City Limits Magazine, December 1980 Issue

CITY LIMITS
DECEMBER 1980 $1.50 VOL.S NO. 10
225 Parkside A venue, a recently completed Participation Loan building in north Flatbush, Brooklyn.
Participation Loans:
The Two Sides of Success
Clinton Tenants Ponder
Their Future, p. 9
A Look at Cuban
Housing Today, p. 12
Housing Under Reagan: Paradise Regained?
Housing: Federal Policies and Programs, By John C.
Weicher. Published by the American Enterprise Insti-
tute, Washington, D.C., 1980.
by Marc Jahr
The author of this book is a former Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Economic Affairs at the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban and Development. The publisher,
the American Enterprise Institute, is a conservative
think tank frequently used by Republicans as the liberal
Brookings Institute is similarly employed by Democrats.
For that reason, this slim volume on federal housing
programs takes on special importance. From it, com-
munity activists can gain a clearer sense of what to ex-
pect in the coming four years.
With Ronald Reagan's victory, and the Republican
capture of the U.S. Senate, attempts will inevitably be
made to embody the author's line of argument in Con-
gressional housing legislation, and, unlike previous
tries, may well be successful. The poor and working
class residents of New York City's neighborhoods, par-
ticularly its Third World communities, will suffer the
conseq uences.
Weicher's book begins with a brief review of the justi-
fications advanced for government intervention in the
housing market. He then reviews selected research on
housing conditions in the United States, critiques past
and present housing subsidy programs, presents some
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 2
possible alternatives, and concludes with a discussion of
trends in homeownership and programs designed to en-
courage it.
Throughout, he writes in a moderate, even scholarly,
tone. But the tenor of the monograph is best reflected in
one of his few moments of campaign rhetoric: "The vir-
tual achievement of the original national housing goal is
a major accomplishment of our society .. . The country
has perhaps unconsciously sought new goals to replace
it, rather than celebrating the achievement. This attitude
is entirely responsible, although it tends to obscure still
further the extent of actual progress .. ...
The national goals alluded to by Weicher involve the
elimination of units needing major repairs, lacking
private inside baths and toilets, and suffering over-
crowding. But it will be difficult for us to join him in this
celebration. When we dance on the ruins of the South
Bronx, Brownsville and other devastated urban com-
munities, the broken glass will cut our feet.
In the course of criticizing this document it would be
a mistake to be caught in the trap of defending the inde-
fensible. The original liberal justifications for some of
the federal housing programs were patronizing, and
their social goals inevitably went unmet. And many of
the programs, most notably Section 235 and the FHA
insured home mortgages, have been characterized by
monumental corruption.
Weicher's use of the failures, however, is entirely dis-
ingenuous. His contempt for the intended beneficiaries
of these programs is evidenced in the comment that
"Much of the earlier literature had ignored the possibil-
ity that the personal attributes of residents in poor hous-
ing, as well as or instead of housing conditions, might
have a bearing on social problems." This is a somewhat
more sophisticated way of saying,'If it wasn't for wel-
fare in this building, everything would be alright.'
Weicher is a slumlord in academic robes.
The author also disputes the notion that federally
subsidized housing programs have any significant im-
pact as economic countercyclical measures. His argu-
ment is basically that these programs are 'too little, too
late.' Even if one accepts this, and there is a complex
argument involved here, Weicher neglects to allocate
responsibility for that "fact".
Sidestepping that political question serves the pur-
poses of Weicher's argument. For, if the main ration-
ales for government involvement in housing - improved
social conditions and as an economic stimulus - are
dismissed, and one claims that the Housing Act of
1949's basic goal - "a decent home and suitable living
environment" for every American family- has been met,
then there remains little, if any, need for significant
government involvement in the housing market.
At last, paradise lost can be regained. The "free"
market can reign supreme. This is the ideological cross
that Reagan and Weicher will attempt to have us bear.
In further dismissing public housing programs, he
asserts, "There is evidence that subsidized housing pro-
duction is in large part a substitute for unsubsidized
production that would have occurred in any case." And,
"Private production has the greatest impact on sub-
standard housing."
To support this claim, Weicher invokes the "filtering
process", a theory he admits is controversial. If the pro-
cess actually exists, it simply amounts to the rich receiv-
ing the cream of the housing crop and the poor, the
dregs. In New York City, blocks of abandoned buildings
silently mock his thesis. As does the incessant ringing of
the city's Central Complaint number.
Since HUD will not be closing its doors after the in-
auguration, and the constituencies committed to decent
housing will not roll over and play dead, what does
Weicher have in mind? While criticizing public housing
and Section 8 subsidy construction programs as too ex-
pensive (and in the latter instance there is, for entirely
different reasons, su')stance to the argument), he speaks
favorably of the Section 8 existing housing program.
In general, Weicher's solution is housing allowances
for those who need them, such as Section 8 existing, on
the grounds that it would be less expensive, allow
3
greater freedom for the recipient, and serve more peo-
ple. The effect this would have on an already tight hous-
ing market such as New York's, would be to drive rents
skyward (especially if accompanied by another Weicher
proposal, the elimination of rent controls) and at the
same time further reduce the vacancy rate.
Weicher also proposes housing block grants similar to
the Community Development Block Grant program. He
claims these grants would give localities greater leeway
in determining the form of housing assistance they
choose to offer residents. The abuses of the Urban
Development Action Grants and the Community Devel-
opment grants, even under current regulations, are well
known. Laxer federal regulations will insure that in-
creased amounts of funds will be diverted from low and
moderate income communities to more affluent areas.
Similarly, the tendency to orient rehabilitation pro-
grams to the needs of banks and developers will be ex-
acerbated.
In his conclusion, Weicher echoes his earlier theme of
self-congratulation: "But while the rhetoric is the same,
the reality of housing has changed ... The nation has
lived for a long time with the sad rhetoric of big city
slums and tarpaper shacks, while in reality our housing
has steadily improved."
Disneyland is coming to Washington. But the "rhet-
oric" coming out of the allegedly chimerical "big city
slums" is bitter, not sad .. The challenge will be to trans-
late that bitter anger into action that can defend and ex-
pand upon the housing gains won in the past. With ad-
visors like Weicher, we expect nothing but grief
emanating from the Reagan administration. 0
Marc Jahr is a regular contributor oj photographs to
City Limits, and works as a housing organizer in
Brooklyn.
_CITY LIMITS.
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CITY LIMITS/December 1980
Two Sides of Participation Loans
New York City is providing rehabilitation loans to apartment building owners at an un-
precedented rate, and the program is having a strong impact on several neighborhoods. Just
who is benefitting from the loans, however, is a matter of debate.
~ ~ b y ­
; s . ~ SAY!"GS WlK
_r_l!Y-
UIICOUI SAYINGS _ ..
n(.IU'!; ............ iw......
.
PRIMARY-DAy-SEPT.-9":/980
by Tom Robbins
After more than three years of stormy courtship, the
City of New York and the lending industry have joined
together in what appears to be a happy - if not more
perfect - union. The aim of this marriage is to provide
low interest rehabilitation loans to multi-family build-
ings in "transitional" neighborhoods where mortgages
are difficult, and too expensive, to obtain. And while
the partners are breeding merrily, a basic question re-
mains: what sort of off-spring will this marriage spawn?
Possibly no other city housing program is spending
money as fast, or having as great an impact, as the aptly-
dubbed Participation Loan Program. The City Depart-
ment of Housing Preservation and Development, parti-
cipant number one, using federal Community Develop-
ment funds, provides roughly half the loan amount at
one per cent interest. The second participant, a bank or
consortium of banks, antes up the other half at the
market interest rate. The combined effect is to cut the
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
4
overall interest rate to the building's owner to well
below what the cost would be on the open market. In
addition, the city provides mortgage insurance on the
loan, tax abatements on the improvements, rent restruc-
turing in all apartments, and, pledges of Section 8 rent
subsidies for tenants who qualify and cannot meet the
post-rehab rents.
Recent talks with bankers, developers and city of-
ficials revealed sustained applause for the program
which currently boasts 3,880 units either completed or
under construction, and another 5,600 units in the pipe-
fine. Unlike other program pipelines, the valves are wide
open and the money is flowing freely. Flowing so well in
fact, that while the city has been whittling away many
programs, and eliminating some, such as sweat equity,
almost entirely, Participation Loans got a $5 million
dollar boost this year over its previous allocation. Of the
$20 million given to the program this year, half of it is
already committed, and the other half identified with
projects already submitted. Participation Loan director
Jim Peters doesn't expect to even look at a new applica-
tion until next year.
"Two years ago it was a question of whether the pro-
gram could work," said Peters. "But now, the volume
has built up and there is more demand than funds.
We've been able to get the banks' full participation,
whereas before it was almost entirely our initiative."
That initial nervousness was echoed by bankers who
are now highly supportive of the program. "Building
owners and banks were extremely wary of getting in-
volved with the city," recalled Joseph Bowen, Assistant
Vice President at the Citibank pilot project in Flatbush.
