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Cover Stories: Planner and coordinator of urban studies at SUNY-Purchase appointed executive director of ANHD; Leventhal Appointed New HPD Commissioner, Surprise Choice by Susan Baldwin.
Other stories include Susan Baldwin on Community Development Credit Unions' nationwide attempts to get low income neighborhood residents to collectively accumulate savings to save housing; A coalition of anti-redlining groups win a public hearing; Bernard Cohen on the Consumer-Farmer Foundation support of housing rehabilitation projects; Philip St. Georges on the daunting issue of the increased number of city-owned building; A profile of WVMV community radio in Manhattan Valley; Bernard Cohen on the impact neighborhoods are starting to have on policy in Washington.
Cover Stories: Planner and coordinator of urban studies at SUNY-Purchase appointed executive director of ANHD; Leventhal Appointed New HPD Commissioner, Surprise Choice by Susan Baldwin.
Other stories include Susan Baldwin on Community Development Credit Unions' nationwide attempts to get low income neighborhood residents to collectively accumulate savings to save housing; A coalition of anti-redlining groups win a public hearing; Bernard Cohen on the Consumer-Farmer Foundation support of housing rehabilitation projects; Philip St. Georges on the daunting issue of the increased number of city-owned building; A profile of WVMV community radio in Manhattan Valley; Bernard Cohen on the impact neighborhoods are starting to have on policy in Washington.
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Cover Stories: Planner and coordinator of urban studies at SUNY-Purchase appointed executive director of ANHD; Leventhal Appointed New HPD Commissioner, Surprise Choice by Susan Baldwin.
Other stories include Susan Baldwin on Community Development Credit Unions' nationwide attempts to get low income neighborhood residents to collectively accumulate savings to save housing; A coalition of anti-redlining groups win a public hearing; Bernard Cohen on the Consumer-Farmer Foundation support of housing rehabilitation projects; Philip St. Georges on the daunting issue of the increased number of city-owned building; A profile of WVMV community radio in Manhattan Valley; Bernard Cohen on the impact neighborhoods are starting to have on policy in Washington.
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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JANUARY 1978 VOL. 3 NO.1 LEVENTHAL APPOINTED NEW HPD COMMISSIONER KRA VITZ, A PLANNER, IS DIRECTOR OF ANHD Alan Kravitz Alan S. Kravitz, a planner and coordipator of urban studies at the State University of New York College at Purchase, has been appointed executive director of the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers. The announcement of Kravitz's selection, effective Jan. 23, was made by Margaret McNeill,president of ANHD and director of the West Harlem Community Organization. In addition to teaching, Kravitz, 35, has served as a consultant to several community-based housing organizations. He is co-author of a forthcoming book, A Critical Ecology of Urban Life, advocating decentralization and the development of a wide range of neighborhood institutions. Among his other writings is a recent essay, sub- mitted for inclusion in a House of Representatives subcommittee report, on the negative effects of "planned shrinkage" of cities. continued on page 12 SURPRISE CHOICE by Susan Baldwin Nathan Leventhal, a lawyer who at 34 has already seen several brief tours of duty in government, has been appointed Commissioner of New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Develop- ment(HPD). Mayor Edward I. Koch an- nounced the surprise appointment January 13, subject to clearance from the Department of Investiga- tion, at the end of his second week in office. The new administration was under mounting pressure from housing activists and tenants with- out heat in the bitter cold of winter to choose its top official. They were concerned about the steady decline of city housing and services as well as the impact of the City's fourth- year Community Development application. As former Mayor John V. Lind- say's Rent and Housing Mainten- ance Commissioner in 1972-73, Leventhal was credited with speed- ing up implementation of the Maxi- mum Base Rent (MBR) law, inaugu- rating the city's low income coop- erative conversion program, and supervising the transition to the new housing court enforcement system. continued on page 9 Community Credit Unions Seek by Susan Baldwin Redlining-a hard fact of life, like the midwinter flu, for the people fighting to save low and moderate income housing in the inner city. "Teach Your Dollars to Have More Cents." This motto is a kind of medicine of the future being tested today all over the nation by Community Development Credit Unions (CDCU's) to combat the widespread disinvestment in inner-city housing by the savings banks and savings and loan institutions. The medicine, in the form of the accumulated sav- ings of the residents of low income neighborhoods, can work to save housing, says James N. Clark, executive director of the National Federation of CDCU's, but only if credit unions' mortgage loans are introduced into the neighborhoods as part of a comprehensive pro- gram devised and supported by a wide range of public and private agencies. Clark, who works out of the federation's national headquarters in Brooklyn, spoke to CITY LIMITS in mid-January in the wake of recent Congressional legis- lation permitting the federally-chartered CDCU's to make 30-year mortgage loans. The previous limit was ten years. For the 4OO-odd CDCU's, of which there are three in New York City, having the right to make 30-year mortgage loans "demands that the CDCU's become more organized," says Clark. "They must learn how to lobby and be ready to go to court" to defend themselves against the attacks of other savings and lending institu- tions which object to the CDCU's tax-free status and the 12% limit mandated by law on the interest they charge to their members. CDCU's are part of a large and growing national credit union movement. For the most part an outgrowth of the 1960's Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) programs, they are important to the residents and businesses of low income city neighborhoods because often they provide the only accessible savings and credit mechanism to generate vital community development activities at less than usurious cost. CDCU's differ from traditional credit unions in that their charters do not require that members be bound by some common association, such as church membership or place of employment, but only that they be residents of the same community and in need of financial help. The president of the National Federation of CDCU's is Adolfo G. Ahtyon. He sat recently in the organization's temporary Brooklyn headquarters, read- ing the applications for membership that came in the 2 day's mail, and talked about the future of CDCU's in low income neighborhoods. "You know," he told a visitor, "I really do think we'll make it." The federation, whose stationery bears the dollar- and-cents-wise motto, is three years old this month. "I got involved with this national movement quite by accident," Alayon continued. "It was 1971, and a number of us who had experience in the federal govern- ment's OEO credit unions were meeting in Washington trying to figure out what to do since [President] Nixon had impounded all the neighborhood money. I said this was a political problem, and the next thing I knew, I was the head of a political action committee that finally grew into the national federation. " Alayon and other credit unions' representatives volunteered the year-and-a-half that it took, beginning in 1975, to do a low -income credit union feasibility study. Last April they won a $72,000 demonstration grant from the Community Services Administration (CSA) to underwrite the national staff's salaries. "Weare writing up a proposal right now based on the feasibility study," said Alayon. "We hope to re- ceive a $20 million CSA grant, possibly by this sum- mer," he added, which the federation would use to support from 150 to 200 new CDCU's around the country. He noted that, even if the $20 million is not forthcoming, the federation has been promised $2 mil- lion to continue its current work, with which it will be able to help about 20 new CDCU's. Alayon is the president of CABS-Consumer Action Program for Bedford-Stuyvesant-which, with three other New York City CDCU's known as the "New York Four," gave early leadership to the national move- ment. Of the three local CDCU's in operation today, CABS, originally a federal demonstration program funded by OEO, has 3,200 members and between $800,000 and $900,000 in assets. The Lower East Side Federal Credit Union (LESFCU), another product of the OEO years, has 1,800 members and assets of about $500,000. The third, East Harlem's Union Settlement Federal Credit Union, was chartered in 1957 with meager staff contributions gleaned from a friendly poker game. Today it lists more than 1,300 members and assets of $1.2 million. A fourth member of the "New York Four," the Manhattan Economic Development Credit