NYN Review July 2015 by New York Nonprofit Review

MEDIA - REVIEW DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

Issue N°4 JULY 27, 2015

NEWS

NYC GENTRIFICATION

HELPING PARKS FLOURISH

p. 14

p.15

CLOSE TO HOME PROGR AM

A PROMISING FU NDR AISING YEAR

p.16

.... Read more page 17

C OV E R S T O RY

LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO ¾ HOUSES

MENTORS KEY TO VETERANS COURT SUCCESS

.... Read more page 18

THE COST OF KOSHER

By FR ANK G. RU N YEON

.... Read more page 12

CEO CORNER

FRONTLINE HERO

‘A META-NONPROFIT’

ADINA LICHTMAN

Brooklyn College and Columbia University. He plans to step down as executive director of NPCC in October. Sharon Stapel is slated to take over. The following has been edited for space and clarity.

Q&A with MICHAEL CLARK E X ECU TI V E DIRECTOR, NONPROFI T COORDI NATI NG COM MI T TEE OF N E W YORK

ince 2005, Michael Clark has

led the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, which represents approximately 1,500 member nonprofits. His previous work includes 19 years as the head of Citizens Committee for New York City, as well as teaching positions at SUNY Downstate Medical Center,

NYN: YOU’RE STEPPING DOWN FROM YOUR LEADERSHIP POSITION AT NPCC, WHICH YOU HAVE HELD FOR QUITE SOME TIME. WHAT WAS YOUR INITIAL INSPIRATION FOR GETTING INTO THE NONPROFIT WORLD, AND WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN AS THE BIGGEST CHANGES IN THE SECTOR OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR CAREER? MC: I came up out of the social change movements of the 1960s and 1970s. I organized migrant workers in Oklahoma. I was, at Cornell University and at the University of Tennessee before that, involved in civil rights issues. I taught at a school that was 75 miles north of where Martin Read more page 9

he best way to find out how to

help people,” Lichtman added. After some investigation, Lichtman discovered that even though socks are considered an absolute necessity to the street homeless community, they represent a very small portion of overall clothing donations—and are one of the easiest articles of clothing for many community members, especially college students, to donate. “I started that very night, going to door to door in my NYU dorm,” Lichtman said. Read more page 7

help is often to ask those you aim to serve. Adina Lichtman came to this realization on a chilly November evening in New York City. “I was handing out sandwiches to those experiencing street homelessness when one man approached me,” Lichtman said. “He told me, it’s great that you’re giving out sandwiches, but one thing we really need is socks, especially as winter approaches.” “Here I was, sandwiches in hand, assuming that I knew the best way to

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July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

JULY 2015

CATEGORY INDEX

THANK YOU TO OUR ANNUAL SPONSORS! AABR

Jawonio

Abbott House

JCC of Greater Coney Island

Acacia Network

JCCA

Anderson Center for Autism

Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services

ANDRUS Astor Services for Children and Families The Bridge Brooklyn Community Services CAMBA CASES Center for Children's Initiatives Child Care Council of Suffolk, Inc. Child Development Support Corp. Children's Aid Society Children's Home of Poughkeepsie Children's Village Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies COFCCA Community Mediation Services Concern for Independent Living The Day Care Council of New York The Doe Fund EAC Network East Side House Epic Long Island Episcopal Social Services Family and Children's Association FedCap Federation for Protestant Welfare Agencies Forestdale Good Shepherd Services Graham Windham Services for Families and Children Green Chimneys Harlem RBI Health and Welfare Council of Long Island Heartshare Human Services of NY Henry St. Settlement Hope House Hour Children Human Services Council Independence Residences Institute for Community Living Institute of Applied Human Dynamics InterAgency Council of Developmental Disabilities NYNmedia.com

TRADE TIPS

4. Business of Your Nonprofit: Love IT or List IT 5. Building Your Brand: The Power of Acronyms 6. Grant Tips: Communicating Your Collaborations

NOTABLES

7. Frontline Hero: Adina Lichtman, Knock Knock Give a Sock 8. Agency of the Month: Citymeals-on-Wheels 9. CEO Corner: Michael Clark, NCCNY

NEWS

The Keon Center LaSalle Leake & Watts Services

10. City Landlords to Cut Staff and Repairs, Blaming Rent Freeze 11. Helping Hungry Seniors 12. The Cost of Kosher 13. Rats vs. Alley Cats 14. Stemming the Tide of Gentrification 15. Helping Parks Flourish 16. Close to Home Program 17. Cashing in on a Promising Fundraising Year 18. Long-Term Solutions to Three-Quarter Houses

Lenox Hill Neigborhood House LESC K Life's WORC Long Island Adolescent & Family Services

SPOTLIGHT: VETERANS

20. Mentors Key to Veterans Court Success 21. Perspective: U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand 22. Above & Beyond: Honoring Those Who Serve

Mercy Haven Mercy Home for Children MercyFirst

CAREERS

New Alternatives for Children

25. The go-to career center for New York’s nonprofit industry

New York Asian Women's Center New York Common Pantry The New York Foundling

EVENTS

26. Featured nonprofit events throughout New York State

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Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

TRADE TIPS

BUSINESS OF YOUR NONPROFIT

LOVE IT OR LIST IT: IS IT TIME FOR NEW SOFTWARE? By THOMAS M. DEWAR

“L

ove It or List It,” a popular TV show, pairs homeowners with a Realtor who helps them find their dream home and a designer who tries to transform their current house into their dream home. In the end, the homeowners must choose to either keep the newly renovated home (“Love It”) or sell it to purchase the new one (“List It”). Only a computer geek like me would watch this show and think, wow, I wish we could create a show like that for software. I would not recommend holding your breath until the networks hire me to knock on your doors for “Love IT or List IT: Geek Edition,” but I do recommend using the same approach when considering whether or not to make an IT change. Follow these six tips, and you’ll make a better and more informed decision on whether you need to get rid of your software or if it just needs a little TLC. 1. Talk to your users. Don’t consider making a change without speaking to the people who actually spend their time using the software. What do they love and hate about it? Do they want something else? What do they need to do that they cannot do now? 2. Evaluate your current solution the same way you evaluate your other options. When is the last time you saw a product demo of the software you use? I have seen demos where users get excited about a “new feature” that they have had in their current software all along. I also find that the way you implement and use software can be more important than the software itself, so speak to different companies that use it.

You can learn a lot by asking other users about what they do and what their most and least favorite features are. Another important question to ask: As a decision-maker, have you ever used the software yourself? In the same way you cannot evaluate a house without stepping inside, you can learn a lot just by trying it out. 3. Do a true cost-benefit analysis. New software implementation is expensive. Make sure you evaluate all the costs, including training, down time and data conversion. Ask if your software could be better utilized, or customized to work better so you can avoid scrapping it and starting over. 4. Check your timing. Is your industry about to make some major change that might force you to switch again in the next two years? You might be better off waiting until the dust settles. 5. Make your decision for the right reasons. Software should be a strategic advantage. In the same way an old home can be “historic” and has stood the test of time, older software can have more mature business rules that improve functionality, reduce data entry errors and have fewer bugs. The platform on which the software runs may be outdated, but that might not matter unless it creates problems with accessibility or interoperability. Virtualization—or the ability to create a modern, virtual platform to support the application—has been a game changer and will keep software running safely forever. All that matters is that you have something that meets your needs. 6. Check your emotions at the door. If you are having a midlife crisis and want to boost your ego, get a

Porsche, not a big new software system. And don’t dump perfectly good software because you can’t stand the software company’s CEO. (Special note to software companies: If your brilliant CEO is not a brilliant people person as well, keep the CEO doing what the CEO does best—running the company and building great software. Send your brilliant people person to interact with the customers. Too many times I have heard about an organization that wanted to get rid of software because they didn’t like the company’s CEO.) In many cases, getting new software is the right decision, but only if the decision process is sound. Buying new software is a major investment in time and money and should be treated as such. So if you are look-

ing to change, evaluate what you have just as you would evaluate your other options and respect your investment by training your users and developing business practices and reports. Your collected data is also an investment that you may not be able to migrate. Also, if you are replacing something home grown, do not just throw it away. Explore selling it. The intellectual property may have more value than your real property. It would be great if a TV show could do all of this hard work and make your choice easier. But if you take the time to do it right, you will feel much better about your decision. Thomas M. Dewar is the chief information officer at Leake & Watts Services Inc.

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July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

TRADE TIPS

BUILDING YOUR BRAND

THE POWER OF ACRONYMS IN REBRANDING NONPROFITS BY RON GOLD

nyone who deals with nonprofits is used to working with a bewildering alphabet soup of acronyms—OPWDD, OASAS, OMH, etc. However, we have found that there are times when an acronym is a good thing, especially when nonprofits need to rebrand themselves when their mission or scope of services changes. For example, we have a client that was established in 1952 to serve children with epilepsy and was thus called the Epilepsy Foundation of Long Island. Over the years, they expanded to also serve individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health challenges. In 2013, they changed their name to EPIC Long Island, an acronym for Extraordinary People in Care, to reflect the broader range of programs and populations served. “We could have done this a long time ago,” said Tom Hopkins, EPIC’s CEO and execu-

likely to give us a call.” Similarly, another client, founded in 1950 as United Cerebral Palsy of Queens, had expanded to serve individuals with autism, Down syndrome, seizure disorders and brain injuries. By 2001, less than a third of the people they served had cerebral palsy, so they changed their name to Queens Centers for Progress. We encouraged the agency to use the acronym QCP in their marketing materials, as it was shorter, catchier and easier to remember. And the client is pleased with our recommended rebranding strategy. Sometimes an acronym can take on a meaning of its own, apart from its original intention. The Association for Special Children was founded in 1966 to provide services for young children with Down syndrome. Over time, as with EPIC and QCP, the agency expanded to include a wider range of programs, age groups and popu-

services, family support, service coordination and, most recently, creative individualized living and self-directed work opportunities. “We want families, sister agencies, the government and the general public to be aware that we have grown, and that our former name was really a misnomer,” says Executive Director Raymond J. DeNatale. “We discussed it with our board of directors, executive administration, and Marketing Works, and decided to change our name to IRI.” The agency plans to grow through affiliations and collaborations with other nonprofit agencies that share a common mission and will consolidate offices with their affiliate Queens Parent Resource Center in September. For some clients, it’s better to rebrand away from an acronym, as is the case of client Lifespire, a leading New York City-based nonprofit that provides a full range of services to

adults with developmental disabilities. Founded in 1951 as the Association for Children with Retarded Mental Development, or ACRMD, the board of directors decided in 2000, long before they became our client, to change the name to Lifespire to reflect the organization’s mission of “helping individuals reach life’s aspirations.” Ron Gold is the president and CEO of Marketing Works PR, which offers an extensive range of branding, public relations, event management, marketing and community relations services to nonprofits, especially those that lack the resources to perform these functions internally. He also founded The Nonprofit Voice weekly radio show that discusses issues affecting the special needs and behavioral communities of Long Island. The show is broadcast live on Saturday morning on Long Island News Radio 103.9 FM.