"But in 1979-80 things started to come together. Confi-
dence in the program grew as standardization of the
loans occurred." Citibank in Flatbush is now a lender in
14 projects under construction, and has another 35 in
the pipeline.
"It's a highly effective program that has really gotten
things accomplished," added Roger Williams,who heads
the Community Affairs office of the Dime Savings
Bank,which is involved in Participation Loans in Brook-
lyn and Staten Island.
From 1976 to 1979, at a time when interest rates were
well below their present levels, the program was able to
close just twelve loans. Bankers and city officials des-
cribe this period as a start-up time, during which confi-
dences had to be won and forms and criteria standard-
ized. Once both these goals were accomplished, the
work began in earnest.
Some community groups have also joined in the
applause for the program. "It's been enormously suc-
cessful," said Judy Flynn, director of the Flatbush De-
velopment Corporation. "In a fairly small area we've
managed to get 23 buildings in the program. We've fol-
lowed right behind the work of our tenant organizing.
In most cases we've worked with tenants in occupancy,
and in others we've been able to checkerboard." By
checker boarding, a developer moves a tenant into a v a ~
cant apartment until the rehab work is complete.
"Now that it's working, it's working quite well,"
added Bob Blank, FDC's director of development. "It's
really one program that can do rehab in a feasible way,
without pushing rents through the roof."
Participation Loans are having a clear and definite
impact on several neighborhoods where they have been
targeted. Washington Heights and Clinton in Manhat-
tan, Crown Heights and North Flatbush in Brooklyn
have thus far received the bulk of the loan dollars. In
those areas, generally large, once stately, apartment
buildings have been ushered into the loan program by
owners, bankers or city officials. The rehabilitation has
had a spin-off effect as well: its activity has helped at-
tract other, non-subsidized, development and rehabili-
tation.
But, many critics of the Participation Loans fear the
5
program's success may be largely one-sided. Owners
and developers receive loans otherwise unobtainable,
tax abatements, rent increases and varying degrees of
profit; banks make insured loans at greatly reduced risk
to themselves, and, in the process, open up a neighbor-
hood for further investment; city government makes
good on pledges to help revive deteriorating neighbor-
hoods. But, at the same time, what happens to people
who cannot afford to live in the refurbished, and
refinanced, buildings?
Low income housing is a scarce commodity and once
it' s gone, it's gone. It won't return to the hands of poor
people unless the cycle of deterioration begins over
again, and then only in dilapidated, near uninhabitable,
condition.
•
The city's immediate response to the problem of post-
rehab rents, that, even though below market, may still
present either an extreme hardship, or be unaffordable
to tenants is that ample Section 8 rent subsidy cer-
tificates are available. A number of catches exist,
though. For one, certificates are only available to those
in tenancy at the time of the rehab - others must come
knocking at the door, certificate in hand. And for those
Low income housing is a scarce commodity,
and once it's gone, ·it's gone. It won't return to .
the hands oj poor people unless the cycle oj
deterioration begins again.
in place, the family size must match the bedroom count
set by federal criteria - not exceed it or dip below. City
officials acknowledge this problem, but say it has been
largely avoided by relocating mis-matched families.
They do point to some, minimal, displacement as a
result of this.
A family may also earn just above the Section 8 in-
come limitations and therefore not qualify. One quarter
of the certificate applications submitted by tenants in
Participation Loan biJildings have been rejected. And
the sum total, as of November of this year, of certifi-
cates awarded to tenants in these buildings is 73. Al-
though another 212 applications were in 'processing, and
some l,600 subsidies set aside for tenants, the difference
between the promise and the delivery is a gap to the tune
of almost 1,'200 tenants presently paying the full post-
rehab rents.
HPD points to the city Housing Authority, which
processes the certificates and follows a complicated pro-
cedure as the reason behind the delays. Assistant Com-
missioner Jeff Heintz, who oversees the Participation
Loan Program, believes there has been a good deal of
"fallout" of tenants who apply for certificates but with-
draw either because the wait is too long and paying the
difference between the actual rent and the subsidy is not
that great, or because "No one likes to have their in-
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
come audited."
In one Clinton project which was completed in 1978,
only one Section 8 certificate has been awarded to date.
The landlord there says he has been carrying the other
tenants at the 25 per cent of income they would be pay-
ing if the subsidies were in place. But it is not possible to
determine how many other owners have been as sympa-
thetic.
Even were the city able to immediately deliver on its
promise of rent subsidies, however, there remains the
rest of the building's units which are marketed at the
level of cost determined by the refinancing and the
rehabilitation.
With fluctuating interest rates - presently headed
back up to the heights they reached last spring - the
ability to bring in projects at rents affordable to the
poor and working poor would appear to be nearly im-
possible, even with the best of intentions. A project on
Manhattan's Upper West Side presently anticipates
rents ranging from $285 for a studio to $595 for a three
bedroom apartment - rents which are well below what
could be obtained on the open market in that booming
area, but still beyond the reach of those for whom the
federal dollars were intended. Nor is that project such
an extreme example. In Crown Heights, rents in a build-
ing being rehabilitated under the program which has no
tenants in place · are $90 per room. This is in an.
area where blacks and Hispanics account for 85 per cent
of the population. In 1977 the median income for black
families in New York City was $7,427, for Hispanics
$5,848. Low and moderate income is a handy phrase for
planners, officials and even community advocates; but
in New York City, it is basically shorthand for
minorities.
"Most of our rents are clustered just below the ceiling
of what is allowed under Section 8," said Peters.
"We're really talking about serving moderate income
people or middle income people." Heintz insists there is
a benefit to those who are of low and moderate income,
because "We are producing rents that are affordable."
Overall, though, he sees it as "a neighborhood preserva-
tion program - it's a program that effectively inter-
venes in the cycle of deterioration. It's ant.i-abandon-
ment and it helps shore up transitional neighborhoods."
Lew Futterman, a Manhattan developer who has been
involved in Participation Loans for several years and
has complemented his more than 200 rehabilitated units
with open market rentals and co-ops nearby the subsi-
dized buildings, couches his support of the program in
sociological terms. "Historically, the upwardly mobile
members of poor communities have tended to desert
their neighborhoods, leaving a substantial gap to fill in
the role model needs of the younger generation. The
kids are left with no one to admire but the local drug
pusher. This is a program to keep those who are trying
to help themselves in the community."
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 6
The enabling legislation for Participation Loans, Ar-
ticle XV of the New York State Private Housing Finance
Law, dtes the program as a remedy for a "seriously in-
adequate supply of safe and sanitary accomodations,
particularly for those of low income." The law does not
definelow income, but the federal Department of Hous-
ing and Urban Development, which administers and
monitors the federal block grants out of which the loans
Overall [said Heintz] "it's anti-abandonment
and it helps shore up transitional neighbor-
hoods."
are made, does stipulate that low and moderate income
persons be the beneficiaries of at least 75 per cent of the
funds. The question of whether the loans do provide
that benefit was one of the major thrusts behind a com-
plaint filed with HUD last summer by the New York
Community Development Coalition.
HUD's response was that as long as three quarters of
the loans resulted in rents allowable under Section 8
guidelines, they were an eligible use of federal dollars.
The Coalition argued that even though most rents may
fall within that bracket, the city does no income screen-
ing or verification to see who is actually moving into the
renovated apartments.
"Beyond the regulations," lamented Brian Sullivan,of
the Pratt Center who helped compile the complaint,
"the real question is whether people are already paying
more than they can afford. Because HPD doesn't
screen, they have no way of knowing who is really
benefitting."
•
The Crown Heights section of Brooklyn is one neigh-
borhood where Participation Loans have been heavily
targeted. There, 953 units are already completed or
under construction. Another 1,353 are in the pipeline.
Among the most promising candidates for loans there
are the vast, 1920s-era, apartment buildings that line
much of the area's major through fare , Eastern
Parkway.
Recently, the tenants in two of those buildings re-
jected their mutual landlord's proposal to do rehabs
using Participation Loans. Having seen rehabs carried
out in several other nearby buildings, including one at
284 Eastern Parkway which had been emptied of
tenants following a, suspicious fire and where rents are
now $90 per room, they eyed the developments in their
own buildings somewhat nervously.
"The trend here is definitely to displace," said
William Grey, of 255 Eastern Parkway who presently
pays $375 per month for a 7 room apartment for his five
member family. In October, when the Grey family was
repeatedly the surprised host to visiting inspectors and
engineers preparing a scope of work for the landlord's
proposed loan, their apartment boasted a collapsed
bathroom ceiling and a cascading leak in the hall. Over
one third of the tenants in the 89 unit building were on
rent strike after having gone without hot water or eleva-
tor service for over a month. "This building is definitely
not a slum," noted Grey, "it does need work, but not
the amount they want to do. Besides, they haven't given
us good services since they took over the building. What
reason is there to expect them to begin after they get the
loan?"