Union, was placed in involuntary liquidation by the federal govern- ment last fall after four years' operation under the juris- diction of the Mid-West Side Community Corporation. "It's not easy to run a credit union in a poor neigh- $$$ Freedom For Poor People borhood such as ours," says Cecilio Fernandez, a member of CABS' board of directors. "You have to absorb more losses than you would if you were in a better neighborhood. The main point we have to keep in mind is that we are providing a service for a large group of people who have no other place to go to borrow money, and that we are offering interest rates comparable with any bank's." What are the factors that draw to the COCU's the members who help them survive the hazards of limited capitalization and the hostility of competing financial institutions? An ongoing study, done for the federation by the research division of the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), and updated to 1976, provides the following answers: "(1) For many members the credit union is the only source of consumer credit; "(2) Loans at credit unions generally may be ob- tained at lower rates than those available from other financial institutions, and in the case of COCU's, the rate differentials are likely to be more pronounced than for other credit unions; "(3) The income generated from the loans tends to stay in the community in the form of dividends, reserves and salaries, rather than accrue to outside lenders; "(4) Financial counseling and consumer education services have helped members better understand the use of credit and more wisely utilize their limited financial resources; and "(5) Savings have stayed in the community and have been recycled through loans." The study, which reports the responses of slightly less than half the 400 COCU's, reveals that the respon- dents have granted a total of about $440 million in loans to members since 1971, and that members pay about $4.4 million less in inttrest each year than they would pay to traditional fin 1 institutions. Commenting r on the early days of his credit union, Eugene anager of Union Settlement, said, "It was a staff credit union (of the Union Settlement House), operating a few hours per week with limited assets and knowledge. In 1963, a full-time treasurer was made available by the parent organization; trust and assets began to grow and mem- bership was slowly opened to the community. "Those in good standing had to vouch for the integrity of those they were recommending for member- ship," Sklar continued. "Those on welfare were granted an initial loan maximum of $100 which, upon good experience, could slowly grow to $250. And so, the board struggled with whether we were social workers or bankers before deciding we were benevolent bankers and sending recalcitrant borrowers off to the collection agency." Screening of would-be members is a key to stability, all New York COCU's agree. "We want to help every- one who needs help," said the federation's Alayon, who still works for CABS, "but this can become a big prob- lem if it is not adequately controlled. If you just accept members off the street, you'll get rip-off artists who travel around the city joining credit unions. You have to monitor the membership and you have to watch that continued on page 18 Reprinted/rom the Santa Cruz (Calij.) Community Credit Newsletter. 3 CAREY ASKS $5 MILLION FOR NEIGHBORHOODS PROGRAM Gov. Hugh Carey has proposed a $5 million appropriation for the neighborhood preservation program, a ten-fold increase over the current budget. Carey requested the increased funding in his executive budget for 1978-79. The State Legisla- ture must adopt the budget by March 31 for the fiscal year beginning April 1. The State Division of Housing and Com- munity Renewal has been flooded with applica- tions from community-based housing organiza- tions for funding under the new neighborhood preservation program. More than 100 groups from all over New York State applied for grants totaling $7.2 million, a DHCR spokesman said. The program has $500,000. The response was so much greater than anti- cipated that the administrators of the program have asked for additional help. DHCR is hoping to complete its evaluation of the applications and make final decisions by Feb. 1. The spokesman declined to predict how many groups would be funded. The new law permits community-based hous- ing organizations to contract with DHCR for grants to cover their operating expenses. The con- tracts are renewable up to three years. Approximately $350,000 is expected to go to New York City groups and $150,000 to groups in upstate New York. Organizations that are not selected this time will be eligible for the next round of funding, scheduled for next spring after the new state budget has been approved. _ KOCH PLEDGES ERP SPEED-UP Mayor Edward I. Koch and Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo announced this month the imple- mentation of a "speed-up" formula in the Emer- gency Repair Program (ERP) that would insure earlier inspections of no-heat buildings and pro- vide for more timely payment of verified repair bills submitted by private contractors. "Our goal," the Mayor said, "is to encourage small repair contractors to work for ERP, knowing that they will not have to wait months before they are paid-months that they can't afford to wait." Noting past delays in City payment to small fuel service contractors, Koch stressed that, under the new program, contractors with legiti- mate bills would be paid within a 12-day period. The Mayor has also authorized overtime pay for ERP employees whenever prolonged or severe cold weather increases the backlog of unan- swered tenant requests for no-heat inspections beyond the normal range of one or two working days. . 4 ERP can provide regular fuel delivery and boiler repair to multiple dwellings where the ten- ants agree to pay their rents directly to the City rather than to landlords who conSistently fail to provide heat. For further information, call: Ray- mond O'Connor, Director of Recoupment, ERP, 125 Church Street, N.Y.C. 10007; telephone, (212) 566-1044. In a related matter, Mayor Koch said he is preparing an executive order that would allow the City to issue a vacate order to tenants in land- lord-abandoned or City-owned under-occupied multiple dwellings, with the idea of relocating these tenants to a "safe and warm building, rather than spend tens of thousands of federal dollars to bring heat" to such dwellings. "The City does have a right to relocate these tenants," Koch explained, noting that such a course would be taken only for buildings "not in a prescribed treatment program." _ , " ANTI-RECLINE COALITION WINS BANKING HEARING The New York State Banking Department, responding to pressure from a coalition of anti- redlining groups, has scheduled a public hearing Jan. 25 on proposed regulations governing bank mergers and new branches. Superintendent Muriel Siebert agreed to the hearing after meeting Dec. 6 with more than 60 representatives of anti-redlining community groups who assembled at her office at the World Trade Center. Herb Steiner, chairperson of South Brooklyn Against Investment Discrimination, told Siebert the coalition members were concerned that they had not been consulted while the regulations were being drafted. "We feel that when the new regulations were proposed, we were not made part of that," Steiner said. "We wish that there had been some outreach to call our people in so that your staff could have gotten the results of our ideas." Siebert at first suggested that they submit their views in writing. When the group rejected that as inadequate, she consulted briefly with her aides and said, "I see no problem. I will be de- lighted to give you public hearings." The hearing will be held at Union Temple, 17 Eastern Parkway near Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, beginning at 6:30 p.m. The proposed regulations concern interpreta- tion of the "public convenience and advantage" criteria that banks are supposed to satisfy in order to merge, to open new branches or to close old branches. As drafted, the regulations would require the Superintendent and the Banking Board to con- sider "whether the applicant has taken steps to ensure that all applications for credit received in its existing facilities in this State, as well as in the proposed facility, are considered on their merits." Anti-redlining community groups want stronger regulations to require that banks show a significant volume of investment and active ad- vertising in older urban neighborhoods they are supposed to be serviCing before being allowed to open branches in newer suburban communities. The meeting with Siebert was unexpected. The entire State Banking Board was scheduled to meet that day and a spokesman had already told the coalition that the meeting would be closed. The group planned to distribute leaflets. When they arrived at the World Trade Center they learned that the board meeting had been can- celed due to an Upstate snowstorm. The group then decided to demand a meeting with Siebert. The request was denied at first, then granted when the anti-redlining delegation made it clear they were not gOing to leave the office without a meeting. In