EDITORIAL

MOO
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, there are still sacred cows
mooing contentedly long after the budget axe
has fallen. You may have heard of some of
them, like paid teacher sabbaticals, two-man
patrol cars and a few firehouses.
But there are other budget-busters that pro-
vide big benefits to special interests-and dubi-
ous value [0 the rest of us. Bloomberg may not
owe a party-issue politician's legion of favors,
but his administration is still inclined [0 keep
its friends happy--especially when it inherited
them from Bloomberg's hero benefactor, Rudy
Giuliani. In certain cases, it's the City Council
that insists on preserving dollars for dear ones.
Either way, it's costing us big-time. Thanks to
the Independent Budget Office for crunching
the numbers on some of these big-ticket items:
Welfare-to-work contracts. Despite signif-
icant cuts, the big nonprofits and companies
that supervise job training and searches for
welfare recipients are still getting paid hun-
dreds of millions a year to provide minimal
services, whether or not their trainees keep
their jobs in the long haul. In this economy,
[00 many of them don't. We need to invest in
job training that works.
Day care for stay-at-home moms. In
November budget negotiations, the City
Council restored 2,500 day care slots. As Tra-
cie McMillan reports in this issue of City Lim-
its, more are urgently needed-but most of the
restored slots will go to centers run by some
religious groups for their own communities,
where most mothers are full-time parents.
Fresh Kills is still closed, even though by
some estimates the landfill has 20 years more
life in it. Disposal by private companies at out-
of-state landfills costs much more than dump-
ing it here.
Luxe rents for the homeless. No way should
the city homeless agency continue to pay sketchy
landlords thousands each month for each home-
less family they house; it must demand fair treat-
ment and conditions for all tenants in buildings
used for shelters. It also wouldn't hurt to encour-
age eligible families to sign up for welfare-once
they do, the feds will pay half their shelter costs.
And while the rest of us contemplate the
Cover photo by Sune Woods; Kwame Boame, age 6, en route from Washington Heights to day care in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
property tax hike, let's note that some of us
don't have to pay real estate taxes at all:
Tax breaks for higher ed. New York Uni-
versity, Columbia, and New School University
are big businesses. Any real estate developer with
the wherewithal [0 demolish CBGBs, as NYU
reportedly seeks [0 do, has [0 pay its freight.
Luxury housing subsidies. The 421-a tax
exempcion encourages builders [0 contribute
cash [0 build affordable housing. But the break
gives away [00 much for [00 little: According
[0 the lBO, developers get $43,000 for each
credit but give only $12,000 for each unit of
low-cost construction.
If the mayor's personal financial advisor rec-
ommended investments like these, he'd be
fired. With our tax dollars, he-and we-
should demand much bigger and better returns
for the city.
Alyssa Katz
Editor
TAKING PRIDE IN OUR LOCATION. NOW MORE THAN EVER ...
Admiral Communications has been dedicated to servicing the non-profit community with full service
commercial printing since 1946, through some of the best and some of the most challenging
times - especially now.
One stop shopping: prepress, printing, complete binding, fulfillment and distribution are all done on
premises at our convenient downtown location.
Specializing in non-profit services including:
Promotional & Marketing Materials Newsletters & Periodicals Booklets & Brochures
Pocket Folders & Information Kits Solicitations & Direct Mailing Article Reprints Stationery
Full Bindery Services (Perfect Bind & Saddle-Stitch) Mailing House Fulfillment & Warehousing
Free on site cost saving &: time saving consultations
Competitive pricing Consistent quality Reliability & Fast Service
Our non-profit customers include:
City Limits Seeds of Peace
American Red Cross NAACP
Downtown Alliance United Way
United Nation Association
The National Kidney Foundation
National Multiple Sclerosis Society
New York Society of Association Executives
Admiral Communications

Printing. Mailing. And Much More .
47 West Street New York. New York 10006
t. 212.422.6848 f.212.514.9565
www.admiraI47.com
sales@admiralcommunications.com
Call Glenn Podel at ext. 102 or e-mail us for estimates today
16 THE S.CHOOL THAT WORKS
The city's Catholic hierarchy is resisting a reform promoted by
outsiders-parochial schools, born in Chicago, that succeed by
putting poor teenagers to work.
By Alexander Russo
20 MARKET BABIES
Young mothers leaving welfare still discover that reliable
child care can be harder to find than a job. Can a booming business
in homegrown child care ever fill the parent gap?
By Tracie McMillan
27 KEEPING CLOSE COUNSEL
Mayor Giuliani's bitter downsizing of Legal Aid's criminal defense
practice has had a surprising consequence: New York has a new
wave of lawyers who add social work to their motions and pleas.
By Wendy Davis
CONTENTS
5 FRO NTLI N ES: FORMERLY HOMELESS, CURRENTLY ARTISTIC ... ED OFFICIALS SNUB
DUBYA ... A DEDICATED DAD ... NOT YOUR FATHER'S CITY OFFICIAL. .. AMERICAN GRAFFITI III...
UNA BANANA NUEVA ... DOMESTIC POLICY PRO
12 BAD HOUSEKEEPING
Families who lose their homes to fire or demolition can
end up in one of four city-funded shelters, where their tough times
will just be getting started.
By Jamie Katz
31 THE BIG IDEA
Ethics watchdogs rush to let city officials beg private dollars for
struggling public programs. Who will gain? By Alyssa Katz
JANUARY 2003
33 CITY LIT
Going Public, by Michael Gecan.
Reviewed by Margaret Groarke
35 MAKING CHANGE
Doctors and nurses can't lead the war on asthma on their own.
A Bronx pharmacist shows his profession has a role, too.
By Maura McDermott
37 NYC INC.
How the Bloomberg administration can move sector-based
economic development from the conference room to the real world.
By Adam Friedman
2 EDITORIAL
40 JOB ADS
45 PROFESSIONAL
DIRECTORY
46 OFFICE OF THE
CITY VISIONARY
3
LETTERS
KEYSTONE KUDOS
Your article on New York's garbage industry,
"Wretched Refuse," [November 2002] by
Keith KIoor, received great reviews from many
people in the Old Forge/Taylor area, as well as
throughout the surrounding communities and
across Pennsylvania.
It has helped us receive a lot of GREAT pub-
licity against the Alliance Sanitary Landfil1 in Tay-
lor, Pa. The detailed story-plus the pictures that
show the problems we are faced with on a daily
basis-put a face on the people whose lives are
impacted, both in Pennsylvania and New York.
This article also DETAILS the true facts of
how a giant company (Waste Management) takes
advantage of small town politicians and the peo-
ple they represent--or pretend to. It shows how a
huge corporation can influence politicians and
cast aside the health and well being of good, hon-
est, God-fearing, tax-paying citizens. It also shows
how reckless a company can be and how this
woke up a sleeping GIANT-THE PEOPLE.
We are very grateful to your magazine. We
hope you will do a follow-up in the future,
because of the ongoing lawsuits against this
facility. Once again, THANK YOU.
1.0. Cherundolo
Taylor. Pennsylvania
Your article on the garbage industry cap-
tured the true picture and facts as they are. We
lived with this nightmare for almost 15 years
and many residents just sat back and felt pow-
erless, bur things have changed.
On August 6, the Old Forge Borough Coun-
cil met and REJECTED Alliance's $40 million
proposal to expand their landfill by 147 acres.
The audience gave the council a standing ova-
tion. We are so PROUD of our elected officials.
Thank you for showing the human side of
this problem: Even though this is going to be
a long battle, we are united and determined to
stay the course till Alliance Landfill CLOSES!!!
Louis and Ruth Stassi
Old Forge, Pennsylvania
Great article on garbage. It was written with
the facts and not one-sided bull-crap, like we get
from our local garbage giant. Waste Management
cares less for our environment and more for the
almighty dollar.
I hope this opens up the eyes of public offi-
cials, who usually care less unless it affects their
families or personal lives. It surely affects my
family and town.
David Scarnato
Councilman
Old Forge, Pennsylvania
"Wretched Refuse" hopefully opened up
some people's eyes in our area (Old Forge/Tay-
4
lor/Moosic/Scranton.) Waste Management has
ruined what was once a beautiful mountain
and didn't stink!
So much has taken place for the worst since
Waste Management showed up. The commu-
nities that have taken their side should be fined
for doing so. It just goes to show, "Money does
wonders."
There is so much cancer and multiple scle-
rosis and muscular dystrophy and other disor-
ders in this area, it's a wonder anyone wants to
live around here. And there's all the filthy, leaky
garbage trucks ruining our roads and polluting
our area. Christie Whitman should have to live
on the "DUMP," along with all the staff for
Waste Management. Let them eat with that
smell and drink the ftlthy water!
I absolutely hate seeing this dump in what
was a beautiful area. Someone should do a study
on the cancers in this area and put the results in
all the papers. This DUMP has ruined so many
lives, but Waste Management doesn't care.
Sorry for sounding off but I had to do it!
KathyRaz
Old Forge, Pennsylvania
LAWYERS APPEAL
Your story on legal services consolidation,
"Breaking the Law" [November 2002], didn't
fully include the concerns of legal services
attorneys at Legal Services for New York City.
LSNY's 250 union-represented attorneys,
paralegals and support staff oppose the attempts
of local programs to break away from LSNY. As
members of UAW Local 2320, we support a
unified system of legal services delivery, because
of the historical inability of many of the local
programs to provide high-quality services
accountable to the communities they serve. In
March 2001, we proposed a comprehensive plan
to unify legal services in New York City that was
endorsed by every community representative
involved in the LSNY's planning committee.
The City Limits article failed to mention this
strong community support for a unified system.
MFY Legal Services has joined Bronx Legal
Services in efforts to break up the LSNY sys-
tem. But creating duplicate legal services
organizations will increase administrative costs
and reduce the direct services going to poor
communities. Contrary to what the corporate
lawyers on MFY's Board of Directors suggest,
this will hurt clients, particularly in the context
of city and state budget cuts.
MFY and Bronx Legal should be account-
able to their communities, yet neither has made
efforts to inform them of the impact of their
decisions. MFY and Bronx Legal claim that
they are breaking away to be free of restrictions
on class action lawsuits, yet they have tolerated
continued on page 39
CITY LIMITS
Volume XXVIII Number 1
City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except bi-
monthly issues in July/August and September/October, by City
Limits Community Information Service, Inc., a nonprofit organi-
zation devoted to disseminating information concerning
neighborhood revitalization.
Publisher: Kim Nauer
Associate Publisher: Susan Harris
Editor: Alyssa Katz
Managing Editor: Tracie McMillan
Senior Editor: Annia Ciezadlo
Senior Editor: Jill Grossman
Senior Editor: Kai Wright
Associate Editor: Matt Pacenza
nauer@citylimits.org
sharris@citylimits.org
alyssa@citylimits.org
mcmillan@citylimits.org
ann ia@citylimits.org
jgrossman@citylimits.org
kai@citylimits.org
matt@citylimits.org
Contributing Editors: James Bradley, Neil F. Carlson,
Wendy Davis, Michael Hirsch,
Kemba Johnson, Nora McCarthy,
Robert Neuwirth, Hilary Russ
Design Direction: Hope Forstenzer
Photographers: Margaret Keady. Sune Woods
Contributing Photo Editor: Joshua Zuckerman
Contributing Illustration Editor: Noah Scalin
Interns: Andrew Cantor, Lauren Johnston, Jamie Katz
Proofreader: Sandy Socolar
General EMail Address: citylimits@citylimitsorg
CENTER FOR AN URBAN FUTURE:
Director: Neil Kleiman neil@nycfuture.org
Research Director: Jonathan Bowles jbowles@nycfuture.org
Project Director: David J. Fischer djfischer@nycfuture.org
Deputy Director: Robin Keegan rkeegan@nycfuture.org
Editor, NYC Inc: Andrea Coller McAuliff
Interns: Noemi Altman, Nicholas Johnson
BOARD OF DIRECTORS'
Beverly Cheuvront , Partnership for the Homeless
Ken Emerson
Mark Winston Griffith, Central Brooklyn Partnership
Celia Irvine, Legal Aid Society
Francine Justa, Neighborhood Housing Services
Andrew Reicher, UHAB
Tom Robbins, Journalist
Ira Rubenstein, Emerging Industries Alliance
Karen Trella, Common Ground Community
Pete Williams, Office of the Public Advocate
'Affiliations for identification only.
SPONSORS:
Pratt Institute Center for Community
and Environmental Development
Urban Homesteading Assistance Board
Subscription rates are: for individuals and community
groups, $25/0ne Year, $39ITwo Years; for businesses, founda-
tions, banks, government agencies and libraries, $35/0ne
Year, $50ITwo Years. Low income, unemployed, $10/0ne Year.
City Limits welcomes comments and article contributions.
Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for return
manuscripts. Material in City Limits does not necessarily reflect
the opinion of the sponsoring organizations. Send correspon-
dence to: City Limits, 120 Wall Street, 20th FI., New York, NY
10005. Postmaster: Send address changes to City Limits, 120
Wall Street, 20th FI., New York, NY 10005.
Subscriber inquiries call : 1-800-783-4903
Periodical postage paid
New York, NY 10001
City Limits (ISSN 0199-0330)
PHONE (212) 479-3344/FAX (212) 344-6457
e-mail: citylimits@citylimits.org
On the Web: www.citylimits.org
Copyright 2002. All Rights Reserved. No portion or por-
tions of this journal may be reprinted without the express
permission of the publishers.
City Limits is indexed in the Alternative Press Index and the
Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals and is avai lable on
microfilm from ProQuest, Ann Arbor, M148106.
CITY LIMITS
FRONT LINES
... 11""" ........ .., v _
Photography Project
-
8
A Shot in the Dark
BY THE TIME RALPH THOMAS hit middle age, the Philadelphia native had a
history of drug and alcohol abuse, a prison record, and bleak memories
of New York City homeless shelters. But when Thomas learned to devel-
op his own film this year, he began seeing things a little differently.
"Photography is a matter of capturing that special moment, " says
Thomas, a resident of Holland House, a Times Square apartment com-
plex whose 300 residents include formerly homeless people, recovering
addicts and those suffering from mental illness.
A shot of one of those moments-a Harlem woman clutching her son,
which reminds Thomas of his own mother, who died nearly 40 years ago--
recently hung in a Tunes Square gallery next to the work of some of his Hol-
land House neighbors. Hosted by Bread and Roses, the cultural arm of Local
1199, the city's health care union, the show marked the latest installment of
"Unseen America," an effott to foster creativity and pride among New York-
ers who ofren are not heard from. Past shows have included photos by Polish
asbestos removal crews, Chinese garment workers and Filipina nannies.
Earlier this year, professional photographer Gavin Maule taught 10
Holland House shutterbugs to shoot and develop ftlm. During the 14-
week class, Maule was impressed with his students' dedication and zeal.
"Everybody has their problems," says Maule. "But with a camera and
JANUARY 2003
in the darkroom, these problems seem to just go away."
Richard Valentine agrees. The 40-year-old Jamaican emigre, who suffers
from schiwphrenia and came to Holland House after stints in homeless shel-
ters, calls the photo class "a chance to fill my mind with something positive."
Photos of huge residential towers figured prominently in the exhibit.
No surprise, since many of the artists once lived on the streets, says Anne
Kider, recreation director at Holland House. "We didn't have to make up
the theme," Kider says. "It just happened."
Others chose human subjects. Joe Coleman snapped candid shots of
Holland House cafeteria cooks frying meatballs and serving cheesecake.
Project Renewal, the nonprofit group that manages Holland House,
hopes to offer similar classes next year and to convert an unused corner
of the building's basement into a darkroom.
Meanwhile, the photographers have their own plans. Thomas wants
to shoot more nature scenes. Coleman has his eye on jazz musicians. Sean
Ferdinand wants to publish a book with his own poetry and photos of
homeless people.
For Maule, the content matters less than the efforts of the photogra-
phers. "We don't usually get to hear from people from the street," he says.
"Here, they get a voice." -Keith Meatto
5
FRONT llNES
Doctored to Do Little
As city skimps on
tutoring, parents
wonder who will
be left behind.
By Steve Gnagni
CHOICE. That has been George W Bush's
mantra when it comes ro education. If rhe best
choice for parems is ro send rheir children ro
private turors, rhen he wants school districts ro
provide rhe cash for rhem ro do that.
Not so fast, says rhe New York Ciry Depart-
mem of Education. The feds sem rhe city $140
million ro pay private tutors ro give struggling
students exrra help, as well as ro transpon rhose
who opt ro transfer from a low-performing
school ro a better one. Several monrhs later, rhe
Bloomberg administration is holding on ro rhat
money for dear life.
The new funding flows out of rhe No Child
Left Behind Act. Signed by Bush in January
2002, rhe law increased rhe feds' allocation of
Title I money-cash earmarked for low-per-
6
forming schools with a large number of low-
income students-to each state by about 25
percent. With rhat, school districts must put 5
percem of rheir total Tide I budget toward
turoring services, 5 percem for school transfer
costs like transponation and anorher 10 per-
cent ro be divided between rhe two programs.
In New York Ciry, that allocation would come
ro about $126 million.
Instead, however, Departmem of Education
budget documems show rhat the ciry has only
set aside $27 million-or just under 5 percent
of its Title I pot-for turoring, and anorher
$27 million for costs related ro school rransfers.
Given rhat the school transfer program is prac-
tically stagnant so far, it is unclear how rhose
funds will be used.
The city Department of Education would
not comment for rhis srory. Bur considering the
fiscal crisis facing Ciry Hall, some observers of
education policy say rhe ciry's move doesn't sur-
prise rhem. "I would guess rhat given rhe tight-
ness of budget in school districts around rhe
country, that what is happened in New York
Ciry is probably happening around rhe coun-
try," says Bob Peterson, an ediror at Rethinking
Schools, a nonprofit news journal on education.
In New York, rhe economic picture has not
been pretry. Mayor Bloomberg has calculated a
$1.1 billion budget gap for this year and a $6.4
billion deficit for 2004. To trim rhe school sys-
tern, the mayor and Ciry Council made $360
million in curs for the budget passed in June. In
mid-November, Bloomberg proposed another
$200 million slash, ro come our of cemral
adminisrration, purchasing, district and high
school administration, rhe teacher menror pro-
gram, and summer camps.
Bur crearors of rhe federal legislation say rhe
ciry's move may be illegal. "Under rhe law, any
ponion of that 20 percem not used for one
purpose must be used for rhe orher purpose,"
says David Schnirrger, spokesperson for the
u.s. House Commirree on Education and the
Workforce, whose chair John Boehner helped
drafr the law. So for example, Schnirrger says,
school transfer money not used for transfers
must go roward turoring services.
So far, rhe ciry has not had ro spend much at
all on shurrling children from their local school
ro another following a transfer request. Accord-
ing ro a repon released by rhe Ciry Council in
mid-November, of rhe 220,000 eligible kids, as
of Ocrober only 3,670 had requested transfers.
Of rhose, just 1,507 got rhem.
While a spokesman for Chancellor Joel
Klein told rhe Daily News in Ocrober that more
transfers were "in rhe works," rhere have been
conflicting repons. Bruce Ellis, presidem of
Communiry Advocacy for Educational Excel-
lence, Inc., a Harlem-based parem advocacy
organization, claims that Klein rold a room full
of Harlem residems in Ocrober rhat rhe ciry
would not offer transfers. "I said, 'In a district
like ours, where there's no place for people ro
go on rhe elememary level, how is it being
implememed?'''says Ellis. "He said it wasn't. "
The state Departmem of Education, which is
responsible for making sure each school district
follows rhe law, says it does not plan ro take
immediate action, but it promises ro keep
watch. "In rhis transition year, rhere may be
unawareness of [rhe turoring program] at rhe
local level," says James Vaughan, New York
State's Title I coordinaror. He doesn't entirely
blame city education officials: Wirh so many fis-
cal needs, he says, "it can be difficult budgetari-
ly if you encumber rhis amoum of money."
Even if rhe city funded No Child fully, it
would fall shorr of being enough ro serve every eli-
gible studem-220,000 in rhe five boroughs,
based on income and test scores.
The state will put in about $1,200 per studem
each year for rhe turoring mandated by No Chid
CITY LIMITS
Left: Behind, according to the state Department of Ed.
Based on that figure, even if the city put the full 15 percent
of its Title I cash into tutoring, only about 35 percent of eli-
gible students would get extra help after school. At the city's
existing funding levels, that drops to about 12 percent.
While the schools chancellor plays around with the
budget, these scarce services have not gotten off to a good
starr. As happened in many cities across the country this
fall, bureaucratic delays and disorganization led New York
City to extend the November 15 deadline for parents to
register their kids for tutoring. Several school districts
failed to send out the information needed for parents to
pick the appropriate rutor until two weeks before the dead-
line, creating concern among parents that their kids
wouldn't get into a program.
"My son is behind and he really needs help," says
Audrey Harrison of the Bronx, whose seventh grader's math
scores are at the third grade level. For her, things turned out
well. When her first choice, SCORE!, rurned out to be full,
she shuttled over to Kaplan in time to get him a seat.
But as many other parents slowly get a handle on their
new options, they may not have much choice in where
their kids get extra help, if they get it at all.
Federal guidelines stress the flexibility school districts
have to fund private for-profit and nonprofit rutoring
companies to offer students extra help. The city has
approved 23 of them. This program is a potential cash
cow for those chosen groups--each tutor makes between
$4 and $90 per student per hour. Kaplan, for example,
stands to get $600 from the city for each student its
tutors spend 30 hours with this year.
New York City, however, has chosen to put only $10
million roward these private tutors. The city's school dis-
tricts will keep the rest to subsidize tutoring services run
by the Department of Education itself.
This concerns Schnittger. "The law expects state and
local officials to work in good faith to give parents as
many options as possible for their children," he says.
"The supplemental services provision is a safety valve to
ease pressure on underachieving schools and provide
them with a little backup as they work to improve."
Meanwhile, in November, local school officials were
expecting to have to turn some students away from their
tutoring services. "If there are more applications than
spots, one option is to increase the amount of money
through other funding sources, " says Melvin Thompson
of Community School District 9 in the Bronx. "The other
option is to rank children in the order of greatest need."
And at least some of the private tutoring services will
try to do more with less. At Interfaith Neighbors, which
serves srudents from District 4 in East Harlem, reading
lab director Alice Vogr estimates that for each of the 40
srudents they expect to serve, the first 15 one-hour ses-
sions will be covered by the money they will get from
school districts for their services. As for the rest of the
school year, she says, they will fundraise to continue the
free services .
Steve Gnagni is managing editor of High bridge Horizon.
JANUARY 2003
FRONTllN ES
F I RSTHAN D
A Father's Lament
I recently met a young lady, Stacy. Me and Stacy started dating. She has two sons, six
and two. My son, Jamie, is three. He's in the [child welfare) system. The judge told me that
if I had an apartment before my May 22 court date, I could get my son. I wanted to try and
get him home, so we decided to get an apartment together.
On March 28, we looked at one in Mount Eden. The super told us it would be $2,550-
one month's rent, one month's security and one month's super fee. OK, I never heard of a
super fee, but I was like, "We need the apartment. "
So on March 29, I gave him $2,550. Two weeks came and went by, and he hadn't given
me a lease. I called someone in the Public Advocate's office and asked if they could help us.
Maybe I should have not said anything.
The super finally called me back. "'F' you! " he said to me. "You should have never called
the Public Advocate. You will never see your son again, because I will call the city and tell
them how abusive you are."
A couple of days later, I get up to the house, and there's two women in there-ACS
[Administration for Children's Services) workers. She says, "We received a phone call that
you were abusing Stacy's kid. " They did an investigation and said none of this is founded. I
knew then the super was trying to get me for retaliatory reasons.
We also got an eviction notice. Then the [family court) judge told me, "I'm not going to
give you your son- you still don't have a lease." We lost our apartment. I couldn't get my
son back. All of these things are hitting us, we're arguing with each other. So Stacy and I
eventually broke off the engagement.
I hope my relationship can come around, because Stacy is pregnant with my son, and I
want to be there for my new child. I have one that's three and now I have one that's in the
oven. I'm not with my other baby mama, but I'd like to be with this one. I want to see when
he loses his teeth. I want to see when they grow back. But this system says you can't wit-
ness that because you don't have an apartment. You don't have a lease. Well , system, under-
stand it's not my fault I don't have a lease. -Jamie Tucker, as told to Matt Pacenza
7
FRONT LINES
Now on the city
payroll, a veteran
of homelessness
gets power's ear.
By Jill Grossman
SEPTEMBER 18. 1998. Sandra Jimenez
remembers that day like it was yesterday.
That fall afternoon, her two-year-old daugh-
ter came home from foster care. From that
day on, Jimenez made it her mission to advo-
cate for every parent who's ever been through
even some of what she's lived-domestic
abuse, divorce, homelessness, drugs, jail and
losing a child. "You think there's no way
out," she says. "But everybody has it in them.
I am proof"
Last June, the city Department of Home-
less Services (DHS) hired her to bring that
message to its clients. As the director of the
agency's new Office of Advocacy, Jimenez will
be an ombudsman for the roughly 37,000
8
Dear Mr. System

people who look to the city for shelter every
night. Her office-which she plans to staff up
to nine soon, with the help of an annual
$398,000 federal grant-aims to help home-
less New Yorkers navigate the city's shelter and
public assistance systems, provide checks and
balances within the homeless services agency,
and make clients' perspectives central to poli-
cy discussions and decisions.
They will do this, says Jimenez, by making
routine shelter visits and running a hocline for
complaints about everything from cockroaches
to problems with public assistance. Her staff
will direct immediate issues to the appropriate
point people-like caseworkers at the Human
Resources Administration or analysts at DHS.
"I'm trying to cut through the red tape," she
says, while also transmiting "a real level of
urgency" within the agency. "My role is to push
and push and push. "
She definitely understands the need to push.
At 27, in the midst of a divorce from an abu-
sive husband, she fell deep into a heroin habit.
It cost her the job she'd held for 15 years, as a
bilingual interpreter and clerk in Bronx Family
Court. She and her two youngest children
spent a while bouncing from the Emergency
Assistance Unit-the first stop for any family
looking for shelter-to homeless shelters and
hotels, back to their apartment and then all
over aga..lll.
"If we didn't have food, we would go to the
EAU, if we didn't have lights, we would go to
the EAU," she says. "We used it as a haven.
Even though I knew we would sleep on the
floor, it was better than where I was, being at
risk of losing my kids."
In 1996, an attempt to feed her drug habit
by selling two $10 bags of heroin landed her in
jail for three weeks. She lost her infant Martha,
the youngest of eight, to foster care. That, she
says, "was the wake up call I needed to get back
on track." She checked herself into rehab, and
18 months later, with a job as an administrative
assistant and a new apartment in the Bronx, she
reunited her family.
Since then, Jimenez has made it her mission
to mentor struggling parents and advocate for
family reunification. She started at St. Christo-
pher's Inc., the foster agency that watched over
her own daughter for nearly two years. After
a brief stint as a $25-a-day parent advocate, St.
Christopher's brought Jimenez on staff to assist
executives with lobbying and policy work.
In that job, she succeeded in making par-
ents' perspectives part of child welfare policy.
"She has a real ability to articulate parents'
needs in a more global sense," says Louis Med-
ina, the agency's executive director. "She kept
people honest, and held the people responsible
for delivering services accountable."
The next several months will test her ability
to do that at DHS.
Jimenez first met Homeless Services
Commissioner Linda Gibbs while perform-
ing in The Cycle, a play she and other St.
Chrisropher's parents wrote to illustrate the
ins and outs of losing a child to foster care or
adoption. Then a deputy commissioner at
the Administration for Children's Services
(ACS) , Gibbs established the ACS parent
advisory board, which Jimenez now co-
chairs, in 2000.
While child welfare advocates appreciate
that parents now have a seat at the table, some
wonder how much teeth the board really has.