According to Jon Poole, loan officer for the Com-
munity Preservation Corporation, a consortium of 39
banks that have combined to offer lower than market
loan rates and spread out the risk, a package was being
worked on for the building which would bring $15,000
worth of repairs to each apartment. The opposition of
the tenants to the rehab prompted the owner, Woodville
Realty, to sell the building in early November. But if
that was a disappointment to the owner, the decision of
tenants at 61 Eastern Parkway to block a loan which
had been in the works for over two years was
devastating .
. In the final stages of processing the loan, tenants in
that building decided they did not want to pay increased
rents for repairs they didn't believe they needed, or for
services they didn't expect to receive. Rents there were
slated to go to $78 per room. "We looked at other
buildings where rehabs were done," said resident Ella
Murray, "and we decided we didn't want to go through
what those tenants had suffered." After 85 per cent of
the tenants signed a petition rejecting the loan, both city
and landlord were forced to drop the project.
The deal the tenants refused, according to HPD's
Peters, was "irreplaceable." With a private bank mort-
gage at ten per cent over thirty years, and the city pro-
viding $460,000 of the $752,000 loan, the effective rate,
said Peters, "came to around five to five and a half per
cent combined. With normal increases under rent guide-
lines they would be at the same level in two years,
without the rehab," he insisted. "It's nice to say in the
abstract that people have a right to standard, affordable
housing, but we have to look at the programs that exist.
The tenants are living somewhat in a fantasyland."
At what point can tenants step in and decide they
don't want to have their building go through an expen-
sive rehab? In the case of 255 and 61 Eastern Parkway,
the overwhelming number of tenants opposed decided
the matter rather emphatically. But in other cases,
where tenants are of different minds, the question is
hazy. The city has told HUD it must have 70 per cent of
the tenants in favor of a loan before they will okay it,
but, according to Peters; that figure is "not yet opera-
tional." In buildings where there is a division with no
one side having a clear majority, the city will do what it
thinks best,said Peters.
A recurring refrain from those involved in Participa-
tion Loans is that tenants must be willing to "pay a little
7
"It's nice to say in the abstract that people have
a right to standard, affordable housing, but we
have to look· at the programs that exist. The
tenants are living somewhat in a fantasyland."
more." Further down Eastern Parkway, at 446 Kingston
Avenue, tenants are paying a little bit more for a loan
made to their landlord, David Salomon. For almost two
years they have watched him carry out what they de-
scribe as a "shoddy, piecemeal" rehab. According to
Curtis Trueheart, an organizer for the Metropolitan
Council on Housing which has earned the enmity of not
a few landlords looking for loans, "the cheapest possi-
ble stoveS, refrigerators, tiles, you name it," he said,
"are being used in the- building." Tenants charge the
landlord has used inexperienced, untrained workers for
basic systems work such as plumbing and electric. At-
tempts to get HPD and the Community Preservation
Corp. to intervene have been to no avail, said Trueheart.
David Salomon is one landlord, though, said Jim
Peters, that HPD is presently not accepting applications
from for more loans, based on what the department's
Inspector General thought an insensitivity for having
purchased a fire-ravaged building from indicted arsonist
CITY LlMITS/December 1980
Joe Bald. "We will take another look at Salomon in the
near future," said Peters, "to see if his management of
the jobs ~ e has warrants bringing him back in."
The issue of poor rehabilitation work - as well as the
questioning by tenants of the scope of work the landlord
anticipates doing - comes up frequently. Tenants con-
fronted with figures which can easily run into several
hundred thousand dollars for a large building balk at
believing that much work is necessary.
Another building where tenants are suffering a severe
case of "post-rehab blues" is 225 Parkside Avenue in
Flatbush where David Salomon's uncle and former busi-
,
ness partner, Abraham Salomon, is just completing a
$2.2 million Participation Loan rehabilitation of 126
apartments. Gwen Moody, director of the Prospect Lef-
ferts Gardens Neighborhood Association, who has been
aiding tenants in the building, said there has been heat
and hot water on one side of the building only, elevators
have been repeatedly out of order, rents for the same
size apartments have been set at widely varying levels,
and, causing not a little alarm to the tenants, Con
Edison recently posted a notice that hallway lights
would soon be shut off unless the landlord paid his bill.
225 Parkside has a long history with North Flatbush
tenant organizers. An almost vacant building in 1978, it
housed only a few rent controlled tenants. A series of
ten suspicious fires had driven everyone else away. In
stepped Abraham Salomon, whose first moves were to
lock out the tenants who were still in place and begin
angling for loan money for a complete rehabilitation.
One bank he approached for financing turned him
down because, as a loan officer put it, "We couldn't
seem to find out enough about him." But funding was
available elsewhere, and with a city Participation Loan,
Salomon was able to get his project off the ground.
According to HPD and the banks that participate in
the loan program, each prospective owner is carefully
checked-out, from a management, as well as financial,
perspective. In the case of Abraham Salomon, however,
HPD saw no flags go up at the mention of his name,
despite a long-standing reputation in Brooklyn and
Queens as a poor landlord.
Recently, while tenants at 225 Parkside were begin-
ning to organize themselves, tenants of other Salomon-
owned buildings in Far Rockaway were meeting with
city officials to ask that careful scrutiny be given to
Salomon's applications for more loans, particularly
their own at 1012 Nameoke Street and 1011 Neilson
Avenue. Both those adjoining buildings have been sub-
mitted to the city as candidates for rehabilitation. And
tenants in both buildings say they have been repeatedly
without heat, hot water and other essential services as
well as the subject of threats from the landlord that if
they blocked his loan he would "freeze their asses off
this winter" and turn their buildings into a duplicate of
a nearby decaying multi- family dwelling.
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 8
In addition to the Far Rockaway buildings, Brooklyn
tenant organizers provided documentary information to
the city on other neglected Salomon buildings. But de-
spite the tenants' allegations, HPD, after holding up the
closing of a Salomon loan in Brighton for two weeks,
decided Salomon was still someone they could work
with and trust to manage his buildings well.
"(Salomon) knows how to perform," said Peters,
"He gets money into the project before the loan closing
and has the confidence of the financial institutions.
He's obviously a guy with substance and capacity." Ac-
cording to Heintz, "The community's concern doesn't
go away. We'll run a check on him again the next time
he applies. But for the present we are not going to hold
up his loans."
•
Back in 1971, the city brought the forerunner of Parti-
cipation Loans, the ill-fated Municipal Loan Program,
to a screeching halt. That operation left in its wake a
string of indictments and $135 million worth of defaults.
Among the problems were little, if any, screening of
landlords and loans which should never have been
made. Since then a number of safeguards have been
established, and the new loan program is hardly a
duplicate of its predecessor. While some projects have
had to have their mortgages re-opened and more money
pumped in, there have been no major flops so far.
Several non-profit community groups are also experi-
menting with the program in attempts to produce low
income rentals and cooperatives, using other funds to
offset the steep rent increases that would otherwise
result. And even the most severe critics of the program
believe it has an important role to play. Suggestions
have been made that perhaps there are alternative meth-
ods for financing the loans, without using scarce federal
funds which are badly needed in programs that directly
serve low income people.
There's no doubt buildings and neighborhoods are
being turned around. The question is, for whom? 0
Media Assistance
for Community Groups
For community groups that would like to use films,
slideshows and even videotapes to strengthen and sup-
port their organizing work, a new non-profit resource
groupois now available to help. The Community Media
Project will help groups locate appropriate media, and
the needed equipment, as well as organize publicity for
the event. For more information call (212) 620-0877 or
write Community Media Project, 208 West 13th Street,
New York, N.Y. 10011. 0
The City
and Clinton
Tenants
Spar
on Leases
A short stone's throw from where the New
York Convention Center is beginning to rise,
tenants in low income, city-owned buildings are
finding their situation precarious. And they are
wondering whose side the city is on.
by Susan Baldwin
The young man paced the sidewalk between the
building he calls home and a scarred and nameless fuel
truck disgorging its oil at the curb, and wondered aloud
to a visitor about his future in this city-owned midtown
Manhattan tenement that the Convention Center and
Westway have made suddenly desirable to City Hall.
Joe Restuccia lives at 457 West 35th Street and
wonders how long he will be living there. Until a few
days before this cold and wintry sidewalk interview,
Restuccia was sure that a dead slumlord was going to
reach from the grave to buy back his building under the
city's easy installment road to "redemption" by paying
back taxes.
The final day for the buildings' redemption - No-
vember 3rd-came and went without Henry Hof's agent
springing for the back taxes. But, the status of the
buildings is still uncertain, and the tenants' association
is worried about the future.
The city has owned Restuccia's and two adjacent
buildings since May, 1978, because the former owner-
Henry Hof, Jr. - refused to pay taxes and refused to
maintain his property.
