THE NEWS MAGAZINE OF NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AND NEIGHBORHOODS • DECEMBER 1984 • $2.00 BEBIND CLOSED DOORS FEA.,UBEI A Women's Residence/Pdge 14 Behind Closed Doors. .. 9 How the Clinton community had to fight to open the planning process for the neighborhood's biggest project ever. A Women s Residence Battles to Stay That Way ........................ 14 One of a declining number of women's residences in the city, the tenants of the Longacre Hotel are feeling a new type of displacement. Short Term Note. Deadly Eviction . .. 4 STATEMENT OF OWNERSmp, MANAGEMENT AND Racial Arson in Bronx .... ...... .. ........ 5 CIRCULATION Chase Loans Stalled . 5 Required by 39 U.S.C 3685 A Planned Confusion Over City Contracts . .. 6 TIde of Publication: Cil}' Umits. Publication No.: 498890. Dale of Filing: 1119/84. Frequency oflssue: Monthly, except bimonthly in June/July and August/September. No. of issues pub­ Housing Grants Come to Town . 7 lished annually : 10. Annual subscription price: $15 individual, 535 instihltion. CompIeIe mail· j No Tenant Funding for Boro Park . .. 8 ing address of known office of publication: 424 West 33rd Street, New York, NY 10001. Clinton Wins its Garden .. ... .. ........... .8 Complete mailing address of the headquarters of general business offices of the publisher: same as above. Publisher: Cil}' Limits CommuniI}' Information Service, Inc. Editor: Torn Senior Repairs-For Free. .. .. .. .. .. 8 Robbins, 424 West 33rd Street, New York, NY 10001. Managing Editor: N/A. Owner: Cil}' Limits CommuniI}' Information Service, 424 \\bt 33rd Street, New York, NY 10001. Known Legislation bondholders, mortgagees, and other securil}' holders owning I percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: none. The purpose, function and nonprofit stahlS Axing Taxes in Cuomo's Albany .............. 18 of this organization and the exempt status for federal income tax purposes (I) has not changed during preceding 12 months. Organizel Average no. of copies Actual no. of copies of each issue during single issue publ ished Turning the Tables on SRO Harassers ......... 20 Extent and nature of circulation: preceding 12 months nearest to filing dale Total no. copies (net press run) 2500 2500 People Paid circulation Out of the Shadows. .. 22 I. Sales through dealers and car· riers, street vendors and counter Tactics sales: 200 200 When the City Forecloses ................... 24 2. Mail subscription: 1700 1700 Total Paid Circulation: 1900 1900 Cityview Free Distribution by mail , carrier Election Lessons .......... .. 27 or other means, samples, com· pi imentary, and other free copies 400 400 Review Total Distribution 2300 2300 Copies not distributed Cuomo's Diaries ........................... 28 I. Office use, left oyer, unac· counled, spoiled after printing 100 100 Letters ... .. .. .. ..... .. ....... ..... ... .... 29 2. Return from news agents 100 100 Resources/Event•.. ... ....................... 30 Total 2500 2500 I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complele. Workshop ... ........... ....... .. .. ... .... 31 Paul Smith, Business Manager. CITY LIMITS/December 1984 2 Volume IX Number 9 City Limits is published ten times per year, monthly except double issues in June/July and August/ September, by the City Limits Community Informa­ tion Service, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to disseminating information concerning neighbor­ hood revitalization. The publication is sponsored by three organizations. The sponsors are: Associationfor Neighborhood and Housing Develop­ melli, IfIC .• an association of 36 community-based, nonprofit housing development groups, developing and advocating programs for low and moderate in­ come housing and neighborhood stabilization. Prott Institute Celller for Comnwnity and Environ­ melllal Developmelll, a technical assistance and ad­ vocacy office offering professional planning and architectural services to low and moderate income community groups. The Center also analyzes and m0- nitors government policy and performance. Urban Homesteading Assisl4nCe Board, a technical assistance organization providing assistance to low in­ come tenant cooperatives in management and sweat equity rehabilitation. Subscription rates arc: for individuals and commu­ nity IlrouPS, $IS/One Year, $2SITwo Years; for Busl­ nesaea, Foundations, Banks, GoYernment Agencies and Libraries, S3S/One Yeat, $SOfl\w Years. UMt in­ come, unemployed, $9/One Year. City Limits welcomes comments and article contri­ butions. Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope for return of manuscripts. Material in City A few blocks from : where the Times Square Redevelopment Plan will Limits does not necessarily rclJcct the opinion of the sponsoring organizations. Send correspondence to: be launched, dozens of Clinton residents wait on line lor government cheese. CITY LIMITS, 424 \\\:at 33rd St=t, New York, N.Y. To lind out how city and state government responded to community concerns 10001. Postmaster send change of address to: City see "Behind Closed Doors" on page 9. ' Limits, 424 W. 33rd St. , New York, N.Y. 10001. Second·dass postage paid New York, N.Y. 10001 City Limits (ISSN OI99~330) (212) 239-8440 EdItor 10m Robbins AssIstant EdItor Annette Fuentes CI~uIatioo Manager Paul Smith Copyright 1984. All Rights Reserved . No portion or portions of this journal may be NEW YEAR'S CHANGES reprinted without the express permission of the publishers. City Limits 'January 1985 issue will have a different look in a number of departments. City Limits is indexed in the Alternative Press Index. These design changes are being adapted to make the magazine more attractive, reada­ ble, and, most of all, more useful to our sub~cribers . Be looking for them next month and let us know what you think. Typesetting and Layout by Advance Graphics Along the same lines, we'd like to remind you once again that reader response, sug­ Design by Connie Pierce gestions, article submissions are especially important to this magazine .. We know from our mailing list just how varied our readership is. Why not let our mail bag reflect that variety more often? City Limits is the magazine of all those who seek improved condi­ tions in our neighborhoods. Please take advantage of what is surely one of the most open-and pro-community-forums in New York.D 3 CITY LIMITS/December 1984 DEADLY EVICTION HE EVICTION-KILLING OF T Eleanor Bumpurs on October 29 has evoked heated discussion on the role of the . police, racism and the breakdown of city bureaucracy which might haw pmented the whole incident. Almost ignored has been the central issue of the policy and practice of eviction. Though rarely fatal, eviction is itself a harsh sentence for thousands who face economic hardship. If Bumpurs were alive today, she would be condemned to homelessness. "It's outrageous," comments lawyer An­ drew Scherer at Community Action for Le­ gal Services. "It symbolizes the outrageous nature of evictions. Nobody should be evict­ ed for non-payment, especially in public housing." There were 6,m evictions conducted by city marshalls last year. In public housing, there were 440 evictions for non-payment of rent; S8 evictions were carried out for other reasons. The process of evicting a i tenant from public housina is initiated by the project manager often is early as one month after a missed payment. "Everyone who is I one month late ,ets a dispossess notice, DemonItratorl at NMmber .,... Bronx protelt rnareb .. which can ultimately lead to an eviction," ac­ vices doesn't take seriously its responsibil­ moratorium on foreclosures and did some cordina to Val Coleman at the Housing ity to pay rent for those on public assistance." research on how tenants could be included. Authority. The vast majority of those who Scherer and other Housing attorneys are But the bill died in the House." receive dispossess notices, says Coleman, proposing that the Department of Social Ultimately, say housing and tenant avoid further action by coming up with the Services provide legal representation to advocates, eviction must be seen in the con­ rent. tenants who are threatened with an eviction text of a housing crisis that every day con­ One assistant project manager in the action by the Housing Authority. sumes more and more victims. "It's Bronx said that the Bumpurs incident had A moratorium on evictions for econom­ important to look at the whole picture," traumatized both tenants and Housing ic reasons is also being pushed on the state Radosh insists. "Evictions, co-op conver­ Authority staff throughout the borough. But level by tenant advocates. At the city's sions and rent increases based on Major he noted that management can and does seek Metropolitan Council on Housing, a com­ Capital Improvements all contribute to out the kind of help that blocks evictions not mittee working on evictions and squatting homelessness. We don't just need new low­ only out of job dedication but as the result formulated a petition last spring for a income housing and shelters; we need to of systematic review. Yet that same system moratorium on eviction that asked for city, stop the evictions and conversions which badly failed Eleanor Bumpurs. state or federal funds to pay rents for those can result in homelessness." Woodrow at Increasingly, tenant advocates insist that with hardships. "A number of people on the NTU points out that "For six million peo­ those who cannot scrape together the money housing committee, such as (Assemblymen) ple in the city who pay half their incomes to stave off an eviction should have an alter­ Barbaro, Montalto, and Murtaugh said it in rent, there are going to be more and more native to living on the streets, in city shelters was great. We spent time over the summer economic emergencies over the year." He or crowding into apartments with family or shaping it as a bill. The problem will be in forsees an increase in squatting and eviction friends. "We're calling on the city for a the Senate;' says Susan Radosh at the blockades by community organizations. For moratorium on evictions," say~ Scherer.