Building Your Make The Road New York members march in support of immigrant tenants’ rights. tive director. “Having epilepsy in our name may have pushed away some of the very people who could benefit from our services. I’m sure a lot of people were bypassing us and we didn’t even know it.” Although EPIC changed their name shortly before they became our client, we helped them spread the word by including a brief paragraph about EPIC’s new name, broader range of programs and additional populations served in all their marketing materials—press releases, news articles, awards and media interviews. As EPIC’s story became more well-known, we used the phrase “EPIC LI, formerly known as …” Now, they simply go by the name EPIC LI. “In the past, if a parent was looking for a local provider for a child with mental or developmental disabilities, they’d see the name Epilepsy Foundation and assume we couldn’t help them,” Hopkins said. “With the name EPIC, they’re more NYNmedia.com

lations, including those with autism and other developmental and genetic-based disabilities. In 1999, they changed their name to Association for Children with Down Syndrome, but are legally known as ACDS, and modified their tagline to, “Serving children and adults with Down syndrome, autism, and other developmental disabilities.” However, to the public and those they serve, ACDS is simply their name, and few people realize what the acronym actually stands for. For others, the meaning of an acronym can change over time. Our client IRI was founded in 1984 by parents who wanted to create homes for their loved ones and others with multiple types of developmental disabilities, and was originally known as Independence Residences, Inc. Over the past three decades, the agency grew to include a robust network of supports including crisis intervention, day habilitation, employment

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Issue N°4

July 2015

BY LUZ M. RODRIGUEZ AND K ATIE CASEY

COMMUNICATING YOUR COLLABORATIONS

TRADE TIPS

MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

ollaborations, alliances and other types of organizational relationships—formal or informal—are often key drivers of successful outcomes for many projects. If your nonprofit is working with other organizations, local businesses, government agencies or community stakeholders to reach its goals, this is important information to include in your grant proposals. A good discussion of your collaborations will capture all the direct and indirect benefits of your partnerships. Impress the funder with how carefully you have selected and nurtured your collaborators and identified all the not-so-obvious benefits of those relationships. Are you referring your clients to supportive services beyond your program scope? Are you engaged in joint programming with other similar or complementary agencies? For example, if your summer day camp is bringing in a local dental clinic to do free checkups, you’ll want to let funders know how this partnership is helping kids who may not otherwise have access to adequate dental care. When you describe your network of alliances, include all the relevant collaborators you may already have, or hope to have, that serve to strengthen your program. Be sure to consider any and all with whom you may be exchanging information, sharing resources or otherwise providing mutual support. And remember, some of the best collaborations are longterm relationships that live beyond the

scope of one project. You can search for real-world examples of how other nonprofits are working together at Foundation Center’s free Nonprofit Collaboration Database. Luz M. Rodriguez is a training specialist and Katie Casey is director of capacity and leadership development at the Foundation Center. The Foundation Center seeks to strengthen the social sector by advancing knowledge about philanthropy in the U.S. and around the world. For more information visit www.foundationcenter.org.

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July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NOTABLES

FRONTLINE HERO By JEFF STEIN

ADINA LICHTMAN FOU NDER, K NOCK K NOCK GIVE A SOCK

he best way to find out how to help is often to ask those you aim to serve. Adina Lichtman came to this realization on a chilly November evening in New York City. “I was handing out sandwiches to those experiencing street homelessness when one man approached me,” Lichtman said. “He told me, it’s great that you’re giving out sandwiches, but one thing we really need is socks, especially as winter approaches.” “Here I was, sandwiches in hand,

assuming that I knew the best way to help people,” Lichtman added. After some investigation, Lichtman discovered that even though socks are considered an absolute necessity to the street homeless community, they represent a very small portion of overall clothing donations—and are one of the easiest articles of clothing for many community members, especially college students, to donate. “I started that very night, going to door to door in my NYU dorm,” Lichtman said. “To my surprise I collected over 40 pairs of socks in a single night, from a single floor. The next morning, I walked out of my dorm room to find a huge pile of socks from others who had heard what was happening.” Lichtman began recruiting other likeminded NYU students to form Knock Knock Give a Sock, an organization that has since expanded to include representatives on 25 different college campuses and has distributed over 30,000 socks to the street homeless population. Lichtman has also enlisted corporate sponsors, such as the sock manufacturer Planet Sox, to join the organization in matching donation campaigns.

Lichtman says that she is continually surprised by the far-reaching impact socks can have. “Many of our clients go through several pairs of socks over the course of just a couple of months in an attempt to stay warm and dry,” Lichtman explained. “The doctor at a medical clinic we had delivered socks to realized that he could use socks as an incentive for clients to come back for necessary tests and examinations.” The offer of a clean pair of socks has been enough to encourage patients to come back for uncomfortable— and potentially live-saving—examinations, such as mammograms and Pap smears. One client returned for a pair of socks and ended up receiving an examination that found breast cancer in the earliest stage. “These socks have really saved lives in ways I never could have imagined,” Lichtman added. Lichtman hopes that her team can continue to expand the organization’s scope within New York City, and hopes for sock donations to become as much about community connectivity as helping the homeless. “We are working towards branching out beyond college communities

into office spaces and apartment buildings,” Lichtman said. “Imagine if New Yorkers began to get know their neighbors by knocking on their doors and asking for a pair of socks for those in need,” she said. “What a great city we could create if every building had the goal of becoming a community and meeting the needs of others.” Lichtman says she is grateful to be part of a generation that is dedicated to social change, but maintains that her experience has shown that this spirit cuts across demographics. “None of us are getting paid for what we do; it comes solely from the desire to make the world a warmer place,” she said. “I don’t know exactly where this desire comes from, but as a college student, I can say confidently that we’re not the only ones who have it.” “We’ve collected thousands of socks, an undertaking that simply is not possible for five people on a single college campus,” Lichtman continued. “We’ve found that doing good is contagious, and I believe our organization effectively engages communities to give in a way that is possible even if people are short on time or money.”

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Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NOTABLES

AGENCY OF THE MONTH

CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS By JEFF STEIN

uch has been written about the “graying of America,” and New York City is certainly not immune to this phenomenon. Currently, 1.4 million of the city’s inhabitants are senior citizens (age 60 and older), and with some experts anticipating as much as a 45 percent increase in that number over the next decade, city and nonprofit agencies are intent on keeping up with the growing demand for services. Given this reality, Citymeals-onWheels, an organization that delivers millions of meals a year, provides an increasingly essential lifeline for homebound elderly New Yorkers. “The people we serve are the people who built New York,” said Citymeals-on-Wheels Executive Director Beth Shapiro. “They are the fabric of our city, from every ethnic background that you can think of.” Citymeals-on-Wheels’ clients are among the city’s most vulnerable citizens: 73 percent live alone, 40 percent rarely leave their homes and 8 percent have no one to talk to other than the

partnership between Citymeals-onWheels and the Department for the Aging. Today, the two form a public-private partnership wherein Citymeals-on-Wheels funds and provides support for weekend, holiday and emergency deliveries for department meal programs, tallying an impressive 2 million meals for 18,000 se-

volunteers who deliver their meals. The organization was founded in 1981 when Gael Greene, a New York restaurant critic, read that homebound seniors were not receiving essential meal deliveries on the weekends or holidays due to gaps in government funding. Greene mobilized her friends, including the re-

I LIKE TO SAY THAT THE MEAL DELIVERY IS NURSING THE BODY AND THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR IS NURSING THE SOUL nowned chef James Beard, to raise money specifically for meals for the elderly. After collecting $35,000, Greene approached the city’s Department for the Aging and as a result, 6,000 meals were provided to homebound elderly over the Christmas holiday. What began as a single donation has blossomed into a long-standing

niors each year. Shapiro says this partnership is not just about helping those in need; it’s also a cost-effective approach. In partnering with Citymeals-onWheels, the Department for the Aging is able to take advantage of the federal government’s “cash in lieu of commodities” program, which reimburses the city 67 cents for every meal

underwritten by the organization. “The city gives $1.8 million for these meals and gets $1.4 million back from the federal government,” Shapiro said. This is just one of the ways, Shapiro explains, that Citymeals-onWheels serves a city that must find holistic solutions to serving its elderly population. Perhaps the most meaningful service that the organization provides, Shapiro says, is a human connection for a population desperately in need of companionship. “In one case, a Citymeals volunteer checked up one of our recipients right after Hurricane Sandy,” Shapiro said. “It turned out that she had fallen on the other side of the door and broken her hip. Our volunteer was able to get her immediate help.” Shapiro says that in many cases, Citymeals volunteers spend more time with recipients than anyone else in the seniors’ lives. “I like to say that the meal delivery is nursing the body and the knock on the door is nursing the soul,” Shapiro said.

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July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NOTABLES

CEO CORNER

Q&A with MICHAEL CLARK EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NONPROFIT COORDINATING COMMITTEE OF NEW YORK

ince 2005, Michael Clark has led the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, which represents approximately 1,500 member nonprofits. His previous work includes 19 years as the head of Citizens Committee for New York City, as well as teaching positions at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn College and Columbia University. He plans to step down as executive director of NPCC in October. Sharon Stapel is slated to take over. The following has been edited for space and clarity. NYN: YOU’RE STEPPING DOWN FROM YOUR LEADERSHIP POSITION AT NPCC, WHICH YOU HAVE HELD FOR QUITE SOME TIME. WHAT WAS YOUR INITIAL INSPIRATION FOR GETTING INTO THE NONPROFIT WORLD, AND WHAT HAVE YOU SEEN AS THE BIGGEST CHANGES IN THE SECTOR OVER THE COURSE OF YOUR CAREER? MC: I came up out of the social change movements of the 1960s and 1970s. I organized migrant workers in Oklahoma. I was, at Cornell University and at the University of Tennessee before that, involved in civil rights issues. I taught at a school that was 75 miles north of where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, so it was hard not to get involved in civil rights work in Tennessee in those years and, for that matter, probably today. Those are the issues that moved me like a lot of people my age in those days. And then I began to get involved in some actual nonprofit organizations that were working on some of those issues. A notable one was something called the Health Policy Advisory Center, which was a shop that put out an advocacy magazine that covered health politics in New York City. I did a certain amount of muckraking, and also did a certain amount of direct advocacy trying to change the city’s health policies in what we deNYNmedia.com

fined as a progressive direction. That is sort of my inspiration. Before that, I guess you could say I was inspired to a substantial degree by Pope John XXIII. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools, and I went to high school in the era of Pope John XXIII, who was my generation’s version of Pope Francis, a sort of social change, social progressive type pope. So I thought this was what any moral individual ought to be doing in those days, and so did lots of other people my age. It is not an accident that all those social movements just came popping up. So I got inspired from that end, and then as I got into working on some of those issues, and deeper into what it would take to create institutional change, and to move things forward in a more lasting way, I got more and more interested in nonprofit organizations. NYN: THE NPCC IS SORT OF A META-NONPROFIT, AND REALLY GETS TO EXPERIENCE BOTH SIDES OF OPERATING AND SERVING NONPROFITS. COULD YOU GIVE US AN OVERVIEW OF WHAT THE COORDINATING COMMITTEE DOES? MC: We do three basic things. We have a big government-relations committee that tracks all the potential regulations and other laws that affect the way nonprofits operate. We try to not only keep our own performance on track, so that nonprofits are accountable, transparent and effective, but we also run workshops and do a lot of education work for nonprofit organizations so that they are performing in ways that are admirable and appropriate. Second of all, we do a lot of what is called “capacity building.” It’s one of my least favorite terms, but it really comes down to helping nonprofits perform better—help the managers of nonprofits manage better, help the board members do a better job of governing. And, at a bit more of a granular level, we make sure that nonprofits are achieving results, not

just putting some big puffy mission statement on a wall and then doing whatever they feel like, so that they have some accountability there for the results of their work. And then the third thing we do is we help nonprofits save money. We’re in the business of negotiating discounts on a lot of things we have. I think at the moment we have 15 discount programs for our members. We have a membership dues structure, which is a sliding scale where the bottom level is $35 per year and the top level is $1,500 for all different size budgets of nonprofits. There are organizations that have an annual budget of $5,000 and organizations that have an annual budget of $30 million to $40 million, so there is a huge range of types and our dues structure mirrors that. For those dues-paying members, we provide about 50 to 60 workshops every year, but we also provide all these discounts that allow them to save money on the business basics for nonprofits—everything from directors and officers insurance to the office supplies and various kinds of other things that nonprofits have to have to do their business. NYN: I KNOW THAT A BIG PART OF WHAT THE COORDINATING COMMITTEE DOES, IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE NEW YORK COMMUNITY TRUST, IS THE NONPROFIT EXCELLENCE AWARDS. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THE AWARDS GENERALLY, AND ALSO HOW YOU DISTILL AND PACKAGE SO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT BEST PRACTICES? MC: If you are busy running a nonprofit—and you generally are very busy—then you just do not have the time to do endless research. You need an organization like NPCC to be your sort of repository, your portal into all of that. We created a number of things. We do about 60 workshops for our members every year, but the Nonprofit Ex-

cellence Awards program is actually our finest hour. We looked at all the standards of excellence programs, and the principles and practices programs of all those other associations around the country that set some certification floor. Instead of setting a floor, we decided to be aspirational. We want to see what excellently managed nonprofits look like, because we think you learn more from excellence than you do from adequacy. So we began to study that question of what does exceptional leadership look like in eight key areas, such as tracking the results of your work at the program level. But there are a lot of other issues that people may not think about from a distance that are quite important: Does the board function well? Does it get along well with the executive director and do its appointed job of overseeing some parts of what the executive director and staff do? Does it manage its finances wisely? We work on communications. Nonprofits today have to have a very robust communications agenda, both for outgoing and incoming communications, as well as social media. We look at human resources practices. Nonprofits, of all organizations, should be treating their employees and volunteers in admirable and exemplary ways. In each of these areas we have basically been scanning the heavens around the country. The New York Community Trust became our title sponsor for this program about six years ago, and we’re very happy to have them, because they are the largest grant-making foundation in town to New York City nonprofits and New York City-area nonprofits. They have the same problem—they have to figure out what are the right criteria for excellence. So they joined us, and we have a number of other foundations that support the program. To view the full interview, visit www.NYNmedia.com

