostof the 8,000 transfer requests were for middleschoolers, not students in high school. The bigger problem is a demographic bulge: an additional5,000 to 7,000 ninth grade students entering high school this year. "It's hard to nail downexactly where these 7,000 students are comingfrom," says Department ofEducation spokesperson Michelle McManus. She posits that the newsmall schools have attracted students previouslyin private and parochial schools, especially thosewhose parents can't afford tuition any longer.

John Lawhead, who teaches English as a Second Language at Bushwick, says he sees economic pressures swell enrollment, but in a dif-ferent way. When the economy was better, lawhead saw more low-income teens take jobsinstead of going to school. "I f there's an opportunity for a 14- or I5-year-old kid to work," hesays, "their family wants them to work."

The president of New Visions, Bob Hughes,knows that introducing new schools puts strainson the system's capacity. "Reform can't wait untilwe have enough seat space," he explains. Stem-

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ming the citywide epidemic of dropouts, he says,must be the top priority: "Kids only go throughhigh school once, and we can't afford to losemore students." Hughes thinks the new schoolsare a big gain for Bushwick kids, noting that back

"Schools were ableto turn away kids,especially ESL and

special ed."when it was still a big, fuiling school, only about50 ou t of700 ninth-graders had actually selectedBushwick High as their first choice.

But as hundreds of Bushwick students seekschooling elsewhere, members of the communitycoalition want to make sure the teens don'tbecome casualties of innovation. Many areextremely disadvantaged to begin with. Of 687students at Bushwick this year, 565 are repeating

FRONTLINES

ninth grade, and 110 of them are older than 17.About 30 percent ofBushwick students are classi-fied as English Language Learners, and 19 percenrequire special ed. "In many cases," Chatterjeesays, "the students being sent to schools far fromhome are the most vulnerable students-the oneswho didn't go to class and didn't know about thenew schools, or whose parents are not involved."

"Even in zoned high schools, there's a pecking order, and Bushwick was at the bottom,"explains Lawhead. "Neighboring schools, likeCleveland and Boys & Girls, with more political clout, were able to turn away kids, especiallyESL and special ed." Many of them, Lawheadnotes, wound up in Bushwick.

The community coalition is pressingMichele Cahill, the Department of Education'ssenior counselor for education policy, to makeit easier for students to stay in Bushwick, andto secure more ESL and programs for older students. The department has agreed to meetmonthly with community residents.

But as Edgar Martinez continues to spendhis days waiting in offices, the only educationhe's getting is one in bureaucracy. He can't helpbut worry: "Maybe they'll forget about me." Amy Zimmer is a Manhattan-based freelancewriter.

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FRONTLINES

Guv Withholds Foster Kids'AllowanceMORE THAN A YEAR AGO, Governor GeorgePataki gave abused and neglected young peoplea badly needed ally: He authorized a new independent commission, with a $500,000-a-yearbudget, to monitor the quality of care in grouphomes and institutions for foster children. Similar watchdog agencies already exist for prisonsand mental health facilities in New York.They've helped expose mistreatment and mismanagement, including execrable conditions inadult homes housing the mentally ill.

But now the Pataki administration is refusing to deliver. The State Commission on theQuality of Foster Care was supposed to launchlast September, with a full-time chair and fourvolunteer members. (All five are to beappointed by the governor and confirmed bythe Senate, giving state Republicans full control.) It didn't. Last winter, the governor's officepulled the funding from the state's 2003budget. Then the legislature put the moneyback in for fiscal year 2004, when it overrode

Pataki to pass its own budget this past May.Since then, says Elie Ward, executive direcror of the Albany group Statewide YouthAdvocacy, nothing has happened. In midAugust, she says, the governor's officeinformed her it did not intend to release thefunds for the forseeable future. "They told meit wasn't a priority," says Ward. The governor'soffice did not return calls seeking comment.

It may now fall to legislators who passed thebill to make sure the commission gets established. Ward is urging the legislations supporters,including Senate Majority Leader Joseph Brunoand Westchester Republican Nicholas Spanowhose county hosts numerous group facilities forkids--to pressure Pataki to release the funds.Group homes could use a watchdog. Incidents like the February 2002 assault by girls on acounselor in Pleasantville are just the most sensational symptoms of deep trouble at many grouphomes, residential treatment centers, and otherinstitutions where kids live. Chronic problems,say child welfare experts, include sexual assaultsby kids on other kids, understaffing, insufficientsupervision, and inadequate schooling. Somehomes run by New York City's Administrationfor Children's Services are notorious for lettingresidents hang out on the streets, where some getmixed up in drugs and prostitution.

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Agencies that run group facilities underlicense from the state Office of Children andFamily Services say they can stand the scrutiny."We're monitored by everyone under the sun,"says Luis Medina, executive director of St.Christopher's Inc., which runs group homes andresidential treatment centers in WestchesterCounty. But if the new commission's staff areexperienced and "know something about how torun a facility," says Medina, "that can only help."

Inspired by the state model, the office of cityPublic Advocate Betsy Gorbaum is now exploring setting up a copycat independent watchdogagency for New York City's child welfare services.Hank Orenstein, director of C-PLAN, the Public Advocate's resource center for families withchildren in foster care, envisions a city office ableto monitor every aspect of care, from makingsure parents can see their children to creating ahotline for foster kids to call i f hey need help."We've concluded that New York City's childwelfare system needs something like an Inspector General, an independent entity with subpoena power-the power to walk into a grouphome, interview young people about howthey're being cared for, and to go into visitingrooms and make sure parents have their visits,"says Orenstein. "I fwe had stronger powers, wemight be taken more seriously." -Alyssa Katz

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Taking a Keg) StandIT WASN'T AN EASY DECISION for Steve Hindy tomake but , hell, he thinks it was the right one.