"These initiatives for parents are a good thing,
but if you're not making fiscal and policy deci-
sions, then you're not really moving in the right
direction," says Mike Arsham, director of the
Child Welfare Organizing Project and a mem-
ber of the board.
But Jimenez, who sees the ACS board as a
CITY LIMITS
model for her new office, says she's confident
she will be able to affect homeless policy. She
has already begun making recommendations
in intraagency meetings for improving the
EAU, Section 8 and other homeless services.
To improve the intake packet, intended to
make it easier for families to get through the
EAU, she's made sure translations in at least
Spanish are complete. She is also helping
draft a strategy for ensuring that landlords in
scattered site apartments provide homeless
tenants with the services the city requires.
But her biggest test may be yet to come. At
press time, the city was awaiting court
approval to break up homeless families in the
shelter system who have rejected an apartment
the city says is adequate, removing them from
the shelter system for 30 days at a time and
putting their children in foster care. Though it
seems to run counter to everything she stands
for, so far she is taking a wait-and-see
approach: "Let's see what happens in a few
months, " she says.
For now, she's the closest she's ever been
to the place she's talked about for years in
her performances of The Cycle: "I will climb
without ceasing until I am sitting right next
to you, Mr. System," she recites in the play,
"and I too will make the law that helps my
community."
= = = V ~ ~ ' ~ M = = =
Paint Wars
HARDWARE STORE OWNERS and young graffiti
artists beware: You may soon face a $1,000 fine
and up to a year in jail for selling or buying two
of the most lethal weapons threatening the
city's quality of life: spray paint and markers.
City Councilmembers Peter Vallone, Jr. and
Philip Reed are pushing legislation to strength-
en existing anti-graffiti laws. Decades ago, the
city banned the sale of aerosol paint and per-
manent markers to anyone under 18 and
barred vendors from putting those items in
accessible display cases. Since then, one mayor
after another has vowed vigilance. David Dink-
ins offered a $500 reward for tips on art van-
dals. Rudy Giuliani created a task force that
encompassed 17 city agencies and offices. And
in recent months, Mayor Bloomberg has
stepped up efforts to enlist neighborhoods in a
program to paint over graffiti.
JANUARY 2003
FRONT LINES
House Call
A few days after Mayor Bloomberg announced cuts to the city's capital budget, Broadway performer
Paula Larke joined religious leaders in praying for him, and to end the shortage of affordable housing in
the five boroughs. As part of Housing First! , a coalition of community groups, they called for a lO-year,
$10 billion investment toward creating 100,000 new housing units and preserving more than 85,000.
None of that, say Vallone, Jr. , and Reed, has
worked. This summer City Council investiga-
tors sent minors into 70 hardware stores and
seven art supplies shops to attempt illegal pur-
chases of spray paint and markers. The results:
Half the hardware vendors and all but one of
the art stores were scofflaws.
And the evidence on the street is clear, says
Vallone, Jr., noting that his office gets 10 to 20
complaints a week about graffiti.
So he and Reed are call ing for a law that
makes a second graffiti offense a class A mis-
demeanor. (As of now, any offense gets a
$500 fine and three months in jail.) They also
want to outlaw the sale of etching acid to
minors, and require stores to post signs
explaining the law.
For juvenile justice advocates, this push
reopens an old debate. 'The city shouldn't be
putting people in jail for low-level crimes like
graffiti," argues Mishi Faruqee, head of the
Correctional Association of New York's Juve-
nile Justice Project, noting it costS about $350
a day to imprison young offenders. "And stiff-
ening penalties never works as a deterrent. "
Young graffiti artists have certainly found
ways around it. They either have older
friends buy the spray paint for them, or shop
online or at underground graffiti parapher-
nalia shops.
"It didn't work in 1982, it didn't work in
1992, and it won't work now, " scoffs Vee
Bravo, a hip hop activist and former graffiti
artist. "The kids are smarter than you."
The councilmembers are also up against a
budget crunch. The Department of Consumer
Affairs says it's doing the best it can with the
resources it has. While agency staff would like
to do more, Assistant Commissioner Pauline
Toole notes that hardware and art supply
stores are not licensed, which means Con-
sumer Affairs would first have to invest in fig-
uring out where those shops are. "It would
take resources to do it," Toole says.
Scill, that financial reality doesn't seem to
bother Vallone, Jr. "It's one of the reasons I
don't think we need to be cutting the police
[budget] at all, " he says. "Even the so-called
quality oflife crimes need enforcement. "
-Kai Wright
9
FRONTllNES

New Bunch of Bananas
AFTER YEARS OF LIVING under roofs riddled
with holes and in apartments with unusable
toilets-and in some cases, without heat and
hot water-residents of nearly two dozen
buildings in the Bronx recently got some news
that things may soon start to get bener.
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
announced in early November that he had
replaced Yolanda Rivera, the longtime director
of Banana Kelly, a community development
group in Longwood, and all its board members
with a group of established local leaders and
housing developers.
Chaired by former Bronx Borough Presi-
dent Fernando Ferrer, the new board includes
Banana Kelly founder Harry DeRienzo, Victor
Alicea, president of Boricua College, Alyah
Horsford-Sidberry, an affordable housing
developer, and Mavelin Morales, a former
Banana Kelly employee and tenant.
The attorney general made the move under
an agreement with Rivera that requires that she
URBANlEGEND
Culture Clash
and her board members break all ties with the
organization for at least 10 years.
This deal has been several years in the mak-
ing. Founded in the late 1970s, Banana Kelly has
developed hundreds of units of affordable hous-
ing and run programs for youth. In February
2001, following reports of deteriorating building
conditions and alleged mismanagement, Spitzer's
office began an investigation into Rivera and
Banana Kelly, examining the group's financial
records, tax returns and correspondence with
government agencies about grants and contracts.
A month later, Rivera handed the manage-
ment of Banana Kelly's buildings over to the
Southeast Bronx Community Organization
(SEBCO) . The 34-year-old housing group
began making emergency repairs. But last Jan-
uary, the city Department of Housing Preser-
vation and Development said it would not give
SEBCO the millions of dollars needed to com-
pletely rehab the buildings until Rivera was
completely out of the picture.
Rivera refused to let go, and in May she sought
to break her contract with SEBCO. At that point,
says Marla Simpson, assistant anorney general in
the Charities Bureau, her office knew that replac-
ing Rivera "was our last best chance to rescue the
reach among South Asians.
buildings from going under. " For Rivera, it was
step down or face litigation. A spokesperson for
Rivera declined to comment on the deal.
As part of the new agreement, Spitzer's office
has stopped investigating Rivera and her board
members. The attorney general has, however,
handed its materials-which include allegations
of mismanagement and misappropriation of
funds--over to the U.S. Attorney's office for its
own investigation. With the help of the new
board, Spitzer's staff will continue to look into
the management and financial practices of
Banana Kelly.
In the meantime, the new board is making
the desperately needed building repairs a top
priority. With Rivera out of the picture, HPD
has agreed to put $8 million toward rehabilita-
tion of the 21 properties.
While a group of tenants organized by Moth-
ers on the Move celebrated the removal of
Rivera--one resident called her a "crook"-they
note that the new board will have to convince
them that it should be trusted. "We are the ones
who have been suffering," says Serlender Glover,
a 21-year resident of 788 Fox Street, which has
more than 300 housing code violations. "We
feel that we should have input." - Jill Grossman
Now, De O'Connor faces the biggest challenge of her short career at the
women's center: how to increase the beds at her shelter while the city is mired
in its deepest fiscal crisis since the 1970s. At press time, the center was hop-
ing to open a new facility to boost beds from 37 to 46. But women will contin-
ue to sit on the waitlist. "A lot of our women don't want to go to the other shel-
ters .... No one there knows their language, and they feel embarrassed."
The last few years have been a crash course on both Asian cultures and
domestic violence for De O'Connor, a first-generation American daughter of
Bengalis from India.
"Being Asian is so many different things," she says. Those differences are
clear in her shelter. Her staff members speak about 20 of the 55 Asian lan-
guages spoken in New York, a number she is working on improving.
SOON AFTER THE PLANES hit the World Trade Center towers last September,
the domestic violence hotline at the New York Asian Women's Center started
ringing off the hook. Within weeks, complaints of abuse against Chinese
women had shot up 50 percent.
But for all their differences, there is one strong commonality among all her
clients: Leaving a husband is taboo. Many Asian women believe their husbands
have the right to beat them, says De O'Connor. So her caseworkers and volunteers
spend up to 12 hours a day with a client, filling out paperwork for immigration appli-
cations, public assistance and housing. In some cases, they work with police to
remove a husband from the apartment.
They also teach the general public as well as doctors and police about the intri-
cacies of domestic violence in Asian cultures.
But the space crunch limits the work they can do. "We've been hesitant to
do more outreach to the smaller communities. It's really hard to go out there
and say, 'If you need help, we can provide it to you.' We just can't say that."
-Jamie Katz
10
"Chinatown was so devastated. Tension was much higher," says Tuhina De
O'Connor, executive director of the women's center. Meanwhile, calls from Mus-
lims dropped because of fear of persecution, she said, so the center upped out-
CITY LIMITS
~ OPEN SOCIETY INSTITUTE www.soros.org/fellow/community
APPLICATIONS FOR THE 2003
NEW YORK CITY COMMUNITY FELLOWSHIPS
The Open Society Institute is currently accepting applications for the
New York City Community Fellowships.
The fellowships program seeks community activists and dynamic individuals from diverse
backgrounds to establish progressive initiatives or public interest projects that address social
justice issues in New York City. The program supports advocacy, organizing, or direct service
projects that promote equity for marginalized communities. Past projects have focused on the
arts, civic participation, economic justice, education, health, and workers' rights.
Fellows receive an I8-month stipend and additional resources for each project.
Applications are due Friday, April 18, 2003 by noon.
For eligibility, selection criteria, and an application, please contact
CommunityFellows@sorosny.org or visit www.soros.org/fellow/community.
The Open Society Institute, a private operating and grantmaking foundation created and funded by George Soros,
works to strengthen democracy and civil society in the United States and more than 50 countries around the world.
P HOTOGRAPHY AMANT WILLET
INSIDE TRACK
Bad Housekeeping
The city's other emergency shelters are
no haven from catastrophe.
By Jamie Katz
Brownsville's Amboy Street is lined with shelters for families whose former homes are uninhabitable. A city audit calls conditions
here "deplorable."
FOUR SHElTERS. THREE AUDITS. And a lot of rats
and roaches.
Hilda Garcia, then a 3D-year-old mother of
two, was living in Queens when firemen kicked
everyone out of her building, which didn't have
fire escapes. "We went to a hotel for a week. It
was fine, but there wasn't any money for food
and nowhere for us to cook. The Red Cross
found this for us," she says in Spanish.
"This" was 186 Amboy Street, one of 13
buildings in Brownsville, Brooklyn, run by
Amboy Neighborhood Center, under contract
12
as an emergency shelter. The Garcias lived there
for the next four years.
Garcia had mixed feelings about conditions
at the shelter. "They're not so bad, they're not so
great. They don't make us pay rent-that's the
best part for me. " The not so great: "There are
many rats; there are many cockroaches. There
are drug problems and people spend time in the
hallways, with other people, making noise. "
Fetid slums are not what the city is supposed
to be paying for. When people lose their homes
in a fire or get ordered to vacate a dangerous
building, those who have nowhere else to go can
rum to the American Red Cross, which directs
them to hotels or to one of four city-sponsored
shelters. There, residents wait for social workers
to help find them permanent housing.
But a series of audits of three of these shel-
ters, run under contracts issued by the city
Department of Housing Preservation and
Development (HPD) , make clear that Garcia's
experience was typical. A June audit from City
Comprrolier Bill Thompson describes Amboy
as a facility with "deplorable conditions." The
CITY LIMITS
audit also points a finger at HPD for allowing
conditions in the buildings to deteriorate: It con-
cludes that HPD's monitoring of the facilities
has been "inadequate."
Amboy Neighborhood Center had provided
shelter under city contract for nearly three
decades. Last June, following the audit's release,
HPD did not renew its contract for the Amboy
Street facili ty.
"It was mutually agreeable that they would
step out, " HPD spokesperson Barbara Flynn
told City Limits. "Pardy financial issues, and
pardy because they didn't do a particularly good
job." Amboy president Diana White did not
return calls from City Limits.
Clogged sinks and roach and rat infestations
were just the beginning. Other conditions report-
ed in the audit included missing smoke detectors
or batteries; damaged floor tiles, walls and ceilings;
holes in walls, floors and ceilings; clogged bath-
tubs; leaking pipes and faucets; peeling paint;
kitchen cabinets missing doors or otherwise dam-
aged; and nonfunctional or broken windows.
Such findings were not unique to Amboy.
Two other audits found comparable, though less
severe, problems ar HPD shelters under a differ-
ent contractor. Two groups, 456 West 129th
Street Housing Corporation and 138 West
143rd Street HFDC, receive a combined total of
$3.9 million a year to operate Convent Family
Living Center, a strip of four buildings on West
129th Street in Harlem, and Harriet Tubman
Family Living Center, consisting of four more
buildings on West 143rd Street. Both groups are
subsidiaries of West Harlem Group Assistance, a
three-decade-old community development cor-
poration.
The audit on Convent found that its facilities
were not maintained in "safe and sanitary condi-
tion," reporting roach infestations, peeling paint,
and a hole in the floor of one apartment, among
other conditions. Additionally, the review found
that many repairs were delayed for an "inordinate
amount of time" and that the same problems
were often noted in more than one inspection
visit before repairs were completed. Many repairs
took three to six months to be completed.
The audit on the Harriet Tubman center like-
wise found detrimental conditions, including
roach infestations, peeling paint and leaks from
bathroom ceilings. Of nearly 600 work orders that
should have been prepared for conditions requir-
ing correction, 163 were not available; 200 of the
work orders didn't even indicate that actions had
been taken to correct the problems noted.
The organization running these two shelters
disagreed with the findings of both audits. Don-
ald Notice, executive director of West Harlem
JANUARY 2003
Btrild a Better World
and Get Free Ben &.Jerry' Sfi Ice (ream
and 360 Free Minutes
from Working Assets Long Distance
Build a better world every time you talk on the phone with
Working Assets Long Distance. We donate 1 % of your charges
to progressive non-profits- at no extra cost to you. Join today, and
we'll send you a coupon for a FREE pint of Ben & jerry's'"
Ice Cream every month for a year. We'll even top it off with
60 FREE minutes of calls every month for 6 months!""
1.800.788.8588
www.workingassets.com/cityHmits
WORKING ASSETS
L o ng Di sta n ce
The free minutes will lx credited ;a t 71/. a minute with this fate plan. To receive free gifts account must remain connected. Ben & Jerry's is
used by Working Assets under license from Ben & Jerry's Homem:.adc Holdings, Inc., 2002. 102002 Working Assets AM27 1 NYC l
JOHN DANIEL YOUNG
Independent Office Support
"WHEN EVERY DOLLAR COUNTS"
A main concern of the not for profit organization is to how to make
the most out of every dollar. Even with careful planning staffing your
organization may eat away at your yearly budget.
Independent Office Support can lower costs by providing compre-
hensive Clerical and Administrative services for your organization.
Hourly rates (pay for actual task time, not down time)
No additional benefits to cover.
Word processing, spreadsheets, data entry, presentations, and much
more.
10% - 15% saving off quotes from other staffing providers.
Contact John at 718-293-2970
or email: jdaniely@aol.com
and we can discuss your staffing needs.
13
14
Your Neighborhood'Housing
Insurance Specialist for over 25 Years
INSURING Low-INCOME CO-OPS,
NOT-FOR-PROFIT COMMUNITY GROUPS
AND TENANTS
Contact:
Ingrid Kaminski, Senior Vice President
212-269-8080, ext. 213
Fax: 212-269-8112
Ingrid@8ollingerlnsurance.com
Bollinger, Inc.
One Wall Street Court, New York, NY 10268-0982
www.Boliingerlnsurance.com/ny
NANCY HARDY
Insurance Broker
Specializing in Community
Development Groups, HDFCs and
Non-Profits.
Low-Cost Insurance and Quality Service.
Over 20 Years of Experience.
270 North Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10801
914-636-8455
Group Assistance, says that high tenant turnover
is an important factor contributing to the con-
ditions in apartments, one he feels the audits
overlooked. He also says that inspectors noted
only the apartments in poor condition, ignoring
those that were well kept. The comptroller's
audit, covering fiscal year 2001, "wasn't a fair
assessment," he concludes.
In its written response to the Convent audit,
the shelter operator reported that it immediate-
ly fIXed all physical problems in the buildings,
doubled the frequency of extermination and
moved to have its staff educate residents about
keeping their apartments clean.
HPD also disputed to the comptroller the
audits' findings that the shelters were "unsafe
and unsanitary."
Deputy Comptroller Greg Brooks calls this
disagreement "a lime surprising." But he also
says that in spite of HPD's objection to the
Families in these
shelters often don't
find permanent
housing for years.
Some are content
to keep living
rent-free.
audits' conclusions, the agency seems to be try-
ing to mitigate conditions. "You get a sense that
HPD wants to improve," he says.
Last April, nearly a year after the comptrol-
ler's office first notified HPD of its critical
findings, HPD informed the comptroller that
it was committing $3 million to repair and
rehabilitate West Harlem's buildings, including
a gut rehab of each of the Convent properties.
Notice says HPD had earmarked the repair
funds before the comptroller's audits. Con-
struction, however, did not begin until Sep-
tember. "What the city's doing now is great,"
Notice says of the overhaul.
At 26 Convent Avenue, a huge room was
recently split into two smaller spaces: one will
soon become a privately funded technology
center and the other is a reading room. New
bright blue paint covers the walls, and books fill
shelves around the room. Ruben Rankin, direc-
CITY LIMITS
ror of maintenance services at Convent, proudly
declares that his staff did the work. "That's love,"
he says.
In a first floor apartment where a woman has
just moved in with her girl and baby boy, a new
shower curtain hangs in the bathroom, and the
mattress is still wrapped in plastic. The apartment
appears freshly cleaned, and from his white crib
the baby watches visirors walk through the room.
IF THEIR FORMER LANDLORDS don't fix their unin-
habitable places, the families that end up in these
shelters often get stuck, sometimes for years at a
time, waiting for permanent housing ro open up.
HPD can't move particularly quickly ro get peo-
ple inro new apartments, says Sandra James, a
social worker at Amboy. She notes that the ciry's
homeless agency pays landlords thousands of
dollars a month ro take in its clients, as opposed
ro the maybe $800 Section 8 brings. "If a land-
lord knows that, he's not going ro take an HPD,
Section 8 client," she concludes.
Garcia's family recendy found an apartment
in East New York, where Section 8 subsidies will
pay part of their rent and they will have ro cover
the rest, using her husband's earnings from his
part-time job at a clothing facrory. "We've been
looking for an apartment for six months," she
says. "Why? Many times, the owners-the land-
lords--didn't accept us since there are so many
people looking. "
But while Garcia had a happy ending, Amboy's
workers are still left in the lurch. Amboy's last con-
tract with the city expired in July 2001, and the
workers haven't had a contract with their agency
since March 1999. Of the 66 staff employed at the
Amboy shelters, 32 are still working under a provi-
sional arrangement between Amboy and the city.
At the time of the audit, five of Amboy's 13 build-
ings had already been closed for renovations.
HPD has put Amboy's long-term contract out
ro bid, and there are no guarantees workers will be
able to hold onto their jobs. The city is soliciting
bids from organizations with reputations for pro-
viding high-quality services to homeless families,
including HELP USA. Undeterred, in an October
letter ro her workers Amboy's Diana White
informed them that her agency intends ro respond
to HPD's request for proposals. (Five-year con-
tracts for Convent and Tubman are also up for
grabs starting next year.)
Staff say they did not find out about
Amboy's troubles until their union found a City
Limits Weekly article reporting the ciry would
not be renewing Amboy's contract. "We were
kept in the dark, " says Russell Thomas, who has
been working for Amboy's maintenance staff for
13 years. Now Thomas says he and his cowork-
ers are waiting to learn of the fate of their jobs:
"We're caught in the middle of the struggle."
JANUARY 2003
Need a Lawyer Who Understands
Workforce Development?
Workforce development programs provide individuals
with invaluable job skills in this difficult economy.
Lawyers Alliance provides expert legal services to
nonprofit groups involved in job training and place-
ment. Lawyers Alliance staff attorneys are specialists
who understand the particular legal challenges non-
profits face related to the workplace. Our volunteer
attorneys from leading law firms and corporations
are expert in all areas of business law and share our
commitment to putting New York to work.
For information, call Lawyers Alliance for New York
at (212) 219-1800, ext. 222.
330 Seventh Avenue
New York, NY 10001
212 219-1800
www.lany.org
Lawyers Alliance
for New York
Building a Better New York
FREE LEGAL ASSISTANCE
Not-for-profits and community groups are eligible for free legal
assistance and representation from our member law firms and lega
departments through New York Lawyers for the Public Interest's
(NYLPI) pro bono Clearinghouse.
Our network of attorneys can work with you
on a wide variety of legal issues:
Establishing your group as a not-for-profit
Lease negotiations and other real estate matters
Representing your organization in litigation matters
Establishing a long-term relationship with one of our member law firms
All legal services are free of charge
Call Peter Turk at NYLPI (212) 336-9318 or email at:
pturk@nylpi.org today to see if your group is eligible.
N Y L P I
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest
151 West 30
th
Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10001-4007
15
A Windy City high school gives low-income teenagers a Jesuit
education for just $2,200 a year-if they're willing to work for it.
But will New York's Catholic schools give the made-in-Chicago
model a chance? By Alexander Russo
EACH WEEKDAY MORNING, about 100
students at Cristo Rey, a Jesuit high school in
Chicago, troop onto buses wearing shirts and
ties and looking like slightly younger versions of
all the adults going to work. After getting
dropped off downtown, they walk to their jobs
at law firms, insurance companies and banks.
Started six years ago in Pilsen, an extremely
poor Mexican community on Chicago's Near
West Side, Cristo Rey combines some of the
typical features of a parochial education-rig-
orous classes and an emphasis on discipline and
college attendance-with an unusual work-
study requirement called the "corporate intern-
ship program."
But these are no ordinary internships. Instead
of the loose hours and nonexistent pay that char-
acterize traditional efforts to link work and
school, students hold down real full-time jobs,
with the hours split between four students . .
Cristo Rey kids fax, ftle, deliver, copy and answer
phones just like any other entry-level worker for
five full days a month, while at the same time
completing a demanding academic program-
and paying their own tuition through their jobs.
For decades, parochial schools have provid-
ed an escape hatch for ambitious low-income
students who might otherwise have to attend
struggling neighborhood schools. But the aver-
age parochial high school tuition-$4,000-
plus in New York-remains insurmountable
for many families. At Cristo Rey, students'
wages cover about 75 percent of the cost of
running the school, as opposed to the typical
parochial school, where tuition covers about
two-thirds of the costs. Thanks to the intern-
ships, students get valuable work experience,
employers get able young workers, and families
get a drastically reduced tuition of $2,200-
roughly half the cost of most other Catholic
high schools in the area.
To its proponents, the Cristo Rey model is a
sustainable way of expanding access to quality
16
education, with much larger numbers of poor
students gaining access to parochial education
than would be available through scholarships at
existing schools. "Even with all the scholarship
money in the world, you couldn't give access to
all these kids, " says Jeff Thielman of the Cassin
Foundation, a Cristo Rey funder.
Among skeptics, reservations are not so much
ideological as practical. "It is sort of sad that chil-
dren have to do this to get a good education,"
says Noreen Connell, executive director of New
York's Educational Priorities Panel, a budget
watchdog group. "It sounds really onerous,"
echoes Brad Hoylman, communications director
of the New York City Partnership, a municipal
business group that has sponsored public-private
education collaborations. "How do they find
time to work?"
At first, Cristo Rey was a Chicago-only phe-
nomenon. But then San Francisco venture cap-
italist B.]. Cassin started a foundation to help
find additional locations and start-up funds for
new Cristo Rey schools. Since then, three more
Cristo Rey schools have been started--one in
Porrland, Oregon, one in Los Angeles, and one
in Austin, Texas-with another opening up
next fall in Denver. Officials in Boston, New
Brunswick, and Tucson are all either consider-
ing or planning on opening a Cristo Rey school
in the near future. The idea has been profiled in
Business week and the Los Angeles Times as well as
on public television. Visitors have flocked to the
Chicago school to see how it works.
Now, if all goes as planned, the Cristo Rey
model is coming to the Bronx. After conduct-
ing a nine-month feasibility study, chief propo-
nent and founding president William Ford has
secured a three-year lease for the top floor of
the Immaculate Conception Parish Elementary
School on East 151st Street in Mott Haven.
Ford already has over $1 million in funding
and says he's on track to admit the first class of
100 freshmen to Cristo Rey High School New
York in August.
There's just one snag: Thus far, Cristo Rey
has not yet received formal approval from the
Catholic Archdiocese to open a new school. At
the office of the Archdiocese, spokesperson
Nora Murphy would make little comment on
Cristo Rey, saying that there are "amicable"
conversations underway and that the Archdio-
cese is awaiting additional documentation
from the state Board of Regents before a deci-
sion is made.
But the possibility of a new Catholic high
school in the South Bronx-the first in
decades-has raised hackles among existing
Catholic schools in the neighborhood. They see
Cristo Rey as competing with them, both in
fundraising and for the brightest, most motivat-
ed students, and many of them aren't happy
about it. Without their cooperation, it's conceiv-
able that Cristo Rey might not be approved.
Murphy says the main concern is how well
the new school will complement those already
in place. "We don't want a new school to come
in that is not blended into the mix," she says.
Others are more blunt, though they don't
want their names used in print. "We don't sup-
port them," says the principal at another near-
by Catholic high school. "What's needed here
is a school for students who need a lot of reme-
dial help. That's not the target they have."
STARTED SIX YEARS AGO with just 80
students taking classes in a defunct elementary
school building, the Chicago school has been a
remarkable success, both academically and
financially. Because 99 percent of students
come from Mexican-American families, many
of them recent immigrants, Cristo Rey has a
dual-language Spanish-English curriculum.
There are no honors courses or academic
tracks. But even though the school requires no
standardized admissions test and only accepts
students who are not applying to other Catholic
CITY LIMITS
JANUARY 2003
17
schools, enrollment, graduation and college
attendance rates have been extraordinarily high.
Enrollment has grown to more than 450 stu-
dents, half of whom are given scholarships that
further reduce the cost of attending the school.
In a neighborhood where public schools have a
55 to 60 percent graduation rate, over 90 percent
of Cristo Rey students graduate high school, and
over 85 percent of them are in college.
Thanks to the model's appeal, as well as
effective fundraising, a new school building
houses the students, and a library and gymnasi-
um are already under construction next door.
More than 110 Chicago businesses, including
CIGNA and most of the top law firms in town,
have hired Cristo Rey students this year. "Every-
body knows about Cristo Rey," says freshman
Nancy Maldonado, who lives in the neighbor-
hood and works at a downtown law firm.
For the Jesuits, who have long been known as
that they would continue the work-study format
even if they didn't need it for funding. "The expe-
riences that our students were having in the cor-
porate sector were opening up more doors than
anyone could name," says founding principal Sis-
ter Judy Murphy, "mainly in students' minds."
A three-week orientation program helps
prepare new students-some of whom have
never even gone downtown-to dress appro-
priately, make eye contact, shake hands firmly
and operate office equipment. They type at
least 40 words a minute. Showing up for work
is mandatory, and the school claims a 98 per-
cent work attendance rate.
