The

Life
EDITORIAL
NO MORE EXCUSES
LET'S STOP PRETENDING these are freak incidents.
As I write this, New Jersey child welfare
authorities are trying to figure out how it could
be that the seemingly cohesive, loyally churchgo-
ing Jackson family of Camden allowed their four
adopted sons to starve. A caseworker who
claimed to have made numerous visits to the fos-
ter sister who lived with them reponed that the
boys were doing fine, and seems to have accept-
ed the parents' explanation that their adoptive
sons had "eating disorders. " Why did this hap-
pen? That's the question on everyone's minds.
It's the same question New York child wel-
fare officials are asking about 8-year-old
Stephanie Ramos, a severely disabled child who
died in a filthy foster home in the Bronx and
whose foster mother dumped her in the trash.
And about the lady in Harlem whose brood
included a tiger and an alligator as well as foster
children. 0.]. lawyer Johnnie Cochran is cur-
rently suing New York City for half a billion
dollars on behalf of a Bronx baby allegedly
shaken to death in foster care. As Wendy Davis
reports this month in her investigation of the
Cover photo by Joshua Zuckerman.
Centej for an
oversight of foster homes, New York's rate of
abuse and neglect in foster care is twice the level
deemed nationally acceptable.
We can't ever know for sure why an adult
hurts a child. (How can we, when abusers them-
selves rarely understand?) What we do know
much about is the multibillion-dollar institution
of foster care. We know that foster families vol-
unteer for the job, and that if they take in a large
number of kids, or children with special needs
like Stephanie Ramos or the Jacksons, the
stipend can compare favorably with pay for other
bottom-rung jobs. We know that caseworkers
assigned to supervise the homes are underpaid
for exhausting and emotionally draining work,
with caseloads that are too high to provide ade-
quate supervision for every child. And as New
Jersey's human services chief has as much as
admitted, there are caseworkers who skip out on
their obligation to visit every home regularly, and
instead simply fake the paperwork.
No more excuses. Children are suffering and
dying in order to maintain a political fiction.
We remove children from their allegedly negli-
gent families as an act of civic obligation, only
to dump the kids into other homes and cross
our fingers they won't get into more trouble.
If we won't make a significant commitment
of resources to ensure safe and supportive foster
care-and since we never have in the century-
and-a-half history of the institution, I'm not
counting on it now-we will have to seriously
consider abolishing foster care as we know it.
That doesn't mean letting kids rot in hellish sit-
uations. On the contrary, it's an opportunity to
invest resources in family preservation and
other effective interventions. Nor can we leave
families solely accountable any longer for forces
associated with child maltreatment in the first
place: poverty, overcrowded housing, intolera-
ble suess, and other conditions that are as much
a responsibility of our political leadership as is
the protection of Elisa Izquierdo and other trag-
ic poster children for child abuse.
Who's responsible for the squalid death of
Stephanie Ramos, or the starving of Bruce, Keith,
Michael and T yronne Jackson? In a way, we all are.
-Alyssa Katz
Editor
The Center for an Urban Future
the sister organization of City Limits
www.nycfuture.org
F
Utroan
u ure
Combining City Limits' zest for investigative reporting with thorough policy
analysis, the Center for an Urban Future is regularly influencing New York's
decision makers with fact-driven studies about policy issues that are important to
all five boroughs and to New Yorkers of all socio-economic levels.
Go to our website or contact us to obtain any of our recent studies:
01 Seeking a Workforce System: A Graphical Guide to Employment and Training Services in New York (November 2003)
01 Engine Failure: With Economic Woes That Go well Beyond 9/11, New York Needs a Bold New Vision To
Renew the City's Economy (September 2003)
01 Rearranging the Deck Chairs? New York City's Workforce System At The Brink (May 2003)
01 Labor Gains: How Union-Affiliated Training is Transforming New York's Workforce Landscape (March 2003)
01 The Creative Engine: How Arts and Culture are Fueling Growth in NYC's Neighborhoods (November 2002)
To obtain a report, get on our mailing list or sign up for our free e-mail policy updates,
contact Research Director Jonathan Bowles at jbowles@nycfuture.org or (212) 479-3347.
City Limits and the Center for an Urban Future rely on the generous support of their readers and advertisers, as well as the following funders: The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Child
Welfare Fund, The Unltaflan Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Open Institute, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Scherman Foundaton, JPMorganChase, The Annie E. Casey
FoundatIOn, The Booth Ferns FoundatIOn, The New York Community The TaCOniC FoundatIOn, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, The Ira W. DeCamp
FoundatIOn, LISe, Deutsche Bank, M& T Bank, The Cltlgroup FoundatIOn, New York Foundation.
16 CALLED SAFE
A spate of deaths, starvations and other horrors are recent reminders
that too many foster homes are anything but havens for endangered
kids. Why does it happen? If only their caseworkers knew.
~ By Wendy Davis
20 MIRACLE ON 33RD STREET
This holiday season, more than 200,000 letters from poor
New Yorkers will plead with Santa Claus for toys, clothes, even
school supplies. But how many will get what they wish for?
It all depends on how visitors to a post office charity program
decide who's needy and who's merely nice.
By Debbie Nathan
28 THE NEW KIDS IN SCHOOL
The city's fast-track Teaching Fellows program allows would-be
educators to jump in the classroom after just seven weeks'
preparation. We need the teachers-but we also need
to figure out how to get them to stay for keeps.
By Penelope Duda
CONTENTS
5 FRO NTll N ES: MARIACHI MIGRATIONS UNDERGROUND .. SLUM AUCTIONS
UNDER SCRUTINY .. SANITATION LIGHTS A FIRE ON STATEN ISLAND ... FIGHTING TRANSGENDER
EVICTIONS ... BED BUGS START A TENANT ORGANIZING DRIVE GROWING FOOD IN
LOWER MANHATTAN ... AN INTIMATE DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENT
INSt
11 L.A. CONFIDENT
When government offers subsidies to corporations, West Coast
communities have won by playing hardball at the bargaining table.
Now New York's getting in on the action.
By Bobbi Murray
N t E l : t t t ~ ~
The Future of Public Life
33 THE BIG IDEA
Explained at last: What electronic town meetings like
Listening to the City actually accomplish.
By Francesca Polletta
DECEMBER 2003
36 CITY LIT
To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New
York City, by Martha Biondi. Reviewed by Kai Wright.
Nurturing the One, Supporting the Many: The Center for Family Life
in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, by Peg McHartt Hess, Brenda G.
McGowan and Michael Botsko. Reviewed by Nora McCarthy.
39 NYC INC.
The city says the new landscape of historically industrial areas of
Williamsburg will be "mixed use." But high-priced housing won't
just sound the death knell for existing industry-it will weaken New
York's economy, too. By Laura Wolf-Powers
2 EDITORIAL
43 JOB ADS
47 PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
50 OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
3
LETTERS
MORTGAGE 101
The lenders in Debbie Nathan's Buying a
Piece of Hell [November 2003] may not have
been as bamboozled as they make out. Since
most lenders are bundling mortgages into the
secondary mortgage market, there comes a
point when they no longer take a hit, no mat-
ter what happens in terms of foreclosure. With
regard to potential mortgage fraud, this fact has
made many lenders sloppy. Some have even
become complicit. Also, if these were loans
backed by the Federal Housing Authority, and
if developers were supported by the Depart-
ment of Housing and Urban Development,
buyers were not legally required to have a home
inspection prior to purchase. Though an
inspection is not the same thing as an appraisal,
a good inspector can help add a dose of reality
to the appraised value. Though I sympathize
with people's desire for home ownership, any
buyers who signed on using phony documents
regarding income, etc., bear some responsibil-
ity for the overall fraud. As Nathan points out,
most of the buyers were working- and middle-
class people. Not illiterate dupes who just made
their mark. Mortgage and housing related
frauds have become a national epidemic. Gen-
erally, they are complex affairs, which rely on a
chain of complicity.
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
On The QT
MISLEADING CHOICES
Philip Mangano, executive director of the
Interagency Coalition on Homelessness, is
right in his desire to focus HUD dollars on
long-term shelter residents and the creation
of more permanent and supportive housing,
as reported in Cassi Feldman's excellent Ser-
vice Interruption." [November 2003] Like-
wise, the coalition of advocacy groups and
Jeremy Rosen, staff attorney for the National
Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty,
are correct in arguing that many individuals
and families need services and support to
end their homeless ness and remain in hous-
ing once they are placed. Therefore, the Bush
administration's decision to spend on perma-
nent housing poses a misleading choice in
the use of federal dollars between two very
interrelated needs: housing and services.
Permanent housing in the absence of serv-
ices, especially for the chronically homeless
that Mangano believes HUD should serve
first, whether directly or indirectly con-
nected to the housing or delivered by the
provider of that housing, will not be a solu-
tion. Anyone who has worked with this pop-
ulation for any amount of time fully under-
stands that creating permanent housing will
not by itself end homelessness. Moreover,
arguing about who should pay for what part
of this pie is little more than the Bush
administration's attempt to distract us from
the real problem: chronic underfunding of
federal housing development and homeless
services. To argue over a paltry $1.2 billion
dollars, when several times that annual
amount is needed to bring the promised end
to homelessness, is like fighting over the
crumbs that have fallen on the floor while
ignoring the mounds of food on the table.
Daniel Tietz
Deputy Executive Director for Operations
Coalition for the Homeless
Reach 20,000 readers
in the nonprofit sector
4
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contact Associate Publisher Susan Harris
at 212-479-3345.
CITY LIMITS
Volume XXVIII Number 10
City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except bi-
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Publisher: Kim Nauer
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Editor: Alyssa Katz
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,.
FRONT LINES
Carey Kirkella
Take EI "A" Tren
LISTENING TO GABRIEL RAMIREZ LOPEZ play music with his son and
nephew on the subway, most passengers maintain their commuter faces.
Here and there, though, the masks crack open a bit. One woman closes
her bloodshot eyes. A lanky man hums along.
The range of people on New York City mass transit is very different
from Lopez' old audience. He used to perform for peasant commuters in
Puebla, Mexico, just southeast of Mexico City. Until two years ago
Lopez serenaded bus riders there, using the same small guitar, the same
sombrero, the same Spanish to solicit donations.
Like many Mexicans in New York, Lopez left his country, his wife
and most of his kids-he has seven-to look for work. He now shares a
small apartment in the Bronx with his musician kinsmen and sends most
of his earnings home to Mexico.
The trio pulls in $30 to $100 a day, working ftom 3 in the afternoon
until 8 at night. They play four or five days a week, dodging cops and
the occasional catcall of "Ole, Ole!" On weekends, they travel to the
suburbs and work at parties for up to $200 an hour. Their clients are
mostly Latinos, but Lopez notes with some bemusement that Asians are
also big fans.
Their routine is typical of Mexican musical groups in the city, called
DECEMBER 2003
con juntos, whose numbers are growing. ''The subway's a pretty good
market-an informal economy market," says Roben Smith, a sociology
professor at Barnard College who studies Mexican migration to New
York. "You get all these guys with skills that the formal economy won't
accommodate. So they exploit a niche that exists, like all New Yorkers
have a tendency to do."
More and more Mexicans are flocking to the city. In 2000, they num-
bered 300,000, up from 40,000 in 1980, according to Smith. Two-
thirds are from Puebla or the surrounding Mixteca region, an especially
poor part of the country.
Lopez hopes to return to Puebla in a year, but his son Alquilino and
nephew Gabriel want to stay here. That's typical of younger-generation
Mexican immigrants, according to Smith. "We want to marry American
girls, " admits Alquilino, 26, with a sheepish smile.
Even though they sing almost exclusively love songs, there's no time
for girls. The trio spends mornings, its only free time, rehearsing and
resting up for the jolting and sombrero-passing ahead.
"I'm doing what I love and what my family has always done, " says
Lopez in Spanish. "But this job is not easy. We do it because it's the only
way we know to make a living. We're musicians." -Julia Taylor
5
FRONT LINES
Sour Disposition
Karen Murray, Brenda Brown and Kim Smith want HUD to improve
Harlem's Ennis Francis Houses--but not to auction the property off.
Tenants ask HUn
to reconsider how
it sheds unwanted
property.
By Cassi Feldman
JUST A BLOCK from Harlem's nouveau-chic 125rh
Street, where wig shops and soul food joints now
share rhe sidewalk wirh MAC cosmetics and
H&M, Ennis Francis Houses stands as testament
to an earlier time. Unfortunately, it shows. Apart-
ment walls are stained wirh mold, ceilings are
leaking, water bugs and mice lurk benearh radia-
tors. But its tenants, many of whom moved in
when rhe II-story brick complex opened in
1985, aren't giving up just yet. "We lived through
rhe slum era," says tenant leader Kim Smirh. "We
ought to be able to live through rhe renaissance."
Tired of waiting for rheir landlord, Herbert
Wright, to make repairs, tenants recently asked
rhe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, which subsidizes rheir rent, to
6
intervene. Because rhe building has failed two
physical inspections, rhe agency is now consid-
ering foreclosure-welcome news for the frus-
trated residents.
"An enforcement action like foreclosure is
great, " says Anne Lessy, an organizer wirh rhe
nonprofit Tenants and Neighbors. "But we're
talking about tenants who have been failed.
Unless rhey have a role, a say, in rhe building's
future, where is rhe protection for them?"
For rhe past decade, buildings like Ennis Fran-
cis have been moving out of HUD's domain.
They were part of a massive wave of construction
between rhe 1960s and 1980s, in which develop-
ers received federal subsidies in exchange for keep-
ing rents affordable for 20 years. But when a land-
lord neglects a property or mismanages its
finances, HUD doesn't wait for rhe contract to
expire. It ends rhe subsidy and gives tenants indi-
vidual Section 8 vouchers instead.
The question is, what comes next? If HUD
takes title to rhe property, it can transfer own-
ership to someone it deems more qualified. Or,
if rhe property is in decent shape, rhe federal
agency can simply foreclose and auction it off
to rhe highest bidder.
Since 1993,37 New York City HUD-insured
properties have been foreclosed on, 11 of which
were sold to private owners at auction. But rhat
number may start to grow as HUD steps up
oversight of delinquent owners. "Landlords have
to clean up rheir act if rhey want to stay in rhe
program," said local HUD spokesperson Adam
Glantz. As of June, 48 HUD-assisted buildings
had failed two recent annual inspections, moving
rhem onto a troubled properties list-and poten-
tially ontO rhe auction block.
While some landlords who buy at auction
will work to improve rhe value of rheir invest-
ment and make it attractive to future tenants,
orhers may be looking for a quick profit. "In a
tight market situation like you have in New
York, people will be tempted to bid high,"
explains Michael Kane, executive director of rhe
National Alliance ofHUD Tenants. "If rhey bid
high, rhey won't have rhe capital to make needed
repairs. Their fmancial incentive is to run rhe
properties into rhe ground and wait till rhe ten-
ants move out or die. That's just economics."
Yet despite pressure from tenants and from
New York City housing officials, HUD has no
plans to give up auctions or change its policy
around foreclosure. So tenants like rhose at
Ennis Francis are going to have to fight for rhe
future of rheir homes.
CARMElLA SMITH was one of rhose tenants back
in 2000, when HUD foreclosed on her dilapi-
dated Bed-Study building complex, Willard J.
Price Houses, and sold the building to Bronx-
based Proto Property Services for $1 .
Developers Demetrios Moragianis and
John Lankenau had just renovated a 54-unit
building in the Bronx. But Willard J. Price,
which encompasses 192 apartments in four
buildings, was another story entirely. The day
rhey closed on rhe deal, the property's newly
fired security and maintenance staff went on
an angry rampage, setting fires and flooding
pipes. "On my way there, I saw rhree fire
engines," remembers Moragianis. "I thought,
' I bet rhey're heading to Willard Price.'" Sure
enough, rhey were.
These days, rhe buildings look a lot better, but
serious problems persist. "The outside is all well
and good," explains Smirh. "But we don't live
outside-we live inside." She says rhe tenants
had to beg for a face-to-face meeting wirh own-
ers, sending repeated letters to rhe city's housing
aurhority, local politicians and HUD. At rhe
October 12 garhering, rhe first in a year, an over-
heated, Standing-room-only crowd bombarded
CITY LIMITS
Moragianis and his co-owners with complaints about rats
and poor security.
The landlords uied for expressions of patient concern,
but they often looked like they wanted to disappear. "It's
been a hard way going," Moragianis explained later over
the phone. "We want to make money, don't get me
wrong. But we want to make money ftom a fine-tuned
machine. We sink or swim with the building. "
While Proto may be trying its best, not all of HUD's
new landlords are as conscientious. This past summer,
the agency unloaded Pueblo de Mayaguez, a 76-unit
Melrose developmem, at a speedy auction on the steps of
the Bronx Courthouse. The tenants, whose plan to turn
the complex into a co-op had the backing of the city's
housing department and housing authority, were heart-
broken. And that was before they found out who their
new landlord actually was.
The mysterious buyer, represented by proxy at the
auction, was Emmanuel Ku, a Queens-based landlord
with more than 1,400 pending code violations in just 11
buildings. With the help of the Legal Aid Society, the
tenanes have now filed a lawsuit to reverse the sale.
Glantz mainrains that the tenants' plan carne too late;
the building was already scheduled for auction. But advo-
cates hope the bad publicity that followed could change
HUD's approach. "Pueblo was a wake-up call," says Lessy.
"It demonstrated that the process being used to screen
potential landlords is inadequate."
There are already some signs of improvement. The ten-
ants at Ennis Francis and at Nueva Era Apartments in
Washington Heights, another complex at risk of foreclo-
sure, recently held meetings with local HUD reps where
they articulated their concerns. Kim Smith, of Ennis Fran-
cis, considers her meeting a success. "They were very atten-
tive," she says, "They're definitely interested in assisting us."
But, at this stage, it's hard to know what form that
assistance will take, and a public auction is still a distinct
possibility. Even if New York HUD officials wanted to
rule it out, explains Victor Bach, senior housing policy
analyst for the Community Service Society, they wouldn't
necessarily have the authority to do so. "Washington
wants to shed its interests and get out of the real estate
business-it's part of the whole federal mindset on hous-
ing policy," he says. "There's clearly no movement by
Washington on this score. "
That's disappointing for advocates like Kane, who
have spent years pleading for more sensitive disposition
of these troubled buildings. Kane points out that far bet-
ter models are already in play. This spring, a nonprofit
consortium led by the Community Service Society and
including the buildings' tenants, took over ownership of
Medgar Evers Houses and the Dr. Betty Shabazz Com-
plex-a total of 475 units-along Bed-Stuy's Gates
Avenue corridor. While nonprofit owners are no guaran-
tee of success, they are more likely to involve tenants and
keep the buildings affordable long-term.
"Does it take a long time? Does it cost a lot of money?"
asks Kane. "Sure. But what's the alternative?"
DECEMBER 2003
FRONT LINES
FIRSTHAND
Shotgun Wedding
Eric The whole problem started with living in shelters. I had my apartment; he didn't.
German: So I let him move in with me. But they told us in order for us to live together both
receiving public assistance, we'd have to be on the same budget, and we'd have
to be domestic partners.
Arthur I was just coming from losing someone after 15 years. Eric has no family and I
Thomas: have no family, so he took care of me while I was in the hospital and we kind of
bonded. So the domestic partnership thing is not something that I'm unhappy
with, you understand. The case worker told us there's no way HASA [the city's
HIV/AIDS Services Administration] is going to pay for boyfriends to live in the
same apartment without being domestic partners-which our lawyer says is just
unheard of. But it's the criteria and I figured, Let's just do it. He could have told
me anything. After you've been beaten into submission, you just comply.
Eric: When we moved into a new apartment we couldn't cook for three days 'cause the
stove wasn't working. We went to HASA to tell them we needed a restaurant
allowance to be able to eat. They wanted to give us pamphlets to go to pantries
in Brooklyn, and we were like, "We still can't cook it. The stove is broken! "
Arthur: They're always trying to cut corners. It's stressful. I can show you a suitcase full of
medications I'm taking now. I'm 16 years HIV positive and I never took medications
until now. You figure everything will run smoothly if you do what is expected of you.
But what happens if they fall short? "OK, we just have to stop this whole process
here and start you on another train because we messed up," they say, "and this
worker won't be in this week and you'll have to deal with this one now and they don't
have the information so let's do this again." And it's just constant, nerve-wracking.
On a whole other level , we're getting to know each other. What you eat. What
you like. When you shower. The little things. We open up everyday, a little more,
and a little more, because we're just pulling together. -As told to Kai Wright
7
FRONT LINES
An advocacy
group refocuses
on food.
By Alec Appelbaum
HIRAM BONNER'S fans line up early outside the
Community Food Resource Center's kitchen on
West 116th Street. The tall, velvet-voiced Bon-
ner-trained at the Cordon Bleu Institute in
London-arrived in February and promptly
threw out the cans that once supplied the
agency's daily meal. These days, the kitchen
serves fresh fruit and salad, along with entrees
like Asian tofu and salmon with lemon-parsley
sauce. The program has caught on. Kenny Pryor,
an unemployed food-service worker, says he
comes all the way from Brooklyn for Bonner's
fare. "More people come every day," Pryor says.
That's not necessarily good news. Like most
of the city's soup kitchens and food pantries, this
one is overtaxed. Last year, the kitchen served
550 meals a day on a much simpler menu; this
year it's up to 750 meals. The pattern is visible
8
Stirring the Pot
citywide. In 2002, emergency food providers
turned away nearly 350,000 hungry New York-
ers, a 241 percent increase over 2000, according
to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger,
a local umbrella group that represents hundreds
of emergency food providers.
Moving away from a basic menu that's easy
to prepare towards CFRC's finer and more
nutritious cuisine isn't easy to do on a budget,
much less in the face of skyrocketing need.
That's where Richard Murphy comes in.
CFRC's new executive director, who started
last September, has big plans to promote smart
food consumption among low-income people.
The organization is teaching clients at Bonner's
kitchen how to cook healthy, inexpensive meals.
It also won an $182,000 grant from the W.K
Kellogg Foundation to improve school meals
and help kids learn about nutrition. Meanwhile,
CFRC is working with community groups to
help clients get food stamps and Earned Income
Tax Credits. By 2005, Murphy hopes, CFRC
will receive more than half its revenue from
training, technical assistance and developing
"intellectual capital."
If Murphy has changed the group's mission
in subtle ways, he's changed its style more dra-
matically. During the 1990s, when Washington
ended guaranteed public assistance and the Giu-
liani administration was purging hundreds of
thousands of New Yorkers from welfare rolls,
CFRC was a loud presence in political advocacy.
These days, Murphy chooses to work behind the
scenes instead, as an open-minded collaborator.
"We're not here to be the largest feeder of
poor people or preparer of taxes," says Murphy.
Instead, CFRC is becoming a high-proftle think
tank, one that helps strengthen the entire struc-
ture of food access in New York City.
IT'S NOT SURPRISING to find CFRC at the cut-
ring edge of food provision-the agency has
been there before. When Kathy Goldman first
founded CFRC in 1980 with a $6,000 grant to
promote school breakfasts, there were only 40
emergency food programs in New York, and
they mostly provided basics: hot meals and pre-
packed bags of donated or surplus groceries.
Goldman changed that. She and her early staff
recognized that clients seeking food assistance
could often benefit from a host of other services
as well. By helping them gain access to welfare,
for example, or eviction defense, they could
prevent them from sliding further into poverty.
"For me, starting all that was about making
government work better so people can help
themselves," explains State Senator Liz
Krueger, who served as associate director of
CFRC from 1987 until she took office last year.
Guided by Krueger's vision, the agency won
city contracts for food stamp and eviction preven-
tion programs that served thousands, and spun
off the New York City Coalition Against Hunger
and the New York City Food Bank. During the
Giuliani years, Krueger and Senior Policy Analyst
Don Friedman became fixtures at City Hall and
on the nightly news, demanding more and better
benefits for low-income New Yorkers.
Murphy takes a different tack. "I don't think
we need to do the things we needed to do
under Giuliani," he says. "There's a big differ-
ence between a Giuliani and a Bloomberg. You
can negotiate with a Bloomberg." And though
he still sees CFRC as a watchdog-the agency
has sued the city for vending sugary drinks in
schools-he also looks for ways to work inside
government circles, a legacy perhaps of his own
days as the city's Youth Services commissioner
under Mayor David Dinkins.
Under Murphy, CFRC, which now has a $9
million annual budget and a staff of 92, is
CITY LIMITS
evolving from a scrappy underdog organizer
into a polished training center, not unlike rhe
Academy for Educational Development, rhe
research and advocacy organization where Mur-
phy worked in Washington. Over rhe summer,
wirh support from rhe United Way, CFRC
taught five community agencies to administer
Food Force software, irs own widely praised
pre-screening program for food sramp eligibil-
ity. "The city isn't where it wanrs to be," says
Murphy of food sramp access, but he maintains
it's making honest efforts to get benefits to
those who need them.
Clearly, rhough, there's more work to be
done. An estimated 800,000 local families eli-
gible for food stamps don't receive rhem.
"Even according to [rhe city Human
Resources Administration's] own statistics, the
agency is still failing to process at least 20 per-
cent of all food sramp applications within the 30
days required by federal law," says Coalition
Against Hunger director Joel Berg, adding rhat
food stamp applications are not readily available
in about one in four offices. Says Berg, "Our
collective work is still cut out for us."
As CFRC moved away from irs role as City
Hall gadfly, the Coalition Against Hunger is
taking up the call. Berg has run media cam-
paigns tied to Thanksgiving and Passover and
hopes to highlight national food policy issues,
which he worked on under Clinton at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
That leaves Murphy's group to concentrate on
helping the city's other major food providers, who
are going through a maturation process of their
own. "There is a desperate need to share what we
know," says Doreen Wohl, executive director of
the West Side Campaign Against Hunger. This
fall, several groups convened a task force to dis-
cuss how to share data and track client visirs.
Larty Gile, whose staff at St. John's Bread and Life
has doubled since 1998, raised the idea of pool-
ing health insurance cosrs. "Most of these organ-
izations, including ours, started as the children of
Reaganomics," he says. "A lot of us are now mak-
ing the jump from grassroors."
Murphy hopes to help guide rhem. Com-
menrs Goldman, who is retiring this year and
helped recruit Murphy as her replacement,
"There's space for people to go in directions I
never would have thought o"
But Murphy says he isn't averse to reviving the
old confrontational approach. "Nobody [on my
staff] has ever been told not to go to the steps of
City Hall," he says. "If need be, we'd go."
Alec Appelbaum writes about environmental and
neighborhood issues.
DECEMBER 2003
Tenants get bitten
by activism
(bed) bug
THERE ARE BED BUGS in the Prince George
Hotel, and the tiny, tick-like vermin won't
go away-not for the fumigators who come
to kill them twice a week, and not for ten-
anrs like Goshka Grabowska, an artist who
spent her summer in a state of itchy fear,
sleeping in her bathtub and inside a sleeping
bag for full protection.
They still got her.
"It was scary-in rhe surreal," she says.
Bed bugs might seem out of place at the
Prince George, a 414-unit hotel on East
Twenty-eighth Street rhat Common Ground
renovated a few years ago into a pristine res-
idence for low-income tenants, complete
wirh yoga and tea room. But the building's
fumigator, Paul Scharff, of Out Sect Inc., says
rhere was a "flare-up" of the bugs this spring
when a tenant died in a room and hotel
operators couldn't remove the body for a
number of days. The bugs feasted on the
corpse, rhen fled the room out into rhe hall.
"It was horrible," Scharff says
The bed bug epidemic has become so
widespread that a group of residents have
decided to form a tenant organization to take
it on. That would be a rare accomplishment
in supportive housing like the Prince George,
where turnover rates can be high, and tenants
ofren suffer histories of mental disability.
The tenanrs say they are determined to
succeed. "We're a four-legged horse in a three-
legged race," said resident Rick Wells last
October at an emotional, and at times rau-
cous, tenanrs' meeting in the Prince George.
Larry Schatt, executive director of Com-
mon Ground, which runs the hotel
along with Center for Urban Community
Services, says borh groups welcome formal
tenant organizations in all rheir housing
projects. "This is what we do," he says.
"Build community."
Unfortunately, that's what the bed bugs
do, too. Entomologisrs say the vampire-like
critters have been nesting in unprecedented
numbers in major U.S. cities. Fumigators say
rhe problem is often most acute in single-
room occupancy hotels, where they hide in
FRONT LINES
wall cracks and bed seams.
