Supportive Housing...

The Supportive Housing Network of NY (www.shnny.org)  is one of several organizations that H.S.I. belongs to; it's a professional networking and advisory organization that is trying to create new policies designed to deal with solving (chronic) homelessness. I'm posting this job posting because I wanted people living in the building to know what the qualifications are for the kind of person who's supposed to be helping to make decisions about what kinds of services they receive. Notice that there is NO mention of any requirement for ANY experience dealing with people who have been homeless, or may have mental health or substance abuse issues. This concerns me.

The Network Seeks New Executive Director  The Supportive Housing Network of New York seeks a dynamic executive director. The executive director leads a staff of eleven full time professionals and has the support of a talented and engaged board of directors. About the Network: The Network, which represents more than 200 nonprofits statewide, was established in 1988 as a membership organization of agencies that provide housing and services to vulnerable at-risk individuals and families. The Network supports the work of its membership through public education, research and policy analysis, advocacy, and training and technical assistance. The Network is a leading education and advocacy organization in New York State around issues of homelessness and vulnerable at-risk individuals and families, the impacts and benefits of supportive housing, and the need to expand access to supportive housing. The Job of the Executive Director: The executive director (i) provides the organization with executive leadership and strategic vision, (ii) oversees the organization's financial management and fundraising activities, (iii) organizes and implements the organization's policy, advocacy and programs, and, (iv) manages the organization's administration and personnel. Specific Job Responsibilities: Executive Leadership & Strategic Vision Articulate and adhere to a clear mission statement developed with the Board of Directors and Network's membership; Respond with creativity and initiative to emerging trends; Establish strong and effective working relationships with external partners, including City and State officials; Be the Network's principal spokesperson with government and media; and Shape relevant government policies and align these with the activities of the Network's members. Financial Management and Fundraising Establish strong, positive relationships with foundation and corporate supporters; Expand and diversify the Network's donor base; Ensure adequate financial controls and maintain sound financial practices; and, Operate within approved budgets to ensure that the Network is on sound financial footing with adequate cash flow and reserves. Policy, Advocacy and Programs Work with the Board and staff to identify and implement policy priorities and strategies to advance supportive housing in New York State. Develop and oversee the Network's core response to emerging policy issues that present strategic challenges and opportunities for the membership; Be the respected voice for the Network and its members within policy and advocacy discussions and negotiations and encourage and cultivate senior policy staff to also represent the Network; Effectively advance the Network's policy and advocacy agenda with state, federal and local officials; and, Demonstrate high quality analysis and good judgment in formulating and implementing the Network's policy and advocacy positions. Administration and Personnel Effectively delegate work to staff with appropriate levels of freedom, authority and responsibility; Encourage a work environment that fosters collaboration and professional growth; Ensure understanding and transparency around the organization's benefits and policies and procedures; and Work effectively with Board of Directors and its executive, finance and audit committees. Qualifications: Five to ten years progressively responsible experience within an advocacy or membership organization; Five to ten years experience in a policy or management position; Demonstrated leadership, strong inter-personal and exceptional organizational skills; A proven track record in corporate and institutional fundraising; A broad network of relevant professional relationships; Experience working with or in state and local government; Experience working within broad-based coalitions; Excellent public speaking and oral communications skills as well as strong written communication skills; A demonstrated ability to work independently and collegially in a campaign-style environment; and, Strong aptitude in managing organizations. Compensation: Salary commensurate with experience; competitive benefits package. To apply, send resume, cover letter and list of at least three relevant professional references to Domenica Meehan by September 30, 2014. NO PHONE CALLS PLEASE. The Network is an equal opportunity employer.

Forward email The Supportive Housing Network of NY | 247 W. 37th St | New York | NY | 10018

Interested in a Writing Workshop at Kenmore Hall?

I'd like to know whether tenants are interested in participating in a free writing workshop here at Kenmore Hall. It hasn't been scheduled yet - I'm trying to poll how many people would be interested in getting involved before I pitch the idea to management. I know a professional writer with a lot of experience working in other S.R.O.s and similar programs, and it's possible I could get him to do a similar program here.

Email me at kenmorehalltenantsassociation@gmail.com if you're interested.

In case you missed the fireworks this year...

I had almost a front row view from Brooklyn Heights, and it was not too crowded, either. I hated going to Chelsea Piers when the fireworks were on the Hudson - who wants to stand in a packed pen with a batch of nasty, rude, hostile cops all over the place? The crowd in Brooklyn's much more fun - and the view is better, too!