9
Joe Restuccia
But, the city has had very little to do with running
455, 457, and 459 West 35th Street - three self-suffi-
cient buildings that tenants began to manage in Janu-
ary, 1977, when the landlord was still around. And,
after two fires, a long rent strike, and city ownership,
the tenants signed an interim lease agreement with the
city in October, 1978, with the hope of being able to buy
their apartments as low income cooperatives at $250 -
the city's self-proclaimed price for such property
transfers.
"When Hof was here, there never was any heat .. . He
wouldn't even buy a full tank of oil," said James Crin-
ion, a 30-year resident of 457 West 35th Street. "He was . ~
never around, and never took care of anything except :!;l
collecting the rent. We were always freezing all winter ~
. . . And then, there was always the question of arson. ~
We know he paid for that second fire." ~
According to Crinion and other long-time residents of ~
the 24 units that make up the West 35th Street cl;
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
buildings, tenants used to wait out front in the dead of
winter hoping that fuel would be delivered.
"Finally, people got tired of waiting out in the cold
for a few gallons of oil, and they refused to pay rent.
This is when we got off the ground here," Crinion ex-
plained. "That's when he understood because he didn't
get his money. But, he still didn't care because all he
knew how to do was turn homes into shacks. This was
such a lovely house before he took it over."
From late summer until early November this year, the
residents of these three buildings were sure that bizarre
bureaucratic bungling or outright chicanery would lead
to Hof's estate reclaiming their homes by paying some
$54,000 in back taxes to the city. It was August 26 when
Restuccia was told by the city's housing department that
the Division of Real Properties (DRP) had processed
redemption forms that, it claimed, had been lost for
more than two years.
People Got Tired
"It sounded like a joke and then we realized that it
was being treated by DRP as real, and all we were being
told was that these forms had been mislaid. They were
on a desk down there and had been mislaid, and it was
the city's fault," said Restuccia.
"If you believe that story, you have to be kidding
yourself," said Eben Bronfman, housing specialist for
Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Man.), whose dis-
trict encompasses this area north of Chelsea and south
of Clinton. "I don't clean my desk very often, but to
lose something for over a year-and-a-half and then find
it, something's fishy."
Under the city's current tax foreclosure policy, a pro-
perty owner risks losing title to his property if he owes
more than a year in taxes. But, he is also permitted four
months beyond title-taking by the city - known as the
mandatory redemption period - to pay his back taxes.
In the case of Hof's West 35th Street properties, the
redemption forms reportedly surfaced not only two
years after title had passed but also after the' 'redeemer"
himself - landlord Hof - had died. According to stoic
DRP officials, "We had to process this claim because
that's the law."
But laying Hof's ghost still leaves the 24 tenant famil-
ies of West 35th Street as potential candidates for dis-
placement from their homes and neighborhood. Most
are older people, and of these, most have lived in the
area all their lives. As they view their situation, their
only chance to remain in their homes and neighborhood
is to buy their building under the city's $250 per-unit
low and moderate income cooperative policy.
"I've lived in this apartment 50 years, and I love it
here," said Angelia Ventura, of 458 West 35th Street,
who was born several doors down the block. "I could
have gone to Jersey like some of the rest of my family,
but I chose to stay here. This is home to me and there's
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
10
no reason why I should be moved out. I pay rent. I've
always paid rent. But, my, how things have changed. I
used to pay $26 a month and this place was a palace.
Everything was spotless, and then Hof got hold of it ...
That was the beginning of the end."
The rent roll, which has been restructured by the
tenants' association, runs from $85 to $225 a month and
provides just short of $2,500 a month to take care of
repairs and fuel. The buildings are part of a fuel
cooperative, and through this association, are able to
save money.
SO Years
Community residents understand when tenants refer
to the Hof regime as the beginning of the end. "They
always had services there because there were two
beautiful sisters who were owners and cared about
tenants," said a passer-by, who is also a "Hof" tenant
elsewhere in the neighborhood. "It was a horrible thing
when he got hold of those buildings because they were
nice. All he had in mind was to run them down and he
did just that."
The buildings were owned for more than 40 years by
the two sisters, who lived in 455, the smallest of the
three buildings. Hof purchased the properties in 1972
and from then until the tenants' rent strike in January,
1977, the buildings and services went dramatically
downhill. Also, during this period, the tenants drove
Hof's superintendent out of the buildings after they
found out he was trafficking in drugs. In addition, they
undertook the repair of the roof and of major water
damage at 457, where the boiler is housed, in the sum-
mer of 1977 after a suspicious fire.
Lack of Protection
"We wouldn't be here today if it had not been for the
determination of the tenants' association," said Restuc-
cia, who lives in one of the top-floor apartments at 457
that suffered extensive damage during the second fire.
"This is what is so insane about this situation here. The
tenants are allowed to struggle hard to hold onto their
buildings, and a dead slumlord is almost allowed to
come back and take them. And then, you have to ask
yourself, 'Is there no justice?' ... When the city takes
over buildings and encourages tenants to run them,
there should be some built-in protections."
According to James French, of 316 West 36th Street,
head of The Coalition of Concerned Citizens of Clinton
and one of the founders of the citywide Tenant Interim
Lease (TIL) Coalition, this problem of lack of protec-
tion in future ownership is the major dilemma faced by
tenants who have been managing their buildings with
the hope of buying them as low income cooperatives.
"They tell us to get liability insurance, fire insurance,
whatever, but we always have trouble pinning them
down about what they really mean about repairs, and
finally after we burn ourselves out taking care of our
buildings and providing services for tenants, we find out
we can't own these buildings because they're too valu-
able - they're too close to the Convention Center,
whatever that means," French asserted. French lives in a
building on West 36th Street that the city also refuses to
sell to the tenants because of its proximity to the Con-
vention Center.
The buildings on West 35th and 36th Streets, totaling
six, are old-law tenements. This means that the rooms
are undersized; some have views of air shafts; and, in
the case of 455 West 35th Street, three apartments have
bathtubs in the kitchen and water closets in the public
hall area.
Gentrification
"You would think that they would be happy to un-
load them on us - sort of a good riddance, but that
hasn't been the case," said Restuccia. "For some
reason, we are being encouraged to believe that these
buildings are very valuable."
"Who knows what is going to happen with the Con-
vention Center," Restuccia added. "We may be a
stone's throwaway, but we may really be talking about
light years." One of his and French's concerns is that the
zoning for the area is ambiguous.
The area is zoned M6-1 which means that any use, in-
cluding light industrial, can be implemented, and, it is
for this reason, that Restuccia fears his buildings could
easily become a parking lot or a site for a hotel to house
Convention Center visitors.
According to one housing official who asked to re-
main unnamed, "The problem is 'gentrification,' and
we're being asked to go along with it. . . This is a hot
area, and I can understand that, but I do have problems
understanding it when people's lives and investments
are at stake. It's wrong to allow people to spend money
fixing up their buildings only to tell them later they
have to get out to make way for progress."
Angelina Ventura does not know what gentrification
is, but she does know about living in her apartment
under a state of siege.
"That's a very fancy word, and we really don't know
what it means," she said, adding, "You can ask us about
putting in a new boiler or laying some linoleum. We
know about that."
In the 'gentrified' area of Clinton, there are almost
two dozen buildings in the interim lease program and,
citywide, there are about 240 tenant families who par-
take in the program.
"We always look to West 35th or 36th Streets just to
know what's happening," said Richard Maecker, a ten-
ant leader at 408 West 48th Street.
"As you know, we tried to do everything right, and
we still don't own our building," Maecker said. "It real-
ly was wrenched from us at the very last moment be-
cause of the city's unfair redemption policy." 408 West
48th Street was redeemed in January, 1979, after
tenants had fought a long uphill battle to run the build-
ing and turn it into a tenant-run cooperative.
Since then, the tenants have had to deal with a series
of new owners who have offered few prospects to the
building. "We just hang on; that's about it," Maecker
added.
Maecker believes in his building, and, even as the ten-
ant once again of a private landlord, has no problem
sticking by it, but, he says, "I wouldn't recommend this
plan for action for the old who live down here, and
there are many who fall into this category."
He also said that the city should take its programs
more seriously, noting that not only the tenants but also
the city should be left with questions about why the pro-
grams don't work.
An old man who could not remember how many years
he had lived in the midtown Clinton area addressed the
issue that troubles many observers.
"I am old and I am sure most people don't care about
that, but I am raising an even larger question - where
do I go if I don't stay here?"
Long, Uphill Battle
The old man's question seemed to have fallen on deaf
ears in terms of the city's involvement. But Anthony
Gliedman, commissioner of housing, had this response
to a City Limits inquiry on the West 35th Street situa-
tion. "I didn't know about their plight, but possibly we
should talk about a long-term lease."
Tenants were not enthusiastic. "We don't want to
hear about a long-term lease," said Ellen Paturzo, who
has lived at 459 West 35th Street for over 20 years.
"What does that mean? Just throwing us out after a
few more years?" Paturzo added. "I came here after a
fire damaged my house at 34th Street and 10th Avenue.
I have moved all over Clinton, but this is my home ...