addition to South Brooklyn AID, organiza- tions represented at the meeting included the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Committee on Redlin- ing, several Bank on Brooklyn groups and the Reinvestment Committee of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition. _ Members of the citywide anti-redJining coalition packed the confer- Herb Steiner, chairperson of South Brooklyn Against Investment ence room of the New York State Banking Department. Standing is Discrimination. s C<O>IDl1IlImer"",f armer: A 1HI <0> 1IlI i IDl g f <0> 1IlI IDl J aft i <0> IDl by Bernard Cohen Construction at the sweat equity project on East 11 th Street was at a standstill. The latest phase of work was finished. Requisitions totalling $12,000 had been submitted to the city. And meanwhile there was no money to buy new materials. A day went by; two days, a week. And still no check from the city. Cash flow has not been an uncommon problem in a city system where processing requisitions from sweat equity sites has been slow and loan money paid only after the job was finished. There was no telling how much longer the wait for reimbursement would be. Frustrated at the idleness of the project, Michael Freedberg of the East 11 th Street Housing Movement turned to a reliable source-the Consumer-Farmer Foundation. "So what's the problem? Meyer Parodneck, the foundation's president, said he told Freedberg. "I said, 'Mike, what's the requisition for?'" "$12,000." "Come up and get a check. " That is the kind of timely service that has made the foundation a pivotal part of the self-help housing rehabilitation movement in New York City. It has been a unique resource for community-based housing organi- zations, providing them with infusions of cash to tide them over while they waited for other loans that move through slower pipelines. In four years, the Consumer-Farmer Foundation has given loans totalling $200,000 to $300,000 for more than 60 housing rehabilitation projects. It has backed every single low-income sweat equity project in the city. Interest-free foundation seed money loans have enabled groups to purchase equipment and supplies, pay architectural, legal, insurance and other preliminary fees and begin actual work on a building even before they can start drawing on construction loans. As in the case of East 11 th Street, foundation loans have also come to the rescue with financing so that construction was not held up due to cash flow prob- lems that result sometimes because of the city's slow rate of processing expense vouchers. There is widespread agreement among community housing sponsors that without these loans, not only would sweat equity and other forms of self-help housing rehabilitation throughout New York City have sput- tered, but the growth of many neighborhood-based housing organizations would have been stunted. "Their support has been extremely vital," said Ramon Rueda, director of the People's Development Corp., which has received seed money loans of $55,000 from the foundation for housing rehabilitation in the e Melrose-Morrisania area of the South Bronx. "Without their assistance, the chances of our developing into the organization we are is doubtful," Rueda said. The Manhattan Valley Development Corp. bor- rowed $1,300 to obtain insurance that was a prerequisite for closing the mortgage loan on two buildings slated to become low-income cooperatives. MVDC also borrowed $5,000 to pay for architectural services prior to closing the loan on a third building. "We have received the most wonderful cooperation and response from the foundation," said Leah Schneider of MVDC. "I think they're the only place in the city we can count on for an immediate response. " If Consumer-Farmer is an unlikely name for an organization dedicated to housing, it is because from 1937 until 1971 it functioned as a milk cooperative, providing consumers with a saving of to a quart. At the time the cooperative was organized, the principal source of milk in the city was doorstep delivery and "ma and pa" neighborhood stores. Because mechanical cooling was in its infancy and transporta- tion limited, dairy farmers had to do business with the milk company with a nearby receiving station. To liberate the farmer from the grip of the milk monopoly, the Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative Inc. was formed to process, market and distribute milk. Farmers, many of them with small operations, became the members. Processing plants were purchased in New York and New Jersey. At its peak, the cooperative had 72 distributing stations, all located in New York City's poorest neighborhoods. By 1970, technology had so changed the dairy busi- ness that the social purpose of the cooperative was no longer relevant. Milk stored in bulk on the farm was being pumped into tanks for easy transport. The farmer now had a choice of markets. Neighborhood groceries which had been responsive to local consumer groups were displaced by large supermarkets owned by large corporate chains. The number of distribution stations was down to 32 and many were plagued by theft and vandalism. The economics of farming was changed as well. The number of separate farms was declining but the size of the remaining ones was growing. "By 1970, we were dealing with a bunch of million- aires," said Parodneck. While it took 90 farms to produce 500 4O-quart cans in 1946, 15 farms were producing the same amount in 1970, he added. "It was getting to the point where all we were doing was making money. It wasn't very inspiring," Parod- neck said. "The social objective was frustrated so we .j .. ' ;. .... went back to our origins-serving the consumer at the point of greatest need. " If nutrition was a paramount consumer need of the 1930s, shelter was seen as the consumer issue of the 1970s. "We felt that the poor could do more to supply themselves and to influence the supply of shelter than they had been doing," Parodneck said. "The practice was always to have somebody doing things for people. I never liked that. If you want to do something I'll help you. I won't do it for you." In 1971, the Consumer-Farmer Milk Cooperative, Inc. terminatc::d its activities. Its assets were liquidated and $1 million was turned over to the new Consumer- Farmer Foundation Inc. In addition to the East 11 th Street Housing Move- ment and MVDC, Consumer-Farmer has also given loans to the Oceanhill-Brownsville Tenants Association, the Renigades Housing Movement, United Harlem Growth and the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood. Philip St. Georges, director of the Urban Home- steading Assistance Board, called the foundation "totally essential" to the housing movement and said its loans had smoked the city out on supporting self- help housing efforts. "The foundation was willing to take the risk with money at a point where the government was wavering and even negative about whether to do a project," St. Georges said. The foundation's commitment, he added, served as leverage to prod the city into approving loans to community groups. Getting a loan from the foundation means passing the test of dedication. "My standards are strictly subjective and per- sonal, " Parodneck said. "What is the dedication of the people to the project? What sacrifices are they prepared to make to make the project succeed? "If a group has lived without heat or hot water, in a building with boarded-up windows, and withstood the invasion of addicts-these people have a lot of conviction. " That is not to say that Parodneck, a lawyer who knows real estate, or his longtime assistant, Martin Young, are soft touches. By all accounts, their standards of competence and fiscal responsibility are rigorous, and a group whose other financing is not in place, whose other legal obligations have not been met or whose internal structure is shaky should not be opti- mistic about getting a loan. "He has taken me to the ropes twice as to the wisdom of the economics of expanding and the impact of the seed money," Rueda said. "He is very, very tough. " Jim Harris, who negotiated a loan for Los Sures in Brooklyn, said Parodneck "brings a mature and experi- enced business-like attitude" to the issue of financing housing rehabilitation. He said the foundation turned 7 Meyer Parodneck down Los Sures's first request for a loan because the group had not gotten its other loan commitments. " He is hard-nosed about money and hard-nosed about personal honor," Harris said. "It is a refreshing combination. " Unlike most creditors, Parodneck seems to have the genuine admiration and affection of those who have borrowed money from him. It is a debt that appears to go well beyond money. Parodneck in turn gives the groups high marks for fiscal integrity and honesty. "Oh, we've had some losses (he estimated $80,000) and we have some loans on the books I am quite sure will never be collected. But that's all right. Those are risks we expect to take. " One concern that he expressed was the slow rate at which some of the interest-free loans are paid back. "We have to find a better formula," he said, adding that he was considering applying a penalty as an incen- tive for more timely payments. Parodneck was sharply critical of the city's housing agency (Housing Preservation and