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

CITY LANDLORDS TO CUT STAFF AND REPAIRS, BLAMING RENT FREEZE By FR ANK G. RU N YEON

he New York City Rent Guidelines Board’s historic decision to freeze stabilized rents with a zero-percent increase on one-year leases late last month has tenants celebrating and landlords fuming. Now, representatives for the city’s landlords say their constituents may forgo maintenance and building services on their properties due to the board’s decision to freeze rents on stabilized apartments. “You can’t have costs that go up and rents that are frozen in place,” said Jack Freund of the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents the interests of the city’s landlords. “That’s not a practical way to run buildings.” Though landlord and tenant advocates disagree on many of the basic facts surrounding the rent freeze, they do agree on one disconcerting forecast: Landlords for over a million tenants of rent-stabilized units will cut services or neglect building repairs and maintenance in the near future. With that in mind, tenant advocates have urged nonprofits serving low-income clients to ask them about their housing situations and make sure they are both safe and stable. If a landlord is not performing important repairs and maintenance, tenants have the option to organize in the building to press for changes or they can call 311 with questions or complaints. There are a few nonprofits that will provide professional maintenance services for certain renters in need. Metropair, a city project run by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, provides free handyman services for disabled seniors. The service makes basic repairs for tenants at no charge if they are at least 60 years old, live in New York City and can show financial need. While a spokesperson for the organization says they’re the only such citywide service for renters, some neighborhoods have local groups that can help. Owners insist that the costs of maintaining their buildings have outpaced the rent they receive from tenants in stabilized units for over a decade. They cite data that show building expenses will increase 6 percent while rent-stabilized tenants will only pay a 1 percent increase in their rent over a two-year period. “Ultimately, if this keeps up—and I believe these inordinately low increases will continue—then owners are going to have to cut back somewhere,” Freund said. Some of the largest expenses, like oil for heating

A TIMELINE OF RENT INCREASES ON STABILIZED APARTMENTS ALLOWED INCREASE ON A ONE-YEAR LEASE RENEWAL PERCENT (%)

The first time it ever hit zero.

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and hot water, are fixed by city regulations mandating that landlords provide those basic services. This may leave other maintenance or service expenses on the chopping block. “If you don’t have the money to put into the building, you know who’s going to suffer?” Freund asked. “The landlord will suffer, but the tenants will also suffer.” Tenant groups disagree with this logic. “I think the landlord objections to a rent freeze are not only false, but laughably offensive to tenants,” said Ilana Maier at the Metropolitan Council on Housing, noting that landlords have made record profits in the last decade. “The idea that they’re going to have to cut back on services is absurd. So if landlords stop giving services, it’s because they’re greedy. Not because they’re having financial problems.” Potential problems in apartments will vary based on whether a tenant’s building owner is a large management company or a small operator, landlords say. For larger buildings and management companies that employ more workers, problems could stem from layoffs. One major owner of rent-regulated apartments told RSA that they are planning to cut staff, Freund says. For smaller building owners, property upkeep, cleanliness and maintenance will likely be postponed or neglected, landlords say.

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“My phone is ringing off the hook every day, people are so disappointed and disgusted,” said Chris Athineos, head of the Small Building Owners of New York, who also rents stabilized units. “We talk about preserving and creating new affordable housing, but we have to preserve the affordable housing that we have now.” Athineos is weighing what maintenance and repairs he will forgo on his own buildings as a result of the decision to freeze rents, he said. A prewar building he owns needs to be completely rebricked, but he can’t afford to do that. It’s just one example of the kind of half-measures landlords are going to have to take, he explains. “You have a leaking roof. It creates mold, mildew in top-floor apartments. Are you considering putting on a new roof? No, you're just going to patch it. More patches, more patchwork.” Without income that goes above and beyond the buildings’ operating costs, Athineos and others argue, landlords have to shift from a proactive, preventive maintenance approach to a reactive approach, because they say they simply don’t have the funds to take on major projects like replacing plumbing or reroofing an apartment. “It’s frustrating. I want to do the right thing,” Athineos said, adding that he runs violation-free buildings and has good relationships with his tenants. “These are my customers, I

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want to provide them the best service I can. But it’s very hard to do when your income is so severely restricted.” Small operators will be the most affected by these rent freezes, according to several landlord advocates. All this could lead to a flight of responsible landlords from the city, building owners warn. “We’ve been through this cycle of disinvestment before,” Freund says. “Hasn’t happened in a while, so maybe people are short on memory. Nobody on the board probably lived through that period of time when the Bronx was burning.” Tenant groups dismiss such gloomy forecasts and reject landlord claims that the Rent Guidelines Board’s decision was unfair. Building owners in New York City, they contend, are still turning a profit every year. The Rent Guidelines Board essentially agreed. The board, which voted 7 to 2 to freeze rents, cited a consistent rise in landlords’ income after expenses over the last decade. While tenant advocates may not believe that building owners won’t have enough money to take care of their buildings, they do believe landlords when they threaten not to make repairs. “Now they have an excuse to do it,” Maier said. “But they’ve been doing it for so long that it’s just going to be another day in a stabilized unit.” NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

HELPING HUNGRY SENIORS By SUZANNE TR AVERS from CITY LIMITS

t the Dyckman Senior Center in Inwood, one of dozens across the city, clusters of seniors sit at long tables talking and eating a lunch of chicken and rice with a side of green beans, for which they’ve each paid $2. Such congregate meals have much value, advocates for the aging say, reducing isolation and providing a nutritious, hot meal—for some seniors the only one of the day. According to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger’s 2014 annual hunger survey, an estimated 10 percent of seniors—some 170,000— are “food insecure,” which the city’s Department for the Aging defines as having “an insufficient household budget to be able to purchase food that will provide the nutritional content needed for good health.” From 2011 to 2013, nearly 18 percent of seniors in Brooklyn and 17 percent of seniors in the Bronx were food insecure, the survey found. Adequate nutrition is particularly important for seniors because the impact of an insufficient diet on health can be devastating. Malnutrition makes seniors more likely to suffer from diabetes, depression, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, heart attacks, gum disease and asthma. According to the National Council on Aging, seniors who skip meals may become lightheaded, increasing their chances of a fall. Providing meals and food support is much less costly than potential hospitalization or nursing home care, which in New York City averages over $100,000 a year. Last month, panelists from DFTA, along with its nonprofit arm, the Ag-

having been born in another country, Hodin Baier noted. “Given the rent burden, a lot of people are literally deciding between, ‘Should I have a second or third meal today or am I going to pay the rent or get high-blood-pressure medication?’” Hodin Baier says. In response, some organizations are expanding their services to seniors. Citymeals-on-Wheels, a nonprofit that partners with the

lived their savings, they’ve outlived their friends, family, even their own children sometimes. For us, bringing food to their door is a very cost-effective way to keep people in their homes.” DFTA and the city’s Human Resources Administration are also engaged in a push to enroll more seniors in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. As of 2013, there were

seniors and immigrants. The campaign includes video public service announcements featuring two older New Yorkers, as well as signs in bus shelters, subways, bodegas and barbershops. The campaign also includes a new website, FoodHelp.nyc, which includes information about how to apply for SNAP benefits, notes HRA spokeswoman Laura Hart. Although federal funding cuts for SNAP mean seniors have seen their

A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE LITERALLY DECIDING BET WEEN, 'SHOULD I HAVE A SECOND OR THIRD MEAL TODAY OR AM I GOING TO PAY THE RENT?' ing in New York Fund, and a handful of other organizations that provide food for the aging, participated in a discussion in Harlem on what they called a growing crisis of senior food insecurity. The problem is particularly pronounced in the upper Manhattan neighborhoods of East and West Harlem, Washington Heights and Inwood, where “older people are significantly more likely to be of low income than in the city overall,” according to Ali Hodin Baier, Aging in New York Fund’s executive director. That’s in part because there are much higher rates of immigrant seniors in those neighborhoods, with 75 percent of seniors in East Harlem NYNmedia.com

city to deliver about 40 percent of all home-delivered meals to homebound seniors, operates a mobile food pantry. The organization now delivers a bag of shelf-stable groceries to clients two to four times a month after realizing that about 8 percent of its clients were living on the one meal a day they received due to limited income and an inability to leave their homes, says Executive Director Beth Shapiro. Sixty-six percent of Citymeals’ 18,000 clients are women, Shapiro says, with an average age of 82—although more than 200 clients are 100 or older. “People just didn’t think about living this long,” she says. “They’ve out-

375,000 city residents age 60 and older enrolled in SNAP, two-thirds of whom were immigrant seniors. HRA estimated that another 174,000 seniors qualified for the program but were not enrolled. Although nationally, seniors report not applying for SNAP out of shame or concern they would be taking food from needy children, in New York City, language barriers, fear of government and the complex process of applying are reasons eligible people don’t enroll, the Coalition Against Hunger found. In April, the de Blasio administration and HRA kicked off a citywide outreach campaign targeting areas with high under-enrollment among

benefits drop—Queens resident Caesar E. Barber’s SNAP money was reduced from $200 to $189 a month last year—increasing the number of New Yorkers enrolled in SNAP puts money in their pockets without costing the city. Citymeals also recently funded a case manager tasked with enrolling meal recipients in SNAP. Changes to the enrollment procedures mean seniors are no longer required to leave the house to enroll, though the process is proving to be more lengthy and involved than the group had anticipated, given the time it can take some seniors to locate and gather the necessary paperwork.

