MEDIA - REVIEW DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
Issue N°12 October 17th, 2016
TRADE TIPS
VEXED BY VENDEX? Read more page 6
TRADE TIPS
THE VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
S P O T L I G H T : I M M I G R AT I O N
WORKER CO-OPS INCREASE, FUELED BY IMMIGRANTS p.20
Spotlight section from pg.20-22
Read more page 14
FOUNDATION FOCUS
FRONT-LINE HERO
NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOU NDATION Read more page 8
TRADE TIPS
CARMEN REY, IMMIGRATION ACTIVIST Read more page 10
MICHAEL ZISSER ON LAND-USE VENTURES Read more on page 5
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
Nonprofit BoardCon The Collaboration of Staff and Boardroom
January 18th, 2017 8:00am – 5:30pm • Pace University 3 Spruce St • New York, 10038 Hear from nonprofit board members and senior executives at an all-day conference featuring in-depth panels and case studies on best practices and strategies for nonprofit boards.
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• Board Responsibilities 101 • Strategic Planning as Collaboration between Staff and Board • Best Practices for the Recruitment and Retention of Millennial Board Leaders • Diversity & Inclusion in the Boardroom • Keeping the Board Informed • Organizational Effectiveness • How to Call your Board Members to Action
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Learn about all aspects of nonprofit management and develop a solid foundation in social justice leadership. • Program can be completed in 12 months • Class schedule designed for working professionals • Receive ongoing mentorship from a nonprofit CEO For more information, please visit fordham.edu/nonprofits | nonprofits@fordham.edu | 212-636-6676
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October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
OCTOBER 2016
CONTENTS
THANK YOU TO OUR ANNUAL SPONSORS!
TRADE TIPS
5. Thinking about land use ventures 6. Vexed by VENDEX?: Navigating integrity disclosure forms
NOTABLES
7. Recent Galas and Events 8. NYWF’s Le Cirque luncheon focuses on arts funding 8. CEO Corner: What the NY Women’s Foundation funds and why 9. Agency of the Month: Unique People Services 10: Front-Line Hero: Carmen Maria Rey
NEWS
11. NYN Media’s second annual MarkCon event 12. State boosts CSBG funds for ex-prisoners and immigrants 12. Fixing your financial statements: A Q&A with Lee Klumpp 13. New to the neighborhood 14. A Q&A with Nick Turner of the Vera Institute of Justice 14. A Q&A with Councilmember Helen Rosenthal 15. Five mayors, one problem: Homelessness 16. Staten Island’s heroin war 18. NYCHA embraces HUD tool to stop “deepening decline” 19. Progress on Affordable Housing 20. How HSC broadened its focus by shrinking its boardroom
AABR Abbott House
JCCA
ANDRUS
Leake & Watts Services
Astor Services for Children and Families
Life's WORC
The Bridge
Long Island Adolescent & Family
Brooklyn Community Services
Services
CAMBA
Lower East Side Family Union
Cerebral Palsy of Westchester
Mercy Haven
Child Care Council of Suffolk, Inc.
Mercy Home for Children
Children's Home of Poughkeepsie
MercyFirst
Children's Village
New Alternatives for Children
COFCCA
New York Asian Women's Center
Communilife
New York Common Pantry
Community Counseling & Mediation
Ohel Children's Home & Family Services
Concern for Independent Living
PSCH
The Day Care Council of New York
Public Health Solutions
The Doe Fund
QSAC
East Side House
Richmond Community Services
Family Services of Westchester
SCAN New York
FedCap
SCO Family of Services, Inc.
Fiscal Management Associates
Seaman's Society for Children &
Forestdale
Families
Good Shepherd Services
Service Program for Older People, Inc.
Graham Windham Services for
Sheltering Arms
Families and Children
Special Citizens Futures Unlimited
Green Chimneys
St. Catherine's Center for Children
Greystone Programs, Inc.
St. Christopher's Inc.
The Guild for Exceptional Children
St. Dominic's Home
Health and Welfare Council of
St. Francis Friends of the Poor
Long Island
Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center
Heartshare Human Services of NY
Staten Island Mental Health Society
Henry St. Settlement
Stonewall Foundation
Hour Children
SUS
Human Services Council
United Cerebral Palsy of NYC
Independence Residences
United Neighborhood Houses of NY
Institute for Community Living
University Settlement/The Door
InterAgency Council of
Vanderheyden Hall
Developmental Disabilities
Visions/Services for the Blind
Jawonio
William F. Ryan Community Health
JCC of Greater Coney Island
Center
SPOTLIGHT
PERSPECTIVES
CAREERS
20. The New York Community Trust supports immigrant communities 21. Building resilience in the Arab American community 22. Immigrants fuel the rise of worker cooperatives 23. Allison Sesso: The unintended consequences of ethics reform 24. Beth Finkel: Let’s make an issue of preserving Social Security 24. Nancy Wackstein: helping immigrants and refugees find a home 25. Paul Cassone: Another look at the state of developmental disabilities services
26. The go-to-career center for New York’s nonprofit industry 61 Broadway, Suite 1315 New York, NY 10006 General (212) 268-0442 Advertising (646) 517-2741 info@nynmedia.com
MASTHEAD
City & State NY, LLC Steve Farbman, Chairman Tom Allon, President / CEO Guillaume Federighi, Creative Director NYN Media
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Lissa Blake, Publisher Kelly Murphy, associate publisher AimÉe Simpierre, Editor-at-large Dan Rosenblum, Senior Reporter Sam Edsill, Copy Editor Michelle Yang, Senior Designer Chanelle Grannum, Digital Manager Charles Flores, Marketing Designer
To submit a news tip, article or letter to the editor for consideration, email editor@nynmedia.com or write to 61 Broadway, Suite 2235, New York, NY 10006 NYNmedia.com
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK Resilience is what Lena Alhusseini, the retiring CEO of Arab American Family Services Center, works to instill in her clients – recent immigrants trying to become part of America’s great melting pot. See our interview with her in the spotlight section. Also in our spotlight section on immigrants, we look at nonprofits and other entities who are supporting the rapid increase in immigrantled worker co-ops – which can give even undocumented immigrants the opportunity to own a business and
have a stable, living-wage job We hope you enjoy these stories and others sprinkled throughout this issue that focus on topics related to the immigrant experience. Note that many of our articles are condensed for the print edition so be sure to check www.nynmedia.com to read the full-length versions. While you’re there, forward an article to a friend and be sure to encourage your staff and colleagues to sign up for the NYN Daily e-newsletter. As always, thanks for reading and keep in touch.
AIMÉE SIMPIERRE Editor-at-large
W
hen presumably millions of cellphones in New York City buzzed with the notification that police wanted Ahmad Khan Rahami for questioning related to bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey, just as many people began making assumptions: What kind of face goes with that name? Is he a “radical Islamic terrorist?” One news article quoted this tweet: “Shoutout to my fellow brown persons who originally planned on taking the subway to the airport today with luggage.” The fear of more bombings quickly shifted to “fear of the other” as the manhunt unfolded. Many black and brown people held
their breath and located pictures of Rahami online; some noted “He resembles my son a bit,” “He looks a bit like my cousin.” A familiar cycle was winding up again, turned by fears that manifested themselves after 9/11, during this presidential election cycle and after nearly every act where terrorism is suspected – from the Bastille Day attack in Nice, France, to the massacre in an Orlando nightclub, to the shooting of an imam in Queens – and that was just this summer. It takes resilience for those in Middle-Eastern, South Asian and Arab communities to live through this everrecurring cycle with their sanity intact.