And, I might add about this building, even though we
have had our problems and fires, this has not become a
parking lot like my last home." 0
COORDINATOR OF
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
Multi-ethnic program in northern Manhattan seeks
experienced person to supervise and conduct
diverse organizing projects. Fluent in Spanish.
B.A. Required. M.S.W. Preferred
Salary $16,000 plus benefits.
Send resume to:
11
Washington Heights-Inwood Coalition
21 Bennett Avenue 13
New York. N.Y. 10033
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
Photo by William A . Price
CITY LlMITSlDecember 1980
12
by Bruce Dale and Charles Laven
This past summer a group of 25 architects, urban
planners and housing experts set out to Cuba to find an
, answer to one basic question: Was it really possible for a
poor, isolated island with limited resources to solve the
housing question, while a large rich industrial nation
like the United States could not? Our trip was structured
to learn about Cuba's progress in the areas of urban de-
velopment and housing policy. The group was composed
of representatives from universities, city government,
community - based organizations and technical assistance
groups. Most of us had not been to Cuba before. We
were interested in seeing the effects of the revolution on
the country as a whole, as well as learning how housing
problems are handled in the context of a developing
country with a socialist economy. Although the prob-
lems of building abandonment, city tax foreclosure,
federal funding regulations and the like seem light years
away from a small island with an essentially agricultural
economy, we felt that a number of critical issues could
be fruitfully examined. Questions about how scarce gov-
ernment resources are allocated, what systems of hous-
ing tenure, management, maintenance and development
are used, how and with what focus urban development
is controlled, are all capable of providing important
comparative information.
Our trip came at a time when U.S.-Cuban relations
were very much in the news and wererapidily changing.
Over 120,000 people had just left Cuba to go to the
United States. Although most news media here empha-
sized the political motives of the emigrants, in Cuba
millions took to the streets to condemn what was inter-
preted as selfish economic motives for the flight. That
migration and its attendant publicity seemed to
underscore the more than 20 year hostility between the
United States and Cuba. The most potent and damaging
result of this conflict was the institution of the blockade
in 1961 ,which has affected all levels of life in Cuba. A
major example of its impact on the housing field was the
acute shortage of basic building materials such as ce-
ment, steel and wood, not to mention all the necessary
mechanical systems like pumps, elevators, air condi-
tioners and tools.
Despite this background of hostility, we were warmly
received everywhere by both government officials and
people on the street. We were free to go where we
wanted and to do as we pleased. Some parts of our trip
had been organized, including meetings with local and
national housing and planning officials, visits to schools
of architecture and discussions with representatives of
local government. We also visited a number of projects
in three cities and were able to meet people spontane-
ously in the streets and neighborhoods of the housing
projects we visited. In some cases we were invited into
people's homes.
In a number of important areas the Cubans' progress,
despite the blockade, is astounding. Shortly after the
revolution the elimination of poverty through the devel-
opment of industry and agriculture was declared to be a
national priority. Although still largely dependent on
sugar as its main product, Cuba is now exporting a
number of goods and manufacturing others for local
consumption. Simultaneously it has made progress
toward achieving national social goals in the areas of
health care and education. Currently all Cubans receive
good free health care in a series of new hospitals and
polyclinics diffused throughout the island, especially in
the previously under served rural areas.
13
Free education, including the university, has allowed
Cuba not only to eliminate illiteracy, but to also be able
to export trained technicians to other third world coun-
tries in need of assistance. A recent example of this is
the export of some two thousand doctors and engineers
to Nicaragua.
Though housing has not been a national priority in
Cuba, despite a lack of building materials and
skilled labor, considerable progress has been made.
Before the revolution, most rural housing was primitive
- thatched huts called bohios with plain dirt floors and
no sanitary facilities were home for most. Urban hous-
ing for the bulk of the population was little better. Now,
however, it is difficult to find the urban shanty towns so
common in the rest of Latin America. And in rural
areas the landscape is dotted with "hew towns and newly
constructed housing, concentrating population and
replacing the bohios.
A factory for the industrialized production of large
wall panels for apartment buildings, donated by the
Soviet Union in 1963 to replace thousands of homes
destroyed by hurricane, reinforced the Cuban focus on
prefabricated building systems. Cuban housing produc-
tion has focused on industrialized building systems.
Given the need for housing and the lack of skilled labor,
the prefabricated building blocks were welcome by
Cuba. Experimentation with different design elements
has taken place and both low - rise and high - rise buildings
are being produced.
The traditional Cuban environment cannot, however,
be recreated in an apartment building of four or five
stories. At first, and perhaps even now, people are
pleased just to have a better house than the hovel in
which they lived before. We were told that in the begin-
ning everyone wanted the ground floor apartments, un-
til they discovered that all the children in the building
hung out in front of their bedroom windows, at which
point many began requesting the upper floors. Prob-
lems of adjustment to the new housing as well as other
social problems in the new projects were handled by the
innovative Committees of Neighbors, a form of tenant
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
association which were created in all the projects in
order to help new tenants get settled.
During recent years Cuba has experimented with sev-
eral systems of prefabrication. The currently popular
systems include one from Yugoslavia and one, the
Giron system, developed directly by the Cubans them-
selves. This latter system is used extensively for two and
three story buildings such as schools, factories, poly-
clinics and some very comfortable motels.
The predominant focus of industrialized new con-
struction has raised the question of what to do with the
older stock. The Cubans strongly argued that much of
the old housing, even in historic districts, was . originally
built for speculation, and , is too dense and of too Iowa
quality to be worth saving. Although many recognize
the architectural value of some of the historic buildings,
the general feeling is that better housing could be pro-
vided by the newer prefabricated buildings.
The problems of the older houses have been intensi-
fied by the lack of supplies available for ongoing main-
tenance. National priorities have caused many necessary
repairs to be deferred. In cases where there is danger to
the building or its tenants, maintenance crews will re-
spond readily, but where there is no danger, it may not
be repaired at all. As a general rule tenants, whether
they own their apartments or rent, are responsible for
all repairs within the apartment. When the problem is
building-wide, like a waste line or roof repair, then the
government assumes responsibility.
Immediately after the revolution, Cuba passed a law
eliminating eviction for any reason whatsoever. After
guaranteeing everyone the right to live where they were,
the new government cut rents in half and expropriated
private property (with compensation) from those people
who owned more than they could personally use. These
apartments were either used for publi.c purposes or sold
Photo by Jill Hamberg
Renovated housing in Old Havana
CITY LlMITSlDecember 1980 14
to their tenants using rent as a form of payment. Large
villas were taken to be used as dormitories or for state
offices. New housing constructed after the revolution
belongs largely to the state and is often built by a fac-
tory or enterprise for its employees. The money neces-
sary to finance such developments comes from the re-
sponsible ministry and is allocated nationally. The
resulting apartments are apparently first offered to em-
ployees of the enterprise on the basis of need and atti-
tude. The building is considered the property of the
state and is maintained by the local government. Often
the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution
sponsors beautification programs and maintains the
grounds.
Unlike the United States, where a market of rentals
and sales determines the allocation of housing units,
Cuba has no traditional market place for housing. The
main system for finding a new place to live in other than
new construction is through an exchange called the per-
mula. People who wish to move in a
per what type of housing they need or would like to
find, and what they have to offer in exchange. Comple-
mentary needs are identified and a trade takes place.
Differences in apartment values such as more or larger
rooms are balanced by adding to the exchange addi-
tional items such as refrigerators or stoves.
Discussions about housing in Cuba rarely bring men-
tion of financing or financing mechanisms, nor,for that
matter, the need for subsidies. Being a socialist nation,
concern for profits or interest rates does not exist. The
Cubans appear to accept the idea that when the govern-
ment has the resources,housing will be built, and when
it does, not,everybody must make do with what there is.
As a result of this system of publicly financed and sup-
ported housing, rent levels are set at a maximum of 10
per cent of income for all tenants - a figure that is in-
dependent of the cost of developing or maintaining the
housing. One Cuban observer noted that the combina-
tion of low rent, free health care and free education
meant that the average Cuban had a large percentage of
his or her income available for consumer goods such as
televisions, washing machines and the like. He also
noted that the shortage of these items was considered
one of the major causes of dissatisfaction.
New developments in the housing field in Cuba and
possibly changes in the existing system may come about
in the near future. It is anticipated that the second con-
gress of the Cuban Communist Party, due to meet this
year, will raise housing to the level of a national prior-
ity. That decision would probably result in increased
pfoduction of new houses and an increase in the preser-
vation activity in the remarkable historic districts of
cities like Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
The subject of renovation and preservation is a new
and difficult issue in Cuba. Many planners and archi-
tects hold a fairly traditonal view of the merits of new
construction. We found this surprising and wondered
why the Cubans had not accepted what we consider to
be a progressive position in the United States. After all,
we have" finally learned that the rehabilitation and repair
of existing houses is a less expensive and less disruptive
way of upgrading neighborhoods. The Cuban position
was particularly disturbing as the new construction they
favored uses sophisticated technology resulting in high-
rise projects which are out of scale with the existing
local environments. They argued that the taller build-
ings were essential as Cuba is a small island where land
is scarce and the existing crowding in the old buildings
make low - rise solutions inadequate. It seems likely that
the emphasis on high rise industrialized housing will
continue.