On the first day of school six years ago,
sophomore Juan Marquez carne back from his
work-study job at a downtown insurance com-
pany headquarters bursting with excitement
about where he'd been and how easily he'd been
accepted into this new world. "They gave me
"The experiences that our students were
having in the corporate sector
were opening up more doors than
anyone could name," says founding
principal Sister Judy Murphy,
"mainly in students' minds."
educators, Cristo Rey represents a return to their
core mission of serving the poor. The Jesuits
already run nearly 50 high schools nationwide,
but many of these schools have become elite
institutions that are extremely competitive to get
into and charge $8,000 to $10,000 a year in
tuition. In some cities, Jesuits have also opened
a handful of "nativity" schools, small, personal-
ized middle schools specifically for poor kids,
but these schools are expensive to run.
The work program at Cristo Rey was actu-
ally the brainchild of a group of Jesuits and an
ourside consultant hired to corne up with a way
to open an inexpensive high school that, unlike
most parochial schools, wouldn't need ongoing
financial support from outside. The Chicago
school is 95 percent self-sufficient in covering
its operational budget, which is one of the pro-
gram's main goals.
There were unexpected benefits to the work
requirement as well. Cristo Rey educators now say
18
the security code!" he told the principal. "I can
go anywhere in that building."
For low-income immigrant students like
Marquez, whose neighborhood experience offers
little exposure to adults from other backgrounds,
this work experience may be as valuable as any-
thing he can learn in a classroom. "You get to see
lawyers and other people at work," says rreshman
Eduardo Ramirez, who works at a big law firm
downtown. "Maybe you want to be like them."
BY AND LARGE, the students seem to like
their jobs and are proud of their school. "You
get more responsibility downtown," explains
Angel Velasquez, a clean-cur sophomore who
works at Northern Trust Bank.
Cristo Rey is not easy, though. Because
roughly a quarter of the student body is at
work-and not in class--each day, school offi-
cials had to develop a slightly longer school day
and year to ensure that academics aren't given
short shrirr. To help keep costs down, many
teachers work heavy loads. Because of the
schedule, students sometimes miss out on
sports and other school events because of work.
Work comes first.
The hours, not to speak of rushed anonymi-
ty of downtown office life, can be hard, too, say
students. "People are so rude downtown," says
sophomore Tatiana Martinez. "Some white
people think Latinos are lazy."
Convincing employers to take on high
school students as real employees was also a
struggle, especially at first, says Sister Murphy.
"They didn't quite believe that adolescents
could be asked to do real work," she recalls.
And just like in the Bronx, the Chicago
school initially faced serious opposition from
other local Catholic schools. Even though it
had close ties to the neighborhood, was led by
top Jesuit officials with strong connections to
the Archdiocese, and was championed by
Chicago's late, beloved Cardinal Joseph
Bernardin, Cristo Rey was controversial at first.
It still is: Just last spring, plans for a second
Cristo Rey on the South Side were pur on hold,
in part because of opposition from existing
Catholic schools nearby.
Times have been hard for Catholic schools.
In Chicago and around the country, urban
Catholic high schools have been closing regu-
larly over the past decade, as interest and
enrollment have dried up and Catholic families
have moved out of cities. Cristo Rey was the
first new Catholic high school to open in
Chicago in 30 years. To ease orher schools' fears
of losing enrollment to Cristo Rey, the school
was initially forced to start with sophomores
and juniors rather than accepting freshmen,
and almost had to agree to take no one who
had gone to a Catholic elementary school.
In the end, these fears proved groundless.
The new school in Chicago has ended up hav-
ing little or no negative effect on nearby
Catholic schools. Nobody has closed because of
Cristo Rey. Enrollment has actually gone up 50
percent at a nearby all-girls Catholic school,
and Latino enrollment at a nearby elite Jesuit
high school has also been on the rise.
One reason is that two our of three Cristo Rey
students corne our of public schools, not other
Catholic schools. (For most Catholic high schools
it is the other way around.) And Cristo Rey regu-
larly diverts interested farnilies who aren't recent
immigrants, or who can afford to pay regular
tuition, to established Catholic schools.
As a result, Cristo Rey has won a fair
amount of local support among Catholic edu-
cators. "I think it's a great thing, " says Brother
CITY LIMITS
Michael Quirk, president of the De La Salle
Institute, a nearby Catholic school. "There are
so many kids underserved in Chicago that we
need more alternatives. "
MONSIGNOR JOHN GRAHAM, principal
of Cardinal Hayes, a boys school located in Mott
Haven, is proud of his school's efforts to keep
tuition to just $4,250 per year. Two-thirds of the
students at his school are Hispanic; most of the
rest are African-American. Over 95 percent grad-
uate, according to Graham, and 96 percent are
accepted into college. "We have the lowest
Catholic tuition in the metro area," he says, in
addition to giving financial assistance to 35 per-
cent of all students. Like other Catholic educators
in New York, Graham refUses to talk about Cristo
Rey. "I don't want to go there," he says.
The poorest borough in the city, the Bronx
also has the city's highest number of public
schools on the list of Schools Under Registra-
tion Review, the state's index of failing public
schools. While she laments the fact that stu-
dents and their families have to go to such
extreme measures just to get a decent educa-
tion, Noreen Connell, for one, sees Cristo Rey
as a worthwhile experiment. "You're giving
them work experience, which isn't bad," she
says. "It's something that the students and fam-
ilies have volunteered to do. It's an effort to cre-
ate smaller and better high schools."
But Ford knows that he has yet to win every-
one over. Leaders of other Catholic schools in the
area are particularly worried. There are already 14
Catholic high schools serving the borough,
including fWo nearby schools-Pius V for girls
and Cardinal Hayes for boys. "Their schools are
already up and running, and it's hard to raise
money and attract students," says Ford, pointing
out that the idea of a "shiny new school" is
understandably threatening. "We're meant to
expand the pool, rather than cut into a finite pie
of students. But to them it's just so many words."
One problem may be that the Bronx Cristo
Rey is not as closely linked to the Jesuits and the
archdiocesan community as its Chicago coun-
terpart. Instead of being sponsored and run by
Jesuits, the Bronx school will be more loosely
affiliated with three different Catholic congrega-
tions. Ford, like many other Cristo Rey propo-
nents nationally, is a layperson. The school's
advisory committee did not include anyone
from the Archdiocese, and local Jesuits don't
necessarily see the idea of starting a new school
like Cristo Rey as their own. "This didn't come
from us," explains Sister Nora Cronin, the Jesuit
official in charge of high schools in New York.
"This came from Mr. Ford, who wanted to have
JANUARY 2003
the backing of the religious community."
Cristo Rey needs archdiocesan approval if it is
going to call itself a Catholic school and approach
traditional Catholic funders. So far, the school has
received $750,000 from Cassin and $250,000
from the Holy Sisters, and needs $2.5 million
more to balance its budget within five years. Like
the Chicago school, Cristo Rey New York plans
on being self-sufficient within five years. "We're
not asking for a penny, a building, or a single per-
son from the Archdiocese," says Ford. Nonethe-
less, he's worried the school won't be approved as
prompdy as he would like. "There are some fac-
tions within the Archdiocese that are concerned,"
he says, "and some openly hostile."
based on a dual-language Spanish-English cur-
riculum like the one in Chicago. While Mott
Haven has a substantial Spanish-speaking pop-
ulation, many families have been there for
longer than Chicago's recent Mexican immi-
grants, and there are also significant numbers
of Mrican-American families. Chicago's Quirk,
whose De La Salle school has a similar demo-
graphic composition, says he doubts his
African-American students would be interested
in a Spanish-English program.
Ford, who carefully pronounces the new
school's name with a Spanish accent, says that
personally he would like to have a Spanish-lan-
guage program at the school. This would
In Chicago's working-class Pilsen neighborhood, where public school graduation
rates hover around 60 p e r c e n ~ over 90 percent of Cristo Rey students graduate.
Ford expects the Regents to give their approval
by January, and he hopes the Archdiocese will fol-
low shottly thereafrer, despite his lack of formal
credentials. In the meantime, he is going forward
with the rest of his plans for next fall's opening.
Rather than the private buses and vans used
in Chicago, the Bronx Cristo Rey is going to rely
on public transportation to get students to and
from work each day. Minimizing the commute
time to midtown and Wall Street workplaces is
the main reason, but trains will also save the
roughly $1,000 a day that the Chicago school's
buses cost. Ford is already enlisting an army of
volunteers to accompany students each day.
Academically, the new school may not be
reflect the community culture, he says, and
honor the memory of his aunt, a Roman
Catholic nun and one of the four American
churchwomen killed in El Salvador in 1980.
As in Chicago, undocumented students will
not be accepted for now, due to employment
and immigration considerations. But a dual-lan-
guage program is especially important to Ford
because he would like to be able to enroll undoc-
umented immigrant students someday. "I see
them as the community that is in greatest need,"
he says. "It's my community 100 years ago. "
Alexander Russo (AlexanderRusso@aol.com) is a
Chicago-based education writer.
19
MARKET BABIES
In a post-welfare world, New York spends more on chil d
care than ever before. We've bought a new legion of
home-based entrepreneurs-and a shaky start for kids
and workers al ike. BY TRACIE McMILLAN
KWAME BOAME IS ONLY 6 YEARS OLD, but he's already got a hellu-
va commute. Every Monday morning, Kwame's mother, Kimberly Paul,
rustles him out the door at 6:30 to take the A train from their apartment in
the Dyckman Houses, at the northern tip of Manhattan, to the island's
southern border. In the Broadway-Nassau station, next to the magazine
stand on the A platform, they meet Kwame's great-grandmother, who shep-
herds Kwame onto the train to Bedford-Stuyvesant, where he goes to
school. For the next five days, he'll stay with his grandmother and great-
grandmother. Kwame won't see his mother again until Friday.
Kwame's weekly commute and bi-borough living are Paul's response to
a common conundrum: a low-income parent's need to find affordable,
quality child care. Almost since the city began building its publicly funded
day care for low-income families through its Agency for Child Develop-
ment (ACD) in the 1970s, waiting lists have numbered from thousands to
tens of thousands.
Then came welfare reform. The move of thousands of parents into
the workplace was accompanied by a massive surge in the number of
those who turned to the city to help them pay for child care. The city
20
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SUNE WOODS
welfare agency, the Human Resources Administration (HRA), set up a
second child care system exclusively serving families on welfare or recent-
ly off it. By August 2002, more than 40,000 children received child care
paid for by HRA, up from 14,000 in 1998.
Kwame used to be one of them. When he was 4, Paul was trying to
get off welfare by taking a paralegal course. HRA paid for Kwame's child
care while his mother took the class, as well as for the first year afrer she
left public assistance, through a voucher she gave to his caretaker. Once
she'd finished "transitioning" off of welfare, Paul's child care was taken
over by ACD. Again, she got a voucher-a coupon for child care that she
could give to any kind of provider she could find.
But even with the $200 a month for child care-Paul is now respon-
sible for an equivalent amount herself-she still couldn't fmd a way to
make it work. Her job at a law office regularly requires her to work late,
and that calls for extra cash for child care that she just doesn't have. "It's
very hard to be mommy over the phone," she says, "but if! had someone
[caring for Kwamel up here, we wouldn't be able to eat because I'd have
to pay the overtime."
CITY LIMITS
Paul is lucky, relarively speaking. Her mother, Sandra Robinson, isn't just
a grandmother to Kwame-she takes care of young children for a living,
watching six young kids in her home every day. Though it's a right fit, the
situation works. Paul can keep her job and stay off welfare. Kwame has sta-
ble adult supervision. And Robinson gets paid for caring for Kwame, which
in turn helps her cover the housing costs for herself and her aging mother.
The after-school hours at Robinson's house are busy, to put it diplo-
matically. Four wee ones, ages 2 to 4 years, toddle through the kitchen
and living room, scrambling to play with cardboard tubes and grabbing
at the Sesame Street guitar the older children are playing with. Milk mus-
taches have to be wiped after snack time, 2-year-old Diarrah stopped
from wearing Robinson's eyeglasses out of the house, and all of them
lightly admonished for singing Eminem lyrics. When it's rime to go to the
park, Robinson instructs Kwame and Ashad, who's 8, to form a human
barricade against the onslaught of toddlers trying to rumble out the door.
For her part, Robinson would recommend the job--with a few
caveats. "Day care is very viable," she says, "but you've got to love kids
because they will drive you crazy." As a former worker in youth nonprof-
its and social services, she's still a bit astonished by her terms of employ-
ment. "So yes, for this full day, ACD pays me $1.88 an hour for the older
ones, $2.30 for the younger. Is it amazing or what?" Robinson chuckles
and shakes her head with a touch of incredulity. Last year, she grossed
about $16,000. "It's just unbelievable."
In the field of child care, where the median wage nationwide is $7.43
an hour-barely more than that of a parking lot attendant-Robinson
is getting by OK. But she still finds it a struggle to make her home a
good place to take care of kids. ''I'd be so happy just to have a backyard, "
she says. "It took me six months just to pay for the fence. "
ROBINSON'S HIGH-ENERGY apartment-based business is part of a
booming cottage industry. There are about 8,500 registered "family day
care" providers like Robinson in the city, up from 3,400 in 1993, accord-
ing to Department of Health records; private research suggests that about
JANUARY 2003
The Monday move: Every week, Kimberly Paul (left) takes son
Kwame to meet his great-grandmother, who shuttles him to child
care so Paul can go to work. Mom will pick him up on Friday.
half of them are actually caring for kids. About 13,000 children are cur-
rently in city-subsidized family day care. These chaotic microbusinesses are
government's best answer, for now, to the urgent challenge of finding child
care for the tens of thousands of women on or leaving welfare.
"There has been a huge increase, a huge increase" in family day care,
says Nancy Kolben, executive director of Child Care Inc., a citywide
resource and referral nonprofit. Kolben attributes the boom, in part, to a
rapid increase in the number of child care vouchers issued by the city's
welfare and child care agencies. Those vouchers brought in a wide new
stream of cash for child care businesses, easily accessed by anyone with
basic training in the field.
Today, family child care has been the fastest-growing kind of regulat-
ed care the city pays for, increasing by roughly 38 percent between 1998
and 2002. Care in formal child care centers increased by just 7 percent.
A lot is riding on the ability of family day care providers to make it
work in the long haul. Though New York City only subsidizes child care
for low-income families, it's still straining to meet the need. In 2000,
there were an estimated 570,000 children living under the federal pover-
ty line in New York City. The city's public child care system cared for a
little under 100,000 of them-barely even one-sixth of poor kids. Today,
of those who are covered, about one-third are in "informal" care-yes,
public money pays their babysitters, who are virtually unregulated.
Among children whose care is paid for by the city's welfare agency, three
in four are in informal arrangements.
The dire need for child care isn't unique to New York. Before Con-
gress adjourned for elections, one debate surrounding reauthorization of
welfare reform hinged not on whether or not to increase child care
spending, but if the increase should be $1 billion or $5 billion.
New Yorkers will benefit from those additional dollars-but only if
the money goes into increasing access to government-regulated care. That
won't happen automarically. Virtually all of the expansion of child care
following the welfare reform of 1996 has come in the form of vouchers.
The city's welfare agency covers its child care needs exclusively through
21
vouchers, and vouchers accounted for nearly one in three of ACD's chil-
dren last year. In the early 1990s, only a couple thousand vouchers went
out for child care annually, mostly used to tide parents over until a slot
opened up at--or was added to--a day care center working under con-
tract with the city. By 2002, more than 59,000 vouchers were issued to
families, representing 60 percent of all city-subsidized child care.
Amid the flood of vouchers, toy-filled child care centers, with two
dozen toddlers and a cluster of young, smiling teachers, haven't materi-
alized. There's no central agency responsible for constructing child care
facilities, and so far public dollars have not gotten much built.
Which is where people like Sandra Robinson come in. Because it
doesn't require the construction of new facilities, family day care cir-
cumvents the most formidable obstacles to expansion. Because it relies
on an infinitely expandable pool of providers without increasing perma-
nent capacity, family day care is extremely hospitable to a market-driven,
voucher-based system. Because it does require training, licensing and
registration, family day care addresses concerns from parents and policy-
makers alike about quality of services that arise with the use of informal
caregivers. And because
it draws on women's
child-rearing experi-
ence, some politicians
and foundation officers
are wagering that fami-
ly day care could have
an added bonus: pro-
viding employment for
women leaving welfare.
toys, a television and VCR, a crib, a side table, and a few large toys neat-
ly tucked against the wall. As the kids finish their lunch, Espinal is flut-
tering between spoon-feeding l-year-old Jalani, keeping the five kids
quiet at the table, and making sure that 2-year-old Patrick continues his
asthma treatment, a steaming nebulizer securely over his nose and
mouth. Meanwhile, her husband, Luis, off for the day from his job in
the Saks stockroom, drags nap time cots into the room.
The toom where Espinal cares for the kids used to be her living room.
Now it's a full-on, home-styled version of a child care center. She and Luis,
their three children, and their black Labrador retriever all pretty much live
in the apartment's two bedrooms and modest kitchen. Her bedroom has a
computer desk and filing cabinet shoved in next to the bed and dresser.
The business is in operation six days a week, from about 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
on weekdays, 8 to 6 on Saturdays-a full 65 hours of work. For her efforts,
Espinal brings in about $4,000 in subsidies and private cash a month. Afrer
expenses and taxes, she nets about $2,000, or a little less than $8 an hour.
Espinal is doing pretty well. Still, the work can be thankless. Even some
of her own clients think that child care is just something that women do.
- - - - - - _ ~ "Some parents think
that you are not profes-
sional, that it's not a
job," says Espinal exas-
peratedly. "You enjoy
the kids, but it's a job."
With such massive
demand, though, child
care retains a signilicant
appeal as a business
enterprise. "The need
never ends," explains
Nancy Biberman, execu-
tive director ofWHED-
CO, which runs a day
care training and referral
network for day care
providers in the Bronx.
"And frankly, the poten-
tial for generating new
home-based child care is
pretty endless."
But child care is a
high-stress, low-wage
vocation, and trans-
forming welfare moth-
ers into reliable, well-
trained child care work-
ers has proven a diffi-
cult proposition. Doing
it well, it turns out,
takes massive invest-
ment of additional dol-
lars. In New York City,
one program spends $4
million a year simply to
pay salaries and provide
supports to 125 former
Na'Shawn Taylor, Brianna Thornton-Roach and Khalid Bowman are three of Sandra
Robinson's six customers. To accommodate them, Robinson's family lives in one room.
Biberman's sales
pitch jibes with Espinal's
experience. "I've gotten
welfare recipients working as child care providers in their own homes.
The emerging business of family day care is exactly what the creators of
New York's voucher system dreamed of: a private, demand-driven market-
place for child care services. For that achievement alone, it's not a failure.
But unless the public and private sectors both take on the monumental
task of making it viable-as a job, and as a dependable service for its cus-
tomers-homegrown child care will never succeed in keeping low-income
parents at work.
IT'S JUST AFTER NOON, AND MILAGROS Espinal is crouched at
a table that barely meets her knees. She's sharing her table with five small
kids chasing peas and carrots around plastic plates, underneath a wall
covered in finger paintings. The room is not large, but in addition to the
lunch table it holds two more tables, an additional eight minuscule
chairs, one lounge chair, three large shelf units crammed with books and
22
so many calls and I have
to send them to a friend, and the friend sends them to someone else
because she doesn't have any room," says Espinal, who's had her own child
care battles. A mother at 16, Espinal dropped out of college because she
couldn't find child care, and she spent four years on and off of welfare.
When she finally decided, afrer working as a child care home monitor, to
open her own day care business, the fact that she'd be able to be home
when her kids came home from school was a selling point, too. "That was
my major reason," she explains. "They weren't doing good in school. Ever
since I've been back at home, they've been doing great in school."
Now in her sixth year as a child care provider-she upgraded her
skills through WHEDCO's training program two years ago--Espinal
has expanded up to a gtoup family child care home, licensing her to
watch over as many as 12 children. Rotating some through in shifrs
means she cares for 13 daily. The volume of kids means she makes
enough money to employ an assistant; she ended up hiring one of her
CITY LIMITS
charges' parents, a woman who was sick of working in a factory. Now the
assistant is taking child care and ESL classes in addition to working for
Espinal-she wants to open her own child care place.
Still, the price of success in the child care business is steep: It is a life-
consuming enterprise. In a city famous for the tiny dimensions of its apart-
ments, providers effectively give up their living room and kitchen for the
job. Sandra Robinson, for example, lives in the front room of her three-
room flat with her mother and Kwame. "When the Department of Health
comes in, you have to get rid of everyrhing. If you have a couch, that's it,"
she chortles matter-of-factly. "You're not going to have a couch anymore. "
The hours for family day care providers are long, generally at least 8
a.m. to 6 p.m.; if parents are late, work hours stretch even longer. Most
providers don't have health insurance-those that do pay for it them-
selves-and there are no sick days or holidays. If a provider gets too ill
to work, she has to close up shop until she can work again, and she won't
get paid until she does. And, of course, her clients have to scramble to
find care for their children that day.
On top of the long days come many unpaid hours spent shuffling paper-
work in order to get paid. There are medical release forms, medical history
forms. There are payment forms for ACD. There are payment forms for
HRA. There are daily menus to compile, right down to the last peanut but-
ter cracker, to get money for food fTom a federal program. There are con-
stantly new regulations to keep up with and implement. In formal day care
centers, this is work done by administrative staff, not caretakers.
"The food menus is what takes up most of your time, " confides
Robinson. "The only time I have for paperwork is late evening. When
they're sleeping, you want to rest a minute. "
Robinson gets up every morning at 6, readying the place for the
onslaught of toddlers that begins just before 8 a.m., and won't be com-
pletely over until 7 p.m. , when it's just her, Kwame, and her mother. On
weekdays, Espinal also rises at 6 a.m. , with kids arriving at 7:30 or 8 and
leaving at 6. Saturdays are shorter-she's open from 8 to 5. By the time
she's closed up shop, fed and spent time with her family, and done the
day's paperwork, it's ofTen 1 in the morning before she can even think
about going to sleep.
"IT STARTED WITH WELFARE REFORM," says Anania Almonte.
"Some of the women couldn't go to work because they didn't have child
care, and some women were licensed [day care providers] but didn't
have children. "
Almonte is the coordinator for Providers United, a network of
home-based child care workers in the Bronx. The group traces its roots
to 1998, when tenant organizers working in the northwest Bronx for
University Neighborhood Housing Program began hearing some resi-
dents complain about being stuck on welfare because they couldn't find
child care. Meanwhile others griped that, as licensed day care providers,
they couldn't find customers.
Providers United's first meeting drew 80 women who were registered
family day care providers; about 35 stuck around to build and support
the new group. Today, the network boasts 61 members, 32 of which have
been there since its founding. The network helps with advertising and
recruitment of clients, boasts a lending library of toys and books for its
members, helps providers obtain small grants, keeps up to date on regu-
lations, offers financial literacy assistance, and offers a way for providers
to gather, to swap handy hints, and connect for referrals.
Just as important, the network helps ensure that workers have a decent
income. Some caregivers have a reliable cash flow because they subcontract
work from a nonprofit agency that itself holds a contraa with ACD to pro-
vide child care services. Robinson has four of those via her network, the
JANUARY 2003
Call the Babysitter
About 80 percent of city-funded child care providers are
"informal"-the relatives, neighbors and friends of parents
who receive public subsidies for child care. Over the past
two years, many of them have faced a struggle to get their
paychecks from the Human Resources Administration
(HRA), the agency that distributes child care vouchers to
parents on or just recently off welfare. HRA's Central Call
Line for child care receives 5,000 calls a week. Of those
calls, 85 percent are checking on payment status.
Ironically, the delays in payment have resulted from a
reform intended to make sure care providers got paid more
quickly. Until two years ago, parents were responsible for
paying their babysitters directly out of their welfare checks,
which included child care money. But starting in Septem-
ber 2000, HRA and the Agency for Child Development
began phasing in their new Automated Child Care Infor-
mation System, using computers to track payments and
send them directly to child care providers.
Staff at child care centers and many family day care
providers praise the new system, saying direct payment is
much more reliable. It's made it easier for them to take on
welfare clients, whose payments had been unpredictable.
But in order to get paid, providers have to file detailed
paperwork. That's not a problem for those trained and
staffed to handle it. For many informal providers, howev-
er, it is confusing and overwhelming.
The paperwork consists of several authorization forms,
four health and safety forms, and a monthly attendance
sheet, all peppered with abbreviations, acronyms, and
obscure terms. One mistake stops the payment process.
In response to reported problems, HRA recently stream-
lined the monthly form, and soon providers will be able
to report attendance by phone or online. The agency also
offers training at welfare centers.
But HRA doesn't adequately help providers trou-
bleshoot day-to-day computer problems, which David
Ehrenberg of South Brooklyn Legal Services' Child Care
Network Support Project says are endemic. Even if the
providers get training, says Ehrenburg, "then the forms are
misaligned, or they don't come every month."
At United Neighborhood Houses, Isabel Quintana-Eddy
assists family day care providers. "HRA tells you how it
works," she says, "but we go beyond that and say what to
do when it doesn't work." Last year, she submitted to HRA
the names of about 12 providers who were owed a total of
$24,000 in delayed payments. So far they have received
$21,000. Informal providers, by contrast, have no one to
advocate on their behalf.
Ehrenberg says he knows of several providers who have
been evicted because they didn't get paid. Sometimes the
burden falls on the parent, who pays out of pocket, or miss-
es work. Says Ehrenberg, "These are extremely low-income,
extremely underpaid people who can't forgo their pay for
three or four months." -Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow
23
Child Development Support Corporation. Before she began taking ACD
children last February, Robinson was responsible for keeping her roster
full-and found that she only had a couple of kids coming to her on a reg-
ular basis. "After that, it was not a problem," says Robinson. "I had a full
complement of kids." If she can get the paperwork arranged properly,
Robinson will care for six children all day, and two more after school, dou-
bling her gross income to $32,000 a year. Before vouchers, ACD paid for
all family child care through such contractual arrangements.
Caregivers who rely on vouchers and on parents who pay cash, on the
other hand, have no way of knowing how many clients they'll have at any
given time. Virtually all independent providers who make the job work
have come to rely on networks like Providers United, which help with out-
reach and paperwork to steer kids their way. Still, there are no guarantees
that providers will find enough kids to get by. Says Almonte, "We can give
them training, we can give them resources, we can give them information,
but we cannot pay them for the child care services they are providing."
Family child care networks have been around since the city started sub-
sidizing care, but the recent boom in child care vouchers has spurred a pro-
liferation of new organi- ...,.., ___ _
zations that support
freelance providers.
Cynthia Rowe, assistant
director of Child Care
Inc., says there are now
about 55 networks that
have city contracts, and
another 35 that are high-
ly organized and fairly
formal. Rowe says grass-
roots networks have also
grown in number.
Independent net-
ty groups: Their networks are among six that will soon be awarded ACD
child care contracts for the first time, providing their workers with a more
stable living and bringing new and committed organizations, with close ties
to their neighborhoods, into the mix of child care providers. The contracts
are part of a long-awaited addition of more than 3,100 day care slots.
But as long as the city relies largely on vouchers, not contracts,
providers and their networks will have to scramble to keep their rosters
full and enough dollars corning in. Foundations may fill the gap for now
between government spending and the true cost of providing child care,
but their commitments won't last forever. The voucher revolution, says
Rowe, has fueled a new industry without building an enduring infra-
structure. "There's been a tremendous growth in providers," she says.
"But not a growth in resources."
MOST FAMI LY DAY CARE networks take the industry as it is and attempt
to make the best out of a marginal job. But one local organization has been
more ambitious about trying to turn home-based child care into a viable
business. In 1997, the Consortium for Worker Education, a union-funded
group that is a heavy hit-
ter in job training for
low-wage workers, set
forth a plan to employ
former welfare recipients
as family child care
providers--in real jobs,
with tolerable condi-
tions.
works have to shoulder
the cost of these supports
with their own private
fundraising. Several phil-
anthropies, including the
Surdna and Enterprise
foundations, are making
an effort to help family
child care providers do
their jobs well.