NYS Nonprofits + Giving Tuesday =
#NYGIVESDAY
New York State will host its first statewide giving day during this year’s #GivingTuesday on Nov. 29, 2016. Participating nonprofits gain free access to robust fundraising software, helpful guides and promotional materials, and best-in-class support! Join the movement today at www.NYGivesDay.org
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October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
TRADE TIPS
THINKING ABOUT LAND-USE VENTURES By MICH AEL ZISSER
P
eople have asked me, how do you do an air rights deal or a zoning lot merger or a joint development project or a major renovation or a corporate acquisition involving real estate, land use, or some other fascinating venture? As if I even knew the answer, or could explain it in a phone conversation or over coffee. Even if I could answer the question in relatively succinct terms, why should I attempt to make the answer seem any less complex than it actually is? Our sector is increasingly confronted by these exciting possibilities, but is not necessarily prepared to successfully move forward. New skill sets, new sensibilities, new relationships and a new understanding of revenue and expenses are required. Doing “deals” is frequently only minimally about programs, with which we generally feel more comfortable, and a lot more about other factors or strategies. So in my first few weeks of retirement, and before I make a decision as to whether or not I should write a “Land Use Planning 101” manual for the nonprofit sector, I’ve drafted a summary of “Strategic Issues” and
sentative. This would be considered the “external” team supporting top management and the Board. • Think about the initial project numbers/budget, several times: The numbers are never right and are dependent on many factors beyond your control. Build in a huge error factor – especially since in the nonprofit sector margins of error are rarely considered or financed – no real estate or land use venture ever costs what people say or think it will cost. Cost overruns or other types of projections are, by definition, fluid. • Never forget or underestimate the role of financing, review and regulatory agencies involved with your project: The list of external parties and stakeholders is too long to summarize and depends on the project, but the list will be long and not under your control. These external parties are what makes the longitudinal time frame so exasperating. There seems to be little or no interest at the various government levels to assist in expediting projects despite the rhetoric, so patience (and money for help) are essential. • Keep the board and other key stakeholders engaged: Never get too
BUILD IN A HUGE ERROR FACTOR – ESPECIALLY SINCE IN THE NONPROFIT SECTOR MARGINS OF ERROR ARE RARELY CONSIDERED OR FINANCED – NO REAL ESTATE OR LAND USE VENTURE EVER COSTS WHAT PEOPLE SAY OR THINK IT WILL COST. “Random Best Practices” just to encourage more discussion. Here are some strategic issues to remember: • Build the right planning and implementation team: Any reasonably complicated real estate or land use project/decision requires a set of experts representing skill sets well beyond the internal management and board capacities of the typical organization. These experts would include but are not limited to: a law firm with expertise in either real estate or land use issues relevant to your project, a zoning analysis expert, which may be present at a law firm; an appraiser with experience in the type of project being considered; architects capable of providing assistance and expertise at all stages of the project; construction management support and expertise, preferably in the guise of an owner’s repreNYNmedia.com
far ahead of them or yourself. There will be too many points where the project could fall apart, or where the direction and expectations will need to be reset, or where more funds or support are needed. So to minimize risk to you and the organization, be transparent and inclusive. Here are some specific best practices to consider: • Do not sign any leases without at least three conditions: A right to terminate the lease at key stages if the funding sources which initially paid for the lease are lost and no suitable replacements are found; the length of the lease should closely correspond to the funded length of the program contracts or grants which will occupy the space; if space is used for administrative purposes, ensure that sufficient indirect or general support funds are available over the length of the contract to meet the ob-
ligation. • When the annual audit, usually in the notes section, documents future-year lease obligations, which are above and beyond the liabilities contained in the current audit year, have available for board review the projected income sources to cover those leases. • Have a reliable mechanism for keeping up with any violations or penalties associated with all your properties, including the Department of Buildings, and other oversight agencies (perhaps best done by hiring a service to do this for you), and make sure penalty payments are made on a timely basis. • Avoid mortgages to the greatest extent possible, irrespective of the funder or terms. Owning property is always a temptation, but obviously requires a long term commitment and presumption of off-setting in-
come. Our sector is “trained” to assume that such obligations will always be met one way or another, but this has proven not to be the case in an increasing number of circumstances. • The pot of gold at the end of the real estate transaction (e.g. air rights sales, so-called “free” space in a private development, etc.) is not always what it seems to be. Initial numbers can be enticing, but sometimes do not take into account replacement costs, time lost in transition, future operating expenses, living off-site during the project implementation, a poor rate of return on investments, and so on. Complexity and risk are the key characteristics of any land use planning or real estate transaction, but it may well be the best strategic decision for your organization to consider. Bottom line, get the right assistance when and where you need it, and make sure the top management team and the Board are ready for a journey. So when I have received phone calls, or if I continue to get phone calls, my response has been and will be to say some or all of the above. And sometimes I get a free lunch out of the conversation. Michael Zisser is the recently retired CEO for University Settlement and The Door.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
TRADE TIPS
VEXED BY VENDEX? Tips for navigating New York City’s integrity disclosure forms By CL AU DE M. MILLM AN
VENDEX MISTAKES THAT ARE UNEARTHED CAN TAKE ORGANIZATIONS AND LEADERS DOWN, AND FALSE VENDEX STATEMENTS CAN LEAD TO CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS. IT SHOULD NEVER BE DELEGATED AND FORGOTTEN.
N
ew York City’s Vendor Information Exchange System (VENDEX) is an annoyance for organizations dependent on city funding. While it’s tempting to treat VENDEX compliance as clerical, it warrants attention from top executives. Perfect VENDEX compliance can be difficult, and complacency can lead to the filing of false data. The city’s files contain many false VENDEXes, most of which never impact
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C O N T E M P O R A RY
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vendors or contract awards. But when an organization comes under scrutiny through media attention, government inquiries or disputes with competitors or disgruntled employees, VENDEXes are picked over. VENDEX mistakes that are unearthed can take organizations and leaders down, and false VENDEX statements can lead to criminal convictions. It should never be delegated and forgotten. So pull out your VENDEX Questionnaire and let’s try to make some sense of it. First, let’s debunk a myth: No one is “VENDEX approved.” If the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services (MOCS) deems a VENDEX submission facially complete, its data will be entered in a computer. That doesn’t mean the answers have been “judged” or “cleared” by MOCS, a contracting agency, or the city’s Department of Investigations. Even if a contract is registered, that does not mean someone approved the VENDEX responses. However, it does mean that someone reviewed the contractor’s VENDEX “cautions” – summaries in the city’s database of certain adverse information. Many “cautions” simply paraphrase the vendor’s VENDEX submission narratives. Executives should thus ensure that VENDEX narratives include truthful, positive details so cautions will not inappropriately complicate or impede access to city funding. “Cautions” can be triggered by responses to VENDEX’s most frustrating questions. Perhaps most challenging, particularly for larger organizations, is Vendor Question (VQ) No. 15, which asks whether the vendor, its affiliates, or past or present officers or managerial employees have been “investigated.” This can’t be answered without reviewing the Vendor’s Guide to VENDEX, which defines an investigation as “any inquiry by any prosecutorial, investigative or regulatory agency” about a person or entity’s “activities” or “business practices.” While there is an exclusion for contacts with the contracting agency “relating to performance or routine aspects of an existing contract,” “agency communications relating to constituent complaints,” and “routine non-forensic program or financial audits,”
VQ No. 15 can still be burdensome. When it is coupled with VQ No. 16, which asks whether this same broad group has been “found in violation of any administrative, statutory, or regulatory provisions” and whether administrative charges are pending, it is plain that most regulated entities will find it difficult to gather the information sought. There are other VENDEX questions that are somewhat easier to address when correctly understood. Organizations working with affiliates or within networks should carefully consider VQ No. 5a, which concerns the sharing of “office space, staff, equipment, or expenses.” Organizations employing or engaging former or present government employees or appointees should carefully review VQ No. 7. Those that have engaged lobbyists for “procurement lobbying” should take heed of VQ No. 18. And organizations should be wary of VQ No. 12’s reference to judgments, injunctions and liens, since its confusing mention of the “City Council” might make it seem narrower than perhaps intended. It can be prudent to disclose information that is not called for by the VENDEX forms. For example, VQ No. 11’s reference to debarments, non-responsibility findings, disqualifications and suspensions is expressly limited to “contracts,” which are defined as agreements with New York City government agencies. As this distinction might be lost on contracting officers, investigators and reporters, organizations correctly answering “no” might avoid a disastrous misunderstanding by supplementing a negative response with unsolicited information about negative government contract actions in other jurisdictions. The consequences of a filing a false disclosure form are too great to ignore. With care, an organization can minimize the risks posed by integrity disclosure requirements. Claude M. Millman, a partner at Kostelanetz & Fink LLP, was formerly director of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and currently represents city contractors and subcontractors, including nonprofit organizations. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NOTABLES
GALAS
The City Parks Foundation raised $356,800 at its 19th annual CityParks Tennis Benefit at the 2016 US Open Tennis Championships held at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Aug. 30. (Sylvester Zawadzki)
Spirit of Entrepreneurship Award recipient Andrea Ormeño and Neighborhood Leadership Award recipient Nathaly Rubio-Torio at The New York Women’s Foundation Neighborhood Dinner in Queens.
NYC Mission Society Cocktails and Conversations in Southampton. Left to right are: Cole, Siena, Leah, and Stanley Rumbough (Patrick McMullan)
PENCIL President Gregg Betheil and Good Day New York’s Rosanna Scotto pose with PENCIL students at the annual PENCIL gala which raised $1.5 million for the education nonprofit.
The Police Athletic League raised $1.25 million at its 44th annual Superstar Dinner held at the Mandarin Oriental. Pictured are Commissioner James P. O'Neill, Former Police Commissioner William J. Bratton, Former District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, Former Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, Honoree John B. Osborn, Former Police Commissioner and Honoree Robert J. McGuire (Jillian Nelson)
Participants at the Fresh Air Fund’s “140th Birthday Celebration Annual Spring Benefit,” at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers. Honorees included: Fresh Air child and celebrity stylist June Ambrose; internationally renowned supermodel Chanel Iman; and current head coach of the St. John's Red Storm, Chris Mullin. NYNmedia.com
Community Access’ 42nd Anniversary Gala, “Changing the Landscape of Mental Health and Housing,” was the first in its history to raise more than $1 million. Left to right: Board members Elise Chowdhry and Catherine G. Patsos; special guest John Turturro and board president Stephen H. Chase.
The Children’s Village and Inwood House Golf and Tennis Classic raised $90,000 (after expenses) for at-risk children and teens. Participants from St. Christopher’s teamed up with two members of the local Dobbs Ferry Police Department. Left to right Marshall Asche, Eric Lebenson, Officer Gee, and Officer Kamke.