Scharff says Common Ground has gone
above and beyond what most landlords do
to solve infestation problems. At first, he
admits, hotel operators sought to downplay
reports of the bugs. "We didn't want to cre-
ate hysteria," he says, adding that apar.t from
a few isolated incidents, rhe bed bugs are
now under control.
That hasn't stopped rhe bitten tenanrs
from taking Common Ground to court, and
vice-versa. During rhe rhree months or so
that her room was infested, Grabowska
refused to pay rent until the bugs went away.
In response, Common Ground has com-
menced eviction proceedings against her and
Wells, who also wirhheld rent. Borh parties
plan to settle rhe matter in Housing Court.
During rhe tenant meeting, several orher
residenrs complained about being bitten, and
said management didn't rake them seriously
until inspectors from rhe city's Department of
Housing Preservation and Development
issued citations for rhe bugs. Many said they
had to pay for new clothing, manresses, sheers
and dermatology appointments out of
pocket-a financial strain for those living on
public assistance.
Schatt declined to comment directly
on the cases, but said, "Our goal is to not ev-
ict anyone."
Scharff is sympathetic ro rhe tenanrs, but
says they are also partly to blame. Before
fumigating, he says, unirs must be cleaned
and cleared, but many stay cluttered. "These
bugs can be very tricky," he says. "We're try-
ing to help these people out as quick as possi-
ble, but they need to help us too."
-Geoffrey Gray
9
FRONT LINES
Bias in the Bathroom
A LANDMARK EVICTION CASE moved forward this
fall when the New York Supreme Court ruled
that the Hispanic AIDS Forum (HAF) , a local
nonprofit, could proceed with a discrimination
suit against its former landlord, the estate of
Joseph Bruno. What comes next, experts say,
could set a precedent for the rights of trans-
gender individuals across the nation.
For nine years, HAF ran a community out-
reach center in Jackson Heights, offering coun-
seling and education to Latino clients with
HN/AIDS. But in 2000, as the agency was
renewing its lease, another tenant in the building
allegedly complained about having to share bath-
rooms with "those men who look like women."
HAF had recently started a small bimonthly
support group for transgender clients.
HAF's executive director, Heriberto Sanchez
Burn This!
NEW YORK CITY has moved a step closer to
building its first municipal incinerator in more
than four decades. In October, the Depart-
ment of Sanitation announced it would enter-
tain proposals for new technology to handle
Staten Island's trash and recycling-including
"waste-to-energy" plants that combust
selected refuse to create electrical power. The
decision represents a complete about-face for
the department, which until recently insisted
that no existing type of high-tech facility could
handle the city's trash.
It also opens the way for Staten Island-based
Visy Paper, which handles 40 percent of the
city's paper recycling, to make the leap into
handling all of Staten Island's trash and recy-
cling for the next 20 years.
Environmental groups, which have praised
Sanitation for opting to issue 20-year contracts
on the city's recycling of metal, glass and plas-
tic, have reacted cautiously to the news.
"There are real environmental, public
health and economic concerns about moving
10
Soto, says he tried to discuss the marter with the
building's manager, but to no avail. "He wanted
us to assure him that they would use gender-
appropriate bathrooms," Sanchez Soto says. "I
said that I couldn't refuse bathrooms to clients
based on their genitalia. He said we berter do
something or he wouldn't renew the lease."
When the group was evicted, Sanchez Soto
took his case to Housing Court, but lost. HAF
was forced to relocate its Queens office to
Woodside. But he didn't stop there. HAF flied
a civil suit in 2001, alleging discrimination.
Now, after years of legal wrangling, the case is
finally moving forward-with the help of some
high-profile allies.
"We are hoping this case will make it clear
that landlords cannot do what he did, " says
James Esseks, litigation director of the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union AIDS project. 'The
point is twofold: We are trying to make sure
transgender individuals are covered under the
law. We are also trying to hold the landlord
accountable for his actions and recoup the
losses suffered by HAF."
forward any incineration proposal in New York
City," says Marc !zeman, senior attorney for
the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Besides, he adds, it may be more expensive.
"From the preliminary details that have been
released it's not clear that this is a good eco-
nomic deal for New York City."
Under Visy Paper's proposal, the company,
a subsidiary of Australian paper giant Prarr
Industries, would build a "recycle and recovery"
plant that would dry waste and turn it into fuel
pellets, which would then be burned to power
its paper recycling mill. Visy spokesperson
Mike O'Regan asserts the new method is a far
cry from traditional incineration. "This is not
normal combustion," he says. "Less oxygen is
used, which in turn means lower levels of
nitrogen oxide" emissions.
This isn't the first time alternative technol-
ogy has been proposed to ease the city's trash
burden. Several companies have introduced
similar plans [See "Hot Trash," July/August
2003) . But it is the first time Sanitation has
gotten serious about the idea. Agency
spokesperson Kathy Dawkins declined to give
specific reasons for the change of direction. "I
think we are just looking at different ideas, and
if someone has a proposal we will take a look at
it and see if it fits our needs," she says.
As part of their strategy, the landlord's attor-
neys, Risi and Associates, demanded intimate
information about each client's physical gen-
der, but that request was denied in January by
Justice Marilyn Shafter. 'The status of a trans-
gendered individual is not dependent upon
their anatomy, " she wrote.
Arrempts to reach Bruno's estate or its
lawyers for comment were unsuccessful.
In the new ruling, Judge Shafter dismissed the
defendants' suggestion that state and city human
rights laws do not apply specifically to rransgen-
der people. "Defendants' counsel's difficulty
grasping the concept of rransgendered persons as
expressed in his affirmations is irrelevant," she
wrote. "Plaintiffhas met its pleading burden."
The case will now go into its discovery phase,
during which both sides will hear testimony and
gather facts; it should proceed to trial in about a
year. Sanchez Soto hopes the case will raise aware-
ness, and encourage the creation of unisex bath-
rooms. "It's a marrer of socializing people to these
things," he says. "Sometimes we have to force
open-mindedness." -Christine Marie Hintze
That's good news for Staten Island Borough
President James Molinaro, who in September
traveled to Germany to learn more about the
new technology, and Staten Island Co un-
cilrnember and Sanitation Committee Chair
Michael McMahon. In their borough, the
alternative possibility that the Fresh Kills land-
fill could reopen would be a politician's worst
nightmare. "I think the city has to take a seri-
ous look at the developing technologies for
long-term planning," says McMahon, a fre-
quent and outspoken critic of DOS' waste han-
dling. "Sooner or later landfill space is going to
run out, and unless the city actively pursues
this, we are going to be stuck."
Meanwhile, on Staten Island, at least one
community group says it has no problem with
an "alternative" energy plant. "We were very
happy to hear about this idea," reports Angela
D'Aiuto, vice president of the North Shore
Waterfront Conservancy, which was formed
two and half years ago to fight the expansion of
waste transfer stations in Port Richmond and
West Briton. "We are concerned about Fresh
Kills, and any garbage transfer facility there
could be more of an issue for Staten Island air
quality. We like Visy, because it's a cleaner way
to [deal with) garbage."
-Ruth Ford
CITY LIMITS
INSIDE TRACK
L.A. Confident
After helping build a West Coast movement for community-friendly
corporate subsidies, an activist is working to win real deals for
New Yorkers. By Bobbi Murray
Organizer Adrianne Shropshire is mobilizing city residents to demand that communities, and their low-wage. workers, gain too when
government aids big business.
FOUR YEARS AGO, a grassroots coalition pulled
off a remarkable coup. City Hall lavishly subsi-
dized a gargantuan development project near
the shore: The developer was to receive more
than $400 million in public subsidies, with
another $90 million for a high-profile enter-
tainment company that had set its sights on
locating its operations there.
It took a two-year campaign and some sud-
den-death, last-minute negotiations, but the
coalition, called the Metropolitan Alliance,
sealed a compact in which the entertail11Jlent
DECEMBER 2003
company agreed to fund media technology
training academies at nine comrnuniry college
campuses. Heavy-hitter companies in the
entertainment industry eventually committed
to placing 1,000 academy graduates in jobs
during the first phase of the project.
Don't be surprised if you haven't heard
about this groundbreaking agreement. It hap-
pened in Los Angeles.
The development project, on bluffs over-
looking the Pacific, is called Playa Vista, and the
entertainment company was Dream Works
SKG, founded by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey
Katzenberg and David Geffen. "First, $90 mil-
lion in public money was going to be given
away without any guarantees of what the com-
munity would get," recalls Adrianne Shrop-
shire, who helped pull together Metro Alliance's
successful campaign. "Second, it was going to
an industry where poor people and people of
color are for the most part locked out."
Metropolitan Alliance is made up of 29
organizations stretching across L.A.'s sprawling
435 square miles, mostly in the blue-collar and
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for New York
Building a Better New York
no-collar neighborhoods where jobs evaporated
long ago. Taking the lead was AGENDA, Action
for Grassroots Empowerment and Neighborhood
Action-and Shropshire as a chief organizer.
Along the rocky road of negotiations, Metro
Alliance members made impressive demonstra-
tions of grassroots support. They sent hundreds
ofletters and postcards to DrearnWorks to per-
suade company representatives to come to the
table; made mass mobilizations at public meet-
ings; put pressure on political allies when talks
broke down.
Dream Works eventually located elsewhere,
but kept its word on financing the academies to
the tune of $5 million over five years; other com-
panies brought the total to $12.5 million. And
the payoff was even bigger than that. Metropoli-
tan Alliance's success had activists across the
country craning their necks to see how the L.A.
organization pulled it off.
Two of those activists were Jonathan Rosen,
who until last month was executive director of
the New York Unemployment Project, and
Simon Greer, who heads New York's Jobs With
Justice office. They decided New York City had
a lot to learn from L.A. A little over a year ago,
they began talking with Shropshire about mak-
ing the move to New York to help run their two
organizations-and launch a similar organizing
campaign here. Says Rosen, describing their
national strategic thinking: "We started talking
about, 'This is a chess board. What are the pieces
on the ground, and how do we arrange them?'"
Now interim executive director of the Unem-
ployment Project and co-director of Jobs With
Justice, Shropshire has her work cut out for her.
New York City has seen few campaigns to leverage
benefits for communities affected by publicly sub-
sidized development projects, and even fewer that
have succeeded. Good Jobs New York estimates
that the state and city combined have doled out
$2 billion in tax breaks and other major incentives
in the name of job retention since 1990. Those
deals call for companies to retain specified num-
bers of jobs. They are not well-enforced, however,
and few of the jobs that are retained go to com-
munities with high unemployment.
The Bloomberg administration has vowed it
will not replicate the wild corporate giveaways
New York saw in the 1990s. "We've essentially
ended corporate welfare as we know it, " Mayor
Bloomberg declared in October. But in fact it
hasn't given up the retention game entirely.
What's more, 9/11-recovery bond dollars are
opening up new opportunities, which continue
to be subsidized by taxpayers. In recent months,
the city has made retention deals with Pfizer,
Bank of America and other major companies.
From her work in L.A., Shropshire says, she
"learned lessons about coalitions, moving public
officials and engaging a base over long-term cam-
CITY LIMITS
paigns that last. " The Unemployment Project is
starting that process in East Harlem, which has
seen an influx of young professionals and interest
from retail developers. Along the FDR Drive at
116th Street, the Long Island-based Blumenfeld
group is about to construct a shopping complex
called East River Plaza, with the help of $3 mil-
lion in loans at 1 percent interest from the
Empire State Development Corporation plus
$15 million more in state tax breaks. The pro-
posed anchor stores-among them Target, Old
Navy, Starbucks and Costco-promise low-wage
jobs and not much of a career ladder.
Unemployment Project organizers have
already knocked on a couple thousand doors,
engaging neighbors in discussions of the com-
munity's needs. On a recent Wednesday evening,
organizer Erica Waples went knocking on doors
at the Jefferson Houses on 113th Street. There
she met Graciela, a 25-year resident. With new
stores opening, Graciela told Waples, the neigh-
borhood was starting to look better, but she was
still distressed about noisy teenagers and decrepit
housing conditions. Graciela was surprised to
learn about the plans for East River Plaza and a
proposed Auto Mall on Second Avenue at 127th
Street, and listened with interest as Waples told
her about the government subsidies.
If Graciela were to talk with elected officials
about the neighborhood, Waples asked, what
would she tell them? "Oh, I don't go to these
people's places, " Graciela replied. Waples
reminded her that she pays taxes and is entitled
to speak. "If it was just the three of us, do you
think they would listen to us?" Waples asked.
"No. "
"But if it was 500 people?"
"Yes, maybe," Graciela said, her eyebrows
rising. Waples got Graciela's phone number and
her promise to provide names and numbers of
like-minded neighbors. The women agreed to
keep in touch.
About 15 Unemployment Project members
showed up at an October meeting of the Industri-
al Development Agency, which was deciding on
$17 mi1lion in bonds for the Auto Mall-they
were the only community presence at the meet-
ing. "I live in East Harlem and I am the mother of
a young man," testified Judith Manning, a resi-
dent of the Wagner Houses on First Avenue and
122nd Street. "If these businesses want to come to
East Harlem and get tax breaks, they need to
invest in the community."
FOUNDED IN 1993, just months after Los Angeles
erupted in massive civil unrest, AGENDA devel-
oped a strong membership base in much the
same way. Organizers went door to door, took
phone numbers and held public meetings in
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II Washington
CITY LIMITS
ern California economy moved toward aerospace
and the suburbs. Traditionally an Mrican-Amer-
ican neighborhood, South L.A. has shifted
demographics in the last decade to half black and
half immigrant Latino.
The organization did more than bring bodies
out to meetings. "One of the challenges," says
Shropshire, "is to develop people's analysis of the
problems, the causes and conditions-not just
' Our community doesn't have jobs,' but 'Why?
Who's making the decisions?'" To make that dia-
logue happen, organizers have to dispense with the
arcane jargon usually associated with government
subsidies and instead talk about facts that speak
more direccly to what's at stake-like $50 billion in
corporate welfare, the national annual total of fed-
eral, state and local subsidies.
Metro Alliance is just one of several influen-
tial groups doing innovative grassroots organiz-
ing around corporate accountability in Los
Angeles. Two years ago, the Figueroa Corridor
Coalition for Economic Justice, an alliance of 29
Los Angeles community organizations and five
union locals, sealed a landmark deal that was
officially recognized by the city. It required 70
percent of the 5,400 permanent jobs created by
a downtown sports arena expansion to either pay
a living wage or be covered by a collective bar-
gaining agreement. The developers also pledged
$1 million for the creation or upgrading of parks
within a mile of the project, which takes in some
of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and
portions of the most densely populated area west
of the Mississippi.
And the Los Angeles Alliance for a New
Economy, now celebrating its 10-year anniver-
sary, has established groundbreaking "commu-
nity benefits agreements." In a 2001 deal, for
example, LAANE leveraged $29 million in city
subsidies to one mixed-use development in the
North Hollywood area, winning affordable
housing, a developer subsidy of 50 spots for
low-income children at a planned child-care
center and free space for a community health
clinic. Seventy-five percent of the 2,000 most-
ly retail and office jobs expected from the
development must pay a living wage (defined
as $7.99 an hour with health benefits, and
$9.29 without) .
LAANE and its community base have so far
negotiated six community benefits agreements
with individual developers who benefit from
public funds. LAANE's ultimate goal is to make
such agreements part of all publicly subsidized
developments in the city of Los Angeles.
New York grassroots leaders want to see the
same kind of subsidy accountability here,
with community organizations having a true
voice in the debate that surrounds economic
continued on page 42
DECEMBER 2003
LEGAL ASSISTANCE
FOR NON PROFITS & COMMUNITY GROUPS
N Y L P I
New York Lawyers For Ttte Public Interest 151 W 30 St, New York, NY 10001 212-244-4664
15
T
he girl was 5. She set a kitchen garbage can on fire. Her mom, who had abused cocaine when she was
pregnant with the girl, hit her with a belt. And then the girl and her 7 -year-old brother both missed
about 45 days of school apiece.
Last November, the city's Administration for Children's Services
removed the two children from their mother, Elizabeth Norwood, and
put them in foster care.
One might think this would improve the kids' lives. One would have
to think again.
Norwood doesn't deny she hit her daughter, or that she used drugs
some years ago. But it was only when they started living in foster homes,
that the two children had those prolonged absences from school.
And that wasn't all that was allegedly wrong in their foster homes.
When the children did come to class, there were signs they were living
in terrible circumstances. "Prior to their removal the children had
attended school regularly. Both students were always groomed and well
behaved," wrote the principal in a letter this June. "Their quality of life
16
has deteriorated dramatically. They no longer attend school on a consis-
tent basis, " continued the letter. "Their teachers .. . have complained to
me that the children appear to be neglected-<:oming in poorly dressed
and unclean. Most distressing is the fact that these two children, who
were once content and cheerful, are now either hostile or withdrawn."
Norwood's daughter, a student in the gifted and talented program of
P.S. 191 on Manhattan's West 61st Street, landed in a psychiatric hospi-
tal not once, but four times. Her son is now repeating second grade.
Until they were removed from their mother's care last November, the
children had maintained nearly perfect attendance.
Between the two of them, they had ended up in six different foster
homes in just nine months. It appears that those foster parents couldn't,
or wouldn't, take the kids to school on a regular basis. Perhaps it was just
CITY LIMITS
too far for the new caretakers to travel. Their foster homes were all in
Harlem, more than 80 blocks uptown from P.S. 191. Norwood had
secured a court order keeping her children enrolled there. The result was
they often didn't go to school at all.
There were other problems. The children "were not treated good, "
says Norwood. "If they didn't eat their dinner, the foster parents made
them stand in the corner all night," she recounts, still outraged. One fos-
ter mother hit her son for urinating in the bed. "I offered to buy her a
new marrress cover," Norwood sighs. One of the homes, Norwood
reports, was so dirty the children had to throw out their clothes after
they left because their bags were filled with roaches. (The agency respon-
sible for the children's care, Edwin Gould Services for Children, did not
return calls seeking comment.)
In July, a Family Court judge learned of the situation and ordered
the children returned immediately to their birth mother. Now Nor-
wood wants to know how her children could have fallen apart so badly.
She suspects the caseworkers were not supervising appropriately or
checking regularly with the school, in violation of foster care regula-
tions, considering the children had missed so much school. Otherwise,
she surmises, "they would have caught the educational neglect on the
kids," before the principal got involved. (ACS says no one ever called
in a report of suspected educational neglect to the State Central Reg-
istry.) The author of the letter is no longer principal of the school and
couldn't be reached for comment.
One thing is clear: The Norwoods are not the only children in foster
care to suffer in the city's custody. Even as the number of children over-
all in foster care has decreased dramatically in the last five years, the pro-
portion of children neglected or abused while in care may have increased
during that time.
In fiscal year 2003, ACS' Office of Confidential Investigation, which
ptobes all reports of abuse or neglect within foster homes, determined that
approximately 284 children out of a toral of25,701 were likely abused or
neglected in foster care--or a total of 1.1 percent. Federal standards set
0.57 percent as the maximum acceptable rate of abuse and neglect in fos-
ter care. New York State ranks eighth-worst of the 29 states that report
their rate of children abused or neglected in their foster homes.
What's more, the mistreatment may have gotten worse in recent years,
even as ACS has undertaken major reforms to promote better care. In
1999,436 of the kids under ACS' supervision-in both foster care and
day care-were found likely to have been abused or neglected. (Until this
DECEMBER 2003
year, the agency did not release separate numbers for abuse and neglect in
foster care.) The current rate is as much as 15 percent higher.
Why does neglect in foster care persist? Child welfare experts offer
many theories, including a bad economy pushing households into the
foster care business, high stress on low-income families, and payments
that remain extremely low. There's also the city's effort to house foster
children in the neighborhoods they were previously living in, or at least
the same borough. The hope was that by keeping children in their com-
munities, they could continue to go to the same schools and churches
and more easily visit their parents. But foster parents from these mainly
low-income neighborhoods are often struggling with the same sorts of
problems as the natural parents.
Earlier this year, the Bloomberg administration announced a major
advertising and outreach campaign to recruit new foster parents, and
acknowledged that it did not have enough homes in several neighborhoods.
"We never have enough foster parents," says Barbara McMurray,
assistant executive director of Cardinal McCloskey Services, a private
child welfare agency that supervises foster homes in the Bronx and Man-
hattan. "Many of the [community districts] that we work in are low-
income communities where people live in apartments or projects." There
is, says Murray, a "space issue."
B
ut it's also clear that there's also a supervision issue-a big one.
Part of the challenge in keeping an eye on New York City's tens
of thousands of licensed foster homes is that the city doesn't main-
tain direct responsibility for supervising them. It hires private nonprofit
organizations to do the work--42 of them, currently, down from 60 in
1999. With the number of foster children decreasing rapidly-there are
now one-third fewer kids in care than in 1999-ACS will almost
undoubtedly cut that number down again very soon. [See "Racial
Downsizing," November 2003.]
ACS judges these agencies primarily based on their measurable "out-
comes," including how quickly, and successfully, children are moved
from foster care into permanent homes. But about one-quarter of each
agency's score is still based on a qualitative review. According to ACS
spokeswoman MacLean Guthrie, city auditors scrutinize about 50 ran-
dom cases at a time. Interviews with foster parents are part of the review.
So is the rate of substantiated abuse or neglect in foster homes supervised
by that agency.
Really, though, it's all about the paperwork: "Uniform Case Reports"
17
and other documents in a family's me. These records contain "progress
notes"-assessments of foster home safety and comments based on
meetings with children.
"There's a tremendous amount of pressure," says Gladys Carrion,
executive director of the agency Inwood House. "It's pressure over the
wrong things-that's what galls me." Auditors, she says, are looking to
make sure progress notes are in the proper part of the report forms, and
in the proper format; the actual quality of care doesn't enter into it.
And that pressure may be a big problem. In theory, the close scrutiny
of paperwork serves to make sure agencies are doing the work they're
paid to do. But it actually creates an incentive for those contractors to
make sure their paperwork is in perfect order---even if that doesn't reflect
the real story.
For instance, a report that simply states that a caseworker visited a
child and determined he was "thriving"-a ubiquitous word in case
records-can satisfy the city's demand for paperwork, even if the reality
is that the home was mthy and the
child was emaciated. After all, who is
ever going to know what the actual
conditions in the home were that day,
other than the caseworker, foster par-
ent and children themselves? For that
matter, who will be the wiser if the
caseworker didn't even make the
home visit?
Caseworkers have some of the
hardest jobs that exist. They deal not
only with children, but also birth parents and foster parents. One case can
easily involve eight to 10 people, all of whom need some type of assistance.
This means that workers with 25 cases-the estimated average in New
York City-are easily dealing with dozens of people on a regular basis.
"We're mother, father, therapist and it's not just to kids-it's to the
birth parents," says Tanya Barnes, a caseworker with Seaman's Society for
Children and Families. High caseloads and low salaries-"we're one pay-
check away from being homeless," says Barnes--drive many workers out
of the field. The resulting high turnover means families have to adjust
continually to new caseworkers, who in rurn have to get up to speed on
complicated family histories very quickly.
McMurray of Cardinal McCloskey Services acknowledges that high
caseloads mean "some contacts can fall through the cracks"-and with that
some essential monitoring, like making sure children attend schoo!.
One former caseworker who has worked at a private agency says the
cracks were sometimes chasms. Caseworkers are required to visit foster
children in their homes at least once a month. More often than anyone
18
likes to admit, this individual says, they don't. "A lot of caseworkers look
for shortcuts," says the ex-caseworker, who notes that the information in
the records "wasn't verifiable. " Others are downright negligent. On Fri-
day afternoons, two colleagues used to say they were going on field vis-
its, but would actually go to the racetrack-and managed to keep "per-
fect records." The loud and clear message from management was that the
paperwork had to be in order, no matter what.
In the most grievous of foster care neglect cases, it's hard not to ask
whether a caseworker actually showed up with any ftequency to inspect
the home. Take the death of Stephanie Ramos this past summer. Ramos,
a disabled 8-year-old who was blind and had cerebral palsy and diabetes,
was found dead in the Bronx, her corpse in a plastic bag in a garbage
truck. In October, the city's health examiner determined that she died of
natural causes. But there's also evidence that where she lived was not the
most suitable of homes for such a severely disabled child: Law enforce-
ment authorities said the foster mother's house in Queens was squalid,
carpeted with clutter, trash and dirt.
Ramos' foster mother, Renee John-
son, was also caring for two other foster
children. The little girl was supposed to
receive home visits from a nurse but,
according to the New York Times, the
nursing service was terminated last
November. The agency responsible for
Ramos' care, the Association to Benefit
Children, did not know the nurse ser-
vice was canceled.
A host of other questions remain unanswered. Why didn't the Asso-
ciation to Benefit Children-rated as "satisfactory" in its last evalua-
tion-notice the situation was abnormal? Did caseworkers think the
foster mother was falling apart under stress and cut her some slack? Or
was she exceptionally good at hiding her problems? The case is still
under investigation.
In New York and New Jersey, cases that heartbreakingly testify to
inadequate supervision of foster homes are piling up. In Newark,
Faheem Williams, found dead in a box. In Camden, the four starved
Jackson boys. Earlier this year, 0.]. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran
sued New York City for half a billion dollars on behalf of an 8-month-
old girl who allegedly died of shaken-baby syndrome in foster care.
And then there was the tiger. And the alligator.
The Harlem apartment that housed the most notorious pets in recent
New York history was also home to five foster kids, and there's evidence
that until the matriarch of the house picked up with them and fled to
Pennsylvania, at least one foster child cohabited with the animals. Who-
CITY LIMITS
ever the caseworker was, he or she didn't spot the wild animals-assum-
ing, of course, that the caseworker was in the apartment at all.
A
CS has made one very important improvement, among many in
recent years: The agency has become aggressive about making
sure that every foster home is properly certified. In May 1996,
7,341 kids in foster care lived in homes that were not licensed. By 2000,
that number had decreased to 510.
Licensing involves running background checks on the adults in the
home, and making sure they have a source of income and enough room
for children. But having a license doesn't guarantee a home is fully
checked out. If adults move in after the initial certification is done, case-
workers have to do a background investigation on them, too.
That doesn't always happen, says Madelyn Freundlich of the legal
advocacy group Children's Rights, Inc. Her organization recently exam-
ined child fatalities in New York City that occurred between 1999 and
mid-2001, based on records obtained from the state Office of Children
and Family Services. "Fatalities, obviously, are the most extreme and
dramatic results of services and systems that aren't working well," says
Freundlich. Fatalities overall have fluctuated in the last several years, ris-
ing in 2000 and 2001, then declining again last year.
One of the cases examined by Children's Rights was that of an 11-
placed in the home, say attorneys with Lansner & Kubitschek, which
represents families suing the city for neglect and abuse in foster care.
ACS says it now now tracks families by computer to make sure they
have no more kids than they're licensed to house.
If caseworkers don't know who or how many people are living in the
home, it's doubtful they'll have a clear picture of what's really happen-
ing there. Orenstein says the Public Advocate's office, which issued a
report last year on child fatalities, examined records in one case where
three children in foster care died in a fire. The fire marshal had found
the home "fraught with hazardous conditions."
Caseworkers can dutifully show up at a home every month and still
fail to get an accurate picture. Elie Ward, executive director of Statewide
Youth Advocacy, an Albany group, says that workers become complacent
once they get to know a foster parent. "If there are no obvious problems,
the caseworkers don't look for problems," says Ward. If they did, she
points out, they might be forced to find a new home for the kids. But
good foster parents are so hard to find that agencies don't want to move
children "if there isn't something staring you in the face."
The dual mandate to keep children safe but also minimize disruption
in their lives also makes it hard for caseworkers to know when to relo-
cate children, says Freundlich. "You don't want to precipitously move a
child if you're simply having an instinct, but you can't quite get the infor-
Caseworkers are under orders to visit every foster home at
least once a month. But "a lot of caseworkers look for
shortcuts, " says one. Some go to the racetrack.
month-old who died of a cocaine overdose while in foster care. The fos-
ter mother's boyfriend-who used drugs-lived part-time in the home,
but there's no evidence caseworker ever investigated him.
Freundlich says the problem is at least twofold. Caseworkers don't
always visit often enough to know everyone who is living in the home.