Given the relative scarcities in the economy, it is
remarkable how much has been achieved in housing. In-
cluding the use of volunteer construction labor much of
that achievement may be credited to the wide-spread
participation that exists at all levels of Cuban society.
Starting at the neighborhood level and through the elec-
tion of representatives to the district, city, provincial
and national assemblies, the popular institutions such as
the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the
Federation of Cuban Women and Popular Power all
Planners' Network Forums
Westway - Bestway or Worstway? is the subject of
the December 19 session of The City at Six, the 1980-81
program of Network/Forum.
Network/Forum is co-sponsored by the New York
Area Planners' Network, the Forum on Architecture,
Planning and Society; and the Center for Human Envi-
ronments, City University Graduate School.
Each program is held on Fridays at 6 p.m. at the City
University Graduate School, 33 West 42nd Street (be-
tween Fifth and Sixth Avenues) in Manhattan.
The calendar for the 1980-81 year is as follows:
December 19, Transportation: Westway, an illustrated
debate - Elliott Sclar, Columbia University; Craig
Whitaker, Westway planner; Marcy Benstock, Citizens
for Clean Air; January 23, Cuba Special, tour report;
February 20, Urban Strategies: Politics and Policies,
Ron Shiffman, Pratt Center; March 20, Urban Neigh-
borhoods - Harriet Cohen, Adopt-a-Building; Fred
Ringler and Ron Webster, People's Firehouse; April 24,
Urban Renewal: Displacement and Gentrification on
the Upper West Side - Bill Price, United Tenants
Association; Councilwoman Ruth Messinger; May 15,
Urban Decay: Quality of Life in the South Bronx -
Jacqueline Leavitt, Columbia University; Dana
Driskell, Bronx Community Board #3, Councilman
Gilberto Gerena-Valentin.
This is the third year of the series. 0
encourage mass participation. When Cuba could not af-
ford the allocation of skilled labor for the construction
of new housing, that slack was taken up by volunteer
labor. Unlike the housing market in the United States
which first measures the potential dollar return of a pro-
ject before committing resources, the Cubans first
measure human need.
It is this concern for the well- being of the population
that led us to one important conclusion about Cuba.
We have returned with the belief that the best way to
assure Cuban independence is to allow Cuba to trade free-
ly with the United States and its Latin American
neighbors. The economic and political blockade which
tried to isolate and destroy Cuba has not succeeded, and
its continuation promises only to cause continued hard-
ship to a people we now call friends and from whom we
may learn how to build a society responsive to human
needs. 0
Bruce Dale is the Director of the Management in Part-
nership Program in the New York City Department of
Housing Preservation and Development. Charles Laven
is Executive Director of the Urban Homesteading Assis-
tance Board.
Williamsburg Tenants Hit
Politics in Takeover Try
Low income tenants in Brooklyn..'s Williamsburg sec-
tion have been waging a long term battle with their land-
lord and his brother, who was recently elected a civil
court judge, in an effort to wrest their buildings from
the family and start running them under the city's 7A
Administrator program.
Philip Ritholtz is the owner of the buildings at 184,
188 South Second Streets and 745 Driggs Avenue. His
brother, William Ritholtz, the newly elected civil court
judge, recently divested himself of his interest in the
property, but prior to this move, he served as the at-
torney of record for these buildings which have been the
scene of some 13 suspicious fires in the last three years.
15
The tenants went on rent strike over a year ago and
have been collecting rent to maintain the only occupied
building -188 South Second Street.
If they are successful in being appointed the 7A ad-
ministrator, they are hopefUl that they will get better
service from the city. At the present time, in addition to
owing back taxes, Ritholtz has emergency repair liens
against the buildings amounting to about $60,000.
Bella Zuzel, an organizer with Los Sures, a Williams-
burg housing group, who has been working with the
tenants, believes the battle has been stymied in housing
court for the past few months because Ritholtz did not
want bad publicity prior to election day, when he ran as
the Democratic Party choice.
The case was scheduled to be heard late in November.
CITY LlMITSlDecember 1980
Two Patrons of H - - - ~ - - . - , esteading
Meyer Parodneck and Martin Young
Meyer Parodneck and Martin Young are no enigma to
the grassroots neighborhood housing movement. They
have been promoting urban homesteading for years,
and if they were not around to make small loans to com-
munity residents trying to save their homes and neigh-
borhood blocks, the housing movement in New York
City might well not exist as it does today.
"People should be more militant about their hous-
ing," Parodneck said during a recent interview. "We see
giving loans to people who want to work, who want to
h.elp themselves, as good business, and our only fear is
that this movement will disappear ... We are discour-
aged about its future."
Through their foundation - the Consumer-Farmer
- Parodneck and Young are able to lend seed money to
groups involved in rehabilitation of their-homes through
sweat equity - a movement that involves neighborhood
people who would find it almost impossible to get credit
from conventional lending sources.
"But, what we are finding is that tenants are their
own worst enemy," Parodneck explained. "Working
people who are skilled with their hands decide to fix up
several buildings on a block, and the tragedy often is
that they are not able to own them after doing all the
work. In short, what they do by all their good work is
price themselves out of their own neighborhood."
Both men believe that tenants should become more
militant about their right to housing, asserting that just
as the right to a free education is guaranteed by the
government, so should this guarantee extend to the
"right to shelter."
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 16
But, in their estimation, what is wrong with the hous-
ing movement is that neighborhood people are not ag-
gressive enough about securing this right to shelter.
"They are no longer lean and hungry enough," said
Parodneck. "It's not the same as in the past when peo-
ple had nothing but knew what they wanted. They are
too polite. They should take their housing and not wait
for the government to hand it out because it won't."
Although they view the city's tenant interim lease pro-
gram (TIL) as its most successful alternative manage-
ment program for residents in some 250 city-owned,
tax-foreclosed buildings, Parodneck and Young are
quick to criticize the scope of the program.
The city, they argue, has the program but does not
sign enough leases with the tenants. The city is not will-
ing to make commitments to people about running and
owning these properties that it cannot manage itself.
Rather, they maintain, the city has a negative, not a
positive attitude about the value of this land.
Referring to the success of the urban homesteading
program in Baltimore, where the city is happy to give
tenants homes for a dollar and make rehabilitation
loans with the idea of getting properties back on the
city's tax roll, Parodneck said, "Our problem here in
New York City is that we are only committed to the real
estate interests, the landlords. We don't even know
what commitment to people is."
Alluding to the city's heavy subsidizing of Manhattan
Plaza in midtown Manhattan as "obscene," Parod-
neck added, "Do you know what I could do with
that money? I could take that money and house thou-
sands in New York." According to his figures, each
housing u"nit at Manhattan Plaza receives a subsidy of
about $7,500 a year and will continue to receive this sub-
sidy money for a total of 40 years.
Deploring the city's reluctance to encourage tenant
management and ownership under its stated sales policy
of $250 a unit, Parodneck recently wrote in an article
entitled the Housing Dilemma in Consumer-farmer's
occasional newsletter: "More than two years have passed
and to the best of our knowledge all we have to show for
it is the sale of five multi-family buildings to tenants
who have occupied and managed them for years:
"This woeful record was achieved in the face of an
almost universal interest on the part of tenants' associa-
tions to proceed to achieve home ownership, when the
program (interim lease) was announced.
"The unexplainable delay in implementing the program
is frustrating to the tenants and devastating to the
credibility of the city, which seeks the support of these
same tenants in effecting any turn around in the housing
picture.
"[The bureaucracy is] ... so committed to the philo-
sophy that shelter must be unavailable without paying a
tariff to a landlord. These properties are worthless. It is
the occupants who give them value and there is no
reason why they should not be the beneficiaries of the
values they create."
The Consumer-Fa:rmer Foundation has corne a long
way since it sta:rted as a milk delivery "cooperative in
1937 and then decided to terminate this service and
become involved in the neighborhood housing move-
ment in 1970.
"But, have we even made a small dent in this move-
ment?" Young asked. "The answer is simple - not at
all ... from the terrace of my apartment in the Bronx, I
can see more apartments destroyed by fires in a month
than Consumer-Farmer has helped rehabilitate in all ten
years of its activity. We may have helped rehabilitate
1500 units since we started our work in this field. But,
that's not even a drop in the bucket."
Parodneck's and Young's modesty about their contri-
butions to the neighborhood movement is belied by
remarks from community groups who are constantly
sending them letters thanking their foundation for its
help.
If it had not been for their revolving dumpster loan
program, homesteading tenants on 985-7-9 and 993
Amsterdam Avenue of Manhattan's Upper West Side
would not be as far along in their rehabilitation project.