Tuesday’s Children hosts its 15th Anniversary “Roots of Resilience” gala at The Pierre in New York City. Left to right: Honoree John Feal, Terry Grace Sears, Executive Director of Tuesday's Children, Chairman of the Board David Weild, and Co-Chairs Jackie Seaman and Tom Seaman. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Tuesday's Children)
More than 200 women came together to give back to UJA-Federation of New York. Left to right: Laura Kleinhandler, UJA-Federation Westchester Women’s Chair; Aron Bell, Michele Gregson, UJA-Federation Westchester Women’s Vice-Chair; and Alan Bell of Pound Ridge.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NOTABLES: FOUNDATION FOCUS
NYWF ’S LE CIRQUE LUNCHEON FOCUSES ON ARTS FUNDING By AIMÉE SIMPIERRE
Le Cirque Luncheon panelists (left to right) Anne E. Delaney, Board Alumnae of NYWF and founder of the Starry Night Fund and the Lambent Foundation; Laurie M. Tisch of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund; Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of Studio Museum in Harlem; and Ana L. Oliveira, President and CEO of The New York Women’s Foundation. (Patrick McMullan Company)
T
he New York Women’s Foundation’s (NYWF) annual luncheon at Le Cirque focused on women philanthropists and their work supporting the arts in the midst of a challenging funding climate. “Arts are about community roots, community voice, views of the world, they hold values, they elevate the importance of lives as they are – the creativity that exists in communities,”
Ana Oliveira, president and CEO of NYWF told New York Nonprofit Media. The event, hosted by NYWF board member Jean Shafiroff, featured Laurie M. Tisch of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund and Anne E. Delaney, founder of the Starry Night Fund and the Lambent Foundation on a panel moderated by Thelma Golden, director of the Studio Muse-
um in Harlem. During the panel discussion, Tisch explained the Illumination Fund’s devotion to supporting the arts in public schools. It’s more than giving underserved youth activities to “keep them out of trouble,” she explained. “It’s really, look at the kind of schools that you’ve chosen for your children ... would you ever choose a school that doesn’t have arts education? It’s
just a matter of democracy and it’s just a matter of good education.” Tisch also encouraged philanthropists in the room to get out of their comfort zones, take strong stands and make the effort to thoroughly understand the programs they fund. That includes knowing what should be measured and what’s important. “Metrics are good to a point, but they’re not everything. A lot of it really is just common sense,” Tisch said. “People have to realize that if you’re giving on the smaller size grants, you can’t have resources go to twice that amount of time to come up with reports and reports.” Delaney, a former board chair with NYWF, talked about how she made supporting the entire “ecology” of the arts community – from individual artists to nonprofit organizations and from studio museums to the Met – a focus of her grant making. “There’s really this continuum that’s happening,” she said. “We all have to be speaking to each other a little more so that the bigger institutions understand that all these artists have come up through smaller organizations and they can support it,” Delaney said. Delaney also pointed out that the levels of giving to the arts may never return to pre-recession levels – even as many organizations strive to maintain their work spaces in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods. She cited a network of arts organizations that the Lambent Foundation is working to create that will encourage the sharing of resources and knowledge within the field.
WHAT THE NYWF FUNDS, AND WHY A CEO Corner Q&A with Ana Oliveira, president and CEO of the New York Women’s Foundation
S
ince 2006, under Ana Oliveira’s leadership, the grantmaking of the New York Women’s Foundation (NYWF), the largest women’s fund in the country, has increased from $1.7 million to $6 million, impacting women and girls in poverty across New York City. Oliveira joined us to talk about the foundation’s work and its philosophy about philanthropy. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at nynmedia.com. NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA: TELL US ABOUT HOW NYWF HAS TAKEN THE LEAD ON THE NEW YORK CITY FUND FOR GIRLS AND YOUNG WOMEN OF COLOR.
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Ana Oliveira: We house the fund at the foundation, it’s a collaborative fund. … But it’s so heartening that 16 other partners have joined us, because … philanthropy can have a catalytic role. Philanthropy can show opportunities for things to be done differently, and philanthropy can most importantly fund those who are typically disregarded as solutions, as leaders, as knowledgeable, as agents of change. NYN MEDIA: YOU SUPPORT SOME SMALLER GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS THAT COULD BE CONSIDERED RISKY – HOW DO YOU GET YOUR DONORS ON BOARD?
AO: If we work from the premise that problems and solutions live in the same place – and that we can get better solutions if we involve the thinking, the hearts, the minds, of those who are, on a daily basis, creating solutions to situations of under-investment – if we work from that premise then we want all voices at the table. NYN MEDIA: WHAT KIND OF STORY ARE YOU LOOKING FOR YOUR GRANTEES’ NUMBERS TO TELL ? AO: How do we know – and how do they know, even more importantly – that what they are trying to do in the world, the impact they are trying to have, is actually happening? …
Some things lend themselves to a quantifiable measurement of success. So for instance in the area of job training, employment, earnings, you can quantify things like that. But in the area of health sometimes it’s much harder, in the area of violence sometimes it’s much harder, or safety … in the area of policy change. … We fund people because we share a goal, we share a vision. We do not fund people because we are going to tell them how and what they’re going to do. What we can do is bring other things: bring financial resources, bring connections, bring others’ expertise, bring access to a community of peers, bring access to visibility, etcetera. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NOTABLES
AGENCY OF THE MONTH: UNIQUE PEOPLE SERVICES Supporting the disenfranchised By MICHELLE ARNOT
Groundbreaking for Lynn's Place with First Lady Chirlane McCray.
I
n the Bronx, six out of 10 residents earn less than the median household income and struggle to pay rent. Bronx-based Unique People Services (UPS), which has been at the forefront of identifying ways to combat and decrease this statistic, is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary of providing housing and support services to individuals in critical need of shelter. With a staff of 240 and a budget of $22 million, every year UPS serves over 1,000 formerly homeless individuals in the Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Westchester as it strives to fulfill its mission to serve those who may “have been denied compassionate and considerate treatment elsewhere.” The late Lynn Wonsang founded UPS following a distinguished career at Brooklyn’s Services for the UnderServed. She sought to carve out a space for New Yorkers who "fell through the cracks of society" and established the organization in the Bronx as a safe haven with a mission of inclusiveness. UPS provides shelter, food and counseling for formerly homeless individuals often struggling with health challenges. Its Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program serves over 200 clients, while its day habilitation programs offer a host of activities to those with physical disabilities. It operates 24
NYNmedia.com
housing programs in four boroughs plus Westchester. “As New York rent has become unaffordable and homelessness has increased, Unique People Services works to provide a beam of light for those in need,” said Yvette Brissett-André, who has served as executive director since 2008. She also serves as an alumna of the National Urban Fellows Program and is a member of the Fortune Society’s executive team. Last July SmartCEO honored Brissett-André with its Brava award for outstanding nonprofit management. “Yvette is such an inspiring leader,” said newly appointed Chairwoman Crystal E. Jackson, senior vice president of Citibank’s Nonprofit Services Group. Jackson, an alumna of the National Urban Fellow program, was selected by The Network Journal as one its “40 Under 40” for 2016. “She brings so much creative energy to the position and leads by example,” Jackson said. Looking ahead, Brissett-André and her team are focused on the launch of two major housing projects expected to come to fruition in 2017. One development with the working title of New Crown will replace the current Crown Residence, a midtown shelter that was forced to close after the property owner sold the building. “Losing that program was challenging, although not surprising in
light of real estate values nowadays,” Brissett-André said. “We are grateful to be able to reopen in a new location thanks to new funding.” The next jewel in the UPS crown is Lynn’s Place, the agency’s first affordable housing complex, which was co-developed with Robert Sanborn Development and designed by Urban Architectural Initiatives. Named for the organization’s founder, the development will include 69 mixed-use units, 42 of which will be allocated to formerly homeless individuals with mental illness, and will include on-site support services, a sunken courtyard and a multipurpose meeting room. “Watching this project come to life is fantastic because it’s so true to Lynn’s vision,” said Brissett-André. Lynn’s Place is funded by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Community Preservation Corporation, the state Office of Mental Health, New York City Council Reso “A” funds, the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Hudson Housing, and Capital and Deutsche banks. Groundbreaking took place last December with New York City first lady Chirlane McCray, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito and other city officials in attendance. As agreed, the contractors are hiring local workers, and construction is on track. “The timing worked out
so well since Lynn’s Place falls in line with the mayor’s initiative,” said Brissett-André. She is grateful for the deep support for the project especially “from the City Council, Community Board 2, and Dr. Ian S. Amritt of Unitas. All these factors were instrumental in making our dream a reality.” While the forecast for 2017 looks bright thanks to New Crown and Lynn’s Place, Brissett-André is anticipating the impact of the upcoming minimum wage increase. Clearly, the increase in costs will present a challenge. But if she had a magic wand, Brissett-André remarked, “I would reward the individuals who work two shifts a day and give so much of themselves to enable our programs.” She is hopeful that government will step in to cover the increase, but she is also exploring new ways of raising funds to meet the challenge. “Already a newly hired grant writer has made a difference and we are seeing good results,” she said. As it celebrates its 25th year on Oct. 20, the UPS gala committee chose to honor and celebrate six individuals who represent different facets of the organization. Among them is one of the Day Habilitation individuals, Chantae Jones, who has blossomed into a confident person with life goals, according to the dedicated staff who have watched her transformation. “The success of UPS is due to the quality of service we offer to each individual,” Brissett-André said. “It’s about helping each individual to identify goals and then helping them to achieve them, whether it’s a person previously resistant to getting help who goes back to school or an individual with a disability who gets a job and gains more independence.” Getting to know the individuals in its programs is the agency’s number one priority, according to Brissett-André. To remain accessible and make sure all their needs are met, she has posted her cell phone number in all the UPS residences. “It is my duty to know everyone who comes through our doors,” she said. “On holidays I pop into the centers and enjoy a meal with clients.” And does she receive a lot of calls from clients? “You bet I do,” she said with a smile.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NOTABLES
FRONT-LINE HERO:
CARMEN MARIA REY Serving undocumented survivors of domestic and gender violence By MICHELLE ARNOT
“IN 2016 WE HAVE MORE STATELESS PEOPLE THAN EVER BEFORE DUE TO CLIMATE CHANGE AS WELL AS POLITICAL FACTORS,” REY SAID, WITH CENTRAL AMERICANS CURRENTLY THE LARGEST COHORT.