And foster parents don't volunteer the information. Overall, the Chil-
dren's Rights report identified several themes in cases where foster chil-
dren died, including poor communication between the agency and fos-
ter parents, poor training of foster parents and inadequate monitoring of
foster homes.
Hank Orenstein, director of the city Public Advocate's child advoca-
cy project, C-Plan, agrees that foster care agencies don't always have a
good grasp of who's living in the foster home. "We're talking about thou-
sands of foster homes," says Orenstein. "Unless you have really tight
monitoring of all these things, they're going to be risk factors."
But whether homes and foster parents are licensed is only one piece
of the picture. In some cases, a license limits the foster home to having
two children, but there are four, and sometimes a foster parent's own
children as well. In one recent incident, a foster mother who had more
children than she was licensed to house accidentally ran over and killed
one of them with her car. Other licenses limit a home to children with-
out special needs, but children with severe problems are nonetheless
DECEMBER 2003
mation," she says. She agrees that the shortage of good foster homes dis-
suades caseworkers from moving children without rock-solid evidence of
a problem. "Presumably, if you want to move a child out of a home,"
says Freundlich, "you want to be sure you can move that child into a bet-
ter setting."
And some foster parents are very good at hiding problems, notes Fred
Wulczyn, a former analyst for the New York State Department of Social
Services who helped design ACS' current agency evaluation system.
"The likelihood that [a caseworker) will see something that triggers in
them an appreciation that it's a high-risk situation"-a gut feeling, a
sense that a foster mother is overwhelmed-is small, Wulczyn says.
B
ut there are some signs impossible for caseworkers to ignore. Wil-
son Coakley's son entered foster care in November 1999, at the age
of 3, after a police officer found him home alone in the Bronx.
The following February, he was taken to Lincoln Medical and Mental
Health Center, with bruises allover his body. One month later, he was
returned to his father-with bruises, two black eyes, cracked teeth and
head injuries, according to a lawsuit settled with the city and a private
child welfare agency last year. (Neither admits liability.)
When ACS removed Coakley from his mother's home, it placed him
continued on page 42
19
IRACLE
ON
33RD STREET
This Christmas, poor New Yorkers will send more than 200,000 letters to the
North Pole. More affluent New Yorkers will intercept them at Manhattan's
General Post Office. Some kids will get things like computers, coats, bikes and
hope. The rest learn the hard way: Santa Claus doesn't care who's naughty or
nice, just who can convince him they're the neediest. By D EBBIE N ATHAN
Dear Santa,
I am the rrwther of three (3) beautiful
childs of the 5, 13 years old and one of
eight rrwnth (8). .. 'The most important
thing I want is to give my childrens hap,
piness sadly enough I can't buy the basic
thing in life. I would be so grateful if
Santa Claus would send things. Luis is
1 3, pants size 16, 18 sneakers 9 coat
sweaters = 1 6,1 8. Magdalena is 5
years old Pants = 6, sneakers = 13, coat
and sweathers = 6 Emiliano is (8)
month old pants 18,24 m sneakers = 4,
5 Coat and Sweathers = 18,24 m.
'Thank you, Santa Claus for making
dream be come true.
T
hree years ago on Christmas Eve,
the New York Times ran a story
about adults who encourage
young kids' faith in a roly-poly
fellow who delivers toys rhrough chimneys-
even as grown-ups feel sheepish about promul-
gating the fib. A psychologist from Yale was
quoted, reassuring parents that tots abandon
the fantasy in a few years. Nevertheless, he
warned, anyone "who still believes in Santa
after that probably needs professional help."
The Yale man obviously hadn't considered
Operation Santa Claus, an elaborate New
20
York City ritual in which thousands upon
rhousands of locals write to rhe bearded leg-
end each year and earnestly address him in
the second person, though most writers are
themselves old enough to have whiskers, or
fertile wombs.
Consumers of populist media like the
Daily News, The Post and Fox Channel 5
News are bombarded each December with
stories about Operation Santa Claus, so they
know it's a seasonal charity drive run from the
colossal James A. Farley General Post Office,
on 33rd Street and 8th Avenue by the Macy's
flagship store. The same locales were featured
in the film Miracle on 34th Street, and for the
past several years, reporters have been urging
New Yorkers to nurture Kris Kringle's spirit by
visiting the main post office berween Thanks-
giving and Christmas.
There, in a room decorated with cardboard
Donners and Blixens, you can dip your hands
into cardboard boxes overflowing with hand-
written missives to Santa, penned by the indi-
gent of rhe Bronx, Brooklyn, Washington
Heights, Harlem and the Lower East Side.
You can spread the letters on school cafete-
ria-style tables and pore over them for hours.
Soon, according to one Operation Santa pro-
moter, a letter will make you weep by
"singing" to you.
Whether unbearably tragic or poignantly
winsome, the song always includes a return
address, and a request for a dizzying array of
items: rhings like sweaters, X-Boxes, Play-Sta-
tion 2s, Timberland boots, Game Boy Mega-
man Extreme 2's, Yu-gi-oh trading cards,
Bratz dolls, Phat Farm down coats, even com-
puters and tuition for private high school.
After wiping your eyes and shrugging off the
big-ticket items, you take the letter to H&M
or Toys R Us or Old Navy and buy what you
can. Then you giftwrap your purchases and
send them parcel post to the return address.
Or, if you enjoy dressing like an elf and are
not too fearful of places like Bed-Stuy and
Fordham Road, you deliver in person on
Christmas Day.
Last December, the tables were crowded
for weeks with people waiting to be sung to,
and the cardboard boxes spilled over with an
estimated 260,000 letters-20 times as many
as when the count was first publicized, nearly
rwo decades ago. As always, the media last
year implied that most letters were written by
very young, low-income New York kids of all
the darker-skinned ethnicities. In fact, as
postal workers will reluctantly admit if you
ask them point blank, many come from
Latino teenagers- and even more are from
Latina moms, like the one whose letter opens
rhis article.
Writers like her are far past the age when
people in cozy circumstances deem it normal
to correspond with a nursery school myth.
CITY LIMITS
But like everyone else during the
Christmas season, the poor want and want
and want. In addition, they need and need
the things they need all year: food, clothes,
entertainment, education, a sense that some-
one among the unseen powers that be knows
they exist-and cares. "Some years around
Christmas time, I feel sad and lonely and
need something to cheer me up," says Judi
Cabral. A quiet, round-faced 13-year-old,
she lives with a big sister, a little brother and
a mother whose husband left and who tries
to survive by decorating cakes in the family's
down-at-the-heels apartment in Inwood. In
past years after Judi has written letters to the
post office, "people have brought me toys,
sweaters and Barbies. " She shrugs while spec-
ulating that "maybe there's a Santa some-
where."
But the city's middle and monied classes
also seem needy. If the Topsy growth of Oper-
ation Santa Claus is any indication, more and
more require contact these days with their
socioeconomic inferiors, even if only once a
year through the mail, and even if they care-
fully omit from the package their own name
and address.
It should not surprise that these mutual
needs play out so grandly in the Big Apple.
Historians say the generous, gift-giving
Santa Claus we know today was invented in
Manhattan, expressly to help the poor and
DECEMBER 2003
L
",
4
not-poor coexist
with fewer tensions. Even today,
that ambition may be St. Nick's greatest
legacy.
S
haron Glassman is one of the not-poor.
Petite and chatty, with red, Amy
Irvingesque hair, she pours her heart
and professional energy into Operation Santa
Claus each year, though she's not a postal
worker. Glassman's a performance artist who
appears at corporate Christmas parties, where
she delivers a promotional monologue about
the program that's based on her life story.
It starts with a witty description of growing
up suburban and Jewish in the 1970s, in a
barely observant family that not only lit the
menorah in December but also exchanged
Christmas presents and sang carols. As a
teenager, Glassman wanted to feel Jesus in the
holiday-something spiritual-which was
missing even from Jewish practice in her
home. She tried to "boyfriend" her way to
holiness by cadging invitations to the houses
and churches of her Christian beaux on
December 24 and 25. She still didn't feel
inspired. She joined a Unitarian church. She
spent a month at an ashram. Meanwhile, as a
single, childless, thirty-something woman in
New York, she was turning into a shopaholic.
"
L
",
She wasted money
on two lipsticks of virtually the same
shade because one might look better in sun-
light. She imagined that cashmere garments
were whispering to her from store windows.
Then she found Operation Santa Claus.
In Love Santa, her recently published book
about her experience, Glassman writes that
one of the first letters she pulled from the
boxes melted her with its direct request to
Santa Claus for a modest gift.
"I walk around all day in these meticulous
casual ensembles from SoHo and I'm lucky if
somebody on the street says: 'Nice red chenille
sweater, baby!' ... And now this little kid was
offering me love ... in exchange for a plastic toy
castle in the mail. "
Glassman went shopping, with a few
things on her mind. One was the sense that
she'd finally connected with her spirituality by
recalling something she learned in religious
school as a child. It was the Jewish ritual of
tsedakah, or charitable giving, in which efforts
are made to insure that the receiver never
learns the name of the person making the
donation. The post office encourages donors
to send gifts through the mail while identify-
21
ing themselves simply as "Santa. " Glassman
liked the tsedakahness of it all. She liked the
selflessness of spending for someone besides
herself. And she loved fantasizing that the kids
she was shopping for were her own children.
Chatting with salespeople, she would pretend
to be a harried but loving mom.
By the time Glassman started her benefit
monologue for Operation Santa Claus, in the
late 1990s, she was calling herself "Tsedakah
Santa" and, more frequently, "Undercover
Mother." She had campaign-style buttons
made with a cartoon image of a trenchcoated
woman, a la Natasha in Rocky and Bullwin-
kle. She started distributing the buttons at
employee Christmas parties given by corpo-
rations like Nickelodeon. She covered
tables at these gatherings with hundreds of
letters supplied by the post office. The
idea was for partygoers to pick one or
two, then become "Undercover Mothers"
themselves. Glassman is still doing the
parties, and she's pleased at how the let-
ters move young New York profession-
als like her to perform acts of charity
for the poor.
Her favorite indigent writers are
those who express gratitude unre-
servedly and in advance. Often their
thankfulness comes not at the start
of the letter but at the end. Glass-
man recalls that one of the first
missives that "sang" to her suf-
)
thing about his book The Battle for
Christmas-a meticulous analysis of Santa
Claus as a New York City invention. For cen-
turies Christmas had been a bacchanal, a car-
nival, when peasants and servants-particu-
larly young men-wandered around in inebri-
ated gangs in late December. As they staggered
about, they "wassailed."
Today, dictionaries define wassailing as an
early English custom that involved boisterous
drinking during the Christmas season and
toasting to someone's health. This is not the
whole story. Often, wassailing songs included
"trick-or-treat" -style lyrics that threat-
ened local poobahs
fered from a ho-hum beginning. I
"Dear Santa," it said. "I will be U'-.'0 '-.! V<;::{\-.::, ,
happy if you bring me just this G CJ ric W 'H,
castle for Christmas. But if you ! J...e Swrr'
bring me a different toy, that ,J 90 G-c; i2V
will be OK, too. I will leave I 1: asK
your cookies in the same
as last year. " . ---LJ\..IQ:), I iJ h"::
" ul ' v .. 9"" ' ICN . e . an
I co d resist that," remarks v a C'il'nd '! Y JYlOrx:;!
Glassman in her book. ... But when she got to "PS: I
love you, Santa," she couldn't not go shop-
ping. "There was no way, " she writes, "to give with harm if
up on somebody this accepting." they did not serve the wassail-
A
nd that's the whole point of a ritual like
Operation Santa Claus, suggests Uni-
versity of Massachusetts historian
Stephen Nissenbaum. In return for taking
from more affluent New Yorkers during the
holidays, the lower classes offer people like
Glassman acceptance-even good will.
"It's like wassailing through the mails!" Nis-
senbaum chuckles gleefully.
To get the joke, you have to know some-
22
ers their very best food and liquor. "We've
come to claim our right," goes one such song.
"And if you don't open up your door, We will
lay you flat on the floor. " Indeed, wassailers
would bang on the doors of mansions and
even break in. Lords and ladies were expected
to welcome this misbehavior and to personally
serve the ragged revelers high-quality viands
and alcohol. When that happened, the songs
praised the rich. "God send our mistress a
good Christmas pie .... With my wassailing
bowl I drink to thee."
According to anthropologists, wassailing
was a "social inversion" ritual: a seasonal event
when a group of people in power switch roles
with the powerless. At first glance, writes Nis-
senbaum, it can seem egalitarian, even revolu-
tionary, to see the rich wait on the poor and
the poor eat like the rich. In reality, he points
out, such role-switching helps perpetuate the
status quo. It lets the poor blow off steam,
even as it allows the rich to feel like good, car-
ing people. Social inversion turns the world
upside down for a few days in order to keep it
aright the rest of the year.
But sometimes, changing economic and
social conditions destabilize the ritual. When
that happens, all hell can break
loose--or at least it feels like it
might. This, writes Nissenbaum,
is what happened in early 19th-
century New York City. People
like Clement Clarke Moore,
owner of a large tract of land now
known as Chelsea, worried then
about roving bands of Christmas
drinkers. Not only did they bang on
the doors of mansions and barge in,
they also filled the streets
with besotted aggression.
More ominously, they
were young, male and
poor; and if they were not
visibly resentful of the
rich, the rich still stewed in
their own imaginings. A specter was
haunting Manhattan: the specter of the
mob and the riot.
So Moore and other powerful men of the
city-better known as Knickerbockers-
invented a new rite designed to keep the
riffraff at home during Christmas by redefin-
ing how goods should be distributed during
the holiday. Heretofore, rich adults had given
to poor adults. Now, grown-ups of all classes
were to give to their own children-and not in
the streets, but by their own hearths.
But how to persuade people to do some-
thing novel for Christmas, when the holiday
and its traditions are supposed to be ancient
and unchanging? Moore came up with the
solution: Santa Claus.
He started by publicizing a poem he
claimed to have written: "A Visit from St.
Nicholas," which everyone still knows today
("T'was the night before Christmas, and all
through the house ... "). St. Nicholas was a
4th-century saint who was honored on
December 6 in Holland. But the Dutch St.
CITY LIMITS
t
1
Nicholas was skinny and grim-faced, and he
was as likely to give a bad child a birch-rod
beating as a good child a gift. To retrofit him
for 19th-century New York, Moore moved
St. Nicholas to Christmas Eve, plumped him
up, provided a sleigh and reindeer, and
dropped his noir side. Within a few decades,
St. Nick had become Santa, and Christmas
was recast as a holiday mainly for kids-one
that required lots of shopping in the city's
emerging plethora of stores.
To be sure, adults celebrating the new,
Santa-ized Christmas also began with
exchanging presents with their grown-up
friends and relatives. And haves still gave to
have-nots. But now, the favorite impover-
ished beneficiaries were children,
and the goods they received
were called charity. Unlike
luxury goods that the rich
had once handed to wassailers
and now gave to their own
children, charity consisted of
necessities, such as basic cloth-
ing and food.
By the mid-19th century, a
Victorian image had developed
of the individual deemed worthy
of charity. The ideal recipient was
a version of Dickens' Tiny Tim: a
patient and selfless young child
who displayed profound gratitude
when receiving a donation, and
whose appreciation bridged the gap
between rich and poor.
By the 1890s, lavish and bizarrely
voyeuristic events were being orga-
nized so affluent New Yorkers could
observe children getting charity. On
Christmas day during the first year of
that decade, lunch was served to 1,800
poor boys at multi-story Lyric Hall, on
Sixth Avenue and 42nd Street. Every
floor was ftIled with well-heeled adults
watching the hungry youngsters eat. Next
year, the wealthy were invited to Madison
Square Garden to watch 10,000 needy boys
and girls pluck gifts that hung from the
ceiling by ropes.
T
hen there was the post office.
"Children have been sending letters to
the North Pole at least since the
1870s," says historian Nissenbaum. Tradition-
ally, they were written by the very young, or by
mothers of as-yet illiterate preschoolers, acting
as scribes. Typical missives greeted Santa,
assured him the writer had been good all year,
DECEMBER 2003
and ended with a wish-list of gifts and a
promise to leave refreshments for the reindeer.
Some writers mentioned being poor and
unable to afford presents unless Santa brought
them. But in post office jargon, every letter was
a "dead letter, " destined for destruction after
the holidays.
It wasn't long before the wealthy got a yen
to read them.
In 1914, a New Yorker named John Duvall
Gluck started the Santa Claus Association,
whose goal was to boost belief in Santa
by answering letters sent to the North Pole
by poor kids. Several local charities
encouraged the
g r
2
of them presents. Soon, the public was being
encouraged to assist by sending money.
Then, in 1962, the post office decided to let
people walk in off the street and choose their
own letters. Operation Santa Claus was
born.
It started as a low-key affair. Then came the
1980s. "I went to the post office and got my
first letter after I heard Johnny Carson read-
ing some on TY, " remembers Richie Aron, a
mail carrier in Manhattan's Murray Hill dis-
trict who today is an Operation Santa Claus
stalwart. Like Aron, many longtime donors
say they first learned of the project while
watching The Tonight Show 20 years ago.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that Carson
began publicizing Operation Santa Claus
then. Mter all, Ronald Reagan was slashing
public spending on anti-poverty programs, a
policy later extended by the first President
Bush as he urged Americans to downsize
government and help the poor through
"thousand points of light" acts of charity.
Such acts were predicated on the idea that
one ordinary individual could directly
help another, without a passel of social
entitlement policies, bureaucrats and
social workers interfering.
The new aid was up close
and personal.
Meanwhile, things were
also changing at the post
office. In 1984, the first
year the local papers paid attention
to such things, Operation Santa
Claus reported receiving 13,000 let-
ters during the Christmas season.
Subsequently, the increase was
dizzying. Eighteen thousand in
1989. One hundred seventy-five
thousand in 1995. The number
peaked in 2000, when 280,000
~
! ! ~ ! ! ~ = : : ! I ! ! I ! ! ! ! ! ~ ~ ~ ~ ! I ! ! I ! ~ ~ : letters arrived. The next year, the post-September 11 anthrax
scare made people leety of strange mail, and
children they only 210,000 letters were received. But last
served to write letters, then year, the tally had climbed back to 260,000.
passed them to the organization, which This Christmas, Operation Santa Claus offi-
answered with gifts. In addition, the Santa cials say they will not be surprised if almost
Claus Association took poor boys' and girls' a third of a million letters pour in.
letters from the main post office. In 1928,
however, the group was investigated for fraud,
and the New York City postmaster stopped
sending it letters.
The following year, New York City clerks
in the postal service's Money Order Division
picked up the slack by culling letters from
poor kids and passing the hat to send some
I
f this year is like earlier ones, most let-
ters will be from the poorest zip codes in
New York City. Which means that if
you hang out in these neighborhoods, a high
percentage of the moms and kids you meet
will be writers to Santa. For some reason, this
is particularly true in heavily Latino areas.
23
There, a tradition seems to have developed in
which mothers with young children learn
from women friends how to write to Opera-
tion Santa Claus-though they have no idea
where their letters go, or who reads them. As
the children approach adolescence, they start
writing on their own. They, too, are clueless
about the giant cardboard boxes on 33rd
Street.
According to postal employee Pete
Fontana, who has headed the program for
several years, some 10,000 donors are
expected to make the trek to midtown this
year to read letters, and they will choose
30,000 to 40,000 to respond to. In addition,
hundreds of corporations will ask for as many
as 500 letters each, to give to
their executives and staff.
And Fontana hopes for a
replay of last year, when sev-
eral Broadway productions
took 20,000 letters-actors
passed them out to audiences
after the shows. In all,
Fontanta estimates that a
fourth to a third of the letters
will be answered.
which letters are sincere and which are fake.
They might as well try to figure out the exact
meaning of a Rorschach blot. The more they
mull over the ink, the more they reveal of
themselves.
"You can tell the scams," insisted Westch-
ester resident Adam Fuchs last December, after
he had read several letters at the post office and
picked a favorite to answer. "Like one says,
'Hi, my name is Sarah. I'm 2 years old. My
mommy just went through a divorce; she's
very sick. Can you please send a fur coat?'"
It wasn't the fact that a 2-year-old can't
write. Rather, Fuchs implied,
it was the fur
like that." Another was from a 17 -year-old
boy lamenting that he got only one present
the year before, and asking for a North Face
coat this time around. He "annoyed" her, the
young woman said, because "at 17 he should
know" not to be complaining and asking for
trendy clothes.
Donors also get nervous when a child
requests a toy they consider vulgar, antisocial
or frivolous. "One letter asked for 'Grand
Theft Auto,''' noted Jemma Roberson, a
Harlem resident who was studying for a real
estate career last year when she visited the
post office with her toddler and toy Yorkie to
read letters for the first time. Roberson wasn't
sure she wanted to give the boy the violent
video game he asked for. "But is it right to
substitute something else if the request is
from the heart?" she mused. "Or is an adult
taking these gifts-and maybe even selling
them? I'm torn."
Universally, donors say they are moved to
go shopping by letters that express selfless-
ness and the desire for goods that are useful,
uplifting and not too ostentatious.
"Here's one from a girl who says, 'All I
really care about is my family and don't
worry about me,'" said one
- -- . - of the Sarah Jessica Parker
That means up to three-
fourths will be ignored. These are
the letters that, in performance
artist Sharon Glassman's words, are
"resisted" by people like her because
they fail to "sing." Abandoned after
Christmas in the big cardboard
boxes, tone-deaf missives are eventu-
types. "I might adopt her."
()..vY\ \JJY"'\\e.,\'Y\.cl YtJU .JeJte- "Once we took a letter
"'I ( oJ I from a girl who wrote for
...... _ ........ _IiiI .. IIii ...... IlliIilIlli............ her sisters but didn't ask for
ally destroyed. Meanwhile, out in the
'\ I anything for herself. We got her a Gap
'" gift certificate," said Flushing resident
""s. Cathy Webster, a graduate student in
zip codes, their authors are sorely dis-
appointed.
"I don't know if I still believe in
Santa Claus," says Cristina Gomez. She
( \ French literature at NYU. With her
...... " '\ psychologist husband, Webster
: r"\\ ...:V' r V' , C>J.jI.&. answers four to eight Operation

is a high school student from Washing-
ton Heights who wrote last year when
she was 15, asking for patterned panty-
hose. "I don't know where the letters go
-----. \f'O,Jl(6... letter we ever took," she said, "was
.. from a single mom with a child in
or who reads them, but I thought some-
body would come to the house. On
Christmas I stayed home all day. Every
time the doorbell rang I thought it was him.
I gave up at two the next morning."
Nevertheless, many letter-writers eventu-
ally learn how to make their letters sing-to
"wassail through the mails." They are extraor-
dinarily sensitive to their donors' emotional
needs-which are nowhere more apparent
than at the cafeteria-style tables on 33rd
Street in December. There, as some letter-
readers wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs,
others purse their lips, struggling to discern
24
kindergarten and an infant. She
asked for some clothes for herself, but
co at, mostly for the kids. It was very compelling."
which he considered "In the one I'm taking this year," said Adam
too luxurious for a poor woman to re- Fuchs, "the kid is looking for a teddy bear for
quest from charity. his sister and a teaching game-something
For a mother or adolescent to ask for styl- that will help educate. That's legit."
ish, brand-name clothing indicates selfish- "The ones I respond to," says Bill Cressler,
ness and cynicism to many donors-even "start with 'Hi Santa, how ya doing?' Which I
though the Santas may themselves be fashion love. And they end with 'Take care, Santa. Tell
plates. Last year, two young women in their your wife I said hello. Love,' and then the kid's
twenties, who could have been extras on Sex name. Beautiful! Beautiful!"
and the City, pored over letters and grew Cressler is a tall, bald, bearded man in his
wary. "This one wants a specific pair of sixties who usually is executive assistant to
shoes, with this and such color," one said, the president of a real estate company, but
frowning. "I get strange feelings from letters takes off during the Christmas season to
CITY LIMITS
!
i.
work at Radio Ciry. For the past dozen or so
years, he has been visiting the post office
during the holidays and reading up to five
dozen letters at a sitting. Participating in
Operation Santa Claus, he says, takes him
back to his own childhood in an impover-
ished but loving family in post-World War II
Philadelphia. Unmarried and with no sons
or daughters of his own, he enjoys conjuring
a sense of family by participating in Opera-
tion Santa Claus.
him. "I am writeing you this letter to let you noisy, scruffy apartment building in Inwood,
know that for Christmas if you can seand me and whose husband struggles to support the
a bike for Christmas. My name is Steve and I family as a wholesale candy salesman. "They
am 13 years old.... Think you! P.S. Merry had two children and they were wearing
Christmas. Your &iend, Steve." strange hats. " ("Mom, those were elf hats!"
Cressler didn't trust the postal service with Cabral's 7 -year-old 'daughter explained, in
a bicycle, and he couldn't find Steve's phone Spanish.) "A woman came and brought a
number through Information, which he Christmas tree, " recalled cake decorator
would need to arrange a personal delivery. Dionora Fernandez, Cabral's sister-in-law,
Normally he calls the letter-writing child's who lives in the same building with her
mother so he can "meet her outside the apart- daughter Judi and two other children.
ment building and give her the box; I want "Another time, a man came with a boy and
her to get the credit for being Santa. " Since a girl. "
he couldn't contact Steve's Donors who enact these visitations take
mother about pleasure-and o&en feel a sense of commu-
=I
mon with-the reciprocal performance of
their beneficiaries. Cathy Web-
ster remembered delivering pre-
- sents to a single mother in Asto-
Besides, he says, it's essential to show dis-
advantaged New York kids that more afflu-
ent people care about them. "They're not
like I was when I was young. I didn't know
I didn't have anything. Now they all watch
TV and know what they're missing! We
cannot leave them feeling like that!"
These days, Cressler avoids letters from
single mothers. "They're often hard and
self-centered: just I, I, I," he said. At the
same time, he is drawn to letters from
children who seem to be living without
fathers. "The kids never mention
ria. "She came out to meet us and
-
..... ,'. started crving, and I started cry-
'"
Itl'ii .!!-- ing, and she hugged us. "
<t..x :
"'e. Sometimes beneficiaries disap-
...... 't-b point their donors. Fuchs recalled
dads, " he says-another reason men - h:;:- .&lC:!iLl:..4o.:v.c; dressing up as Santa a few years ago
like him should help. --: and going to Jamaica, Queens, to
But the help comes strictly during deliver a package to some children
the Operation ritual: Cressler >-<L. ,... .. ,t. _ - r:J. mother had written
never tells letter-wrIters hiS name, - -La {! on their behalf. When
addr:ss or phone num?er, because - -!Y( he gave her the gift,
heanng from them dunng the rest -<.JL,. . b fh ' "she started screaming at
of the year can provoke intense - __ ___ me because she didn't
anxiery. "Six years ago," he said, ----+-- .. ------------------IIIIIII!III---.. get what she wanted. "
"I sent a package with $200 r l _ C/ Ingrates like this mother, Fuchs said,
worth of gifts to a single mother l make him "a little jaded."
put my number on I '(lIP II . -
It. She starred callmg me two or -i---l
three times a week with ' I have - I __ ___
a $260 medical bill that wel- - - - __ ____ ('" _
c ' ' C - -1#
---
lare s not paymg. an you i '0 - --- ----..... Ii ...
pay?' This went on for -._ _ ____ --____
months. I said, 'You're abus- - ____ - ____ _
ing a wonderful program.' - -
She said, ' If you have enough
money to send me the stuff you did, why
can't you spring for another $260?' I said,
' Why?' She said, 'Because I don't have it!' I
said, ' But my taxes take care of that.' I felt
like Scrooge! Other people I've spoken to at
the 'post office have told me they made the
same mistake, of giving their phone number,
and people called them for months after-
ward, asking for money."
Shortly before being interviewed for this
article, Cressler had spent several hours dig-
ging through the cardboard boxes until he
found just what he wanted. "Dear Santa and
Miss Santa," began the missive that sang to
DECEMBER 2003
the bike, he opted
to send smaller gifts through
the mail. He had no desire to actually meet
the boy. Cressler never lays eyes on his young
beneficiaries; instead, he enjoys "fantasizing
how happy they're going to be when they
open my presents'."
Other donors put on Santa outfits and go
-into children's homes. "Two years ago, a
white couple from Long Island woke us up at
7 in the morning on Christmas," recalls Jose-
fina Cabral, a 35-year-old Dominican immi-
grant who lives with her three children in a
B
Ut more often, supplicants play
their roles perfectly, even when
they compose their letters. Which
is an amazing feat, considering that many
have spotry writing skills, and such sparse
contact with elite New York that they've
never been to midtown, much less the James
A. Farley General Post Office.
Take Steve Rivera, the 13-year-old who
charmed Bill Cressler by greeting "Miss
Santa" in his letter, and signing off as "Your
friend."