Instead of subscribing to Con Edison'scheaper blend of coal, natural gas, nuclearpower, oil and hydropower, Hindy, the president and co-owner of Brooklyn Brewery, saidhe decided in August to "flip the switch," andis now running the vats and hoppers in hisWilliamsburg brew house on wind power. Hisis the first company in the city to do so.

The g r ~ n & i e n d l y decision might win Hindya few more toasts &om Williamsburg's woolyelite, but it will also guzzle away some of Brooklyn Brewery's profits. He forecasts a 10 to 15 percent increase in his annual dectricity bills. "Ithurts, but it won't take us under," Hindy says .

A former Associated Press man who learnedto home brew while on assignment in theliquor-starved Middle East, Hindy was firstcontacted by Community Energy this summer.The company has 20 giant, spinning wind tur-bines on farms in upstate New York and islooking to expand its city base. Though Brooklyn Brewery doesn't run directly on energy pro-

NOVEMBER 2003

duced &om windmills, its allotment from theupstate turbines goes into the local dectr ic grid.

Local pols are thrilled. 'This is Brooklynbusiness at its best," says Andrew Ross, communications director for Marty Markowitz, theBrooklyn Borough President. Unfortunatdy,Ross says, Hindy has so far been the only localbusiness owner interested in a renewable energysource. While the state and federal governmentoffer financial and tax incentives to energy suppliers like Community Energy, there are virrually

FRONTLINES

no consumer incentives-besides a clean conscience and flatrering PR-that would motivatea business owner to pay more for dectricity.

Ross and Hindy point out that the morerenewable energy is purchased, the cheaper it gets.New York's EPA has already made the switch, ashas Austin Grill, a Baltimore-based restaurantchain. In time, Hindy hopes, prices for wind willbe competitive with other energy sources. "I don'tknow if t's gonna sdl more beer," he says. "But atleast we're taking a stand." -GeoffreyGray

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FRONT l lNES

PIt8t I C HO;{J:S IN-r.==Any Volunteers?LIVING IN PUBLIC HOUSING just got a little bitharder. Beginning this Halloween, unemployed tenants will have to put in eight hoursof community service each month-orface eviction.

How seriously New York City will take thismandate, however, remains to be seen.The unpopular federal rule requiring somepublic housing residents to perform commu

nity service was revived in late June, when theU.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment issued a notice ordering localhousing authorities to have the program in fullswing by October 31 .The requirement "allowsresidents an opportunity to 'give somethingback' to their communities and facilitatesupward mobility," the notice explains.

Part of the Quality Housing and WorkResponsibilityAct of 1998, the rule was brieflyimplemented in 2001, but a last-minute

amendment by Rep. Charles Rangel in 2002prevented the feds from putting any moneytoward it, giving tenants a temporary reprieve.This year, they weren't so lucky."We've been singled out. Nobody else whogets [federal] subsidies has to do it," saysSylvia Velazquez, president of the tenantsassociation at DeWitt Cl inton Houses, a 749-unit development in East Harlem. "Corporations receive millions and millions of dollarsfrom the government. Where's their service tothe community?"

HUD officials estimate the requirement willfall on about 20 percent of public housing residents, or 370,000 nationwide.The rule appliesto unemployed tenants between the ages of 18and 62, and exempts students, job trainees,welfare recipients, and people with disabilities.It is now up to the local housing authoritiesto put the program in action over the nextmonth, even if they do so grudgingly. "We andothers tried to get Congress to extend themoratorium," says New York City HousingAuthority spokesperson Howard Marder. "It'ssomething that the residents don't like and we

Each Monday, CITY LIMITS ~ r n l @ , 1 ? delivers timely stories about howNew York really works.

12

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don't like it. Basically, it's an unfunded federalmandate." But now that it is moving forward,he says, NYCHA is ttying to create "as manyexemptions as possible" before the October 31deadline. The authorities are busy reviewingfiles to see who might fall under one of theexempted criteria. That's a tall order for thelargest housing authority in North America,which houses more than 400,000 residents .Tenant advocates fear that rushing the screening process could result in community servicerequirements for some people who should acrually be exempt. "It's ludicrous," says JudithGoldiner of the Legal Aid Society, counsel to theNew York Public Housing Residents Alliance.'There's literally no way the Housing Authoritycan meet with evetyone by October 31."Rangel has introduced a bill to repeal therule, but Goldiner isn't holding her breath. Sheand the Alliance are continuing to pressureNYCHA to create the least restrictive plan.Otherwise, she says, they'll mount a legal challenge. "I hope it doesn't come to that," she says."But we will sue them if they don't implementit correctly." - Cass; Feldman

C I T Y L I M I T S ~ ~ ~

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INSIDE TRACK

Joint PurposeIn abrutal business environment nonprofits explore the once-unthinkable: merging with the competition. By Tracie McMillan

Michael Zisser (left) merged the organization he heads, University Settlement, with a youth agency, The Door. Now the kids attendingJoseph Collins ' college prep program get help with legal services and green cards, too.FIVE YEARS AGO, one of the city's most celebratedyouth service agencies faced a conundrum. TheDoor was an innovative grassroors group thathad consistently won lavish praise and fundingfor irs teens-only services like legal aid, homework help, and a sexual health clinic. It wasdoing great work, but its management was amess, blazing through four directors in six years.Though still in business, The Door was alsofloundering financially. "It had been subject toperiodic financial challenges, some real heavyduty difficulties," says Bob Howitt, a formerexecutive director and board member for theorganization. At one point, the group almostfailed to meet payroll.