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espite a 2016 initiative by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to protect victims of domestic violence in the undocumented immigrant community, the threat of poverty and deportation looms large over this population. Through referrals by city agencies or medical and school administrators, many find their way to Sanctuary for Families. Each year this nonprofit provides over 15,000 survivors of domestic and gender violence with shelter, legal support and job training, completely free of charge. About 20 years ago Sanctuary co-director Carolien Hardenbol launched the Immigration Intervention Project (IIP), whose mission is to increase the pool of legal assistance
in the field and “to relieve gender violence survivors of these challenges by assisting them to obtain legal immigration status, permanent resident status and citizenship.” Carmen Maria Rey, deputy director of the IIP, has extensive experience helping adults and children to escape safely from forced marriages, female genital mutilation and other abusive circumstances. In addition to its pro bono support, IIP runs the Anti-Trafficking Initiative to offer rescue to the 4,000 underage victims of sex trafficking in New York state. Many clients do not speak English fluently so language skills are a plus for their attorneys. Rey speaks four. “Even if I could replicate myself 100 times, there would still be a shortfall in representation of the
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caseload of undocumented immigrants who are victims of abuse,” said Rey. The need for qualified attorneys is becoming a big legal issue as inadequate translations may prolong delays in an intrinsically slow bureaucratic process. “In 2016 we have more stateless people than ever before due to climate change as well as political factors,” Rey said, with Central Americans currently the largest cohort. As one of Sanctuary’s lead legal resources, Rey partners with government and community leaders and trains the pro bono divisions of top law firms in the intricacies of immigration law. “It’s a complex field and without proper training it’s easy to do more harm than good,” she said. The Sanctuary team has been recognized for providing quality services to the community. Last June Hardenbol accepted recognition from the International Association for Social Work with Groups, on behalf of Sanctuary for “exemplary leadership in providing counseling and related services, and in particular, creative and innovative group therapy services to victims of domestic violence and their families.” All these services are offered at no cost to the client. Since joining the organization as an intern in 2004, Rey has devoted her time and expertise to support the needs of the burgeoning population of recent immigrants. “Unless you want to talk about immigration, I’m very boring,” Rey admitted. “I ask everyone where they came from, whether it’s a cab driver or coffee vendor on the street!” Rey herself arrived undocumented from northern Spain following a seven-year separation from her parents while they sought U.S. citizenship. Memories of queuing up before dawn at city government offices with her mother inform the sensitivity with which she now handles her clients. “I take on the burden of my clients during the consultation, and I try to lessen them but I know they’re not mine,” she said about how she
copes with the graphic nature of the “horrific” cases she hears on a regular basis, from Muslims being bullied at school to sexual violence in the home. Rey’s family obtained citizenship through President Reagan’s amnesty program. Subsequently, Rey earned degrees from New York University and Brooklyn Law School. She is pleased to report that her mother is currently pursuing a degree in nursing and that her sibling, a Yale alumna, was born in New York City. It was while volunteering as a translator at Bellevue Hospital that Rey settled on a career as an immigration lawyer and activist. In conversation with a Dominican patient she discovered that due to his undocumented status he could not take time off work for medical treatment without losing pay. Instead, he sacrificed his health in order to feed his family. “The indignity of his situation made me so angry that I vowed to help immigrants without resources,” recalled Rey, who couldn’t convince the patient to take action against his employer. “I had to console myself with the fact that his children got a college education due to his hard work. I know how difficult it is to be an immigrant and to be poor. The undocumented population faces so much indignity.” “We’re proud that our services are 100 percent free,” said Rey, who handles or supervises an average of 200 cases per year. She describes Sanctuary’s program as a ‘self-sufficiency factory line’ that moves clients along, offering therapy and skills that enable them to become independent and, ultimately, self-sustaining. Walking into the waiting room at Sanctuary, she derives energy from the cross-section of women she encounters – perhaps a Guatemalan next to a Russian across from a West African, all wearing the traditional clothing of their home country. “I suppose I was destined for this (immigration law) battle because at the end of the day, I love what I do.” NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
NYN MEDIA’S SECOND ANNUAL MARKCON EVENT By AIMÉE SIMPIERRE
Panelists discuss using data-driven analytics for targeting prospects and measuring impact. (Photos by Andrew Kist)
“(THE BRAND) REALLY TAPS INTO: WHAT ARE WE SAYING ABOUT OURSELVES? WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING ABOUT US AND HOW ARE PEOPLE FEELING CONNECTED TO US?” — TAR A COLLINS
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ew York Nonprofit Media’s second annual MarkCon event held at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Proshansky Auditorium focused on brandbuilding for nonprofits – a vital skill in a state where well over 97,000 nonprofits are working to make a name for themselves. Newer trends were certainly under discussion, such as the prevalence of Instagram in today’s marketing efforts and the increasing need to brand programs – and indeed entire organizations – formed from mergers between nonprofits. However, some basic questions still needed revisiting. One elemental question that weaved its way through many of the day’s presentations was, “what is a brand?” Answers ranged from the color palette and font selected for your logo to the amalgamation of every piece of content your organization generates for public consumption. Tara Collins, director of communications and resource development at RUPCO, and a
NYNmedia.com
to help even a “team of one” translate data into stories that have a narrative and are palatable for a broad audience. Panelists also acknowledged that marketing efforts are best begun at home. “One thing that a lot of times I hear is, ‘Why is my board in my business? Why is the CEO in my business? Why are they asking all these questions? They’re micro-managers.’ That’s your fault,” said Kevin Moran,
co-founder and principal of the consulting firm Integral LLC, during a panel titled “Using Data-Driven Analytics to Enhance and Improve Targeting Prospects and Measuring Impact.” “You’re not giving them the information that they need to leave you alone – or to instill confidence in what you’re doing.” Other panels, such as “How to Create and Gain Awareness of Your Events,” and “Video Storytelling: What Really Matters,” worked to help nonprofits identify the critical elements – whether they be anecdotes or data points – that best represent their organizations’ missions and distinguish them from the pack. Participants were advised to stay away from “vanity metrics” such as high numbers of social media impressions or other seemingly impressive data points that don’t necessarily reflect any meaningful success for the organization. What with new tools, fresh campaigns and social media platforms being introduced every day, Alex Rodriguez, director of communications with United Way of New York City did well to reassure the audience with this observation: “Social (media) within the landscape of marketing seems new, but the concept behind it is not. It’s just a digital form of grassroots anything. We’ve been doing it for as long as we can probably all remember in this room. We just do it online now.”
panelist on the workshop titled “Secrets to Implementing a Positive Rebrand or Brand Transformation,” summed it up this way: “(The brand) really taps into: What are we saying about ourselves? What are people thinking about us and how are people feeling connected to us?” The conversations were steered by some 40 expert panelists leading 10 workshops during a full day of programming. In between, attendees took advantage of networking sessions to connect with colleagues and explore various resources offered by more than 20 vendors. Discussions respected the realities of the current operating climate. Suggestions were offered for organizations with limited staff that resonated with larger organizations as well. For example, few hands rose when the audience of more than 300 attendees was asked whether they had an “internal measurement arm” to assist with informationgathering for marketing purposes. Panelists suggested online tools like Piktochart and Broadcast2world
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
STATE BOOSTS CSBG FUNDS FOR EX-PRISONERS AND IMMIGRANTS By DAN ROSENBLU M
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ew York state is directing more discretionary federal grant money to prisoner re-entry and immigrant integration programs, according to a periodic update of the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program. The New York State Department of State won federal approval for the proposal with the revised focus on Sept. 1. It represents the realignment of a substantial, if underpublicized, funding source for social services organizations. CSBG funding, established during the War on Poverty of the 1960s, is granted to states with the goal of ameliorating poverty in rural and low-income communities. Out of about $670 million disbursed across the country, New York received $57.7 million in 2014, according to the Department of State’s most recent annual report.
Ninety percent of the CSBG money is sent to designated Community Action Agencies (CAAs); the state spends another 5 percent on administrative costs while 0.5 percent goes toward Native American tribal organizations, leaving about 4.5 percent ($2.2 million) in a discretionary pool that can be used for special projects, emergency services and disaster relief. Under the state’s proposal, released in July, the $2.2 million will be used for discretionary programs run by CAAs or other nonprofits. (Another $800,000 or so will be used for training and technical assistance, disaster response and tribal anti-poverty services.) Department of State spokesman Laz Benitez said that in 2011 CSBG money was used to help low-income families after Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee, “but have re-
cently been geared towards better marrying community-based local economic development strategies and those living in poverty.” An emphasis on helping immigrants followed the 2013 launch of the state Office for New Americans, which teaches English and trains immigrants for the U.S. citizenship exam. The new Department of State commissioner, former El Diario publisher Rossana Rosado, was confirmed in June. In 2017, $32.7 million – a little more than half of the state’s CSBG share – will be sent to the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD), which manages block grants for New York City. The funds will be distributed across the five boroughs, according to the Department of State plan. Mike Bobbitt, an assistant commissioner in charge of community develop-
ment, said the agency will concentrate on seven program areas that include supporting immigrants, adult literacy, housing and senior services. Bobbitt said DYCD also shares the state’s priorities and is emphasizing a fatherhood program as a way of addressing re-entry issues. “It’s not like we haven’t known re-entry’s been an issue in the state of New York, but thankfully there have been good policy changes over time, and people looking at administrative practices over time, and I think you could probably say the same thing about issues facing immigrants and immigrant families,” he said. Notable recipients of DYCD funding for prisoner re-entry initiatives, Bobbitt said, include the Fortune Society, Osborne Association and the Center for Court Innovation.
FIXING YOUR FINANCIAL STATEMENTS: A LOOK AT THE FASB ACCOUNTING CHANGES A Q&A with Lee Klumpp, National Assurance Director, BDO This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Look out for the full podcast at nynmedia.com.
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he Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) recently released the Accounting Standards Update for Not-for Profit Entities and Health Care Entities touted as the biggest change in accounting standards for nonprofits in more than two decades. Lee Klumpp, National Assurance Director in BDO’s Institute for Nonprofit Excellence, joined us to discuss the changes.