Surdna spends about
$1.1 million a year sup-
porting family child
Milagros Espinal dropped out of college because she couldn't find child care. Now she
has a license to care for 72 kids, and her assistant wants to start a home facility, too.
Under its Satellite
Child Care Program,
providers have a guaran-
teed annual income of
$18,200, plus health
benefits and overtime.
They are members of
DC 1707, the city's child
care workers union.
They undergo 20 weeks
of training before they
start working on their
own, including an
internship at a child care
center. They get $1,500
in start-up materials like
naptime cots, books and
care networks across the country. Program officer Carey Shea says the
foundation decided to target its grants to the networks because it saw an
urgently needed public service that simply didn't have the resources to
remain viable. "We are interested in seeing the family child care infra-
structure grow," explains Shea. "Ultimately, strengthening the infrastruc-
ture is going to strengthen the industry. We would like to see the family
child care industry have more political power. "
With that power could come an ability for family child care, as an
established interest, to secure more adequate public funding. Shea knows
the odds are long. "I would like to see a lot more government support
for the care of young children, " adds Shea, "but in these tough budgetary
times, it's not going to be a lot, whatever they do. "
That's not to say that government hasn't recognized Shea's work with Cit-
izens Advice Bureau, Forest Hills Community House and other communi-
24
toys. CWE pays their
liability insurance. There are sick days and holidays. And providers can get
tuition reimbursement, allowing them to further their education.
The model was devised to address virtually every problem with fam-
ily day care, from unreliable income to little room for advancement to
insurance costs, and initially it pulled in a wide swath of partners. In
early 1998, CWE won a $5 million welfare-to-work grant from the feds,
good for two years. The organization forged partnerships with numerous
city agencies and nonprofits, even convincing HRA to count their train-
ing as a welfare-to-work program.
A draft proposal envisioned a hive of activity, training 3,000 to 5,000
family day care providers citywide, caring for 12,000 to 20,000 children.
Each provider's home was supposed to serve as an outpost for preexisting
neighborhood child care centers-hence, "satellite." Where the child care
took place would be merely a matter of real estate. By the time CWE-
CITY LIMITS
heretofore inexperienced in child care-launched the program, it had
scaled back its ambitions, aiming to create a thousand new jobs, four
thousand new child care slots, and caring for 12,000 children in the pro-
gram's first two years.
It didn't quite work out that way. The program has largely floundered
financially since its inception in 1998, largely because the cash flow just
wasn't sufficient to fully realize the vision. By November 2002, the pro-
gram had cumulatively hired just 174 day care providers, caring for a
total of about 1,400 children cirywide since it began-abysmally short
of initial projections.
Part of the problem was that welfare recipients battling their own
troubles don't necessarily make the best child care providers. With wel-
fare rolls already shrunk to the toughest cases, few are in a position to set
New Fund Adds 1-2-3s to ARCs
When Governor Pataki announced two years ago that he
planned to put $30 million toward the construction of new
day care centers, Roger Sam of Southeast Bronx Neighbor-
hood Centers jumped at the chance to get funding. In his
neighborhood, Morrisania, more than 3,000 children who
need subsidized child care don't get it.
It was a rare opportunity: the first time in years that Albany
had devoted such a large chunk of money to expand or
build child care facilities. Sam's organization proposed cre-
ating a center that would serve 230 children ages 2 1/2 to
5. In October 2000, the state awarded him $1 million.
But the fine print on the deal proved a real challenge for
Sam, as well as several of the other 14 organizations that
were awarded the money. Before Albany would release a
penny, the groups had five months to secure the additional
funding needed to make the project happen.
In Sam's case, his organization needed another $2 million,
but his staff didn't have the expertise to put together financing.
So in June 2002, Albany rescinded its offer to Southeast Bronx
Neighborhood Centers, along with four other grantees. Sam
has since scaled back his plan to 125 day care slots, and
secured a promise of funding from the Community Preservation
Corporation-all conditional on getting a second grant offer
from the state. Governor Pataki is expected to soon announce
another $5 million in grants for child care facility development,
to make up for the money that was never doled out.
While new grantees could face the same challenges that Sam
encountered, they may also have some help he didn't have. In
January, the Low Income Investment Fund (L1F), a national
group formerly known as the Low Income Housing Fund,
plans to launch a seed fund to provide cash, technical assis-
tance and training for organizations looking to expand or build
new day care centers in New York. Modeled after a L1F initia-
tive in San Francisco, the program aims to offer planning grants
and predevelopment loans, as well as how-to workshops.
"Most organizations don't have equity to put into a project,"
says Suzanne Reisman, coordinator of L1F's New York seed
JANUARY 2003
up their own business. "Let's face it, we're working with a much smaller
group of people on public assistance," explains director Tarmo Kirsimae.
"These are in many cases the hard to employ, less skills. "
Angela Threadgill, 33, started the child care training program at
eWE this past October. A single mother of two, Threadgill has been on
and off public assistance since her first son was born eight years ago. "I
stayed on it long enough to take care of my son, " explains Threadgill,
who, like many women, helped supplement her welfare checks by infor-
mally babysitting for local children. Her biggest barrier to work is really
just that she hasn't had much of it in the formal workplace.
Threadgill, who joined the program after seeing a flyer-always inter-
ested in working with kids, she "just snatched it off the pole"-is confident
she can pass official muster. Her apartment has the two exits required by the
fund. "We plan to serve as an umbrella. There are an amaz-
ing number of resources out there. It's just a matter of know-
ing how to access them." By providing training for 40 groups
and awarding about $650,000 in grants and loans, the fund
aims to help create or preserve 450 child care slots a year.
The hurdles it will help groups jump are huge. To get a loan
from a bank, an organization typically needs some kind of
collateral. Most of the groups looking to expand day care
service don't have that, says Nancy Kolben, director of Child
Care Inc., whose organization will run the workshops for the
fund. "Child care subsidies cannot be used to pay for bricks
and mortar," she says. The Nonprofit Finance Fund will guar-
antee loans for some participants in the L1F program.
The need for the service is huge. According to a July 2001
survey by the Administration for Children's Services, 101 of
the 133 city-funded child care providers who responded said
they were interested in developing a new facility or expand-
ing their programs, but only 23 had any funds to do so. Only
half had experience in child care facilities development.
A lack of coherent government planning doesn't help. In
2000, the City Council budgeted $25 million for day care
facility expansion. That money was never used, and with
the budget crunch, says Kolben, "it's gone."
The Pataki administration says it is trying to do its part. In
addition to allocating $30 million for facility expansion, the
state Office of Children and Family Services is giving the
fund a collaboration grant of $187,175.
Still, says Kolben, that is not enough. In San Francisco, city
and county officials initiated the founding of L1F's original
child care seed fund and supported it with hundreds of
thousands of dollars in community development and wel-
fare block grant money. Since its inception in 1998, the
fund has helped create just over 3,000 day care slots.
New York's seed fund "will be a way in which you do retail
expansion one by one by one by one," says Kolben. "But if we
want an overall plan, the city and state would need to work
with the intermediaries and the banks, and need to identify a
funding stream .... It needs to be a coordinated approach if we
want to make major, major headway." -Jill Grossman
25
fire code. She's drug-free and hasn't had any difficulties with the law. And
she's never had a visit from the Administration for Children's Services; an
open case-tens of thousands of families are investigated each year-would
prevent her from gaining her license.
Ultimately, it's her familiarity with child care, and a professed love of
children, that led Threadgill to the program. "There's a lot of other jobs I
could be applying for, but this is something I know more about," she says.
Her classmate Selisa Bethea is a bit more pragmatic. A single mother
of an autistic child, Bethea turned to public assistance last year when she
couldn't find proper child care for her son. "I want something stable, with
good benefits," she explains, having worked at a series of retail and cleri-
cal jobs. "It's bad enough ifI'm taking minimum wage, but if you can't go
to the doctor either, that's kind of self-defeating."
But provicling all the extras that lured Threadgill and Bethea-sick days,
tuition reimbursement, guaranteed income, training, health insurance--
costs money, and lots of it. To keep its current 125 providers employed, car-
ing for about 400 children, as well as train an average of 60 more each year,
the program spends about $4 million annually. To make that formula work,
CWE has had to pour its
own resources into the
program, juggle grants
from various sources,
wrangle extensions for its
federal money and, really,
just hang on. "Another
agency, frankly; may have
abandoned this project.
We've eaten a lot of costs
that we're never going to
regain," laments Kirsi-
mae. "Our board of
directors hasn't been
too pleased."
of them, provicling care for about 3,000 children. By the fall of2002, 200
providers were being employed by the national program (31 of them in
New York). The program has scaled back its goals, and of the seven sites
initially planned for the program, just two-Milwaukee and a conglom-
eration of counties in rural Alabama-were still fully operational.
The obvious way to battle high costs is to cut down on the benefits
offered to providers, but that would defeat the purpose of the program.
Asked if she'd still pursue child care in other circumstances, Bethea hesi-
tates. "Well, I wouldn't mind doing it," she says quietly. "But not without
health insurance."
IT'S 9:30 AT NIGHT, and Kimberly Paul got home about an hour ago.
Her job as a paralegal temp ofren keeps her late when a case is due, and
tonight was no exception. Still, she got home in time to say good-night
to Kwame and say evening prayers with him over the phone, the way they
try to every night.
In most every way, Paul is a welfare-to-work success story. She's no
longer on public assistance. She's held a steady, skilled job for over a year.
She takes home, on
average, about $1,400
every month. There
have been bumps along
the way-the eight-
month wait before her
child care subsidy
kicked in, for one thing,
which would have
brought her stability
tumbling down if
Kwame were being
cared for by anyone
other than his grand-
mother. "In my circum-
stances, I have a mother
who is a day care
provider, but if not, I'd
probably be at home,
on welfare, trying to fig-
ure out how to make
ends meet," says Paul.
One reason money's
been so tight is that even
though CWE claims its
providers have training
and offer services com-
parable to those at child
care centers, HRA pays
them its rates for family
day care providers. It's
not a negligible cliffer-
ence: Center-based care
Some caregivers have a reliable cash flow because they subcontract work from
nonprofit groups. But those who depend on vouchers must constantly recruit new kids.
Still, Paul's success is
contingent on the frag-
ile web that holds up
for children under age 2 pulls in almost $270 per child, per week, while
family day care brings in $135. (Informal care garners $101.) The family
day care rate, Kirsimae asserts, set CWE back considerably. "We've been
operating in a deficit," he says. "It's a couple million dollars a year."
CWE lobbied the city aggressively, from the beginning, to obtain a
higher rate for each child in its care. By last spring, finances had gotten so
strained that CWE sent layoff notices to its providers-and sent copies to
government officials familiar with the program. They finally won a
promise from the state that Satellite would get payment equivalent to 95
percent of the rate for child care centers. As of late November, however,
CWE was still waiting for the money to start coming through.
CWE's model is struggling elsewhere as well. Despite the program's
clifficulties, CWE won another federal welfare-to-work grant in 1999,
this time for $12 million to expand the program nationally. That pro-
gram's initial goals were to train 1,400 providers and employ just over half
26
the working poor-
subsiclies coming through, nobody getting sick-and carries with it a
price that no middle-class mother would consider paying: her child
doesn't live with her.
And she can't see how that will change anytime soon. Since Paul was sick
for a day last week, she needs to work an extra hour or so every day next
week. She's paid hourly, so her check shrinks when she doesn't show up.
And she's thinking that, maybe, if she could find someone to shuttle
Kwame to school in the mornings-she has to leave a good 45 minutes
before he does if she's going to make it to work on time-and if she
could find someone to pick him up, and if she could find someone who'd
deal with her occasionally unpreclictable hours, and if she could arrange
all that with her voucher from the government, then maybe Kwame
could live with her .
Research assistance by Helen Matatov and Jamie Katz.
CITY LIMITS
I
t's a little surprising to learn that in the city's
continuing quality-of-life crackdowns, police
in the Bronx routinely arrest gay men for
having sex in subway stations.
A trivial crime, but one that presents a serious
challenge in the courtroom. Judges have been
more than willing to order the men into some
son of program as an alternative to incarcera-
tion-why send someone to jail for consensual
sex? Until recently, though, the only program
available was designed for predatory sex offenders.
Until, that is, the Bronx Defenders carne up
with a solution. This organization of criminal
defense lawyers, paid by the city to represent
indigent defendants, found a social worker to
create a "public civility" program for the men.
Judges in the Bronx sent subway sex defendants
to the class, focusing on health issues such as
HIV transmission.
Helping clients outside the courtroom is noth-
ing remarkable for a defense attorney. Private
lawyers are constantly arranging for their clients
to go into therapy, or to do some son of commu-
nity service uniquely tailored to their situations.
But public defenders rarely have the luxury
of being that proactive. With crushingly high
caseloads, most simply don't have the time or
resources to be dreaming up new types of sen-
tences.
JANUARY 2003
In New York City, lawyers just out of school
make $125,000 at the biggest law firms. Public
defenders start at less than one-third of that
salary, and few will see six-figure incomes in
their careers. They spend their days in airless
courthouses, meeting with clients in the hall-
ways or holding cells and cuning deals with
prosecutors and pleading with judges to give
their clients a break. The goal in every case is the
same: keep a client out of prison.
Bronx Defenders thinks slightly bigger. Of
course, it seeks to keep its own clients out of
prison. But the ultimate goal is to keep every-
one else in the Bronx out, too. So when it carne
to subway sex, they opened the new program
to everyone arrested for public lewdness in the
Bronx, even the defendants represented by its
chief rival, the Legal Aid Society. The students
pay $40 apiece for a five-hour class run by an
independent social worker, who was recruited
by the Bronx Defenders.
One of the guiding principles for executive
director and cofounder Robin Steinberg is that
a public defender's office can do more than just
give a bleeding client a Band-Aid. Good social
work, she contends, will not just keep a defen-
dant out of jail but ultimately keep him from
getting arrested in the future. That is to say that
criminal defense can actually prevent crime.
Meet R
unlikely 1-.... -,
A new wave
criminal defense
who give
"We provide social work services not necessari-
ly related to the case," boasts Steinberg. "We
work with clients even when the case is over."
Since its founding in 1997, Bronx Defend-
ers has sought to help defendants with any and
all problems in their lives, not just the immedi-
ate circumstance of their arrests. If, for example,
an attorney represents someone on a fare-beat-
ing case who is also about to be evicted from his
home or is facing deportation, the organization
may also represent him in those cases.
The same m.o. goes for even the most brutal
criminals-though to be sure, not all of them are
much interested in a touchy-feely intervention.
The lawyers and social workers do what they can.
One client convicted of murder is now serving
25 years to life. Steinberg wasn't able to help him
beat the charges, but she was able to aid him in
other ways. At fust, he thought his children
would be better off forgetting about him, until
the social workers on her staff convinced him
otherwise. He decided to work out a plan for his
children to visit him in jail. "I felt good about
having made connections with his family and
keeping relations between them," she says.
Contributing Editor Wendy Davis worked in the Legal Aid
Criminal Appeals Bureau from 1988 to 1991, and for its
Juvenile Rights Division through 1997.
27
As Steinberg takes a break from supervising
night court, a young Bronx Defenders lawyer,
who has just won a defendant's release, exits the
courtroom with her client. She is beaming as he
clasps her in a bear hug.
T
his little lawyer-defendant Hallmark
moment arises from the unlikeliest of ori-
gins. The Bronx Defenders are here in
court today thanks to former mayor Rudy Giu-
liani, and his crusade in 1994 to break Legal
Aid's monopoly on criminal defense in the ciry.
Giuliani, who made his reputation as a fed-
eral prosecutor, had no great love for criminal
defense lawyers. Neither did he especially like
unions. His administration broke a strike by
Legal Aid's union, then opened the contract for
criminal defense to other providers. Today,
Bronx Defenders is one of seven criminal
defense organizations that have stepped into
the breach. Last year, Legal Aid got $60.3 mil-
lion; the other groups, including Bronx
Defenders, received a total of $24.3 million in
contracts.
Steinberg has hired a youngish crew, chosen
as much for their worldview as for their skills at
cross-examination and motion writing. Staff
who have "an understanding of what some of
the issues are that bring our clients into the sys-
tem," "a broader sense of racism in our culture"
and "what it's like to live in a neighborhood
like the Bronx" are what Steinberg-an Upper
West Sider-says she's looking for.
That stuff maners, because the Defenders
seek to gain not only trust of clients but the
goodwill of the whole communiry. It's partly
good public relations: If the communiry thinks
28
well of the Bronx Defenders, clients might also
think well of them and therefore be less suspi-
cious and more cooperative.
A block parry, a basketball league, after school
debate and arts programs, a "youth court" for
juveniles who have been arrested on less serious
charges, such as writing graffiti-all of it is part of
what the Defenders are bringing to the Bronx.
They pull it off with about $200,000 in grants, in
addition to its $4.2 million a year from the ciry.
Rudy's war on criminal defense-which Legal
Aid predicted would decimate legal representa-
tion in New York-is having results quite differ-
ent from what either its supporters or opponents
had predicted. New groups like the Bronx
Defenders have brought a blossoming of new
ideas and practices, some of them strikingly rad-
ical, to criminal representation in the ciry.
"Bronx Defenders' approach is a recognition
of how many cases are not just complicated legal
cases, but complicated social and civil cases," says
New York Ciry's Criminal Justice Coordinator,
John Feinblatt. Feinblan's opinion maners a lot:
His agency is the one that buys public defense
services From Legal Aid and the other groups.
Feinblan also made his mark as the founder of
the Center for Court Innovation, the organiza-
tion that developed the model courts that now
provide alternative sentencing options through-
out the ciry. The Bronx Defenders brand of
lawyering, Feinblatt adds, acknowledges the
"deep interaction between legal issues and civil
issues and knony, hard-to-solve social issues."
The model, known as "communiry-based rep-
resentation," is slowly gaining ground as the new
new thing in public defense. It stems From work
pioneered by the Vera Institute for Justice starting
in 1990, when the institute created Neighbor-
hood Defender Service of Harlem. Steinberg
served there as depury director.
A driving idea, once considered heresy, is
that representing the indigent is fundamentally
different from representing people with money.
It might sound intuitive that impoverished
people face a host of issues that rich people do
not, but in the legal world, the idea that anor-
neys should practice law differently when it
comes to poor clients goes against a deeply
ingrained ethos that all defendants should be
equal before the law.
"If you're rich and you get arrested, the job
of a defense lawyer is to help you resume your
normal life," says Christopher Stone, director
of the Vera Institute. But if you're poor, Stone
observes, your 'normal life' will all too often
include getting arrested again and again.
"Dealing with the criminal justice system is
part of the experience in heavily policed urban
communities," says Stone. The result is that
clients are frequently arrested over and over
again, continually going through the court's
revolving door. "One veteran public defender
involved in practice used to say he won a lot of
trials, but the clients were dead or in prison."
P
ublic defenders are ubiquitous on TV but
almost invisible in real life, outside the
criminal justice business. In the public
mind, they're either hopeless idealists, fighting
for their beaten-down clients, or losers, working
in low-paying, low-prestige jobs because they
couldn't find employment anywhere else. The
latter view, fueled by horror stories about
lawyers sleeping through trials, is held by more
CITY LIMITS
clients than many lawyers would like ro admir.
The truth is that Legal Aid tends ro hire
young attorneys right out of law school, then
gives them extensive training. Whether they are
successful depends on a host of facrors, most of
which are beyond their control. They have ro
take clients as they find them. Some defendants
are caught red-handed; others have winnable
cases. The trick is figuring out exactly how
strong a case the prosecution actually has and
then bargaining accordingly.
Very few cases actually go ro trial. Consider
this: Bronx Defenders represented 12,500
clients last year. The office had 41 trials.
Despite rough sentencing laws, there's a lot of
room ro make deals.
Almost rwo-thirds of all cases are misde-
meanors, and many of those are disposed of at
arraignment. There is even a name for them:
"disposable misdemeanors," which means that
the defendant pleads guilty at arraignment and
Many public
defenders are
rethinking how they
measure success.
One "used to say he
won a lot of trials,
but the cl ients were
all dead or in prison."
the judge either dismisses the charges or impos-
es a sentence, usually community service or a
fine. In any event, the case goes away the same
day it enters the court system.
Those cases can involve less lawyering, but
the defendants may have significant social
problems, as do people who commit felonies.
Nineteen-year-old Hassin, a Bronx Defenders
client, spent years 13 through 17 in reform
school. When he first got out, he says he
returned ro school and got a job, but soon
started "chilling in the neighborhood." Then,
in November 2001, he was arrested for carry-
ing a loaded .25 auromatic.
Represented by lawyer David Feige, he
pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. His
plan is to finish his high school education and
enter the Navy, at which point he hopes the
judge will seal his record and grant him a con-
ditional discharge-meaning that the case will
JANUARY 2003
go away if he stays out of trouble.
But this last year has not gone smoothly for
him. His mother got evicted from their apart-
ment and had ro enter a shelter. Hassin didn't
want ro live in a shelter, so he started sleeping
at various friends' homes and hanging out on
the streets.
During this time, Feige helped Hassin get a
scholarship ro a three-week Ourward Bound-
type camping program. Getting him accepted
involved hours of phone calls, and he helped
Hassin write his application essay.
The day before Hassin was supposed ro
enter the program, he was shor.
"He's had some setbacks," says Feige paternal-
ly, thus discouraging his client from discussing
details. Perched on the sofa arm next ro Hassin,
Feige pats his client on the back.
Hassin says he's back on track now. "I
promised Dave I would stay out of trouble,"
he explains.
I
f their enterprise sounds zealous--even cult-
like-the staff at Bronx Defenders, at least
those who spoke ro City Limits, are true
believers. They carry cell phones with them
everywhere and, stunningly, give the numbers
to clients. Karen Smolar, who came ro Bronx
Defenders afrer working at Legal Aid and in
private practice, says she not oruy gets calls at
night, but even while lying on the beach on
vacation. "I didn't have my supervisors' phone
numbers at Legal Aid," Smolar laughs.
Nine of the Bronx Defenders' 27 lawyers,
including Steinberg herself, worked at Legal
Aid at some point in their careers. But the rela-
tionship with the Legal Aid Society is anything
but intimate. Legal Aid suffered a huge talent
drain in the afrermath of the 1994 strike, with
many experienced atrorneys leaving ro join the
new competing defender organizations.
Of the seven new groups, six were created
by former Legal Aid lawyers. When they first
formed, they raided Legal Aid for talent, lur-
ing staff with higher salaries than they made
with their former employer.
The bitterness ran deep and continued for
years. To this day, the home page of the union's
web site advocates doing away with the "run-
away" criminal defense groups, "whose purpose
is ro undermine unionism and high quality
indigent defense. "
The Legal Aid Society and its union both
fued lawsuits against the city in an attempt ro
shut down the new organizations. The suits
claimed that cutting Legal Aid's budget and
bidding the contract in response ro a strike vio-
lated federal labor laws. "I certairuy don't think
what Giuliani did was good for poor people,"
says Legal Aid's Nancy Ginsburg, a union leader
during the 1994 strike. ''They just rook all the
Legal Aid lawyers." On rop of that, Legal Aid
was subsequently hit with severe budget curs
and the threat of layoffs.
Legal Aid ultimately avoided laying off any
lawyers, but one-third of its supervisors were
demoted and a large number of other lawyers
quir. Funding for Legal Aid's Criminal Defense
Division decreased from $80 million a year ro
$60 million, and the rotal number of lawyers
went from 720 in 1994 ro 377 in 200l.
Alrogether, the city established five new trial
offices and rwo appellate offices, with a com-
bined budget slightly more than one-third of
29
Legal Aid's. Last year, the alternate providers
represented 18 percent of all defendants. (Inde-
pendent private lawyers still handle some cases.)
But eight years down the line, the success of
Bronx Defenders in pushing the holistic para-
digm is having an apparent ripple effect on
other criminal defenders in New York-includ-
ing the group's esteemed rival.
"I would like us to do more of that," says
Russell Neufeld, newly appointed head of Legal
Aid's Criminal Defense Division. "That
approach is encouraged much more now." He
notes that Legal Aid has just hired 80 new
lawyers and is training them to think more
broadly about what their clients need from
them. For instance, criminal division lawyers are
urged to refer a client with housing problems to
the civil division. Or a lawyer for a kid charged
with disorderly conduct stemming from an inci-
dent at school would do well to attend the
resulting school suspension hearing, too.
Legal Aid also runs formal programs, and
unlike the Bronx Defenders, it targets these ini-
tiatives to those clients who could most benefit
from special intervention. For several years, the
Manhattan trial office has run a "juvenile
offender" unit that works intensively with ado-
lescents as young as 13 who have been arrested
and charged as adults for serious offenses, such
as armed robbery. In addition to the project's
six lawyers, one of whom works on juvenile
cases full-time, there is a forensic social worker
as well as a therapeutic social worker, who does
individual counseling with the youngsters and
their families. The social workers are funded
through private grants.
The idea is to provide enough support to
the family that a judge will feel confident
allowing a young defendant to remain in the
community on probation. "The reality is,
there's not a lot of family therapy out there,"
says Ginsburg, the full-time lawyer with the
project. Having a counselor on staff "avoids a
lot of the crisis management that lawyers end
up doing." Otherwise, lime problems escalate
until they reach a point where parents decide
they can no longer handle their youngsters-
which means that the teens go to jail.
But would this proactive approach work for
an armed robber who's already deep in the
criminal life? Ginsburg is skeptical. "Whenever
you're dealing with people who have problems,
you can often address the reasons they came
into the system in the first place," says Gins-
burg. But, she adds, "adults are not that inter-
ested in coming into their lawyer's office to
have their life changed."
E
ight years after the ill-fated strike, Legal Aid
and the city have come to a sort of detente.
Feinblatt's office has reportedly promised
30
to cut a deal with Legal Aid, paying it to take over
work that had previously been done by private
lawyers. The catch is that Legal Aid must now
represent almost all of the defendants not repre-
sented by the alternate groups-an unpredictable
number that depends on whether the volume of
police arrests goes up or down. (For now, they're
going down-in 2001, there were about
340,000 arraignments in city courts, down more
than 36,000 from the previous year-but arrests
had gone up the year before that, suggesting that
9/11 kept police otherwise occupied.) A seme-
ment of Legal Aid's and its union's lawsuits
against the city is likely to follow soon.
But from the point of view of Legal Aid, no
piece of the contract pie will ever replace the
power to shape city criminal justice policy it
gained by virtue of being the sole public
defense organization in the city. A lot of small-
er defense groups set the stage for City Hall to
divide and conquer. "I think the reason the
Giuliani Administration did what they did was
"I don't think what
Giuliani did was good
for poor people," says
an ex-union leader.
The new defenders
"just took all the
Legal Aid lawyers."
to weaken the power of the public defender in
the city," says Neufeld today.
When Legal Aid was the only organized pub-
lic defender, it used that power to protect the
rights of defendants. For instance, around 10
years ago the city wanted to arraign defendants
via video hookup from police precincts rather
than transporting them to the courtroom. This
would have saved the time and expense of taking
defendants to court. But it would also have
deprived defendants of an opportunity to meet a
lawyer in person before seeing the judge.
Arraignments are the first appearance on a
case, where defendants meet their lawyers and
learn about bail. In many ways, what happens
at arraignment determines the fate of a person
charged with a crime. If the judge denies bail,
or sets it too high for the defendant to post-
and even a very small amount can be too
high-the person goes to jail.
The thought of lawyers not even meeting
their clients in person for arraignments appalled
Legal Aid. After the organization refused to go
along with it, the plan was scotched. "Legal Aid
was big enough and strong enough to say no,
and it didn't happen," says Neufeld.