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

At last month’s senior hunger panel, Hodin Baier said federal support for nutrition programs is crucial, and said Congress should restore funding for the Older Americans Act, which funds congregate and home-delivered meals and other programs, to “at least fiscal year 2010” levels. She says better data collection is required to show that SNAP provides substantial economic benefits to local economies, and that the Older Americans Act’s nutrition program keeps Medicare and Medicaid spending lower by keeping seniors in better health. DFTA and nonprofits are also working to expand participation in the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program, which features, for instance, classes on how to prepare local produce, which immigrant seniors may not be familiar with. Barber, 69, says the farmers market program stretches his food stamps, since “for each $10 you spend, you get $4 free, so you get $14 worth of food.” HELP FOR WORKING SENIORS DFTA does have job training and employment services for those age 55 and older who meet income limits through its Senior Employment

Services Unit, which works closely with Workforce1 and has decades of experience placing older workers in job sectors like data processing, food service and home care. Still, for seniors who need or want to keep working, age discrimination in employment is “a huge problem,” says Bobbie Sackman, a veteran advocate for the aging. “The workforce is walking away from 50- and 60-yearolds.” The Council of Senior Centers and Services changed its name to LiveOn, Sackman says, to reflect the idea that older people continue to live and contribute, and to combat the idea that just because someone is older they are not worthy of social and monetary investment. Nationally, the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, which says its mission is to improve “the longterm financial security of women through education and advocacy,” has many resources on its website to provide women with information about financial planning for retirement, noting that “even if you have to start small, it is better than not saving at all and will add up over time.” In New York, DFTA’s focus is on helping today’s seniors struggling with poverty. But a new initiative

from city Public Advocate Letitia James and Bill Samuels, founder of the reform group Effective NY, proposes to create “retirement security for all” by pooling workers’ contributions into a single pension fund. James and Samuels were at a City Council hearing this week on legislation to form a retirement security review board of experts that would evaluate several proposed options from the City Comptroller’s Office for how to implement such a fund. Effective NY has been working toward this goal since 2011, and while specifics have not been worked out yet, “there seems to be broad-based enthusiasm for setting up a retirement fund of this type,” says Morgan Pehme, Effective NY’s executive director. GOOD NEWS IN THE BUDGET New York City has an extensive and long-standing network of service providers and support for seniors. Even programs not directly focused on income support can have an impact. The city has increased funding for mental health services at senior centers, and the budget agreement worked out upped its support for preventing elder abuse, which often

takes the form of outright theft or financial fraud. Parks and libraries continue to be heavily used by seniors (Barber says checking CDs out from the Queens Public Library constitutes his main form of entertainment). LiveOn’s Sackman says the city would benefit from a comprehensive planning process in which all city agencies and programs considered what impact an aging population will have on the work they do. City Council member Margaret Chin applauded the budget’s allocations for home care services for 500 low-income, home-bound seniors who have been on a waiting list, for expanded elder abuse prevention and intervention services, and for the mayor’s inclusion of units with social services for seniors in his affordable housing agenda. Sackman says she’s pleased the budget reflects “some steps forward in recognizing the needs of seniors and that this is a rapidly growing population in the city.” But she adds, “It’s still a mountain to climb.” This story originally appeared on citylimits.org as part of a three-part series looking at the challenges facing the aging in New York.

NEWS

THE COST OF KOSHER Pantries help Jewish families struggling to pay for more expensive food By ALICE POPOVICI

abbi S. and his wife, who live on food stamps, disability payments and some income from part-time work, rarely splurge on treats like fruit and macaroons. But despite their no-frills budget, they have to buy the more expensive kosher meat, cheese and vegetables. It’s a requirement of their Jewish faith. “Eating non-kosher is a sin,” said the 66-year-old rabbi who asked not to be identified to protect his family’s privacy. “We have no other option.” The couple have been coming to the kosher food pantry at the Jewish Community Council of the Rockaway Peninsula ever since they moved to Far Rockaway three years ago, after the rabbi lost his job at a Long Island synagogue and suffered complications from an illness. Around Passover and other holidays, “our needs are especially great,” he said. The average number of clients who visit the pantry each month has climbed from 400 before 2012— when Superstorm Sandy devastated Far Rockaway—to 2,000, said Nathan Krasnovsky, the organization’s executive director. He estimates that about a quarter of them are Jewish and struggling to pay for kosher

food—mainly young families with many children and seniors on Social Security benefits. “Before Sandy hit, you just had the neediest of the community relying on us,” he said. “But now you have the middle class relying on us as well.” In the New York City area, more than 500,000 people in Jewish households are impacted by poverty—and by extension food insecurity—according to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Of this group, the majority are Russian-speaking seniors who live alone, followed by people living in Orthodox households and non-Russian-speaking seniors. A study conducted by the organization in 2011 found that Jewish poverty in the New York area has grown by about 50 percent since 2002, a trend that mirrors broader patterns across the state and nationwide. “Food insecurity is a very serious problem in the Jewish community,” said Alan Schoor, CEO of the Met Council, which supplies food to 33 kosher pantries throughout the five boroughs—including the one in Far Rockaway. “The cost of kosher food is a particular challenge.” Estimates of how much more expensive kosher food is than non-ko-

sher food range from 20 percent more expensive to nearly twice as expensive. The added cost has to do with the preparation and packaging of meat, dairy and some vegetables. Kosher chicken or beef is more expensive because the slaughter of the animal—the draining of the blood and deveining of the meat—has to be supervised by a certified rabbi, said Rabbi Binyomin Lisbon, CFO of Kosher Supervision of America in Los Angeles, the country’s largest certifier of kosher foods. Cheese preparation has a different set of requirements because the enzyme used in fermentation has to be kosher—in this case meaning not an animal byproduct. And because kosher regulations prohibit the eating of insects, he said lettuce and other vegetables have to be thoroughly rinsed before they are packaged. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that food insecurity has not yet decreased to pre-recession levels even though the economy has improved and unemployment has gone down. According to the agency’s study, one reason food insecurity remains relatively high nationwide is that food costs have increased in recent years.

To meet demand in New York, the city increased funding to the Emergency Food Assistance Program by more than 20 percent this year, said Mark Levine, chair of the City Council’s Jewish Caucus. He said lawmakers are working on an initiative that would add kosher and halal meals to the Department of Education’s free breakfast and lunch program available at schools and libraries. Many in the city’s Jewish community “are facing difficult choices,” Levine said, having to decide whether to pay for food, pay their rent or pay for medicine. “It’s a challenge.” In Far Rockaway’s tightly knit Jewish community, Krasnovsky said pride sometimes prevents people in need from reaching out to the Jewish Community Council for help. “They don’t want to be seen in those lines” of people waiting for food, he said. But more often than not, food is a client’s entry point into the agency. “When it comes to the point where they can’t eat, they’ll come in,” Krasnovsky said, and that’s when social workers will connect them with other services such as health care or employment resources. “If they’re struggling with food, there’s a lot more going on in that household.” NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

RATS VS. ALLEY CATS The battle to improve public health By FR ANK RU N YEON

ity Hall announced a $2.9 million campaign against New York City’s vermin last month, an increase of over $2 million from last year—a sign that Mayor Bill de Blasio is going all in on a new strategy to eradicate Gotham’s squeakiest pests. The multimillion-dollar campaign boasts a more scientific approach to rat control, using animal population data to locate problem areas for health inspectors to bait with poisons, but the city’s umbrella group for animal welfare wants to deploy a more natural predator against the city’s brown rats—feral cats. There are millions of rats in New York City, though experts say there’s no reliable way to count them all—or to get rid of them. Rats multiply exponentially, feed on garbage and carry diseases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that rats can spread viruses and bacteria through bodily fluids or the mites and fleas living in their fur. A rat’s gnawing teeth can cut through walls, wires, bone and even steel. They are smart, resilient and have lived here for 400 years—wreaking havoc on the city’s infrastructure, housing and residents. Senior health officials have said the increase in funds to combat these rodents was necessary since they pose a health risk to New York’s human population, especially its most vulnerable groups. “Low-income communities in New York City have far greater rates of interior pest and rodent infesta-

throughout the years to poison them. Under the new plan, inspectors will make daytime and nighttime inspections to track the rats back to their burrows, where bait can be laid out on their doorstep. The health department trumpets a 90 percent success rate in a $611,000 trial run of the strategy last year, and is confident that expanding this “integrated pest management” plan citywide will have similar results. But, as The New York Times points out, there have been 109 mayors in the history of the city and nearly as many anti-rat plans. “Their collective record is approximately 0-108.” Other groups are similarly skeptical and offer alternative solutions.

IT IS CRUCIAL THAT PESTS BE CONTROLLED SAFELY, AND THAT PESTICIDES ARE USED JUDICIOUSLY tion primarily because of the connection to poor housing conditions,” said Dr. Mary Bassett, commissioner of the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. “It is crucial that pests be controlled safely, and that pesticides are used judiciously.” Rat poison plays a major role in the plan. But that isn’t new. What is new is a strategy the city’s senior rodentologist calls a “scientific approach of attacking rat reservoirs.” Health officials say rats nest in underground lairs beneath plants and shrubs in city parks, despite attempts NYNmedia.com

One organization currently not receiving any funding to fight rats is the Mayor’s Alliance for NYC’s Animals. While the non-governmental, nonprofit umbrella group is not opposed to killing the city’s rats—as their name might suggest—it advocates a more traditional strategy that appears to be gaining traction across the country: alley cats. “There was a reason the ancient Egyptians had cats in a granary,” said Jane Hoffman, president of the alliance. “They kill vermin.” One of Hoffman’s projects is called

the Feral Cat Initiative, which aims to trap, vaccinate, neuter and return street cats to a colony with other felines. Free from the distractions of having to find food, shelter or water—which are provided by a colony caretaker—the cats prey on rats and other pests which might lurk around benches, bushes and garbage bins. “They’ll kill rats, they’ll kill mice, they’ll kill cockroaches. And,” she paused, “they might kill pigeons.” The Mayor’s Alliance is not the only organization preaching the virtues of feral cats. Disneyland in California has maintained a 200-cat colony in the theme park for years to keep rodents under control. The Los Angeles Police Department has several precincts that use feral cats to control rodents sneaking around their storehouses. And in Chicago, the humane society can’t keep up with demands from locals to host new feral cat colonies to control their rat problems. “There’s a waiting list for feral cats in the city of Chicago,” said Anne Beall, a research marketing executive and a convert to the feral cat approach to pest management. She and her husband had such bad rat problems that they considered moving out. “We tried poison, we tried drowning them, we tried gas, we tried everything. Nothing, nothing worked,” she said. “And literally the only thing that worked was when we got the cats.” “We don’t think of cats as working animals but they can serve a function,” she said. Beall conducted a study to estimate just how effective the cats were at killing rats. Based on observations by cat owners or those who have them on their property, she says

cats are observed killing over 17 million rats a year nationwide. And that number might actually be three to four times higher, she said, since cats will also kill rats that are never seen by people. Dr. Robert Corrigan is unconvinced. As New York City’s premier urban rodentologist and longtime adviser to the city’s health department, he does not see cats as the solution to the rat problem. “It just doesn’t have scientific credibility,” Corrigan said. He says research that has been done by mammalogists “found that cats are not an effective control agent of city populations of rats.” Dr. Gregory Glass, one of the researchers behind one such study, agreed. “Using cats to control (brown) rats is a waste of time,” he said. Very little scientific research has been done on the topic. As Glass’ own 2009 study points out, cats and rats are among the most studied urban animals, but the literature on the predator-prey relationship between them is “surprisingly lacking.” There are just a couple of studies that focus exclusively on the impact of feral cats on urban rat populations. More important, Corrigan said, is the issue of how the rats are getting their food—he says the readily accessible piles of food waste that sit on street curbs are the real problem. He says some of the funding for the new plan should go to efforts to reduce the garbage. “People are totally accepting now of mountains of trash without being repulsed by that,” Corrigan said, remembering an article that called New York City the “trash-opolis” of the United States. “You know,” he said, “we’re the No. 1 rat-tropolis.” He doesn’t think that’s a coincidence. Many feral cat and rat experts agree that the key to reducing rats is improving a city’s sanitation practices: reduce the food supply and you can reduce the rats. New York City’s Department of Sanitation doesn’t appear to agree that streetside trash is an issue. Over the last three years, the department has consistently given itself straight A’s for street and sidewalk cleanliness in its annual self-evaluation, rating over 93 percent of streets and over 96 percent of sidewalks “acceptably clean.” Less than one-half of 1 percent of streets or sidewalks were rated “filthy” in the same time period. Regardless of the persistent trash problem, the cat advocates maintain that using the city’s feral felines to control pests is a practical, lowcost solution.