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NYN MEDIA: ARE THESE CHANGES IN ANY WAY A RESPONSE TO THE FACT THAT MANY NONPROFITS FACE CHALLENGES WITH MAINTAINING FISCAL STABILITY? LK: Yes, so for instance 2008, 2009 at the end of the recession, there were a lot of nonprofits struggling. There was no disclosure in the financial statements for nonprofits about liquidity. ... Are they actually going to be able to make payroll next week? … Some would actually say, that because of some of the watchdog groups that are out there, we were focusing on some ratios that although were meaningful, but as a whole aren’t totally relevant to the total picture. ... Could there be other things we could do with the financial statements to get people to focus on effectiveness and efficien-
cy and what’s really going on. NYN MEDIA: CAN YOU GIVE US AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THE NEW ASSET CLASSIFICATIONS LOOK LIKE: LK: The interesting thing was when we were talking with stakeholders, staff, what we kept hearing over and over again was, what they really want to know from nonprofit financial statements is what resources became available. What contributions or fees or royalties, or whatever, came in during the period, what resources were made available because they came in in the previous period but because we’ve met the donor restrictions we were able to use those funds this period - so that takes care of your inflow. And then on the outflow, how did you deploy those resources as relates to your mission. NYN MEDIA: FOR SOME ORGANIZATIONS THERE MAY BE SOME
DIFFICULT INFORMATION THAT COMES TO LIGHT DUE TO THESE NEW CHANGES. HOW SHOULD NONPROFITS PRESENT THIS INFORMATION IN CONTEXT? LK: There’s a lot of written word in disclosures which allows for a more descriptive conversation about how organizations do things. That said, on the liquidity disclosure there are some organizations that are going to have bad liquidity and that may actually help change behavior. I’m sure some of our listeners out there have been in board meetings where somebody said “Oh we've got $3 million in unrestricted net assets, maybe we can do that other project that’s $3 million.” Well that doesn’t necessarily equate to cash. I think some organizations will have to adapt their policies and procedures in order to shore up their financial position. ... But I think the other side of it is you’re going to understand what the resources have been set aside for. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
NEW TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD As the number of homeless New Yorkers continues to rise, housing providers strive to reassure communities as they open new shelters By DAN ROSENBLU M
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Commissioner of Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services Steven Banks visit the Bellevue Men's Shelter in Manhattan in January 2016. (Photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
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fear among neighborhood residents that new homeless shelters will bring unfamiliar people – some of them desperate or addicted to drugs or mentally ill – into their community is not a new phenomenon. But with the ranks of the homeless sleeping in shelters in New York City nearly topping 60,000 – a record high – nonprofit housing providers are under increasing pressure to build more housing. And more than ever, that also means building consensus in the neighborhoods that will host these sites. Providers must notify elected officials about the size and scope of the facility, both when proposing a project and immediately after being awarded a contract, as well as make an attempt to meet with the local community board. The city weighs those concerns as well as the number of similar facilities nearby when making a final determination. While there seems to be no magic bullet, advocates say transparency, adaptive design and strong community roots can increase the chances that a project will win community approval. In recent months, however, that approval has been hard to secure. An East Harlem community board slammed the Department of Homeless Services last month, saying the agency neglected to prioritize local residents in filling a new homeless shelter. Residents in Bushwick and BedStuy fought against the opening of facilities in their neighborhoods. And community opposition led the city to drop a proposal to open a Bronx shelter for people with HIV. In the most high-profile recent confrontation, residents of Maspeth, Queens, fought against the conversion of a local hotel to a shelter and protested outside the Brooklyn home of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks.
NYNmedia.com
The nonprofit agencies that develop homeless shelters and supportive housing have also been met with opposition. “Whenever they see that there’s a nonprofit sponsor, somebody like Samaritan Village, or BRC, or whatever it is, laypeople, average people, don’t understand the difference,” said Nancy Wackstein, who led United Neighborhood Houses until 2015 and became director of community engagement and partnerships at Fordham University's Graduate School of Social Service in February of this year. “They just see it as a big, bad old city shelter.”
limited, but earlier data suggests the consequences of locating a shelter in a neighborhood are less dire than some would suppose. A 2008 report by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy found that the typical supportive housing development actually increased real estate values within 500 feet. The research team – which included Vicki Been, the current commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development – also found a temporary drop in prices for properties further away, but those prices rose shortly after the development opened. Catherine Trapani, executive director of Homeless Services United, said that shelter facilities are in new, highly regulated buildings with social services for the occupants. “Very often, if I’m going for a site visit and I’m looking for one of my members’ buildings, I just look for the best looking place on the block and I’m going to find it.” Trapani said she has talked with her members, about 50 nonprofits that operate shelters, about how to reassure communities where they seek to open facilities. She said successful operators can allay concerns by assuring residents that suggestions will be addressed and highlighting features such as security, lighting and designated smoking areas to keep residents from congregating on stoops. The city has also tried to distribute
must do its share.” The department tracks neighborhood saturation of shelters and is moving toward what it calls a “more borough-specific” approach to keep displaced individuals and families closer to their neighborhoods. The de Blasio administration has also increased security near shelters, while the NYPD has reviewed shelter security measures and started training more DHS peace officers. Race and gender biases also come into play. Programs like a women’s shelter at an armory spark fewer concerns because homeless women are perceived as less dangerous than men. “I can’t tell you the number of times when everything gets turned into ‘homeless drug addicts are going to be on our street,’” Wackstein said of the media coverage. “And usually if it’s homeless black men, it’s worse.” Earlier this year, former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (who in 2011 objected to a proposed 328-bed facility in her home district of Chelsea, Manhattan) told reporters that New Yorkers needed to “get over themselves” about fearing the homeless. Quinn, who now heads the nonprofit Women In Need, said tabloids trafficked in stereotypes by publishing “racist shots of single men – they've purposely picked men of color who are put on the cover to seem scary and 'them, not us.’” Coalition for the Homeless Policy Director Giselle Routhier said that
“I CAN’T TELL YOU THE NUMBER OF TIMES WHEN EVERYTHING GETS TURNED INTO ‘HOMELESS DRUG ADDICTS ARE GOING TO BE ON OUR STREET.’ AND USUALLY IF IT’S HOMELESS BLACK MEN, IT’S WORSE.” — NANCY WACKSTEIN She said many people also don’t understand the difference between emergency shelters and supportive housing. Many cities and nonprofits are focused more on building permanent supportive housing, which offers individuals a long-term residence along with help getting jobs, managing illnesses and advocating for benefits and other services. Facilities vary in size and focus on a range of people, such as those with HIV/AIDS, domestic violence victims, single men or families. At this point, the fears are largely unsubstantiated. Recent research about whether supportive housing or shelters correlate with lower property values or higher crime in New York is
facilities more equitably – away from poor neighborhoods like the South Bronx and East New York and into other neighborhoods across the city, citing economic justice issues and pure logistics. “If a neighborhood is welcoming, we don’t want to wear out our welcome,” Trapani said. “We have to make sure that we’re really taking into account the ability of any neighborhood – for any residential project, by the way – to absorb new residents.” Lauren Gray, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeless Services, echoed Trapani’s point. “Homelessness is a citywide issue that requires citywide solutions,” Gray said in an email. “Each community
protesters would be more productive if they looked at the bigger picture. “I would urge folks who are angry about shelters in their neighborhood to think about the larger problem and to sort of direct their anger toward permanent solutions, because that’s really what’s going to work,” she said. Routhier was heartened recently when her neighborhood of Kensington, Brooklyn, was mostly welcoming of a family shelter run by CAMBA, another nonprofit organization. “The neighbors really seemed to use it as an opportunity to get together, not just for this negative reason, but also for a positive reason: to come together and put together care packets and to welcome families,” she said.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
ON RACE AND INNOVATING JUSTICE REFORM A Q&A with Nicholas Turner of the Vera Institute of Justice
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ince 2013, Nicholas Turner has served as president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice which works to improve justice systems from the inside out by using research and engagement initiatives to affect policy and practice. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Look for the full podcast at nynmedia. com.
NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA: THE VERA INSTITUTE WAS FOUNDED IN 1961 IN NEW YORK AND YOU HAVE INITIATIVES IN 40 STATES. WHAT KINDS OF CHALLENGES AND TRENDS HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT ARE SPECIFIC TO NEW YORK? Nicholas Turner: The justice system in New York is … very inquisitive. It is people who work to deliver justice, whether they’re in government, whether they’re in the nonprofit sector, (they) are, I would say, more analytical, they tend to be more innovative, there’s a culture in New York of constantly thinking about how to improve the way the justice system delivers justice and safety and fairness. … You see in government agencies in this city very robust policy and analysis shops, a big appetite for learning and understanding evidence and thinking about how evidence can shape practice and policy. … I haven’t seen this kind of richness in other cities.
NYN MEDIA: THERE ARE DEFINITELY NOW MORE PEOPLE ENGAGED IN DISCUSSING CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM AND ISSUES SURROUNDING RACE. DO YOU THINK THERE IS ANYTHING THAT IS STILL NOT BEING SAID? NT: I am really concerned that black criminality is a problem, and I think that people associate black skin with criminality and they do so in almost this reptilian way. I think no one in this country is exempt from that because I think that’s sort of mother’s milk – those are the images we receive, that is the way people talk about things. There’s implicit bias, there is outright racism, there is structural racism built into the systems that we have, there is historic racism and it’s this cocktail that is very hard; people don’t know how to come to terms with that. NYN MEDIA: ARE YOU IN FAVOR OF CLOSING RIKERS DOWN OR
FINDING WAYS TO IMPROVE THE FACILITY? NT: In my own individual capacity I would say that it’s a both–and proposition. … There’s a lot of work that has to be done to think about what new facilities could look like, to think about where they would be, to plan for that, to plan the capital investments. In the meantime we shouldn’t be twiddling our thumbs and not doing anything to make the conditions of confinement better. NYN MEDIA: DO YOU HAVE ANY RESEARCH BEST PRACTICES THAT YOU CAN SHARE? NT: This might sound a little bit heretical coming from an organization that is known so well for being a research organization … We’re also known for being embracers of innovation. I would never want to run just an evidence-based shop. … We have to think beyond the bounds of the evidence that exists.