It was Legal Aid's union, meanwhile, that
also insisted on the one lawyer, one client rule
known as "vertical representation." It means that
the same lawyer who represents a client when he
or she is first arraigned on the charges continues
with the case for its duration. In fact, vertical
representation was one of the cornerstone issues
of an earlier strike of the Legal Aid union back
in 1974. Continuity of representation was writ-
ten into the contract between management and
the union in 1976.
Although the union can no longer realisti-
cally threaten to strike, it hasn't totally rolled
over, either. In 1999, a group of Legal Aid
lawyers walked out of the Manhattan court-
house after Criminal Court Judge Donna
Recant ordered a Legal Aid lawyer handcuffed
for alleged contempt.
A
s is their habit, some of New York's
judges have weighed in on the alterna-
tive defenders debate. So far, they've
liked what they've seen, and in fact they credit
the new groups with improving the quality of
criminal defense overall. In 1995, the First
Department of the Appellate Division created a
committee to study indigent defense in Man-
hattan and the Bronx. The committee's most
recent report has nothing but praise for the
new groups. "By any measure, the new trial-
level defense organizations are a success," con-
cludes the report, which was based on inter-
views with judges and lawyers.
The committee also recognized Bronx
Defenders for bringing high-quality represen-
tation to clients in that county: ''A few judges
expressed the belief that the overall quality of
lawyering had improved in the Bronx because
of the existence ofBD."
The group has made its mark in the court-
room as well as outside it, thanks to some
groundbreaking legal work. Feige has crusaded
to change how police arrange for wimesses to
make identifications of suspects. Instead of tra-
ditional lineups, where a victim looks at one
suspect and four fillers at the same time, Feige
has successfully argued in several cases that the
victims should see people one at a time-an
approach that might reduce the chance of mis-
taken identification.
Feige's work has caught the attention of
defense attorneys around the city. In mid-
November, a Legal Aid lawyer in Brooklyn per-
suaded a judge to order a sequential lineup,
using arguments similar to Feige's.
For Feige's boss Robin Steinberg, it always
continued on page 39
CITY LIMITS
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
Government Hand Out
Bloomberg's new budget
directive to city officials: Beg!
By Alyssa Katz
WHEN HE TOOK HIS WHACK at the city budget in
November, Mayor Bloomberg spoke of lots of
ways to raise revenue, from tax increases to pro-
ductivity gains. But there's one budget-filler the
mayor failed to mention: City officials are also
looking to raise serious cash from corporate,
foundation and individual donors.
The Conflicts of Interest Board, the may-
orally appointed body that interprets and
enforces City Charter ethics laws, is revisiting
rules restricting the ability of city officials to
raise private money for nonprofit organiza-
tions-including nonprofits founded by public
agencies or city officials expressly to raise money
for their own offices' operations. This winter,
the board is aiming to issue what it calls a
JANUARY 2003
"major, major advisory opinion" that will likely
give government workers expanded license to
drum up cash from private benefactors.
"In tough economic times, the city reaches
out to the private sector," says Wayne Hawley,
general counsel for the board. "Like the mayor
says about fmances, everything's on the table,
within reason."
The conflicts board is already reconsidering
a series of its own opinions, issued throughout
the 1990s, that bar elected officials from what it
calls "active fundraising" -making calls and
sending letters. Such solicitations, the board
wrote in 1993, "could easily create a percep-
tion . . . that those who seek to do business with
the official are expected, or would be well-
advised, to make a contribution in order to
secure access or favorable treatment." In a 1998
opinion, it clarified that "elected officials and
high-level public servants may not write to local
merchants or individuals asking them to con-
tribute to a not-for-profit organization. "
Yet that's exactly what Brooklyn Borough
President Marty Markowitz did recently, fol-
lowing a consultation with the conflicts board.
In an October 30 letter to members of the
Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Markowitz
asked merchants to make a financial contribu-
tion or run a toy drive on behalf of Best of
Brooklyn, Inc., a new nonprofit established by
the borough president "supporting culrure,
social services, health education and tourism,
and most important, our youth."
According Markowitz' office, an early drafr
of the letter included a disclaimer that "sup-
porting this event will have no impact whatso-
ever on any business you may have before my
office"-language frequently recommended by
the conflicts board and the city's Law Depart-
ment in these kinds of circumstances.
But no such words appear in the version that
was mailed to nearly 1 ,200 Brooklyn businesses.
The beep's office decided to delete the words, says
spokesperson Andy Ross, because "we thought it
would be insulting to the people who received it."
Ross says the borough president has little
choice but to seek private funding. "The bottom
line is, during the foreseeable future, we will be
dealing with budgets cut to the bone," says Ross,
"and public-private partnerships are essential. "
BEST OF BROOKLYN may be no Wedtech, and
bringing toys to tots is always a mitzvah. But
Markowitz' letter opens a new chapter in private
fundraising by public officials. In the face of a
soon-to-be-$6-billion budget hole, city leaders
are looking to every form of revenue known to
finance-and compared with wildly unpopular
tax hikes, a few nips and tucks in obscure ethics
rules surely look like a political no-brainer.
New Yorkers are already familiar with pri-
vate fmancing for public services. Each year
hundreds of millions of private dollars go into
nonprofit organizations that are closely tied to
local public agencies. Some of these nonprofits
are serious moneymakers, and certain city agen-
cies have come to depend on their revenues.
Combined, the Central Park Conservancy and
the City Parks Foundation raise the equivalent
of 18 percent of the entire official Parks Depart-
ment budget. Most recently, the Department of
Education hired Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
to increase the volume of corporate and other
private contributions to schools-including via
the Department of Education's own nonprofit,
the Fund for Public Schools.
The success of these nonprofits has encour-
aged smaller funds to follow in their trail. The
Fund for Public Advocacy, set up by Betsy Got-
baum, has raised more than $200,000 in grants
and donations in its first 10 months of opera-
31
INTELLIGENCE
THE BIG IDEA
NEW REPORTS
Why are so many people in prison? Because they
commit crimes, right? Not necessarily: a full
of everyone admitted to state prisons
today stayed out late, or missed an appoint-
ment or had a drink-not crimes, but parole
violations. But while the Empire state has more
parolees per population than almost any other,
we also have a higher success rate-about 55
percent of New York parolees aren't rearrested,
compared with 42 percent nationally.
"Beyond the Prison Gates: the State
of Parole in America"
The Urban Institute, www.urban.orgor202-833-72oo
Guess who is helping community-based non-
profits take advantage of computers and the
internet? Not government, not corporations,
but universities-who, according to this
report, are the strongest force nationwide
bridging the digital divide for nonprofits. Five
case studies, examining programs from UCLA
to MIT (though none in New York City), show
how schools have done everything from wiring
buildings to making community data easily
available. Columbia? NYU? What are you
doing for your neighbors in Harlem and the
Lower East Side?
"Opening the Door: Technology and the
Development of University Community Partnerships, ..
Seedco, www.seedco.orgor 212473-0255
Lost in the spate of hysterical stories about
state budget deficits is a sense of history: The
current chasm in Albany resembles gaps that
slammed states in the early 1980s and
1990s. So did policymakers plan ahead for
the likelihood of economic downturns? Of
course not-states instead blew their historic
surpluses on huge tax cuts and increased
spending. And now, if history is any guide,
low-income people will bear the brunt of the
state's frantic budget balancing. This report
lays out workable alternatives, like mandato-
ry state reserve funds or federal support that
kicks in during recessions.
32
"Another State Fiscal Crisis:
There Must Be a Better Way, "
The Brookings Institute,
www.brookings.eduor 202-797-6000
tion, replacing some of the millions axed from
that agency's budget during the Giuliani years.
Gotbaum, whose legendary fundraising skills
helped win her the office, is among the city offi-
cials eager to see a change. "It doesn't make
sense for public officials to set up not-for-prof-
its and then not allow them to fundraise," says
her general counsel, Suzanne Lynn. "A lot of
people will be upset if they don't allow it."
Yet the stakes may be higher than City Hall is
willing to admit. (Deputy Mayor Carol Robles-
Roman, who is leading the conflicts law review
initiative for the Bloomberg administration, did
not respond to requests for an interview.) No
maner how the conflicts board rewrites the rules,
there will be no such thing as free money. Even
at their most innocuous, sales pitches like
Markowitz' could coerce some who seek to do
business with a public office into making a dona-
tion. And disclaimers
EVEN GOOD PRIVATE money is never the same as
public. Board meetings of nonprofits typically
take place behind closed doors. Private groups
are also not subject to laws that require city
agencies to make their records publicly avail-
able, procure goods and services competitively,
and follow labor contracts.
It's for those very reasons that affiliated
nonprofits have proved so appealing for city
officials, who are eager not only to keep down
costs but to break the regulatory shackles that
make even the simplest purchase order a
lengthy bureaucratic ordeal. "Political life is so
constrained by rules designed to make sure
people are honest, that politicians learn to
work around these rules so they can do what
they have to do," says Ken Sherrill, a professor
of political science at Hunter College who
studies city government. ''A lot of these rules
go overboard."
won't dissuade those who
seek special access to pub-
lic officials from doing
whatever it takes to make
an unpresslOn.
"I worry about a
In the end, the legacy
of private fundraising by
public officials may not
be a return to Koch
era-style fraud but a
decisive push of govern-
ment into a subordinate
relationship to the pri-
vate sector. "I worry
more about a growing
sense that it's not govern-
ment's responsibility to
provide certain services,
or that the public isn't
responsible for doing
certain things, " says
Sherrill. "It changes
expectations drastically
.
Fundraisers for the
major quasi-public groups
are already big stops on the
charity circuit. Some dou-
ble as a guide to who is
doing business with the
city: New Yorkers For
Children, for example, was
created by Giuliani friend
Nicholas Scoppetta to
fund new initiatives at the
Administration for Chil-
dren's Services. Among
recent contributors are the
growing sense
that it's not
government's
responsibility to
provide certain
services. "
American Stock Exchange, which got a $200
million incentive deal in 1998 to build a new
trading floor, and News Corporation, which
received $45 million in breaks to keep operations
in New York City. Two other major donors, Paul
Kanavos and Jonathan Stern, are less well known
for their passion for reforming foster care than
for their franchise to develop a golf course, now
mired in environmental troubles, in the Bronx.
"Do you want a procurement environment
where you have to buy a raffle ticket, or a turkey?
Where a decision is made because you gave a gift
to a museum?" asked Gene Russianoff of the
New York Public Interest Research Group at a
May forum at New York Law School on the
ethics of private fundraising by public officials.
"I don't know what the board is contemplat-
ing, " adds Russianoff now, "but 'Times are
hard-go for it' would be a mistake. "
for public services."
Fundraising in office promises to amplify
the already staggering conflicts posed by
campaign contributions and contributors'
expectations of political rewards in exchange.
It institutionalizes private players as domi-
nant stakeholders in the public power struc-
ture, whose influence counts for more than
any voter's, or even group of voters. And the
public, in turn, comes to understand govern-
ment as little more than a resource to support
private business.
Government already has a mighty fundrais-
ing tool: the legal power to tax its citizens. If
that power has waned in recent years, it's only
because elected officials themselves have delib-
erately kept it on the sidelines. "It's kind of
funny that you cut taxes," observes Sherrill,
"and then you try to run the government on the
basis of tax-deductible contributions."
CITY LIMITS
A Taste of Power
Some rules for modern-day radicals, by one of the city's
savviest community organizers.
By Margaret Groarke
Going Public by Michael Gecan
Beacon Press, 191 pages, $25
YOU GOTTA LOVE organizers' stories. Tales of
tenants standing up to lousy landlords, com-
munities picketing irresponsible public offi-
cials, people using creative tactics to shine light
on injustices previously ignored. As a one-time
ptofessional organizer who's stayed involved in
community organizations, I'm particularly
fond of them. Such stories speak of bravery tri-
umphing over stupidity and venality, justice
triumphing over entrenched power. They show
us it's possible for organized communities to
exercise power, and they encourage us to keep
fighting when things get tough.
Mike Gecan tells some great organizer's sto-
ries in his new book, Going Public. Gecan has
been an organizer for the Industrial Areas Foun-
dation (IAF) for more than 25 years. A national
organizing network, IAF's modus operandus is
organizing church congregations to work
together for the empowerment and improve-
ment of their communities. IAF, and its East
Brooklyn Congregations in particular, is famous
for its Nehemiah housing plan, which built
3,000 single-family, low-cost homes on large
tracts of city-owned land in Brooklyn. Perhaps
the most wonderfully outrageous story in the
book is that of IAF bringing an entire Nehemi-
ah house on a flatbed truck to the Gramercy
Park offices of the New York State Democratic
Party to shame presidential candidate Al Gore,
who had refused to meet with IAF.
But Gecan intends to do more than tell sto-
ries. He says he wants to encourage and guide
others to "play their rightful role and claim
their rightful places in the public arena of our
nation," as members of IAF organizations
around the country have done. Many of us,
Gecan says, "just don't know where to sign up,
or how to start. This book is about how to do
just that."
Gecan's stories engage and inspire, but the
book falls short in showing people "how to do
just that. " To build power organizations, he
maintains, people need to develop four basic
JANUARY 2003
habits: the habits of "relating, action,
organizing, and reflection. " Yet while
Gecan uses the word "power" frequently
in his book, he never clearly explains
exactly how these four habits build it.
Given his frequent claims that IAF's
focus is not on building houses, but on
"building power organizations," Gecan
offers surprisingly little reflection on the
nature of power itsel
HOW DO COMMUNITY organizations get
power? Gecan tells the story of one of
East Brooklyn Congregations' early
actions as an illustration. Betsy Head
Park and Pool in Brooklyn had long
been closed for renovations, and although most
of the project's budget had been spent, the
community was no closer to getting its park
back. East Brooklyn Congregations leaders-
volunteers from the community who took on a
leadership role within the organization-
researched the situation and called a meeting
with the city's director of major construction
projects. They explained who they were and
what they had learned, and then the meeting's
chair, Alice McCollum, asked the question:
"When do you expect to complete the renova-
tion of Betsy Head Park and Pool?"
Before the meeting, the group had antici-
pated that city officials would try to distract
them from this central question. They agreed
that in response to distractions, McCollum
would simply restate the question. So when the
city's construction director congratulated them
for coming, saying, "This is really democracy
in action. This is something Thomas Jefferson
would appreciate and applaud," McCollum
repeated, "When do you expect to complete
the renovation of Betsy Head Park and Pool?"
As McCollum continued to repeat the ques-
tion, the director became increasingly agitated
and upset, until he was screaming at the calm,
quiet Brooklynites. They left with their ques-
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
tion unanswered, but within months, they cel-
ebrated the grand re-opening of the park.
How did East Brooklyn Congregations
accomplish this? What power did they have in
this situation? Gecan tells us we have power
through our relationships, and that East Brook-
lyn leaders planned their action in part to intro-
duce themselves and their organization to some
of the city's power players. But clearly their rela-
tionship with that city official was just begin-
ning in that meeting; it grew and became useful
when they congratulated him on finishing the
park. This story is an example of what we might
call the power of shame- no one likes to be
exposed as doing a bad job. But how do you take
shame and turn it into a productive relation-
ship? Gecan, with 20 years experience as an
organizer, surely has some thoughts on this
question, but he doesn't share them.
Perhaps the most intriguing story, told at
length in a chapter entitled ''Ambiguity, Reci-
procity, Victory," is that of East Brooklyn Con-
gregations' relationship with Rudolph Giuliani.
The group first sought U.S. Attorney Giuliani's
assistance in handling a shakedown from a con-
struction union, and their good relationship
continued as Giuliani became mayor. When
East Brooklyn Congregations won a living wage
33
INTELLIGENCE
CITY LIT
NOW READ THIS
Killing Me Softly: Toxic Waste,
Corporate Profit, and the Struggle
for Environmental Justice
By Eddie J. Girdner and Jack Smith
NYU Press, $16.95
A useful history of how the U.S. has tried-and
failed, it argues-to regulate toxics. Unfortu-
nately, much of the book's analysis bogs down in
bizarre Marxist rhetoric, like, "When waste in the
form of unutilized use values is stored in a waste
dump, what is stored is the blood, sweat, and
tears of laborers, of the working class."
Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology,
Community, and Public Policy
By Lisa J. Servon
Blackwell Publishing, $27.95
The debate over why most poorer America ns
aren't using computers and the internet isn't
about whether a South Bronx teen can buy Xzibit
bootlegs on Ebay, but whether he ca n get a job
next year. This book by a New School prof is very
dry, but in a good way, laying out where exactly
the digital divide falls-it has less to do with
access than with skills-and assessing how
programs across the country have tried to answer
the question: Why can't Johnny surf? A must-read
for serious technology activists.
Boom: The Sound of Eviction
Directed by Francine Cavanaugh, et al.
www.boomthemovie.org
The best moments of this stirring documentary on
how the dot-com boom devoured San Francisco's
affordable housing show the in-your-face tactics
of the artists and working class families who-
largely unsuccessfully-fight evictions. Activists
in business suits, backed by "thugs" carrying
baseball bats, solemnly approach hip couples
lounging at the Mission's cafes and inform them
they've been evicted. Or witness body-painted
dancers performing a grotesque dance, sur-
rounded by realtors and buyers, at an open house
where a poor family was recently thrown out.
34
for city contractors' employees, however, rhe
mayor forbade commissioners to meet wirh
lAP, and his housing commissioner froze rhe
funding for Nehemiah housing.
When Amadou Diallo was shot and killed
by police officers, Gecan writes, rhe lAP orga-
nizations in New York City (known as Metro
lAP) chose not to participate in public protests,
but instead requested a private meeting wirh rhe
mayor. At rhat meeting, rhe mayor agreed to
reestablish lAP's access to his administration.
They had anorher difficult meeting following
Patrick Dorismond's dearh. Gecan reports some
tangible gains from rhe renewed relationship,
and some less tangible ones; in rhe weeks after
rhe Dorismond meeting, Gecan says, Giuliani
"seemed to moderate his tone and to try to
identifY more with rhe entire community."
The story is indeed an
graying demonstrator pounded a drum and a
young woman harangued rhe passing crowd" to
"save rhe U'Wa Tribe." This was, Gecan tells us,
"not an action at alJ, but a reenactment," an
"odd attempt to recreate rhe pain of a tribe
somewhere in Sourh America."
Gecan says rhat East Brooklyn Congregations
organized its first actions to show rhat it was "not
just anorher group, but a different kind of
group." Every mention of anorher group's meet-
ing or action is used as an example of rhe dys-
functionality rhat reigns outside of lAP. He deri-
sively tells us of a meeting in a suburban town to
plan rhe town's center: After sitting through 90
minutes of rhe poorly organized meeting, Gecan
asked how long rhe group had been discussing
"library expansion and rhese other things."
Twenty-seven years, he's told. We can almost hear
him snort in disgust.
ambiguous one. It's clear
rhat Giuliani and lAP
borh had something to
gain in rheir ini tial rela-
tionship; lAP needed to
be protected from labor
racketeers, and Giuliani
was making a career out
of prosecuting such peo-
ple. But Gecan never
explains why rhe mayor
chose to meet wirh rhem
after Diallo's shooting.
What was in it for him?
Did rhey offer him any-
rhing, or did he simply
perceive a benefit, at rhat
point, in renewing a rela-
tionship? For Metro lAP,
Gecan uses the
At great pains to dis-
tinguish lAP from the
global justice activists,
from housing organiza-
tions and from the fuzzy-
headed suburbanites at
that meeting, Gecan
never compares lAP to
orher community organi-
zations rhat develop lead-
ership, build power and
win important rhings for
rheir communities. The
habits of relating, action,
organization and reflec-
tion would be familiar to
community organizers
outside rhe lAP network,
alrhough perhaps in dif-
word "power"
frequently but
offers suprisingly
little reflection
on the nature of
power itself.
it was an opportunity to
once again work wirh rhe mayor and his com-
missioners, to see funding restored ror its hous-
ing development projects and to encourage
greater minority recruitment in rhe NYPD. But
Gecan doesn't tell us why rhe mayor went for it.
He even absolves the mayor of responsibility for
holding back funding for 700 Nehemiah homes
in Spring Creek, Brooklyn-it was rhe mayor's
housing commissioner, he says, who blocked rhe
project. This seems disingenuous. Gecan is leav-
ing out some part of rhe story, and rhat prevents
us ftom understanding rhe use of power in this
situation.
GECAN CONTRASTS rhe Betsy Head Park action
wirh rhat of a small band of global justice
activists who staged an action in front of rhe
midtown offices of Fidelity Capital. "They
wrirhed on rhe sidewalk," he writes, "while a
ferent forms in different
organizations. Wirhout an explanation of how
using rhose habits builds power, Gecan encour-
ages rhe recreation of lAP's forms wirhout an
understanding of rhe underlying strategy.
It's not often rhat someone wirh more rhan
20 years of organizing experience, and lots of
victories under his belt, sits down and writes a
book about it. And Gecan is a good storyteller.
So it's disappointing rhat he doesn't share any
trade secrets here. The book's intended audience
appears to be rhe solid citizens who haven't fig-
ured out a way to "go public. " They'll probably
find rhis book inspiring, but they'll have to keep
looking for guidance on how to do it.
A political science professor at Manhattan Col-
lege, Margaret Groarke has been active in the
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coali-
tion since 1985.
CITY LIMITS
Air Conditioning
A pharmacist fights asthma
on the front line: his counter.
By Maura McDermott
IN THE GRIM EMERGENCY wards of hospitals
throughout the Bronx and Manhattan, Kim-
berly Negron has spent countless agonizing
hours with her two asthmatic kids, 4-year-old
Ashly and 9-year-old Francisco. Each time she
rushed her breathless kids to the hospital, doc-
tors treated the asthma episode, but within
months or even weeks, her children's symptoms
would recur. "Believe me, " the 27-year-old
Negron says with a laugh, "my kids got records
in every hospital in New York."
Now, after years of crisscrossing the bor-
oughs searching for a doctor who could explain
JANUARY 2003
how to keep her kids out of the ER, Negron
believes she has found her ideal doctor. A pedi-
atrician at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, her new
doctor prescribes "control medications, " drugs
that diminish symptoms over time.
Just as important as her conscientious new
doctor, however, is another key part of her kids'
asthma treatment plan: the place where she buys
her kids' medication, De Franco Pharmacy.
If the city's asthma epidemic ever inspires its
own movie-a gritry Erin Brockovich, say, set in
the South Bronx-it will need a glamorous
hero to barcle the lung-tightening forces of evil
and help kids fight the asthma monster. Mild-
mannered, graying James De Franco may not
have Erin's wardrobe, but, like her, he's practic-
ing grassrootS activism in a most unlikely set-
ting.
De Franco's pharmacy could never be mis-
taken for a doctor's office, and his staff certain-
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
ly isn't being paid doctors' salaries. But while
the city and state spend millions fighting asth-
ma, funneling money to community groups,
working with schools and creating public ser-
vice ad campaigns, De Franco has launched his
own effort to combat the disease with no
money. He's turning a small businessman's
trade association into a public health organiz-
ing network that attacks one of asthma's most
intractable features: patients' ignorance of how
to treat it properly.
De Franco's bustling, family-owned phar-
macy is located on Randall Avenue in the
Soundview section of the Bronx. A modest
neighborhood of low-rise homes in the shad-
ow of the Bruckner Expressway, it happens to
be the asthma capital of America: In 1997, the
disease landed nearly 5,000 Bronx children in
the hospital.
His pharmacy sees a steady stream of asth-
matic children and adultS ordering the pills and
inhalers they need to breathe freely. In the mid-
1990s, alarmed by the local prevalence of the
disease, De Franco started counseling cus-
tomers on how to control their asthma. He has
trained his pharmacist colleagues to call asth-
matics at home to make sure they're taking their
medication regularly and correctly, ask if the
disease has landed them in the emergency room
and send notes to their doctors when their
patients' disease flares up. "He's doing as much
education [on practitioners as of patientS," says
Marian Feinberg, health coordinator with the
South Bronx Clean Air Coalition.
The fact that pharmacists can be found in
easily accessible storefronts-not crowded clin-
ics-makes them well placed to counsel
patients about taking medications correctly,
says De Franco, who calls pharmacists "the
missing link between patients and practition-
ers. " Dr. David Rosenstreich, an asthma and
allergy specialist at Albert Einstein College of
Medicine in the Bronx, agrees. "It's where the
patients are being given the medication," he
says. "If they have time, they can be shown
what to do, and that's the ideal time to do it. "
IT'S PRACTICAllY A CLICHE among asthma
experts that treatments are now so effective that
no one should ever die of the disease. Yet in
New York City, about 200 people die from
asthma every year.
Ideally, patients should treat asthma by tak-
ing control drugs, which lessen the airway con-
striction and inflammation of asthma over
time. Doctors and public health practitioners
call this "managing asthma."
But many poor families don't have doctors
35
INTELLIGENCE
MAKING CHANGE
who can explain the remedies to them. So
instead of "managing" the disease, many asth-
matics simply treat their symptoms with quick-
fix, so-called "rescue" medications, drugs that
keep airways open temporarily but don't pro-
vide any long-term benefit. Before long, their
shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing fits
reach a crisis point. Then they rush to an emer-
gency room and wait hours to get treatment
that will let them breathe freely again. In 1997,
asthma resulted in $141 million in Medicaid
hospitalizations statewide.
For many patients with Medicaid or with-
out insurance, an emergency room doc is the
only physician they see, and those doctors are
often too frazzled to prescribe control drugs
and explain their importance. "Their focus is
on the attack," Rosenstreich says. "They don't
have time to sit down and show patients how
to use their inhalers, and make sure they know
how to use them correctly. They're going on to
the next emergency."
In order to keep asthma in check, the ratio
of control meds to rescue meds should be
about two to one in favor of control drugs. But
drug company surveys show that Bronx
patients get three times as many prescriptions
for rescue drugs as for control drugs. That's
way too much emergency treatment and way
roo little prevention, says Rosenstreich.
"When we see people reflliing their albuterol
[a rescue medication] twice a month, we warn
them, because then they're not using their con-
trol meds right," says De Franco. "If they're
using too much of the albuterol and very little
of the control meds, they're not really control-
ling their asthma."
Even with the right medications, treating
asthma requires a complicated array of devices
and the knowledge to use them properly. In
1999, De Franco found out that many Bronx
pharmacies did not stock several of the med-
ical devices asthmatics need, like chambers,
which attach to asthmatics' inhalers and slow
down the delivery of inhaled medication.
Though they're essential for young children
and certain older patients, many business
owners refused to stock the attachments
because outdated Medicaid rules forced them
to sell the gadgets below cost.
Using the connections he's developed over
the years as executive director of the New York
City Pharmacists Society, De Franco convinced
manufacturers and wholesalers to sell bulk lots
of chambers at a reduced rate, and he lobbied
the state's Pharmacy Advisory Committee, a liai-
son between pharmacists and the Department of
Health. Within weeks, the state increased reirn-
36
bursements, making it possible for pharmacists
to make a small profit on the sales.
So that patients could know which pharma-
cies stocked the devices, De Franco got 50 phar-
macies throughout the city-most of them in
the Bronx-to join the Pharmacy Asthma Net-
work (www.nycps.org/pan/pan.htm). The net-
work's members, nearly all mom-and-pop shops
(De Franco says the big chain stores weren't
interested), also receive updates on the latest
methods of treating the disease.
They also agree to explain to clients how to
use asthma devices. Because many asthmatics
mishandle their inhalers, the drug lands at the
back of the throat, instead of in the lungs
where it's needed. It's fairly simple to explain
to a typical asthmatic how to keep symptoms
Bronx pharmacist
and asthma activist
James De Franco
calls his profession
"the missing link
between patients
and practitioners."
at bay by using the devices correctly, and De
Franco has bilingual staffers to help Spanish-
speaking patients understand their treatments.
