Turning over your ID to get access ...

I found this article by accident today, and want to know what Kenmore Hall tenants think of the answer to this question - people have been complaining about this issue here for years.  Please feel free to comment

Ask A NYC Housing Lawyer: Do I Really Have To Hand Over ID To Enter A Building?

Steve Dobkin and son contemplate tenants' rights on a Park Slope stoop. (Courtesy Private Jake Dobkin Collection)

Do you have a question about New York's complex and sometimes terrifying housing laws? Native New Yorker columnist Jake Dobkin has been receiving a lot of these questions lately, and he's decided to kick some of them over to his dad, longtime NYC tenants' lawyer and housing activistSteve Dobkin. If you have a question, email us and we will pick the most interesting ones to pass along to him.

Today's question comes from a deliveryman who can't stand it when a fancy building requires him to hand over ID just to bring food up to a customer.

So I deliver somewhat fancy food to somewhat fancy buildings. A lot of these buildings have policies that really dick me around—especially when I have to, with my one paper bag, exit the building, walk around the block to the service entrance, and then come back into the same lobby I was just in. But one thing I'm not sure about is ID stuff.

It annoys me to show ID to enter a building, but I get it. But how about the occasional building that makes you give them your ID to hold onto while you're in the building? Is that even legal?

I told the guy to just copy it down and please give it back; it stresses me out to leave it with people. I know it seems like a small thing, but other poor/lower middle class types will know why this annoys me.

Thanks!

A longtime housing attorney responds:

Since 9/11, purported concerns for the security of residents have been used to justify a host of measures invading the privacy of tenants, family members, guests, and visitors. The likelihood is that a delivery guy would be treated by the average judge with even less deference than a visiting in-law.

In 2005, Peter Cooper Village installed a massive electronic key card and video surveillance system which required tenants, family members and anyone who entered the buildings on a regular basis to use an encrypted key card with their picture on it. The Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper Village Tenants Association challenged the system in Court and at the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (“DHCR”) on a multitude of grounds, from violating leases and the Rent Stabilization Law to totalitarian enslavement, but in the end the Landlord’s repeated mantra of “Security,” backed by recommendations from a former FBI agent, two independent consultants, and the NYPD Crime Prevention Unit, outweighed all resistance.

Cynics and tenant activists suspected that the real motivation for the installation of the computerized key system was to measure the comings and goings of tenants for use as evidence against them in non-primary residence proceedings, a key feature of the campaign to eliminate long-term lower-rent-paying tenants.

The 2006 opinion by the DHCR Commissioner, which was upheld by the State Supreme Court, noted that since “security personnel may review the photos of card key holders as they enter their buildings, via the integrated CCTV system, it is only logical to allow security personnel to be able to ask for a photo ID of non-key card holders.”

Frankly, it’s hard to envision a realistic scenario in which you, as a delivery guy, will be in a position to challenge building management’s holding onto your ID while you’re in the building. Be thankful you haven’t (yet) been subjected to extraordinary rendition to a black site.

The opinion herein does not constitute legal advice, which may only be given in the context of a lawyer-client relationship.

If you've got a housing question you'd like answered, just drop us a line here.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

Gothamist in News on Nov 28, 2014 11:40 am

 

• advice
 
• ask a nyc housing lawyer
 

Fwd: Help Picture the Homeless Come Home

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brodie Enoch & William S Burnett, PTH Board Co-Chairs <development@picturethehomeless.org>
Date: Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 2:19 PM
Subject: Help Picture the Homeless Come Home