ON FUNDING CITY CONTRACTS A Q&A with Councilmember Helen Rosenthal, chair of the Committee on Contracts NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA: WHAT DOES THE COMMITTEE ON CONTRACTS DO? Helen Rosenthal: The idea is anything related to procurement, so if it’s an emergency procurement or an ongoing procurement – that’s something I can stick my fingers in. If it’s a specific contract I have nothing to do with that whatsoever. That’s in the bandwidth of an agency to choose what provider fills a contract.
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ity Councilmember Helen Rosenthal was elected in 2013 to represent the 6th district covering the Upper West Side. She co-chairs the Women's Caucus and chairs the council’s Committee on Contracts. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Look for the full podcast at nynmedia. com.
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NYN MEDIA: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE BEST WAY TO HELP IMPROVE THE FUNDING OF CONTRACTS? HR: This Mayor came in and after, I would say decades of neglect, came in and in one of his first budgets put in funding to bring wages up to $15 an hour. … In the short run ... I would hope that the city would … put in correspondingly a bump for OTPS, in other words the cost for rising rents or maintenance or the
cost of supplies, the cost of food. That side, for this sector, has not gotten a bump since … at least a dozen years. In the long game, … It’s not impossible to go into each of those contracts and right-size them. Come up with what that dollar amount is and phase it in over time. And the city should be doing it, and I would hope the state would follow suit as well. NYN MEDIA: IS THERE A SOLUTION WE CAN BORROW FROM HOW OTHER CONTRACTS ARE HANDLED? HR: In the short term (to address the issue of delayed payments) we do have a tool available to us which is the Returnable Grant Fund. The city can loan the money to the provider. That’s a tool that I’m speaking with the city about using more - perhaps putting more money into it. They have practically zero defaults. Perhaps we should increase that
and use that as a mechanism to pay people faster. Right now the risk for a contract sits on the provider. NYN MEDIA: SOMETIMES PHILANTHROPY IS LOOKED AT AS A PLACE TO FIND RESOURCES TO SUPPLEMENT WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING AT THE MOMENT. DO YOU THINK THAT'S APPROPRIATE? HR: I really don’t. I think that philanthropy and foundation support is meant to do the interesting things that government might not pay for. So, government should fund the full cost of the service and if the provider is thinking, 'Oh let’s do a pilot to approach this problem a little differently, we need funding for that pilot, and maybe we will talk with government about permanently doing this different thing down the road.' That’s where foundation and private money should go. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
FIVE MAYORS, ONE PROBLEM: HOMELESSNESS A Q&A with Thomas Main
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s New York grapples with a homelessness crisis, city leaders and advocates are searching for a solution. Thomas Main, a professor at the Baruch College Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, suggests a plan for moving forward might best be found by looking to the past. Since the initiation of litigation in 1979 that led to the “right to shelter” ruling, there have been some improvements in the city’s handling of homelessness – and some stumbles. Main’s book, "Homelessness in New York City," looks at how Mayors, from Ed Koch through de Blasio, have dealt with the problem, and how the current administration can reduce the number of unsheltered New Yorkers. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at nynmedia.com. NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA: DID ANYTHING SURPRISE YOU DURING YOUR RESEARCH? Thomas Main: The hypothesis was maybe New York City can respond to pressing social problems rather better than we sometimes think it can. We all know about failed welfare bureaucracies and so forth. I told this story of 30 years of homeless policy to test the proposition: did the city manage to pull its socks up and get something done, or did it not? And I believe the city did, on balance, pretty well. Somewhere between a B-plus and an A-minus. NYN MEDIA: EARLY ON, YOUR BOOK QUOTES A 1971 ARTICLE DESCRIBING THE THEN-NEW PHENOMENON OF PEOPLE SLEEPING ON CITY STREETS. WHY HAS THE PROBLEM PERSISTED? TM: It was only relatively recently
that we started counting the street homeless. I’ll consult my visceral computer and argue that street homelessness probably increased slowly throughout the 70s and the 80s and may have hit a peak sometime during the 90s and I think it’s come down considerably from its peak. I think the population has waxed and waned and I think we have made some progress against it. Of course, it never was zero. There used to be The Bowery where the homeless were confined to for the most part. NYN MEDIA: YOU MENTION THREE PHILOSOPHIES RELATED TO HOW WE HANDLE HOMELESSNESS: ENTITLEMENT, PATERNALISM AND POST-PATERNALISM. CAN YOU OUTLINE WHAT SETS THOSE ERAS APART? TM: Entitlement starts with the signing of the Callahan Consent Decree in the early 80s and continues perhaps through the end of the Dinkins administration. As the label suggests, it was all about establishing a right to shelter. Entitlement had its limitations in that the demand for shelter turned out to be more than had been expected and also it raised questions about, “Gosh, we’re giving people shelter, but maybe they have other problems, whatever that might be: behavioral problems, substance abuse problems, whatever, that contribute to them being homeless.” I think that step resulted in the paternalistic phase, which was initiated by Andrew Cuomo who was the head of a blue ribbon panel convoked by Dinkins to address the limitations of the entitlement phase. And basically the paternalistic phase said, “Look, we acknowledge your right to shelter, but we think there’s something wrong with you that contributes to your being in the shelter and if you come into the shelter, you’ve got to enter some kind of rehabilitation.” The problem with the entitlement phase was, first of all, it didn’t really end up solving homelessness. Bloomberg also convoked a blue ribbon panel to rethink homeless policy. The blue ribbon panel initiates what I call post-paternalism which tries to move beyond just managing homelessness and to end homelessness, which turns out to
DID THE CIT Y MANAGE TO PULL ITS SOCKS UP AND GET SOMETHING DONE, OR DID IT NOT? NYNmedia.com
mean not to reduce it to zero but to focus on the most stubborn or most persistent homeless people, people who use up an inordinate number of days in the shelter system - and try to reduce that population as much as possible. You get the permanent housing right away. Because you’ll take that deal and it’ll get you off the streets. Post-paternalism also involved subsidies for families in the shelter system, mostly families. I think each was in some ways more sophisticated than the other. Each responded to real problems of its predecessor and so I see a certain amount of progress there. NYN MEDIA: MORE PEOPLE ARE USING THE SHELTERS THAN EVER. WHAT SHOULD MAYOR DE BLASIO DO? TM: I think that de Blasio has, to a certain extent, unfairly caught hell in the press. I think Bloomberg set the stage for a big problem when he stopped granting homeless families
rent subsidies to move out of the shelter. When that happened, the shelter census went up. And the de Blasio administration came in and, I think sensibly, said, “Gee whiz we’ve got to go back to the subsidies,” which they have now implemented under the various programs that are known as LINC programs. I think the de Blasio administration wants to develop more supportive housing. That’s good. The problem has been that for maybe the first two years of de Blasio’s administration, they had a Commissioner of Homeless Services who was not terribly effective. It may be that there was too much turnover in the shelter bureaucracy as de Blasio came in. I think there was a lot of administrative fumbling and so forth. I think the emergence of Steve Banks who now is Commissioner of Social Services and is basically now presiding over both the Department of Homeless Services and HRA, I think that’s potentially promising.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
STATEN ISLAND'S HEROIN WAR Limited funding and outdated statistics emerge as frustrating obstacles in Staten Island’s battle against the opioid epidemic
PHOTOS BY FRANK G. RUNYEON
By FR ANK G. RU N YEON
A
white van rattles northward on Staten Island's narrow roads, rumbling past wooded lots and vinyl-sided homes beneath a web of electrical wires and telephone lines. One of its passengers is 33-year-old Kevin Oshea. On nearly every block, Oshea has a memory. “These projects here, I could go in and get heroin,” he says. With the van stopped at a red light, Oshea nods to his left. “I used to meet someone at this gas station to pick up, drop off.” Draining a Red Bull, he cocks his head left and points diagonally across the intersection. “This deli here. I used to get heroin right out of that deli,” he says. As the van turns right at the light, he straightens up and leans forward. “There’s a street coming up, not this one, the next one – Hodges. I used to have three people on that block I used to do business with.” “No matter where you go, there's always a place,” Oshea says. He looks further down the road, “Anywhere on Staten Island.”
T
he abundance of heroin on Staten Island has fueled an epidemic. As of Sept. 1, there have been 61 fatal and 30 nonfatal documented heroin or opioid
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overdoses in 2016, according to NYPD statistics compiled by Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon. But his office believes many go uncounted and that the real numbers are 30 percent higher. In August, a Staten Island hospital official confirmed that there have been more overdoses so far this year than during the same period last year. Many fear the epidemic is getting worse. And despite national attention, nonprofit community service providers say they may still lack the resources to stop it – a problem compounded by a “data lag” in the city’s health department overdose statistics, which can mean even the most recent statistics are more than a year old. “We have families where everybody in the family is addicted,” said Diane Arneth, executive director of Community Health Action of Staten Island (CHASI). “The mother, the grandmother, the son, the daughter – the entire family.” Arneth’s organization, which offers harm reduction and drug treatment services, aids several such families. She said she has seen “multigenerational” addiction many times. “It’s astonishing what impact this is having,” Arneth said.