Why Revisit The Past?

Earlier this week, another tenant referred me to the article written by Mr. Powell for the NY Times about corrupt FBI informer "Tony" Merritt. (See the post immediately preceding this one). I wonder what the point is, really, except that it confirms that the government uses dirty tactics to accomplish its goals (DUH!) and that it's been a very long time since Kenmore Hall was even remotely a decent place to live. I don't see how coverage of old, nasty news addresses the issues that are problematic at Kenmore Hall today. The people mentioned in the article aren't tenants any more. Conditions aren't necessarily better now than they were then - they're different. Some of the current problems almost seem to contradict each other; we have several "populations" living in the building that aren't homogeneous and don't get along either with each other or with management, and management appears to be clueless about how to deal with any of the different groups. Tenants with severe problems seem to wander at will and do what they want, regardless of whether it makes their neighbors uneasy or actually poses a risk to them or staff (note the staff member who was recently attacked by a deranged tenant who is now back in the building). Other tenants who are competent, independent and well adjusted are asked by staff "what program they're in", and are lied to about their alleged obligation to participate in H.S.I.'s social services programs - they're treated as defective clients instead of as tenants. When tenants ask management and staff to be accountable for the services that actually matter, like having the Security Director provide a safe place to for all tenants to live where they don't have to worry about being assaulted or harassed by other tenants, they're told to call 911 if there's a problem because the front desk staff is not licensed as actual security guards. Management allows some potentially dangerous people move into the building - and instead of making it clear that their tenancy is dependent upon not creating a nuisance for other tenants or staff, they allow them to become stuck in cycles of behavior that are destructive not only to themselves but to others they come into contact with. Five years ago, it wasn't necessary to have plexiglass surrounding the front desk in the lobby; having it there seems to be a sign of the times - that the already lowered expectations that are part of living here are becoming even lower - it's a visual admission that the building is becoming more dangerous than it used to be.The plexiglass is not part of the Gramercy Park experience - it's much more along the lines of visiting a bodega or liquor store in a "rough" neighborhood in an outer borough.

Anyone have any suggestions for what positive change we should work toward?

Revisionist History? Truth Stranger Than Fiction? This article appeared last week in the NY Times

Takeover of Kenmore Hotel: Informer Recalls His Complicity

JULY 2, 2014

Inside

Photo

Earl Robert Merritt seen last week. He was an informer known as Tony when the government seized the Kenmore Hotel in 1994. Credit Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Gotham

By MICHAEL POWELL

Continue reading the main story

The Truth

It was as if the Fifth Infantry Division had come marching down East 23rd Street.

Late in the morning of June 8, 1994, police officers, federal marshals and F.B.I. agents invaded one of New York City’s grand temples of dysfunction: the 22-story, 641-room ulcer known as the Kenmore Hotel.

They ran into the lobby, which stank of mildew and urine. They ran up the stairs, as crack vials crackled beneath their feet.

They battered down doors and rousted residents in that vast rabbit warren. They arrested 18 tenants on charges of drug dealing; the tenants sat, dazed, in handcuffs on the sidewalk.

The takeover of the Kenmore was at the time the largest federal forfeiture to fight drug dealing in American history.

“The Kenmore Hotel has been permeated by violence and become a virtual supermarket of crack cocaine,” Mary Jo White, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, told reporters. Gov. Mario M. Cuomo visited the scene and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani held an all-points press conference.

Why not? It was liberation.

Photo

The hotel, a warren of 641 rooms on East 23rd Street in Manhattan, was notorious for drug dealing. Credit John Sotomayor/The New York Times

There is another, more unsettling version. Two police informers now claim that the conquest of the Kenmore was a dirty victory, another chapter in an era in which the police and prosecutors fought a blood tide of homicides, crack and heroin, and too often took disturbing liberties.

We love to congratulate ourselves on New York’s global reputation as a safe, even pasteurized metropolis. The informer’s tale suggests that the trail the city traveled had more disquieting byways than we realized.

A confidential informer, a man whose career in snitching for the police and federal agencies extends back to the Watergate era, said the assault on the Kenmore was constructed of illegalities. This informer, Earl Robert Merritt, described how he had worked with narcotics officers — before and after the takeover — to frame more than 150 Kenmore residents as dealers.

“I planted drugs, I planted guns, I made false reports,” Mr. Merritt said. “I was given a list — little stars by the list of tenants who I was supposed to set up.”

“I helped send hundreds of people out in handcuffs,” he added, “and I’d say 80 percent were innocent.”