We're going back to East Harlem/El Barrio! Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Dear Friends, Members, and Allies, Picture the Homeless is moving, and we need your help! Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar by a generous donation from the Sparkplug Foundation.  Picture the Homeless just signed the lease on a beautiful wheelchair-accessible storefront office on 126th Street off of Lexington, around the corner from 3 subway lines and great bus service, but we will need your help to cover moving expenses. Please donate to our GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign today, and help spread the word to create the momentum for us to reach $10K. Please chip in with whatever donation you can manage, and - perhaps more importantly - help us build buzz for this effort on Facebook via the "Share" buttons on the campaign page, and tag your friends - along with a personal note telling them why our work is important to you. We also ask that you forward this email to your networks and tweet the link to the GoFundMe page: http://www.gofundme.com/jvuvpk Here's why this is so important. As a city-wide organization it's essential that we be more accessible to all 5 boroughs. For years we've been meeting strong leaders stuck in shelters in Staten Island and Central Brooklyn for whom traveling to our current spot in the Bronx is simply not possible - most shelters have curfews, some fairly early at night. This move puts us steps away from major bus service to Queens, the 4/5/6 trains and much easier access to Brooklyn and Staten Island, as well as all of Upper Manhattan - which is in the throes of gentrification.  And when it comes to homelessness, the intersection of 125th and Lexington is an incredibly crucial spot. It's the main stop for the M35 bus, the only way off of Ward's Island for the 1,000+ people who are placed in shelter there. It's the site of the Pathmark recycling machines, the most widely-used redemption site for hundreds of men and women who make a living picking up recyclable bottles and cans. It's ground zero for countless kinds of "underground economy" jobs... and, because of all these things, it's become a flash point for civil rights conflict, with rookie cops assigned to that intersection to "practice" violating people's rights via arrests and summonses for quality of life violations. East Harlem/El Barrio is also the center of our Community Land trust work, organizing between homeless people and low-income tenants to collectively develop a community development agenda that stops displacement while creating new housing and decent-paying jobs. Our goal is to raise $20K by January 23rd. A generous donor, the Sparkplug Foundation, has offered a match of $10K, so we have $10K to go! This includes some build out, wiring for computers and phones, packing materials and a truck rental.   Click here for our crowd-funding page, via GoFundMe, and make a personally-meaningful donation today.   In addition, we are super-grateful for any help you can offer in promoting the crowd-funding campaign, spreading the word to your friends and social media networks. Pass it on to all the people of good will in your life, along with a note about why you're supporting Picture the Homeless!   With gratitude, Sam J. Miller Communications & Policy Picture the Homeless  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Support the leadership of homeless New Yorkers by  making a tax-deductible donation today! Copyright © 2015 Picture the Homeless, All rights reserved. A message to friends, members and allies of Picture the Homeless. Our mailing address is: Picture the Homeless 2427 Morris Avenue 2nd Floor Bronx, NY 10468 Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

--

"Never underestimate the power of a small, dedicated group of people to change the world; indeed, that is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

Fwd: The NYPD Just Admitted That 90% of Their Work is Unnecessary. Homeless People Have Been Saying That For Decades!