That's when Howitt, then board chair,approached Michael Zisser, a member of TheNOVEMBER 2003

Door's board and the executive director of Un -versity Settlement, with what was then considered a radical idea: combine the two organizations. Bring University's management expertiseand fundraising savvy to The Door; takeadvantage of The Door's teen programs toenhance University's college prep work.

As Zisser recalls, merging among non profitswas a novelty at the time: "Everyone said,'''What are you doing? '"

Today, few nonprofit executives would beshocked. Organizations serving the city's mostvulnerable are confronting diminished government spending, withering foundation suppottand a penny-pinching donor base-all whilefacing increased demand for services. The huntfor creative ways to maintain programs has

gained urgency. Groups usually seek to expandtheir reach by winning new contracts or startingnew programs. Now, nonprofirs are increasinglyconsidering an approach that used to bereserved strictly for the money-makers: Merge.

"Many nonprofits are struggling to survive atall," notes Chuck Hamilton, executive directorof the Clark Foundation. "It's clear to me that alot of organizations just aren't going to survive.That means they either go out of business, orthere's a collaborative merger possibility. "Hamilton says he's seen lors of activitybehind the scenes. "I started to ask grantees ifthey'd ever thought of mergers-probably adozen executive directors-and every single onehad thought of it, been approached, or it was avague goal for the future," he says . But for

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many are past the point of no return. A group thathas downsized programming and is scrambling tokeep afloat does not make an attractive parmer.

But organizations tend not to broach thetopic of merger until it's too late. "The community-based nonprofit sector is too resourceful forits own good," laments Sean Delany, ExecutiveDirector of Lawyers Alliance for New York,which arranges legal assistance for groups exploring mergers, and recently published a handbookon the topic. "They keep things going on fumesuntil the point comes where they are no longerviable as parmers in mergers. "

One reason groups are so reluctan t to exploretheir options while they still have them is theintense rivalry within the sector for scarceresources. "There's enormous competition"between nonprofits, says Fran Barrett, executivedirector of Community Resource Exchange, atechnical assistance group for nonprofits. "Wewould have maybe six or eight groups that aregoing in for one grant. There's always beenenormous competition, but I think it's steppedup now because people are looking for money."

There's a certain value to the competition-itkeeps groups lean, goes the logic, and helps keepcosts down. But it can also prevent organizationsfrom thinking about the big picture. For funders,Campbell points out, the world looks very different: "There are questions about whether there aretoo many organizations to deliver services efficiently," explains Campbell. "I fyou have 25 mental health centers, is it more efficient to deliverservices with 10 organizations instead?"

Cash isn't the only resource groups are competing for; they must vie for top leadership talent,too. Turnover in the sector is intense: Of 300nonprofit executive directors, nearly half plan toleave their position within the next five years,according to a recent study done by United Wayof New York City. The same study found that 60percent of 300 senior s taff surveyed thought theycould make a better salary at another nonprofit.

Leadership challenges don't end , of course,once a merger is sealed. Merging disparate organizational styles isn't easy. Seemingly inconsequential aspects of a nonprofit's work can turnout to be formidable stumbling blocks. "Whatis the work style? Do we go to lunch? Do wetake vacation?" explains Barrett. "It's very easyfor people to go onto the moral high ground of'we work harder than they do.'"

Two years ago, South 40, an employmentservices group geared toward ex-offenders, joinedup with the Osborne Association, a multiserviceagency for prisoners and ex-offenders. A singleorganization now gives clients employment helpand social services, without an outside referral.

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INSIDE TRACK

16

Racial DownsizingWill black andLatino socialservice agencies be casualtiesofgovernment shrinkage?By Hilary RussNONPROFITS ARE CAlliNG it the perfect storm:Government, foundations and private donorsare all cutting back on their suppon for socialservices. But no nonprofit agencies are quite aspetrified as community-based groups foundedin the last couple of decades. Many havegrown up dependent on a few governmentcontracts for their survival. For those groups,many of which are minority-run, additionalsources of funding-endowments, galafundraisers, revenue-generating businessesare practically nonexistent. "Large organizations can survive, barely," says New SchoolUniversity urban policy professor Dennis Dertyck, co-author of a Center for New York CityAffairs study of how nonprofits in the city arefaring after September 11. "For smaller agencies, God have mercy on them."Nowhere is this more crystallized, and morecomplexly drawn, than in the field of childwelfare. That's because of some vety goodnews: The number of children in foster carehas declined to just 24,500, down from41,500 only seven years ago. The Administration for Children's Services will be phasing outcontracts with an unspecified number of the42 private agencies it currently pays to providefoster care casework and related services. ACShas "determined that the decline in the number of kids in foster care is not a shon-termphenomenon," says Jim Purcell, executivedirector of the Council of Family and ChildCaring Agencies, a trade group. The cityagency has a ready tool to help it decide whichagencies will get the boot: For the last threeyears, ACS has been evaluating their performance by measuring how quickly and effectivelythey move children into permanent homes.But the rating system, known as EQUIP,has produced a very uncomfortable result. Ina system where about 95 percent of kids infoster care are black, Latino or Asian, only ahandful of the contract agencies are led bypeople of color and based in the communities the kids come from. In 2001, the lastyear for which scores are available, these

agencies were clustered in the lower half ofthe rankings for foster boarding houses.ACS Commissioner William Bell , whodeclined to comment while downsizing discussions continue, faces quite a dilemma.Should he go out of his way to preserve agencies rooted in communities of color, while letting go ofwhite-run agencies that score bener?Or should ACS adhere strictly to performanceevaluations and lose the diversity of providersthat city and state officials have worked sohard to achieve?Bell has a personal stake in the situation:

Like any test,foster care'srating system canbe manipulated.