Mr. Merritt, 70, who hobbles about with wrecked hips and two black canes, was an informer for nearly 40 years, according to federal and police records. The Manhattan district attorney confirmed that he had worked at the Kenmore; two officers said he was an excellent informer.

He named dozens of people he said he had set up. Some served prison terms, records show. After the takeover of the Kenmore, he said, he undermined its tenants’ association, again at the direction of federal agents.

Mr. Merritt took his accusations to the Manhattan district attorney last year. He said an assistant prosecutor in the mid-1990s had directed him to swear falsely that he had witnessed certain crimes.

A public-corruption prosecutor interviewed Mr. Merritt and pulled court files.

“Senior prosecutors have done extensive interviews with this informant, and followed several potential leads, but to date have not found provable allegations,” a law enforcement official familiar with Mr. Merritt’s allegations said. “But the file is open, and if more information comes to light it will certainly be taken seriously.”

Continue reading the main story

The district attorney’s investigation appears to have been confined to pulling court files. In eight months of interviewing dozens of people connected with the Kenmore, including former tenants, those arrested and police officers, I did not find one who had been questioned anew.

Mr. Merritt’s charges can be difficult to verify. Many former Kenmore tenants — impoverished, haunted by addictions and bouncing along the river bottom of life — have disappeared from the public record. By his own account, those whom Mr. Merritt fingered as drug dealers and illegally set up ran the gamut, from actual dealers to low-level drug users with mental health issues to tenant leaders who angered him or federal and city agents but were not dealing drugs at all.

Five people — two former tenants, a caseworker, a former lawyer and another police informer — confirmed Mr. Merritt’s core accusations. Three of the five spoke on the record. “He’d tell us a tenant was going to be arrested and the next day, out they went, out in handcuffs,” the former caseworker said. “They wanted to clean the place out, and they gave him lists, and he’d be swearing to God people were drug dealers.”

I reached Dominick Crispino, the former lawyer and tenant — who has since been disbarred and done time for larceny. “We kept saying Merritt was a tool of the government and told the courts he was setting people up,” he said. “If he’s coming clean, you can count on every word. He was one of the smartest people I ever tangled with.”

A quick-witted fellow with owlish eyes, Mr. Merritt lived in an ethical netherworld. He was a crack addict, and in the 1980s had been convicted of felony fraud and became a fugitive. (A judge later tossed out the conviction.)

In long interviews at his apartment off Fordham Road in the Bronx, however, Mr. Merritt rarely contradicted himself. Court records confirmed his mastery of details. He insisted that I portray him as deeply flawed.

“You cannot paint me with a halo on my head,” he said. “I’m a nasty son of a bitch.”

Three law enforcement agents described Mr. Merritt as a cunning informer.

If there was a hero at the Kenmore Hotel, it was Scott Kimmins, a tall patrolman known to lawbreakers as Stretch. Before the federal takeover, he walked the hotel stairs alone. He rousted and arrested dealers and comforted marooned innocents.

He came to know Mr. Merritt, who accused him of no illegalities.

“He was on the money, for the most part,” noted Mr. Kimmins, now operations director for the Flatiron 23rd Street Business Improvement District. “He’d mention a room, and sure enough, you’d see drug activity.”

Mr. Kimmins emphasized that he did not know the narcotics officers or their relationship with Mr. Merritt. He saw no need for illegal subterfuges. “That’s ridiculous,” he said. “You could be deaf and dumb and make a bust there.”

He said Mr. Merritt loved to tell tall tales of his supposed connections to intelligence agencies and Watergate.

Continue reading the main story

But as it happened, those tales were true.

Federal records confirm that Mr. Merritt worked with the Washington police and the F.B.I. to infiltrate left-wing groups in Washington in the early 1970s; that his police handler apprehended the Watergate burglars; and that he was interviewed by investigators for the Watergate special prosecutor, Archibald Cox.

Told of this, Mr. Kimmins chuckled ruefully. Years ago, he noted, he assumed the charges against the police officers accused of abusing Abner Louima were absurd. Those accusations, too, proved true. “I don’t believe Tony,” he said. “But I’ve been surprised before.”

Mr. Merritt offers his own caution: “A confidential informant is a very powerful character. We don’t need a badge or gun. And we ruin lives.”

Photo

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in 1996 unveiling plans for the restoration of the Kenmore Hotel two years after it was taken over. Credit Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times

THE KENMORE HOTEL had a seedy literary pedigree. It was a Gramercy Park refuge for Dashiell Hammett; Nathanael West worked as a night manager.