Development), call- ing it "an extremely incompetent" department. He also disapproved of the city's participation loan program, which carries a five to six per cent interest charge, but admitted he may be a little old fashioned. ' "The trouble with me is I'm too old. To me five per cent is a lot of money. It's a high interest rate and $40-a- room is prohibitive, a luxury rent. .. " He predicted that there will be a need for a long time to come for the kind of service the Consumer- Farmer Foundation supplies. "There's plenty of room in this field that public funds will never supply," he said. "The bureaucracy is slow moving. It has to creep.". , City-Owned Buildings: The New Issue of 1978 by Philip St. Georges With the many wishes of Happy New Year! only recently fading, housing activists around the City are returning from the holiday season to discover a grim new issue in 1978: more City-owned buildings than ever before. And more City-owned buildings than imaginable. Examine these facts: No. of Current City-Owned Properties 6,000 No. of Properties Actually In Rem Tax Foreclosure by the City of New York (Staten Island, Bronx, Manhattan) 13,800 Upcoming Brooklyn In Rem Foreclosure 12,000 - 15,000 Total Possible City-owned Property in 1978 31,800 - 34,800 Approximate No. of Dwelling Units (x7d.u. average) 222,600 -243,600 These figures have been supplied by the City's own Corporation Counsel, In Rem Foreclosure unit. They are the result of several years of maneuvering within City Hall and the City Council over passage and imple- mentation of the new In Rem tax foreclosure law. The "old law" had enabled the City of New York to foreclose upon any owner of private property who was three years or more behind in the payment of real estate taxes. The controversial "new law" changed this allowable arrearage time period to one year or more (excepting one- and two-family homes). The rationale for this change had been that the new law would enable the City to prosecute delinquent property owners more rapidly, thereby insuring a timely flow of needed tax revenues into a hard pressed City treasury. The result appears to have been the opposite- owners are throwing in the towel en masse and walking away from properties already hard hit by the inflation of oil, insurance and utilities costs and the disinvestment of mortgage and insurance lenders. Inflation and red- lining started abandonment. The new In Rem law appears to have brought abandonment to newall-time high levels, in more neighborhoods than ever before. 8 The unfortunate result for community organiza- tions and housing activists all around the City is clear. The greatest slumlord in the City of New York, The Department of Real Property (formerly the Dept. of Real Estate) will drastically increase its already secure position as largest owner and worst maintainer of hous- ing in New York City. The same 60 managers who are now incapable of managing 6,000 properties (IOO prop- erties per person) will now try their skills upon 534 properties per person, or nearly 3,800 units of housing per manager! This bleak pictur.e is made worse by the continuing inability of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to gear-up any effective pro- grammatic or development alternatives utilizing Com- munity Development Block Grant Funds. As of this writing, only the Community Management Program, managing approximately 2,000 units of currently city- owned housing, shows any promise of coping with the problems. Direct Sales (I-Title Transfer), Participation Loans (6 buildings closed), receivership, et al. remain ineffective and mired in bureaucratic quagmires. So welcome to the New Year! Whole neighbor- hoods are collapsing and coming up for auction by the City. Rehabilitation mortgages and property insurance of any sort are totally unavailable from the private market. City programmatic alternatives seem not to exist. And no one knows quite what to do. Barring a sudden change in the In Rem foreclosure law by the City Council liberalizing the ability of owners to redeem their properties from tax foreclosure, 1978 will be the year of City-owned buildings. And while it is still too early to determine the response of community planning boards and community housing organizations, the key new alternatives seem to be land banking and Public Housing Authority intervention. And of course, organizing. Because in the end, the City will always find it easier to sell buildings for short term financial gains than to deal effectively with the long term prob- lems of community revitalization. So we must stop them, again. Philip St. Georges is director oj the Urban Homestead- ing Assistance Board. HPD continlled Reached at his home on the weekend following his appointment, Leventhal said he had never applied for the HPD job nor submitted his resume to Koch. "I was not in the job market," he asserted. Leventhal went on, "Every four years I've had feelings about getting involved in a city agency, and sometimes this results in getting into hot water too." As to the needs of the city's low income neigh- borhoods, Leventhal said, "When I was Rent Commis- sioner, I did as much as I could for low -income people. I was familiar with the sweat equity program, and within that context, we did as much as we could." Natba. LenDthal To many observers in the neighborhood housing movement, their surprise that the choice was one whom most "insiders" had not predicted was matched by their relief that Leventhal has a reputation for being alert to the housing needs of low and moderate income people. "It's a wonderful appointment," said Philip St. Georges, director of the Urban Homesteading Assist- ance Board (U-HAB). "I worked with him when he was rent commissioner and found him to be a highly competent administrator as well as sensitive to new ideas and the potential of community organizations to build. " Many others, however, said they did not know Leventhal but that, on the surface,he sounded accept- able. And several housing activists noted that it had been four years since he played an active role in city housing. One observer said Leventhal's current weak- nesses lay in the areas of community development and specific programs for low .. income housing, but added, "I'm not worried." Margaret McNeill, president of the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers (ANHD), said, "Most people know very little about him," adding that she would have preferred someone more familiar with the housing programs of the neighborhood organi- zations and someone who has a tie with the federal government to get more funding for New York City. McNeill was a member of a citizens' search com- mittee co-chaired by Clara Fox, executive director of United Neighborhood Houses, and architect David Castro-Blanco. Early in December, this committee submitted a long list of recommendations on the HPD commissionership to the Koch transition team. This list did not include Leventhal's name. Commenting on Leventhal's appointment, Fox said, "IL came as a total surprise to everyone in the housing field. This name had never appeared on any of the lists. "Our committee," Fox continued, "was merely a search and outreach committee. The Mayor-elect made it very clear that he would make the final decision himself. He did interview the people on our list and a few others. "To be perfectly honest, I don't know Leventhal," Fox added, "but, from those who knew him [in the Lindsay administration], the reaction I got was fairly positive. " The new Commissioner will face several demands from the housing movement. Among these are improve- ments in the implementation of the participation loan program; continuation and expansion of the community management program; more equitable allocation and speedier application of the Community Development funds; an effective approach to the problems of emer- gency repair, arson, building seal-up and demolition; and a more effective bureaucracy at HPD. A member of the Koch transition team who asked not to be named told CITY LIMITS in the first week of the new administration, "There are going to be hard times ahead. The Mayor will not throw out money to groups just because the community is screaming." According to this adviser, "The Mayor expects all groups to be realistic in their requests. Just as the Mayor plans to be tough with the unions, the same applies here," he predicted. "I think he means what he says. He's going to be a tough Mayor." The Koch administration has also indicated that no single official in the Mayor's office will have authority over housing . . Alluding to this administrative decision, Leventhal said, "I don't see any problem here. [Deputy Mayor] Herman Badillo will be very active in this area of con- cern, and already has been. We hope to show that this concern is translated into action. . . I am sure that [Deputy Mayor] David Brown will also have some hous- ing positions to make known. " Commissioner-designate Leventhal refused com- ment on current HPD programs until his appointment was cleared, but he did stress the importance to the city's housing effort of making public specific, timely, and accurate data on federally -assisted housing pro- grams. "No one is ever sure of the numbers," he said. "I ran into that