He started his career at one of these agencies.In the late 1980s, the number of kids in fos-ter care had tripled in just two and a halfyears, and babies born with drugs in theirbodies were languishing in hospitals. Manyso-called boarder babies were African American, and the state turned to black andLatino community-based organizations todevelop desperately needed foster homes.Miracle Makers, then a day-care centerrun out of a church basement in Bed-Stuy,was one group that stepped up. Purcell, thena member of the state team that helpedlaunch the new minority-run agencies,remembers Miracle Makers founder WillieWren as a "force of nature." The agency wasso anxious to help it started putting kids intofoster care before it was licensed to do so. SaysPurcell, "The state license was not importantto them. Getting babies in good places was."Not every new group survived. Some"crashed and burned," as Purcell puts it,from management, program or fiscal problems. Five carry on.The Coalition for Hispanic Family Services is one survivor. The Bushwick-basedfoster care and family services organizationboasts an entirely bilingual staff and involvesextended family in care and planning. It has

only about $1 million in assets and annualrevenue of $6.7 million, $3.7 million ofwhich comes from its foster care business."We've got a lean and mean infrasttucture,"says Executive Direcror Denise Rosario. "Wehad our first fundraiser two years ago thatmyself and my assistant put together, just thetwo of us. It takes the wherewithal of the staffthat I have to do everything."Cuts in public funding have already forcedthe coalition to reduce its HIV/AIDS work.When it comes to foster care, Rosario's notsure what to expect. On EQUIP's ranking of42 foster boarding home providers, Rosario'sgroup is 11 th from the bottom.ACS evaluates details like agencies' paperwork and training programs, but the mainfocus is on outcomes: how quickly they movekids out of foster care and back to their families, how fast they secure adoption for kidswho can't go back, and how many childrenend up back in foster care soon after returning home or being adopted . On two of threecounts, the coalition does fme. "We have avery low rate of re-entry into the system," sheexplains. "For adoption, we're very close to100 percent. On the other hand, it takes us alittle longer to get the kids out."Policy analysts say ACS needs to weighconsumer satisfaction, too. "EQUIP is reallygood in many ways," says Andrew White,director of the Center for New York CityAffairs. "But one thing really lacking is a survey of clients and older foster children. Itlacks qualitative elements that would measurewhat these organizations are strong in--culturally competent services and neighborhoodrelationships." EQUIP also may put agencieswith small staffs at a disadvantage: Many bigagencies have an employee whose job it is tocompile data and ensure the agency complieswith guidelines. "Like any standardized test,EQUIP can be manipulated by agencies thathave the resources to do that," says White.''That's not to say it's a bad thing, but you'vegot to know what you're dealing with."No one would deny that service providersshould be scrutinized by the city that's paying them. But Rosario wants officials toappreciate the assets groups like hers offer.Their services come reasonably cheap, fueledby sweat equity and a deep commitment toservice. Says Rosario, "We're operating withone arm tied behind our back, doing it out

of love for our community, families and theculture that we come from."

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Ann Mclaughlin, who was promoted ro directorof South 40 Employment Services after themerger. "It wasn't smooth," she admits. Osborne,says Mclaughlin, was fairly professionalized andhad a regimented infrasrrucrure; South 40 wasmore casual. Another difference was the way eachgroup approached its work. "In employment, weare very no-nonsense, because nobody's going tohold your hand at a job," says Mclaughlin. AtOsborne-which offers services in mental health,housing, substance abuse, even case management-"they can hold their [client's] handbecause that's what the client might need."

Sometimes, a merger threatens not just workstyle but an entire program. Mergers mean relinquishing conrrol, and open up the possibility thata project or even a program areawill lose its appealunder the new organization. Though nobodyaims to downsize programs, it sometimes happens

"If you have 25mental healthcenters, is it more

efficient to deliverservices with 10centers instead?"

as a partnership evolves-and that's a risk thatgroups entering into partnerships just have totake, says John Vogelsang, associate director of theSupport Center for Nonprofit Management. 'Tvehad a number of phone calls where people start torealize that's a risk," says Vogelsang. "And theydecide, instead of a merger, to do a joint venturebut keep their organizations separate."With so many pressures to maintain the status quo, the number of groups pursuing "strategic collaborations" has yet to surge, even as interest in mergers intensifies. The Lawyers Alliance,which provides and coordinates legal assistancefor non profits seeking to merge, has seen "aremarkably consistent level of activity," saysDelany. Five years ago, the group secured assis-tance for eight collaborations in a year; in thepast year, it has handled only three more thanthat. "There's a lot of talk. Many have calledhere," says Delany. "Bur few have gone throughwith the process." NOVEMBER 2003