"Miss Santa was my idea," says Daniel
Rivera, Steve's big brother. City Limits inter-
viewed the two recently in Bedford Park, a
rough part of the Bronx where graffiti often
sports the word "gunz, " and apartment build-
ing foyers reek of urine.
Daniel and Steve, now 15 and 14 respec-
tively, are friendly, talkative boys still waiting
for their growth spurts. Their two-room apart-
ment is so cramped that their parents sleep in
25
the living room. Their mother is disabled, and
their father, who worked for years as a machin-
ist, now has arthritis and asthma and is jobless.
The brothers have been sending letters to
Operation Santa Claus since they were tod-
dlers; their mother used to write for them.
Some of her women friends showed her how,
and suggested model wording.
Some of the language may have corne
from boilerplate letters-such as the epi-
graph of this article-that circulate through-
out New York City. Each year, people sitting
at the post office's cafeteria tables cluck in
bemusement at all the different pages torn
from notebooks and all the various hand-
writings that say exactly the same thing: The
most important thing I want is to give my
childrens happiness sadly enough I can't buy
the basic thing in life... . Thank you, Santa
Claus for making dream be come true.
Postal workers are stymied about where
this letter, and many other models, corne
from. Some are xeroxes of xeroxes of
xeroxes, passed out at welfare offices,
homeless shelters and schools.
Joseline Ovalles explains her tech-
nique. A Washington Heights mother
of two preschoolers whose husband
earns minimum wage in a factory, she
learned about Operation Santa Claus
shortly after immigrating from the
Dominican Republic a few years
ago. "Some friends told me about
it," she says. "I don't write English,
so at first my 10-year-old niece
would translate for me and write
the letter. Now a friend's little girl
does it."
Last year, Ovalles began her
letter by talking about how her
two sons "are what I love the
most," but "because of some
"Santa has a wife, so mention her," advises
Steve. ''And when you ask for a gift, you
should write, 'I really need it, but if you can't
send it I'll understand.' And don't ask for
nothing too expensive."
"I asked for Allen Iverson sneakers last year
and didn't get anything," comments Daniel.
"That's because you were greedy-they cost
too much!" retorts Steve.
In Washington Heights, IS-year-old Cri-
stina Gomez has similar advice. "A good letter
is one that asks, 'How are you doing, Santa?'"
she declares.
"The most important thing," says
13-year-old Judi Cabral,
"is to
economical problems I can't
give them what they ask for
they need a little bit of everything which
is the reason why I'm writing you this hum- write that
ble letter." After listing the children's clothing you'll be grateful whatever
sizes, Ovalles asked for coats for herself and they send."
her husband. She closed with, "Happy "And it's not just about yourself You should
Christmas and a Happy New Year! We thank ask for things for your mother and brothers and
you beforehand." sisters. If you do that, they'll something for
With letters like this, she gets packages you, too," says Cristina.
every year. In addition, a little girl learns how "If you want a brand-name sweater like Old
to pen the maximally effective missive to Navy, never ask for Old Navy, because you'll
Santa. never get it," says a Mother Cabrini High
Boys learn, too. Today Steve and Daniel School student who didn't want her name
Rivera write their own letters, and take pride used. But if you don't ask for a brand-name,
in corning up with just the right tone. they'll probably like you and send you a gift
26
certificate. From Old Navy."
Who is they? For Steve Rivera, Santa "used
to be this rich man in England who helped
the poor, but he died a long time ago.
Now, we think of Santa as good people who
love us."
But just being Steve doesn't guarantee a
present. Nor does just sending Santa a letter.
Sure, it helps to write a good one. But it's even
better to write a good one, and a good one,
and a good one, and a good one ....
"It's like the lottery," says Steve. "The more
letters you write, the more chance you have of
someone seeing some. Then you have a better
chance of getting presents."
With that in mind, Steve and his brother
each hand-write as many as 50 identi-
cal letters every year to Opera-
tion Santa Claus. This is not
an unusual number, and the
blizzard of multiples bedevils
the post office. To combat them,
visitors to Operation Santa HQ
are instructed to bring their cho-
sen letter to a clerk sitting at a
computer. She keys in the benefi-
ciary's name and address, then
checks to see if they have already
been selected. If so, the
donor is advised to toss
the letter and find some-
one else to send gifts to.
Problem IS, many
people simply walk out
of the post office with their favorite
letters, without bothering to check the
computer first. In addition, according
to Operation Santa spokesman Fontana,
corporations and Broadway call asking
for thousands of letters on very short
notice. "We can't weed them then, " he
says.
As a result, people who write lots and
lots of charming, heartrending letters cash
in on Christmas day. "If! send six or 10 let-
ters I get two or three boxes, " said Ovalles.
"The time that we got a personal visit from
people dressed like Santa, " notes Dionora
Fernandez, "we also got two packages in the
mail. " "It's wonderful to see the joy on my
little sisters' faces when the presents corne,"
says 13-year-old Manuel Cabral, who has
written dozens of letters for them.
But what about all the kids whose families
are as needy as the Riveras, Cabrals and
Ovalleses, but haven't learned to wassail?
Often in one family, not all children who
write receive an answer. This has happened to
CITY LIMITS
Steve and Daniel. "It's hard," they say,
"because then Mom has to buy for the one
who didn't get anything." Kids also compare
notes after Christmas with their friends. Sad-
ness and jealousy can plague those who didn't
hear from Operation Santa Claus, while oth-
ers did.
More often than not, even the unlucky
can rely on parents and relatives for modest
gifts that serve as consolation prizes in a bad
Operation Santa year. That's not true,
though, when the writing is done as aca-
demic work.
, 'S CHOOL LETTERS? ANY-
BODY WANT SCHOOL LET-
TERS?" yell postal workers
during the waning days of
December as Christmas draws
near. These are gian t manila
envelopes, each crammed
with dozens of missives from
the city's impoverished P.S.s
and 1.S.s.
The packages represent whole
classes of young children with rick-
ety writing and serious needs. Each
reflects a teacher's attempt to help
her indigent charges get warm coats
for personal use-as well as pencils,
even books, for their resource-starved
classrooms. Few individual donors can
afford to act as Santa for a classroom,
so the post office tries to find corpora-
tions to sponsor the packets. But with a
dearth of willing businesses, teachers are
hard pressed to write letters that "sing."
Often it's clear that students have
dutifully parroted their instructor's
embarrassed idea of what one should say
to the nonexistent Santa. ("I would highly
appreciate it if you can use your strength to
get me a set of reading books with tapes,"
wrote evety 6-year-old in one class in the
Bronx.) Teachers-and sometimes princi-
pals-typically append their own appeal,
such as this one from the Bronx's P.S. 68,
"The Edward A. Fogel School for Critical
Thinking and the Arts," where writing to
Santa has become a schoolwide language-arts
project:
Many of our parents tell their children you do
not exist so that the children will not be disap-
pointed on Christmas day. Imagine, Santa, how
painfol and difficult this season is to many of
our children. The heartache of waking up
Christmas morning and finding that even you
Santa could not make their wishes come true . ...
DECEMBER 2003
Our school uniform is burgundy so a burgundy
pullover sweater for boys and a burgundy but-
ton-down sweaters for girls would complement
their uniform.
Some teachers are superbly attuned to the
demands and desires of corporate charity.
Ellen McGovern is a reading specialist at P.S.
306, an impoverished grade school in the
West Tremont section of the Bronx. She
started having her students write to Opera-
tion Santa Claus several years ago, when she
was teaching in a poor neighborhood in
Manhattan. It wasn't long before a company
responded. In subsequent years, she sought
out more firms and began
helping
getting letters from children in their own
handwriting. And businesspeople like letters
that refer to them as "Santa" and "Mrs.
Claus.")
But other teachers are like the teenagers
who stay up all night waiting for the Santa
who never comes. Udelia Price teaches sec-
ond and third grade at P.S. 270 in Clinton
Hill, in Brooklyn. Back in the late 1980s,
when Ellen McGovern first told her about
Operation Santa Claus, Price was teaching in
Manhattan and had good luck with the post
office program. "Once I got a check for $500
to buy the kids stuff. I got notebooks because
we didn't have enough. And I took the kids to
Chinatown," she says. Price keeps her own
letter short and low key: "Dear Santa, I am
writing to you in hopes that you can help
some of my students .... Whatever you have
to share would be greatly appreciated."
That used to be enough. But now that
she's in Brooklyn, "We haven't gotten
anything for the last four years."
Price is beginning to question what
she's doing and its effect on her stu-
dents. "It's not like children in this area
really believe in Santa. I tell them we're
writing to him and that the people
answering letters are his
helpers. But then noth-
ing comes, even though
sometimes another class
in this school gets some-
thing. Last year my stu-
dents asked, 'Ms. Price, why didn't
we get anything?' I told them I
didn't know. They asked me over
and over. I'm starting to think
we're writing these letters for
nothing."
Those who trek to 33rd
~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ I ! I ~ : Street each Christmas season would no doubt disagree. Just
find more Santas, they'd say.
After all, for people like postal worker
Richie Aron, Operation Santa is all about pre- other
teachers organize letter-
wntmg. Today, McGovern estimates that
annually, 700 classes in New York City solicit
help from Operation Santa Claus. McGovern
is such a pro at recruiting corporate donors
that "I've had years when every student in my
school has received a gift." She works hard
each year to renew commitments from com-
panies such as insurance firm CBS Coverage
Group, Inc., the magazine Southern Accent
and the watchmaker Rolex. She knows what
makes a good pitch. ("Companies really enjoy
serving "that innocence children have before
they face the world."
But is it innocence to teach kids a new
form of wassailing-one that bears a remark-
able if addled resemblance to grant writing?
Thanks to Operation Santa Claus, the poor
are now pitching themselves as magical real-
ist schlemiels, and the not-poor are pretend-
ing to be realpolitik magicians. Maybe this
is what philanthropy has come to in New
York and the nation. Maybe it's what it
always was .
27
28 CITY LIMITS

Teaching Fellows learn on the iob, and students pay a price.
By Penelope Duda
Illustrations by Mat Vincent
THE OBJECTIVE OF THE LESSON in this sixth-grade class at a Bushwick mid-
dle school is to "be able to use similar figures to find out the length of
an unknown side." The teacher gives the class a quiz, where the students
have to find the length of a side of a triangle. Then she goes over the
answers with them.
Except there's a problem. The quiz has a mistake and now the stu-
dents are confused, and she's losing them. One girl, who didn't even
bother to write the answers to the quiz, has been sitring with her coat
over her head for 10 minutes. The girl next to her is messing with her
cell phone. Another boy is wandering around the classroom, bothering
other students and trying to steal their pencils. The teacher tries to bring
students back into the lesson, but to no avail. She's lost them.
This teacher works hard. She arrives at school early, stays late and takes
a lot of work home. In her 10 months on the job, she has built a bond
with her students, even rushing out during her prep period to buy lunch
at McDonald's for two students who were particularly good that week.
But the truth is she's still figuring out how to be a public school
teacher day by day. She is a brand-new teacher, freshly graduated from
the New York City Teaching Fellows Program, which allows new school
instructors to get trained and certified in less than a summer.
The only preparation she received before she entered the classroom
consisted of an intensive seven-week training and several weeks of student
teaching in a summer-school class. There, like all Teaching Fellows, she
learned the basics of discipline techniques and classroom management.
While she's been teaching school, she's also been working on her master's
degree at night (and making an entry-level salary of $39,000).
Yet she was hardly prepared for this. At this school, everything feels
tentative. There's a new principal, many new teachers and a frustrating
lack of organization. There are people available to help her-the pro-
gram assigned her a mentor and a "homeroom buddy," and there is a
staff developer in the school each day. Gerting to them is another story.
"There is very litde time for people to help me," the new teacher says.
"There are people who mean to, but they have no time to do it. "
A screwup with her students' grades-she discovered late in the
spring that she was supposed to have been tracking them cumulatively
since September-was the capper to a trying year. "It's been really hard
and kind of horrible," she says of her teaching experience. "It's horrible
for any new teacher-you're supposed to just accept it. What we (neo-
phytes] need to do is to start with an experienced teacher" -a mentor,
or what educators of educators call a "master teacher."
I am experiencing similar challenges myself right now, as a first-year
Teaching Fellow at a Manhatran middle school. As part of the new city-
wide curriculum, I'm expected to use "workshops" to teach. Teachers
start a class by giving a mini-lesson on a topic-say, the use of capital let-
DECEMBER 2003
Is there a better way?
ters. Then the students break up into groups, some working indepen-
dendy while others sit with the instructor.
That would be nice. Really, though, there's no way I can imagine work-
ing with small groups of my sixth- and seventh-grade special education stu-
dents while the others work on their own. Not unless chasing each other
around the class is considered independent work. I haven't even figured out
how to collect homework and make sure kids don't go to the bathroom three
times per period. Instead, I've spent a lot of time in front of the students talk-
ing, while they listen to me (or don't) and copy what I write on the board.
Sometimes I've given them worksheets to keep busy and, if I'm lucky, quiet.
The few times that I've tried to use the workshop method, the class has
quickly broken down. I divided the class up into small groups to read
books, based on each member's reading level. I set up each group with its
assignment and then spent the whole period running back and forth to
answer questions and discipline students who were just sining around
talking. Meanwhile, the ones who needed my help--those who have the
most difficulty reading-got no attention at all. I know the workshop
method makes sense, but I don't know how to manage it. And I'm not
sure how I'm going to learn.
While we are learning how to teach, our students are paying what some
educators call a "learning tax." Katie Haycock from the Education Trust,
a Washington nonprofit that encourages institutions of higher education
to support K-12 reform efforts, asserts that on average, teachers in their
first two years on the job see markedly lower gains in student learning than
do those with more experience. "Researchers are finding that in the first
two years there's a real impact for students. So kids in hard-to-staff and
high-poverty schools serve as training fodder for teachers who will move
on and teach in other places. They are paying a price educationally."
Dr. Gail Foster, a longtime teacher in the New York City public schools
and founder of the New York-based Toussaint Institute Fund, which advo-
cates for improved access to quality schools, has helped train Teaching Fel-
lows. She says she's seen the effects firsthand. Many of her students, Foster
says, became overwhelmed and dropped out-some even before they
entered their own classroom. (Of the cohotr that entered the program in
September 2001, 22 percent of the fellows did not return to teach in 2002-
an attrition rate only slighdy higher than that of the system as a whole.)
The rest, she's sure, face an uphill battle. "What happens when you
come in new and not trained properly, and overwhelmed by class man-
agement, and maybe come from a different socioeconomic background?
All you want is order in the class. "
There is, Foster avers, "no remedy for what the students are losing
during that year. n
IN NEW YORK CiTY, where about 9,000 new teachers arrived in class-
29
rooms mis fall-an untold number of them having never taught
before-we're about to find out exactly how high mat price is. More
man 3,000 are Teaching Fellows or were trained mrough another "alter-
native certification" program.
There will likely be many more of mese fast-tracked new teachers in
years to come. New York City public school teachers are retiring in
record numbers: In September alone, 477 followed 3,868 who left over
me summer. The average age of New York City's 80,000 school teachers
is 49, and more man a quarter are 55 or older. Thousands more are still
uncertified, and under a new state edict shouldn't even be teaching any-
more; me Regents have given New York City permission to keep mose
teachers on mrough 2005, but no longer man mat.
The Teaching Fellows program was launched under departed Schools
Chancellor Harold Levy and aimed at attracting successful professionals
to city schools. It is run with assistance from a nonprofit called me New
Teacher Project, which has designed and implemented teacher recruit-
ment, training and placement programs in a handful of
other cities including Los Angeles and Baton Rouge.
In New York, mose teachers are put right into hard-
to-staff schools-places wim especially high teacher or
agement and lesson-planning, "teachers mat are not prepared are less effec-
tive wim studentS," she says.
Speak wim Teaching Fellows, and you see what Darling-Hammond
is talking about. Abigail Rao, a fellow in her second year of teaching at
an elementary school in Harlem, laughs when asked about her pre-ser-
vice training experience-in summer school, where classes were smaller
and me day shorter man during me regular school year. "I felt so unpre-
pared after going mrough mat program mat I mought, 'I couldn't do
mis.' 1 couldn't imagine having my own class. It was kind of a joke and
a waste of time. 1 felt like it was unfair to kids we were going in to teach.
It was infuriating. "
Minimal preparation can lead to a disastrous first year. Zach Berman,
a fellow who entered the program in the fall of 2002 and taught in
Brooklyn, dropped out by mat Thanksgiving. "I felt ill-prepared for me
rigors of planning me classes," he explains. He wanted to teach high
school history but was placed in an elementary school. He adds mat
principal turnover, lack of organization, high poverty
rates, linle parental involvement. More-experienced
teachers don't want to work in mese schools, and because
of me teacher's union seniority rules, mey don't have to.
There wi II likely be ma ny more
Dr. Nicholas Michelli is Dean of Education at me
City University of New York, where most Teaching Fel-
lows obtain meir master's degrees. He's fond of me fel-
lows-because of its substantial advertising and market-
ing budget, the Teaching Fellows program can pick the
best candidates from a large applicant pool. As he sees
it, me program's "biggest weakness is mat [teachers] are
assigned to high-needs schools."
fast-tracked new teachers in
But Michelli and omer educators of educators admit
mere's a lot we still don't know about what it means to
parachute a new teacher into a troubled classroom.
They're eagerly awaiting me results of a major study just
gening underway, which seeks to answer me question
years to come. New York City
public school teachers are retiring
in record numbers: nearly 500 In
September alone.
evetyone's asking: What, exactly, happens to kids when
meir teacher shows up wim barely any training? Con-
ducted by a team from me University at Albany, me
research will probe a massive amount of school person-
nel data and survey teachers entering me New York City education system
to determine me effects of each different "pamway" to becoming a teacher
on student achievement-whemer teachers entered mrough alternative
certification, a BA in education, a master's program, or off me street. The
study should be completed in me next two to three years. Anticipates
Michelli: "We'll find out whemer or not your pamway maners."
Previous research suggests it does. Stanford University education pro-
fessor Linda Darling-Hammond, an education professor at Stanford, cites
several studies, including one of her own conducted in New York City,
which found mat teachers admined wim no preparation or mrough vety
short alternate routes tend to be less satisfied wim meir preparation and
less confident about meir abilities. Her study also found mat teachers who
felt well-prepared were usually more satisfied wim meir performance in me
classroom. Darling-Hammond, a frequent critic of fast-track programs like
me Teaching Fellows, says me fellows' assessment is accurate. Because mey
often spend meir first year trying to figure out me basics of classroom man-
30
"support was really inconsistent. Everything was inconsistent. "
Berman received conflicting advice from me school's sraff developers and
mentors on issues as fundamental as seating arrangementS. Recalls Berman,
"Some people said put mem in rows, some said put mem in groups of sixes."
Each choice would have promoted a radically different classroom environ-
ment, one teacher-dominated and me omer highly interactive. Berman
never serried on which he wanted. He was too busy managing a classroom
where me studentS had advanced skills in throwing paper wads. In one inci-
dent, a projectile inflicted retinal damage on one student. In anomer, during
an exam, one kid threw anomer's answer sheet out me window.
Dr. Richard Elmore, a Harvard University education professor and
aumor of an upcoming book on New York Community School District
2's renowned professional development, has seen a lot of teachers trying
to wing it. He's observed a pattern: Brand-new educators associate good
teaching wim classroom order and a lot of energy on me teacher's part.
Basically, mey end up imitating meir own teachers.
CITY LIMITS
Yet the type of instruction that many educators believe promotes high
achievement-where students "create meaning," instead of just gercing
it all from their teacher-requires a lot of professional training, both
before a teacher enters the classroom and throughout his or her career.
Take reading. The National Center for Educational Statistics has docu-
mented that teachers who use real literature and heavily integrate read-
ing and writing through workshop-type lessons-the kind the Depart-
ment of Education would like us to teach-also see higher levels of
achievement in their students.
But new teachers, Elmore has seen, especially those with lircle train-
ing, often try to do all the work themselves. So the classroom looks
orderly and the students may (or may not) be listening to the teacher,
while there is actually little learning taking place.
Elmore says that teachers who have dropped out of alternative certifica-
tion programs sometimes enter the education program at Harvard, and "we
then need to get them to unlearn these methods" they have picked up, so
they can keep order in the classroom and get the students to learn.
"I've seen some good people in the Teaching Fellows program," Dr.
Elmore continues, "but they are C- to D+ teachers because they know
nothing about teaching and are not getting much help."
IT TURNS OUT THAT Department of Education administrators are well aware
that the Teaching Fellows program has its limitations. The department's
director of alternative certification, Vicky Bernstein, lists some ways her
staff tries to mitigate the impact of having thousands of new teachers learn
on the job: "Communicating more realistic expectations" to the incoming
fellows, with the message "Don't expect to be a success on day one"; assign-
ing mentors to new teachers; retooling university master's curriculums so
they statt with a course on how to teach literacy and follow with practical
seminars on how to cope in the classroom. (When the fellows program first
launched, it began with a class on "School in American Society.")
Even these measures, Bernstein concedes, are less than perfect. "A bet-
DECEMBER 2003
ter model would be an apprenticeship model," she says. "But we need to
give a living wage during that period. No one has those resources. We
can't ask people with debt and expenses to take on the burden. "
Another big city with a troubled school system is wagering that it can.
The Boston Teacher Residency is a 12-month teacher apprenticeship
program, based on the medical residency model. It is the result of a part-
nership between Boston's public schools and two foundations, the
Boston Plan for Excellence and Strategic Grant Partners, which is con-
tributing $2.2 million for a two-year startup. The program launched this
fall with 16 new teachers and plans to enroll 120 by 200B-about one-
third the number of new teachers Boston anticipates hiring that year. By
then, the residency is supposed to be a fully public program.
"Teacher residents" are spending three-and-a-half days a week for one
school year in a classroom, co-teaching with a master teacher. The rest of
the time, and during the summers before and after that year, they take
courses tailored for teachers who are already working in an urban class-
room. By the end of 12 months, the teacher residents
will have a master's degree in education, and will start
teaching on their own the following fall. They'll also
get a $10,000 stipend.
The program is structured to provide strong incen-
tives to continue teaching in Boston. Trainees techni-
cally have to pay $10,000 in tuition, but for each of
the first three years they work in the Boston schools,
one-third of that fee is forgiven. If they leave, they have
to pay.
There are no guarantees, of course, that Boston's
program will fill the training gap. Harvard's Richard
Elmore, who was actively involved in the Teacher Res-
idency program's formation and serves as a board
member of the Boston Program for Excellence, says it
takes three to five years of teaching-and, ideally,
strong mentoring the whole time-before new educa-
tors have an understanding of how to engage students
in the learning process, as well as how to manage dif-
fering learning styles and levels of understanding in a
large classroom.
Elmore warns that the worst possible thing that
could happen is if the residency program "reproduces
the problem they are trying to solve." One key is mak-
ing sure that the teacher residents are working with
master teachers who model good practices. This would overcome one of
the common criticisms of apprenticeship-type programs: that new teach-
ers just learn bad habits from old ones.
One district in New York is giving apprenticeships a chance. The
dean of the Graduate School of Education at Bank Street College, Dr.
Jon Snyder, is currently working with New York's Region 9-the school
district covering lower Manhattan, the Upper East Side, East Harlem
and a chunk of the South Bronx-to create an internship program. Sny-
der describes it as "something in between" the two years of full-time
preparation Bank Street usually gives (including an immersion in Bank
Street's on-campus lab school) and the 200 hours teaching fellows get.
Snyder hopes that the program can start recruiting new teachers as early
as January.
Last year and the year before that, Bank Street accepted Teaching Fel-
lows into its master's program, but Snyder decided not to take them this
past fall. "Being a full-time student and a full-time teacher, it's just too
31
much for them," says Snyder of the fellows his school has worked with. "It
just leaves them physically and emotionally exhausted." More urgently, he
also had misgivings about sending new teachers into the trenches so
quickly. "Without sufficient preparation, without a lot of support from
fellow teachers and students, it's very easy to fall into bad habits-trying
to control the kids instead of teaching the kids," says Snyder. Any alterna-
tive training, he maintains, must make sure that before a teacher takes con-
trol of a classroom he or she has the knowledge and skills to plan lessons,
assess student progress and understand how young people learn.
There's another reason Snyder didn't enroll Teaching Fellows in Bank
Street's master's program this year, he concedes: The fellows program
didn't quite cover Bank Street's own costs. That's no small change-a
Bank Street degree costs $29,000 to $43,000.
Snyder says there are still plenty of teachers heading to private schools
who want to spend that kind of money for a two-year Bank Street edu-
cation. But with the Teaching Fellows' fast track effectively paying
trainees $100,000 during their first two years, it's harder to find high-
quality wanna be public school teachers who will do the same.
To keep Bank Street an attractive option for prospective public school
dents to pay tuition and study for months, his program nonetheless
received 200 applications for 45 slots.
ApPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS aren't unknown in New York. Sylvia Gross, a
teacher at a K-through-8th-grade school in the South Bronx, started
teaching after a year-long apprenticeship in her school. She is the type of
teacher that most of the city's schools would scramble to hire. After grad-
uating from Yale she received a Fulbright to study arts education in
Brazil. Upon returning to New York, she realized she wanted to be a
teacher, so she applied to a program called Teachers for Tomorrow. Dur-
ing the apprenticeship, for which she was paid (Teachers for Tomorrow
had private funding), Gross also filled in for absent teachers.
According to Gross, the apprenticeship taught her how to make stu-
dents feel productive from the first day of class. "You have to learn how
to do the routines with them, because that's what keeps the class
together," she explains.
The apprenticeship didn't necessarily make her first year any easier.
But "it helped that I already had support from the community. People
knew that the teachers and parents were behind me because I had already
been there for a year. I had a reputation."
Apprenticeships might not bring new teachers into the
"I've seen good people In the Teaching
Fellows program," says professional
training expert Richard Elmore. "But
they are C- to D+ teachers because
they know nothing about teaching and
are not getting much help."
schools as quickly-but they may keep them around longer.
With nearly 50 percent of new teachers leaving the system
within five years, New York City's inability to keep teachers
is a driving force behind the worsening teacher shortfall. ''All
reports are saying that we don't have a shortage-we have a
retention problem," says CUNY's Dean Michelli. "There are
enough certified teachers. They're just not willing to come to
our schools. " In 1999, the most recent year surveyed by the
state Education Department, the city's teacher turnover rate
was 19 percent, twice as high as in suburban school districts.
Adds Michelli: "We produce highly qualified candidates, but
if we don't fix retention, we'll be doing this every year."
It is too soon to determine what the Teaching Fellows'
long-term retention rates will be. National research suggests
the future is not promising. A 2000 report by the National
Center for Educational Statistics finds that 29 percent of new
teachers who have not done student teaching leave the profes-
teachers, Snyder has developed a fast track of his own. He plans to offer
classes at night, allowing teachers-to-be to keep their day jobs. Follow-
ing about a year of coursework, trainees will get paid to teach for a sum-
mer in partnership with a master teacher, then take over their own class-
rooms in the fall. While that's basically the same in-class training expe-
rience the Teaching Fellows get, the Bank Street students will move into
full-time teaching at the same Region 9 school they were trained in, and
will be able to get advice and guidance from their master teachers as .they
go through their first years. The project will be paid for with trainees'
tuition dollars, supplemented with funding from Region 9 and addi-
tional support from the Charles Evans Hughes Foundation.
The next challenge is fmding new teachers willing to participate-as
Snyder notes, the Bank Street internship is "still not as good a deal finan-
cially as jumping in and having all your courses paid for" by the Depart-
ment of Education. He's not too worried, though. Snyder developed a
similar program at Universiry of California-Santa Barbara, a district so
desperate for teachers that uncredentialed applicants could walk in and be
hired "in 20 minutes." (In California, some 80,000 teachers have no cre-
dentials or work on emergency permits.) Even though it required stu-
32
sion within five years, compared to only 15 percent who had student
teaching as part of their training.