problem in the Lindsay days, but I'm a 'numbers' man, and I don't like that kind of ambiguity. I think there should be a clear accounting." [See story on Section 8 Housing Assistance, Page 12 ] Commissioner-designate Leventhal's appointment met with wide approval from area housing officials. Thomas Appleby, who resigned last September as head of the city's Housing and Development Admini- stration to become regional administratof of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), said of Leventhal, "I think it's a good appoint- ment. He has background in the department. I'm sure other officials will have something to say about the office and the appointment. " Daniel Joy heads HPD's Office of Rent and Hous- ing Maintenance; the position Leventhal once held. Joy said, "I worked with Leventhal in the Lindsay admini- stration, and, during that period, I acquired a great deal of respect for his administrative skills and abilities." Another HPD official, Deputy Commissioner Carl Callender of the Division of Evaluation and Compli- ance, said of Leventhal's new job, "Sensitivity is the key word, and I believe he will bring in people who are sensitive to the needs of our communities. " The best test of the new leadership," Callender asserted, will be the people Leventhal puts around him at HPD. "I think he'll be firm enough to fire me if I'm not doing my job. Mayor Koch has said he expects his commissioners to do a good job, and, if not, they'll have to go. That's an incentive to do a good job. " Referring to the new Commissioner-designate, housing official Alexander Garvin said, "I feel Nat is going to be an excellent Commissioner. He is energetic, committed to getting things done, and interested in seeing that the city's housing stock improves. He is committed to rehabilitation. He always was, and that's not going to be a battle. " Garvin, Deputy Commissioner in charge of Rehabilitation and Neighborhood Preserva- tion, also noted, "He is a bright, capable, shrewd man. " Another view of the new Commissioner, as he awaited word of his clearance, came from tenant leader Jane Benedict of the Metropolitan Council on Housing. "I'm hard boiled," she acknowledged, "and I don't think the housing policies of the city are going to be changed by Nat Leventhal. Housing should be for 10 people, rather than for the banking and real estate interests. If Nat Leventhal can turn this around, that will be fine, but I don't think he can. Housing policy is not made by the Commissioner, but by the City Admini- stration" she concluded, "and I haven't seen any policy change in the new administration. " Prior to his service as Rent and Housing Mainten- ance Commissioner, Leventhal worked from 1967-69 on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, adjusting cases of alleged discrimination in employment. From 1969-70, he was fiscal director of the City's Human Resources Administration; from then until 1972, he was assistant to the mayor, acting as liaison to City agencies. When his service as Rent and Housing Maintenance Commissioner ended in 1973, Leventhal served briefly as special counsel to a U.S. Senate subcommittee on administrative practice ~ n d procedure, and entered private law practice in 1974. He is a public member of the New York City Bar Association Committee on Housing and Urban Development. Leventhal was graduated in 1966 from Columbia University Law School, where -he was editor-in-chief of the Law Review from 1965-66. Leventhal is single and lives in Manhattan. His salary will be $54,000. Last summer, Leventhal wrote a letter that was helpful to a coalition of tenant groups who waged a successful campaign to repeal a Beame administration "labor cost pass-along" rent increase. The coalition contended that the city was letting landlords use a con- fusing section of the rent regulations (Section 33.8) to demand exorbitant rent increases in the guise of mere "pass-alongs" of higher labor costs. Leventhal's letter, according to William Rowen, treasurer of the Coalition Against Rent Increase Pass- Alongs (CARIP), sided with the coalition's interpreta- tion that Section 33.8 of the MBR (Maximum Base Rent) law never intended rent - increases beyond the yearly 7.5 per cent. CARIP submitted the letter at a City Council hear- ing on the pass-along issue last September. "It was effective,"'Rowen said in helping to win the repeal. ~ JOBS PROGRAM FOR 38 NONPROFITS GETTING UNDER WAY DESPITE SNAGS The CET A Title VI contract, providing 375 jobs for 38 community-based organizations, is moving ahead with approval last month by the Board of Est imate and a decision by the groups to sign it despite serious problems with the recruitment procedure. Margaret McNeill, president of the Associa- tion of Neighborhood Housing Developers, the umbrella organization, signed the contract Jan. 19. The Emergency Financial Control Board was ex- pected to give its approval soon. Passage of the $4.4 million program by the Board of Estimate on Dec. 1 marked a major vic- tory for the 38 organizations. The contract in- includes more than $155,000 in administrative funds budgeted for use by the local groups to partially defray expenses of their one-year public service contracts. Interviews at the local organizations for the 375 jobs are set for the end of January. One of the major controversies surrounding the Title VI program has been the design of an enrollee recruitment procedure. The city's original plan was to fill all Title VI jobs by a citywide referral process involving neighborhood man- power service centers, the New York State Em- ployment Service and the Department of Social Services. This system was strongly opposed by com- munity-based organizations involved in the 11 program since it precluded the recruitment of unemployed neighborhood residents by the local groups. Since September, a citywide coalition of Title VI nonprofit sponsors has been negotiating with the city and federal officials for redesign of the hiring system. In December, the outgoing Beame admini- stration issued a revised recruitment plan permit- ting nonprofit Title VI organizations to fill 15 per cent of their allotted jobs through local advertise- ment, interviewing and hiring-bypassing the established referral sources. The remaining 85 per cent of the slots are to be filled through the standard recruiting system. The city's Department of Employment insists that its established referral agencies are capable of locating well-qualified individuals for the positions. At a general meeting of ANHD umbrella parti- cipants on Jan. 13, serious doubts were expressed as to the capacity of the referral agencies to match applicants to Title VI job descriptions. However, in order to prevent further delay of the program's implementation and in view of the fact that the city has agreed to permit groups to request neighborhood residents for all positions, the Title VI groups voted to begin recruitment and hiring under the city's conditions. However, the groups also resolved to closely monitor and evaluate their progress under this system and halt its use by the ANHD umbrella if serious problems arise. _ KTtlVin collJillued Kravitz joined the faculty of SUNY -College of Purchase in September, 1976. Prior to that he taught at Ramapo College in New Jersey, New York University, Hunter College, College of New Rochelle and the University of North Carolina. Between 1968 and 1976, he served as a housing and planning consultant to the Coalition for Human Hous- ing and Pueblo Nuevo Housing and Development Association on the Lower East Side and the Clinton Planning Council-Save Clinton Committee. As consultant he conducted studies for these . organizations and provided assistance for a wide range : of projects from selection of public housing sites to development of rehabilitation strategies to economic development and building organizational bases. He is currently a consultant for the Project on Tenant Organization and Tenant Action at the Columbia University Center for Policy Research. Kravitz said strengthening the capability of com- munity-based organizations and persuading policy makers not to turn their backs on the city's poorest neighborhoods were two critical issues of the moment. "The groups that have been around for a while have gotten a sense of how much they can get out of the political process, what its limits are, how to play it," he said. "I think what they have to do now is really strengthen their internal institutional capability and they have to become to some extent financially inde- pendent." Convincing policy makers of the feasibility of saving neighborhoods like Manhattan Valley, East Harlem and the South Bronx will not be easy, he added, because "there are a lot of people who are more pessi- mistic about the city and therefore think it necessary to write off those neighborhoods. " An important role of ANHD, he continued, will be "making it clear to policy makers that there is a viable approach. . . that produces housing units, that begins to stabilize things, that's appropriate to those neigh- borhoods, and demonstrating the kinds of resources that are required. It doesn't just happen. It happens with a resource base. " Calling himself a decentrist, Kravitz described the efforts of community-based