Do You Need a LawyerWho Understands HousingAnd Homeless Services?As nonprofits respond to the City's affordable housingcrisis and the growing number of homeless New Yorkers,Lawyers Alliance for New York is expanding its work totarget more groups that assist th e homeless. Whetheryour nonprofit provides food, shelter or permanent housing, job training or other social services to the homeless,Lawyers Alliance can assist with your organization'sbusiness law needs. Our staff an d volunteer attorneyshave experience with nonprofit, corporate, real estate,low-income ta x credit an d other legal issues that canaffect nonprofits that are creating affordable housingan d serving the homeless.For more information, call us at 212219-1800 ext. 223.330 Seventh AvenueNe w York, NY 10001212 219-1800

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www.lany.org Building a Better New York17


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IV leaarev InvWHEN cmDmcTlVES SURCHED for the secrets hiding in Maximo Perez's bedroom closet this past winter, they found small plasticbaggies, more than 50 of them, along with a $60 digital scale, a quarterounce and more of cocaine and, under the bed, wrapped in cloth, a .25caliber pistol. It was all tough-to-dispute evidence of the young Perez'sforay into the neighborhood drug trade, a small business he ran fromhis mother's time-worn Lower East Side tenement apartment.

Now Maximo, 22, is serving a year-and-a-half sentence upstate. Andhis mother, Luz Perez, a 54-year-old church chaplain, has been evictedfrom her $51 O-a-month rent-stabilized apartment for his crime."I didn't know. 1 don't do drugs," says Luz Perez, packing up her lifeinto cardboard boxes days before her eviction from the apartment she'slived in for decades, eyes puffy with tears. "I have no boyfriend. 1 haveno husband. My son is in prison. Now I get kicked out in the street likeI am not a person."

NOVEMBER 2003

Marga

Since 1996, public housing residents nationwide have been subject toa federal "one-strike" law evicting them or anyone in the householdinvolved in drug dealing or other illicit activity. More quietly, however,for most of the last two decades, prosecutors in Manhattan DistrictAnorney Robert Morgenthau's office have pushed to evict thousands oftenants in private apartments, too. And more recently, as in the case ofLuz Perez, Housing Court judges are granting evictions even when theleaseholder seemingly isn't connected to the crime at all.It didn't maner whether or not Perez knew about the drugs in herson's closet, Cyril Bedford, a city Housing Court judge, ruled in a controversial decision this August. "It's scary," says Maya Grosz, supervisinganorney at the Harlem-based Neighborhood Defenders Association.Grosz notes that in the past, lawyers arguing for eviction were pressed toshow a judge that at the vety least a tenant had either "knowledge" of or"acquiescence" to a crime.Other judges are now free to use Bedford's ruling to justify evictingtenants who have no clue that illegal activities are happening in their apartments. But if someone doesn't know about a crime, advocate lawyers won-

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der, how can he or she prevent it? "Where's the due process?" asks Grosz.The Bedford ruling has put a rare spotlight on the District Attorney's

Narcotics Eviction Program (NEP), designed in the late 1980s by Morgenthau to banish drug dealers who had burrowed into apartments andturned them into drug dens.

As law enforcement, the program has been remarkably effective: Mosttenants choose to vacate on their own. When NEP cases do come to coutt,the DA.'s office estimates that it wins win 98 percent of its evictions.

That's an impressive batting average. Drug-infested buildings havebeen cleared almost single-handedly. In some cases, the DA.'s officereports, entire city blocks have seen crack dens and drug slums disappear.But as the city's number of drug convictions continues to decline, bothNEP coordinators and advocacy lawyers say they are fmding that manyof the tenants they seek to evict are nor associated with heavy drug dealers at all, as was once the case. And their families, often blind to thecrime, are the ones getting punished .TIE IAIcmcsmenON PROGRAM was Morgenthau's baby. "No otherindividual step we take addresses the drug-trafficking problem as effectively in a building where people live," the D.A. said, announcing theNarcotics Eviction Program in 1987. "There's nothing more importantthan recapturing housing stock so people can live safely in their homes."

At the time, law enforcers faced a nagging problem. Even when dealers had gone through the lengthy process of getting busted and convictedand sent to prison, sales in apartments continued. Crack was becomingmore popular on the street-an epidemic. Narcotic cops were raidingthe same drug dens, over and over, in the same apartments.

To uproot the drug trade, the D.A.'s office resurrected certain provisions of the Real Property Act and Proceedings Laws, a dusty series ofstatutes known as "bawdy house laws." Intended to banish prostitutionand houses of ill repute, the laws call for eviction of the primary tenant,presumably the madam. Interpreting the statutes, Morgenthau and otherlegal enforcers around the country have argued successfiilly that thebawdy house laws could also be used to banish any illegal business.While NEP's main target has been the drug trade, the D.A.'s office saysit also goes after prostitution rings, black market guns and cigarettes, andthe lucrative trade in counterfeit sports apparel.

Following Morgenthau's swift success, the city's other boroughsadopted the program as well. "It's absolutely necessary," says Oscar Ruiz,an assistant district attorney in Queens. "Sure, you always have one person who claims not to know anything-but what about the 900 otherpeople in the neighborhood that get affected by that ignorance? Theysuffer the terror."

The D.A.'s office doesn't just pur the squeeze on tenants; it holdslandlords responsible, too, and relies on them to press cases in HousingCourt. If they fail to bring eviction proceedings, owners can be forcedto pay fines, be named in litigation or lose their buildings through forfeiture. After an arrest or search warrant is executed and evidence of abusiness is discovered, no matter how small the amount of drugs is,NEP coordinators and paralegals send a letter to the owner of the building requesting that the landlord execute eviction proceedings againstthe tenant immediately.