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

STEMMING THE TIDE Nonprofits seek to keep communities intact amid rampant gentrification in Brooklyn By JEFF STEIN

he hipster takeover of Brooklyn continues to run its course. Williamsburg and Bushwick, once lower- and middle-class neighborhoods, are now home to posh boutiques and exclusive lofts. Even the storied “creative class” is said to have had enough of the rising costs and changing atmosphere: Reports of L-train exoduses to Los Angeles and Detroit abound. And amid the unchecked gentrification, long-established ethnic enclaves are struggling to keep their communities intact, their housing affordable and employment opportunities readily accessible. It is on these critical and contentious fronts that Brooklyn nonprofit, advocacy and community organizing groups have focused their attention, raising concerns on behalf of immigrant constituencies. Jose Lopez, a lead organizer for Make The Road New York, a Latino community organizing nonprofit that is particularly active in Bushwick and Williamsburg, says many advocates view these issues as personal battles. “My family has been in Brooklyn since 1959, and in Bushwick since 1991,” Lopez said. “It’s our families’ blood, sweat and tears that built these communities.” Despite that long tradition, advocates say tenants are facing an alarming rise in housing issues, including aggressive harassment from landlords, as affordable units become increasingly scarce and market rates continue to skyrocket. Lopez described the April conviction of two Bushwick landlords, Joel and Aaron Israel, who intentionally destroyed tenants’ apartments and deprived them of basic services in acts of intimidation, as just the tip of the iceberg. “In terms of harassment, it is getting real in Bushwick,” Lopez said. “Community members are coming to us regularly with stories of landlords banging on doors early in the morning, turning off utilities and offering outrageous buyouts.” Lopez says some of the most important work Make The Road New York does is in the parts of Brooklyn that are just now experiencing the first waves of gentrification. “We have to be on the ground in these neighborhoods to make sure that tenants are part of the conversation as these neighborhoods are rezoned,” Lopez said. “Bringing community members to the table with landlords is the only way to ensure that the process is equitable.” Without such community engagement, advocates say, the conflicts among community members, land-

Make The Road New York members march in support of immigrant tenants’ rights. lords and the city government will only escalate further. Sarita Daftary-Steel, program director for El Puente’s Green Light District Project, a South Williamsburg organization that seeks to preserve communities through education, advocacy and cultural events, cites the ongoing Broadway Triangle rezoning struggle as an example of dramatic community action taken on behalf of Brooklyn minority groups. The conflict centers on a 1,851unit development that straddles a highly segregated border between Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant, which has been accused of catering to predominantly white residents and “functionally excluding” minorities. Housing advocates organizing on behalf of the area’s black and Latino residents say the development is neglecting to serve minorities in neighboring Community Board 3 by giving preference to the residents of Community Board 1, which is predominantly white and has a sizable Orthodox Jewish community. These advocates also say the proposal’s disproportionate number of multi-bedroom apartments create another burden for minority populations. “This is a coalition of over 40 nonprofit organizations coming together in defense of the Fair Housing Act,” Daftary-Steel said, highlighting the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition’s recent campaign to urge the de Blasio administration to extend an injunction that prohibited the development. Some of those involved with the Broadway Triangle proposal, however, dispute the coalition’s claims that the project unfairly excludes minority residents. “It all depends on which foot the shoe is on,” said Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, whose

organization worked with the city on the development proposal. “Other groups are trying to dilute the chances of Jewish families getting access to affordable apartments by trying to include another large community board in the development.” “All communities in CB1 and CB3 are suffering from gentrification equally,” Niederman added. But advocates say that any local affordable housing must be overtly and intentionally accessible to minorities, and the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition has legal support from the New York Civil Liberties Union and Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A. The coalition has also held a number of rallies in an attempt to mobilize local support. “The Broadway Triangle Urban Renewal Area is the largest plot of vacant land available for affordable housing in Brooklyn,” the coalition said in a statement. “Fixing this discriminatory rezoning, the subject of a preliminary injunction and years of fair housing litigation, presents an extraordinary opportunity for the de Blasio administration to put into action its ambitious and much-touted affordable housing plan.” But advocates say that impassioned local housing battles—and citywide fights over maintaining affordable units—are only a part of the work that needs to be done in order to preserve immigrant communities. Leah Hebert, chief program officer of Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow, which enrolls over 800 people each year in adult education and literacy programs and serves over 4,500 youth and adults in Sunset Park, Bushwick and East Williamsburg, stresses the importance of education services in protecting against the effects of gentrification. “Gentrification has pushed out jobs that many immigrants and lower-income community members would have had access to,” Hebert

said. “As a result, one of the biggest shifts that we’ve seen is the demand for high school equivalency. So many employers have shifted the skills and education that they require for an entry-level position.” Hebert says this effort is no small task, citing census data showing that 41 percent of Mexican-Americans between ages 16 and 19 in New York City have dropped out of school. Hebert says this systemic lack of formal education, paired with a recent $2.8 million in cuts to the New York City Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—which funds high school equivalency and English classes like those offered by Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow—has hit minority communities hard in places like Bushwick and Sunset Park, where there are the dense clusters of Mexican-Americans. “Many people who want to gain access to job opportunities do not have the money or time to travel across the city for a class,” Herbert said. “People are often working multiple jobs on top of their commitments to their families. We need to make sure that these classes are provided within their own communities.” Hebert also explains that education services can be vital for immigrants as they navigate Brooklyn’s evolving housing environment. “We find that some landlords will illegally target immigrants who do not speak English, exploiting their lack of education to force them out of housing or commit unlawful activity,” Hebert said. As a result, Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow has partnered with organizations such as Churches United for Fair Housing to combine literacy classes with informational sessions in English and Spanish, making sure that immigrants—both legal and illegal—know their rights and how to apply for affordable housing. Dafarty-Steel agrees education is crucial to help immigrants find and remain in affordable housing. Green Light District’s outreach efforts include an initiative to share information about subsidies offered by the state Energy Research and Development Authority that incentivize tenants to carry out energy-efficiency renovations. “Access to these sorts of subsidies can help a low-income family reduce their energy costs and remain in their home,” Daftary-Steel said. However, Daftary-Steel concedes that work on behalf of these communities continues to be an uphill battle. “Gentrification is a strong wave, and despite the strength of our organizations, a lot of people will continue to be displaced,” she said. NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

HELPING PARKS FLOURISH By ROSALY N RETK WA

here’s no place quite like New York City when it comes to public parks, with its rich assortment of free summertime concerts, community festivals and athletic programs. Throughout the five boroughs, 14 percent of New York City’s land— about 29,000 acres—is devoted to the more than 5,000 parks and recreational facilities managed by the Department of Parks and Recreation, ranging from Central Park and Coney Island Beach to almost 1,000 playgrounds and 66 community pools. But foundations and nonprofits such as the City Parks Foundation, New Yorkers for Parks, and the New York Restoration Project also play a major role in making New York City’s parks some of the best in the world, by sponsoring the programs that bring people into the parks and advocating for the needs of parks during the often tumultuous city budget process. The City Parks Foundation is probably best known for its free SummerStage concerts, but it is the largest provider of a variety of park programs, notes Executive Director Heather Lubov. The foundation sponsors programs in 350 parks, but Lubov wishes the organization had the money to do more. “Even with all of the work we’re doing, we’re not touching even half of the parks,” she said. This summer, the foundation launched a pilot initiative in five parks in conjunction with the New York City Football Club to teach soccer to children from ages 8 to 12. “We jumped on the opportunity to work with their professional instructors,” she said. Also new this summer is the Get Up & Go! exercise program, aimed at younger children, age 6 and up. It was launched in 14 smaller parks in neighborhoods with high levels of poverty. SummerStage, which is sponsored by donors such as Capital One bank and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies, along with the city Department of Cultural Affairs, has also been expanded this summer, with 25 more shows, bringing the total to 140, Lubov says. The program’s largest venue is Central Park, but the foundation also puts on music, dance and spoken word shows in 15 other parks around the city, including two sites that are new this year: Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens and the newly opened Highbridge Park, which links Washington Heights in Manhattan with the Bronx. Just $1 million of the foundation’s annual budget of $12.5 million comes from government sources, Lubov says—a small but significant share NYNmedia.com

The Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. since funding levels can change year to year. For instance, the Partnership for Parks program got a smaller allocation in the city’s new budget—$426,000 this year versus $750,000 a year ago, which had allowed the foundation to expand the program, and make four new hires, she says. The program is a joint venture with the Department of Parks and Recreation, and works with an estimated 20,000 volunteers and 750 to 800 “friends of ” groups on efforts like park cleanups. Lubov says her organization is now working on raising private money to make up the difference. This year, there was another big battle over $8.7 million in city funding for 150 gardeners and maintenance workers. That money had been put into the city’s budget a year earlier, and was cut this year—that is, until parks advocates held a rally at City Hall and got it restored. “We’re very pleased the council did fund it, but it just allows it to be for one more year, and then they have to fund it every year,” said Tupper Thomas, the executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, a nonprofit that produces park studies, including its Report Card series on park maintenance in all five boroughs. What’s needed is more permanent jobs, Thomas says. While “there is a huge amount of money in the city’s capital budget for the parks,” they’re also “very underfunded in maintenance and operations,” she said. “They barely have enough plumbers, regular maintenance workers and gardeners.” Using people from welfare-to-work programs to help out “doesn’t create a workforce that learns the job and moves up in the ranks,” she said. “That’s what’s been

missing over time.” And Thomas says more attention needs to be paid to the mid-sized parks, in the range of about 5 to 20 acres. The Community Parks Initiative, which is now in its second year, is aimed at the smallest parks—those with less than an acre to maybe an acre and a half—in poor, high-density neighborhoods with the goal of making sure they get an equitable allocation of the city’s resources. Thomas says that what her organization likes about CPI is that the city isn’t just investing capital, but is taking a more comprehensive approach by allocating funds for recreational programs and community organizing and outreach. Thomas says the city should build on that starting point and focus on the needs of mid-sized parks, especially when it comes to planning. For instance, if a park has 15 acres, she says it’s unlikely that any one political entity would fund a total restoration. But if a master plan were in

place, advocates could seek funding from different sources within city government—council members, borough presidents, the mayor’s office—for different parts of the plan, like renovating a playground or ballfield. The analogy, says Deborah Marton, executive director of the New York Restoration Project, “is that you buy a house upstate” and plan a number of improvements over time, and “you invest in the different pieces so it all comes together, but there’s no mechanism in the city budget to fund master plans for mid-sized parks.” The largest parks have their “friends of ” groups and conservancies that “pay for that privately,” she says. NYRP is a nonprofit with an annual budget of $10.5 million. It was founded by Bette Midler 20 years ago and sponsors a number of green space activities, from its 52 community gardens to partnering with the city on its “Million Trees” program and on the restoration of four major parks in Manhattan, including Highbridge. In July, NYRP unveiled its Haven Project, which it described as a “transformative master plan to design, fund, and build a new network of open spaces for the South Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven and Port Morris,” complete with a connector to the Randall’s Island playing fields. But Marton agrees with Thomas that the biggest challenge facing New York City’s park advocates is how to get more funding for the unglamorous, day-to-day job of maintenance. She says that part of the problem is that politicians can show off to their constituents when they secure funding for a parks project, but it’s harder to impress voters with the fact that a park “hasn’t deteriorated.” “As a city, our budget for capital improvements is gigantic, but our budget for maintenance is tiny, tiny, tiny,” she said.

High Bridge over the Harlem River.