From: Homeless Civil Rights Warriors <news@picturethehomeless.org>

TEXT UP HERE Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. The "Broken Windows" theory of policing has shaped New York City since the 1990's, with police under tons of pressure to make arrests and issue summonses for nonviolent offenses that aren't even against the law - anything to get poor people and people of color out of public view, and make the city safe for business and real estate to jack up the rents and make middle- and upper-class New Yorkers feel safer. Until now. This week, as a political ploy to put pressure on a mayor they say is their enemy, the NYPD has called off business as usual. The leading police union issued a memo telling all officers that "NO enforcement action in the form of arrests and/or summonses" is to be taken "unless absolutely necessary."  The result? Arrests have dropped by 90%. Think about that. The NYPD has just let us know that 90% of the arrests they make are unnecessary. "The reported offenses they aren't enforcing as much are [mostly] not criminal offenses: parking violations, urination in public, public intoxication, as well as some marijuana possession. Do we really want over 4,000 people a week locked up for peeing behind a dumpster?"  asked Marc Krupanski, a program officer at the Open Society Justice Initiative, in an article in Vice Magazine. Our members are the people who have been hit the hardest by broken windows policing. Homeless people face harassment and ticketing and arrest on a daily basis by the NYPD. The city spends billions of dollars to criminalize and persecute and arrest and try and incarcerate the poorest of the poor - but won't spend a dime of that on getting people housing. So we asked our members - what should New Yorkers learn from this work stoppage? Chris: This NYPD scare tactic is idiotic. They've basically just said to us "90% of the work that we do is unnecessary." All this taxpayer money being wasted to lock someone up for a bag of weed or someone peeing behind a dumpster? Dave: So all that crap with Broken Windows was unnecessary. That was overkill. The PBA is not the Policemen's Benevolent Association. It's PMA - the Policemen's Malevolent Association. Thirteen: I talk to cops. I talk to the brass, even. Police are not down with making bogus arrests. That's why top cops have been quitting. Unnecessary arrests just make people mad at cops. That's why people hate cops. When I was a kid the police knew everyone in the neighborhood. We need to get back to that model of community policing. Scott: They can do a lot with the money they save with this. A 90% reduction in the amount taxpayers spend on incarceration could pay for a lot of public restrooms... to say nothing of housing. Maria: They need to listen to what we have to say. They're wasting our time in courtrooms, making us miss work, getting us logged out of shelters, and now we see how unnecessary that was. Sidat: We need to drive home that they're not supposed to be arresting people in the first place. This is going to end - they're going to return to business as usual. They don't . So we need to get the public behind us to say "OK, you've admitted how little of what you do is about protecting people, let's do things differently."?   Andres: We need to hit the streets with cameras. Cop Watch. Keep them behind the law. Let them know someone is watching. Dave: They need to apply Broken Windows to Wall Street. Everyone who steals a stapler, every banker who gets a bonus for kicking someone out of their home. Send some lawyers to jail, let some rich people feel what it feels like, and you'll see things change pretty fast. The PBA, and individual officers, should be the ones held financially responsible for settlements of lawsuits. Having taxpayers pick up the bill for cops violating people's rights creates no incentive on cops to behave. Nikita: Our communities are missing so many resources. Housing, education - they need to take this money and use it in the neighborhoods they're systematically depleting through gentrification and overpolicing, so that we can uplift ourselves.  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend Support the leadership of homeless New Yorkers by making a tax-deductible donation today! Copyright © 2015 Picture the Homeless, All rights reserved. A message to friends, members and allies of Picture the Homeless. Our mailing address is: Picture the Homeless 2427 Morris Avenue 2nd Floor Bronx, NY 10468

DON'T PANIC - IT'S A GOOD THING!

Many tenants got two-page rent summaries and receipts today, and some people were confused about what they meant. I think some people thought they were behind in their rent, when in fact they were just fine. We're all legally entitled to rent receipts, by the way - but I, like many people, rarely if ever request one.

Even if you actually DO owe rent and are behind, the rent statement is potentially a good thing. Sometimes public assistance makes a mistake and doesn't pay (even though you may assume they're up to date), and H.S.I. may not tell you until it's been going on for quite a while, and at that point, you may be getting close to an eviction proceeding. Having the statement in hand gives you information you badly need - and allows you to go down to the Waverly or 16th St. offices to straighten it out before you wind up in Housing Court.

DON'T PANIC. Go down to the rent office on the second floor (not your case manager) and have them go over it with you. It's better to know more about this stuff than remain in the dark. Finally, H.S.I. has taken the initiative to do something right for tenants on their own.

ARE YOU HUNGRY?

IS IT GOOD NEWS OR BAD NEWS?

LOOK WHAT WAS POSTED ON RICHARD FIELDS' OFFICE DOOR!





Jeez.This is just a bit frosty, isn't it? He doesn't even merit the usual good-bye send-off that other departing usually get. Just "he's gone"! Poof! No indication of whether he was laid off, handed in his resignation, nothing, zip, zilch! I know he wasn't the most popular guy on the block, but really! Anyone have any idea what happened? Inquiring minds need to know! Comments are welcome.