In turn, the D.A's office offers to piggyback the case in court for thelandlord, arranging paperwork and preparing wirnesses. They give awayprecious "red backs," colored pieces of paper that accompany legal claimsand ensure cases move speedily through the cluttered court system. Andwhile the D.A. is not technically a party to the case, city paralegals also

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accompany attorneys for landlords into courtrooms, offer support, helpnegotiate settlements and make sure cases aren't bungled.The D.A evenhas a pre-prepared sheet of questions designated for landlords' attorneys-just in case a lawyer forgets which questions to ask a tenant ordetective on the stand.

Some landlords are happy to have help getting rid of their tenants,especially from regulated apartments that can fetch much higher rentsonce they're vacant. Others balk at evicting longtime tenants who areharmless and at being forced to pay legal fees to evict tenants whosend in rent on time. (Drug dealers have always been known for punctual payments.)

Gary Galperin, the assistant district attorney who's been runningNEP since its inception, says tearning up with landlords is the only way

to ensure evictions are handled in a timely, efficient manner. "We recognize that this remedy can be a powerful tool used for wonderful things,"Galperin says. "We also recognize that as a powerful tool we must wieldit fairly, justly and carefiilly."

Some tenant lawyers question how justly that power is really applied.Craig Acorn, who's defended more than a dozen NEP eviction cases incourt as staff attorney for the mental health division of the Urban JusticeCenter, calls the alliance between D.A. and landlord an "unholy partnership," one that puts innocent people onto the street and offers landlords plum opportuni ties to r un tenants from rent-regulated apartments."It's a huge waste of time," he says. "I f taxpayers knew the DA. wasspending all this money to evict old grandmothers and put them into thestreet, they would be outraged."

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Acorn says he recently won a case in which rwo sisters living in a$650-a-month , one-bedroom apartment were facing eviction for threegrams of marijuana and a half-gram of cocaine that were confiscatedfrom the younger sister's husband, a disabled war veteran, following ananonymous call to the cops. (The women are disabled, too: The sisterwho holds the lease has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and undergoes dialysis for renal failure, while the younger one is on oxygen foremphysema.) At trial, Acorn pointed out that the drugs were for privateuse and the husband was not charged with intenc to sel l. Still, the landlord wanted the sisters, who are not drug users, out."The people who onen pay the heavy price of this program arepeople the general public is not concerned with," Acorn says. "Evenworse, if a person does have a drug problem, the last thing they need

to rehabilitate themselves is to be tossed inco the street. That's selfdestructing policy. "LOURDES CIRINO. a heavyset woman with gray spider streaks runningdown her long black hair, doesn't have a lawyer and doesn't know whereto find one. The trial to decide whether she will be able to stay in herapartmenc starts in about a month . In Housing Court on a recenc morning, Cirino, clad in tank top and sneakers, was trying to fight a NEPeviction from the $137-a-monch, publicly assisted East Harlem apartmenc where she was born 50 years ago . Cirino didn't know about anydrugs, she says. On weekends she works for a private bus operator thattransports family members of state prisoners upstate, making sandwiches, keeping passengers company and cleaning the bus for $50 a trip.

NOVEMBER 2003

Because she's not around on weekends, she let a friend use her apartmentas a place to crash."We all need a roof over our heads ," she explained.

A few months ago, Cirino's friend was busted and charged with dealing heroin and cocaine nom Cirino's apartment; he now faces a minimum of nine years in prison. "It's unfair," Cirino says. "Now my friendis in prison: he's safe, he's exercising, he's working out. I'm runningaround with my head cut off. "But lawyers for the New York City Housing Authority aren't buyingher story. "What [Cirino] didn't say, " notes Lisa Hynes, NYCHA'sattorney in the case , "is that her 'friend' is a guy named Freddy, andthat's the same 'Freddy' tattooed onto her arm next to a big heart. Nexttime, she shouldn't wear short sleeves in court."Of the 300 or so cases the DA's office has handled this year, abouthalf are in private housing, says Michelle Rosa, coordinator of NEP. Shesays scenarios like Perez's--elderly, onen-out-of-touch women whosechildren or grandchildren peddle small quantities of drugs-are com

mon, and pleading ignorance or claiming to have slept through the crimeis rarely a successful defense. "You have to control the business in yourown apartmenc," Rosa says. "You're putting your fellow tenants at risk. "Most tenants NEP is evicting aren't serious drug traffickers, staff inthe D.A.'s office say. "It's really the little guys," says Diana McCovery, aparalegal who's worked for NEP for the last five years . "The major players don't even touch the drugs," she says , "and once the kids get out ofprison, they just go right back to packaging for quick money ... It's avicious cycle ."Some tenants facing eviction from their apartments barely understand what's going on. In Housing Court recently, Joanne Mercier, a 27-year-old mother of four from the Bronx, couldn't figure out why sheshould be evicted from her $1,040 one-bedroom apartmenc. If herboyfriend was the one busted for an eighth or so of marijuana and agram or so of cocaine, she wondered, why should she be responsible?"It wasn't me with drugs," Mercier said, in a rage. "Now I amthe victim!"