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

CLOSE TO HOME A juvenile justice program tries to rebound from early troubles By GABE PONCE DE LEÓN

ast month police arrested three teenagers accused of raping a woman they met at an Internet café in Chinatown. According to reports, the boys left the woman in the stairwell of an apartment building and set out to burglarize her apartment. Earlier that night, they had escaped from a Brooklyn group home operated by the nonprofit Boys Town. The teens had been placed there through the Close to Home program, which allows low-risk juvenile offenders from New York City to remain close to their families in “nonsecure” facilities—though entrances and exits are supposed to be closely monitored. A few weeks later, Boys Town became the third nonprofit provider to lose its contract with Close to Home since the program was launched in 2013. A collaborative effort between the city and state, Close to Home is part of a larger “realignment” of New York’s juvenile justice system—a recent movement that favors community-based alternatives to placements in rural correctional facilities, and models that emphasize rehabilitative services over punitive measures. The program allows youth to continue their education and access treatment without being cut off from their families. With rates of juvenile crime declining in New York and nationwide, reformers have argued that community-based alternatives will save taxpayer money while reducing recidivism. But recently publicized setbacks— including the Boys Town arrests— have inspired further examination of Close to Home’s implementation and oversight. The providers’ proximity to their residents’ homes—an initial inspiration for the program—may have actually precipitated many of the program’s early troubles. Intended to look and feel like normal home environments, nonsecure facilities are often just a bus or train ride from where the teens grew up. The number of residents leaving program sites without permission—going absent without leave, or “AWOL”—has proven to be a significant challenge. In 2013, a 17-year-old who escaped from a Staten Island facility stabbed a man to death outside a friend’s home in Queens. The operator of that facility subsequently lost its city contract, as did another that failed to show progress in addressing the problem of runaways. The city’s Administration for Children’s Services, which funds the

program, has worked to beef up security at group homes. “We worked with providers to install additional security measures, including window bars, additional alarms and coded keypads,” spokesman Chris McKniff said. In addition, revised standards required providers to submit regular reports on their efforts to locate AWOL youth. The agency also modified the intake process to gather additional information that could be used to locate missing youth. The changes appear to have had an effect. In 2013, 503 teens were placed in nonsecure facilities; there were 740 incidents that year in which residents were reported AWOL, and 169 arrests. Through May of this year, a total of 443 teens have been served, with 122 AWOLs and 51 arrests. Providers attribute the apparent decline in AWOLs, however, to more than just enhanced security mechanisms. “What was hard in the beginning is that our houses are small and you had six new kids who had to buy into the culture,” said Douglas O’Dell, executive director of SCO Family of Services, one the program’s eight city-contracted residential providers. “Now that they’re admitted into the program one at a time, the new kids are coming into an established culture.” Before the program even launched, critics pointed out that neither the ACS nor the providers it contracted had a lot of experience in juvenile justice; their expertise lay in child welfare. “In the beginning, we were very much under the belief that this was

juvenile justice with a child welfare approach,” said Michael D. Garcia, vice president for residential services at Children’s Village, which has ACS contracts for residential and after care services through the Close to Home program. “But over time with the population being served we started recognizing the need for more of a juvenile justice approach.” Children’s Village had to place a greater emphasis on structure and adopt a harder line with staff members who failed to perform their duties. “You may think you have a good relationship with the kid, and then you take him out into the community and he goes AWOL,” Garcia said. “The oversight is more than what we had initially expected and we've made changes to adapt to that.” For some kids, the group homes provide more stability than the living situations from which they came. Forming strong relationships in the house matters. So does around-theclock supervision. “It’s not just locks that will hold them,” O’Dell said. “You have to stay focused throughout your entire shift and work closely with your partner to make sure that they are covering for you, especially when a kid is new to the program.” About a week after the three teens were detained, a Boys Town staffer was arrested and accused of doctoring the logbook the night the trio absconded. (According to his attorney, it was that staffer’s first day on the job.) An accelerated implementation timeline may have also contributed to the program’s rocky rollout. Since ACS pays providers for youth

care but not organizational planning and restructuring, some providers say they felt forced to take on clients before they were ready, and rushed to hire the staff capable of meeting the needs of a challenging population—including youth with specialized needs ranging from emotional disturbances and past trauma to problematic sexual behavior and developmental and intellectual disabilities. Many providers, as a result, experienced high staff turnover in the early going. The second phase of the initiative, designed to place medium-risk offenders in limited-secure facilities, has experienced substantial delays, due in large part to community resistance over siting plans. In assessing the early results of Close to Home, its proponents argue that any negative outcomes should be weighed against the violence and abuse youth can be subjected to in correctional facilities, as well as the lack of educational and other developmental opportunities that can have a devastating toll when they return home, often leaving their life prospects severely diminished. “There’s never a good reason to send kids away,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “It could be about convenience, fear, politics or a way of adding jobs to outlying areas where there aren’t enough jobs. But it’s never about public safety.” Though the initiative may have stumbled out of the gate—another controversy involved the disbandment of an independent oversight board last year—the program’s supporters remain convinced that Close to Home is succeeding far more often than it’s failing. Supporters cite dramatic client turnarounds as evidence of the program’s efficacy. Children’s Village’s Garcia recalled one early client, a particularly agitated girl who had to be restrained four times. “She had stripped down to her underwear. She was refusing to move. She was just out of control,” Garcia recalled. “I ended up in a restraint with her three more times. … At the time, we were like, oh my God, what’s going to happen to this girl?” EMS and the police were called to the scene, and the girl was hospitalized. It was Garcia’s worst experience in terms of how many restraints had to be used, one after another. That same girl, however, has since left the program. She graduated from high school and is now enrolled in college. NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

CASHING IN ON A PROMISING FUNDRAISING YEAR By ALICE POPOVICI

hen fundraising staff members at the Brooklyn Community Foundation look at the development that’s come to the borough in recent years—new residents, businesses, tech startups—they see dollar signs. “Increasingly, affluent people are choosing to live here. … We see that as an opportunity for ourselves,” said Sarah Shannon, director of philanthropy and donor services for the nonprofit. “Brooklyn has become a global brand which brings a lot of attention to what’s going on here.” Shannon and her colleagues— who cited a healthier economic outlook and strong financial markets as the main reasons for their optimism—are not alone in thinking this year’s outlook is better than last year’s. According to an annual survey conducted for Crain’s New York Business by the New York chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, about 57 percent of New York-area fundraisers agree. Several development professionals who spoke with New York Nonprofit Media said keeping donors involved and engaged with the mission of their organization is the best way to keep funds flowing. MESSAGE AND MISSION The Brooklyn Community Foundation—which receives 80 percent of its donations from individuals— said one way to keep donors engaged is by hosting frequent dinners and meetings where they talk about their three main initiatives: investing in youth, community building and strengthening neighborhoods. The organization says part of its mission is to harness the resources of the community in order to provide assistance to smaller organizations. “That’s been something we’ve found donors are very interested in— being involved in how (we’re) making decisions,” Shannon said. At Housing Works, an advocate organization for people living with HIV and AIDS, Sarah Morrow, director of major gifts, said staff members take every opportunity to connect with donors. This year, all donors were invited to march along with the Housing Works team in the New York City Pride Parade. “Anyone who gives to an organization wants to feel good about it,” Morrow said. “They want to be in the loop.” The organization, which is headquartered in Brooklyn and has offices in Albany, Washington, D.C., and Haiti, was founded in 1990, opened its first thrift shop in 1995 and has expanded to 13 New York City stores NYNmedia.com

people to click on a link and donate. She said social media fundraising does work for organizations that are raising money for an immediate need such as a disaster, or a trending campaign like last year’s viral ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. But “for us, it’s not the same,” she said. OVERCOMING CHALLENGES

featuring books, clothing and furniture. But its identity has remained the same over the last 25 years. Many nonprofits say social media, crowdfunding and direct mail campaigns have been successful, but fundraising events that bring people together continue to be a major source of income. Every November, Housing Works hosts its Fashion for Action fundraiser, “essentially a fabulous sample sale,” Morrow said. She said last year’s event raised $1.3 million. “These big events are our huge moneymakers.” To take advantage of this year’s positive fundraising outlook, the Children’s Museum of Manhattan is hosting two fundraisers rather than the one fundraiser they hold most years. In addition to the spring gala the organization regularly hosts for its major individual donors, it plans to host a family-oriented Sunday Funday targeting corporate donors. “We certainly are very optimistic,” said Callie Siegel, director of development for the museum. “For us, it’s also about segmenting our donor base.” REACHING OUT ONLINE Anita Fee Willis, chief development officer at America Needs You, an education nonprofit that helps further the career goals of low-income students who are the first in their families to attend college, said fundraising prospects look good as the organization gears up for its annual gala in October “Education is a fast-growing sector,” Willis said. “Over these past few years there’s been an increase in giving.” For the first time this year, the organization, decided to tap into its alumni base across the country through an online campaign on the

crowdfunding site CrowdRise. “That was a way to engage our younger donors in peer-to-peer competition,” Willis said. The campaign raised $8,425. Siegel said the Children Museum of Manhattan’s recent crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo named “America to Zanzibar: Muslim Cultures Near & Far” has been an interesting pilot project. The campaign aimed to raise money for an exhibition about the diversity of Muslim cultures. “How can you motivate people around a specific cause to give at any level?” Siegel said. The campaign was 76 percent funded as of July 20. But online fundraising doesn’t work all the time. Housing Works’ Morrow said she has found social media works well in engaging an audience around an event, but it isn’t easy to convince

The Metropolitan Jewish Health System, a provider of assisted living, hospice and palliative care, has historically been able to rely on income from insurance reimbursements, said its chief development officer, Linda Schur Scalettar. But as the reimbursement structure shifted due to changes in health care, with payment rates decreasing as demand for patient care rises, she said “the need for our fundraising has grown.” Scalettar, who has been with the nonprofit for about 10 months, said it’s hard to predict how this year will turn out, but she is working as hard as she can to build the organization’s donor base. Part of the difficulty is motivating people to donate for hospice and end-of-life care. “A lot of donors shy away from it,” she said. Another challenge is turning first-time donors who give in memory of a loved one into regular donors. Scalettar has a lot of fundraising ideas, including reaching out to families of the organization’s patients, reaching out to younger generations and reaching out to caregivers. She is looking at innovative ways to connect with potential donors through the memory of their loved one. “I think, for us, there is great potential that hasn’t been tapped,” she said.