Its decline was baroque.

In 1985, Tran Dinh Truong, a shipping magnate who prospered mysteriously during the Vietnam War, arrived in the United States with suitcases full of gold bars. He bought the Kenmore as a tax shelter, and ran it with no regard for safety.

He filled the place with ex-convicts, prostitutes and addicts. He hired security guards who waved in anyone for a few dollars. Mr. Merritt, a moth to that flame, got a job.

“My main job was to hand out cash envelopes to the building and elevator inspectors,” Mr. Merritt said. “The only thing they inspected was their envelopes.”

Conditions inside grew hideous. An 86-year-old was murdered in the communal bathroom. A woman was strangled in her room.

For residents of Gramercy Park, an embattled middle-class pocket, the hotel visited miseries from burglaries to drug dealing.

By the early 1990s, federal officials had set their eyes on Mr. Truong and his wayward hotel. Narcotics officers and federal agents made more than 100 arrests and, records show, they relied on an informer: Mr. Merritt.

He is gifted at ingratiating himself. He could laugh with a dealer, buy vials of crack and smoke it. Then he would point out that man for the police. “If I didn’t like you, or the police wanted you gone, you were gone,” he said.

It was as if he was inhaling chutzpah. “It was too outrageous for even dealers to think he’d come right back the next day,” the former caseworker said.

Robert Chaney also worked there as a confidential informer. As pressure increased, narcotics officers plotted. “They would get really upset when they busted into a room and found nothing there,” he said. “They gave him drugs and maybe a gun and he’d plant it.”

Asked about this, Mr. Merritt nodded. “They would tell me which rooms to target, and I would slip crack behind a mattress or under the sink.”

Detectives taught him to set small fires, he said. Firefighters would batter down doors; the police would find crack and guns.

He got $50 per arrest, and $100 every time he testified to a judge.

Prosecutors guaranteed Mr. Merritt that he would not have to testify in public. They had suspects over a barrel: Serve six months in jail and leave the hotel — or we’ll imprison you for 20 years.

Continue reading the main story

SEEN from the remove of a safer city, those dark years now reveal signs of a dirty war. Too often, swaggering detectives and prosecutors eager for any victory broke rules and framed people. And confidential informers were given enormous latitude to set up people.

Eugene O’Donnell, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was a beat officer before he became a prosecutor. The occupational hazard in dealing with informers, he said, was that “your ears are open to what you want to hear.”

It was perilously easy, Mr. O’Donnell said, for an officer working with an informer to think nothing of setting up a hapless character with minor convictions.

“It dovetails with the problem of false convictions,” he said. “The real danger is that we get your rap sheet, and we see a track record of minor drug abuse, and no one loses sleep over your conviction. The ends justify the means.”

Mr. Merritt described being driven to the Manhattan district attorney’s office on a rainy evening. A prosecutor was typing statements for him, which he was going to swear to before a judge.

“Read this carefully and don’t stray from the statement,” the prosecutor told him, he said. “You’re going to have to swear to this. Do you have a problem, Tony?”

He said he looked at the prosecutor and asked: “So you want me to commit perjury?”

“I don’t want to hear that,” the prosecutor replied, according to Mr. Merritt.

After the takeover, Mr. Merritt said, federal marshals and the police told him to disrupt the tenants’ association. He and Mr. Chaney tore down notices and interrupted meetings and shrieked. An officer, he said, told him to vandalize Mr. Crispino’s car.

“He was very skilled and very scary; he could get you arrested in about five minutes,” said Sal Martinez, a tenant leader. “I complained and a federal agent yelled at me: ‘Merritt is working for us. Don’t get in our way.’ ”

There is no doubt the Kenmore is a safer, better-run place. Social services are provided; security is insistent. Maybe we’ll never know if more than 100 New Yorkers got walked out in cuffs and convicted on the basis of planted evidence and false testimony.

Or perhaps the ends justified the means, and it’s a door better left closed.

Except that similar raids occurred at other single-room-occupancy hotels throughout the city. Mr. Merritt worked as a confidential informer at a couple of those, too. This story, you see, may not end on East 23rd Street.

“This is not just a Kenmore story,” Mr. Merritt said. “This was happening everywhere.”

Email: powellm@nytimes.com
Twitter: @powellnyt

A version of this article appears in print on July 3, 2014, on page A19 of the New York edition with the headline: Takeover of Hotel: Informer Recalls His Complicity. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

Kenmore Hall's Outstanding Violations

If you're interested in finding out more about existing violations in the building, follow the link below

Department of Housing and Preservation Portal

and then click on Complaint History in the left-hand sidebar.