Luz Perez also considers herself a victim. A few days before her courdate, Maximo, now an inmate at Mohawk Correct ional Facility, amedium security prison near Albany, wrote her and her lawyer, stating"My case had nothing to do with my family, they were ignorant to mywrong doings." He also claimed Manhattan detectives misled him aboutconsequences for his mother, when asking permission to search his bedroom. "I [told the police,] 'Please let my mother live in her apartmentbecause I've already disrespected her and I know I must find anotheraddress when I come home because she'll never forgive me."Luz Perez says she wants to appeal Bedford's decision. But she needsto find a new place to live first, and having her appeal sitting for monthsin a Housing Court bin won't do anything to secure her a bed. Unlikeher landlord, she doesn't get the "red backs." She tried to make a compromise with her landlord, ARNJ Realty, and her management agencyBrownstone Management- say, switching to a smaller apartmenc-butto no avail."It's very easy to sit back and be sympathetic about the situationbut there comes a time when enough is enough," says Chris Greene, oBrownstone Management, about Perez's cas e. "You have to be fair to theother tenants. Her kid was a problem.What would happen if an innocent person were killed by accident with his gun? Whose fault wouldthat be? The bottom line is, the landlord and the building shouldn't beheld responsible for her poor judgment."

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Thousands of New Yorkers have relocated to the Poconosseeking bargain homes-and found themselves embroiled ina mass real-estate ripoff. BY DEBBIE NATHAN

O n a Saturday afternoon in early September in the Pocono Mountainstown ofEast Stroudsburg, the air andsky seemed cleaner than they ever do in NewYork City. But Louis Brown, an MTA bus driver&om the Bronx, had not made the trip for funin the sun. Instead, he joined some 200 gravelooking audience members and politicos in alocal university auditorium. Taking the microphone, Brown described how he lost all his sav-ings in the Poco nos, how his credit is now so"twisted" that he can't even rent an apartment.

The audience nodded knowingly. LikeBrown, many here are part of a black and Latinomigration &om metro New York City that in thelast decade tripled the ratio of minorities inMonroe County, Pennsylvania, near theDelaware Water Gap. As a result, the Stroudsburg area-almost lily white a generation ago-now boasts braiding salons, a Caribbean restaurant, and other amenities that once would havetaken a trip to Harlem to fmd. The clientele areNew York City municipal workers such as copsand transit workers, along with private-industryemployees, who moved to the mountains looking for peace and quiet and big, cheap houses.Thousands commute five hours a day to theirjobs. (According to reporter David Pierce of thePocono Record, six Pocono commuters died inthe World Trade Center on 9/11.) All this to geta piece of homeowner heaven.Instead, many say, they've gotten realestate-scam hell.Since last year, scores of New York expats

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have joined lawsuits charging that 26 Poconoarea builders, realtors and appraisers pushed over200 mostly first-time homebuyers into foreclosure and financial ruin by offering them inexpensive country homes, then ruthlessly bilkingthem with a complicated scam. The suits seek$18.5 million in restitution and penalties. Hundreds more plaintiffs are expected to join thecivil litigation soon. Even more are thought tohave been victimized and left the area. In addition, in late September the Monroe County District Attorney's office arrested a mortgage company employee and charged him with committing forgery and mud while selling a house.At the East Stroudsburg meeting, sponsoredby the Pocono Homeowners Defense Association (PHDA), a community group, attendeesbemoaned what has become a home foreclosure epidemic in Monroe County: up from 120in 1990 to a projected 1,041 this year. Thenumber is shocking for a county with only148,000 residents. Nine hundred and twentyfive homes were foreclosed there last year, compared to 3,200 sold, according to the PoconoAssociation of Realtors. Divide one number bythe other, and the sales-to-foreclosure ratio isan astounding 29 percent. Nationwide, the rateis less than 1 percent. Even in New York Cityboroughs, where predatory lending is common, only about 5 percent of low-incomehomeowners with FHA loans have sufferedforeclosure in recent years.The only comfort for the audience at the EastStroudsburg meeting was the fact that Pennsylva-

nia Attorney General Mike Fisher has filed twoconsumer ftaud lawsuits against some of he firmsand individuals involved. One suit names devel-oper Gene Percudani and several companies he isassociated with, including Raintree Homes, Inc.,Why Rent Co. and Coastal Environmental, Inc.The other suit names officers at four Keystonecompanies presided over by Thomas Senofonte.Three appraisers are also defendants.According to the suits, victims were lured byads placed in the New York City and New Jersey media, offering luxury, custom-built homesfor about $190,000. That's half what similarhouses would cost in Flushing or Jamaica. Key-stone gave potential clients a videotape, "YouCan Own Your Dream Home," which contrasts gracious Pocono living with images ofpurported big city ills: gang warfare, muggings,shotgun attacks, rooms overrun by vermin.Keystone offered homebuyers one-stop shopping with the company's own builder, mortgage services and lawyer. People with shakycredit were reassured they could buy anyway.Former clients of Percudani remember seeingadvertisements on Pathmark grocery store bulletin boards in the Bronx, and on Jerry Springer.His companies offered to pay tenants' existingrent, even cover closing costs.

What buyers didn't know, the suits allege, isthat companies were recouping these payoutsby inflating the selling price of the homes by asmuch as $114,000 over their real value. Allegations also include the use of a "ghost account"set up to mislead lenders into thinking buyers'

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are gated communities, many New Yorkers don'trealize they will be assessed maintenance fees."You think you're getting a house for half what itcosts in the city," says Rosenblum. "But you endup working so hard that you have no life. Oryou're unable to support the costs."Meanwhile, the Poco nos' massive foreclosureproblem remains invisible to day-trippers touring the area with home buying in mind. Signsindicating that a residence is for sale or foreclosedare often prohibited in gated communities.

