2011: PTH AND HUNTER COLLEGE CITY WIDE VACANT PROPERTY COUNT

In December of 2010 PTH met with Peter Marcuse, sharing with him the results of our vacant property FOIR, and RTTC survey data showing thousands of units of vacant buildings and lots. He recommended we speak again with Tom Angotti at Hunter College and that month finalized an agreement to partner on a city wide vacant property count. With a public launch in February 2011, PTH recruited hundreds of volunteers, held borough wide trainings and borough based press events.

PTH led the historic first-ever city-wide Vacant Property Count, mobilizing over 275 volunteers, and partnering with dozens of community organizations, civic institutions, and community spaces from all five boroughs.

Arvernetta Henry: I knew that the mistreatment in the shelter system was devastating to children as well as adults. And so, we learned how to fight back. How to write chants, how to stand up to the government and say, “We're human beings. We're not a piece of meat that you can shuffle from place to place. We're not your commodity!

We don't believe that you have the right to keep us out of these vacant houses that I know for a fact is vacant.” And we learned how to go around and search for vacant property, how to log and research property and find out who was the landlords. Who owns this property? Why this property has been vacant so long?

Rob Robinson: And I think sometimes we're a little bit guilty of fantasizing about, “Okay, now they're going to open up all these vacant buildings around the city and let us in.” No, it’s not. But it's putting the issue front and center, and people are starting to talk about it.