Among De Franco's allies is Boris Mantell,
owner of a chain of pharmacies throughout
the city and president of the Pharmacists Soci-
ety of the State of New York. Following De
Franco's model, Mantell has trained his own
staff to educate asthmatics about controlling
the disease.
But it's hard for most pharmacists to drop
what they're doing and counsel one asthma suf-
ferer while hordes of angry customers line up.
"It's a matter of finding the time to ask all those
questions," says Kathleen Carroll, De Franco's
daughter and colleague at the Bronx pharmacy.
''I'm more concerned with making sure they
get their medications." De Franco suggested a
Medicaid reimbursement for counseling to
state health officials, only to be told tight bud-
gets won't allow it.
It could save thousands in medical costs,
though. Take Asheville, North Carolina. The
small, progressive city and its largest hospital,
the private Mission St. Joseph's Health System,
have put in place a similar program, paying
pharmacists about $20 to $60 each time they
counsel a patient about controlling asthma.
Most asthmatics-there are about 150 in the
program-meet with their pharmacists about
six times a year.
The result? The three-year-old investment
has paid for itself many times over, saving $560
per patient annually in reduced medical costs
and lower absenteeism, says Barry Bunting, a
clinical pharmacy manager at St. Joseph's. Cer-
tainly the local bean counters have enjoyed the
boon: Sick days among asthmatics dropped by
more than half, to two per month on average.
But the most significant effect was on asthmat-
ics' health. After a year in the program, the
average patient's lung function rose from a bot-
tom-of-the-barrel 61 percent of normal to 86
percent, which doctors consider healthy.
Hoping to achieve similar effects on a larger
scale, states such as Mississippi have set aside
Medicaid funds to pay pharmacists who counsel
asthmatics, says Susan Winckler, policy director
at the American Pharmaceutical Association.
The idea hasn't caught on in New York,
despite its sky-high asthma rates, but that
doesn't mean De Franco will stop trying. ''I'm
not giving up," he insists. "After three years,
something ought to break."
Maura McDermott is a reporter at the Herald
News in West Paterson, New Jersey.
CI
Your bite-sized dail y dose
of urban affairs news &
research.
QUICKLY INGESTED.
EASILY DIGESTED.
Delivered to your inbox at midday,
Tuesdays through Fri days.
Sign up today at
Extra@citylimits.org
CITY LIMITS
Succeeding
With Sectors
Tips for taking the
next big thing in economic
development from theory to
practice.
By Adam Friedman
AFTER GRADUAUY GATHERING credibility and polit-
ical currency over the past decade in New York,
the phrase "sector development" is suddenly on
the tip of everyone's tongue. The City Council
has held hearings about ie. The current adminis-
tration appears to be positioning for a policy shin
toward it. Even the plans for the redevelopment
of Lower Manhattan incorporate the concepe.
Overall, this is a very positive transforma-
tion. Implementing sectoral development pro-
grams will help put public resources to work
where they will do the most good--creating
the most new jobs. As the former head of the
Garment Industry Development Corporation
(GIDC)-one of the first public-private,
labor-management sectoral initiatives in the
country-and the developer of several other
sectoral projects in the city, I include myself as
a supporter. However, before putting sectoral
initiatives into widespread practice in New
York, it is worth pausing to assess what they
can and cannot do, and to set the right expec-
tations for such efforts. A false start will not
only squander good will and money, as well as
fail to produce jobs or strengthen industries,
but it would also discredit an important eco-
nomic development strategy that could
advance the city for decades to come.
What follow are some lessons nom the field.
A sectoral approach to economic develop-
ment-that is, one that seeks to foster and sup-
pott an entire industry through broad-based col-
laborations within an economic "sector"-has
some undeniable strengths. As compared to tax
breaks for individual companies, sector develop-
ment can be an effective way to improve an
industry's overall competitiveness, to anchor that
industry to the surrounding community, and to
assist small and medium-sized businesses, which
are the generators of new jobs but have long
received scant attention nom economic develop-
JANUARY 2003
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
)a j i I' ~ [CI' ~ I j: '13' Wj :lIti' ~ ' t i C
A Project of the Center for an Urban Future
ment policymakers. Sectoral strategies do not
subsidize one company over its competition, and
there is an inherent fairness to this approach.
In addition, by focusing on a whole industry,
an economic development agency can achieve
an economy of scale, serving enough companies
with similar needs to make developing a high
level of industry expertise worthwhile. For
example, one of the most popular programs of
the GIDC is a class for managers in sewing-
machine repair. Another example is at the
Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center
(GMDC), where small woodworking compa-
nies are able to share sophisticated equipment to
which they would not otherwise have access.
This leads to the first rule of a successful
sectoral approach:
1) Choose wisely
Sector-based strategies are tailor-made for
addressing issues that are unique to an industry
or that benefit nom such economies of scale. Not
all industries, however, fit nearly into this model.
Neither the fur nor the leather industries, for
example, would be likely to generate enough jobs
to be worth the public-sector investment. On the
other end of the spectrum, a sector as vast as
retailing might be too diverse to be served by an
overarching sector-based initiative. In general,
issues such as sanitation, security, transportation,
and basic work-readiness training might be bet-
ter addressed another way, such as through a geo-
graphically based local development corpo.ration.
What does make a sector a good candidate
for this type of strategy? Some preliminary
questions to consider include: Is the industry
large enough to justifY public investment? Is
there growth potential? What kind of jobs will
be created, and what skills will they require?
Are there enough businesses with shared needs
to make the effort worthwhile?
An ideal industry for this type of approach
would not only fit a general paradigm, howev-
er-it would also be a sector which New York
already offers a competitive advantage over
other locales.
At the New York Industrial Retention Net-
work (NYIRN), where I'm currenrly director, we
are now in the process of launching Food From
New York, a sectoral initiative in the food manu-
facturing sector. We selected the food industry
because it meers a broad range of criteria:
New York offers competitive advantages
for food producers because of its proximi-
ty to a dense market;
New York's diversity-literally dozens of
specialty ethnic sub-markets-stimulates
new product development and creates
entrepreneurial opportunities;
Growing national demand for specialty
foods creates export opportunities; and
The food industry offers a large number
of entry-level jobs.
Prior to working with NYIRN, I served as
director of economic development at the Man-
hattan Borough President's Office, where we
pursued a sectoral initiative in the diamond
and jewelry industries. We selected the dia-
mond and jewelry industries for a number of
reasons: First, the number of jobs generated by
businesses in the supply chain was big, approx-
imately 30,000 in either manufacturing,
wholesaling or retailing in New York City. Sec-
ond, the "value added" by the business opera-
tions in New York was high: the workforce was
highly skilled; design was critical to produc-
tion; and the industry is space-efficient. These
factors suggested that the industry was well-
suited for New York's high-cost environment.
Third, the industry was composed of hundreds
of small businesses and fragmented among
many different trade associations. Finally, the
industry had been virtually ignored by the city,
despite the wealth it generated and its extraor-
dinary concentration along 47th Street.
In the diamond and jewelry field, the city
offers an abundance of design talent; the abili-
ty to trade internationally; and a culture of tol-
erance, making it a livable place for the many
Orthodox Jews who work in the sector.
2) Share the driving
Probably the most important, and most dif-
ficult, step for any third party organizing a sec-
toral initiative is to "let go"-that is, to relin-
37
INTELLIGENCE
NYC INC.
quish some control in order to build a true col-
laboration. This is lesson No.2: The city must
bring representatives of the client indusuies into
the decision-making process at all levels and
stages, from assessing the problems to designing
the programs. This will earn good will and help
get the industry invested in the process.
At the Manhattan Borough President's
Office, we began the diamond and jewelry
industries initiative with a study that was both
a research project and an organizing tool. Our
objective was not only to assess the economic
impact of the industries, but to engage the
leadership, to build industry-consciousness and
cohesiveness, and to offer a vision of what par-
ticipants might gain from a partnership with
government and with one another.
We created an advisory board composed of
the directors of each trade association and the
major institutions within the industry. Every
mailing had the board members' names on it
and was sent out from each association. The
board helped design the study and the methods
for conducting the survey, and helped interpret
the findings and determine the recommenda-
tions. They even issued the press releases. The
result was the creation of a development cor-
poration to provide services to the industry
citywide, and a business improvement district
to provide security and marketing for the core
of the industry on 47th Street.
What the city will lose in control it will gain
in industry resources, including time, money
and expertise. When I was at GIDC, the orga-
nizations on the board not only helped to
design the programs, they also marketed those
programs to their members, recruited and
placed graduates of training programs, and
contributed money and equipment.
In particular, the city cannot impose a solution
on a problem simply because it has a program it
wants to promote or shoehorn in. For example,
also at GIDC, a Deparunent of Employment
representative once convinced a reluctant board
that the agency should try to train long-term wel-
fare recipients in industrial sewing in an eight-
week program, because the city agency needed to
move people off welfare. Not one participant was
placed, because it was impossible to train people
in that short a time frame.
An alternative, less hands-on approach to
actually organizing an industry would be for the
city to create a fund to support industry efforts to
generate their own sectoral projects. For example,
the city could award grants to industry collabora-
tions through a competitive request-for-proposals
process. Criteria for the award might include: 1)
the inclusiveness of the proposal, both in terms of
38
the ability of many companies to benefit, and the
opportunity for a range of stakeholders (including
organized labor) to participate in the decision-
making process; 2) what the industry would be
willing to commit in terms of time, money and
other resources; and 3) the potential impact on
the long-term competitiveness of participating
companies. Awards should be multi-year, to pro-
vide ongoing support.
3) Commit senior management time
If the city wants an industry's leadership to
be engaged, then senior government people
must participate as well. Equally important, in
order to address problems in meaningful ways,
and for the city to get the most benefit out of an
industry collaboration, representatives of all the
relevant agencies-which typically include the
departments of Business Services, Employment
and City Planning, as well as the Economic
An effective
sector-based
strategy will require
sharing the
decision-making
and the spotlight.
Development Corporation-must be present.
Having all the key players involved in the
process creates a mechanism for ongoing com-
munication between government and an
industry; provides a forum for the industry to
debate its needs and set its priorities; and allows
the industry and government to develop a
shared understanding of the issues, as well as of
the limits of what government can do.
4) Include labor
Including representatives of labor organiza-
tions may raise fears among some owners and
trade groups, but their early participation in a
sectoral initiative is crucial. Labor is an obvious
stakeholder and can provide both insight into
the challenges confronting an industry and
political clout with policymakers, which may be
essential to the sustainability of the initiative.
Training and work practices will inevitably be
examined at some point, and labor's participa-
tion in addressing these issues is necessary. That
participation will come much easier if labor
groups have already helped shape the vision,
define the issues and develop the programs.
5) Be prepared for the long haul
A sectoral strategy is a long-term investment
that may not show immediate benefits or pro-
duce quantitative results. A successful project
might eventually result in the sharing of equip-
ment or collaboration in marketing, both of
which require a lot of gradual relationship-
building, and neither of which can be easily
evaluated in terms of impact.
For example, the NYIRN began its Food
From New York initiative three years ago with
a study assessing the economic impact and
needs of the industry. While we have helped
many individual food companies along the way
with real estate and financing services, only this
year do we expect to have industry-specific pro-
grams, such as marketing assistance and a nat-
ural-gas-buying co-op.
When evaluating sectoral strategies,
progress can be measured in terms of process
milestones or goals such as the creation of an
industry governing board, the development of
a mission and vision statement, or the organi-
zation of industry events.
Adopting a sectoral approach to economic
development is not a silver-bullet solution to our
economic woes, nor will it succeed without cer-
tain sacrifices. Implementing such a strategy will
require public investments that might not yield
returns for several years-a difficult decision for
any elected official who must show results with-
in a short election term. It will require sharing
the decision-making and sharing the spotlight.
However, if they are given a chance, sectoral
strategies can effectively channel resources into
small and medium-sized businesses, spurring
them to create jobs. By including industry lead-
ers from the beginning, and by concentrating
on the shared needs of a significant number of
businesses in a given industry, sectoral strategies
can also ensure that the real issues of a whole
sector are being addressed through appropriate
programs. This will make the city a valuable
parmer, which will in turn help to make New
York the location of choice for a diverse array of
industries for decades to come .
Adam Friedman is executive director of the New
York Industrial Retention Network, a citywide
organization that seeks to promote a diverse econ-
omy that includes manufacturing.
CITY LIMITS
LETTERS----
KEEPING CLOSE
COUNSEL
continued from page 4
these restrictions for years. In an era of rising
homelessness and joblessness and an increased
need for services, these programs irresponsibly
decided to break away only because LSNY
[Ook action to hold them accountable. The
City Limits article should have reflected the
broader context behind MFY's and Bronx
Legal's decisions.
Ghita Schwarz
President, Legal Services Staff Association
MILLION DOLLAR JOB
Thank you for your article "If We Had a
Billion Dollars" [November, 2002] . Neil F.
Carlson did a thorough job reporting New
York's Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield scan-
dal-one that's ongoing, unless we the good
people of this state stop it. Considering the
election results, however, we will probably have
more of the same.
Although my quore in the story is essential-
ly correct ("But instead this money is going [0
be pissed away"), it leaves out something
important. We believe that the hospital workers
should get raises. Those raises should be fought
for in the traditional way that unions fight for
their workers, not be "stealing" money that was
designed to go for other purposes. More than
ever, we need to see that the under- and unin-
sured have access [0 health care services-by
fighting for expansion of health insurance and
ensuring that safety net health care facilities
that provide care can stay in business.
Thank you, City Limits, for covering this
critical story. Keep up the good work.
Judy Wessler
Director
Commission on the Public's Health System
continued from page 30
comes back [0 the community, even inside the
fortress of the Bronx County Courthouse. At
night court there is a constant parade of peo-
ple asking for information about their friends,
husbands and relatives. Although Steinberg
could easily tell these people that she has no
information-which is the truth-she rushes
up [0 the court personnel [0 investigate the
status of every case she's asked about. At one
point, two people who are pressing what
sounds like harassment charges against their
landlord come looking for the prosecutor.
Steinberg dashes in [0 find the Assistant Dis-
trict Attorney and quickly returns and says the
prosecu[Or will be right out.
Then she does something extraordinary.
www.citylimits.org
Public defenders don't have [0 solicit business.
Their clients are assigned by the court when
they're arrested. And most have enough clients
calling them and clogging their voice mail
with messages, without giving out their num-
ber [0 strangers. But [Onight, in between help-
ing lawyers interview clients, craft arguments
and win clients release on bail, Steinberg
decides it can't ever hurt [0 let residents know
about Bronx Defenders. "If you ever need help
with the defender stuff," she says, handing
them her card, ''I'm here. "
Commitment is
JANUARY 2003
Tomorrovv starts today
leading to results TM
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-
munity development, the arts and the envi-
ronment, Deutsche Bank partners with local
organizations to build a brighter future.
Our commitment to a better tomorrow
starts today.
Deutsche Bank IZI
39
JOB ADS
ADVERTISE IN
CITY
LIMITS!
To place a classified ad in
City Limits, e-mail your ad to
advertise@citylimits.org or fax
your ad to 212-479-3339. The
ad will run in the City Limits
Weekly and City Limits mag-
azine and on the City Limits
web site. Rates are $1.46 per
word, minimum 40 words.
Special event and professional
directory advertising rates are
also available. For more infor-
mation, check out the Jobs
section of www.citylimits.org
or call Associate Publisher
Susan Harris at
212-479-3345.
RENTAL SPACE
SPACE AVAILABLE - Non-profit agency seeks
partner to sublet excellent office space, Wall
Street area. 3,000 sq. ft. available, 2417 build-
ing with lobby attendant, close to all major
subways and rent very reasonable. Call: 212-
349-6009, ext. 240,243 or email :
bruce@sffny.org
SPACE AVAILABLE - Non-profit agency seeks
part ner to sublet modern & secure office
space, Jamaica, Queens area. 3,000 sq. ft.
avail able, corporate building with lobby atten-
dant, close to all major subways, reasonable
rent. Call : 718-907-4827
JOB ADS
ADVOCATE - To coordinate activities in the
Bronx about disability rights issues. Fulltime
position, $24,000/yr. Must have excellent com-
munication ski ll s, be comfortable making pre-
sentations and possess basic computer/inter-
net ski ll s. Bilingual in Spanish or ASL a plus.
People w/ disabi lities encouraged to apply. Job
description at www.bils.org. Send resume and
cover letter to Asst. Dir., BILS, Istein@bils.org
or fax 718-515-2844.
ASSISTANT FISCAL MANAGER - Responsible
for all government, client, other bil lings for set-
tlement house. Monthly reports. Accounts
payable using FundEZ general ledger. Respon-
sible for contractual audits, bank reconcilia-
tions. Requires two years+ of relevant experi -
ence. Accounting degree preferred. Experience
with database and accounting software
required; FundEZ preferred. Experience with
government contracts preferred. Salary com-
petitive; benefits excell ent. Growth opportunity.
40
Resume to Jeneba Bangura, Sunnyside Com-
munity Servi ces, 43-31 39th Street, Sunnysi de,
NY 1ll04; fax to 718-784-7266.
ASSOCIATE CIRCUIT RIDER - Growing
national project empowering grassroots orga-
nizations through technology, seeks indi vidual
with experience in technology and community
organizing. Salary: up to $38K; good benefits.
Persons of color, formerly on welfare or low-
income are encouraged. EOE. For more, see
www.lincproject.org. Send resume, references
to Gina Mannix, Welfare Law Center, 275 Sev-
enth Ave., Ste 1205, 10001. Fax 212-633-
6371, emai l linchire@welfarelaw.org
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF SERVICES AND PRO-
GRAMS - NAMI provides support, education,
advocacy to people with mental illnesses and
their famil ies/friends. Associate Director
responsible for managing volunteer- staffed
20+ support groups and telephone Helpline,
monthly educational meetings, outreach pro-
gram, other services, and for recruiting, train-
ing, managing 50+ active volunteers. MSW,
with mental health experience; collaborative,
professional, friendly working style; adminis-
trative and program management experience;
strong presentation and writing skills; enthusi-
asm, energy, self-motivated; computerlinter-
net expertise; Spanish-fluency desirable. Full-
time, some evenings; $38-40K. See
www.naminycmetro.org; e-mail
membership@naminyc.org for job description.
Send cover letter, resume, reference lis!:
execdir@naminyc.org or Executive Director,
NAMI-NYC Metro, 432 Park Avenue South,
#710, New York, NY 10016. Deadline: ASAP;
early applications strongly encouraged.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR - Amnesty International
USA seeks a part-time Associate Editor to join
our NYC Communications team. Responsibi li -
ties include writing, editing, researching, fact
checking and photo researching for a growing
human rights magazine. Ability to edit articles
about world events and to write crisp journal-
istic summaries and vivid articles about AI and
its activities a must. Production and adminis-
trative duties including working with budgets
also required for this unique opport unity.
Degree plus 5 years journalism/editorial expe-
rience, solid organizational skills and familiar-
ity with international and national human
rights framework strongly preferred. We offer a
generous benefit package. Wri ti ng
samples/Resume/cover letter includi ng salary
history ASAP to humanresources@ai usa.org
subject AE-COMM or 322 8th Avenue, NY, NY
10001. Fax 212-627-1451. AIUSA is an Equal
Opportunity Employer.
Black Veterans for Social Justice, Inc is seeki ng
to fill the following pOSitions: ACCOUNTANT,
seeking experienced accountant, BBA or BS
with experience in NYS, NYC funded programs,
monthly vouchering; budget variance knowl-
edge a must. Computer literate, wlFund EZ
software knowledge a plus. ExcellLotus work-
ing experience essential. Salary range mid-
20s. MAINTENANCE SUPPERVISOR, candidate
should have demonstrated work, supervisory
and general experience in field of Maintenance
and Repairs with knowledge of cleaning build-
ings. Should have some college or certifica-
tions in courses pertai ning to Housi ng and
Building Maintenance. Must be computer lit-
erate, able to maintain inventory records.
Shoul d be able to perform light industrial
repairs to fixtures and pl umbing apparatuses.
Salary commensurate with experience, Low to
mi d-$20K. MEN'S HOMELESS SHELTER DIREC-
TOR, candidates must oversee all aspects of
running a 200+ bed Men's Homeless Employ-
ment shelter. Must have managerial , adminis-
trative, budgeting and supervisory ski ll s, as
well a worki ng knowledge of City, State, Feder-
al fundi ng and reporting requirements. Should
have experience in providing social , education-
al and training services to move clients to
independent living. Candidate should possess
BA or BS with minimum 2 years working expe-
rience within Human Services Field (mentally
disabled, ex-offenders, veteran population,
homeless), be computer literate and an ener-
getic, community oriented visionary. Salary
commensurate with experience. Women and
veterans are encouraged to apply. CASE MAN-
AGER, applicants must have Bachelors degree
or above in Human Services (or related field
including education) as well as a minimum of
four years experience dealing directly with the
mentally disabled (MICA) and/or homeless
population, parolees, etc. And its attendant
federal, state and city report requirements.
Salary $20-30K, ASSISTANT HOUSING DIREC-
TOR, Candidate should have admi nistrative
background with working knowledge of Hous-
ing Operations, Rent Collecting, Financial
Reporting. Must be computer literate with
minimum 2 years working in Housing Manage-
ment and Development arena. Should be able
to supervise staff, manage time and complete
payroll reporting. Extensive skills in mainte-
nance regulations, cleaning and construction
services to rental units and other spaces with-
in company. Should be self-starter and able to
work with all types of people and situations.
Salary commensurate with experience. Low
thirties and up. ** Fax resumes to BVSJ , Attn:
Human Resources 718-935-1629 or email
admin@bvsj .xohost.com **
BOOKKEEPER - Brooklyn CBO seeks a Full-
Charge Bookkeeper. Bookkeeper must have 2-
3 years experience and be able to do bank rec-
onciliations, have specific experience with ADP
payroll , knowledge of corp. taxes, make journal
entries, code invoices/accts payable, and pro-
duce audit work papers, salary in the low $30s.
Fax resume, 718-485-4683 attn. A Liburd.
BRENNAN FEllOWSHIP - Work on First
Amendment issues as part of the Technology
and Li berty Program; analysis of pending
Supreme Court cases; drafting of briefs and
pleadings at all levels of the federal and state
judiciary; partici pation in trial litigation, includ-
ing discovery and motion practice. Third-year
law students and recent law school graduates
are invited to apply. Reply to: Ann Beeson,
ACLU, 125 Broad Street-18th FI., NY, NY 10004.
Brooklyn Bureau of Community Service has
positions available in our Community Response
Center, in which we counsel and provide assis-
tance to persons (and their families) who have
lost their jobs due to the attack on the World
Trade Center: CASEWORK SUPERVISOR -
Provide clinical and admi nistrative supervision
to casework staff providing counseling, group
work, case management and linkage to critical
services. We require an MSW or MAIMS in a
related field with prior supervisory experience,
highly developed clinical skills, strong knowl-
edge of community resources, group work expe-
ri ence. CASEWORKERS - Provide counseli ng,
group work, case management and linkage to
critical services. We require an MSW or MAIMS
in a related field. Prior experience in providing
counseling, group work, case management and
referral services. Spanish bilingual is highly
desirable. Highly developed assessment and
engagement skills are required to identify and
engage those applicants who may need addi-
tional counseling assistance. Fax or mail your
cover letter and resume to: Maryclare Scerbo,
BBCS Community Response Center, 540
Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217,
email mscerbo@bbcscrc.org
or fax 718-858-3708. EOE
BUSINESS LOAN OFFICERILENDING DIRECTOR
- New York City Financial Network Action
Consortium seeks an experienced Business
Loan Officer/Lending Director to develop a
shared business lendi ng program for the city's
leading community development credit unions
and assist in developing other shared services.
Specific Responsibilities: developing under-
writing procedures; creating marketing strate-
gies; performing credit analysis and loan
packaging; managi ng loan approvals; over-
seeing closings/disbursement; building credit
union capacity; and loan monitoring. Qualifi-
cations: proven lending record (5 years mini-
mum), knowledge of SBA and CDFI programs;
B.A.; Spani sh a plus. Salary: Negotiable To
apply: Send letter with salary requirements
and resume to: Mr. Bray, Director, NYCfNAC,
175 Remsen Street, Suite 350, Brooklyn, NY
11201. Fax 718-260-0085 or Email:
peterbray@mindspring.com.
CASE MANAGER - for upper Eastside settle-
ment house. BA/BSW preferred to work with
homebound seniors. Salary - high $20s, good
benefits. EOE. Resumes and cover to Ms. W
Zinman, Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, 331
East 70th Street, NYC, 10021.
CASE MANAGER - The Center for Urban Com-
munity Services (CUCS), a national leader in
the development of effective housing and ser-
vice initiatives for needy populations, seeks to
fi ll the following position for a pioneering new
supportive housing initiative, the Dorothy Day
Apts., located at Riverside Drive and 135th
Street. Needy families and individual s will
receive on-site services including day care,
after school , and case management services.
Service team resp. include: Case management,
indivi dual, family, group, and crisis interven-
tion services, family reunification and support
services. Experience with low-income families
and individuals, foster care/family court sys-
tem, supportive housing, homelessness, men-
tal health, or substance abuse preferred. Case
Manager: HS Dipl oma (or GED). One year relat-
ed exp preferred. Salary: $25,644 (1 position).
Bilingual Spanish/English pref. Full-time posi-
tions include full bnfts and $65/month in tran-
sit checks. Resume and cover letter (indicate
position) to Michelle de la Uz, CUCSlRio, 10
CITY LIMITS
Fort Washington Avenue, NY, NY, 10032. CUCS
is committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
CHILD CARE AIDES - HELP USA, a leading
not-for-profit housing and social service
provider seeks Child Care Aides (2) to work
with groups of children ranging in age from 8
weeks - 5 years old. Assist in the planning and
execution of programs that provide childcare
to children of Domestic Violence situations.
These programs take into account their educa-
tion and social development as well as their
health needs. Requirements: AA degree in
Early Childhood Education and 1-2 years expe-
rience in an Early Childhood setting or 4 years
in an Early Childhood setting if the candidate
has not attained an AA degree. Must be able
to work 8am - 4pm or 12pm - 8pm with over-
time available. Salary: High teens to low
twenties. Send resumes to Deltra Diggins, PO
Box 641, New York, NY 10037, Fax 212-862-
4376 or email: ddiggins@helpusa.org
CLERGY ORGANIZER - The Northwest Bronx
Community and Clergy Coalition seeks an
experienced organizer to staff an interfaith
clergy committee, organize social action com-
mittees at local churches and mosques, and
integrate the work of these groups into the
broader organizing efforts of the organization.
Issues include housing, school reform, and
immigration. Applicants should be committed
to social justice, and have five years experi-
ence in interfaith work and/or community
organizing. Spanish language abilities, famil-
iarity with congregation-based models of
organizing, and a background in theology or
religious education are preferred. Salary to
$35-40 K based on experience, with good ben-
efits. Send cover letter and resume to Clay
Smith at nwbstaffdir@mindspring.com or fax
to 718-367-5655.
CLIENT SERVICES REPRESENTATIVE - God's
Love We Deliver, a NYC non-profit, non-sectar-
ian organization dedicated to alleviating
hunger and malnutrition for people living with
HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses seeks a
Client Service Representative to assess and
register potential and current clients for the
agency's Meal Program, monitor adherence to
established guidelines for program eligibility,
and work with clients and their support net-
work and medical providers on issues of eligi-
bility, certification and delivery of service.