Boston's residency program was created with retention in mind: More
than half of Bostons new teachers leave the city's school district-or quit
teaching entirely-within three years. Says Boston Teacher Residency
director Jesse Solomon, "If we do a good job preparing and supporting
them, we hope to do a better job in keeping them. "
In New York, for now, most new teachers are on their own. In my
school, some have huge, overcrowded classrooms. Most of those I've spo-
ken with are feeling pretty ineffective. One speaks fondly of returning to
grad school. We all feel lost.
But I'm very lucky. In late September, I started a new position, teaching
English as a Second Language to small groups of students outside and within
their classes. Because I spend a few periods every day in another classroom,
I get to see how more experienced teachers teach and manage classes.
And I'm going to stick with teaching in the city public schools. After
my first year, there's nowhere to go but up .
Additional reporting by Cassi Feldman, David Jason Fischer and Alyssa Katz.
CITY LIMITS
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
Citizen Planners
The real political power
of high-tech public meetings
and the IIdeliberative
democracy" movement.
By Francesca Polletta
IT WAS A SPECTACLE to warm the heartS of democ-
rats. Last July, about 4,300 New Yorkers gathered
to deliberate over the future of the World Trade
Center site. The organizers hired a recruiting firm
to ensure as demographically diverse a group as
possible; professional facilirators led participants,
neatly arranged in rabIes of 10, in discussions of
rebuilding priorities; staff recorded both individ-
ual and group preferences on computers and peri-
odically projected them onto giant video screens
around the auditorium-all with the goal of giv-
ing everyday citizens a say.
People at the forum, dubbed Listening to the
City, later approvingly characterized their discus-
sions as respectful and calm. As parr of a follow-
DECEMBER 2003
up study on the event's impact, my colleagues and
I interviewed 60 participants, and many said they
rethought their views as a result of the discussions.
One person, who described herself as from a
higher income family than some of the people at
the rabIe, said she came to see the importance of
purting affordable housing at the site, explaining,
"You can't ignore it when there is someone in
front of you rather than just a sratistic."
People also described themselves as exhilarated
by the give and rake. 'l\i:er a couple of minutes of
seeing where someone was going," said one per-
son, "it opened my mind to a different point of
view, and perhaps a more valid point of view than
what I was holding." Best of all, no one was "cam-
paigning," as one participant put it, and as many
others added, the event wasn't "political."
These comments capture the promise of a
new brand of citizen participation that has swept
the country in the last decade, one that relies on
carefully structured conversation among stran-
gers to forge areas of unanticipated consensus.
We can all identify with the characterization of
politics as a kind of interest-oriented advocacy
that so ofren leads to rigidity and stalemate-
particularly given today's increasingly polarized
political environment. Proponents of what has
been called "deliberative democracy" say forums
like Listening to the City can rebuild the public's
damaged faith in the policymaking process.
But by providing the spectacle of democ-
racy-the impressive numbers of people gath-
ered in one place, the electronic tabulations of
individual preferences, the presence of decision
makers-and by carefully organizing con-
tention out of the process, forums like Listen-
ing to the City risk restyling democracy as con-
sulration. The people speak, but there's no
guarantee anyone is listening. The question,
then, is: Must participants actually make a dif-
ference in the policies they discuss for these
forums to have impact? The jury's still out
among researchers, but New York's recent expe-
rience should make us both optimistic and cau-
tious about the enterprise.
ASKED BY LOWER MANHATTAN rebuilding officials
and civic groups to comment on plans for the
redevelopment of Ground Zero, New Yorkers
did so enthusiastically. Since 9/11, thousands of
people have participated in public hearings,
workshops and online deliberations. Listening
33
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
34
NEW REPORTS
To afford a one-bedroom apartment in New York
City, someone working 40 hours a week must
earn $18.15 an hour-that's a 141-hour week
at minimum wage. This provocative report cal-
culates a "housing wage" for each metro area
in the country by figuring out how much you've
got to pull in to make rent without spending
more than 30 percent of your income. It uses
the feds' Fair Market Rent as the standard for
each city.
Out of Reach 2003: America's Housing Wage Climbs
The National Low Income Housing Coalition
www.nlihc.orgor 202-662-1530
Large urban school districts are plagued by
shortages of Qualified and proven teachers,
but they've got no one to blame but them-
selves, this study argues. Researchers looked
at the hiring processes of four (unnamed) city
districts-one from each region of the coun-
try-and found that all received hundreds
more applicants than positions they had to
fill. But all four waited until late summer to
make job offers, by which time 30 to 60 per-
cent of the applicants had withdrawn to take
other openings.
Missed Opportunities
The New Teacher Project
www.tntp.orgor212-590-2484
Low-wage workers are rarely on the front page
and don't often make it into broadcast news
at all, according to this media analysis. What
coverage they get comes largely from the
metro pages of the major dailies in five large
urban markets-Boston, Chicago, D.C., L.A.
and New York City-which accounted for 65
percent of stories reviewed in a six-month
period in 2001. As for content, researchers
found 11 percent of the coverage in their sam-
ple focused on local living-wage campaigns,
but reporters rarely discussed the role of cor-
porations. The findings are predictable, but
it's nice to have the data.
Between a Rock and Hard Place
Dougtas & Gould Co. for the Ford Foundation
www.economythatworks.orgor914-833-7093
to the City was to some observers the most
striking, for both its scale and outcome: Partic-
ipants decisively rejected preliminary plans and
sent rebuilding officials back to the drawing
board. It was, however, only the highest-profile
example of the new civic dialogue.
This dialogue has taken diverse forms. Col-
laborative planning exercises, for instance, bring
together competing stakeholders--developers
and preservationists, say, or residents and small
business owners-to preempt costly battles over
development projects. The "deliberative polls"
designed by political scientist James Fishkin
recruit a demographically representative sample
of the population to discuss issues like abortion,
immigration policy, and campaign financing,
fust in small groups and then with candidates
for political office. Visioning workshops invite
residents to craft long-term plans for their
regions. And foundations and civic groups now
sponsor hundreds of study circles and issue
forums, in which ordinary citizens debate hot-
button political issues.
The scale, format and even purposes of these
efforts vary. Some are oriented primarily to civic
education, others to policy input, still others to
conflict resolution. What unites them is the
belief that improving the character of public con-
versation yields public decision making that is
better informed, less polarized and more in tune
with citizens' priorities. Giving people the oppor-
tunity to reason together in an informed way and
in an atmosphere of mutual respect opens up
new possibilities for forging areas of agreement.
Even if participants don't reach consensus, the
logic goes, they often gain an appreciation for
views different from their own. That, in turn,
makes them more likely to be satisfied with
whatever decisions are eventually reached, even if
they don't match their preferences exactly.
In planning contexts, say proponents, delib-
eration can help avoid the familiar experience of
gridlock, with interest groups dug into inflexi-
ble positions. In civic life more generally, par-
ticipation in citizen forums can increase citi-
zens' trust in their political institutions. In fact,
the participants from Listening to the City we
surveyed were almost all enthusiastic about
their experience, and it was the deliberative
character of the discussions that hooked them.
The July 2002 forum was sponsored by the
Civic Alliance, a coalition of civic and environ-
mental groups, in partnership with the chief
rebuilding organizations: the Lower Manhattan
Development Corporation and the Pott Author-
ity. The sponsors hired AmericaSpeaks, a Wash-
ington-based nonprofit that runs "electronic
town meetings," to put it on. The LMDC and
Port Authority ponied up for the event and
weighed in on its agenda, but they committed
only to listening to the exercise's findings, not
necessatily implementing them. AmericaSpeaks
usually insists that decision makers commit to
acting on forums' recommendations, but in a
context in which it was unclear just who would
make the final decisions about Ground Zero, that
endorsement was deemed sufficient.
When they signed up for Listening to the
City, many interviewees expected a conventional
public hearing, with people lined up behind a
microphone to speak for three minutes-or
"rant," as more than one put it. Instead, they
said, they found something very different. "The
most amazing thing happened," one person
reported. "I was in this town meeting and no one
argued, and I was listened to. It was a great day. "
Thirty percent of our interviewees cited the dis-
cussions' civility when asked what they liked
most about the forum.
These individuals were by no means naIve
about their likely impact on the rebuilding
process. The participants wanted the Civic
Alliance and AmericaSpeaks to force LMDC
and Port Authority representatives to make a
firmer commitment to honor the forum's rec-
ommendations-to "strip them bare, " as one
man put it. "They were still wearing
their skivvies when they walked out,"
he complained.
The skepticism was not without basis.
Granted, by the following week, rebuilding
officials announced that they were in fact
shelving the original plans and launching a
new design process. Surely, the vociferous
public response gave LMDC planners the
leverage they needed to press a resistant Port
Authority to agree to a new design process.
But subsequent news reports suggest that the
governor's determination to put his stamp on
the process, and the degree to which particular
architects were willing to alter their plans to
satisfY the Port Authority's original objectives,
played much more of a role than did public
input. Since the decision to shift gears was
made, substantial alterations have been made
to the Liebeskind design chosen from the sec-
ond round, making it uncomfortably similar
to a plan that was so roundly rejected by Lis-
tening to the City participants.
PROPONENTS OF THE "deliberative democracy"
trend have been criticized for their failure to
specifY just how it fits into the policymaking
process. Before abandoning ttaditional mecha-
nisms of citizen input-like legally mandated
public hearings and, ultimately,
CITY LIMITS
ics say we must guarantee that citizen forums
come with mechanisms for holding decision
makers accountable. Indeed, it is hard to imag-
ine that participants would feel more confident
in government-one of the touted benefits-if
they felt that their joint recommendations were
being ignored. "If they back off and let them
maneuver and manipulate this situation," one
Listening to the City participant said of rebuild-
ing planners, "what we did will be null and
void." Yet, it is equally hard to imagine that deci-
sion makers would commit in advance to hon-
oring forum's recommendations unless they
were to define its agenda very narrowly. In that
vein, critics complain that the city "visioning"
plans that have been launched with great fanfare
around the country have too often ended with a
set of vague-if admirable-principles, calls for
more meetings and a return to business as usual.
But forums like Listening to the City also
offer an interesting, if unintended, opportunity
to counter that problem: Civic coalitions and
advocacy groups can listen in, too. For groups
representing priorities that they believe are get-
ting short shrift, gaining approval for their per-
spectives during these deliberative forums can
offer a powerful leveraging tool against intransi-
Commitment is
gent policymakers. For example, when Oregon
held a series of community meetings to solicit
public input on health care priorities, the exer-
Small businesses
and Chinatown
residents used
the process to
get heard.
cise produced not only a new health care plan
but also a coalition of health care reformers and
citizens dedicated to protecting the plan.
It is likely that as citizen forums continue
ro proliferate, diverse interest groups will
mobilize to shape their agendas, choose who
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
participates in them and impact what policy-
makers do with the outcomes. In fact, several
groups managed to have an informal orga-
nized presence at Listening to the City: small
businesspeople, Chinarown residents and a
group lobbying for rebuilding the rowers,
among others. They came ro get media cover-
age as well as ro raise public consciousness
about their concerns-and they were effective
in doing so. In the following months,
they invoked the forum's findings ro promote
their agendas.
And that, of course, brings us right back to
the contentious politics that the people we sur-
veyed found so unappealing. This is the real chal-
lenge facing deliberative democrats. The idea of a
space for political discussion that is removed
ftom rough-and-tumble political contention is
attractive-but virtually guarantees its political
irrelevance. The task is to restore civility to pub-
lic debate without quashing contention.
Francesca Polletta is an associate professor ofsoci-
ology at Columbia University and is the author of
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in
American Social Movements (University of
Chicago Press, 2002).
Tomorro\N starts today
Deutsche Bank's commitment to
global corporate citizenship recognizes a
responsibility to improve and enrich the com-
munities throughout the world in
which we conduct business.
With a focused strategy of support for com-
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ronment, Deutsche Bank partners with local
organizations to build a brighter future.
leading to results""
Our commitment to a better tomorrow
starts today.
Deutsche Bank IZI
DECEMBER 2003
35
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
Action and Reaction
What did a heady decade of anti-racism activism win?
By Kai Wright
To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City
By Martha Biondi
HalVard University Press; 360 pages; $39.95
REMARKING ON THE destruction wrought during
the 1943 Harlem riot, James Baldwin com-
mented, "It would have been better to have left
the plate glass as it had been and the goods
lying in the stores. It would have been better,
but it would also have been intolerable, for
Harlem needed something to smash."
This and other contemporary cultural
observations-from Richard Wright's angry
Native Son to Ralph Ellison's eerie Invisible
Man--capture the mid-century political zeit-
geist of black urban America better than any
activist's tracts or historian's studies ever could.
Simply put, the mood was one of frustration.
The Harlem riot started with an all-too-
familiar incident: a white police officer attack-
ing a black soldier. Since World War I, the
national civil rights movement had focused
on winning economic rights and personal dig-
nity for black servicemembers. These cam-
paigns were driven by the same notion that
inspired WE.B. DuBois' dream of a "talented
tenth"-the belief that if elite blacks proved
themselves in fields revered by white America,
the prejudices that allowed Jim Crow to thrive
would fade away. But as proud black soldiers
strutted about in their uniforms, the gate-
keepers of America's racial caste system
responded with growing disdain rather than
respect, and violent clashes between law
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In To Stand and Fight, Northwestern Uni-
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us that the resulting anger, manifested in
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CITY LIMITS
Harlem that August night in 1943, fed more
than destruction. Popular memory of the civil
rights movement relegates it to the Deep
South. But as Biondi traces, New York Ciry's
tradition of direct action and litigation in the
name of civil rights far predated that of the
South-and had a significant, ifless profound,
impact on national-level race politics as well.
Biondi focuses on the era during and fol-
lowing World War II, and she's primarily inter-
ested in exhaustively chronicling the flurry of
protest and politics that erupted then from the
ciry's anti-racist movements. The tesult is a
book that reads somewhat like a laundry list of
every action, large and small, planned by New
York Ciry organizers in the 1940s. But what
Biondi's work lacks in context and narrative, it
compensates for in breadth.
She marches readers through an impressive
series of campaigns. There's the mid-1940s
alliance between Jewish and African-American
activists against restrictive admissions policies
at private universities like Columbia and Cor-
nell, which also spurred Albany to fmally create
a statewide system of public higher education.
And there's the grassroots Harlem campaign
against price gouging in white-owned stores
along 125th Street-an issue that fed anger
during the 1943 riot.
Politics is often like physics-for every
action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
We're reminded of this in Biondi's chapter on
the myriad efforts to elect blacks to legislative
p ~ t s . After African Americans streamed into
central Brooklyn to work in wartime plants,
the American Labor Parry campaigned tire-
lessly to elect Ada Jackson to an office repre-
senting the area. She originally sought to
become the first black assembly member from
Brooklyn, and then ran to represent Bed-Stuy
on the Ciry Council.
Jackson lost both races but offered enough
of a challenge to scare the establishment. So in
1947, the state legislature limited the chances
of third-parry success by barring candidates
from entering the primaries of parties they
don't belong to without the permission of their
counry committees. Conservative activists then
passed a ballot referendum changing council
elections from a proportional system to a dis-
trict-based, winner-take-all scheme.
Biondi also astutely links many of the ciry's
civil rights battles with national developments,
such as the persistence of segregation in inter-
state transportation even after the Supreme
Court declared it unconstitutional in 1946.
The first legal challenges following the high
court's ruling stemmed from incidents involv-
DECEMBER 2003
ing New York Ciry migrants returning South
to visit their families. Pennsylvania Railroad
helped southern rail companies flout the law
by racially segregating southbound passengers
when they booked their trips in New York
Ciry. Meanwhile, the American Jewish Con-
gress fought Queens-based American Airlines'
policy of assigning special codes to blacks,
which then enabled booking agents to quietly
segregate passengers.
But what was arguably the city's most nation-
ally relevant campaign was driven by a hyper-
local concern: racial covenants in housing.
Here, Biondi stretches her legs to give both
detail and context to the massive fight against
Metropolitan Life Insurance's Stuyvesant Town
housing development. In 1943, infamous ciry
plarmer Robert Moses orchestrated a sturming
transfer of public resources to a private, for-
profit project, winning Met Life a 25-year, $53-
million tax break to build a gated, whites-only
communiry for former soldiers. The pr?ject ate
public streets, condemned private properry and
tossed 10,000 people out of their homes, all in
the name of urban redevelopment. The multi-
year campaign to integrate Stuyvesant Town
spawned the ciry's now-legendary fair housing
movement and, ultimately, led to passage of the
nation's first fair housing law-a 1951 Ciry
Council measure barring discrimination in all
publicly assisted private housing developments.
This local movement spread throughout urban
America over ensuing decades, culminating in
the federal Fair Housing Act.
But even this victory was entangled in ftus-
trating defeat: Stuyvesant Town never truly inte-
grated. By 1960, only 47 of its more than 22,000
tenants were black. Indeed, for all of the postwar
era's civil rights action, New York organizers won
few large-scale gains. The dramatic political and
cultural changes southern rabble-rousing
brought about never quite materialized here, or
elsewhere in the North for that matter. Victories
were piecemeal; backlashes were lasting.
Nevertheless, the sheer volume of this
activism is itself an important fact of New York
Ciry history. Biondi's chronicle of these cam-
paigns, and the reactions to them, is a reminder
of just how central a role race politics have
played in creating the ciry we live in today. And
it's no coincidence that many of the issues mod-
ern progressive organizers take on-lack of
access to higher education, ghettoized housing,
exploitive commerce in black neighborhoods,
inadequate representation in Albany--can be
traced to the postwar era (and before). The
longeviry of these problems reveals just how
deeply embedded race remains in ciry life .
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
NOW READ THIS
Discriminating Risk:
The U.S. Mortgage lending Industry in
the Twentieth Century
By Guy Stuart
Cornell University Press; $39.95
If excerpts from mortgage applications and inter-
views with underwriters scare you (and they
should), approach this one with caution. But
inside all the Harvard economics, Stuart is mak-
ing a neat point: The effort to end racial and gen-
der bias in lending is overly focused on finding
smoking guns that prove lenders abandoned eco-
nomic rationality in favor of their personal biases.
To confront lending disparities, Stuart says, we
must first recognize that the supposedly rational
rules of risk calculation are themselves merely
constructions rooted in prejudices.
The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism,
Cultural Politics and the Attack on
Democracy
By Usa Duggan
Beacon Press; $24
Neoliberalism-the conservative movement to
give elites more and ordinary stiffs less--can act
downright friendly to the sorts of folks who used to
drive right-wingers nuts. People of color, women
and gays once connected the dots between their
oppression and predatory capitalism. But these
days, warns Duggan, identity politicos are seduced
by the neos (including Democrats like AI Gore) and
their promotion of principles like individualism and
a separation between private and public life.
Rather than countering the trend, Duggan argues,
progressives are furthering ~ with their tendency to
pooh-pooh identity politics.
Greasers and Gringos: Latinos, Law and
the American Imagination
By Steven W. Bender
NYU Press; $29.95
Bender's got a noble goal : to show that the stereo-
types Americans heap on Latino immigrants don't
just make for rude conversation, they directly
shape policy decisions. He ends up offering more
correlation than causation. But in the process the
book also compellingly articulates just how deeply
ingrained the images of lazy, thieving, drunkard
Latinos and sexually voracious, fertile Latinas are
in American culture.
37
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
Allin
the Family
Nurturing the One,
Supporting the Many: The
Center for Family life in
Sunset Park, Brooklyv
By Peg McCartt Hess,
Brenda G. McGowan and
Michael Botsko
Columbia University
Press, $26.50
WHEN THE ADMINISTRATION for Children's Ser-
v i ~ shifted to a "neighborhood-based" approach
a few years ago, it sounded like a matter of mak-
ing physical changes: clump family services in one
place, link them to nearby foster homes and trou-
bled families, and, voila, you've got a far less dis-
ruptive system. The Center for Family Life, a rel-
atively low-volume ACS contractor in Sunset
Park, is renowned for its success in keeping fami-
lies strong and kids at home using this localized
approach. But as becomes clear in Nurturing the
One, Supporting the Many, it is philosophy, not
location, that can truly bind family services to the
people they are supposed to help.
The authors call the Center "a remarkable
example of the power and possibility of neigh-
borhood based services. A closer truth is that it
38
attests to the power of two women's vision of
how families can seek and receive support.
Instead of assuming that they knew what the
poor need, the Center's founders, Sisters Geral-
dine Tobia and Mary Paul Janchill, began byask-
ing Sunset Park residents what they wanted.
Underpinning every program is the sisters'
philosophy that good social work helps not just
families but the community as a whole to iden-
tifY their strengths and build upon them. So
rather than boxing participants into stigmatiz-
ing categories (by running a domestic violence
support group, for instance, or anger manage-
ment classes), the Center offers a range of more
holistic counseling-leaving the dividing lines
simple: Women's Group, Men's Group or Teens'
Group. The Center also puts a heavy emphasis
on intergenerational contact. In its after-school
programs, for instance, adult staff mentor teen
counselors while the teens help younger kids.
The Center's nonjudgmental approach
allows mothers to feel comfortable asking for
support when their families are in trouble-
about a third of parents in the Center's preven-
tive services programs entered voluntarily. And
when kids do end up in foster care, they stay in
the neighborhood, continue using Center ser-
vices and are spared the blur of temporary
homes that many foster youth endure. Indeed,
only 13 of the 146 youth who have been in the
Center's foster care since 1988 lived in more
than one place, and none moved through more
than two homes.
At its most helpful and engaging, Nurturing
the One shows how these approaches play out.
We hear from parents and teens who explain
how particular services helped them and their
families. Social workers and administrators
describe their complex cases (families partici-
pate in an average of nine different Center pro-
grams) and explain why they are willing to stay
on those cases for years. In an industry that
struggles with rapid caseworker turnover, the
Center succeeds by encouraging flexibility,
autonomy, interconnectedness and respect
among clients and counselors.
Though burdened with overly clinical lan-
guage, and held back by a lack of depth about
individual families and staff, Nurturing the One
is an important blueprint for any kind of work
that attempts to strengthen families and support
communities. It shows why the Center is not
just another collection of programs, but an
anchor for Sunset Park-and a model for the
sort of philosophy that can enable organizations
to truly serve poor communities. -Nora McCarthy
CITY LIMITS

A project of the Center for an Urban Future
Twilight Zoning
New land-use rules will end
industry's days in Greenpoint-
Williamsburg-an economic
mistake the city might never
be able to reverse.
By Laura Wolf-Powers
IN THE "MIXED USE" neighborhood of Green-
point-Williamsburg, industry may not be in
the mix much longer.
Under the rezoning framework, representa-
tives of the Department of City Planning
announced to a crowd of hundreds at Green-
point's Polish & Slavic Center this past sum-
mer, large portions of this neighborhood are
slated to receive the city's new "MX" zoning
designation-a change that seems conceived to
encourage industry in Greenpoint-Williams-
burg to fade quietly away.
While the new mixed-use designation theo-
retically allows industry to remain in these
areas, it also lets property owners convert man-
ufacturing spaces to non-industrial uses when-
ever they wish, or "as-of-right"-a shift from
the old system, under which such conversions
were restricted to one degree or another. With
this change, industrial occupants will undoubt-
edly be driven out by more lucrative residen-
tial, office or retail uses.
If they allow Greenpoint-Williamsburg-
where manufacturing, warehousing and trans-
portation uses have traditionally blended with
retail, housing and offices-to be overtaken by
a more expensive, less diverse type of mixed
use, city officials are making an economic mis-
take that they might never be able to reverse.
This is because Greenpoint-Williamsburg is
just the type of neighborhood in which light,
DECEMBER 2003
clean, specialized industry can thrive-helping
to make the city's economy more diverse and
more competitive overall.
To understand what makes Greenpoint-
Williamsburg so good for light manufacturers,
it helps to consider its history. With the decline
of New York's role in the regional maritime
economy, manufacturing companies streamed
out of the city in the second half of the 20th
century, seeking cheaper land, utilities and
labor. After a century of vitality, heavy industry
in Greenpoint and Williamsburg plum-
meted-blessedly from the perspective of resi-
dents who had suffered from the pollution and
noise produced by "dirty" industrial uses. Some
parts of Greenpoint and Williamsburg, how-
ever, survived as mixed-use communities, with
apartment buildings, retail strips and light
industry interspersed.
In the 1970s and 1980s, factory lofts began to
be occupied by smaller, custom producers cater-
ing to niche consumer markets such as custom
furnishings, specialty food and fashion apparel.
Observers grew to believe that the persistent suc-
cess of food firms such as the Brooklyn Brewery
and music equipment specialists like Frantone
Electronics showed that some kinds of industry
could thrive in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and
other mixed-use districts just across the river
from Manhattan. In fact, some industry
depended on these neighborhoods' eclectic, cre-
ative character and their proximity to markets.
In the early 1990s, the resurgence of light
industry in mixed-use outer-borough neigh-
borhoods began to draw notice. The Depart-
ment of City Planning's 1993 Citywide Indus-
try Study acknowledged this seeming paradox:
The densest, most vibrant concentrations of
industrial jobs outside of Manhattan were not
in the "modern," suburban-style, low-rent
industrial parks that the city had created in
eastern Brooklyn and Queens and the north
Bronx, but in higher-cost mixed-use areas in
western Brooklyn and Queens--areas where
crime was low, where creative people wanted to
live, where Manhattan was a short truck trip or
a subway stop away. The study also cautioned
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
that "strong industrial areas where growth is
occurring also tend to attract investment from
the commercial and/or residential sectors, lead-
ing to competition for the land located in the
manufacturing-zoned areas."
The juxtaposition of light industry to resi-
dential and commercial uses in Greenpoint-
Williamsburg during this period was not only
good for manufacturing; it was also welcomed
by the area's other occupants. Community
plans published by residents in the late 1990s
cited job-creating light industry as a logical
complement to residential and commercial
uses, and urged planning officials to ensure that
non-polluting industrial uses could remain.
So why the change to "MX" in Greenpoint-
Williamsburg? The decision stems, at least in
part, from a widely shared philosophy that
holds that the city's future prosperity lies in the
expansion of pricey residential enclaves and
office districts, and that many mixed-use neigh-
borhoods, particularly those closest to Manhat-
tan's central business district, are undergoing an
inevitable, unstoppable transformation that
entails the dispersal or disappearance of their
industrial land uses. Dozens of "commonsense"
outlets, ftom the business press to the advertis-
ing materials of local economic development
agencies, advance the idea that land and build-
ings should operate as pure commodities and
that local officials must do everything possible
to facilitate the extraction of value from them-
that is, to promote their "highest and best use."
It is true that the high price ofland in the city
leads developers to seek out the highest possible
return on their money, which, particularly in and
near the central business districts, tends to
involve either commercial or high-end residential
development. But there is a chicken-and-egg
issue here. One reason these uses are most prof-
itable is because the city suppons this trend. It
does so by offering a generous array of subsidies,
incentives and low-interest loans to developers of
high-end residential and commercial properties.
Allowing industry to be displaced by other land
uses, as will occur in the new "MX" zones, is typ-
ically referred to as "letting the market alone."
But that characterization is inaccurate, since the
city intervenes plenty to create the conditions
under which developers will build office space
and luxury housing. This raises a question: Is
industry really dying a natural death, propelled
by inescapable market forces, or has it simply
failed to gain the favor of policymakers who are
constantly intervening in the development mar-
ketplace, promoting some uses at the expense
of others?
Indeed, in Greenpoint-Williamsburg itself,
39
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
by declining to respond to the real-estate
dynamics rhe 1993 industry study predicted,
planning and economic-development officials
have arguably exacerbated market forces.
Wirh rumors of rewning in rhe air, rhe poten-
tial financial value of loft and even one-story
industrial buildings as residential and retail
properties so outstripped their value as indus-
trial parcels in the mid-1990s rhat developers
and owners discouraged otherwise viable
industrial tenants from remaining, and some-
times even evicted them ourright. Industrial
firms were given month-to-month leases or
faced skyrocketing rents. When firms left vol-
untarily, property owners kept the land off rhe
market in anticipation of selling to residential
developers at a windfall. Industrial firms rhat
sought to expand were quoted exorbitant
prices. On top of this came rhe conversion
phenomenon: Alrhough rhe development of
residential units in industrial wnes was tech-
nically prohibited by the zoning code, devel-
opers bid for and acquired industrial property
at prices more applicable to residential prop-
erty. Their often-accurate assumption was
that rhat they would succeed in obtaining
variances - exceptions to rhe zoning code -
from the mayorally appointed Board of Stan-
dards and Appeals.
