NEWSLETTER Summer, 2011

Live monitor Image from Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation

DDP – TECHNOLOGY & THE COMMUNITY

Residents Sacrifice to Improve Safety!! Mr. John Johnson & NYC Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo

The DDP was a proud participant in the Community/Safety Memorial Event on May 5th held at Moore House.

Following three tragic deaths within NYCHA properties, Mr. John Johnson, President of the Bronx South District Council of Presidents, and Lou Torres, President of Moore Houses, reached out to the DDP to extend tenant-controlled technology and security participation to their developments. This was done expeditiously Joann Otero, Chief of Staff, NYC Council Member Arroyo, within an emergency-response time-frame. Anthony Rullan, Moore Houses Resident Association, and others at historic ceremony honoring residents who have We continue the work of furthering the DDP goal helped to improve security at NYCHA developments of spreading Internet /computer accessibility to all neighborhoods in a manner residents can afford and immediately benefit from.

Katie Malone, President St. Mary’s Resident Association Demonstrating the Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation

John Lemon, Tenant Association President Emeritus, The DDP is pleased to announce that 2,500 new St.Mary’s Houses, at the Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation apartments have joined the NYCHA community security and safety efforts through May 15th, 2011. “Thank You” to all those who supplied their organization’s expertise and resources to make this process of addition continue to happen.

Our members are dedicated to working to train resident patrols and other groups that the tenants designate to participate in expanded safety and security initiatives. DDP will be monitoring the sites closely with the tenants to determine the effectiveness and possible expansion of the initiative. Let us hear from your building about its needs!

Louis Torres, President Moore Houses Tenant Association, at the Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation installed there because of the tragic events

Robert Jackson, Treasurer, Lisa Smith, Advisory Board Member and Lou Torres, Moore Houses TA President Live monitor image from Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation “We requested DDP’s assistance to improve safety.”

Ms. Malone at a Tenants’ Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation

John Lemon at the Virtual Tenant Patrol Workstation completing The DDP is working to, among other initiatives his appointed monitoring hours outlined in previous newsletters, include school districts and park Wi-Fi “Cloud Corridors” to its expanding presence in the South Bronx and northern . As the first entity to Wi-Fi a State Park (Riverbank), we have reached previously unanticipated audiences and community groups. This fall, the DDP will again participate in the Senior Technology Fair at Riverbank and provide real hands-on experience with the latest broadband technology and health- care applications to senior NYCHA residents.

Let the DDP know about your plans for the next quarter. Text or email your plans to our headquarters, attention: Stuart Reid Video Images streamed live from Virtual Tenant Patrol monitor 347.4DDPUSA, [email protected]).

John Malone, at the St. Mary’s Virtual Tenant Patrol monitor

Yes, there’s beauty in our efforts too! (Live monitor Image of resident courtyard)

FYI to DDP Members – NYCHA Housing Article – December 2-8, 2010

Photo by Aline Reynolds Carmen Ortra, Extension T.A. president, right, with T.A. Vice President Deborah Givens, has been fighting for years to get surveillance cameras installed. Housing Authority tenants want cameras, more security

By Aline Reynolds

The Housing Authority has Residents of the housing development argue the neither the funds nor the personnel to implement cameras are unreliable guards against crime. all the security measures its residents want, such as monitored cameras and an enhanced Resident “Nobody‟s monitoring those cameras, so it Watch program. Yet crime has risen by 2.8 doesn‟t make me feel any better one way or the percent in Lower Manhattan‟s public housing other if the cameras are here,” said Mary Daez, a developments over the past year. Smith Houses resident.

NYCHA‟s Safety and Security Task Force, “If they had somebody looking at those cameras, created last year, is reviewing security and police and there was a fight escalating, then maybe they issues to improve its services. The task force will could have said, „Listen, there‟s a fight beginning soon release a report documenting NYCHA‟s at such and such a place, send a patrol car,‟ and security problems and solutions. But under the that could have been stopped,” said Mariainez current system, many public housing residents are Quinonez, another resident. afraid. Cameras indeed prove more effective when they At 2:53 a.m. on Sept. 1, armed men confronted are manned, according to Deputy Inspector Smith Houses resident Anthony Evans, 28, in the Thomas Hogan, who as the commander of Police playground facing the complex‟s 46 Madison St. Service Area 4 is responsible for the security of residence. Evans was shot in the head, torso and 25 Housing Authority developments. A recent right arm. He was taken to Downtown Hospital, analysis conducted by the Police Department where he was pronounced dead. revealed a dramatic drop in crime after cameras were installed. Surveillance cameras recorded the crime but were unable to produce a clear image of the perpetrator.

December 2-8, 2010

But camera protection doesn‟t come cheap. The “Nobody wants to put their life on the line, and technology is expensive, Hogan said, and that‟s basically what you‟re doing,” Steele said. “paying police officers to just sit there and watch would be cost-prohibitive.” And some tenants said they don‟t feel any safer with residents on patrol. This explains why out of NYCHA‟s 334 developments, only 15 — including Lillian Wald “They‟re little old ladies,” Johnson said. “If Houses in the East Village — have cameras that you‟re at gunpoint, what‟re you going to do? Sit are monitored 24 hours a day by the police. there and try to call the cops?”….

“Deciding which developments got them was Vertical patrols based on crime and cost of installation,” said In 1995, NYCHA entered into a mutual Hogan of the manned cameras. agreement with the city to allocate an annual sum, currently $73 million, to provide above- Other local developments, such as Seward Park baseline police services for its tenants. Extension on the , don‟t have any cameras at all. Carmen Ortra, tenants “This means that NYCHA is entitled to receive association president at Seward Park an enriched level of police services compared to Association, who has been fighting for cameras other landlords in the city,” explained Sheila for the past year, was told in the spring that Steinback, a NYCHA spokesperson. NYCHA doesn‟t have the money to install them…. Beginning at the ground floor, officers work their way up the stairwells of the projects, The Tenant Patrol program, founded in 1968, interrogating any loiterers they encounter along was renamed Resident Watch this year. the way. Since only 72 officers are available to patrol the roughly 170 buildings in Lower NYCHA spokesperson Eric Deutsch explained, Manhattan, the police focus their efforts on “While residents have volunteered for more than housing developments where crimes have 40 years to enhance the safety and security of recently transpired. their communities, Resident Watch is a response to residents‟ requests to improve collaboration DDP NOTES & QUOTES among them, NYCHA and the N.Y.P.D., and to figure out how best to reduce crime in public  Resident Empowerment begins housing”…. with access to broadband She (NYCHA Commissioner Margarita Lopez) technology emphasized the importance of residents participating in the program…...The more that  Every family needs a computer residents monitor their own developments, the less likely crimes are to occur, she said…. and access to the Internet

But Michael Steele, president of the tenants  Join Digital Divide Partnership association at Rutgers Houses, pointed out that efforts today! guarding buildings is potentially dangerous, and that even additional stipends are unlikely to ….Starting ahead of the curve attract many newcomers. for the People !!