Luke Nasta, a Staten Island native who has helped others battle addiction for over 40 years as executive director of Camelot Counseling, said it’s difficult for him to witness the resurgence of heroin on his home turf. “I consider myself a survivor of the first heroin epidemic. I mean, I was a teenage heroin addict in the 1960s,” Nasta said. “Extremely disheartening. It's overwhelmingly sad.”
T
he second wave began to build in the mid-1990s. Freely prescribed opioid pills like oxycodone were marketed as non-
addictive pain relievers. In reality, these narcotic pain pills were laboratory-synthesized heroin, mimicking the effects of a true opiate, but not actually derived from opium. The prevalence of opioid painkillers in the family medicine cabinet became a health crisis waiting to happen. Recovering patients became dependent on the pills, family members self-prescribed them, and rebellious teenagers crushed and snorted them. The result was deadly. By 2011, health data showed deaths from opioid pill overdoses were three times higher on the island than in any other part of New York City – a disconcerting disparity with no clear explanation. After that, legislators and public health officials started cracking down on opioid prescriptions, making it more difficult for people to get ahold of them. Officials celebrated a 29 percent decrease in the number of people dying from pill-related overdoses between 2011 and 2013. Heroin dealers saw an opportunity. They flooded the market with their cheap and highly addictive dope – taking advantage of a population already hooked on opioids but increasingly unable to buy their pills. In 2014, law enforcement agents seized more heroin in New York City than they had in the previous three years combined. In 2015, agents pulled even more heroin off the city’s streets – recovering 818 pounds in total – and 150 pounds in one raid alone. Heroin itself has become increasingly dangerous in recent years. Today, it is 55 percent pure – that’s six times more potent than the heroin people used to shoot up, according to Drug Enforcement Agency records cited in a Staten Island Advance report. And now, fentanyl, a powerful
“THIS IS A FOREST FIRE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DUMPING BOTTLES OF WATER FROM AN AIRPLANE? WAITING UNTIL THERE'S NO FOREST LEFT?” — LUKE NASTA, CAMELOT COU NSELING
NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
form of synthetic heroin, is increasingly being mixed into street heroin, causing unsuspecting users to overdose. Heroin is deadlier now than it’s ever been. According to a state comptroller’s report in June, heroin-related overdose deaths in New York reached a record high of 825 in 2014. During the 10 years before that, the rate of prescription opioid overdose deaths in New York had nearly tripled, while the rate of heroin overdose deaths in the state increased twentyfold. And it appears to be getting worse. McMahon’s office began tracking the number of overdoses in real time when he took office in January. Shortly after his election, neighbors just down the block found their 21-year-old son dead from of an overdose on their front lawn. When McMahon inquired about the case, he discovered police weren’t investigating overdose deaths and that city health officials could not provide current overdose data. As law enforcement recovered record amounts of heroin, officials realized they needed more manpower to get it off the streets, but that would cost money the district attorney didn’t have. McMahon used his overdose statistics in June to successfully lobby Mayor Bill de Blasio for emergency funding, adding $3.66 million to the district attorney’s war chest, enough to hire 15 new narcotics officers. Without his overdose statistics, McMahon
“I REALIZED THAT NOT ONLY DO WE NOT HAVE ACCURATE DATA AS TO WHAT IS GOING ON, A GREAT OPPORTUNITY WAS BEING MISSED IN INVESTIGATING THESE CASES.” — STATEN ISLAND DISTRICT ATTORNEY MICHAEL MCMAHON
The statistics showed a 158 percent increase in heroin overdose deaths citywide in 2015, but a slight decrease in such deaths on Staten Island. McMahon doubts the accuracy of the data compiled by the health department. “If you look at it, if someone dies from a heart failure, even though it was caused by ingestion of drugs, it’s not recorded necessarily as a drug case,” McMahon said. “So there's some underreporting there.” McMahon said the health department’s 2014 report showed 74 total opioid overdoses, which he believes is undercounted by 50 percent. “And right now, the way we're running (in 2016), it is probably going to be double that, if not more.” City health officials expressed confidence in the department’s data and said that the medical examiner determines how to classify deaths. But there’s no disagreement about current heroin and opioid
“WE CAN'T TELL (DRUG USERS) TO BE IN CRISIS DURING BUSINESS HOURS.” — DIANE ARNETH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COMMU NITY HEALTH ACTION OF STATEN ISLAND
said, he may not have gotten the funding. The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has long been responsible for tracking overdose statistics, and a spokesperson noted the agency even tracks “drug-related emergency room visits on a daily basis in order to identify trends that require coordinated response.” For example, last April, the department issued an advisory warning of the “dramatic increase” in the number of 2015 citywide drug overdose deaths. But the agency often takes many months to compile and release the data. The most recent figures were 18 months old when NYN Media asked for newer data in late July. City health officials explained then, however, that more time was needed to ensure publicly released statistics would be accurate and could not say when the 2015 numbers would be ready – although 10 days later, the department released the data. NYNmedia.com
overdose trends from the city health department. “This is an increasing problem and I think we predict it will increase for 2016,” said Dr. Hillary Kunins, who leads the city health department’s alcohol and drug use bureau.
will rise this year, according to the hospital data, but he offered a silver lining. “We see more people in treatment this year than we did last year,” Conte said. “So (that) trend is very positive.” Much of the information in the system is confidential under patient privacy laws, but it enables Staten Island hospitals to boil down this wealth of information into some actionable intelligence for the nonprofit addiction and recovery service providers. And accurate, timely data is crucial to reaching people in need. “We're trying to understand more of the trends in real time using hospital data, using district attorney data, and then we'll have a better sense of where we are with this,” said Adrienne Abbate, executive director of Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness (SIPCW). “I think the challenge is connecting people with treatment.” Together, SIPCW’s partner organizations have lobbied state and city government to expand existing anti-addiction services and create new ones for Staten Islanders addicted to opiates, bringing in millions of dollars. The city plans to spend $25 million to combat overdose deaths, according to health officials. And yet, there’s an unshakeable sense among nonprofit leaders that it may not be enough. There hasn’t been any funding for recovery until now, according to Arneth, who runs CHASI. The nonprofit was recently awarded $1.75 million to create Staten Island’s first recovery center. The new project will provide crucial
support and counseling to current drug users, their families and people struggling to fight addiction. But that money is only enough to keep the center running five days a week with limited hours. “We can’t tell (drug users) to be in crisis during business hours,” Arneth said. “We’re really looking for resources to keep this open 24 hours a day … so we can respond when people need it.” From the perspective of Nasta, who heads Camelot’s addiction recovery centers on the island, the government is providing perhaps a tenth of the funding needed to end the crisis. “This is a forest fire,” Nasta said of the heroin epidemic. “What are you doing? Dumping bottles of water from an airplane?” he asked. “Waiting until there's no forest left?”
K
evin Oshea’s battle has landed him in a courtmandated recovery program at Camelot. He began wrestling with addiction when he broke his wrist and a neighbor handed him his first oxycodone pills to help with the pain. His dependence on the drugs grew slowly over time. Law enforcement agents, legislators, health officials and nonprofit partners believe their extensive efforts to diminish the accessibility of opioid pills are stopping the epidemic from spreading to a new generation of potential addicts. But they are still struggling to reach people who are already addicted before it’s too late. “You can’t keep selling and doing drugs forever,” Oshea says. “I had a long run, but everybody’s game comes to an end.”