Watch Your Back (Because Security Won't)!

Last month, one of our front desk workers was attacked by a tenant with a knife in the lobby. An eyewitness said that the tenant ran up behind the worker as she approached the lobby restroom, grabbed her by the hair, threatened to kill her, and managed to cut her on the face before being removed. The disturbed tenant claimed that the worker had been flirting with her man; the irony is that this took place a week or two before the worker's wedding date. After the attack, the tenant was taken away in an ambulance, presumably to a local psychiatric ward.

Well, the tenant was spotted in the building again this week. She's back, and we have no idea what frame of mind she's in now.

This attack just goes to show that nobody's really safe in the building, in spite of all the cameras - some of which have been installed this year. CAMERAS DON'T PREVENT ASSAULTS or other crimes. They only provide a record of something that's already happened - after the fact. It's a case of closing the barn door after the horse has run away. We have an alleged security director who is invisible most of the time, and nobody on staff who is licensed to actually provide security. When there are problems, we're all told to call 911, and the local police precinct seems amused by calls from Kenmore Hall.

My question is this: why are dangerous people allowed to return to this building after they've attacked people? Anywhere else, something like this could be legitimate grounds for an eviction proceeding. Management seems to cultivate more and more people like this. It's perverse, because they don't hold themselves accountable to anyone who gets attacked and they do nothing to prevent the attacks in the first place.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS? RESPOND WITH A COMMENT.

Fwd: Rent Guidelines Board Final Vote | Weekly Update

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Met Council Update <active@metcouncilonhousing.org>
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 6:45 PM
Subject: Rent Guidelines Board Final Vote | Weekly Update