City officials (in rhe Department of Build-
ings and rhe BSA) might have curbed rhese
practices. But rhey did not-probably, in part,
because rhe "indusrry is dead in New York" rhe-
ory dominated minds of local opinion-makers.
Zoning tools are available rhat could support
indusrry wirhout sacrificing residential and
office expansion. Groups like rhe Brooklyn
Coalition for Equitable Development, drawing
on research done at Pratt Institute, rhe New
York Industrial Retention Network and else-
where, have argued for a so-called "sustainable"
or "non-transitional" mixed-use wne that gives
stricter protection to industrial properties. This
wning would make it harder for rhe owner of a
loft building to evict manufacturing tenants,
and would provide a modicum of security and
stability to industrial users when it comes to
rents. A similar measure has been successfully
implemented in rhe King-Spadina district of
Toronto. BCED also advocates more concerted
efforts to develop and nurture new indusrry in
mixed-use areas. Projects like the Brooklyn Navy
Yard (vacancy 2 percent), the Brooklyn Army
Terminal (vacancy 5 percent) and rhe Green-
point Manufacturing and Design Center (no
vacancy) demonstrate that when city officials or
non profits sponsor industrial development, they
can produce vacancy rates lower rhan those in
40
many office markets.
But subscribers to rhe so-called "highest and
best use" philosophy would argue rhat if the
"MX" designation is indeed rhe death knell of
light indusrry in Greenpoint-Williamsburg and
other mixed-use communities, we are silly to
care. According to them, rhe city's industrial
base is little more rhan a relic, any factory is
more effectively used as housing or offices
because rhose uses yield more rent, and we
would do better to sever our sentimental attach-
ment to rhe city's industrial past. From rhe per-
spective of real-estate value, rhis makes perfect
sense. However, rhere are orher ways to imagine
rhe future--and rhere are compelling economic
reasons to do so.
First, connections between industry and
sectors such as tourism, finance, fashion and
Some industries
depend on these
neighborhoods'
eclectic, creative
character.
rhe arts are hard to ignore. Firms in mixed-use
areas supply rhese sectors wirh products rhat
would often cost more if obtained ftom outside
rhe city, and rhat sometimes are difficult to
substitute. Allowing service sectors to displace
industry altogerher could, paradoxically, make
service sectors less competitive.
Second, mixed-use neighborhoods that
include light industry are arguably more effec-
tive rhan homogeneous communities at
attracting creative, entrepreneurial people to
rhe city. The mass migration of artists, per-
formers and orher "creatives" to Greenpoint-
Williamsburg offers evidence rhat innovative,
entrepreneurial professionals, even if they work
in service indusrries, want to live near a variety
of activities. But as professionals who can pay
high rents increasingly seek out the eclecticism
of a community rhat houses restaurants, con-
struction conrractors, artists in residence, and
makers of high-concept lighting fixtures, the
mixed-use (and mixed-income) character of
rhat community becomes less stable. Many res-
idents and firms rhat imparted a distinctive
character to Williamsburg's Norrhside neigh-
borhood have already been driven away by ris-
ing rents, congestion and orher costs.
Finally, while the city before the recession of
rhe early 1990s seemed securely specialized in
finance and business services, rhe recovety of
rhese sectors during rhe post-recession boom did
not bring employment levels to what they had
been in the late 1980s. Finance and advanced
services are more significant in New York City's
economy today not because they have grown in
absolute terms, but because with rhe depletion
of industry rhey have increased as a proportion
of total economic activity. Thus, it might pay to
think about nurturing light indusrry rhat has a
competitive advantage here, such as design-ori-
ented manufacturing. It might even pay to pro-
tect this type of indusrry from the real-estate
pressures that threaten to eradicate it. Many in
the economic-development field go to great
lengrhs to develop from scratch the sorts of
"indusrrial enclaves" rhat characterized Green-
point-Williamsburg in rhe mid-1990s, and
which continue in a muted form today against
market odds.
For all these reasons, advocates would like the
city to apply land-use and economic-develop-
ment policy differently in Greenpoint-Williams-
burg-to see wning rhat, unlike "MX,"
acknowledges the role that indusrry plays in a
mixed-use neighborhood. Based on his com-
ments in rhe press, it appears rhat the city's
deputy mayor of economic development and
rebuilding, Daniel L. Doctoroff, concurs that a
development policy rhat keeps indusrry in rhe
mix is a smart choice for rhe city. But officials
should move quickly. Already, in response to ris-
ing residential rents in western Williamsburg,
middle- and working-class tenants have indi-
cated to landlords rheir willingness to live ille-
gally on industrial real estate in East Williams-
burg-until recently a solidly industrial area.
Alrhough East Williamsburg is not being offi-
cially rewned, deindustrialization will occur
there wirhout deliberate policies to prevent it.
Policies to increase the viability of indusrry in
rhe mixed-use neighborhoods where it has the
greatest chance of rhriving should be a high pri-
ority for city officials. The fact that these neigh-
borhoods are also appealing spots for high-end
residential and commercial development makes
the challenge harder-but it is a challenge that
should not be ignored .
Laura Wolf-Powers is an assistant professor in the
Graduate Center for Planning and the Environ-
ment at the Pratt Institute.
CITY LIMITS
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One City.
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41
_Economy
Connection
Speakers & Resources on
Political Economics
a project of the
Union for Radical Political Economics
Has the economy
been mystifying
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We can provide a speaker
for a political or educa-
tional event, or someone to
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continued from page 15
development. "We want to change the way the
city thinks about development," says Greer,
codirector, with Shropshire, of Jobs With Jus-
tice. To achieve that, observes Rosen, policy
advocates can't act on their own: "A coalition
and a base-building arm need to work closely
together. " A successful campaign takes long-
term grassroots pressure to keep rolling;
knowledgeable activists to pack public meet-
ings; smaller delegations to city and state agen-
cies to tell officials the issue won't go away;
postcard campaigns that don't stop until the
public is allowed into the debate.
Since Rosen founded it two years ago, the
New York Unemployment Project has put
together small but influential organizing and
advocacy campaigns, taking on New York
State's hostile unemployment insurance
agency and other strategically selected targets.
The four organizers now working on the East
Harlem subsidies will home in on leverage
points, such as agencies that give the subsidies.
These could be tough nuts to crack; the city's
Industrial Development Agency, for instance,
which ratifies bond financing for businesses,
has in its history denied only two applications.
Another pressure point can be the develop-
ers themselves. In Los Angeles, LAANE has
successfUlly negotiated with developers, prov-
ing that community groups and builders can
have mutual interests. For one thing, under
the right circumstances, both want develop-
ment projects to go forward, even when NIM-
BYist neighbors oppose them. East Harlem,
which is part of the Upper Manhattan
Empowerment Zone, also presents a special
opportunity to push companies and the city to
commit to job creation, because businesses in
the zone get a $3,000 tax: credit for each local
resident they hire.
Shropshire says she's energized by the
potential of cross-pollinating L.A. organizers'
experience with the lessons New York activists
have learned. There's good work in both cities,
Shropshire says, but "none of us has come up
with the answer to reverse the trends. Decisions
that impact lives are made increasingly on a
global level."
Bobbi Murray lives in Los Angeles and writes fre-
quently on labor and economic development
issues. Additional reporting by Megha Bahree.
says Orenstein. "There is a high degree of inconsistency in terms of
quality of casework and assessments, so what you get is extremes," he
says. "We also get complaints from foster parents saying the children
were abruptly removed from their homes for no reason. "
continued from page 19
with a private agency, St. Christopher's, Inc. St. Christopher's was
recently ranked third to last of private agencies and given a grade of
"needs improvement."
What's also clear is that the Office of Confidential Investigations
has a narrowly defined role: It tries to make sure kids don't stay in
unsafe situations. But it's not there to more fundamentally address the
systemic problems that keep its investigators busy. Asserting a need for
greater scrutiny, the Public Advocate's office maintains there should be
an independent inspector general to monitor foster care agencies;
Children's Rights made a similar recommendation in its report.
Orenstein is also a strong proponent of including families in the
assessment process. Children age 10 and older have the legal right to
be present when their cases are reviewed, but this rarely happens.
"We're at a crossroads with the foster care system," says Orenstein. The
city, about to cut the number of agencies, can take this opportunity to
assess caseworkers for quality of services. One way is by asking chil-
dren, parents and foster parents to participate in rating their workers.
When Coakley ended up at Lincoln, hospital personnel reported
their suspicions of child abuse, and the Office of Confidential Investi-
gation launched a probe of the Bronx foster home. The recommenda-
tion was that the foster mother should be trained in non-physical
methods of discipline. (In fact, St. Christopher's closed the home. Chris
Pardo, associate executive director of St. Christopher's, says his agency
fingerprinted adults in the home and cleared them, finding no prior
criminal history or other warning signs. The foster parent had 18 hours
of training, in accordance with policy at the time.)
The internal investigations office is not always this easy on foster par-
ents. It can also recommend that the children be removed and the home
closed-meaning that the foster parents are no longer eligible to care for
foster children. Much is left to the discretion of the individual workers,
42
Why doesn't the city already do this? One reason is that even though
ACS stresses family preservation as an agency priority, saving children
from their parenrs often remains the underlying ethos in practice. Until
the city succeeds in shifting the paradigm to preserving families, says
Orenstein, children will continue to enter an overburdened foster care
system that can't adequately protect them. "Until we can evolve a fun-
damentally different type of system," he says, "there are always going to
be these kind of problems."
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also available. For more infor-
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212-479-3345.
RENTALSPACE
SPACE AVAILABLE - 216 West 18th Street:
space is approximately 8.5 feet wide by 17 feet
long, includes 2 telephone lines and local
calls, local faxes, furniture, Tl line, office
amenities. $1200/month, 1 year lease, one
month security. (212) 741-2709 or
leslie.faerstein@musiciansoncall.org.
SPACE AVAILABLE - Broadway & 21st Fur-
nished office space within private office suite.
Perfect for small non-profit or independent
professionals. Amenities: conference room,
copy and fax, AC, utilities and cleaning. Con-
tact: Linda at 212-420-0570 ext. 100.
SPACE AVAILABLE - Broadway/36th-space in
renovated, semi-private office. Amenities: con-
ference room, copy and fax. reception, pantry,
AC, utilities, and cleaning. $750-$1450. Con-
tact: nyofficerental@policylink.org or call
Kaoula at 212-629-9570 ex.206
SPACE AVAIlABLE - Neighborhood Preservation
Center (NPC) offers the following to eligible orga-
nizations: Work station space - approximately
150/sq ft. Access to telephone, fax. Internet, pho-
tocopier, printer, and kitchen. Cost starts at
$250/month. Fee scale based on group's annual
budget and staff/VOlunteer size. Call Felicia at
212-228-2781 or email fmayro@nycnpc.org for
more information. TIW meeting rooms - for day,
evening, and weekend use. Combined meeting
space can accommodate up to 40 people, avail-
able by arrangement for modest fees.
Call Eric at 212 228 2781 or email
meeting-rooms@nycnpc.org for more informa-
tion. NPC is located in the East Village on 11th
Street bet 2ndl3rd Avenues. www.nycnpc.org
DECEMBER 2003
SPACE WANTED - The Center for Family
Representation seeks office space to share
or sublet in the downtown Manhattan/City
Hall area. The Center would like to share
reception area, waiting area, kitchen, con-
ference room, security and custodial ser-
vices, office machines and computer server.
5-6 private offices needed. Willing to nego-
tiate all shared costs. Available: January
2004. Contact: Selina Robinson 718-637-
6583 or email SRobinson@CFRNY.ORG
JOBADS
ACTIVITY SPECIALISTS - FEGS continues to
sets the standard for excellence and innova-
tion. We are the largest, not-for-profit health
related and human service corporation in the
US with an operating budget in excess of $170
million, over 3,000 employees, twelve sub-
sidiary corporations and operations in 280
facilities throughout the metropolitan New Yorll
Area. FEGS also provides consulting services
and technical assistance nationally and inter-
nationally. We are currently seeking experi -
enced applicants to join our TASC Program,
which is an after-school program, serving the
youth in Far Rockaway, Queens. Applicants
must be energetic, creative and have experi -
ence in an educational or community based
setting. All positions are part- time and require
HS/GED. Provide program support to ensure
participants receive educational and recre-
ational services. Facilitate group sessions
focused on specific areas: homeworll and
recreation activities such as arts/crafts,
music, and dance. FEGS offers a competitive
salary and benefits package. Please send by
mail or email a cover letter and resume, indi-
cating SPECIFIC POSITION of interest and
salary requirements, to our HR Consultants:
HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SSlECS), 161 William
Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York
10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E-mail
sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - Administrative
Assistant to assist Managing Director in daily
operations. Diverse responsibilities include: fol-
lowing long-term & short term projects to com-
pletion, faxing, filing & phones. Requirements
include: Masters Degree, similar prior worll
experience, multitasking, proficiency in MS
Office, high levels of organization, excellent
social skills & attention to detail & ability to
worll independently and follow direction. Comp.
Salary (in 40s) Comp. salary & exc. benefits.
Pis. Fax resume to: HIR @ (212) 534-8221.
ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT - The Harm
Reduction Coalition is hiring an Administrative
Assistant for its Training Institute. Duties
include data entry, database management,
phone, travel arrangements, copying, mailing,
participant registration, training coordination
and interfacing with clients. Must have strong
technical skills, initiative, team player, excel-
lent interpersonal skills. Experience in non-
profits desired, knowledge of drug use and
harm reduction a plus. Salary $25,000 -
$30,000. Start October 13. Fax resume to Don
McVinney at 212-213-6582.
ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR - Presti-
gious non-profit organization seeks part-time,
well-organized self-starter to join the Child
Health Forum in the Division of Health and Sci -
ence Policy. Excellent organizational & office
management skills, BAIBS degree req'd with
exp & demonstrated competence in MS Office,
WP, database, Web-literate w/good communi-
cation and interpersonal skills. Competitive
salary & excellent benefits. Send resume to:
Human Resources, The New Yorll Academy of
Medicine, 1216 Fifth Avenue, Box HSP, New
Yorl<.. NY 10029. EEO/M Employer. F: 212-534-
8691 E: hr@nyam.org
ADMINISTRATIVE COORDINATOR (FT}--{ESR)
National seeks experienced non-profit profes-
sional to administer finance systems, manage
its NYC office, provide executive assistance,
and coordinate program administration. ESR
is a leading national center for training, staff
development and curricular resources that
foster the social , emotional , and ethical devel-
opment of children. Qualifications: BA; 3-5
years experience as administrative coordina-
tor, office manager and/or executive assistant;
experience managing budgets using Excel ;
excellent computer, and verbal and written
communication skills; ability to manage mUl-
tiple tasks; interestlbackground in education
and social and emotional learning. Salary:
$33,000 - $38,500 plus excellent benefits.
Deadline for Applications: September 26. Apply
to: Administrative Coordinator Search Com-
mittee, ESR, 40 Exchange Place, Suite 1111,
New Yorll, NY 10005. Fax: 212-509-1095; e-
mail: projecUenewal@rccp.org. ESR recog-
nizes and appreciates the benefits of diversity
in the worllplace. EOE.
ADMINISTRATIVE DIRECTOR - The Public
Health Association of NYC (PHANYC) seeks
Administrative Director for management and
operations, including supporting the Board
and its Committees, maintaining membership,
financial records, conducting communica-
tions, and supporting events. Part-time 3
days/week. Beginning late fall, early winter.
The Administrative Director is the sole paid
staff, must be self- directed, well organized,
flexible, energetic. Must have excellent people,
communication skills. Candidates should have
demonstrated interest, experience and a mini-
mum of a bachelor's degree in public health,
non-profit or business administration.
PHANYC is a small nonprofit organization
seeking to strengthen and improve public
health in NYC. It operates through a volunteer
Board and Committees and is affiliated with
the American Public Health Association. Full
position description at www.phanyc.org. Sub-
mit letter of introduction and CV to Domenica
LoVerme at info@phanyc.org, fax: 212-245-
8738, phone: 212-974-8811.
ATHLETICS INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues to
sets the standard for excellence and innovation.
We are the largest, not-for-profit health related
and human service corporation in the US with
an operating budget in excess of $170 million,
over 3,000 employees, twelve subsidiary c0rpo-
rations and operations in 280 facilities through-
out the metropolitan New York Area. FEGS also
provides consulting services and technical
JOB ADS
assistance nationally and internationally. We
are currently seeking experienced applicants to
join our TASC Program, which is an after-school
program, serving the youth in Far Rockaway,
Queens. Applicants must be energetic, creative
and have experience in an educational or com-
munity based setting. All positions are part-
time and require HS/GED. Implement an athlet-
ic program for teens, train participants in the
rules and performance of a variety of sports,
ensure successful outcomes relating to team-
work and conflict mediation. FEGS offers a com-
petitive salary and benefits package. Please
send by mail or email a cover letter and resume,
indicating SPECIFlC POSmON of interest and
salary requirements, to our HR Consultants: HR
Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS), 161
William Street, 4th Floor, New Yorll, New York
10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E-mail
sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
BI-LiNGUAL CASE MANAGER - The Hunter
Center on AIDS, Drugs and Community Health
is seeking a highly motivated, responsible and
caring worker, bilingual fluenUbicultural
Spanish, to work with adolescent males at Rik-
ers Island and in the community at a partner
agency in an HIV prevention
intervention/research project. Must be com-
fortable facilitating groups, conducting
intakes, keeping careful notes. Must be able to
get DOC clearance and willing to travel. Expe-
rience with CJ, HIV prevention and
adolescents a plus. Please email your
resume to:jdaniels@hunter.cuny.edu or
huntercenter-jobs@yahoo.com, put CASE
MANAGER SEARCH in the subject line of your
email or via regular mail to: Hunter College -
CADCH, 425 East 25th Street, 8th floor, West
Bldg., New York, NY 10010. AnN: Case
Manger Search. NO FAXES OR PHONE CALLS
PLEASE. EOE.
CASE MANAGER - HELP USA, a nationally
recognized leader in the provisions of transi-
tional housing, residential & social services, is
seeking a CASE MANAGER. Great opportunity
for a professional to play an essential role in
helping families achieve permanent housing &
self-sufficiency. BA Degree, computer literacy
& case management experience required.
Bilingual skills (English/Spanish) highly desir-
able. Salary in the mid $20s & negotiable,
based on experience. Please send resumes to:
HELP I , Attn: Gena Watson, 515 Blake Ave,
Brooklyn, NY 11207 or faX: 718-485-5916.
EOE. A Drug Free Workplace.
CASE MANAGER - Our organization is seek-
ing a Case Manager with a Masters degree in
Social Work and significant experience provid-
ing a full range of Case Management and
concrete services (group and individual) to a
special needs population. You should have
familiarity with issues of substance abuse,
homeless ness, HIV/AIDS. This position
requires excellent computer skills in a Win-
dows environment. You will need to be com-
mitted and energetic and be able to commu-
nicate on a high level both in writing and oral-
ly. The compensation package is excellent as
is the worlling environment. Please respond
with a detailed cover letter and resume indi-
cating your salary requirements to: Bob
43
JOB ADS
Raphael , fax 718-602-9107.
CASE MANAGER - The Citizens Advice Bureau
(CAB) is a large, multi-service non-profit orga-
nization serving the Bronx for more than 31
years. The agency provides a broad range of
individual and family services, including walk-
in assistance and counseling, services to spe-
cial-needs populations, such as immigrants,
children, adolescents, seniors, homeless fami-
lies and singles, individuals and families
affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides excellent
benefits and offers opportunities for advance-
ment. Resumes and cover letters indicating
position of interest may be mailed to 2054
Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. CAB's Nelson Ave. Family Tier II Shel-
ter seeks a Case Manager. The position
requires a bachelor's degree in social work or
related field. Position also requires excellent
skills in welfare advocacy, communication,
time management, conflict resolutions and
knowledge of the foster care system. Bilingual
(Spanish) is a plus. Fax credentials to E. Neira
or B. Lewis at 718-299-1682 or e-mail it to
blewis@cab.org. CAB is an equal opportunity
laffirmative action employer.
CASE MANAGER - The Citizens Advice Bureau
(CAB) is a large, multi-service non-profit orga-
nization serving the Bronx for more than 31
years. The agency provides a broad range of
individual and family services, including walk-
in assistance and counseling, services to spe-
cial-needs populations, such as immigrants,
children, adolescents, seniors, homeless fami-
lies and singles, individual s and families
affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB provides excellent
benefits and offers opportunities for advance-
ment. Resumes and cover letters indicating
position of interest may be mailed to 2054
Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. CAB seeks a Case Manager to assist
individuals in a walk-in capacity on social ser-
vice needs. Responsibilities include working in
the Single Stop Project to assist individual's
access to public benefits, legal assistance,
family assistance services, and low or no-cost
tax preparation. The Single Stop Project seeks
to provide a wide range of services for families
in the area. The position requires a bachelor's
degree, and a broad knowledge base in social
services especially in the area of housing and
eviction prevention. Fax credentials to John
Weed at 718-590-5866 or email to
jweed@cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportuni-
ty laffirmative action employer.
CASE MANAGERS - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services, includ-
ing walk-in assistance and counseling, ser-
vices to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Homeless Prevention
Program seeks four (4) Case Managers. The
44
positions require a bachelor's degree, good
communication and organizational skills, and
the ability to work in a fast paced environment.
Knowledge of public entitlements and bilin-
gual English/Spanish is a plus. Fax credentials
to M. Edwards at 718-293-9767 or e-mail her
at medwards@cabny.org. CAB is an equal
opportunity laffirmative action employer.
CLIENT SERVICES COORDINATOR - Leading
advocacy and direct service organization has a
unique opportunity for an organized, client-
focused individual to be an integral part of its
inter-disciplinary team in our 24 hour multi-
service center for frail , older homeless individ-
uals. Assist with initial client screenings and
referrals and oversee general day-to-day facil-
ity operations, including ensuring compliance
of center's policies, and supervision of some
front line staff. The Client Services Coordinator
will interact with clients on a regular basis and
manage multiple tasks in a busy environment.
Direct social service experience required, bi-
lingual a plus. We offer excellent salary and
benefits. Work schedule is Saturday - Wednes-
day, 4 p.m. to midnight. Send resume and
cover letter to: Human Resources Rep. , The
Partnership for the Homeless, 305 Seventh
Ave. NY NY 10001. AAlEOE M/FIDN/sO
CLINICAl COORDINATOR - The Clinical Coor-
dinator is responsible for the supervision and
direct oversight of Vocational Counselors in
employment program that serves mentally ill,
former substance abusers, those with HIVIAIDS
and individuals with other disabilities living in
supportive housing. This position has signifi-
cant decision-making, supervisory, adminis-
trative, and program management responsi-
bilities. Inter- team coordination and contract,
regulatory and policy compliance are key func-
lions to this position. Reqs: CSW. A minimum
of 3 years post-masters direct experience with
population(s) served by the program including
administrative and supervisory experience;
strong writing and verbal communication
skills, and computer literacy. Salary: $46,459.
Benefits: compo bnlts incl $65/month in tran-
sit checks. Send resumes and cover letters by
9/29/03 to: Carlene Scheel, CUCs/Career Net-
work, c/o The Prince George14 E. 28th Street,
New York, NY 10016. Fax: 212-471- 0790,
Email: cnhire@cucs.org. CUCS is committed to
workforce diversity. EEO
CLINICAL SOCIAl. WORKER - HELP USA, a
nationally recognized leader in the provisions of
transitional housing, residential & social services,
has a position avail for a Clinical Social Worker. As
part of the interdisciplinary team, the Clinician
will provide assessment, short & long term coun-
seling, as well as crisis intervention for families &
groups, including children, who reside in a shelter
for survivors of domestic violence & their families.
Will also facilitate referrals for services to support
those offered on- site & to continue with post
placement. Requirements: MSW or related degree
will only be considered. Excellent oral communica-
tion skills as well as clinical skills are necessary.
Proficiency in computers & Windows based soft-
ware required. Bilingual skills (English/Spanish)
are highly preferred. NYS driver'S license (unre-
stricted) also necessary. Salary: starts in the low to
mid $30s but commensurate with experience.
Please send resumes to: Ted McCourtney,
Team Leader, PO Box 641, NY, NY
10037, via fax at 212-862-4376 or email:
tmccourtney@helpusa.org. EOE. A drug free
workplace.
COMMUNITY AFFAIRS & E-ADVOCACY COOR-
DINATOR - Yes, Planned Parenthood! PPNYC
is currently recruiting for a Community Affairs
& e-Advocacy Coordinator. Reporting to the
Associate Vice President, the Coordinator will
be responsible for mobilizing people both in
communities throughout New York City and
within PPNYC to support and secure full access
to reproductive freedom and sexual health.
Identifies key constituencies and develops and
carries out mobilizing strategies. Works closely
with other staff members to coordinate activist
recruitment, retention and activation efforts in
line with agency lobbying and legislative goals.
Works closely with other departments to lever-
age agency resources in support of grassroots
advocacy goals. Trains current and potential
activists, mentors other organizations, and
coordinates lobbying events. Recruits and
retains activists through diverse activities,
including strategic use of the PPNYC GetAc-
tiveAction Network on-line communication sys-
tem, tabling at various outside events, speak-
ing to community and campus groups, and
direct mailings. Develops recruitment and
retention materials, including regular activist
updates. Plans and executes outreach, educa-
tion and appreciation events, leveraging
agency and community resources. Bachelor'S
degree and 2 - 3 years of related and/or applic-
able experience. The ideal candidate must
have strong speaking, writing, organizational
and people skills. He or she must be able to
work effectively in coalitions and with econom-
ically diverse communities. Must have working
knowledge of on-line advocacy systems. Must
have knowledge offend demonstrated commit-
ment to reproductive health care issues. Inter-
ested candidates should submit their resume
and cover letter with salary requirement to:
Human Resources Department - Fax 212-274-
7243 or Email resume@ppnyc.org. Planned
Parenthood of New York City, Inc. is an Equal
Opportunity Employer committed to a diverse
workforce. For more information on our pro-
grams and services, please visit our website at
www.ppnyc.org.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPER - Direct a three tier
Community Service Program that provides
emergency food, clothing, and advocacy assis-
tance. Manage multiple funding sources:
(FEMA, HPNAP, EFAP). Responsible for commu-
nity outreach and relations and establishing
agency networks. Organize advocacy efforts
with staff, other community based organiza-
tions, community members, and elected offi-
cials. Supervise Site Coordinator and Ameri-
corps Volunteer. Coordinate special projects:
Community-wide ElTC assistance. Lead grass-
roots community organizing parent and teen
advocacy group (ATAG). Design and provide
workshops to community residents: Health
Care, Housing, Subsidy Education for land-
lords, and Becoming a Family Childcare
Provider. Attend frequent evening and daytime
community 1 citywide meetings and events.
Contact jjfrancois@cflsp.org or FAX to J. Jean-
Francois at 718-788-2275.
COMMUNITY FOUOW-UP WORKER - The Cit-
izens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-
service non-profit organization serving the
Bronx for more than 31 years. The agency pro-
vides a broad range of individual and family
services, including walk-in assistance and
counseling, services to special-needs popula-
tions, such as immigrants, children, adoles-
cents, seniors, homeless families and singles,
individuals and families affected by HIVIAIDS.
CAB provides excellent benefits and offers
opportunities for advancement. Resumes and
cover letters indicating position of interest may
be mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453,
or faxed as directed. CAB's COBRA Program
seeks a Community Follow-Up Worker to work
as part of an intensive case management
team working with HIV positive individuals and
their families. Responsibilities include home,
office, and field visits, filing, and writing
progress notes. The position requires good
organizational skills. Bilingual English/Span-
ish is a plus. Fax credentials to J. Smith-Houk
at 718-293-9767 or e-mail her at
jsmith@cabnY.org. CAB is an equal opportuni-
ty laffirmative action employer.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - St. Nicholas
Neighborhood Preservation Corporation seeks
an Organizer to staff the Wiliiamsburg!Green-
point Co-op Network, a peer support network
for limited equity (low-income) co-op residents
in Williamsburg! Greenpoint. Knowledge of
Housing Development Fund Coop manage-
ment, governing documents and organization-
al structure good written and verbal communi-
cations skills, HS diploma or GED required.