housing organizations as "the cutting edge of change" and said, "I think that the development of institutional capability at the neigh- borhood level is the important thing. " Kravitz is married and has two sons, Christopher, 8, and Matthew, 5. His wife Sara cooks parttime at the Turning Point restaurant in Piermont, N. Y. and is the food editor of the Rockland County magazine COll- nection. They live in Nyack. _ 12 SECTION 8: THE NUMBERS GAME Each y e a ~ at this time, people go looking for specific information about the number of housing units to be subsidized by Section 8 housing assistance in the new year, only to find that these figures are elusive. Getting them can make for the most confusing "numbers game" in town. CITY LIMITS spent the better part of a week recently in calls and visits to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), the Department of City Planning, and the area office of the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), only to find that this year's figures are still "tentative." According to best estimates, however, New York City will be allocated $66.5 million in Section 8 subsidies. Section 8 wi II not apply to all of the 11,249 dwelling units (du's) that constitute the city's housing program goals for fiscal 1978 (October 1, 1977 - September 30, 1978). Of this total, conven- tional public housing financing (non-Section 8) is planned for 1,059 du's of new construction and 850 du's of substantial rehabilitation. Section 8 housing assistance will apply to 936 du's of new housing for the elderly (Sec. 202), 440 du's of new public housing, and 1,010 du's of other government-financed and insured new con- struction. Substantial rehabilitation assisted by Section 8 will include 786 du's of housing for the elderly (Sec. 202), 358 du's of public housing, and 1,300 du's of other government-financed and insured rehabilitation. In addition, the Housing Authority will certify 4,510 eligible families for Section 8 subsidies in existing housing. _ With this issue, Susan Baldwin joins CITY LIMITS as Assistant Editor. She has covered housing, urban renewal, politics, and education as a general assignment reporter for the York (Pa.) Gazette and Daily, the Quincy (Mass.) Patriot Ledger, the New Haven (Conn.) Register, and the weekly West- sider in Manhattan. , PHN AGAIN SPONSORS ORGANIZERS SCHOOL The Peoples Housing Network will begin another series of classes in its SCHOOL FOR ORGANIZERS beginning Feb. 21. Classes will be held every Tuesday evening for 10 weeks. Included among the topics offered will be: starting a community organization, program development, anti-redlining strategies, tenant organizing, housing management and rehabilita- tion programs and legislation dealing with neigh- borhood issues. Close to 200 people from more than 30 organi- zations attended all or some of the classes at the School last summer. These included staff and leadership of community organizations, members of tenant associations, students, members of church groups, representatives from planning boards, staff of service agencies, CET A workers FACT BOOKS "Fact Books" for each of New York City's 59 community districts are now available at the Department of City Planning, Room 1616, 2 Lafa- yette Street, Manhattan, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. Each 12-page "Fact Book" contains census data, a district map, names and telephone num- bers of elected officials and .the representatives to the district service cabinet, and titles of relevant publications of the City Planning Department. The pamphlets include such information as median years of school completed in each district, per- centage of overcrowded housing units, and char- acteristics of district households. The fee for each booklet is 25 cents, if picked up at 2 Lafayette Street, and 50 cents if mailed. According to Victor Marrero, former chairman of the City Planning Commission who as Chair- man introduced the "Fact Books" last fall , they are "the first part of the Department of City Plan- ning's massive Community Portfolio project, a new state-financed computer information system to provide data on land use and local characteris- tics of the city's 59 community districts." 13 and interested individuals. The cost of 10 classes is $25 per student. Individual classes are $3.00. Limited scholarships and group discounts are available. Classes will be held at the offices of the Association of Neighbor- hood Housing Developers, 29 E. 22nd St., 10th floor. All classes will be from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. To enroll or for further information contact: Roger Hayes Peoples Housing Network 29 E. 22nd St. New York, New York 10010 (212) 533-5650 Special longer training programs (Le., day- long or week-long) for new staff, CETA workers or other individuals can be arranged if enough people are interested. - BOILER COURSE Housing Conservation Coordinators (HCC) will sponsor a second course in boiler-burner maintenance-repair and energy conservation, beginning January 24, at HCC' s Clinton head- quarters, 404 West 48th Street, Manhattan. Enrollment fee for the course is $10, and classes will be limited to 20 students. HCC' s first course ended January 3rd. The schedule for course II is as follows: Jan- uary 24, 26, and 31; February 7, 9, 14, 16,21, 23, and 28; March 2, 7, and 9. Graduation will take place March 14. Each session runs for two hours, from 7 until 9 p.m. Areas of instruction will include types and structures of boilers and burners, boiler cleaning, oil filter replacement, relay replacement, safety mechanisms, radiator repair, and weatherization techniques. Certificates will be awarded to t he partici- pants who successfully complete the course. Anyone interested in the program should send a $10 check or money order to Housing Con- servation Coordinators, Boiler Course, 777 10th Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10019. Stay Tuned to WVMV Radio Celeste Morales and Reinaldo Pacheco getting ready to go on the air. It is about 10 minutes before air time and Celeste Morales, wearing a pair of powder blue headphones, is leaning into microphone #1. "This is WVMV com- munity radio in Manhattan Valley on the air again," she says in a soft but steady voice. Sitting next to her, Reinaldo Pacheco flips a switch and slowly turns a dial, testing his voice in the mike. "It should read between 80 and zero," advises George Ruiz, the engineer, looking over their shoulders at the needle. "It also depends on the person talking," adds Celeste. After a few more t$, the sound level is set and before long the teenagers, at this tiny community-run radio station are a program of music, local news items and public service announcements. WVMV is the new voice of Manhattan Valley, a 4O-square block area between 100th and 110th Streets, Central Park West and Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Except for some high-rise luxury apartments along Central Park West and some surviving once-elegant townhouses, the area is characterized by deteriorating old law and new law and a 3,OOO-unit public housing project. It is predominantly Hispanic and low- income. 14 The radio station went on the air Dec. 13 after more than a year of planning and work. (Then mayor- elect Koch called that night to offer congratulations.) The station's range is still small but its unique potential to entertain, inform, train and bring the Manhattan Valley community together is enormous, according to its sponsors. "This is going to take off," said Dan Mack, a young Fordham University communications professor who helped set up the radio station. "Radio is so simple that people should be able to do it for themselves," he said. Mack sees the community-controlled station as a necessary alternative to the conventional media. Not only is WVMV a source of information that Manhattan Valley's population cannot get from the big radio sta- tions, Mack says, but it also places a powerful com- munications tool into the hands of people who normally have no access to the major broadcast institutions that shape everyone's life. The station's 5-watt signal, which is transmitted through existing power lines, now reaches about 600 people in a two block area. Once inside a building, the signal radiates for about 250 feet so that it can be picked up on a portable radio as well as plug-in radio. r Cars passing through the blocks can also tune in. The frequency is 590 on the AM dial. Because WVMV does not use the airwaves, it is not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. Sponsors hope to expand the reach of the radio station to up to one-half of Manhattan Valley. That will mean either buying additional transmitters (at $300 to $400 each) or finding a way to shift to the airwaves with- out falling under FCC jurisdiction. WVMV's current broadcast schedule is 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday. Programming is still being developed, but the station's goal is to mix music with about 15 minutes every hour of discussion of hous- ing, health, welfare and other issues of importance to the neighborhood. - At the moment, most of the programming is in English. Organizers of the station discovered that many of the Spanish-speaking residents of the community read