In This Update: RGB: What's at Stake?  RGB Hearings in Brooklyn and Queens | Know Your Rights: RGB Testimony     RENT GUIDELINES BOARD: WHAT'S AT STAKE? Mayor de Blasio was swept into office because a "Tale of Two Cities" resonated with the vast majority of voters. In our humble opinion, the first step to building a city that works for all of us - regardless of socio-economic status - is to ensure that New Yorkers can afford to live in New York. It appeared to members of the housing justice movement that Mayor de Blasio agreed. When running for office, he pledged to freeze rents. So the RGB vote has taken on a new significance - the RGB's decision will send a message about what sort of administration the new mayor will run. Our executive director, Jaron Benjamin, wrote about what a rent freeze would mean for tenants in the NY Times' Room for Debate section, and pointed out how many low-income tenants are in danger of losing their homes and becoming homeless. Keisha Jacobs, a leader with UHAB, talked to the New York Daily News about what a rent freeze would mean to her family. Read the story HERE. After More than 200 tenants gathered outside of the first Rent Guidelines Board meeting this year, (read coverage in the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal), the Rent Guidelines Board met on May 5th to vote on rent adjustments for the approximately one million rent regulated apartments in NYC. Tenants collectively pushed for a rent rollback because a reduction in rent would drastically help NYC tenants. Any reasonable person can see that NYC tenants need a rent rollback (or a rent freeze at the very least).  There were spikes in unaffordability for rent stabilized tenants during the Bloomberg Administration. For the last twelve years, landlord income has outpaced tenant's earnings. Since the recession began in 2008, landlords of rent stabilized apartments grew from $.35 on the dollar to $.40 on the dollar.   A rent freeze does not do enough to restore balance, which is why we called a rent rollback. But when the Rent Guidelines Board held their initial vote, the new board approved a range of increases from 0-3% for a one year lease renewal and 0.5-4.5% for a two year renewal. Despite our disappointment, we are cautiously optimistic that with more pressure and a continued presence, we can achieve a rent freeze. Wasim Lone, a long time tenant organizer, held a sign designed to hold the new mayor accaountable for his campaign promise. Read coverage about Monday's hearing in the NY Daily News HERE.  The new mayor's affordable housing plan relied heavily on the construction of new affordable housing. During the last decade, we lost far more affordable housing than we gained, and we can't build our way out of this crisis. We need an affordable housing agenda that focuses on the New Yorkers who were shut out of Bloomberg's plans. This agenda, in part, must include a rent freeze. Tenants have showed up in droves and have outnumbered landlords all year long. We have to keep up the pressure. If you haven't been involved in this year's RGB hearings, now's the time to do it. If you've been at every RGB event, bring your friends. Our actions will shape the future of the city, and will help determine who can live here. Rent regulated housing is the largest affordable housing program in the state, and the most important fight to protect it has begun. WHAT: Rent Guidelines Board Final Vote WHEN: Monday, June 23 at 6pm WHERE: 7 East 7th Street, the Great Hall at Cooper Union Please contact Joseph Loonam at joseph@metcouncilonhousing.org for more information, fliers, and organizing opportunities.     REMAINING RGB SCHEDULE  The Rent Guidelines Board is holding hearings throughout New York City. Go to go to www.nycrgb.org/html/about/meetings.html or see the chart below to find out when and where.   But most importantly, tenants need to turn out in great numbers and testify. This can seem daunting, but we've attached a short guide to testifying in the next section. This should help every rent stabilized tenant prepare to use their voice to speak out against unfair and unjust rent hikes.   Date Location Time Wednesday, June 18, 2014 Public Testimony Brooklyn Borough Hall 209 Joralemon Street Brooklyn, NY 11201 5:00 - 8:00 P.M. Thursday, June 19, 2014 Public Testimony Queens Borough Hall 120-55 Queens Boulevard Kew Gardens, NY 11424 5:00 - 8:00 P.M. Monday, June 23, 2014 Final Vote The Great Hall at Cooper Union 7 East 7th Street at corner of 3rd Ave. (Basement) New York, NY 10003 6:00 P.M.     KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: TESTIFY AT THE RGB The Rent Guidelines Board will vote June 23 to set how much landlords can raise rents on rent-stabilized apartments for leases beginning on or after Oct. 1. On May 5, it recommended that this year's increases be between zero and 3 percent for one year and between 0.5 and 4.5 percent for two. There are two public hearings left before the final vote, and the Rent Guidelines Board needs to hear from you. If you're a rent stabilized tenant living in either Queens or Brooklyn,  We believe that a rent freeze—or better, a rent rollback—is justified because of the high increases the RGB has granted over the last several years. Here are some points to make while testifying at the public hearings: Talk about the economic hardships you're facing. Do you live on a fixed income? Have you lost your job? Are you are supporting your children or other members of your household? Are you are working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet? The RGB should consider the incredible hardship that any increase at all will cause to many low- and moderate-income tenants, whose incomes have not kept up with the cost of living—and especially with rising rents. For example, the smallest rent increase the board has ever voted, 2 percent for one year and 4 percent for two, is twice as much as the raise city teachers and transit workers just got. Landlords don't deserve more rent, and should bear their fair share of the economic burden in this city because their profits are increasing, even since the recession began. If you have received an MCI increase over the past 10 years or so, talk about how your rent has increased more than the RGB guidelines. For example, if you received an MCI last year and signed a two-year lease, your rent would have increased by 13.75 percent—the RGB guideline of 7.75 percent and the 6 percent allowed for MCIs. Talk about how these permanent rent increases affect your ability to pay your rent. If you moved into your apartment less than a few years ago, did your landlord claim a vacancy increase or an Individual Apartment Improvement increase before you moved in? That means they've raised your rent by far more than the RGB guidelines would normally allow. Compare the increases your landlord has received to the increases you have received in income. How much was your rent ten years ago, and how much is it now? How much was your income ten years ago, and how much is it now? For example, say "In 2004, my rent was ___, now it is ____. In 2004, my income was ___, now its ___." If you are now spending more than 30 percent of your income on rent, that is more than what the federal government defines as a hardship for tenants. Make sure you include that fact in your testimony. Today, half of rent-stabilized tenants are paying more than about 35 percent of their income in rent. Almost 1/3 are paying more than half of theirs. If you know for sure that your building's owner is a predatory-equity landlord who has overpaid for your building and is actively seeking to drive tenants out and raise rents high enough to get the apartments deregulated, include this in your testimony. For more information or to sign up to testify, go to www.nycrgb.org/html/about/meetings.html, or contact us at joseph@metcouncilonhousing.org.     MET COUNCIL IN THE NEWS **Please note that the Met Council on Housing is not and has never been affiliated with the Met Council on Jewish Poverty in any way**  "Justice Denied: A Call for Action in Our City's Housing Courts" - Gotham Gazette (by CM Levine & Jaron Benjamin) "A Guide to Tenants Rights" - The Brian Lehrer Show "Affordable Housing Plan to Cost NYC $8 Billion" - Wall Street Journal "AirBnB Subpoenaed by New York AG" - ABC7 Eyewitness News "City Council Committee Moves Williamsburg's Domino Refinery Deal Forward" - Metro NY "Progressive Groups want More Affordable Housing" - NY Daily News "De Blasio Picks 5 Members for Rent Board" - NY Times "With Rent Hike Battle Ahead, De Blasio Appoints Members" -Wall Street Journal   The Met Council on Housing is dedicated to fighting for safe, stable, affordable housing for more than 50 years. Visit us on the web at www.metcouncilonhousing.org Click here to stop receiving our emails. 339 Lafayette Street #301 New York, NY 10012 United States