"We don't know what we would have done without
their support and patience while we dealt with the g9-
vern mental bureaucratic red tape on our 927 Columbus
Avenue project," said Leah Schneider, planning direc-
tor of the Manhattan Valley Development Corporation.
In a letter to the foundation, she added, "Not only did
the loan enable us to pay our workers who, because of
their commitment, worked for weeks without pay. It
guaranteed the completion of the project and the avail-
ability of the so desperately needed housing." 0
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last year.
For further information on display
and classified advertising rates call
(212) 477-9074.
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
Displacement: A Park Slope Case In Point
by Michael Henry Powell
November night is blowing down over Berkeley
Place, bitter gusts of wind pushing their way into
brownstone stoops and stained glass windows. Walking
down Berkeley Place towards Fifth Avenue, the south
side of the street is a warm, soft row of renovated
brownstones, with deep-brown oak doors, gas lights
and, inside the windows, cozy snarls of hanging plants.
The north side of the block, however, does not evoke
such bucolic descriptions.
There, a schoolyard and a row of ten, grey-brick
walk-ups line the street. Many of the windows are
covered w\th plastic insulators and broken, graffitied
front doors bounce in the wind. At 15 Berkeley Place,
Robert Shannon sits at the window, waiting for my
arrival. "We don't have any bells, so I'll just keep an
eye out for you", he told me over the phone.
Robert Shannon is a fifteen-year resident of the Slope.
"We moved here four years ago .. Even then this wasn't
the greatest apartment around, but, at least we got the
basics and they tried to keep it up." Recently, however,
Shannon and his wife were without heat or hot water for
five weeks before the city finally put an emergency ship-
ment of oil into their furnace. Even now, wind drafts
through the loosely-fitting windows and Mrs. Shannon
sits on her hands, and later moves to the other side of
the room.
Mr. Shannon, at 6 feet 2 inches and about 220
pounds, is a retired metal polisher. When he was work-
ing, he and his wife had enough money to get by and
enjoy themselves. Now, however, they are on social se-
curity and his $200 dollar-a-month rent takes up almost
half his income. Soon, this will not be nearly enough to
cover the rent. His building is under new management,
and, as Shannon points out, "They've been making it
pretty clear that we aren't wanted here." The new
owners, named Levy and Eisenberg, are lawyers with an
interest in Park Slope real estate.
Five years ago, a mortgage to renovate a brownstone
in the heart of Park Slope was hard to come by. Now, as
more and more middle income people converge on the
Slope looking for housing with a close proximity to
Manhattan, renovation funds are not so hard to obtain.
Old, serviceable brownstones are prime targets for gen-
trification, or, in more polite parlance, establishing a
firm economic base for the community. As Mr. Wash-
ington, another resident of 15 Berkeley Place said,
however, "We're part of the lower class, that's true, but
does that mean we don't have any rights, or any place in
the community?"
Washington stopped by Shannon's apartment on his
way out to the store. Like Shannon, he is retired with no
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 18
place to move. "Let's face it, you can't find anything
for a decent price anymore. The new landlords told me
to get out, but, I just can't see it ... Where are we going
to live that's safe?" The new owners have not accepted
rent from most of the tenants since August; all services
have been cut. Maintenance consists of whatever the
tenants can manage. As Shannon put it, "I buy things
to kill the rats and roaches, I pass out the mail. Basically,
I'm the super ... the landlord told us he won't do any-
thing until he renovates."
The following day, I talked to Shirley Taliaferrow, a
resident in 15A. A wiry, energetic woman with
shouldedength corn-row locks, Shirley is angry and
determined to stay in Park Slope. "These landlords,
they come in and treat you like dirt just so they can
renovate the building and forget about you. When I
withheld my money, Levy told me that if he gave me
four or five months he knew that my kind would spend
the money." Shirley did not spend the money and a
housing court judge ordered repairs. As she pointed
out, though, "I had to give up my money first, so,of
course, there were no repairs."
Taliaferrow has three children and has lived in the
Slope for twenty years. She is getting by, barely, and
cannot afford to leave. "Where can I go?" she asked.
"I've lived in the Slope all my life. They told me I could
live in some project in East New York, but, I don't want
to live out there. I want a decent place to raise my fami-
ly." As Shirley pointed out, "I haven't raised a family
just to watch it disintegrate when we move."
The tenants along the north side of Berkeley Place
reluctantly agree, however, that their days are num-
bered. Taliaferrow sighed and rubbed her hands against
her shirt. "Oh, of course, everybody we know has
moved. Into the projects, to Long Island, upstate,
Staten Island ... It's tough to move out of someplace
you've lived for twenty years." She looked around
Shannon's apartment, sizing up the cracked ceilings and
decaying door. "It wasn't this way when we came here,
wasn't paradise, but. .. damn, it's cold! Nice as this
neighborhood is I can't raise a family inside here."
Stepping out of the building, I saw a Hertz van
parked in front of 21 Berkeley Place, another Levy and
Eisenberg building. Ruth, a short, young, Puerto Rican
woman, talked about her family's apartment as her
father and brothers loaded furniture into the van.
"We're moving. Heat? Oh yeah, can't you see how I'm
sweating?" Ruth's family lived in 21 Berkeley Place for
eight years, but now, she says, "There's only one family
left, and, I think they're moving. Three nights ago, we
had a fire and that was the final straw. They've been try-
ing to get us to leave, and, well, that fire happened to
take place right next door to us. Those kind of fires
don't hurt the building, know what I mean?" Ruth's
father did not want to leave. "He's worked hard his
whole life, but, he doesn't want us to burn to death . . .
and, even if it was a junkie's fire, that doesn't make you
feel too good either."
Further up the street, at 68 Berkeley Place, is another
Levy and Eisenberg building. The last tenant left over
-
Community Management Sales
Five buildings in the city's seven-year-old Com-
munity Management program are scheduled to be
sold to two neighborhood non-profit organiza-
tions by early December.
The purchasers of 47 units at $250 each of this
low income housing are West Harlem Community
Organization and the Manhattan Valley Develop-
ment Corporation. These apartments will
eventually become low income cooperatives and
will be sold to tenant-owners for $250 each.
West Harlem will take over 220-222-224-226
West 116th Street. Manhattan Valley, if all struc-
tural violations are removed and Section 8 require-
ments are met, will buy 951 Columbus Avenue.
The planned sales of these Community Manage-
ment buildings are the first in this program. In the
case of West Harlem, the monthly per-room
charge will be $40, and in Manhattan Valley, $51.
Manhattan Valley is still negotiating with the
city about bathroom conversions necessary to
qualify its building for Section 8 certification. Ac-
cording to Jacob Ward, who represents both
groups, the city has also agreed to underwrite a
survey by an independent engineer to be sure that
951 Columbus is structurally sound. 0
Relocation Commissioner Appointed
Wilfredo Vargas has been appointed Assistant Com-
missioner for the Division of Relocation Operations for
the Department of Housing Preservation and Develop-
ment. The Division is responsible for HPD's consolida-
tion program which closes hazardous city-owned build-
ings and relocates tenants to other apartments. The post
also carries responsibility for emergency housing pro-
grams, including the operation of two city shelters and
the supervision of hotels providing temporary housing
to tenants forced to vacate their apartments because of
emergency conditions.
Vargas, 34-years-old, served as administrator of the
Southside United Housing Development Fund Corpora-
tion, known as Los Sures, in the Williamsburg section
of Brooklyn for almost four years. 0
19
four months ago, and a solid, freshly enameled door sits
firmly in its frame. Inside, the walls are glistening white
and thermostats are visible. An interior staircase leads
to the upper floor of what will be a four or five room
duplex. The front window is boarded over, but, a con-
struction worker on the site, said, "I think they plan to
put in some stained glass or a picture window. These are
going to be real expensive apartments." 0
Michael Henry Powell is a tenant organizer in Brooklyn.
Short Term Notes
Energy Crisis Heat Funds Available
For the second year, the Association of Neighbor-
hood Housing Developers will administer an emergency
fuel loan program called the Energy Crisis Heat Fund.
The Fund was set up in February, 1980 by a small group
of anonymous donors who loaned money to the Fund
with the stipulation that the amounts be repaid in full by
August 31st of each 'heat' year.
Under the plan, ANHD members and affiliates can
call the Association when an emergency 'no heat' crisis
exists, either due to boiler breakdown or to lack of
money to pay for fuel.
ANHD will either call an ANHD fuel supplier, or pay
for delivery by the building's regular supplier.
The amount available per loan is negotiable on a
building-by-building basis. If a delivery of one thousand
gallons will supply heat until regular or emergency
sources can take over, ANHD will provide the interim
gallons. If larger amounts are necessary, the Fund will
help as much as possible as long as the money lasts.