and write only in English. Celeste is serving as translator at the station and a format that will include more Spanish is being worked out. Ann Schwalbach, director of Parents for Improved Playgrounds, a co-sponsor of WVMV, said the idea for the station was an outgrowth of the after-school program sponsored by PIP. The organization got a federal grant in 1976 for the broadcast equipment, which includes a mixing board, turntable and several tape recorders in addition to the transmitter. A tele- phone connection enables listeners to call the station and speak on the air. The station has had to overcome a number of tech- nical and logistical problems. Early on, when the station was located in a church, the engineer discovered during tests that the signal was being absorbed into the copper roof of the building and going nowhere. Space has been a continuing worry. Right now the station is broadcast- 15 ing from a cramped control room at the Manhattan Valley Development Corp. (also a co-sponsor) at 931 Columbus Ave. The station plans to move soon to space a few doors away in a building being rehabilitated by MVDC. Equipment trouble knocked the station off the air for about three weeks. One of the things he learned from putting the station together, Mack said, was how slowly things move in a situation that depends on voluntary efforts. "I was sure we would be set up in six months," he said. To prepare for the station, Schwalbach asked com- munity organizations to participate in programs and Mack taught classes on operating the equipment. The technical training was easy, Mack said, com- pared with overcoming the conventional model of how a broadcaster should sound and getting people to be themselves. "Everyone has a style and a personality that comes out and everyone has a lot to contribute," he said. "Community radio is different. You don't have to sound great. " At first, people were very shy about going on the air. "In general they were taught you had to be smart, handsome, witty and very articulate. But that was not the purpose of the Communications Act of 1934, which said the airwaves belong to the people. It took convinc- ing people that they were legitimate just because they had never been on radio before. " Before long, the stage fright had melted. "I'm always on the air," said Reinaldo, who admitted he had been nervous at first. "I didn't want to go on." But after some practice, "I got used to it." What happens if he suddenly runs out of things to say on the air? No problem. "I just give the key to the engineer and he plays a record. " NEIGHBORHOODS & WASHINGTON by Bernard Cohen WASHINGTON-The voice of the nation's neighbor- hoods is beginning to be heard in that part of the Wash- ington bureaucracy that is concerned with urban policy and programs. Traditionally, mayors have spoken for the cities and there is little doubt that they are still regarded as the "legitimate" ambassadors of the nation's urban centers. But there are also some signs that neighborhoods are beginning to carve out a place in the scheme of federal urban policy. A recent trip through the federal maze turned up a number of programs that seem to be targeted more at neighborhoods than at City Hall. There is a new assistant-secretary level office of neighborhoods ' at HUD. Neighborhood issues are a compooent of Presi- dent Carter's soon-to-be-announced domestic policy. And Congress, recognizing that city neighborhoods "are a national resource to be conserved and revi- talized, " has created a national neighborhood com- mission to identify ways of promoting their survival. Many observers in Washington say all this con- stitutes a beachhead, the modest beginning of a neigh- borhood consciousness at the federal level, which they attribute to better organization of neighborhoods and to politics. "I think the neighborhood issue is joined into this government for political reasons," said Milton Kotler, head of the National Association of Neighborhoods. "The President was elected by a lot of grassroots sup- port, blacks, working people, neighborhood people. "Being in for political reasons means that the bureaucracy looks at the neighborhood section of government or the neighborhood commission with great skepticism. " Kotler said neighborhoods must build a "legitimate foundation" stressing citizen responsibility and account- ability. What follows is a bag of programs and policies that form an outline of the emerging role of the neigh- borhoods in federal urban policy. HUD - Msgr. Geno Baroni is the assistant secre- tary for the new office of neighborhoods, voluntary associations and consumer protection. Baroni is said by insiders to have led the battle to target 75 percent of Community Development Block Grant funds to low and moderate income people. (The results of that battle will be known when HUD releases fmal CD r.,egulations.) URPG - President Carter last year named an inter- agency Cabinet-level task force, called the Urban and Regional Policy Group, to formulate a new national urban policy. URPG was divided into several task 1 us forces, one of which was on neighborhoods. The initial drafts of the URPG's report recommended $25 million in direct funding for experienced neighborhood develop- ment organizations; $100 million for mini -grants (' 1 ,000 to $40,(00) to community groups for a wide range of revitalization efforts; $25 million of CDBG funds set aside for awards to city governments with concurrence of local groups; training of local government officials to work with neighborhood groups and revision of citi- zen participation standards. Neighborhood-oriented critics of the report said its thrust was rapid economic revitalization of cities without proper concern for its potential effects (displacement) on many of the people who l i v ~ there. President Carter has rejected the report on the grounds that it is program-oriented rather than policy-oriented. It is being revised and the program expenditure figures ar(:; expected to be dropped. NATIONAL COMMISSION ON NEIGHBOR- HOODS - A brand new commission created by Congress to examine the effect on neighborhoods of federal, state and local policies, programs, laws, public and private investment, poverty and citizen initiated revitali- zation efforts. The commission, which plans hearings around the country, is charged with recommending new ways of facilitating neighborhood preservation and revitalization. It will have 20 members, including two senators, two members of the House of Representatives and 16 public members. ACTION - Action is a federal agency that includes VISTA and the Peace Corps. In a new shift, VISTA volunteers are being assigned to neighborhood-based organizations as well as state government and old-line agencies. National VISTA grants are going to some 12 broad-based umbrellas of grass roots organizations. LABOR - A $115 million youth employment pro- gram of the Labor Department is aimed specifically at neighborhood-based organizations. Created last August, the Youth Community Conservation and Improvement Projects program seeks to employ 22,600 youths, ages 16 to 19, in community-improvement projects, including rehabilitation of housing. New York City received $3.8 million for the program. JUSTICE - The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration has a $15 million program to sponsor crime prevention programs at the community level. CSA - Community groups that 'want to do their own building weatherization can apply to Operation Open City's Self-Help Volunteer Labor Program, which will pay for materials up to $125 a unit. The money comes from the federal Community Services Admini- stration through the city's Community Development, Agency to Operation Open City. CENSUS - The Census Bureau is developing plans to provide substantial census data by neighborhood, a first. Under the proposed program, the Bureau would prepare guidelines and hold workshops on the use of the statistical data. The chief elected official of the munici- pality or the "central council" of neighborhoods would submit a request indicating the blocks making up the neighborhood for which the census information is sought. COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT OF 1977 - The law contains a new provision that requires federal supervisory agencies, such as the Home Loan Bank Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, to "take into account" the lending records of banks CAREY NAMES MARRERO TO STATE HOUSING POST Victor Marrero, former chairman of the New York City Planning CommisSion, was sworn in Jan. 9 as commissioner of the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal. The $47,800-a-year state housing job had been vacant since last spring. Marrero served as chairman of the Planning Commission for two years. Mayor Koch replaced him with Robert Wagner Jr. Marrero, 36, previously served as assistant counsel to Governor Carey and before that as executive director of the Planning Commission, district manager of the South Bronx Office of Neighborhood Government and neighborhood director of the Model Cities program in the Bronx. Considered a leading contender for the Democratic nomination for the CongreSSional seat vacated by Deputy Mayor Herman Badillo, Marrero withdrew from the race, reportedly