 

--
"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

We've had some interesting things posted on the building's bulletin boards recently. One is potentially misleading, and the other is an interesting commentary on building security policies. Let's start with misleading:

This could ONLY be of value to tenants who have children under the age of 18. THIS IS NOT AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR FREE LUNCH FOR ADULTS! Nobody in this building is eligible for this lunch program - so I'm wondering what motivated staff to post it in the first place? I've had several tenants ask me about this sign in the last day. (By the way, I'm willing to bet that anyone in the building who's reasonably actively involved in parenting their kids already knew about this program - I've known about it for years; my son is in high school.)

And on to the next one:

Hmmm. Let's see now. This one isn't signed, which makes me wonder, has Ralph Garcia gotten so lazy that he's just phoning stuff in now? He probably called the front desk and told one of the workers to type this one up for him. Whatever. It's another case of too little, too late. We've seen memos like this before; people have been tossing crap out the windows for the past 5 years, probably longer. Hania Schwartz sent one of this around back in 2009; Dan Danaher notoriously had one of these parked on every tenant's door one day in 2010, and that one threatened legal action and police involvement. Tenants throw crap out the windows on the airshaft side of the building almost every night; you can't see it, but you can HEAR it clattering all the way down. It's a miracle that the skylights over the first floor haven't been totally destroyed yet. About six months ago someone was throwing wads of newspaper covered in feces out the windows over 23rd Street (how revolting). So my point is this, for starters: does staff really, honestly believe that posting memos makes this kind of behavior stop? If so, they may need check ups from the neck up. Please. This is just another example of what happens when you have a building with the (I'm trying to be polite) "diverse" population we do, and little or no regulation of the extreme cases. I know, I know, "everybody deserves a home", including drug addicts, drunks and mental cases, but when you decide to incorporate the level of "diversity" that we have here and NOT MONITOR the extreme cases, this is what happens. We have one tenant who regularly sleeps in the lobby, bragging that he gets the best sleep there because he feels "like a rat in a hole" up in his room. He's STILL occupying the lobby nearly every day despite being hauled off for evaluation not long ago (probably because he knows how to work the system and come off humble, meek and respectful in front of a psychiatrist when he knows he could get locked up in a psych ward for a long period of observation for letting loose with his usual angry, hate-filled monologues).

Security policies in the building don't regulate the people who really NEED regulating. All of us get punished for the outrageous behavior of a few; we no longer have full access to our own lobby and community room because a curfew was imposed after some tenants had altercations there. It wouldn't occur to security to ban the problem tenants and let the others continue using the space appropriately, quietly and peacefully. Our rights are being chipped away because we have to "tolerate" those who don't know how to live normally. A member of our front desk staff was recently attacked by a tenant who apparently had a long standing grudge against her; it happened at night when Mr. Garcia wasn't on premises, but I wonder what his response would have been even if he HAD been here. The front desk area wasn't always covered in plexiglass, protecting staff from tenants - which means that conditions are getting worse in the building. This, by the way, is in spite of the addition of more surveillance cameras.

If you want to read a longer, more detailed discussion about the lack of real security in the building, scroll down and find the post from February 15th of this year. And keep in mind that the stock answer you'll get from most staff members here is that tenants should call 911 if there is an emergency or problem. WHY DO WE HAVE A SECURITY DIRECTOR ON PREMISES if that is the standard way of dealing with an emergency?

What do YOU think about this? Again, please feel free to post comments - they can be anonymous.

Fwd: DEADLINE EXTENDED: FAC Advance Affordable Housing Advertisement

From: Fifth Avenue Committee <facleasing@fifthave.org>

Date: Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 3:57 PM
Subject: DEADLINE EXTENDED: FAC Advance Affordable Housing Advertisement

Having trouble viewing this email? Click here

Fifth Avenue Committee's  Renovated Apartments for Rent DEADLINE EXTENDED TO: JUNE 13 For details on the program and apartments, please refer to the earlier post on this blog

IT'S ABOUT TIME!