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Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

NEWS

LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS TO THREE-QUARTER HOUSES By JEFF STEIN

llegal boarding houses that rent beds in overcrowded, unsanitary rooms to the city’s most vulnerable inhabitants—formerly incarcerated individuals, street homeless and recovering drug addicts—have long been recognized as a persistent problem at the nexus of housing, substance abuse and criminal justice. However, recent high-profile cases involving so-called three-quarter houses have brought such concerns to the forefront of policy discussions, with nonprofit advocates, elected officials and government agencies debating—and in some cases, testing— possible solutions. In early June, the de Blasio administration announced the formation of an emergency task force to investigate three-quarter houses. The announcement came in the wake of a sprawling New York Times investigation implicating a twice-convicted Brooklyn landlord in a host of illegal activities considered symptomatic of such properties, which often trap tenants in squalor while using those tenants’ access to entitlement funds in schemes to defraud the government. These properties—though receiving a monthly $215 shelter allowance per tenant from the Human Resources Administration, and collectively accounting for millions of dollars in Medicaid outpatient treatment funds doled out by the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services—remain unregulated entities. And though many tenants are referred to three-quarter houses by reputable organizations, they are often greeted upon arrival by unten-

A former three-quarter house tenant protests illegal evictions. safety violations, as well as finding alternatives for tenants residing in unsafe properties. “The short-term, immediate priority is to make sure that residents are safe,” a spokesperson for the HRA said in an email. “The emergency task force has now inspected the three-quarter houses identified to date and taken steps to address immediate safety concerns. These steps have included relocating residents to address occupancy levels that are too high.” However, as city agencies grapple with how to confront the problem in the immediate future, advocates are hoping for long-term reform. One advocate, Tanya Kessler, an attorney at MFY Legal Services who has brought several successful lawsuits on behalf of tenants of three-quar-

UNREGULATED HOMES HAVE BECOME A PLAGUE ON OUR COMMUNITY. PEOPLE CANNOT FIND SAFE OPTIONS WHERE THEY CAN GET CLEAN able living conditions, such as rooms with no working heat and several tenants packed into a small room, or the sort of rampant substance abuse that they came to escape. Most immediately, the emergency task force is focused on enforcing building codes and identifying other

ter houses for wrongful evictions, hopes that the mayoral task force will balance the desire for immediate enforcement with a willingness to establish long-term solutions. “The task force is looking at immediate safety concerns, which are very important,” Kessler said. “But

the real task going forward is to think about what housing options can exist in New York City for the population that currently has to resort to three-quarters housing.” Kessler is one of several advocates who say the HRA-administered shelter allowance, which has not been raised since 1988, must be increased in order to improve conditions. “The shelter allowance is obviously grossly inadequate for the current New York City housing market,” Kessler said. The HRA agrees, and has called on the state to increase funding levels. “The inadequacy of this allowance has been a major driver of the long-standing problem of three-quarters houses, and we will be seeking an increase in the Stateset $215 per month grant level,” a spokesperson for the HRA said in an email. Kessler and other advocates argue that a specific housing subsidy for this population, much like the one offered through the Living In Communities, or LINC, rental assistance program, would be an effective use of city funds. “Given what we know about the Medicaid billing practices that are associated with many of these houses, and the horrible cycle that many go through with homelessness and outpatient treatment, a housing subsidy could be a huge money saver with regards to this population,” Kessler said. Advocates also cite other barriers to housing as areas that must be addressed by city government. JoAnne Page, president and chief executive officer of The Fortune Society,

a nonprofit organization that provides services to formerly incarcerated individuals, said that the New York City Housing Authority policy of “permanently excluding” people with criminal records is particularly troubling, given data collected by John Jay College’s Prisoner Reentry Institute estimating that 72 percent of three-quarter housing tenants have been imprisoned. “When people leave the prison system, they are not coming out to much of anything,” Page said. “They certainly can’t return to NYCHA without jeopardizing their families’ living situations.” NYCHA, however, has continually defended the policy, with the agency describing permanent exclusion as “a critical tool to protect the rights of residents and a means to preserve the tenancy of non-offending family members.” While advocates stress the importance of changing city policies, some also suggest the city can learn from a pilot program instituted in Suffolk County. The program, established by the Suffolk Healthy Sober Home Act of 2013, is experimenting with regulating a small number of three-quarter houses, requiring inspections and strict adherence to federal, state and local building codes. Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning, who chairs the Sober Home Oversight Board, which has been tasked with overseeing the pilot program, says that rampant heroin use has further decayed an already lacking housing system. Without regulation, Browning says, such houses have become increasingly unsafe, at best continuing a cycle of addiction and at worst directly leading to dire medical consequences, such as the heroin overdose of one of her constituents in an unregulated property. “Unregulated homes have become a plague on our community. People cannot find safe options where they can get clean, leading to tragic consequences,” Browning said. The Suffolk County pilot program, which is administered in partnership with the state Office for Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, provides significantly increased funding for each tenant: a flat $995.70 for each of the 45 individuals currently enrolled in the program, as opposed to the $475 room and board entitlement available to the county’s Department of Social Services clients outside of the program. Browning says investing more money at the beginning of the recovery process will both immediately NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

A recently shuttered three-quarter house in Brooklyn.

benefit those in need and prevent recidivism, saving millions of taxpayer dollars. “When you talk to experts, clearly this is the best route,” Browning said. “If people are living in a safe environment while they are doing their outpatient program, they are much more likely to be successful. We want to show the state that it is worth it to spend the money up front.” But the current system of funding, Browning says, places the burden for providing services overwhelmingly on localities. Browning says Suffolk County is responsible for funding 71 percent of the pilot program services, with the state providing the balance. “I want the state to see that this can work,” Browning said, “but we need to change the state funding. The funding levels have really hurt us. Really, this type of program should not just be in Suffolk County—it should be a statewide mandate.” Until larger action is taken, advocates say a large responsibility lies with organizations that refer clients to three-quarter houses. Kessler argues that all agencies that deal with three-quarter houses should embrace guidelines adopted

by the New York City Department of Homeless Services, which state that facilities with code violations or complaints registered with the Department of Buildings cannot receive tenant referrals. She also stressed the importance of recognizing red flags before sending vulnerable clients into a dangerous situation. “If a house asks a tenant to sign a waiver of rights that allows the house to evict without court process, that client is at risk of ending up on the street at a moment’s notice,” Kessler said. “Social workers need to think very carefully before sending a client to a house that uses this tactic.” Page echoed Kessler’s concerns, saying that her organization has established relationships with houses viewed as the lesser of two evils. “We go out and visit houses, and rely heavily on feedback from former clients,” she said. “The sad truth is that as bad as these homes can be, some are far better than the other options: a homeless shelter or the street. The real heartbreaker for us is when we know that supportive housing would make all the difference for a client, but we have to refer them to a less than ideal option.”

HOUSES IN NEW YORK CIT Y

*Source: NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy NYNmedia.com

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

SPOTLIGHT: VETERANS

MENTORS KEY TO VETERANS COURT SUCCESS By FR ANK G. RU N YEON

A veteran stands before Judge Robert Russell in Buffalo Veterans Treatment Court.

aron Cox is always in battle mode. The 28-year-old Army veteran returned in 2010 after combat posts in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Now, it’s five years later,” he said. “It’s a bit easier to mimic what’s going on around you. But I know that’s not really me.” He pauses for several seconds, thinking back on his time at a forward operating base in Afghanistan. He guarded the gate there, always wondering if the next approaching truck would be carrying a bomb. “You never know if today is your last day,” he said. Like so many others, the wars still haunt him at home. Thousands of troops are returning from their posts in combat zones this year, with five battalions returning to the New York City area alone. Many will bring back mental scars that can lead some into conflict with the criminal justice system. The best-known of these is post-traumatic stress disorder. The condition afflicts 1 in 5 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—or

nearly 300,000. Cox is one of them. Five years after he returned from a war zone, the untreated psychological wounds of his service were catching up with him. Shortly after New Year’s, Cox was having a drink with some old high school friends at a Brooklyn bar. When his friends started criticizing him, he suddenly attacked. “I fought everybody,” Cox said, remembering the fistfight he started in the bar. “No one could control me.” He said if the men he assaulted weren’t his childhood friends, “I would’ve been in jail by now.” Many veterans are. One in 10 prison inmates once served their country in uniform. They are three times more likely to have PTSD if they served in Iraq. Experts say that isn’t a coincidence. While those with PTSD are not necessarily dangerous, the diagnosis has been linked with violent and self-destructive behavior, including suicide, in post-9/11 veterans. “The painful paradox is that fighting for one’s country can render one unfit to be its citizen,” Dr. Jonathan

Shay writes in “The Attorney’s Guide to Defending Veterans in Criminal Court.” “War itself smoothes the way into criminal careers after return to civilian life.” Shay is a pre-eminent psychiatrist in the field of combat stress injuries. He treated soldiers for over two decades in a VA hospital, specializing in PTSD and a broader swath of psychological wounds of war that he calls “moral injury.” “War is bad for people, in every way you can think of,” Shay said. Classic PTSD can lead to chronic sleep loss, which can lead to the deterioration of good character. “When you’re out of gas in your frontal lobes you become a moral moron,” Shay said. “And that’s physiology.” This is “a prolific source of bad behavior that leads to the involvement of the police,” Shay said, whether it’s a car wreck, domestic violence, or even armed robbery. Moreover, PTSD sufferers who are desperate for sleep may turn to any readily available sedative—most commonly alcohol—to knock themselves out, Shay explains. And this

can lead to addiction or other behavioral problems. New York state has had drug treatment courts for more than two decades designed to rehabilitate instead of incarcerate drug users. But it wasn’t until 2008 that a veterans treatment court was established to cater to the unique needs of New York’s traumatized veterans. Judge Robert Russell created the country’s first veterans treatment court in Buffalo when he saw the impact that camaraderie between veterans could have in reversing damaging behavior. Other courts that have sprung up around the country have emulated the structure he developed. There are now 220 veterans treatment courts nationwide, and hundreds more being planned, according to Justice for Vets, a nonprofit group that promotes the courts. In New York state, there are 25 veterans courts, with five more in the planning stages. New York City has two— in Brooklyn and Queens. If a veteran is arrested and convicted in any of the other three boroughs, he or she is far more likely to go to jail. NYNmedia.com

July 2015

Issue N°4 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

“We modeled our court after Judge Russell’s court,” said Joseph Madonia, director of the Brooklyn Veterans Treatment Court. “When we had the veterans in the regular drug court, there was no mentorship component. That is really the key to the success of a vets court.” Judge Jo Ann Ferdinand, who presides over the Brooklyn Veterans Treatment Court, explains that “veterans have a tendency to look at the rest of us and say, ‘You don’t understand what I’ve been through.’ “So if you have all the veterans together in court, they can’t say nobody understands, because everybody in the audience understands and has had their own trauma or combat experience,” she said. But more important than the veterans that show up for court proceedings are those who stick around afterward. Veterans Rebuilding Life, a nonprofit run by volunteer veterans, supplies the Queens and Brooklyn veterans courts with former service members who personally assist the veterans undergoing the court-mandated treatment over a six-month period. The group pairs volunteers with veterans facing jail time for crimes that may have been committed as a result of their mental battle wounds. The recovery program includes counseling, drug testing, skills training, job placement and humanitarian and community service. The nonprofit tackles the per-

sistent paperwork and maddening bureaucracy endemic to the Department of Veterans Affairs, assisting veterans in those unglamorous and tedious procedures that form the cracks many trauma-burdened

are asking us to develop a program from scratch for those boroughs,” Popow said. “But the issue that we’re having—and it’s slowing us down now—it’s the support.” No one at Popow’s organization re-

THE PAINFUL PARADOX IS THAT FIGHTING FOR ONE’S COUNTRY CAN RENDER ONE UNFIT TO BE ITS CITIZEN troops slip through. “We would say, let’s fill those basic needs,” said Dre Popow, executive director of Veterans Rebuilding Life and a Marine Corps veteran. “Let’s assist them in getting back on their feet. But let’s do it thoroughly, like a full-scope strategy.” If a veteran wants to go back to school, a mentor would help them find the right one, help them apply, get them registered, follow them through graduation and help them find a job. “So, you walk with them every step of the way,” Popow said. The approach is working. Veterans Rebuilding Life has only been working with the courts since April 2014, but 212 veterans have graduated the organization’s recovery program with a “100 percent success rate.” “And now Bronx and Manhattan

ceives a salary. It’s a completely volunteer team, and the volunteers pay out of pocket for expenses like office supplies. Any donations they receive go directly toward their services. But the work is worth it, Popow says, to give their fellow veterans a second chance. “It’s a clean slate,” Popow said of the veterans who go through his program. “If, however, you don’t want to go through the treatment program, you’re going to jail.” And so are the veterans who fail out of the treatment court program. But those who successfully complete the program will have their record sealed and destroyed. “This is not, veterans get away with crimes that other people don’t,” Judge Ferdinand explained. “Veterans court is about veterans who wind up in the criminal justice system as

the result of an underlying behavioral problem” that is most likely linked to their military service. And the early statistics appear to show that the approach is making everyone safer. According to the most recent statistics, only 10 percent of the veterans who graduated from the Brooklyn Veterans Treatment Court programs reoffend. While the research shows that that the lynchpin to these courts is veteran mentoring, that’s not where funding is going. In his experience, Shay says that government authorities, like the VA, tend to overpay doctors with impressive credentials—like himself—while the real work of recovery is done veteran-to-veteran. “I cannot even remotely do for a veteran what someone who’s been there and done that can do,” Shay said. “It’s just not possible.” While medical experts and nonprofits remain unsure whether traumatized soldiers will require these veteran-to-veteran recovery groups for the rest of their lives, Cox says he knows he will. “Without a shadow of doubt,” he said. “Regardless if it’s today, tomorrow, a year from now, 50 years from now, I will always be dealing with this,” Cox said. He’s less certain about where he would be if the veterans group hadn’t helped him. “Down the line, I don’t know,” he said. “I’d probably be in jail or dead.”