One such community is Pocono CountryPlace, a heavily black and Latino developmentin which Senofonte's Keystone Co. has builthomes. Property values have dropped sharply inthat community, and Niemoczynski and otherbuyer advocates say it's because of massive fore-

closures caused by fraud. Senofonte blames thedecrease on "a bad segment" living there. Hislanguage now echoes the phantasmagoric videohe distributed to lure people from the boogeyman terrors of the metropole. Pocono CountryPlace, he says, "is infested by gangs. Most of thehomes are not kept up. Or they're surroundedby homes in disrepair."

The real infestation is by dishonest realestate people, says PDHA's Wilson, who complains that he, too, was victimized after hemoved from Queens. Wilson is readying thePDHA to march on Harrisburg and Washington this fall, demanding that authorities such asthe FBI launch criminal investigations.

"Monroe County must be cleaned up," hesays . "It's the Wild Wild West here."

NOVEMBER 2003

HOME ECONOMICSA wave of foreclosures washes the gloss ofhomeownership. BY DEBBIE NATHAN

A li and a friend, both speculators,stood outside the courthouse withcertified checks in their pockets,mapping strategy for the day. ''I'm not buyingthat house," said Ali. "When I passed by tolook at it, a guy came out and screamed, 'Goaway, motherfucker!'"

"Buy it, let him stay, charge him rent,"shrugged the friend . "Tell him if he misses amonth you'll kick him out."

A nearby guard sized up the two. "Fleas,"he snickered.The group was waiting for a foreclosure

auction to begin, as it does each Thursdayafternoon in the cavernous jury-selection roomof Brooklyn's Supreme Court. There, smalltime realtors and investors-mostly youngimmigrant or ultra-orthodox Jewish men-bidon houses people like the screaming guy lostbecause they couldn't make their mortgagepayments. The auctions have been going onfor years in the boroughs. But lately, morehomes are headed for the block. Totals for2003 aren't in yet, but preliminary data compiled by the Furman Center for Real Estateand Urban Policy indicate that foreclosure

claims in Brooklyn rose from 2,629 in 2001 t2,970 in 2002-an increase of about 13 pecent. During the same period, the Bronx saw27 percent increase: from 915 claims to 1,164One reason for the rise in foreclosures seem

to be the economic downturn that beganeedling New York City in early 2001 and thestabbed with a vengeance after 9111. Accordinto statistics compiled by the Community Sevice Society, the increase in joblessness is steepest among blacks and Latinos, particularly mewithout college educations who do blue-collaclerical or administrative-support work.

During the national economic boom of th1990s, many in this demographic saveenough money to buy homes for the firstime. Some purchased one-family dwellingsothers chose multiplexes where they could livbut also get tenants to help pay the mortgageThese were fat years even for strugglinneighborhoods. During the 1980s and earl1990s, the New York City Housing PartnershipNeighborhood Housing Services , and othegroups worked with the government and bankto build and rehab affordable housing for sale tlower-income buyers, and to help those buyerobtain mortgages. The groups aimed to revitaliz

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neighborhoods by helping people with modestincomes achieve financial independence. Homeequity, the thinking went, would create stableindividuals in settled, prosperous communities.The Jeffersonian ideal of property ownership has always loomed large in the nation, andit was boosted when President Clinton set agoal to raise the national homeownership rateto 67 .5 percent by the millennium. Today, 68percent of American households own theirhomes. HUD wants to raise that rate twopoints in the next three years, as well as bringhomeownership rates among minority households up to the same level as whites'.But lately, hoary ideals have brushed against

a bad economy. Since New York's recessionbegan over two years ago, many homeownersand their tenants have had work hours cut, orbeen laid off altogethet. According to the NewYork State Department of Labor, since May2001, unemployment in Brooklyn has gone upfrom 5.7 to 9.1 percent. In the Bronx, it hasshot trom 6.2 to 10 percent.Housing counselors say they're seeing morepeople of modest income who have missedmortgage payments and gone into default orforeclosure. At Neighborhood Housing Services, Ken Davis, director of the agency's Foreclosure and Predatory Lending Prevention program, says that since early 2003, his office hasbeen doing foreclosure counseling for 10 or 15

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more clients each month than it used to. "It's a25 to 50 percent increase," notes ErskineKennedy, a coordinator with the same program.The damage is hardly as visible as it was during the foreclosure epidemic of the 1970s and

1980s. Back then, acres of abandoned homesgave a bombed-out look to areas such as SunsetPark and Jamaica. But when people lose theirhomes to foreclosure today, speculators buy andflip for a higher price, and new buyers take over.Sometimes they simply flip and flip again.Other times, they move in, but leave a fewmonths later when they, too, are foreclosedupon. Or the speculators, like those at thecourthouse auction, rent to tenants, then skimp

on maintenance, since their main goal is toretain profit before they eventually flip again.The neighborhoods, transformed with the helpof two decades of homeowner investment, lookstrong. But there's pain and rot within."T hiS is the worst thing that's everhappened to me. Don't use my

real name-just call me Fish, mynickname from when I was a child in Belize,"said the owner during an interview at hisCypress Hills home, whose $1,727-a-monthmortgage he has been been unable to pay formonths. Now jobless after two decades ofsteady employment, Fish spends his days looking for work and worrying to the point of

obsession. While talking, he tugs and tugs onhis curly beard. If whiskers were misfortunes,he'd have straightened his ou t long ago.His problems started shortly after 9/11.Until then, Fish was doing all the c

Documents

City Limits Magazine, November 2003 Issue