in the face of opposition to him by Badillo and Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams. 17 when evaluating whether to grant bank applications for new branches, mergers and consolidations. URBAN REINVESTMENT TASK FORCE - The task force, created in 1970, provides technical assistance (and sometimes grants) to neighborhood groups to encourage urban revitalization. Its method is to encour- age increased urban lending by the savings and loan industry. The program, it should be noted, is designed to help declining but not severely blighted neighbor- hoods. The task force credits its programs with stimu- lating approximately $30 million in urban reinvestment through 1977. A bill to establish a Neighborhood Rein- vestment Corp., which would institutionalize and expand the program of the task force, passed the Senate last September. The House is expected to take up the bill in the current session. - WAGNER APPOINTED Robert F. Wagner Jr., 34, has been appointed chairman of the City Planning CommisSion, effec- tive January 1,1978. His annual salary is $47,093. Elected Manhattan Councilman-at-Iarge in - 1973, Wagner, a Democrat, ran in the November election as a Republican-Liberal for Manhattan Borough President and was defeated by Andrew Stein. An advocate of City Council reform, Wagner received a 100 per cent voting record from the New Democratic Coalition (NDC). He was gradu- ated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree in 1965 from Harvard College, studied history as a Mar- shall Scholar from 1965-67 at the University of Sussex, England, and received an M.A. degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Affairs at Princeton University where he was a Public Affairs Fellow. 1n another appointment, Jolie Hammer, a former deputy Manhattan borough president, was named director of local government and com- munity relations at the Department of City Plan- ning. Her yearly salary is $36,437. Hammer was former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton's representative on the Board of Estimate. Her duties as deputy borough president included serving as community liaison for Sutton's office. _ Credit Unions continued people do not overspend," Alayon concluded. The neighborhood residents who make up the membership of the three New York CDCU's are for the most part the working poor, welfare recipients or persons living on meager social security Most of the CDCU savings accounts they keep are very small. When they cash payor benefit checks at the CDCU, members are urged to deposit a small amount-perhaps the fee they would have had to pay a commercial check cashing service. "In addition to cashing checks and encouraging people to save, we also sell food stamps and money orders, and accept utility payments for the small fee of 35 cents, and do fmancial counseling," explains Ame- rico Rodriguez, loan officer at CABS. According to Rodriguez, CABS is the main distributor of food stamps in Bedford-Stuyvesant and the parts of Williamsburg it serves. Despite substantial and constantly growing mem- bership rolls, the New York CDCU' s count on the much larger deposits that are provided by non-member organizations and individuals-foundations, schools, banks, insurance companies, other credit unions and the like. These, like all deposits, are insured up to $40,000 by the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which regulates all federally chartered credit unions. How do the CDCU's in their low income neigh- borhoods attract the non-member deposits? "It's very simple," says Hector Figueroa of LESFCU. "We write letters to these organizations explaining who we are, stressing that any emergency money they want to keep here will be available if they run into any fiscal trouble. We tell them, that if they deposit this money with us, they will be helping the people living here to have a better life. " Figueroa points out that non-member deposits in his and the other CDCU's do not add up to huge sums of money. There are typically from five to ten such deposits ranging in size from $10,000 to $40,000, he says. Most of the CDCU credit currently extended to residents of these low -income neighborhoods is in small personal, or "signature" loans. CDCU's grailt loans of any amount, no matter how small, while most banks refuse to consider any loan for less than $750 or $800. "If you go to a bank and ask for a $500 loan," says Alayon, "they tell you to go get Master Charge or Visa. We make these smaller loans and charge 120/0 on the unpaid balance, while the credit cards charge a flat 18%," he explains. On automobile loans, the CDCU's offer 9% interest rates, against the customary 12% on auto loans obtained elsewhere. What plans do the CDCU's have to put to work their new power to make long-term mortgage loans? Both Alayon, president, and Clark, as executive 18 director of the federation, agree on the importance of this new weapon in the fight to save neighborhoods. Clark cautions, however, that CDCU's today, for the most part, lack both the capital and the technical expertise to rush into' the mortgage field. Assets of $2 million should be the minimum held by any CDCU contemplating a mortgage loan program, if it is to main- tain at adequate levels the other existing loan services its members demand, says Clark. Given the assets required, Clark asserts, "If you get the credit union people together with people working on housing, you'll have a great opportunity for com- munity development. Credit unions are changing from just being consumer-oriented and are now becoming total financial institutions," he says. "If the CDCU's are to survive and become a viable community development tool, " Alayon maintains, "they will have to follow this route. They must become involved in housing." Pointing out that there are many small buildings and brownstones on the Lower East Side and in Brook- lyn that need only modest rehabilitation work-work that is frequently done . now under " sweat equity" programs-Alayon says, "All you would need to do is to get the 10 families in a ten-unit building together to go to the local credit union and borrow $5,000 each. This $50,000 would serve to do a moderate rehabilita- tion of the building, which would be used as collateral. The tenants would do as much of the work as possible to hold down costs, and the building could eventually be converted into a low income cooperative," Alayon predicts. Meanwhile, according to Union Settlement's man- ager Sklar, "We have been making money available for some time here in East Harlem to buy housing which is modest in price and in reasonably good condi- tion." How? Union Settlement has been making long- term loans that could be used to buy housing by lending on a personal-loan basis, and requiring a number of co-signers: "These have been modest loans for $12,000 to $20,000 in pockets of housing where the neighborhood hasn't slipped," Sklar adds. People in the movement believe that CDCU's have good prospects for future growth, because the need for them is so great. They could fill the need for housing loans likely to be unrnet by the savings banks and sav- ings and loan institutions in low income neighborhoods. But, say their leaders, in order to become a viable eco- nomic development tool, they must move on from their present subsidized operation to become fully self-suffi- cient financial institutions that provide acceptable dividends to their membership. "Money alone is not the panacea," says Alayon. "Every organization must analyze and re-analyze its business plan. Every CDCU needs some management assistance to make this program work, for if you have all the money in the world and no management, you won't go anywhere. But if you have good management and good marketing skills, you will go a long way, and I think that's what can happen to the COCU's." Want to organize a COCU for your neighborhood? Get together seven neighbors as charter members, yourself included; find 20 more who will commit them- selves to buy shares and join up; identify your turf, your purpose and your need; and apply to the National Credit Union Administration in Washington for a federal charter. It helps if your COCU can project a membership of 300 neighbors at the end of a year. The NCUA will send an examiner to review and grade your application. In reaching a judgment, the examiner will appraise both your group's probity and the chances of its survival. Jim Clark at the National Federation of COCU's stands ready to provide assistance to those who would organize a COCU, and information about COCU's already existing to those who seek it. The federation can be reached by mail at 501 March Avenue, Brooklyn, N.Y. 11206, and by phone at (212)442-2077 or 643-1580 . _CITY LIMITSt publilbed moatllly by tile Auodadoa of Napborllood nouia. Developen, lac., 19 East llad Street, New York, New York 10010 (111) "4-7610 Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Bernard Cohen Assistant Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. Susan Baldwin Design and Layout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louis Fulgoni Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marianne Czernin Copyright 1978. All rights reserved. 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