PERSPECTIVES

AGENT ORANGE TREATMENT FOR BLUE WATER VETS By U.S. SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBR AND

n the Vietnam War, thousands of men and women were exposed to a horrific chemical known as Agent Orange. Agent Orange was dangerous. It was toxic. It filled the air, poisoned the water, and severely damaged the health of the people who were exposed to it—and in the late 1960s, the United States government recognized its harmful effects. Agent Orange is a weapon that we never should have used, and the Department of Veterans Affairs now actively provides care and coverage to many soldiers who were exposed to it during the Vietnam War. The problem we face today is that under current VA rules, when the VA treats cases related to Agent Orange exposure, the only U.S. veterans they NYNmedia.com

will see are the men and women who actually walked on Vietnamese soil, or served on boats on Vietnam’s rivers. This means that thousands of U.S. Navy veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while stationed on ships just off the Vietnamese coast are not being treated by the VA. Agent Orange did not discriminate between those who stood on boats on rivers, and those who stood on boats offshore. So why should the VA discriminate between the two? This arbitrary and bureaucratic rule is causing thousands of our Navy veterans to suffer. I’ve introduced a bipartisan bill to the U.S. Senate that would finally solve this problem. The bill is called the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2015, and it would change the VA’s rules so that our blue water veterans get the care they need and deserve. Bobby Condon is one of these veterans. He’s from Brooklyn, he joined the Navy when he was a teenager, and he went to Vietnam at age 18 because he wanted to serve his country. Like countless others, Bobby was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam. He served on the USS Intrepid, which is now a world-class museum

right here in New York. Bobby moved propeller planes and bomber jets on the Intrepid’s flight deck—planes that had dropped Agent Orange, and still contained its residue after their missions were finished. It was Bobby’s job to handle these planes. Bobby was a serial nail-biter, and he believes Agent Orange toxins seeped into his body when he bit his

ground.” All those blue water Navy veterans like Bobby—we’re letting them down. Bobby said it best: “All I wanted is what I deserve.” We have an obligation to give back to the brave men and women who risked their lives for us. Because each day that we delay passage of this bill—each day that our Vietnam

AGENT ORANGE DID NOT DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THOSE WHO STOOD ON BOATS, ON RIVERS, AND THOSE WHO STOOD OFFSHORE nails. And now, in his late 60s, he suffers from leukemia—a disease linked to Agent Orange exposure. He’s been dealing with it for almost 20 years. So what do you think the Department of Veteran Affairs did when Bobby first went to them for coverage? They said, “Sorry, your boat was here, not here, so we can’t help you. Sorry, you didn't have boots on the

veterans are refused service from the VA—these Americans continue to become ill and go into bankruptcy from trying to pay their medical bills. Let’s fight to pass this bill, and give our heroes the medical coverage they need and deserve. Kirsten Gillibrand is a U.S. senator for New York.

Issue N°4

July 2015 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS

SPOTLIGHT: VETERANS

KENNETH CURLEY FOUNDER, RAYMOND ASSOCIATES, LLC, AND NEW YORK STATE FOR VETERANS BRANCH: ARMY YEARS SERVED: 1978-1998 HIGHEST RANK EARNED: COLONEL

o talk with Ken Curley is to be almost overwhelmed with praise. He will compliment you, he will compliment the groups he has been a part of, he will compliment his mentors—just about the only thing he won’t speak highly of is himself. “What do I owe?” Curley asked. “Anything I’ve accomplished, (I owe) my parents, my high school educational opportunity, coaches, the Military Academy and Army lacrosse.” He credits them all for a heroic, decades-long career spanning military and civilian life that began at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. But Curley doesn’t think he could have gotten in today. “The men and women that are there today, and at Annapolis and Air Force, they are far superior to what I was,” he said. “I was a lucky, lucky guy who was a good athlete on a great team.” That great team was the lacrosse

team at West Islip High School on Long Island, a New York powerhouse that is still churning out state championships. Curley played well enough to be accepted to West Point and play on the team there, which he said set him up for the future. “Army athletics is a brotherhood, specifically Army lacrosse. I don’t know anybody who’s played that sport at that institution that’s failed. They’ve all been very successful in life,” he said—all because of connections forged on the field. “These (lacrosse) relationships have lasted a lifetime. We were in each other’s weddings, and all our kids grew up together.” Curley’s first job out of the Army came from a lacrosse teammate, Brendan Quinn, the former state Republican Party executive director. Quinn recommended him to be the state’s director of military support and then chief of staff within the Di-

vision of Military and Naval Affairs, where he worked from 1998 to 2000. Curley was supremely qualified for the jobs, having risen to the rank of colonel and having served as an officer in the 75th Ranger Regiment, better known as the Army Rangers. “Being a U.S. Army officer is an honor and a privilege,” he said. “And I say that because of the men you work with. Not because of me, but because of the young Rangers that make us.” Those years as a Ranger led Curley to start Raymond Associates, a management organization with government contracts in Iraq and around the world. Despite successes with his company—like being chosen to lead security for Gens. David Petraeus and Martin Dempsey—Curley is most proud of his work founding New York State for Veterans, a nonprofit that helps the state’s vets get work after rejoining civilian life.

“We don’t try and find them jobs, we find them careers,” Curley said. “They contact us. And unlike federal and state programs, we have unlimited time with these guys and gals and their families.” He runs the organization out of a converted horse barn in Saratoga County, near where Curley and his wife of 30 years raised their four children. It is Curley’s dream job, so he tries to provide the same for other vets. “It always starts with asking, what’s your dream? What do you want to do for your family now that you’ve served your country? What do you want to do for your kids, and what do you want to do for yourself?” he said. “A lot of the time we never get asked that question.” Curley says he’s been lucky enough to have had other people looking out for his dreams. “There’s no magic wands out there,” he said. “People help you.”

marks a generational shift in the nonprofit. McSweeney says he stands on the shoulders of outgoing President Vince McGowan, who helped revive the UWVC in the 1980s to counter the poor treatment Vietnam vets had received upon their return to American soil. “My generation of vets benefitted from the work that the Vietnam veterans did,” McSweeney said. “I know that because when I came home from Iraq I wasn’t derided, I wasn’t spit on. I was welcomed home.” That welcoming spirit has always been at the heart of America’s Parade, so it’s been able to avoid the controversy generated by its fellow Fifth Avenue procession, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which for many years did not allow Irish LGBTQ groups to march under their own banner. “Anybody that served honorably

should be honored. It’s as simple as that,” McSweeney said. He calls the UWVC a “unifier” that does more than just run a parade. McSweeney and his staff are advocates, working to foster awareness and connections between veterans and the world at large. Before leading the council, McSweeney worked to foster awareness of another kind, leading the effort to preserve and redevelop the “last American ocean liner,” the S.S. United States. That passion, like his love of travel, is in his blood: McSweeney’s father was a merchant mariner, who worked primarily on the S.S. United States.

DAN MCSWEENEY INCOMING PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED WAR VETERANS COUNCIL BRANCH: MARINE CORPS YEARS SERVED: 1999-2010 HIGHEST RANK EARNED: MAJOR

his Veterans Day, Dan McSweeney will march 1.3 miles up Fifth Avenue in the annual America’s Parade—it will be his first parade as president of the United War Veterans Council, the nonprofit group that hosts the parade every year. But that walk will be a piece of cake compared with the miles McSweeney has put in getting to his position. The 45-year-old McSweeney is, above all else, a traveler. Before joining the Marines, he backpacked around Europe and earlier this year, he drove across the U.S. And that’s not to mention his 11-year career in the Marines, including time in Iraq, Kosovo, Japan and at the Pentagon. “I seem to like these long treks,” he said. Every traveler has a home base, and for McSweeney, that’s Morningside Heights. He was born in the

neighborhood, and calls New York City one of his biggest passions. “New York City is a great place for veterans,” McSweeney said. “Everybody thinks about New York as this cold-hearted, egocentric, business-oriented place … but have we ever seen bigger celebrations of our service than Fleet Week and Veterans Day?” McSweeney is one of many post9/11 vets who have settled in the five boroughs, and he knows why: “They’re ambitious, they’re entrepreneurial, they’re willing to take risks, and what better place for them to come than New York City? So we’re seeing an influx,” he said. “These are going to be the leaders of government, and especially in business in the next 20 years.” In some respects, it will be McSweeney’s job to honor these younger vets. His appointment to lead UWVC

These profiles by Jeff Coltin are part of City & State’s Above & Beyond: Honoring Those Who Serve series. View the collection at www.CityandStateNY.com NYNmedia.com

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SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER Harlem RBI, an award-winning youth development and education program, is seeking a senior program manager to oversee school-based afterschool programs. The senior program manager will oversee dayto-day management and operations, including the supervision of up to 50 part-time staff. Qualifications: bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree preferred; minimum five years of work experience in afterschool programs; minimum two years of supervisory experience; knowledge of baseball/softball and team development is helpful; Spanish fluency is preferred.

PER DIEM COUNSELOR

The Family Center for Autism is a controlled affiliate of Life’s WORC. FCA is seeking a senior executive responsible for oversight of all operations at FCA.

Mercy Haven Inc. is a mental health agency and has per diem counselor positions available at several of their locations. Counselors will assist residents in daily living activities. From 6am-midnight, the hourly wage is $9.80. From midnight-6am, the hourly wage is $8.93.

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PER DIEM PERSONAL CARE AIDE Mercy Haven Inc. is a nonprofit mental health agency and has per diem personal care aide positions available at their adult home in Bayport. The hourly wage is $9.55 per hour. Those applying must have a desire to help others. Qualifications: high school diploma or GED; clean driving record; experience is preferred but not necessary. Contact: Please call Human Resources at 631-277-8300.

OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST United Cerebral Palsy of New York City, which provides services and advocacy for those with cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, is seeking an occupational therapist. Qualifications: bachelor of science in occupational therapy; master’s degree is preferable; one year of occupational therapy experience preferred; current New York state license in occupational therapy. Contact: Send your resume and cover letter to careers@upnyc.org.

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PJCCHS Inc. works with those challenged by mental disabilities, drugs and psychological issues and has two manager’s positions available. Qualifications: one year of experience working with the developmentally disabled; at least one year of supervisory experience within a residential setting; working knowledge of OPWDD regulations; valid driver’s license; minimum one year of experience driving a 1015 passenger vehicle; must be AMAP, SCIP-R CPR and FIRST AID certified. Contact: Please email resume and cover letter to TeresaStewart@pauljcooper. org

St. Christopher’s, Inc., is a social services organization helping children and families. Requirements to be a driver include a high school diploma or GED, a driver’s license and one year of experience. Hourly pay is $15. Requirements for the youth care counselor include a high school diploma or GED, valid driver’s license and one year of experience. Hourly pay is $11.36. Contact: Resume and cover letter stating position of interest and salary requirements to HR@sc1881.org.

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A college degree and a minimum at least two years of experience is required. Contact: Send resume and cover letter stating position of interest and salary requirements to HR@sc1881.org.

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July 2015

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