Candidates must have a College Degree (BA,
BS or BSA) in social work or health care
administration; two years experience in cus-
tomer/client service or advocacy in a commu-
nity-based organization or health care facility;
solid working knowledge of HIV/AIDS and/or
other serious, life threatening or debilitating
illness and related confidentiality laws; expe-
rience in or knowledge of medical terminology
or coding in accordance with the International
Classification of Diseases ("ICD-9"); profi-
ciency in MS 2000 Office software with an
emphasis on Word, Excel and Access and
experience with verbal and written communi-
cation skills in Spanish, French or Creole. Must
be willing to work a flexible schedule including
overtime and holidays; travel within the five
boroughs on NYC and Hudson County, NJ; and
have a desire to work with a diverse group of
JANUARY 2003
clients, staff and volunteers. Excellent bene-
fits package. Send, fax or e-mail resume with
cover letter, which must include salary history
and requirements to HR-GLWD, 166 Avenue of
the Americas, NYC 10013 or Fax 212-294-
8101; recruitment@glwd.org. EOE
CLINICAL COORDINATOR - The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS), a national
leader in the development of effective housing
and service initiatives for needy populations,
seeks to fill the following position for a pi(}-
neering new supportive housing initiative, the
Dorothy Day Apts., located at Riverside Drive
and 135th Street. Needy families and individ-
uals will receive on-site services including day
care, after school , and case management ser-
vices. Service team resp. include: Case man-
agement, individual , family, group, and crisis
intervention services, family reunification and
support services. Experience with low-income
families and individuals, foster care/family
court system, supportive housing, homeless-
ness, mental health, or substance abuse pre-
ferred. Clinical Coordinator: CSW + 3 yrs
post-masters expo Resp. for supervision of
clinical service team. Salary: $46,459 (1 posi-
tion). Bilingual Spanish/English pref. FulI-
time positions include full bnfts and
$65/month in transit checks. Resume and
cover letter (indicate position) to Michelle de la
Uz, CUCSlRio, 10 Fort Washington Avenue, NY,
NY, 10032. CUCS is committed to workforce
diversity. EEO.
CLINICAL OUTREACH SUPERVISOR - FIT
Supervisory position within mental health clin-
ic to coordinate clinical services provided at
various commuity locations, including
schools, shelters, day care centers, youth cen-
ters. Staff supervision and some direct ser-
vice. LlCSW required. We seek a culturally
diverse staff, minority and bilingual appli -
cants strongly encouraged to apply. Send
resumes to Robyn Springer, Parents & Chil-
dren's Services, 142 Berkeley St., Boston, MA
02116 or fax 617-528-5880.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER - The Fairmount
Housing Corporation and WomenRising, Inc.
are seeking to hire an experienced Community
Organizer for an important community plan-
ning effort to revitalize McGinley Square, an
inner-city neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jer-
sey. Responsibilities: Build relationships with
identified stakeholders; Facilitate, collect,
document and analyze community priorities;
Educate stakeholders about value and meth-
ods of community organizing and planning;
Facilitate community planning efforts and
participate in the writing of a comprehensive
neighborhood plan. Qualifications: At least 3
years work experience in grassroots organiz-
ing; Group facilitation skills; Public speaking
experience; Ability to work with diverse com-
munities. Preferred: B.A./B.S.; Familiarity with
Jersey City. Salary: Mid-30s plus benefits. To
apply: Mail, fax or e-mail cover letter and
resume to FHC, attn: Community Organizer,
270 Fairmount Avenue, Jersey City, NJ, 07306;
Fax: 201-333-9305; e-mail :
fhcywca@aol.com.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING ASSISTANT -
CHLOC seeks a part-time Community Organiz-
ing Assistant, who'll work 15 hours/wk until
June 2003. Tasks: Recruitment and develop-
ment of membership for CHAFE, a group of
parents and residents who work to improve
local public schools; assisting to organize
meetings and events; researching educational
issues. Requirements: Bilingual
(English/Spanish). Send cover letter and
resume to Emily Blank, CHLDC 3214 Fulton
Street, Brooklyn, NY 11208, fax 718- 647-
2104, emilyblank@yahoo.com
CONSTRUCTION PROJECT MANAGERS - NYC
non-profit seeks individuals to manage and
monitor construction projects; degree in Civil
engineering, construction management or
equivalent; one year working experience,
knowledge of estimating, NYC codes, comput-
er programs, ownership of care desirable.
Apply be sending resume with cover letter and
salary requirements to E. McLawrence 212-
242-6680/e-mail hrdept@nhsnyc.org
CONTRACT SPECIALIST - New York City
Department of Youth and Community Develop-
ment, Citywide and Outside City Job Vacancy
Notice, Civil Service Title: Contract Specialist,
Level: I, Title Code No.: 40561, Salary:
$29,924-$47,294 (New Employee), $32,066 -
$47,294 (Incumbent), Office Title: Contract
Monitor/Account Executive, Work Location:
156 William Street, NY, NY Division /Work Unit:
Program Operations/Community Development,
Number of Positions: I. Job Description:
Under supervision, with some latitude for
independent initiative and decision-making,
perform professional work of routine difficulty
managing program contracts. Ensure con-
tract compliance; develops work programs
and budgets with contractors. Monitors the
performance of a number of contractors
through on-site visits and review of standard
reporting documents such as MIS, milestones,
outcomes and budgets. Analyzes all docu-
ments submitted for review, including Vendex
Performance Evaluation, agency audit reports,
outcomes and financial reports. Make reports
on contractor performance through regular
conferences, with supervisory staff and by
completing standard monitoring forms. Pro-
vides on-going assistance to assigned con-
tractors in the areas of record keeping, out-
come development and reporting and work
program modifications. Review contractors
corrective action plans; assist with training
and workshops for contractors. Act as liaison
between the agency and a number of contrac-
tors assigned to them; participate in the RFP
eligibility review and evaluation process.
Qualification Requirements: 1) A baccalaure-
ate degree from an accredited college and six
months of full time, satisfactory professional ,
technical or administrative experience in one
or more of the following fields: program evalu-
ation, contract negotiation/management, fis-
cal/financial management; or, 2) A four year
high school diploma or its equivalent and four
years of full time, satisfactory professional ,
technical or administrative experience in one
or more of the following fields; program evalu-
ation, contract negotiation/management, fis-
cal/management or project management. 3)
JOB ADS
Education and/or experience equivalent to "I"
or "2" above. Preferred Skill: Knowledge of
Microsoft Windows, Word and Excel are
required, NYC residency required for this posi-
tion. To Apply, Please Submit Resume and
Cover Letter to: (Must include Job Vacancy
Notice Number -JVN- listed below on your
resume) Vera Ribakove, Director of Human
Resources, Department of Youth and Commu-
nity Development, 156 William Street - 6th
floor, New York, NY 100038. JVN: 261-03-021.
The City of New York is an Equal Opportunity
Employer.
COORDINATOR (Fm - Comprehensive Teen
Program, to lead year-round, community-
based, recreational and educational program,
evenings & summer, for youth aged 12-18,
and supervise staff. Requirements: Full-time
(weekday aft. & eve.+ 1 Saturday per month);
2 years' supervisory experience in similar set-
ting. B.A. or advanced degree preferred.
Spanish bilingual a +. Salary: 32-37K + excel-
lent benefits, incl. 401(K). New Settlement
Apartments and Community Services has a
strong track record in youth development,
community building & organizing. See, "new
settlement" for more info. Mail letter, resume
and list of 3 professional references to
M.Nolan, New Settlement Apts., 1512
Townsend Avenue, Bronx, NY 10452. Fax: 718-
294-4085.
DEPUTY DIRECTOR, TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
AND PROGRAM EVALUATION - Senior admin-
istrator for Technical Assistance/Program
Evaluation Services Department oversees the
functions of program evaluation, fiscal infra-
structure, asomi , ta clearinghouse, technical
assistance and conflict resolution by plan-
ning, monitoring, evaluating infrastructure
and program operations. MPA or related
degree. Minimum five years managing AIDS
program services, supervision, accountability.
Knowledge of program and proposal develop-
ment, evaluation and organizational develop-
ment and issues faced by individuals living
with HIV/AIDS. Please send resume to
hr@baileyhouse.org, by mail to Bailey House,
Inc. 275 Seventh Avenue, NY NY 10001 Atten-
tion: Human Resources, or Fax: 212-414-
1431.
DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE - Build public
support for Brooklyn based supportive housing
program. Responsible for outreach, special
events, identification of potential
corporate/foundation support, preparation of
printed materials. Excellent written and oral
communication skills. Required computer
skills include data base management, Quark
Xpress, Word, Publisher and spread sheet pro-
grams. Fax resume, cover letter including
salary history, and writing sample to: Human
Resources 718-625-0635
DEVELOPMENT CO-COORDINATOR - Mem-
bership-led non-profit in Bushwick seeks
Development Co-Coordinator. Responsibilities
include: grant writing, prospecting, materials
development and database and web page
maintenance. The Co-Coordinator will work
with the Development Coordinator on special
41
JOB ADS
events, budgeting, and liaising with the
Fundraising Board. Proficiency in internet
research, Word, Excel, Access, Quark, Photo-
shop, FrontPage required. Spanish fluency pre-
ferred. Women, people of color, GLBT strongly
encouraged to apply. Send resume, writing
sample and references to Brinda Maira,
MRBW, 301 Grove Street, Brooklyn, NY 11237.
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR - Coro New York
trains and develops the next generation of
public leaders who will be agents of change
and stewards of their communities. Develop-
ment Director will organize and manage
fund raising, marketing and communications
programs. Create development plan; identify
and cultivate donors; write proposals, execute
annual dinner; run annual campaign, manage
database, and enhance public relations
efforts. Seeking full-time, seasoned develop-
ment professional. Public affairs and educa-
tional grantmaking knowledge preferred.
Salary commensurate with experience. Resume
and cover letter to: pli@coro.org or fax 212-
248-2970.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY BASED PROJECTS
- Not-for-profit organization seeking to fill a
full time position to oversee a mentoring pro-
gram and several community based/high
school projects. Major duties include develop-
ing and implementing gang prevention and
youth leadership curricula, direct supervision
of staff, coordinating staff trainings, working
as part of an interdisciplinary team, building
community linkages, and maintaining compli-
ance with budgetary and funding objectives
and outcomes. Must have a minimum of a B.A.
degree plus 3 years experience working with
high-risk youth. Fax resume to Clinton Lacey
212-760-0766
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY SERVICES -
Search Re-Opened. Prior candidates need not
apply. Self-motivated MSW with 5+ years
experience in community development, organi-
zational assessment, strategiC assistance and
program supervision to establish new depart-
ment. Responsibilities include management
of diverse programs including oversight of 29
Social Workers, institution of Community
Capacity Building and Administration of WTC
Disaster programs. Experience in program ser-
vice, budgeting, multi-site administration and
student supervision necessary. Development
experience a plus. Computer literacy and
excellent communication skills a must. Salary
$60's + benefits. Fax or e-mail
resumes only. 212-337-7279, email
AlfreLPeck@use.salvationarmy.org.
DIRECTOR OF FAMILY SERVICES - Responsi-
ble for management, administrative oversight,
supervision and coordination of existing and
future Tier II shelters. Responsibilities include
direct supervision of program directors; grant
writing, fiscal administration and community
relations. Experience in program service for
the homeless and multi-site administration
necessary, must have experience in budget
development and monitoring MAIMS/MSW
degree, computer literacy and excellent com-
munication skills a must. Salary $68 + bene-
fits. Fax 212-337-7279 or e-mail resumes to
42
Dan_Lockspeiser@use.salvationarmy.org
DIRECTOR OF FOOD AND NUTRITION PRO-
GRAM - Location: 66 Moore Street, Brooklyn,
NY 11206. Responsible for the oversight of
administrative and programmatic activities of
Musica's Ryan White Title I Food and Nutrition
Program. The program provides over 70,000
meals a year, including congregate, take home
and homebound meals as well as pantry bags
to clients affected by HIV/AIDS. The Program
Director will insure that all contractually
required program activities are implemented
and that progress is made in attaining pro-
gram objectives. The Program Director ensures
that data collection and reporting systems are
in place and that appropriate data analysis
occurs to ensure program monitoring and eval -
uation activities. Coordinates and manages
client intake as well as the educational on-site
client nutritional trainings and all related
events, such as street outreach events, com-
munity informational campaigns, etc. The Pro-
gram Director recommends hiring and firing of
project staff to the Executive Director and
ensures on-going and consistent training and
supervision of staff efforts. Requirement: BA;
Master's preferred with five years experience
managing nutritional programs serving
HIVIAIDS populations; experience working with
individuals with substance abuse problems;
bilingual EnglishlSpanish preferred; willing to
work evening and Saturdays as necessary.
Send cover letter and resume to Musica
Against Drugs, Inc., 227 Roebling Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11211, fax 718-218-7640 Attn:
Dr. Alma Villegas.
DIRECTOR OF FOUNDATIONlGOVT. RELATIONS
- Supervise staff of four; manage section
budget; liaise between agency and funders;
write correspondence and proposals; review
program budgets. Writing/communication,
organizational and multi-tasking skills neces-
sary. Graduate degree and non-profit manage-
ment experience preferable. Cover letter and
resume to: Salvation Army, Development/Foun-
dations, 120 West 14th Street, NYC, 100ll. Or
fax: 212-337-7299. No calls please.
DIRECTOR OF HOUSING DEVELOPMENT - The
King County (Seattle area) Housing Authority, a
leader in developing and managing housing in
the Pacific Northwest, is seeking an experi-
enced housing development professional to be
its Director of Housing Development. The
Authority has a housing portfolio of over 8,000
units and has developed 1,300 units of hous-
ing over the last five years. The Authority
expects to increase development over the com-
ing years. This position reports to the Executive
Director and is responsible for carrying out all
of the Authority's housing development activi-
ties including property acquisition, rehabilita-
tion or new construction, development of mixed
use and mixed income projects, special needs
housing, bond issuances, and conduit financ-
ing for other developers of affordable housing.
Strong leadership skills and extensive experi-
ence in real estate development and project
management are important prerequisites.
Candidates should have as a minimum a BA
degree and 5+ years of high level experience in
the development of affordable multifamily
housing. Additional experience may be substi-
tuted for degree. The position offers a full and
generous benefit package, a positive corporate
culture and salary of $4,633 - $8,011 per
month d.o.e. Applications and cover letters will
be accepted until a selection is made, interest-
ed individuals should submit as early as pos-
sible to ensure consideration. Please forward
to KCHA, HR Job #02-40, 600 Andover Park
West, Seattle, WA 98188. EOE
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS - Brooklyn Legal
Services Corp. A (Brooklyn A), located in
Williamsburg, seeks a full-time Di rector of
Operations, Finance and Administration.
Brooklyn A provides neighborhood-based civil
legal services to low-income groups in North
and East Brooklyn. Its community-based pro-
grams focus on economic development, wel-
fare education and poverty law, homelessness
prevention, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, senior
citizens and more. The Director will : Create and
ensure implementation of systems for prompt
payment of bills and establish and maintain
effective budgeting and financial control sys-
tems; Serve as liaison with funders and gov-
ernment agencies; Maintain compliance with
contracts and grants; Supervise, recruit and
promote staff development; Provide staff train-
ing on administrative and technological mat-
ters; Ensure maintenance, appropriate
upgrade and implementation of technology
and equipment. Candidates for this major
leadership position must have relevant experi-
ence, higher education, excellent communica-
tion skills, and the personality to meet the
demands of this challenging position. Salary
and Benefits: Commensurate with experience.
To apply, please forward your resume, includ-
ing salary requirements, to
MNeedelman@bka.org or Martin S. Needel-
man, Project Director & Chief Counsel , Brook-
lyn Legal Services Corporation A, 256 Broad-
way, Brooklyn, NY 11211. Brooklyn Legal Ser-
vices Corporation A is an affirmative action,
equal opportunity employer.
DIRECTOR, LAGUARDIA URBAN CENTER FOR
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - Chief Executive
For Business Training. Seeking spokesperson,
relationship builder and sales person for cus-
tomized business contract training and related
services. LUCED provides a wide range of
training to enhance productivity in small and
large metropolitan businesses. LUCED
includes a successful entrepreneurial training
program for women and minorities. Leading an
experienced staff, the Director will initiate con-
tacts with new and existing businesses; iden-
tify emerging corporate training needs and
develop services to meet them; coordinate
LUCED activities with other related College
programs and CUNY programs; create new
strategies that leverage College and communi-
ty resources to improve regional economic
development; seek private and public funding
to support programs serving the business
community; establish clear fiscal and service
benchmarks for staff. Desired Knowledge,
Skills and Abilities: Strong sales ability and
sales record, preferably in contract training.
Excellent communication skills. Strong knowl-
edge of business enterprises. Outstanding
leadership capabilities and capacity to engage
broad array of constituencies. Understanding
of role of community colleges in business
training and economic development. Minimum
Qualifications: Successful sales background.
Minimum of eight years programmatic and
managerial experience in business training or
related environment. Bachelor's degree
required; advanced degree a plus. Knowledge
of market trends and metropolitan economy.
Salary Range: $73,028 - $81,382 depending
on experience. Send Cover Letter And Resume
ASAP to: Patricia Taras, Human Resources
Dept. , LaGuardia Community College, 31-10
Thomson Ave. , Long Island City, NY 11101
Additional information available al:
www.lagcc.cuny.edu An Equal
Opportunity/Affirmative Action/Americans With
Disabilities Act Employer.
EDITORIAL COORDINATOR - Coordinating
and overseeing the production of ACLU publi-
cations, including position papers, brochures,
annual reports and public policy reports;
Developing and implementing marketing plans
for ACLU publications, videos and merchan-
dise. College degree; three years experience in
the publishing and editing fields; excellent
writing skills; interest in civil liberties. Reply to:
ACLU, Communications Department, Attn: LS-
EMC, 125 Broad Street-18th FI. NY, NY 10004.
EDUCATION DIRECTOR - Education director
for adult literacy program (ESL,ABE, GED+)
with emphasis on long-term literacy, career
development, and popular education. Super-
vise teachers, implement ongoing prof'l dev
and staff dialogue, help teachers & stud's
explore critical issues, evaluation & policies.
Help integrate w/organizing, housing, work-
force dev. Masters, 3 years exp teaching
adults, supervision, admin. Bilingual in Span-
ish or Arabic a plus. Resume and cover letter
(outlining approach to adult ed) to: Christina
Curran, CGNW, 294 Smith St, Bklyn, NY 11231,
718-624-3475.
EDUCATIONAL SERVICES SPECIALIST - To
deliver education related services via the
PI FLAP component of INVEST NYC and assist
PWA's interested in improving educational and
work readiness skills. The position is responsi-
ble for providing basic literacy (reading/math),
health care education, pre-GED services and
identify/trai n volunteers for tutorial activities.
To apply send resume/cover to
hr@baileyhouse.org, mail Bailey House, Inc.
275 Seventh Avenue, NY NY 10001 Attention:
Human Resources, or Fax: 212-414-1431.
EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE COORDINATOR
Work 101, a CBa in Bushwick, Brooklyn, pro-
vides supported employment to local residents
in a manufacturing company we operate. We
seek an Employee Assistance Coordinator to
provide supportive services, counseling and
job search assistance. B.A. required. Prior
EAP/case management/counseling experience
preferred. Salary $35-45K, DOE. Please email
resume to wohl.e@work101.0rg.
ENTITLEMENTS SPECIALIST - The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS), a national
leader in the development of effective housing
CITY LIMITS
and service initiatives for needy populations,
seeks to fill the following position for a pio-
neering new supportive housing initiative, the
Dorothy Day Apts. , located at Riverside Drive
and 135th Street. Needy families and individ-
uals will receive on-site services including day
care, after school , and case management ser-
vices. Service team resp. include: Case man-
agement, individual , family, group, and crisis
intervention services, family reunification and
support services. Experience with low-income
families and individuals, foster care/family
court system, supportive housing, homeless-
ness, mental health, or substance abuse pre-
ferred. Entitlements Specialist: Exp in entitle-
ments/benefits and advocacy required.
Requirements same as Rehab. Spec. (17.5
hrs/week). Salary: $15,387 (1 position) Bilin-
gual Spanish/Engl ish pref. Full-time positions
include full bnfts and $65/month in transit
checks. Resume and cover letter (indicate
position) to Michelle de la Uz, CUCS/Rio, 10
Fort Washington Avenue, NY, NY, 10032. CUCS
is committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - A leading nonprofit
housing organization seeks an experienced
and dynamic Executive Director. Responsibili-
ties: ensure the fidelity to the mission of end-
ing homeless ness, maintain the organization's
financial and programmatic integrity; plan,
implement and manage the organization's
expansion and ensure the necessary infra-
structure to support that growth; lead and
supervise senior management team as well as
recruit, and retain effective staff, maintain
strong relations with key stakeholders, work
with the President and Board of Directors in
achieving overall organizational goals. Skills
required: established track record of strong
management and leadership, ability to think
strategically, effective and supportive staff
manager; strong fiscal , organizational and
interpersonal skills. Salary commensurate
with experience. Excellent benefits package.
Send resume to: KW. Murnion and Associates,
Inc., Executive Search, 50 Park Avenue, NY, NY
10016. No phone calls.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - Brooklyn community
mural organization seeks PT ED to bring
agency to next level of organizational
stability. For more information:
www.groundswellmural.org. Send cover
letter and resume to
edsearch@groundswellmural.org or 339
Douglass Street, Brooklyn NY 11217. No calls.
FRONT DESK STAFF AFFORDABLE HOUSING -
Community based not-for-housing organiza-
tion seeks weekend/on-call front desk staff.
Various locations in west midtown for all
shifts. Answer phones, control bldg access,
type letters, data entry, filing, *Computer Skills
A Must (MS Office). Send resume to Clinton
Hsg. Dev. Co., 403 West 40th Street, NYC, NY
10018.
FUND RAISER - Fundraiser sought for pro-
gressive, grass-roots campaign for higher
office. Applicants should have some political
experience, fundraising experience preferred
but not required. Interested applicants should
e-mail resumetoDgringer@aol.com.
JANUARY 2003
FUNDRAISING/GRANT WRITINGICONSULA-
TANT(S) - Assist ED with grant writing, and
programmatic reporting to large and diverse
group of funders. Knowledge of community
organizing models & government reporting
requirements helpful. Northwest Bronx Com-
munity & Clergy Coalition. Send resumes and
samples to: NWBCCC@IGC.ORG. Contact Mary
Dailey at 718-584-0515 for more information.
GENERAL MANAGER - WPFTlPacifica, Com-
munity & Social Justice non-commercial radio
in DC seeks General Manager to champion
grassroots programming, news, public affairs
and music. Seeking Management, Publ ic Out-
reach, Broadcast experience. Resumes to
HR@Pacifica.org.
HOMELESS SERVICES PROJECT COORDINATOR
-Homeless services providers in West Mid-
town Manhattan seek full-time project coordi-
nator to research and maintain information on
openings in shelter, drug treatment and men-
tal health services programs, and to assist
outreach workers in preparing program eligi-
bility applications. Minimum requirements:
BNBS, at least two years comparable experi-
ence, and the flexibility to work some evenings
and weekends. Computer database knowl-
edge/ability preferred. Salary low $ 30Ks
w/comprehensive benefits. Send resumes
w/cover letter to CGC HR, 505 Eighth Avenue,
15th Floor, NY, NY 10018. Fax 212-389-9313 or
E-mail resumes@commonground.org
HOUSING CONSULTANTS (I AND II) - The fol -
lowing positions are currently available at the
CUCS Housing Resource Center
(www.cucs.org) . Housing Consultants (I and
II). The Housing Resource Center is seeking
housing placement consultants to provide
information about supportive housing options
and technical assistance on the housing
application process to homeless individuals
with mental illness and their advocates. Other
responsibilities include training staff from
agencies throughout NYC, conducting site vis-
its to supportive housing programs, resource
development and advocacy. ReQs: All appli-
cants should have knowledge of, and experi-
ence in the mental health and homeless ser-
vice systems, supportive housing experience
preferred. Excellent verbal and written commu-
nication skills and computer literacy. HCI
requires: Bachelor degree with four years rel e-
vant work experience or Masters degree. HCII
requires: Masters degree and five years of
related work experience (including two years
post masters). Supervisory experience pre-
ferred. Salary: Competitive salary and bene-
fits. Send resumes and cover letters by
11118/02 to: Maura McGrath, CUCSlHousing
Resource Center, 120 Wall st. 251FL, New York,
NY 10005. Fax: 212-635-2191,
Email:hrchire@cucs.org. CUCS is committed
to workforce diversity. EEO
HOUSING DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATES
Westhab, Westchester County's largest non-
profit housing development corporation seeks
a skilled individual to assist the VP in securing
government and/or private financing for the
acquisition and construction of residential and
mixed-use projects serving low/moderate
income households. Responsibilities include
the preparation of project development and
operating proformas as well as funding appli-
cations in government funded housing pro-
grams and real estate finance required. Excel-
lent written/verbal/computer skills a must.
Send resume/salary history to Director of
Human Resources, Westhab, 85 Executive
Blvd., Elmsford, NY 10523. Fax 914-345-
3139. EOE.
JOB DEVELOPER - Times Square Ink, the job-
training program of Midtown Community
Court, seeks a Job Developer. Responsibilities
incl ude: Maintaining network of employers,
placing participants in internships and jobs,
providing class instruction on career expecta-
tions. BA required. Excellent written and com-
puter skills a must. Knowledge of ex-offender
population preferred. Send cover letter and
resume to: Jose Louis, 314 West 54th Street,
New York, NY 10019 or email:
jlouis@court.state.ny.us
LEGAL ADVOCATE - Urban Justice Center's
Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Pro-
ject seeks advocate to run Chinatown/Lower
East Side low-income legal clinic. Strong orga-
nizational , administrative, communication
skill s, college degree required. Spanish, Man-
darin and/or Cantonese extremely helpful.
Submit cover letter detailing public interest
experience/interest, resume, brief writing sam-
ple, and references ASAP to HOPP Advocate
Search, 666 Broadway, 10th Floor, New York,
NY 10012. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence; generous vacation, full medical/dental
benefits.
LEGAL FELLOWSHIP - Help with the litigation
and legislative/policy work of the Projects, do
legal and other kinds of research, write policy
and legal memos, and write pleadings, briefs
and other litigation documents. Third-year law
students and recent law school graduates,
familiarity with lesbian and gay rights,
AIDSIHIV issues. Reply to: James Esseks, liti-
gation Director, ACLU, LGRP/AIDS, 125 Broad
Street-18th FI. , NY, NY 10004
MANAGER, SUPPORTIVE SERVICES - Cre-
ative/energetic professional to run Quality pro-
gram in new permanent housing for individu-
als with histories of: homeless ness, substance
abuse, mental illness and HIVIAIDS. Must
have: MSW/CSW; supervisory/ administrative
experience with these populations; excellent
writing, case recording and computer skills;
commitment to culturally diverse workplace.
Must send cover letter and salary history. Fax
CV to 212-398-3071. Good benefits, EOE.
MSW / HIV PROGRAM SUPERVISOR - Lead-
ing social service and advocacy organization is
seeking an MSW to join its multi-disciplinary
HIV/AIDS project. The MSW will oversee an
innovative program that assists HIV-affected
individuals and families transition from home-
less ness to permanent housing and stability.
Responsibilities include: supervising case
management team, designing and leading
client workshops and support groups, provid-
ing one-on-one client counseling, developing
new projects to address emerging client needs,
JOBADS
and participating in public policy and advoca-
cy initiatives. Resume, cover letter, and sal
reQs to: The Partnership for the Homeless,
Human Resources Rep. 305 Seventh Ave., 13th
floor, New York, New York 10001 ANEOE
MlFIDN/SO
OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST - The Blooming-
dale Family Program, Inc. seeks an Occupa-
tional Therapist, 7 hours per week. Experience
with preschool children required. Knowledge of
Sensory Integration. If interested, fax resume
to 212-932-9243. Contact person Wendy Fein-
stein, Tel 917-969-9095
OPERATIONS MANAGER - Historic preserva-
tion organization seeks person for membership,
cultural programming, special events, commu-
nications & office administration. Requires
Bachelor's degree & excellent communication &
office management skills; NYC historic preser-
vation, & event planning experience a plus. MS
Word required, Access & graphics a plus.