ANHD works out a repayment schedule with each bor-
rower, taking into the building's ability to
repay. All loans, however, must meet the August dead-
line. For more information,call Dick Hochwald at (212)
477-9080.0
Free Accounting
Classes for Non·Profits
A series of 12 free classes in accounting and basic fis-
cal management are being offered for New York City
non-profit groups by Accountants for the Public Inter-
est - N.Y., Inc. Eligible groups are those focusing
directly on the provision of essential community needs
- housing, energy, food, health and economic develop-
ment.
Classes will begin next February, but groups must ap-
ply by December 15. For further information, call or
write Barbara Stab in at Accountants for the Public In-
terest - N.Y., Inc. 36 West 44th Street, Room 1201,
New York City 10036. (212) 575-1828. 0
CITY LIMITS/December 1980
Alternative Management After Two Years:
The When and How of Building Sales Debated
The alternative management programs for city-owned
buildings, which have been the subject of discussions,
dialogues, diatribes and a vast number of analyses,
came in for their most exhaustive exploration thus far at
a Manhattan conference in November.
Convened as a joint enterprise by community groups
and city housing officials, the conference brought
together for the first time on a large scale, participants,
planners and policy makers. Despite their brief history,
the programs were described as being "at a crossroads"
by both officials and community representatives who
pressured for their creation. While the basic dilemma of
the programs was posed as the how, when and what
form sales of the buildings to groups and tenants would
take, hanging over the 300 conference participants were
the results of the national elections and the prospect of
an unsympathetic administration at the helm, control-
ling the funds which now fuel the programs.
Tenants, planners and government officials all of-
fered varying approaches at the day-and-a-half confer-
CITY LlMITSlDecember 1980 20
ence for winning the support of a Reagan-controlled
federal housing bureaucracy. The possibility of a
change in attitude from the federal or the city govern-
ment helped stoke the refrain from city officials that the
buildings must quickly move out of the city's hands and
into the community.
With more than 15,000 apartments presently in one or
another forms of alternative management the city has
only recently begun sales of the buildings to the tenants.
Fiv.e sales have taken place thus far and five more are
scheduled for sale soon, but groups and tenants have
balked at taking on ownership of buildings that have
not received adequate repairs to be able stand on their
own. At the conference, William Eimicke, who heads
the city's housing management department, put it most
bluntly at the start of the second day. "Even a Republi-
can administration can support a community manage-
ment program. It's homesteading, it's bootstrap. But
you gotta buy the buildings. It's gotta happen."
The evening before, the audience heard a more muted
version of that tlleme from Deputy Mayor Nathan Lev-
enthal and Housing Commissioner Anthony Gliedman.
The programs are "a housing treatment program, not a
quick sales measure," assured Leventhal. Alternative
management, said Commissioner Gliedman, is the cen-
tral focus of Mayor Koch's housing program.
Just how to mold that surface agreement that the
buildings needed to be transferred into the com-
munities' domain was debated and discussed in work-
shops throughout the day. Questions such as how the
city could expect tenants to cope with buildings that
have "crispy wires", as one community person ex-
pressed it, as well as how the city was determining which
buildings would be sold at a price of $250 per unit and
which would not, provoked the greatest and the most
agitated discussions.
On the issue of why the housing department refused
to pledge itself to a sale of buildings in the Clinton area
to tenants, Philip St. Georges, Assistant Commissioner
for Alternative Management, cited a theory of a former
colleague that certain items 'break the level of outrage'
at the Board of Estimate. The sale of those buildings at
a margin of their value, St. Georges said, would reach
that threshold. "There appears to be several different
levels of outrage," responded a panelist, "when expen-
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sive boondoggles are considered by the Board."
Another community leader asked, "Where was that
sense of outrage when the buildings were deteriorating?"
But if some workshops were platforms for both sides
of the dispute to vent their rhetoric, in others there was
useful exchange of facts and ideas. Workshops focused
on design, management, rehabilitation financing and
legal stumbling blocks as well as other issues.
At the conference's close, St. Georges reiterated the
underlying issue. "When it's on the verge of a unique
breakthrough, has the housing movement changed its
mind?" Invoking a slogan from a decade past, St.
Georges told the assemblage, "Bobby Seale used to say
'Seize the time.' Now is the time."
Robert Schur, housing consultant and author, who
was referred to more than once as ."father of the neigh-
borhood housing movement", reminded the conference
that while the city made the rules, the programs be-
longed to the people who had fought to have them
established. "It's time for back to basics," he said.
"The good · guys like St. Georges won't always be
around. We may have to slow down, not go as fast, but
organizing has got to be the number one priority of any
neighborhood organization. We've got to have that
clout always ready." D
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CITY LIMITS/December 1980
Lawsuit Challenges Low Income Subsidies
For Rebuilding Manhattan Valley
by Susan Baldwin
A lawsuit which seeks to eliminate the construction
or rehabilitation of any future low income housing in
Manhattan Valley on Manhattan's Upper West Side has
been 'brought in federal court, and, if successful, could
result in the displacement of large numbers of the area's
poor residents.
The case charges the federal and city government
with violating the mandate of the Housing and Com-
munity Development Act of 1974 by encouraging too
high a concentration of new and rehabilitated housing
subsidized by Section 8 funding in the neighborhood,
when it designated Manhattan Valley a Neighborhood
Strategy Area eligible for a special set-aside of 500 Sec-
tion 8 units.
The suit, which is before Judge Pierre Leval in U.S.
District Court for the Southern District of New York,
has rallied on both sides veterans of a still unresolved,
decade-long legal battle in the West Side Urban Renewal
Area to the south of Manhattan Valley over the pro-
posed construction of a 160-unit public housing project
there, and the larger issue of reconstructing in that
neighborhood up to 2,500 units of housing for low in-
come residents.
"It is our view that Manhattan Valley already has too
much Section 8 housing and that it is 'now time to have
private investment and economic integration in this
area," said Steven M. Hayes, the attorney for Long
Island investor Arnold Pross, one of the sponsors of a
cooperative conversion plan for a 20-story apartment
building and owner of several other pieces of property
in the neighborhood who has instituted the lawsuit.
"This is no longer a blighted area," he asserted, add-
ing, "It should now become a resource area for people
who want to buy their own homes and fix them up.
These homes should be returned to the tax rolls. There is
no longer any need for Section 8 here. It would be better
used in some blighted areas like Bushwick or the South
Bronx."
According to the suit, the current use of "Section 8
housing, in such a small area, particularly when com-
bined with the large number of other low income pro-
jects in the area, fosters an environment of poverty, de-
linquency, crime, drug addiction, and dependence on
welfare programs which makes it impossible for private
investment to succeed."
"We are not violating the intent of the Community
Development Act by planning for Section 8 housing,"
said Leah Schneider, planning director for the Manhat-
tan Valley Development Corporation (MVDC), the
non-profit community organization that has planned
for low income housing in the area. "There is a great
CITY LIMITS/December 1980 22
need - demand - for this housing. Otherwise, why did
we receive 2,200 applications for the 59 apartments that
we are currently rehabilitating?"
Following HUD regulations, MVDC recently adver-
tised the availability of the 59 subsidized apartments
and received overwhelming response to this notice.
Charging that "there are already over 1,000 units of
Section 8 housing" in Manhattan Valley, Hayes said,
"Clearly, this is the time to have economic integration
... People who can't afford to live elsewhere on the
West Side should have the right to do homesteading
here. Private development should be encouraged."
In his answer to the Pross complaint, Alan Wiener,
HUD's New York area manager, said, "Perhaps the
most serious consequence of an injunction of Section 8
funding of these projects would be to delay the creation
of safer arid more decent housing for the residents of the
area. There is a critical need for such housing at this
time. Indeed, even when these projects are completed,
demand will exceed supply."
The Community Development Act is designed to pro-
vide decent, habitable housing for persons of low in-
come in those urban areas where private investment can-
not or will not provide the needed housing. But the
Pross complaint appears to hinge on promises of the law
warning that low income families should not be "ghet-
toized" by this funding and that this funding should be
used to attract private investment and community revi-
talization - that there should be a "reduction of the
isolation" of low income residents and "the revitaliza-
tion of deteriorating or deteriorated neighborhoods to
attract persons of higher income."
Attorneys for the government have filed a motion to
dismiss Pross's charges, arguing that he does not have
proper standing in the neighborhood.
"He does not live in the area, and from what we can
piece together, he has no interest here - except a com-
mercial or speculative one," said one of the attorneys
who asked to remain unnamed because the case is still
p
endi
9g·
"I'm sure the change in the Administration in Wash-
ington will help our case," countered Pross. "I think it's
absurd that in an area that's prime for development, a
poor person can continue to live here, and someone who
makes, for example, $24,000, can't move in." Pross is
currently s,elling cooperatives at his Central Park West
building for $103,000 to $190,000.
"We are very aware of the co-op and rental market in
New York City, and this is prime territory," Pross con-
cluded.D
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City Limits
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HOUSING UNDER REAGAN· Page 2
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LOW INCOME BUILDING,
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HOUSING IN CUBA· Page 12
HOMESTEADING PATRONS· Page 16
PARK SLOPE DISPLACEMENT· Page 18
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