Organizing and/or training experience, spoken
Spanish, and some college desirable. Salary
commensurate with experience and excellent
benefits package. Fax resume to Alison Cordero
at 718-486-5982 or e-mail to
acordero@stnicksnpc.com.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Children and Youth
Department seeks a Community Organizer. The
position requires a bachelor's degree. Experi-
ence in organizing preferred. Responsibilities
include recruitment of parents in the commu-
nity, facilitation of committees and their work,
developing campaigns around school issues,
and making educational information accessi-
ble to parents and the community. Fax creden-
tials to R. Parithivel at 718-590-5866 or e-
mail her at rparithivel@cabny.org. CAB is an
equal opportunity laffirmative action employer.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - This is a full-time
CITY LIMITS
position responsible for organizing CUCS staff
and consumers to influence public policies that
affect the CUCS community. The Community
Organizer is an agency-wide position that works
with all of the CUCS service sites including two
transitional service programs and nine perma-
nent supportive housing programs. Resp: Coor-
dinate and provide administrative support to
the CUCS Advocacy Committee. Develop tenant
and staff leadership. Plan advocacy- related
events and activities. Coordinate voter registra-
tion/education/get out the vote efforts. Prepare
summaries, updates and correspondences on
policy issues. Develop and maintain systems for
the efficient dissemination of information
throughout the organization. Represent the
agency at various community meetings. Serve
as a resource on public policy issues. Reqs:
Bachelor degree. Experience in advocacy andlor
community organizing. Minimum of two years
experience working with people who have expe-
rienced homelessness, mental illness, or HIV
disease. Excellent verbal and written communi-
cation skills-public speaking experience helpful.
Computer literacy and strong organizational
skills. Supervisory experience preferred. Bene-
fits: compo bnfts incl $65/month in transit
checks. Send resumes and cover letters by
9126/03 to: Vuka Stricevic, CUCs/Housing
Resource Center, 120 Wall St. 251FL, New York,
NY 10005. Fax: 212-635-2191. CUCS is com-
mitted to workforce diversity. EEO
COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER - Sylvan
Education Solutions is seeking a Community
Relations Manager for our No Child Left Behind
supplemental tutoring programs in New York
City. Responsibilities include promoting pro-
grams to parents of eligible children, develop-
ing relationships between Sylvan and key com-
munity leaders and organizations and estab-
lishing a network of school sites, community
sites and faith-based sites as appropriate for
the delivery of Sylvan's programs. For more
information and to apply, please visit Careers
in our K-12 Education Services section at
www.sylvan.net. EEO
COMPUTER INSTlIUCTOR - FEGS continues to
sets the standard for excellence and innovation.
We are the largest, not-for-profit health related
and human service corporation in the US with
an operating budget in excess of $160 million,
over 3,000 employees, twelve subsidiary corpo-
rations and operations in 280 facilities through-
out the metropolitan New York Area. FEGS also
provides consulting services and technical
assistance nationally and internationally. We
are currently seeking experienced instructors to
join our Career Development Institute serving
youth in the Bronx. Responsible for instructing
students on usage of personal computers utiliz-
ing various Windows-based software and facil-
itating on-line remedial education programs.
Bachelors in Computer Technology or related
field preferred. Prior experience working in a
computer lab or other educational setting
required. FEGS offers a competitive salary and
benefits package. Please send by mail or email
a cover letter, indicating salary requirements,
with your resume to our HR Consultants: HR
Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS), 161 William
Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York 10038. E-
mail sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
DECEMBER 2003
CONTROUER - The Controller will serve as
the financial executive responsible for AAFE
and its affiliates' financial , reporting and
internal control systems. The Controller wi ll
report directly to the Executive Director and will
be responsible to the Board of Directors for the
timely and accurate production of financial
statements. Please view full job description at
www.aafe.org.
COORDINATOR - Full limelPart lime After
School program based in school. Recruit, train,
supervise staff, program development. Work
closely with school administration and parents.
Bachelor's degree and previous administrative
experience preferred. Fax resume to 914-963-
4566 Attention: After School Coordinator
COORDINATOR OF ADULT EDUCATION
Responsibilities include: recruit students;
design curricula; teach English, Spanish, com-
puter literacy and GED classes; supervise pro-
ject staff; fundraising. Salary based on experi -
ence, generous benefits. Bi-lingual
EnglishlSpanish a must. Adult education and
organizing experience preferred. Email/fax
resume and cover letter to Andrew Friedman:
Andrew@maketheroad.org or 718-418-9635.
DANCE INSTRUCTOR - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, mUlti-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individual s
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni -
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Families Together
Program seeks a part-time Dancer. Responsi-
bilities include teaching and providing dance
instruction to program participants. Fax cre-
dentials to F. Thomas at 718-716-1065 or e-
mail her at fthomas@cabny.org. CAB is an
equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.
DANCE INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues to
sets the standard for excellence and innova-
tion. We are the largest, not-for-profit health
related and human service corporation in the
US with an operating budget in excess of $170
million, over 3,000 employees, twelve sub-
sidiary corporations and operations in 280
faci lities throughout the metropolitan New York
Area. FEGS also provides consulting services
and technical assistance nationally and inter-
nationally. We are currently seeking experi-
enced applicants to join our TASC Program,
which is an after-school program, serving the
youth in Far Rockaway, Queens. Appl icants
must be energetic, creative and have experi-
ence in an educational or community based
setting. All positions are part- time and require
HS/GED. Teach African dance, ballet andlor
modern dance. Experience organizing
shows/recitals is mandatory. FEGS offers a
competitive salary and benefits package.
Please send by mail or email a cover letter and
resume, indicating SPECIFIC POSITION of inter-
est and salary requirements, to our HR Consul-
tants: HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept. SS/ECS) , 161
Will iam Street, 4th Floor, New York, New York
10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E-mail
sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
DATABASE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER - Man-
age development/maintenance of database
applications; Supervise programming staff;
Provide programming support especially
implementing Team Approach fundraising sys-
tem; Design databases to facilitate other
departments' work; Software application train-
ing. Bachelor degree in Computer Science; Five
years relevant experience; Full project cycle
management experience in database develop-
ment; Experience with Oracle, SOL query lan-
guage; Supervision experience. letter of inter-
est, resume, salary requirements to AClU
Human Resources-DDMIIT, 125 Broad Street,
18th Floor, New York, NY 10004.
DATA-ENTRY PROFESSIONAL - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals and
families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides
excellent benefits and offers opportunities for
advancement. Resumes and cover letters indi-
cating position of interest may be mailed to
2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. CAB's Positive Uving Program seeks a
Data-entry Professional. The position requires
GEDIHS Diploma and must have excellent com-
munication skills and at least one year of data
entry andlor secretarial experience. Bilingual
of Spanish is a plus. Fax credentials to R.
Bowens at 718-716-1065 or e-mail it to her at
rbowens@cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportu-
nity /affirmative action employer.
DAY CARE DIRECTOR - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Community Center
seeks a Day Care Director. The position
requires a Master's degree in early childhood
education with a minimum of 2 years of super-
visory experience licensed by the NYC Board of
Education or certified by the NYS Education
Department as a teacher in early childhood
education. Responsibil ities include operation
of the learning center, supervision of staff,
staff training, classroom activity preparation,
enroll ment procedures, and fiscal manage-
ment. Candidates must possess knowledge of
day care routines and policies and have strong
organizational , writing and verbal skills. Fax
JOBADS
credentials to J.Weed at 718-590-5866 or e-
mail her at jweed@cabny.org. CAB is an equal
opportunity /affirmative action employer.
DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals and
families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides
excellent benefits and offers opportunities for
advancement. Resumes and cover letters indi-
cating position of interest may be mailed to
2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB)
seeks a Department Director for Children &
Youth Services. Incumbent oversees programs
serving over 1,000 children and teens in com-
munity center and school-based locations. CAB
operates several after school , summer camp
and adolescent development programs, includ-
ing tutoring programs and a parent organizing
project, sponsorship of a small public high
school. Incumbent supervises four program
directors, who supervise ten program coordina-
tors. Responsible for program development,
supervision, fund raising, staff development,
monitoring income and expenses, and contract
management. Requires Masters degree, five
years experience supervising large programs,
budget management and grant writing experi-
ence, knowledge of youth development issues,
background in education, understanding of
program and staff development, and excellent
communication skills. Competitive salary.
Resume, cover letter & salary history to Karen
Courtney at 2054 Morris Avenue, Bronx NY
10453, fax 718-365-0697, or e-mail
kcourtney@cabny.org. No calls. CAB is an
equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE - Award winning
supportive housing program in downtown
Brooklyn seeks Development Professional.
Responsible for expanding base of private giv-
ing; working with volunteers to develop special
events; developing marketing plan including
newsletter and annual appeal ; preparing pro-
motional materials. Report to Executive Direc-
tor. Send cover letter including salary history,
writing sample, and resume to Human
Resources, Fax: 718-625-0635
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE - The New Press,
an award-winning not-for-profit book publish-
er, seeks a full-time Development Associate to
support the Press's fundraising efforts with
foundations and individual donors. Responsi -
bilities include: Assembling and some drafting
of grant proposal s; Tracking all grants and
grant payments, renewals, etc.; Maintaining
updated accounting of all grant income; Track-
ing and drafting grant reports; Coordinating
special events, including managing invita-
tions, guest lists, catering, rentals, follow-up
correspondence, and collections; Keeping
development minutes, tracking foundation
contacts; Managing all foundation-related
documents & database files; Conducting foun-
dation-related research; Coordinating all
45
JOBADS
development-related book mailings; Drafting
and mailing annual report; Managing mailings
and contacts database of the Press's sub-
scription program; Serving as point person for
interaction with foundations and individual
donors. Previous fund raising experience in a
not-for-profit setting required. Position
requires excellent verbal and writing skills,
diplomacy, attention to detail, pro-activeness,
discretion, high energy level. Minority
applicants are strongly encouraged to
apply. Please submit resumes to
newpress@thenewpress.com
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR - North Star Fund
(NSF: www.northstarfund.org), a progressive
foundation, seeks dynamic fundraiser to sup-
port grassroots, social justice activism in NYC.
The D.O. must provide vision/strong leadership
to: create and implement annual fund raising
plans; expand NSF donor base; manage
events, among other tasks. Qualifications: Pro-
gressive values, 3 to 5 years fund raising expe-
rience in non-profits, or culture/arts, excellent
written/oral communication skills. Compensa-
tion: 40- 45k including an excellent benefits
package. To Apply: Cover letter and resume to
NSF/ 305 7th Ave, 5th FI / N.Y., N.Y. 10001. Or,
e-mail ddsearch@northstarfund.org, "Devel-
opment Director Candidate" in subject line.
DIRECTOR - The Correctional Association
seeks a committed activist to lead its Women
in Prison Project. Duties include developing
and initiating advocacy strategies: organizing
a coalition of organization and individuals
concerned with women in prison issues; and
preparing public education materials. The
successful candidate must be able to do
research and policy analysis and write clearly
and concisely. Compensation including salary
commensurate with experience plus excellent
benefits. Interested persons should send writ-
ing samples and a resume to Robert Gangi,
Correctional Association, Attn: WIPP Search,
135 East 15th Street, New York, NY 10003
DIRECTOR OF ADULT SERVICES - Responsi-
ble for management, administrative oversight,
supervision and coordination of existing and
future shelters/programs for adult popula-
tions. Responsibilities include direct supervi-
sion of program directors, grant writing, fiscal
administration and community relations.
Experience in program service forthe homeless
and multi-site administration necessary.
MAIMS degree, computer literacy and excellent
communication skills a must. Sal $68+ bene-
fits. Fax 212-337-7279 or e-mail resumes to
patricia_delouisa@use.salvationarmy.org. NO
PHONE CALLS.
DIRECTOR OF CONSTITUENT SERVICES -
Seeking staffer to address local issues, build
relationships with local organizations and
leaders, liaison to agencies, manage con-
stituent services. Need high energy, attention
to detail. Experience and knowledge of Brook-
lyn helpful. Salary DOE. Women, people of color
urged to apply. Email cover letter and resume
to peter.colavito@council.nyc.ny.us or fax 718-
854-1146
DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT - Astraea Les-
46
bian Foundation for Justice seeks a Director of
Development. The Director of Development will
oversee all fundraising activities, member ser-
vices and philanthropic education and advo-
cacy programs. Salary is commensurate with
experience. Excellent pension, vacation and
health benefits. For details please visit
www.astraeafoundation.org. Mail, e-mail
(please include resume in body of e-mail) or
fax a cover letter and resume to: Laura Miller,
Assistant to the Executive Director at
the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.
116 E 16th Street, 7th Floor, New York,
NY 10003/fax 212-982-33211e-mail :
Imiller@astraeafoundation.org. No phone
calls, please. Only applicants being considered
wi II be contacted.
DIRECTOR, AFFILIATE DIVERSITY AND MAN-
AGEMENT SERVICES - Working with 53 affil -
iates, Provide leadership for Executive Direc-
tors and Affirmative Action Officers to ensure
compliance with ACLU's internal affirmative
action policy; Initiate programs to enhance
goals of diversity; Evaluate development of
internal affirmative action policies; Assess
annual affirmative action reports; Serve as
Chair of ACLU's Diversity Working Group; Main-
tain Staff Recruitment Resource Manual.
Advanced degree; 8 years experience at a
senior management level with focus in finan-
cial management, human resources; Experi-
ence preparing financial analyses. Letter of
interest and resume to ASD Dir D&M Svcs, 125
Broad Street 18th FI., New York, NY 10004.
DIRECTOR, AFFILIATE MARKETING AND COM-
MUNICATIONS - Working with 53 affiliate
chapters to identify opportunities for promo-
tion; Develop marketing programs accordingly;
Enhance communication between affiliates
and national office; Oversee affiliate events;
Create written promotional materials for adap-
tation; Provide marketing for national events;
Conduct site visits. College degree, 8 years of
marketing, communications, public relations
experience. Superior writing skills, knowledge
of web-based communications; experience
managing major events. Letter of interest,
resume to ASD Dir M&C, 125 Broad Street 18th
FI. , New York, NY 10004.
EMPLOYMENT COORDINATOR - The South-
west Brooklyn Industrial Development Corpora-
tion - a Brooklyn-based, industrial economic
development organization, seeks a qualified,
motivated individual to work as its Employ-
ment Coordinator. The Employment Coordina-
tor will implement SWBIDC's employment ser-
vices program, designed to link individuals in
the neighborhood to jobs in the industrial park.
Fax or mail cover letter, resume and salary
requirements by October 17 to Employment
Coordinator Search, SWBIDC, 269 37th Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11232. Fax: 718-965-4906. See
www.swbidc.org for job description.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - GIRLS INCORPORAT-
ED OF NEW YORK CITY, an independent affili-
ate of Girls Incorporated, seeks a new Execu-
tive Director. Incorporated in 1999, its mission
is to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and
bold and its primary emphasis is reaching the
underserved girls of NYC ages 6-18 through
direct service programs and partnerships. The
Executive Director reports to a self-perpetuat-
ing Board of Directors; currently ten staff
members report to the Executive Director. Suc-
cessful candidates will demonstrate experi-
ence in managing planning and implementa-
tion, in working with New York City's non-prof-
its, youth organizations, corporate and govern-
ment partnerships and political advocacy net-
works, in major donor fundraising and in
understanding the needs of the underserved
as well as people in all stations in life. Highly
valued personal attributes include a collabora-
tive leadership style, effective communication
skills, energy and an entrepreneurial spirit and
a sense of humor. Qualified appl icants should
send a cover letter, resume and a list of refer-
ences to: Leah S. Rhys; Resource Group 175;
236 Mississippi Avenue; Sewanee, TN. 37375.
Email: Irhys@rg175.com; Fax: 931-598-9786.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - The Coalition for
Asian American Children and Families (CACF)
is an advocacy organization that speaks out
for underserved Asian American children in
New York City. CACF is seeking a full-time
Executive Director to lead the organization into
a new phase of growth. Responsibilities
include: fundraising, financial management,
public relations, research and information
gathering, program planning, evaluation,
coalition building, and government relations.
The ideal candidate will be passionate about
CACF's mission; knowledgeable about Asian
American communities; and experienced in
fund raising, public policy and nonprofit man-
agement. The candidate should have a Mas-
ters degree in a relevant field; have demon-
strable leadership experience; and reputability
in the nonprofit sector, Asian American com-
munity and/or child advocacy world. Salary is
commensurate with experience. Interested
candidates should send resume and cover let-
ter with salary history and requirements via e-
mail ASAP to search@cac/.org. No phone calls,
please. For further information, please visit our
website at www.cacf.org.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR/CEO - Tucson Al.: Pri-
mavera Foundation, broadly-respected non-
profit providing a continuum of affordable
housing ranging from homeownership/ afford-
able rental to emergency housing! relief ser-
vices for the poor, seeks talented CEO to
expand rental opportunities while sustaining
the corporation's position of community lead-
ership, advocacy & service following a merger
with Primavera Builders & Primavera Services.
60-person staff; 9 facilities; 5.lM
budget. EOE Fax 520-623-6434 OR E-mail
admin@primavera.org Detail at
http://www.nonprofitjobs.org
FAMILY WORKER - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services, includ-
ing walk-in assistance and counseling, ser-
vices to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals and
families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB provides
excellent benefits and offers opportunities for
advancement. Resumes and cover letters indi-
cating position of interest may be mailed to
2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. CAB's CAPS Program seeks a Family
Worker. Responsibilities include working with
students that have a history of absenteeism,
calling students homes, communicating with
parents about the students future, and con-
ducting home visits. Other responsibilities
include providing ongoing counseling with stu-
dents and family members, reporting to school
personnel, and participating in meetings. Fax
credentials to J. Weed at 718-590-5866 or e-
mail him at jweed@cabny.org. CAB is an equal
opportunity /affirmative action employer.
FIELD ACCOUNTANT - The Field Accountant
prepares accounting and financial reports and
assists in ensuring accurate accounting sys-
tems and record keeping. He/she will be
responsible for preparing journal entries,
expense vouchers, bank reconciliations, and
conducting internal control audits. Reqs: BA in
Accounting, Business Administration, Finance
or related field. Minimum of three years of
direct experience in the areas of accounting,
budgeting, or finance in not -for-profit. An Asso-
ciates degree + 3 years of experience may be
substituted for the Bachelors degree. Demon-
strated skill in, and experience with, account-
ing software (American Fundware a plus) as
well as database and spreadsheet software.
Strong customer service and interpersonal
skills required. Salary: $38,799. Benefits:
compo bnfts incl $65/month in transit checks.
Send resumes and cover letters by 9129/03 to:
David Rivera, CUCS Administrative Offices, 120
Wall St. 251FL, New York, NY 10005. CUCS is
committed to workforce diversity. EEO
FINANCE MANAGER - The Amethyst Women's
Project is a rapidly growing nonprofit providing
crisis intervention and prevention services in
Coney Island for people with HIVIAIDS and sub-
stance abuse. The Finance Manager will report
to the Executive Director, developing the bud-
get, implement fiscal systems, manage and
process all financial activities including
accounting and contract management, devel-
op and implement internal controls, fiscal poli-
cies and procedures, coordinate annual and
regulatory audits and provide regular financial
reports to the Executive Director, the board and
funders. The position will also oversee IT and
perform administrative and human resource
management functions. The ideal candidate
will have a BA in Finance or Accounting, 6
years progressively responsible nonprofit
accounting and management experience, pro-
ficiency in nonprofit accounting software,
preferably FUND-EZ and excellent written and
oral communication skills. Salary: Up to
$55,000+ benefits, depending on qualifica-
tions. Send resume and cover letter to: Search,
CRE, 39 Broadway, 10th floor, NY, NY 10006.
Fax: 212-616-4994 or Ihackett@crenyc.org.
FINANCE/ACCOUNTING - Large not-for-profit
seeks individuals with the following finan-
ciaVaccounting experience at all levels: HUD
section 8, HUD section 8 202, Knowledge of
CAMS, HUD regulatory reporting, Budgeting,
Financial reporting. Send resume to: WA BOX
N-249, 555 Kinderkamack Road, Oradell, NJ
CITY LIMITS
07649. EOElAA.
FISCAL DIRECTDR - Non-profit social service
agency in Southern Weschester, $4 million bud-
get. Fund Accounting experience, supervisory
experience and a related degree required. Com-
puter literacy a must. Salary negotiable - range
$65 - $70's. Resume to: Fiscal Search, PO Box
1248, Yonkers, NY 10702 Fax: 914-963-4566.
FRDNT DESK STAFF - Affordable Housing.
Community-based non- profit housing organi-
zation seeks weekday/weekend on-call front
desk staff, various locations in west midtown
for all shifts. Answer phones; control building
access, type letters, data entry, filling; Com-
puter Skills A Must (MS OFFICE). Fax resume to
212-582-9029.
FUNDRAISING DATABASE MANAGER, DEVELOP-
MENT DEPARTMENT - Oversee record keeping
for top donors!high dollar gifts; Create quality
control reports; Generate donors' information for
solicitation/reporting; Develop coding logic to
track information; Supervise processing staff.
Three years experience administering fundrais-
ing databases; Experience creating queries;
Knowledge of Microsoft Word mail merge; Profi-
ciency Excel and Outlook; Attention to detai l.
Letter of interest, resume to Director of Develop-
ment, Fundraising Database Manager 125
Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004.
GYMNASTIC INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues
to sets the standard for excellence and innova-
tion. We are the largest, not-for-profit health
related and human service corporation in the
US with an operating budget in excess of $170
million, over 3,000 employees, twelve sub-
sidiary corporations and operations in 280
facilities throughout the metropolitan New York
Area. FEGS also provides consulting services
and technical assistance nationally and inter-
nationally. We are currently seeking experi-
enced applicants to join our TASC Program,
which is an after-school program, serving the
youth in Far Rockaway, Queens. Applicants
must be energetic, creative and have experi-
ence in an educational or community based
setting. All positions are part- time and require
HS/GED. Develop and implement a gymnastics
program. Familiar with USGA sanctioned com-
petition routines, appropriate spotting tech-
niques and skill development. Experience as a
physical education instructor, competing gym-
nast or a certified gymnastics coach. FEGS
offers a competitive salary and benefits pack-
age. Please send by mail or email a cover let-
ter and resume, indicating specific position of
interest and salary requirements, to our HR
ConSUltants: HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept.
SS/ECS) , 161 William Street, 4th Floor, New
York, New York 10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E-
mail sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
HOMEOWNERSHIP COUNSELOR - Bridge
Street Development Corporation, a faith-based
community development corporation seeks a
highly-motivated homeownership counselor
and marketing coordinator. S/he will market
and sell newly constructed and renovated 2to4
family homes, assist in mortgage prequalifica-
tion, train groups on topics such as financial
readiness for homeownership and mortgage
DECEMBER 2003
products, and participate in programs and
events to reduce "predatory lending." Qualifi-
cations: BS/BA, 2 years experience in home-
ownership counseling or sales; superior com-
munication skills; solid quantitative and ana-
lytical skills, and Word, Excel and Access pro-
ficiency. Salary: Commensurate with experi-
ence. Forward resume and cover letter and
salary requirements to: Bridge Street Develop-
ment Corporation, 266 Stuyvesant Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11221 Attn: Homeownership
Counselor Search Fax: 718-573-6874. E-mail:
plucius@bsdcorp.org.
HOUSE MANAGER - Housing works, an innov-
ative non-profit agency is seeking a prof'! to
work for client-centered supportive housing
facilities serving special needs population. We
are a NYC community-based non-profit org &
desires employees committed to quality service
and advocacy, able to exercise good judgment
in problem solving and thrive in a stressful and
active team environment. Requirements
include college degree, specialized certifica-
tions or equivalent 5+ yrs in residential man-
agement and hands-on exp property adminis-
tration, including rent collection & leasing.
Individual must have knowledge of Federal ,
State and local sources of rental subsidy,
multi-family property procedures and regula-
tions, proficiency in Microsoft Office, Bilingual
capability and excellent communications skills
are highly desirable. Must be able to work flex-
ible hrs if needed. Duties & Responsibilities: -
Responsible for the safe management and
daily operation of the residence. - Supervises
residential staff (5-7 people) and assists with
training - Insure adherence to administrative
and regulatory requirements - Work coopera-
tively with clinical program staff and executive
director - Respond to emergency situations out-
side normal business hours. We offer a com-
petitive compensation package. Please send
resume, cover letter with list of major profes-
sional accomplishments, & salary history, in
confidence to: FAX: House Manager, GA, 212-
868-4222, Email: resumes@housingworks.org.
HOUSING SPECIALIST - HELP USA, a national-
ly recognized leader in the provisions of transi-
tional housing, residential & social services, is
seeking a Housing Specialist to assist families
in securing permanent housing. Real estate
and/or government low income housing, leasing
negotiation skills & experience required. Bache-
lors Degree preferred. Must have a valid drivers
license. Bilingual skills (English/Spanish) high-
ly desirable. Salary in the low to mid $20s &
based on experience. Please send resumes to:
HELP I, Attn: Gena Watson, 515 Blake Ave,
Brooklyn, NY 11207 orfax: 718-485-5916. EOE.
A Drug Free Workplace.
HOUSING STABILIZATION CASE MANAGER -
Help Yonkers' tenants with history of housing
crises to devise/implement plans to stabilize
their households and improve self-sufficiency;
assist agency's paralegal and tenant organiz-
er in eviction prevention cases; use data base
to track clients' progress and make reports to
funders. Send cover letter and resume to 914-
376-1336.
INDEPENDENT LIVING CASE MANAGER - Bronx
Supported Housing Residence seeks case man-
ager experienced in working with special needs
populations. Member of support services team
with responsibilities of caseload, group work,
and service planning in collaboration with
clients. Must have Masters degree in social work,
psychology, counseling, or public health. Track
record in substance abuse and HIV preferred;
excellent listening and communication skills;
patience; energy; computer proficiency. Salary
40K+ commensurate with experience. EOE. Fax
cover letter and resume: 718-508-3013.
INTAKE SPECIALIST - Multi-service agency
for people with disabilities seeking bilingual
(EngJSp.) intake worker. Must be empathetic
w/ good communication skills. Quick learner.
Knowledge of Access preferred but not neces-
sary. Salary $23-$26k. Good benefits.
Resumes to jfpep@sinergiany.org or fax to
212-496-5608, Attn. Joscelyne.
LEGAL ADVOCATE - UJC's Homelessness Out-
reach and Prevention Project seeks a legal
advocate to run one of our legal clinics, where
JOBADS
we provide advice, referrals, advocacy, and
representation for low-income New Yorkers.
College degree, strong written/verbal commu-
nication and organizational/administrative
skills, and endless patience are essential.
Spanish or Mandarin and/or Cantonese fluen-
cy (or at least aptitude) are very helpful. Sub-
mit cover letter detailing public interest expe-
rience/interest, resume, and references by
10/15/03 to HOPP Advocate Search, 666
Broadway, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10012.
Salary commensurate with experience; gener-
ous vacation, full medicaVdental benefits.
LEGISLATIVE-COMMUNITY AIDE - Communi-
ty Liaison for State Assemblywoman. Seek
bright, literate, articulate college grad for con-
stituent work, correspondence, community out-
reach and representation in exciting multi-cul-
tural district. Must have car. Fax cover letter,
resume, writing sample to 718-266-5391.
MAJOR GIFTS OFFICER - Astraea Lesbian
Foundation for Justice seeks a Major Gifts offi-
cer. The Major Gifts Officer, who reports to the
- PRO F E S S ION A L D IRE C TOR y-
SPECIALIZING IN REAL ESTATE
J-51 Tax Abatement/Exemption 421A and 421B
Applications 501 (c) (3) Federal Tax Exemptions All forms
of government-assisted housing, including USC/Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Eastchester, N.Y.
Phone: (914) 395-0871
.JULIA REICH GRAPHIC DESIGN
212.721.9764
.J REI CH 2@EARTHLINK.NET
WWW.CREATIVEHOTLIST.COM/ .J REICH
ADS, ANNUAL REPORTS, aOOK DESIGN, BROCHURES, CATALOGS,
OFFICE SPACE PROBLEMS?
lI.WId
CS1
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(845) 566-1267
Expert Real Estate Services - once
available only to major corporations and
institutions -
Now offered to NYC's Non-Profits ...
at no outof.pocket cost,
or at specially reduced rates.