Just after 4 p.m. this afternoon, a Beth Israel ambulance and a police car were idling in front of the building, and Molly Mattimore, Francesca Rossi, Kristi Kimmerle and Dan Danaher were seen hanging out nearby. They seemed to be waiting for something, or someone...

After about 15 minutes, several E.M.S. workers and two police officers went into the building accompanied by Ms. Rossi. Butch was seated in the lobby in his usual spot, and the police officers approached him and started talking. Apparently they were there, with the E.M.S. staff, to take him to the hospital to have a medical evaluation. He wasn't much interested in the idea, and claimed he sees a doctor here on Thursdays, and stated that he doesn't trust doctors. The officers asked him whether he had anything dangerous on his person, and he said he had a cellphone. They asked again and clarified, explaining that they were interested in weapons. Long story short, he wasn't technically being arrested, but the evaluation wasn't an optional "suggestion", either.

It wasn't pleasant watching a neighbor being hauled off to the hospital that way, but his behavior in public has been extremely unpleasant for a very long time. It's one thing to be drunk, loud, repetitive and hopelessly boring on a regular basis - but quite another thing to repeatedly rant and rave about how depressed he is, get up in peoples' faces, gesturing wildly, yelling at the top of his lungs, practically ordering other tenants to get out of his way and leave him alone just because they also have the misfortune of being near him while he's occupying the lobby (most of the time, they were already sitting there when he walked in) - and then threaten to stab people in the heart. Most of his ranting and raving is about how much he hates other people, and is quite racist and bigoted. He's also threatened to attack a certain tenant's son. For the past few months, he's been looking so out of control that a number of people have wondered how long it would be before he actually snapped and got physical with people. He flipped out after a community meeting several months ago after several tenants brought up the fact that it would be nice not to have the curfews applied to the community room and lobby any more, and one tenant pointed out that one of the problems with the curfew is that it's a response to folks like Butch getting into altercations and sleeping in both areas.

Our Security Director's response to violent activity in the building is usually to tell people to call 911. We have surveillance cameras all over the building monitoring what tenants are doing - and several have been added in the last year. The lobby and community room have had curfews applied in response to altercations between a few tenants; the curfew affects the entire building. Management has no problem banning tenants it doesn't like from using the computer room or going on movie trips because those are "privileges" rather than "rights". I'd love to understand the logic behind allowing violent, chemically dependent tenants to carry on in threatening, disturbing ways in common areas of the building for prolonged periods of time without banning them because they're creating a nuisance AND potentially unsafe conditions in common areas. The rest of us who pay rent (which covers use of both the lobby and community room) and DON'T create a disturbance when we use those areas are being punished twice - first when we have to put up with people like Butch, and then again when our rights are restricted by Security.  Cameras don't prevent problems or crimes. Follow up by live humans who are willing to be accountable for the job they're being paid to do would make more sense. Ralph Garcia makes a lot of rules, but the rules are illogical and don't make the building any safer for the majority of the tenants.  If you want more details on what I think about security inside of Kenmore Hall, look at the material I posted on February 15th, which is salvaged from my first tenant blog. Take a look at the post from January 17 for more commentary on use of the lobby and community room.

By the way, H.S.I.'s version of "supportive housing" doesn't help people like Butch out at all; he's one of their most perfect candidates for "help" because he fits the profile that HUD and various supportive housing networks and advocates have been pushing over the past few years. He was homeless for over 20 years (if that isn't a definition of chronically homeless, I don't know what IS) and he's clearly alcoholic - he stinks like a brewery most days, and the drunker he gets, the meaner he is. Drinking affects his personality. See the video clip in the sidebar to the right for a very brief example. Although H.S.I. claims that Kenmore Hall is a permanent supportive housing facility, they have a track record of completely ignoring some of their more extreme tenant-clients for long periods of time, letting them run amok while they interfere with their neighbors. These tenants are struggling with a cluster of problems and issues that need to be dealt with, and which H.S.I. is supposed to be receiving government funding to address - but they're totally dropping the ball. Part of what supportive housing is supposed to accomplish is assisting people like Butch become more self-sufficient and independent, able to function more normally and maintain their income and housing so they don't become homeless again. H.S.I. claims to be able to deliver this type of program more efficiently and cheaply than many other alternatives. Where's the proof?

I'd love to hear what others think about this. Feel free to comment.

Butch was back in the lobby by midnight, sitting in his usual chair. I guess the hospital didn't keep him for observation or treatment. Or maybe he just walked out on his own.