Description : www.gvshp.org. Email: aber-
man@gvshp.org, fax: 212-475-9582.
PLACEMENT SPECIALIST - To assist placement
services in promoting and supporting employ-
ment job readiness retention amongst INVEST
trainees by providing one on one entitlements
counseling, mock interviews/preparations. Iden-
tify realistic internships, volunteer/employment
options. To apply send cover/resume hr@bailey-
house.org, mail Bailey House, Inc. 275 Seventh
Avenue, NY NY 10001 Attention: Human
Resources, or Fax: 212-414-1431.
PRENATAL HEALTH EDUCATOR - Care for the
Homeless seeks full-time Prenatal Health Edu-
cator to assist in developing, implementing
and evaluating a health program for pregnant
homeless women and women of childbearing
age at outreach sites for January 2003 start
date. Bachelor'S degree in community health
education or related field required. Intra-city
travel required. Experience with homeless
people and knowledge about prenatal health
issues preferred. Bilingual Spanish preferred.
Send letter and resume to: Care for the Home-
less, 12 West 21st Street, New York, NY 10010.
Attn: Shelly Moore. EOElAA
PRENATAL OUTREACH WORKER - Care for
the Homeless seeks part-time Prenatal Out-
reach Worker to perform outreach to pregnant
homeless women and women of childbearing
age at outreach sites and facilitate their
involvement in a prenatal health promotion
program to begin January 2003. Associate's
degree or equivalent required. Intra-city travel
required. Bachelor's degree, experience with
homeless people, knowledge about prenatal
health issues and public benefits system pre-
ferred. Bilingual Spanish preferred. Send let-
ter and resume to: Care for the Homeless, 12
West 21st Street, New York, NY 10010. Attn:
Shelly Moore. EOElAA
PREVENTIVE SERVICES - Program Directors,
Unit Supervi sors, Case Planners, DV Specialist
-MSW/CSW, Spanish a+. Fax 718-299-2343,
NYFSHR@aol.com
43
JOBADS
PRE-VOCATIONAL TRAINER - To prepare
participants for job placement in training
areas through soft skills training using
INVEST Ending the Barriers to Employment
curriculum, INVEST Maintenance, Computer
Training and Food Prep Job Club curricula
with employer-based information on job
retention. BAlBS, 2-3 yrs exp in job training,
readiness, employment skills building.
Knowledge of AIDS related di sabilities, Adkins
life Skills program. To apply, please send your
resume in confidence to hr@baileyhouse.org,
by mail to Bailey House, Inc. 275 Seventh
Avenue, NY NY 10001 Attention: Human
Resources, or Fax: 212-414-1431
PROGRAM ACCOUNTANT - The Salvation
Army is seeking a Program Accountant to do all
aspects of accounting for a homeless shelter.
2-4 years experience and a BS required. Non-
profit and JD Edwards experience a plus. Fax
resume to Tim Ditmer 212-337-7412.
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE - The National Urban
League seeks a Program Associate for the
Housing and Community Economic Develop-
ment Department. The successful candidate
will assist in the operation and administra-
tion of the department's programs and ser-
vices. The Program Associate will work to
refine strategies for technical assistance and
program designs that advance homeowner-
ship and community development. The Pro-
gram Associate will also strengthen the deliv-
ery of services and programs throughout the
affiliate network. The ideal candidate will
work as part of a team of talented profes-
sionals who create and deliver services and
programs through partnerships with other
non-profit organizations, government agen-
cies, foundations and corporate entities.
Bachelor's degree required. Master's pre-
ferred. At least three years relevant experi-
ence required in two or more of the following
areas: Housing and/or Economic Develop-
ment Policy Analysis, Urban Planning, Non-
profit Management, Training and Technical
Assistance, Program Design and Evaluation,
and interaction with elected officials and
government agencies. Ability to work cooper-
atively with public and private sector agen-
cies, local community development groups
and national non-profit boards. Salary to mid
$50's. To apply submit cover letter and
resume along with a writing sample to
recruitment@nul.org. Please mention you
were referred by City limits. No Phone Calls.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR - CFRC, a non-profit
organization seeks a director to oversee the
daily operations of food and nutrition programs
at West Harlem site and supervise staff.
Responsibilities include further development of
culinary training center; food pantry; nutrition
internship program; and integration of pur-
chasing and inventory control storage, etc. Min-
imum of 5 years supervisory and operating a
large-scale institutional food service experi-
ence required. Soup kitchen/food pantry and
catering experience preferred. Must possess
strong managerial, administrative and excel-
lent communications skills. Salary in the 50's;
depending on experience and qualifications,
44
plus benefit package. EOE. Send your resume,
along with cover letter to:
gsardelli@cfrcnyc.org or fax to: 212-616-4990.
PROGRAM MANAGER, AFFORDABLE HOME-
OWNERSHIP - NHSNYC, a non-profit organi-
zation, seeks a manager to implement, admin-
ister, market and manage its Section 8 Home-
ownership program and a condominium Edu-
cation and Lending Program. Degree and/or 2
or more years experience in housing, mortgage
lending, homeownership counseling and home
buyers education; bi-lingual (Spanish); social
services background a plus, strong adminis-
trative, interpersonal skills, required; proficient
in the use of computer applications. Apply by
sending resume with cover letter and salary
requirements to: E. McLawrence 212-242-
6680/e-mail hrdept@nhsnyc.org
PROJECT MANAGER - Rockaway Develop-
ment and Revitalization Corporation (RDRC) is
seeking an experienced individual to develop
commercial and residential real estate pro-
jects. Requirements: Bachelor's Degree and 3-
5 years of project management experience or a
Masters Degree in a related discipline. Con-
tact: Michael N. Minott, RDRC 1920 Mott
Avenue, Far Rockaway, NY 11691
PROJECT MANAGER - SRCO, founded to
develop and operate Parkchester's first multi-
service Community Center, seeks creative and
highly motivated self-starter. Working with a
small team in planning this innovative project,
the Project Manager is responsible for identify-
ing funding opportunities, securing financing,
analyzing development! operating plans, and
coordinating the pre-development process.
Experience in real estate finance/development
a must. Competitive salary/benefits $40k +.
Resume/cover letter: SRCO, 1720 Metropolitan
Ave., Bronx, NY 10462 fax 718-824-0532.
PROJECT MANAGER, HOUSING DEVELOPMENT
- Brooklyn CDC seeks self-motivated and
energetic individual to perform day-to-day
housing development tasks. Responsibilites:
Assist Director of Housing Development to plan
new projects, apply for funding, perform pre-
development tasks, coordinate loan closings,
coordinate construction process, handle on-
going compliance, requi sitions, etc. Require-
ments: Experience in housing, strong knowl-
edge of finance and construction process.
Excellent communication and computer skills,
ability to learn quickly, use good judgment and
work as part of a team. Commitment to afford-
able housing. Spanish a +. Salary: Mid to
upper-30s; good benefits. AAlEOE. Preference
for neighborhood residents. Resume and cover
letter due ASAP to: Director of Housing Devel-
opment, FAC, 141 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
11217 or fax 718-857- 4322.
PROPERTY MANAGER - Brooklyn CBO seeks
a Property Manager. PM should be hands on
with experience in collections, maintenance,
tenant meetings, Leasing and Rent-ups, gov-
ernment compliance, must know Section 8
process and be experienced with housing
court. Salary in the mid $20s. Fax resume to
718-485-4683 attn. A Liburd.
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATE - Identify
and work with outlets that cover reproductive
rights in both print and broadcast media, with
special emphasis on developing ties to ethnic
and minority media outlets aimed at
teenagers. College degree and some experi-
ence in relevant field; proven commitment to
and understanding of reproductive rights
issues. Reply to: Lorraine Kenny, Public Educa-
tion Coordinator, RFP, ACLU, 125 Broad Street-
18th FI., NY, NY 10004.
REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATE -
Becker and Becker Associates seeks a Real
Estate Development Associate to assist with
public/private development ventures including
an 80/20 project in Manhattan; affordable
housing using LlHTC and Historic Tax Credits;
and a charter school/day care center. Real
estate development, grant writing, and finan-
cial modeling experience preferred. BBA is
located in New Canaan, CT - 1 hour from Man-
hattan and New Haven. Visit
www.beckerandbecker.com for more informa-
tion. Send letter/resume to BBA, 26 Forest
Street, New Canaan, CT 06840 c/o Kirsten
Springer, or kirspring@beckerandbecker.com
RECREATION SPECIALIST - For community-
based, not-for-profit housing organization,
develop and conduct activities, design
empowerment programs, link with community
activities. Experience with diverse populations.
Creative and organized. Spanish a plus. 18-
22k plus benefits. Resume to: Orchid Cruz,
CHDC, 300 West 46th Street, NYC, NY 10036 or
fax 212- 967-1649.
REHABILITATION SPECIALIST - The Center
for Urban Community Services (CUCS), a
national leader in the development of effective
housing and service initiatives for needy pop-
ulations, seeks to fill the following position for
a pioneering new supportive housing initiative,
the Dorothy Day Apts., located at Riverside
Drive and 135th Street. Needy families and
individuals will receive on-site services includ-
ing day care, after school , and case manage-
ment services. Service team resp. include:
Case management, individual , family, group,
and crisis intervention services, family reunifi-
cation and support services. Experience with
low-income families and individuals, foster
care/family court system, supportive housing,
homelessness, mental health, or substance
abuse preferred. Rehabilitation Specialist:
BSW + 1 yr relevant exp (excluding fieldwork);
BA + 2 yrs relevant exp; HS Diploma (or GED)
+ 6 yrs relevant expo For candidates w/o col-
lege degrees, every 30 credits can be substi -
tuted for 1 yr of expo Salary: $30,773 (2 posi-
tions). Bilingual SpanishlEnglish pref. Full -
time positions include full bnfts and
$65/month in transit checks. Resume and
cover letter (indicate position) to Michelle de la
Uz, CUCS/Rio, 10 Fort Washington Avenue, NY,
NY, 10032. CUCS is committed to workforce
diversity. EEO.
SHELTER DIRECTOR - Brooklyn men's shelter
seeks Director to handle daily clinical , admin-
istrative and operational supervision of the
facility. A community based organization that
provides low-income people with counseling,
educational programs, employment services,
health services, youth services, legal , immi-
gration and entrepreneurial assistance.
Requires 5+ years experience in residential
program administration and
management;MSW, MPA, or related field, and
knowledge of substance abuse, mental health
and men's issues. Resumes to
krivera@nonprofitstaffing.com.
SOCIAL SERVICES SUPERVISOR - Nazareth
Housing is a small , entrepreneurial not-for
profit serving homeless families of the Lower
East Side of New York. We are poised for
growth. We seek a BI -LiNGUAL (Spanish/Eng-
lish) Social Service Supervisor to manage a
supportive services program. Responsibilities
include caseload management, supervision
of staff, program development and execution,
intake and interviewing of prospective resi -
dents and extensive contact with City agen-
cies. MSW and 5 years of experience working
with diverse populations are required. Ideal
candidate is energetic and flexible with
strong communication skills. Must be com-
puter literate. Position reports to Executive
Director. Please e-mail resume with cover let-
ter stating salary requirements to
mkilbourn@nazarethhousing.com. An equal
opportunity employer.
SOCIAL WORK CLINICIAN - HELP USA, a home-
less housing provider has a challenging oppor-
tunity for creative and dedicated professional
to grow through hands on practice through
therapeutic groups and counseling individu-
als. Must have MSW. New grads are encour-
aged to apply. Computer literacy a must.
Bilingual (Spanish/English) a+. Salary starts
in low $30s. Send resumes to Tabitha Gaffney,
Director of Social Services at fax 718-485-
5916 or email tgaffney@helpusa.org. EOE. A
drug free workplace.
SOCIAL WORKER - Assertive community
Treatment (ACn Team. Be part of creative,
dynamic team serving homeless people
w/severe mental illness, MICA on Upper West
Side and West Harlem. Team provides case
management, psychlmed care, entitlements,
housing, substance abuse and vocational ser-
vices. CSWor comparable licensed MA required.
Able to drive, exp in mental health/addiction
preferred. Salary upper mid-30's, excellent ben-
efits. Fax letter, resume to Alison Arthur at 212-
531-3636 or mail to Alison Arthur, ACT Team,
Goddard Riverside Community Center, 593
Columbus Avenue, NY, NY 10024.
SOCIAL WORKER - The Center for Urban
Community Services (CUCS). a national
leader in the development of effective hous-
ing and service initiatives for needy popula-
tions, seeks to fill the following position for a
pioneering new supportive housing initiative,
the Dorothy Day Apts., located at Riverside
Drive and 135th Street. Needy families and
individuals will receive on-site services
including day care, after school , and case
management services. Service team resp.
include: Case management, individual, fam-
ily, group, and crisis intervention services,
CITY LIMITS
family reunification and support services.
Experience with low-income families and
individuals, foster care/family court system,
supportive housing, homelessness, mental
health, or substance abuse referred. Social
Worker: CSW. Salary range: $37K-$40K;
commensurate wi th education and experi-
ence (1 position) Bili ngual Spanish/English
pref. Full-time positions include full bnfts
and $65/month in transit checks. Resume
and cover letter (indicate position) to Michelle
de la Uz, CUCS/Rio, 10 Fort Washington
Avenue, NY, NY, 10032. CUCS is committed to
workforce diversity. EEO.
SOCIAL WORKER/CASE MANAGER - BAlBSW to
work in pri mary care setting in Manhattan with
interdiscipli nary team cari ng for adults living
with HIV. Responsibilities include program
intake, assisting with MCD, ADAP and DAS
applications, accessing resources, client fol-
low up. Bi-lingual Spanish requi red. Please
send resume with cover letter stating mini-
mum salary required to: Elisa Wallman, Insti-
tute for Urban Family Health, 16 East 16th
Street, NY, NY 10001 Fax: 212-989-2840,
Email : hresource@institute2000.org
SPECIAL EVENTS ASSISTANT - Ms. Founda-
tion for Women a non-profit women's rights
organization is seeking a special events assis-
tant to help in arranging the logistics for major
events, dissemination of large mail ings, data
entry and other duties as assigned. BA or 1+
years related experience. Send letter with
salary requirements and resume to MFW, 120
Wall Street, 33rd FI , NYC 10005 or email
jobs@ms.foundation.org
STAFF ATTORNEY - Urban Justice Center's
Homelessness Outreach and Prevention Pro-
ject seeks attorney to litigate in the area of
public benefits. Advocacy, affirmative litiga-
tion, communication skills, one/two years
practice experience preferable. Spanish, Man-
darin and/or Cantonese helpful. Submit cover
letter detai ling public interest
experience/interest, resume, bri ef writing sam-
ple, and references ASAP to HOPP Attorney
Search, 666 Broadway, 10th Fl oor, New York,
NY 10012. Salary commensurate with experi-
ence; generous vacation, full medical/dental
benefits.
SUPPORT SERVICE TECHNICIAN - Loca-
tion: 250 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11211.
Job Description: Assists the Support Ser-
vices Director in the provision of support ive
services to clients and their families. Pro-
vides counseling on a one-to-one basis,
maintains relationshi ps with service
providers and referral sources and partici-
pates in small groups. Requi rement: BA
with five years experience serving HIV/AIDS
populations; experience working with indi-
viduals with substance abuse problems;
bilingual English/Spanish preferred; willi ng
to work evenings and Saturdays as neces-
sary. Send cover letter and resume to Musi-
JOB ADS
ca Agai nst Drugs, Inc, 227 Roebli ng Street,
Brooklyn, NY 11211, fax 718-218-7640 Attn:
Dr. Al ma Villegas
TEAM LEADER - HELP USA, a homeless hous-
ing provider seeks qualified candidates to lead
an interdisciplinary team. Must have the abi l-
ity to coordinate 3 case managers wi th a case-
load of 63 clients, ensuring support services
and weekly contacts are provided to families.
Provi de indivi dual supervision, crisis interven-
tion and support to the team and Case Man-
agers; and ensure that protocols and regula-
tions are adhered to by the counseling staff.
Requi rements: MSW (preferred) or related
degree and computer literacy required. Must
have min 2 year supervisory exp; and clinical
as well as case management expo Salary starts
mid $30s. Send resumes to Tabitha Gaffney,
Director of Social Services at fax 718-485-
5916 or email tgaffney@helpusa.org. EOE. A
drug free workplace.
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
OFFICE SPACE PROBLEMS?
IW.W
CS1
CSI CONSULTANTS INC.
(845) 566-1267
Expert Real Estate Services - once
available only to major corporations and
institutions -
Now offered to NYC' s Non-Profits ...
at no out-of-pocket cost,
or at specially reduced rates.
Visit our web site: www.npspace.com
Call for a free, no-obligation consultation.
www.npspace.com
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 LISC/Enterprise,
Section 202, State Turnkey and NYC Partnership Homes
KOURAKOS & KOURAKOS
Attorneys at Law
Eastchester, N.Y.
Phone: (9141 395-0871
FIND YOUR BEST
BARGAINS HERE!
Clothing - Men - Women
Chi ldren - Infants
Designer Labels
Kitchenware, books,
toys, CDs, records,
jewelry, linens &
knick- knacks
Donations Accepted
No Pickup
JANUARY 2003
NON-PROFIT
VALLEY THRIFT
SHOP
Valley Restoration LDC
949 Amsterdam Ave.
(bet . l06
th
& l07
th
St.)
212-222-2600
M-F 10-S,SAT 12-4
212 . 72 1. 976 4
W REICH 2 @ E A RTHLIN K .NET
WWW .CREA TI V EHOTLl ST. COM / w_ REICH
ADS, ANNU AL REPO RTS, B O OK DESI GN , BROCH URES, C AT ALO GS,
COLLATERAL, CDRPORATE IDENTI TY, MEDIA KITS, & MORE
vangennep
with one aim-to make great ideas visible.
publications. identity programs. public relations tools. web sites
with one slandard-excellence
with all sectors. from corporations to community groups
to produce one design-uniquely perfect for each client
Consultant Services
Proposals/Grant Writing
Hud Granu/Govt. RFPs
Housing/P-= Devdcpmmt
Real utate SalesJRentoh
Technical AJsistance
Employment Programs
Capacit y BllUding
MI(HA(L 6. BU((I
CONSULTANT
HOUSING, DEVELOPMENT & FUNDRAISING
Community Rdatioru
PHONE: 212-765-7123
~ : 212-397-6238
!&MAIL: mgbuccl@aol.com
451 WEST 48th STREET, SUITE 2E
NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10036-1298
45
JOB ADS
46
\
I LLUSTRATED MEMOS
F r ~ r om CE OFIRE CITY VISIONARY
. , - ~ , . ( .
OFFICE TEMPS HOMESTEADER
There's a serious shortage
of jobs and housing in the city
at a time when there's an
excess of empty office space.
PLAN NO. 8153962-8 ,
Why not let the rising
homeless population inhabit
the abandoned cubicles of
the financial district until the
next boom in the economic
cycle?
r::1 '. ,
u .
GOT AN IMPRACTICAL SOLUTION
TO AN INTRACTABLE PROBLEM?
SEND IN V[W[Rl Mrn:M@TODAY!
' .. '
. ........ . . ~ . @.tJ.{: ....... .
OFFICE OF THE CITY VISIONARY
CITY LlMITS MAGAZINE
12.0 WALL ST., 20
TH
FLO OR, NY NY 10005
ootcv@ citylimits.
CITY LIMITS
TEEN PROGRAM COORDINATOR - Grosvenor
Neighborhood Housing (GNH) is seeking a
part-time youth development specialist to coor-
dinate its comprehensive evening teen
program. Founded in 1915, GNH
(www.grosvenorhouse.org) is a non-profit orga-
nization dedicated to increasing the economics
and personal self-sufficiency of chi ldren, youth
and their families living in the Manhattan Val-
ley area by providing community residents with
year-round, meaningful and effective educa-
tional, career-readiness, cultural , recreational
and counseling services. Responsibilities for
this position: 1) Organize and administer fun
and educational activities for approximately 60
adolescent and teenage youth ages 10-17,
including career awareness, college prep,
sports/recreation, life skills, computer technol-
ogy training, academic enrichment, leadership
development, service learning and art/culture;
2) Coordinate program planning, curriculum
development, and community partnerships
(guest speakers and workshops, field trips,
mentors, volunteers); 3) Conduct on-going
workshops/activities 4) Oversee the evening
program and will directly supervise youth work-
ers 5) Activities also serve the academic and
professional development needs of approxi-
mately 15 Counselors-in-Training, who work
with GNH during the after-school program.
Qualifications sought: BA, at least 3 years
experience working with urban youth at the pra-
ject management/direct service level, excellent
computer skills, and team player. Bilingual
Spanish preferred. People of color/males strong-
Iyencouraged to apply. Compensation: $l5lhour,
15-25 hours per week. Hours Mon-Fri, 5:30pm to
9pm (or earlier) To apply: Please email , fax or
send resume, cover letter and three professional
references to: Margie Laracuente, Director of Pro-
grams, Margie@grosvenorhouse.org, fax 212-
749-4060, phone 212-749-8500 ext.l7, mail
Grosvenor Neighborhood House, 176 West 105th
Street, New York, NY 10025.
TEMP WORKER ORGANIZER - Exp. Organizer
to build and staff a committee of temp workers
employed in yearlong welfare-ta-work positions
in private companies and city agencies. Resp.
incl. membership recruitment, leadership
development, campaign and strategy plan-
ning, etc. Exp in labor, worker, or community
organizing. Salary DOE w/ exc ben. People of
color, women and LGB candidates strongly
encouraged to apply. Resume and cover letter
to CVH 170 E. 116th St. Suite IE, NY NY 10029
or Fax 212-996-9481.
TRADES COORDINATOR - Trade Unions and
Residents for Apprenticeship Development
and Economic Success (TRADES) is a coali-
tion of community organizations, labor unions
and advocacy groups working together to
change New York City Housing Authority's
policies and priorities to ensure prevailing
wages for all workers, end of mandated com-
munity service, and section 3 training and job
opportunities for public housing residents.
TRADES' philosophy is to reflect the strength
of community groups, advocacy groups and
labor when they work together through the
TRADES organizing committee. We believe
community and labor are meant to be one.
There is an inherent connection between the
members of trade unions and those who live
in this city, particularly those who live in pub-
lic housing. The TRADES Coordinator should
be a grassroots, hands-on activist organizer
with a working knowledge of public housing
and experience working with trade unions.
Two to three years of organizing experience is
preferred. The candidate should have an
ability to be a self-starter and to coordinate a
multi -faceted campaign with negotiations,
demonstrations, petitions, events, press con-
ferences and work with elected officials.
Another aspect of the position will be to han-
dle day-to-day communications between
member organizations as well as setti ng the
agenda for TRADES meetings. The TRADES
coordinator will be expected to have a working
knowledge of the building trade unions and
an ability to communicate with tenant lead-
ers, Council of President and outreach to
involve resident leaders in the campaign. The
Coordinator will Research public housing and
labor policies, Develop long-term political and
social alliances and foster sustainable civic
participation and political power, Activate
and mobilize both union and public housing
residents, Work citywide with existing coali-
tions around relevant issues, Identify key
issues of concern and develop strategic part-
nerships with community based groups and
project partners. Qualifications: At least two
years experience in membership organizing in
community or labor contexts; Prior experience
working with or knowledge of public housing,
Coalition building and outreach skills among
community institutions, grassroots organiza-
tions, unions, churches, service agencies,
etc.; Team building and leadership develop-
ment skills; Strong written communication
skills; Experience implementing grassroots
action and policy campaigns; and Bilingual in
a second language (preferably Spanish, Chi-
nese, etc ... ) desired. Preference given to res-
idents of public housing or those with a labor
background. Salary: $40,000 to $45,000
depending on experience with benefits. E-
mail a cover letter, resume and three refer-
ences to: nyjwj@hotmail.com or mail to: NY
Jobs with Justice, 330 W 42nd St., 9th floor,
NY, NY 10036 or fax 212-947-0835. The Pro-
ject is an equal opportunity, affirmative
action employer. Women, LGBT and people of
color are encouraged to apply.
URBAN ACTIVISTS FEllOWSHIP - Revson Fel-
lows Program offers one year of study at Columbia
University to selected mid-{;areer urban activists,
who receive free tuition and a stipend of $18,000.
To apply go to www.columbia.edulculrevson or call
LET US DO A FREE EVALUATION
OF YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS
JOB ADS
212-280-4023; the application deadline is Febru-
ary l. We take affirmative action toward equal
opportunity.
VOCATIONAL SPECIALIST - The Center for
Urban Community Services (CUCS), a national
leader in the development of effective housing
and service initiatives for needy populations,
seeks to fill the following position for a pioneer-
ing new supportive housing initiative, the
Dorothy Day Apts. , located at Riverside Drive
and 135th Street. Needy families and individu-
als will receive on-site services including day
care, after school, and case management ser-
vices. Service team resp. include: Case man-
agement, individual, family, group, and crisis
intervention services, family reunification and
support services. Experience with low-income
families and individuals, foster care/family
court system, supportive housing, homeless-
ness, mental health, or substance abuse pre-
ferred. Vocational Specialist: Exp providing
vocational support services required. Require-
ments same as Rehab. Spec. Salary:$30,773 (1
position) Bilingual SpanishlEnglish pref. Full-
time positions include full bnlts and $65/month
in transit checks. Resume and cover letter (indi-
cate position) to Michelle de la Uz, CUCSlRio, 10
Fort Washington Avenue, NY, NY, 10032. CUCS is
committed to workforce diversity. EEO.
VOLUNTEER MANAGER - The Volunteer Manag-
er is part of a team responsible for supervising
a volunteer-driven program which serves inner-
city youth and spans 13 states and Canada.
Responsibilities include recruiting, training,
and supporting volunteers in a designated area
outside NYC. Travel required. Qualified appli-
cants will have a college degree, strong inter-
personal and organizational skills, and prior
work with volunteers. Resume & cover letter to:
Leona Johnson, The Fresh Air Fund, 633 3rd Ave,
NY, NY 10017. FAX 212-681-0158. Email: Ijohn-
son@freshair.org. No Phone Calls. EOE
We have been providing low-cost insurance programs and
quality service for HDFCs, TENANTS, COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT
and other NONPROFIT organizations for over 15 years.
We Offer:
SPECIAL BUILDING PACKAGES
FIRE LIABILITY BONDS
DIRECTOR'S & OFFICERS' L1ABILTY
GROUP LIfE & HEALTH
"Tailored Payment Plans"
ASHKAR CORPORATION
146 West 29th Street, 12th Floor, New York, NY 10001
(212) 279-8300 FAX 714-2161 Ask for: Bolo Ramanathan
City Limits relies on the generous support of its readers and advertisers, as well as the following funders: The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, The Child Welfare Fund, The Unitarian Universalist
Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, Open Society Institute, The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Scherman Foundaton, JPMorganChase, The Annie E. Casey FoundatIOn, The Booth Ferns Founda-
tion, The New York Community Trust, The Taconic Foundation, LlSC, Deutsche Bank, M& T Bank, The Citigroup Foundation, New York Foundation.
MONTH YEAR
47
Are you on Idealist?
30,000 organizations around the world already use Idealist to promote
their programs, job openings and volunteer opportunities. Are you there?
idealist.org
Action Without Borders
To find or post a nonprofit job, visit us at www.idealist.org
Idealist.org is a project of Action Without Borders, a 501(c)(3) organization supported in part by the Ford Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, Carnegie
Corporation of New York and the Open Society Institute. Special thanks to the Stern Family Fund, David Stern and Michael Caudell-Feagan for their
vision and generosity.