Visit our web site: www.npspace.com
Call for a free, no-obligation consultation.
www.npspace.com
47
JOB ADS
Director of Development and works closely with
the Executive Director and a national Board of
Directors, will lead Astraea's major gift and
planned giving programs. Salary is commen-
surate with experience. Excellent pension,
vacation and health benefits. For details
please visit www.astraeafoundation.org. Mail.
e-mail (please include resume in body of e-
mail) or fax a cover letter and resume to: laura
Miller, Assistant to the Executive Director at the
Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice. 116 E
16th Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003/fax
212-982-3321/e-mail: Imiller@astraeafoun-
dation.org. No phone calls, please. Only appli-
cants being considered will be contacted.
MUSIC INSTRUCTORS - FEGS continues to
sets the standard for excellence and innova-
tion. We are the largest. not-for-profit health
related and human service corporation in the
US with an operating budget in excess of $170
million, over 3,000 employees, twelve sub-
sidiary corporations and operations in 280
facilities throughout the metropolitan New York
Area. FEGS also provides consulting services
and technical assistance nationally and inter-
nationally. We are currently seeking experi-
enced applicants to join our TASC Program,
which is an after-school program, serving the
youth in Far Rockaway, Queens. Applicants
must be energetic, creative and have experi-
ence in an educational or community based
setting. All positions are part- time and require
HS/GED. Teach drums or other musical instru-
ments to encourage participants in expressing
their creativity. Must be able to prepare partic-
ipants for performances in shows/recitals.
FEGS offers a competitive salary and benefits
package. Please send by mail or email a cover
letter and resume, indicating SPECIFIC POSI-
TION of interest and salary requirements, to our
HR Consultants: HR Dynamics, Inc. (Dept.
SSlECS), 161 William Street, 4th Floor, New
York, New York 10038. Fax 212-366-8555 or E-
mail sgsmalls@hr-dynamics.com.
NATIONAL SERVICE MANAGER - Habitat for
Humanity New York City is seeking a National
Service Manager to run its AmeriCorps Nation-
al Direct program and its State
AmeriCorps*VISTA program, both at Habitat
NYC and at affiliate sites around New York
State. Responsibilities include funding and
management of all National Service programs,
recruitment of VISTA and AmeriCorps members,
training and orientation, evaluation and grant
reporting. Strong preference for candidate with
at least 2 years of experience working in Corpo-
ration for National Service programs. Salary
$35,000 - $40,000 per year, depending on
experience. Resume to Jenry Polner, Habitat for
Humanity NYC, 334 Furman Street, Brooklyn,
NY 11201, or jpolner@habitatnyc.org.
OPERATIONS MANAGER - The National Hous-
ing Institute/Shelterforce magazine, a small ,
progressive nonprofit, seeks operations man-
ager to provide administrative and other sup-
port for publishing, fundraising and research
activities. Duties include office administration,
bookkeeping, marketing and logistical support.
Excellent nonprofit management learning
opportunity. Apply at www.nhi.org.
48
PHYSICAL PLANT MANAGER - Responsible
for overall maintenance of three hundred units
of housing across six buildings in the Wash-
ington Heights and Harlem area. Supervision
and administrative responsibility for a staff of
ten. Responsible for oversight of routine main-
tenance, building repairs, maintaining yearly
calendar, as well as compliance with required
permits, including Section 8. Certification in
related fields, computer literate. Spanish
speaking preferred. Must have seven years
experience of which three must be in a super-
visory capacity. Fax resume and cover letter
with salary requirements to 212- 568-2038,
Attn. Mr. Vance E. Granby
PLUMBER HELPER - Two (2) years experi-
ence. $20 per hour. Call 718-292-4099.
Employer Satellite Plumbing Corp.
PROGRAM ASSISTANT/CHILD CARE WORKER
- The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large,
multi-service non-profit organization serving
the Bronx for more than 31 years. The agency
provides a broad range of individual and fami-
ly services, including walk-i n assistance and
counseling, services to special-needs popula-
tions, such as immigrants, children, adoles-
cents, seniors, homeless families and singles,
individuals and families affected by HIVIAIDS.
CAB provides excellent benefits and offers
opportunities for advancement. Resumes and
cover letters indicating position of interest may
be mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453,
or faxed as directed. CAB's Families Together
Program seeks a part-time Program Assis-
tant/Child Care Worker. The position requires a
high school diplomaiGED, and enjoyment from
working with children. Responsibilities include
providing child care for children whose parents
participate in the program. Bilingual
EnglishiSpanish preferred. Fax credentials to F.
Thomas at 718-716-1065 or e-mail her at
fthomas@Cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportu-
nity /affirmative action employer.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Tenant Relocation
Program seeks a Program Coordinator.
Responsibilities include directing service
delivery systems including the implementation
of surveys and case management services.
Other responsibilities include being a liaison
with HPD, communicating with Section 8 ten-
ants and landlords receiving the subsidy, and
supervision of three to four workers. The posi-
tion requires a Bachelors Degree and some
social service and eviction prevention experi-
ence with a minimum of two years of supervi-
sory experience. Please fax credentials to John
Weed at 718-590-5866 or email to
jweed@cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportu-
nity /affirmative action employer.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special -needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's After School Program
seeks a Program Coordinator. The positions
require a bachelor's degree in a related field,
and experience working with youth. Responsi-
bilities include supervising staff, overseeing
day-to-day operations of the program, and
working closely with teens and the principal of
the school. Fax credentials to R. Parithivel at
718-590-5866 or e-mail her at
rparithivel@cabny.org. CAB is an equal oppor-
tunity /affirmative action employer.
PROGRAM COORDINATOR - The Citizens
Advice Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service
non-profit organization serving the Bronx for
more than 31 years. The agency provides a
broad range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Safe Passage Pro-
gram seeks a Program Coordinator. The posi-
tion requires a BA in a related field and experi-
ence working with youth. Responsibilities
include supervising staff, overseeing day-to-
day operations of the program, and working
closely with teens. Fax credentials to J. Gold-
smith at 718-590-5866 or e-mail her at jgold-
smith@cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportuni-
ty /affirmative action employer.
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT - Search re-
opened, prior applicants need not apply. Large
Social Services Department seeks candidate to
write RFP's for new and existing shelters/pro-
grams; provide technical assistance on pro-
grammatic enhancement for established shel-
ters/programs; manage department statistics;
write and edit quarterly newsletter. BA
required, low $40s. Resumes to Patricia
DeLouisa, The Salvation Army, 120 West 14th
Street, NY, NY 10001 or fax to 212-337-7279.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - Astraea Lesbian
Foundation for Justice seeks a Program Direc-
tor. The Program Director, who will oversee and
provide leadership for all grantmaking pro-
grams and related activities, will playa prima-
ry role in the redesign of Astraea's grantmak-
ing, grantee services and philanthropic advo-
cacy activities as outlined by our recently
approved three- year strategic plan. Salary is
commensurate with experience. Excellent pen-
sion, vacation and health benefits. For details
please visit www.astraeafoundation.org. Mail.
e-mail (please include resume in body of e-
mail) or fax a cover letter and resume to: Laura
Miller, Assistant to the Executive Director at
the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.
116 E 16th Street, 7th Floor, New York,
NY 10003/fax 212-982-3321/e-mail:
Imiller@astraeafoundation.org. No phone
calls, please. Only applicants being considered
will be contacted.
PROGRAM MANAGER-HOMELESS PREVENTION
SERVICES - CAMBA seeks a Program Manag-
er to manage homeless prevention and after-
care programs. This program manager will be
responsible for contract development and
implementation, hiring and training staff, poli-
cy and systems development, implementing
quality assurance measures, measuring and
documenting appropriate outcomes for cus-
tomers, and evaluating program's effective-
ness. Responsibilities: Supervise, evaluates
and trains the Program Di rectors, Coordinators
and Supervisory staff. Assist in the preparation
of proposals and negotiation of contracts. Man-
age all employee relations including recruiting,
retention and recognition and incentive pro-
grams, counseling and discipline, investiga-
tions and terminations to ensure a fair working
environment in conjunction with CAMBA human
resources department. Act as agency represen-
tative working with public officials and other
non-profit organizations to recommend pro-
gram and policy improvements. Effectively plan
and develop agency's homeless prevention,
aftercare and anti-eviction legal services pro-
grams. Ensure that all performance outcomes,
agency and funding source policies aQd proce-
dures are met on a monthly basis byestablish-
ing standards, directives and policy guidelines.
Determine the knowledge skills and abilities
required to perform specific services and
assign qualified staff to perform such func-
tions. Supervise and instruct staff on work pro-
jects, program directives and the implementa-
tion of policy. Evaluate staff and program effec-
tiveness and modify directives to ensure the
prevention of homelessness and that potential-
ly homeless families are afforded quality ser-
vices. Develop management systems to ensure
effective delivery of services. Develop database
system to insure collection of programming
statistics. Manage special projects. Act as liai-
son to funders. Proved crisis management as
needed. Completes incident, weekly and
monthly reports. Facilitates interdepartmental
communication and conducts regular staff
meetings. Other duties as assigned. Qualifica-
tions: Masters Degree in Social Work, Public
Administration, law or related field. 5 years in
non-profits management, preferably in home-
less prevention services. Measurable Outcomes
New York City Department of Homeless Ser-
vices, and Human Resources Administration
and NYS Office of Temporary Disability and
Assistance expectations are to be met. Various
grant requirements as specified. Location of
Position: The poSition is located in Brooklyn. The
position requires travel throughout the 5 bor-
oughs, as well as work at other CAMBA sites as
necessary. Send cover letter & resume to:
CAMBA, Inc. 1720 Church Avenue, 2nd floor,
CITY LIMITS
Brooklyn, NY 11226. E-mail :
marilyng@camba.org or fax: 718-693-3576
PROGRAM OFFICER, BEACONS TECHNICAL
ASSISTANCE - The Youth Development Insti-
tute (YDI) is seeking an experienced individual
to assist the Beacons Centers with strengthen-
ing their programs and building organizational
capacity. The Beacons are school-based com-
munity centers that provide a full range of sup-
portive and challenging activities and services
for young people and their families, based on
youth development principles. The Program Offi-
cer is responsible for providing technical assis-
tance to help Beacons meet youth and commu-
nity needs. Strategies include: developing a
cooperative practitioner network of sites to
strengthen their work; helping sites to increase
their program, technological and fiscal
resources; working with public funding agencies
to strengthen their support and understanding
of the Beacons and youth development; and
integrating the Beacons initiative with projects
in education, youth employment and other
areas. Successful candidates will have signifi-
cant experience with youth development work in
urban communities, skills in curriculum devel-
opment and adult learning and be computer lit-
erate. A complete job description and informa-
tion about YDI is posted at www.fcnY.org/jobs.
Send resume and cover letter including salary
requirements to Human ResourcesIYDIIBPO;
FCNY; 1216th Ave., 6th Floor; NY, NY 10013. YDI
is a program of the Fund for the City of New York,
a private operating foundation focused on civic
innovation. The Fund for the City of New York is
an equal opportunity employer.
PROGRAM SPECIALIST - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special -needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morri s Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Positive Uving Pro-
gram seeks a Program Special ist to work with
clients that are affected by HIV/AIDS. The posi-
tion requires a bachelor's degree, and the abil-
ityto perform intensive field work. Responsibil-
ities include creating service plans and
assessments to meet client's needs. Fax cre-
dentials to M. Cortes at 718-716-1065 or e-
mail her at mcortes@cabny.org. CAB is an
equal opportunity /affirmative action employer.
PROGRAM SPECIALIST - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services,
including walk-in assistance and counseling,
services to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals
and families affected by HIVIAIDS. CAB pro-
vides excellent benefits and offers opportuni-
DECEMBER 2003
ties for advancement. Resumes and cover let-
ters indicating position of interest may be
mailed to 2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or
faxed as directed. CAB's Food Stamp Access
Program seeks a Program Specialist. Respon-
sibilities include food stamp prescreening and
work in the community to pre-screen clients in
the community, performing outreach, pre-
screening potential clients, assisting the cl ien-
tele with making appointments with HRA, and
provide follow-up. The program specialist will
carry a laptop in the field and work in a team
of four food stamp program specialist. The
position requires a high school diplomalGED.
Fax credentials to John Weed at 718-590-5866
or email to jweed@cabny.org. CAB is an equal
opportunity /affirmative action employer.
PROJECT COORDINATOR - Sought for overall
coordination and implementation of parent
resource center. Requirements: MasterslBach-
elors - social work/education/related field;
experience community building, supervising
volunteers, working independently and with
coalitions, computer/research skills, excellent
interpersonal and leadership skills. Washing-
ton Heights or Bushwick resident,
Spanish/English bilingual preferred. Fax: Ali-
son Harte, 212-487-8581. Email:
actnetl@earthlink.net.
PROJECT DIRECTOR - Project Director for
one-year innovative training program for front-
line HIV/AIDS outreach workers at Hunter Col-
lege. Will be responsible for project oversight,
staff supervision, reporting and evaluation.
Qualifications: Master's in public health or
related field, 3-5 years project management
experience, work with community-based orga-
nizations, knowledge of HIV/AIDS and outreach
issues. Details: Email resume to David
Kotelchuck dkotelch@hunter.cuny.edu or fax
212-481-5260.
PROJECT DIRECTOR (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
LEGAL PROJECTI - CONNECT Inc., seeks a
culturally sensitive Program Director with a
minimum of three years experience litigating
on behalf of domestic violence survivors. Fam-
ily court litigation necessary, immigration and
criminal practice important. Some experience
with program planning and development is
necessary; strong writing skills required. Con-
tact connect@connectnyc.org Attn: Rose.
PROJECT MANAGER - Common Ground Com-
munity, a not-for-profit affordable housing
development and property management orga-
nization seeks a Hartford or New Haven Con-
necticut-based Project Manager to plan and
implement projects in CT and NYS. Responsi-
bilities include preliminary design; locating
and evaluating potential sites; budget prepa-
ration; securing predevelopment and develop-
ment financing; and setting up and overseeing
project schedules. Valid drivers license and car
will also be necessary. At least two (2) years
experience in affordable housing development,
including establishing and monitoring timeta-
bles, budget preparation and management,
and preparing applications for governmental
and private funding required. Resume with
cover letter that MUST include salary history to
CGCIHR, Attn JF, 505 Eighth Avenue, New York,
New York 10018. Facsimile: 212-389-9313.
PROPERTY MANAGER - Catholic Charities,
Brooklyn is seeking a Property Manager for all
aspects of building management in multiple
Family Housing projects. Responsibilities
include: Maintain full occupancy, collect/post
rent, complete regular recertifications and
supervise maintenance staff. Ensure full com-
pliance and on-going reporting, for all regula-
tory agencies, (Enterprise, HPD, DHCR). BA
w/housing management/business experience
preferred. Excellent organization, oral and writ-
ten skills a must. Bi-lingual Spanish and Sec-
tion 8 experience a plus. Fax cover letter and
resume to: 718-722-6045. Attn: Assistant
Director, POP Management. EOE.
QUALITY ASSURNACE SUPERVISOR - Gra-
ham Windham, the nation's oldest non-sectar-
ian child care agency serving NY's children and
families, is seeking an experienced quality
assurance professional for our Manhattan
office. Candidate will coordinate and oversee
QI-related activities to ensure that accredita-
tion and funding standards are met. Track and
report program outcomes and compliance.
Computer experience a must. Knowledge of
ACS regulations, COA standards, and prior
welfare experience required. Master's degree
preferred. Graham Windham is committed to
rewarding performance excellence with highly
competitive compensation, generous benefits
and a merit-based evaluation and reward sys-
tem. Graham Windham encourages a diverse
workforce. Send resume and salary require-
ments to: Graham Windham, 33 Irving Place,
7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. Att: Human
Resources Fax: 212-358-1724 E-mail:
hr-general@graham-windham.org
QUALITY CONTROL MANAGER - Quality Con-
trol supervisor for community-based, public
health insurance enrollment program. Experi-
ence with supervision, managing workflow and
deadlines, and troubleshooting public benefit
problems. Knowledge of Medicaid, Child Health
Plus and Family Health Plus desirable. Fax
resume and cover letter to 212-681-6315.
QUALITY IMPROVEMENT SUPERVISOR - Gra-
ham Windham, the nation's oldest non-sectar-
ian child care agency serving NY's children and
families, is seeking an experienced quality
assurance professional for our Manhattan
office. Candidate will coordinate and oversee
ai-related activities to ensure that accredita-
tion and funding standards are met. Track and
report program outcomes and compliance.
Computer experience a must. Knowledge of
ACS regulations, COA standards, and prior
welfare experience required. Master's degree
preferred. Graham Windham is committed to
rewarding performance excellence with highly
competitive compensation, generous benefits
and a merit-based evaluation and reward sys-
tem. Graham Windham encourages a diverse
workforce. Send resume and salary require-
ments to: Graham Windham, 33 Irving Place,
7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. Attn: Human
Resources Fax: 212-358-1724 E-mail :
hr-general@graham-windham.org
SCHEDULER - Maintain schedule, assist with
JOBADS
administration, some events and policy work.
Contact with governmental, community, advo-
cacy organizations. Four-year degree, excellent
written/oral communication, attention to
detail, discretion under pressure. Mid-twen-
ties, 40-plus hours, immediate start. Resume,
letter: brewer@council.nyc.ny.us (Word, PDF,
Rffi. No calis/faxes.
SOCIAL WORK SUPERVISOR - The social work
supervisor's primary responsibility will be to co-
direct and provide social work assistance to
attorneys, paralegals and parent advocates that
comprise CFR's interdisciplinary community-
based representation teams. CFR's community
representation teams will provide legal repre-
sentation and social work assistance to parents
in Central and East Harlem as well as to parents
who have a criminal justice history that impacts
their child welfare involvement. The teams will
be available to advocate for parents from the
time at which they first become involved with the
Administration for Children's Services and will
continue their work up to and throughout any
and all family court proceedings involving a
family. This supervisor will provide direct social
work to clients, i.c., referrals, home visits, advo-
cacy with ACS, etc. in addition to co-directing the
efforts of the teams along with a supervising
attorney. As core staff in each team expands, it
is expected that this supervisory role will also
grow. This supervisor will also recruit and super-
vise social work interns, and will assist with
training and other practice assistance CFR pro-
vides. Last, this supervisor will work closely with
CFR's executive and deputy director to develop
CFR's social work unit and in other efforts to
develop CFR's interdisciplinary teams. This posi-
tion represents a unique opportunity for a pro-
fessional interested in engaging innovative
approaches to parent representation and in
guiding the integration of social workers in a new
organization. Applicants must have a master's
degree in social work, and at least three years
experience in Article 10ITPR family court prac-
tice. CSW and prior experience supervising staff
or students prefemed. Ruency in Spanish is
desirable. Individuals who apply should be able
to demonstrate strong interpersonal and com-
munication skills, an ability to work as part of a
team, a keen interest in program development,
and a desire to share in both the exhilaration and
challenges of a new and growing endeavor.
Salary is commensurate with experience; excel-
lent benefits package. CFR is an equal opportu-
nity employer. Applicants should send or email a
cover letter, resume, writing sample and three
references (including phone and email contacts)
before October 24, 2003 to Selina Robinson,
Executive Assistant, to the above address, or to
srobinson@cfmy.org. No phone inquiries please.
SOCIAL WORKER - The Citizens Advice
Bureau (CAB) is a large, multi-service non-
profit organization serving the Bronx for more
than 31 years. The agency provides a broad
range of individual and family services, includ-
ing walk-in assistance and counseling, ser-
vices to special-needs populations, such as
immigrants, children, adolescents, seniors,
homeless families and singles, individuals and
families affected by HIV/AIDS. CAB provides
excellent benefits and offers opportunities for
advancement. Resumes and cover letters
49
JOB ADS
so
I LLUSTRATEDMEMOS
OFFICE OFTIIE CITY VISIONARY:
. ,: ' [ '
"
Home ownership, not a
government funded social
service program, is the
gateway to salvation'from
poverty.
Maybe it's time to close
down the shelters and put a
prefab, low cost, supportive
housing unit on every block
in every neighborhood of
the city.
GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLT11'ION
TO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?
SEND IN 1i'@[W[Fl
Office: or -THE ciTY ViSIONARY
CIT'{ llMlTS MAGAZINE
120 WALL ST., 20
TH
FLOOR. NY NY 10005
ootcv citylimitS.org
CITY LIMITS
indicating position of interest may be mailed to
2054 Morris Ave. Bronx, NY 10453, or faxed as
directed. CAB's Nelson Ave. Family lier II Shel-
ter seeks a Social Worker. The position requires
a MSW. Excellent clinical experience, welfare
advocacy and excellent communication skills,
knowledge of computers, time management
and conflict resolution skills. Knowledge of the
foster care system is a plus. Fax credentials to
B. Lewis at 718-299-1682 or e-mail her at
blewis@cabny.org. CAB is an equal opportuni-
ty /affinmative action employer.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE (MICA) SPECIALIST - The
Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS), a
national leader in the development of effective
housi ng and service initiatives for homeless
people, seeks dedicated staff for its new
Assertive Community Treatment (ACn Team in
the Northeast Bronx. ACT is a service delivery
model with proven success in serving adults
with psychiatric disabilities in community
based settings. Resp: Fieldwork and on-call
services. Reqs: MSW required; CSW preferred.
For non-masters candidates: BA + 2 yrs rele-
vant exp; BSW + 1 yr relevant expo (excluding
fieldwork); HS + 6 yrs relevant expo Note: For
candidates without college degrees, every 30
credits can be substituted for 1 yr expo Sub-
stance abuse treatment experience required.
CASAC preferred. Bi li ngual SpanishlEnglish
pref. Valid NYS Drivers License a plus. Salary:
$38-$411<, commensurate with post-masters
experience; $31,696 for non-masters candi-
dates. Benefits: compo bnfts incl $65/month in
transit checks. Send resumes and cover letters
by 10/6/03 to: Kristin Yavorsky, CUCs/Assertive
Community Treatment (ACn Program, 665 Pel-
ham Pkwy North(Suite 402), Bronx, NY 10467.
Fax: 718-881-8714, Email:acthire@cucs.org.
CUCS is committed to workforce diversity. EED.
TEAM LEADER - HELP USA, a nationally recog-
nized leader in the provisions of transitional
housing, residential & social services, has a
position avail for a Team Leader. Experience in
the supervision of Case Management, Assess-
men!, Counseling and Crisis Intervention. Will
collect, analyze and report on team statistics as
indicated by organizational and regulatory bod-
ies. Coordinate specific areas of service delivery
as required. Requirements: MSW (preferred) or a
related degree required. Three (3) plus years of
supervisory experience necessary. Should have
computer literacy specifically with Microsoft
applications. Must have understanding of team
concepts, preferably in a residential setting.
Bilingual in SpanishlEnglish is a plus. Salary:
starts in the mid thirties. Resumes for this posi-
tion should be sent to: HELP Bronx Crotona, 785
Croton a Park North, Bronx, NY, via fax at 718-
901-3310 or via email at etumer@helpusa.org
TESTERS, CIVIL RIGHTS WORK - The Anti-
Discrimination Center of Metro New York is
seeking candidates to work part-time as
"testers. " Testers are trained to act in the role
of an apartment or house seeker. Testers must
be articulate, conscientious, detail-oriented,
able to enact a role according to guidelines
given, and comfortable wi th dealing with peo-
ple. Testers are paid $15/hour ($10/hour for
travel time). Call 718-422-0066, or email us at
center@antibiaslaw.com.
TRAININGITECHNICAL ASSISTANT SPECIALIST
- Job Description: Conduct training for PBRC
on government benefit programs. Develops
and maintains training evaluations. Assist
with writing monthly department newsletter.
Maintain and update current client based
brochures. Develop new low-literacy resource
guides and brochures for client. Develop and
coordinate outreach efforts and on site CSS
training workshops. Assist with researching
and developing training materials. Job
Requirements: Master's degree in Social Work
or related field preferred. Minimum of two (2)
years of experience in conducting trainings
with one (1) year experience working with pub-
lic benefits or satisfactory combination of edu-
cation and experience required. Excellent writ-
ten, oral and interpersonal skills required.
Strong computer skills required. Submit
resume and cover letter to: Community Service
Society of New York, Human Resources Depart-
ment PP-36, 105 East 22nd Street, New York,
NY lDOlD. Fax 212-614-5336 or e-mail
cssemployment@cssny.org.
VOCATIONAL SPECIALIST - The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS), a national
leader in the development of effective housing
and service initiatives for homeless/formerly
homeless individuals invites applicants with
experience providing services to the mentally ill
population to apply for the position of Voca-
tional Specialist. Focus of position is on pro-
viding clinically based vocational treatment
planning, support, advocacy, assessment, and
referrals for participants desiring to work or
return to work. Reqs: BA + 2 yrs. direct service
exp with indicated populations, BSW + 1 yr.
(excluding fieldwork), High School Diploma (or
GED) + 6 yrs exp (Note: For applicants without
college degrees, every 30 credits can be sub-
stituted for 1 yr exp). Applicants should have
experience working with formerly homeless, or
with individuals with mental illness or other
disabilities, work well with a team and have
experience managing a caseload. Computer
literacy required. Bilingual Spanish/English
pref. Experience working with groupslfacilitat-
ing workshops a plus. Salary: $31,696. Bene-
fits: compo bnfts incl $65/month in transit
checks. Send resumes and cover letters by
10/6/03 to: Carlene Scheel , Fax: 212-471-
0790, Email:cnhire@cucs.org. CUCS is com-
mitted to workforce diversity. EED
VOLUNTEER - The Community Development
Project (CDP) of the Urban Justice Center works
in partnership with community-based organi-
zations and groups throughout New York City
creating positive social change in low-income
communities. CDP provi des a range of skills
and strategies to bear in support of our clients
including litigation, transactional assistance,
community-based research and policy analy-
sis, technical assistance and legislative advo-
cacy. We are in immediate need of many active
LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION
OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
JOB ADS
volunteers for the following project: Restaurant
Industry Analysis for Workers' Rights. Volun-
teers are needed to work with CDP and the
Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York
(ROC-NY- a workers' center made up of fonmer
Windows on the World workers) to conduct sur-
veys as part of an analysis of New York City's
restaurant industry that would improve the
working conditions of restaurant employees.
This groundbreaking research project will
involve surveys and interviews of restaurant
workers and employers. Fall. Surveying will
begin the week of September 15, 2003. Volun-
teers wi ll also be needed to do data entry with
the ROC surveys. Orientation/Training for the
ROC-NY project will be held on Wednesday,
October 1st from 6p-8p. Though we encourage
all volunteers to attend this training, other
arrangements can be made if you are not
available. Please RSVP to Laura (lday@urban-
justice.org) if you are interested. Volunteers'
schedules are flexible; however a commitment
of 3-5 hours per week is preferred. Volunteers
with a second language are especially needed.
For further information, please contact Laura
Day (646-459-3021, Iday@urbanjustice.org)
WRITER - The Doe Fund, A Homeless Services
Organization - An innovative non-profit serving
the homeless, seeks individual with excellent
writing and communication skills to draft key
correspondences for the organization, its
Founder and President and key staff. The qual i-
fied candidate will possess outstanding writing
skills and have the ability to communicate the
message of the organization creatively and
effectively. Specific responsibilities include writ-
ing and tracking a variety of correspondences
including letters to key donors, press materials,
solicitations, thank you's and articles for annu-
al newsletter. BA with a demonstrated focus in
writing, excellent attention to detail and organi-
zational skills. Salary commensurate with expe-
rience. EDE. Send resume and salary require-
ments to Human Resources, The Doe Fund, 232
East 84th Street, New York, NY 10028, or by FAX:
212-249-5589, or e-mail at hr@doe.org
We have been providing low-cost insurance programs and
quality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
and other NONPROFIT organizations for over 15 years.
DECEMBER 2003
We Offer:
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HE MAY BE JUST THE
EMPLOYEE YOU NEED.
He is one of the other victims of9/11: some 45,000 men
and women who lost their livelihoods in lower Manhattan
as a direct result of the attacks of 9/11. They worked in
restaurants, in factories, at financial institutions and
other organizations. Many are still looking for work.
Help them, help New York. The September 11 th
Fund and The New York Times Community Affairs
Department have joined forces to form "9/11 Rehire
New York, " a one-stop resource making it easy for you to
draw on this pool of extremely worthy job seekers to fill
a position.
You can find their resumes by visiting
www.nytimes.com/rehirenewyork.
Pass the word along to your colleagues, associates,
friends. It is a singular opportunity to help rebuild New
York ... to enrich your staff ... to change a life.
arket
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