S
taten Island’s medical community has created a sophisticated database capable of producing real-time heat maps of exactly where overdoses are happening, with the ability to drill down on patient medical history. “It's really cutting-edge. Nobody's really doing it in New York state the way we're doing it,” said Joseph Conte, executive director of the Staten Island Performing Provider System, the local planning group for New York’s Medicaid redesign project, known as the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program, or DSRIP. Conte confirmed that the death toll for heroin and opioid overdoses
17
Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
NYCHA EMBRACES HUD TOOL TO STOP “DEEPENING DECLINE”
I
n an attempt to address mounting funding challenges, the New York City Housing Authority is seeking allies among tenants and the federal government as it embraces a tool that could transfer nearly 15,000 apartments to private developers. During a Sept. 22 forum hosted by the New York Housing Conference, some former skeptics of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, advocated for it. They included Regional HUD Administrator Holly Leicht and City Council Public Housing Committee Chairman Ritchie Torres, who said it was potentially “the salvation of public housing.” “We should compare RAD not to some ideal, but to the alternative,” Torres said. “And the alternative is the deepening decline of public housing with no end in sight.” Much of New York public housing is in serious disrepair and the pressure to find funding to support it grows by the day. Federal subsidies for public housing have leveled off across the country and NYCHA alone needs $17 billion for capital repairs. The de Blasio administration’s NextGeneration program incorporates RAD and other major initiatives – such as allowing developers to build on underused land – to reinforce it. Because federal rules mandate that the properties are owned or controlled by a public or nonprofit entity, housing providers will have a major role to play in RAD conversions in New York and across the country. The savings of RAD projects are realized through the additional financial tools that become available
NY1 anchor Errol Louis, HUD Regional Administrator Holly Leicht, NYCHA Chair and CEO Shola Olatoye and City Councilman Ritchie Torres talk about a federal funding tool for New York’s public housing. (Photo: Dan Rosenblum)
to support capital expenses once the apartments’ managements are reorganized. For tenants, repairs and building management services would be performed by thirdparty providers. Public housing units converted to Section 8 using RAD are given to developers and managers, who make repairs and get government subsidies to keep the rents permanently low. Those managers can also access tax credits and loans that public housing authorities can’t. (In New York, NYCHA will still own the land, but will lease properties to private developers.) Supporters say that the Section 8 funding stream is a much more reliable source of money than that set aside for federal housing. When Congress authorized RAD in 2012, it capped the number of units that could be converted to 185,000 across the country. (By comparison, NYCHA alone has 177,657 units.) That limit has already been reached
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and as of July the waitlist stands at more than 16,000 units. “We are very much hoping that Congress will eliminate the cap altogether and make this a permanent program but at least in the next budget year, increase that cap,” Leicht said. While cities like Baltimore and San Francisco have embraced the conversion tool, New York is “pretty late to the RAD game,” she said. NYCHA has 5,200 units awaiting HUD approval across Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. When combined with another program that uses HUD Tenant Protection vouchers, about 14,700 units would be converted, a spokeswoman said. In July, NYCHA selected a development team for Ocean Bay (Bayside) in Far Rockaway, Queens, a 24-building complex that houses more than 3,500 people and would need about $174 million in building repairs over the next 20 years. The team included RDC Development, Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens and Ocean Bay Community Development. Asked how many units NYCHA would like to see transferred to RAD, NYCHA Chairwoman and CEO Shola Olatoye didn’t give specifics, but said that it was “one of the tools we have to look at” to improve housing infrastructure. While some critics have referred to the proposal as privatization – particularly the union that represents many of NYCHA’s employees – RAD’s backers said it would permanently peg the units to 30 percent of tenants’ income. The Community Service Society (CSS) in August wrote a letter to NYCHA, based on an independent roundtable it convened in March, recommending that it create a handbook for residents, continue the roundtable to watch the conversion
process and help keep and absorb management staff at the converted developments. Vic Bach, a senior housing policy analyst at CSS, said there were real reasons for residents’ fears about their management changing from NYCHA to an “unknown private entity” as well as concerns about unforeseen changes in federal rules. “As an advocate,” Bach said, “there’s a fine line one has to toe. We can’t be in the position of promoting the program, but our job is really to see that residents have maximum information in order to make those decisions for themselves and that they have agreed upon rights and protections throughout the experience.” Panelists at the New York Housing Conference forum speculated whether presidential candidates Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would support RAD. “As we know, the Trump empire was built on government subsidized housing,” said moderator and NY1 anchor Errol Louis, referring to tax breaks and other incentives given to the developer to build his portfolio across New York. “He gets more government subsidy than NYCHA,” Torres said. The Sept. 22 panel also included members of the Baltimore Housing Authority to discuss RAD’s implementation in that city, along with affordable housing developers. They talked about the first phases of building affordable and marketrate buildings on NYCHA land to a room full of tenants and housing advocates. RFPs for half-market/halfaffordable units at Brooklyn's Wyckoff Gardens and fully affordable housing at sites in the Betances Houses were expected last month, according to Nicole Ferreira, vice president of development at NYCHA. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
PROGRESS ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING State’s $2 billion housing fund inches forward
KRISTA KENNELL
By DAN ROSENBLU M
O
ne day after Gov. Andrew Cuomo awarded $150 million of the $2 billion set aside to fund affordable and supportive housing projects, advocates applauded Cuomo for further directing New York State Division of Budget officials to sign a long-awaited memorandum of understanding initiating a process to release additional promised funds. But the MOU detailing the governor’s plan to spend those funds is already facing some reluctance from the Assembly and state Senate, where they must be approved. “By advancing the state’s largest commitment to affordable and supportive housing, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be able to find a safe place to call home,” Cuomo said in a Sept. 14 statement after the state budget director signed the MOU. “I call on the state Legislature to join me in this effort, and sign the memorandum of understanding so we can fully realize the transformational benefits this historic investment will bring for New York’s most vulnerable residents.” In January, Cuomo pledged to spend $20 billion over five years to expand affordable and supportive housing. That amount is divided between creating and preserving 100,000 units of affordable housing and developing 6,000 supportive units and 1,000 emergency beds. Since then, advocates, citing the mounting affordable housing and homelessness crises, have criticized
NYNmedia.com
the slow progress toward finalizing the MOU and agreeing on how to spend the first $2 billion. The $150 million awarded on Sept. 13 funded supportive housing proposals by 84 community-based organizations across the state, and was the most significant step forward related to distributing the money set aside in April’s budget since an RFP was released in June. The New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), a group that has criticized the governor for the delay in signing the MOU, has now shifted its focus to pressuring Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan to do their part. “New Yorkers are counting on Speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Flanagan to join the governor by signing the MOU to release $2 billion in affordable housing funds,” Jolie Milstein, NYSAFAH’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “As the statewide housing crisis continues, low- and middle-income families cannot afford any further delay.” It’s unclear whether the Legislature will support the spending plan as it exists right now. Both the Assembly and state Senate seem concerned about whether their priorities are being respected. “We remain hopeful that all sides can reach resolution and will continue working in good faith to achieve a balanced proposal that preserves affordability statewide and creates necessary housing opportunities
for seniors and veterans in our upstate communities,” said Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans. “A one-way MOU won't accomplish that, " he said, characterizing the governor’s spending plan as one that didn't take everyone’s concerns into consideration. The Democrat-led Assembly has backed a plan that would emphasize funding public housing repairs, revitalizing Mitchell-Lama homes and expanding affordable housing for seniors and other vulnerable populations. “If (the MOU) helps jumpstart the conversation and meets our priorities then great,” said Assembly majority spokesman Michael Whyland. “If it doesn’t, we’ll continue to fight like we always have to address New York’s vast array of housing needs.” A funding breakdown provided by the New York Housing Conference said the proposed MOU includes an additional $500 million to develop supportive housing and $100 million for upgrades and repairs to New York City Housing Authority buildings. Another $425 million would go to building or converting units as affordable rentals for households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income (AMI); $150 million is designated for rentals for those earning 130 percent of the AMI. “This is a perfect example of the partnership between government and the nonprofit sector in addressing some of the most pressing
social issues,” said Allison Sesso, executive director of the Human Services Council, an umbrella group of social services organizations. “It is important in moments like this to appreciate what each brings to the table – nonprofits bring expertise, capacity and connections to communities, and government supplies the substantial funds needed to support such a significant expansion of these worthwhile programs.” On Sept. 13, Cuomo’s office released the list of providers who received grants from the first $150 million. That money is targeted to support 1,200 new permanent supportive housing units for homeless veterans, domestic violence victims, senior citizens and people with disabilities, as well as those who are chronically homeless or have substance abuse or mental health issues. Wrap-around services for these residents will include job training, counseling and crisis intervention, legal services, and benefits and health care assistance. Out of the 121 projects awarded throughout the state, 42 will be operated in New York City by nonprofits such as BronxWorks, Community Access, Hebrew Home for the Aged, Services for the UnderServed and Comunilife. Carole Gordon, senior vice president for housing development at The Bridge, said she was “delighted” about the announcement. “We have purchased a property in the Bronx and this award will enable us to create 65 units of supportive housing for chronically homeless mentally ill adults, disabled seniors and veterans, all of whom desperately need this housing to live more independently and successfully in the community,” she said. That building will also include 43 affordable units for families, single adults and seniors. The grants announced in September include the $150 million from the money set aside in the MOU and $387 million from the state’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program and other sources. The awards cover service and operations costs and are conditioned on providers getting capital funding from other sources such as the Division of Homes and Community Renewal and the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance’s Homeless and Housing Assistance Program. The awards are being made available through renewable five-year contracts and granted once projects are built and ready to open. About 80 percent of the units that are ultimately funded will be located in the city, a number consistent with the state’s homeless population, the governor’s office said.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
NEWS
HOW HSC BROADENED ITS FOCUS BY SHRINKING ITS BOARDROOM By DAN ROSENBLU M
“THE GOVERNANCE WAS HAPPENING, IT JUST WASN’T THE MAIN POINT OF THE BOARD.” — HSC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ALLISON SESSO
HSC Executive Director Allison Sesso (Dan Rosenblum)
W
hile the Human Services Council has little trouble filling a room with nonprofit executives, it recently opted to remove a few seats from its boardroom as a way to make quicker decisions, engage more members and improve its advocacy efforts for the nonprofit sector. The new governing structure, which was approved after a Sept. 14 annual board meeting, reduced the size of the board from roughly 50 people to 13. The changeover involves implementing term limits and utilizing a workgroup model that encourages participation from all members. HSC Executive Director Allison
Sesso said the changes would help HSC become more “nimble.” “When you have a group of 50 it’s sort of like no one’s responsible, because there’s too many people,” she said. “When you have a group of 13 it’s pretty obvious who’s doing what and the communication I think is naturally enhanced because there’s fewer people to have to be on the same page and to get agreement.” Founded in 1991, the HSC is an umbrella group consisting of about 170 social services organizations. Jeremy Kohomban, the president and CEO of Children’s Village, was named the new board’s chairman, replacing CASES CEO Joel Copperman, who led the team for
six years. (He will remain as an exofficio board member for one year.) The board members were nominated by a transition committee. Board members will be limited to two three-year terms to ensure a steady turnover in an effort to foster innovation and diversity. The new board will designate three additional seats for “lay-people” who aren’t eligible for HSC membership but can offer a nonprofit perspective. Under its previous incarnation, the board’s 50 members (which fluctuated, depending on empty positions) focused on advocacy while administrative duties were concentrated in a subcommittee of about 20. “The governance was happening, it just wasn’t the main point of the board,” Sesso said. To encourage more involvement among HSC’s full membership, some workgroups are open to more member organizations and will include topics such as procurement, equity, disaster preparedness, development, finance and audits
“We had some workgroups before but this really is more intentional about it, and I think the workgroups feed into the advocacy and help drive the advocacy of HSC,” she said. The reorganization was planned by a governance and engagement committee, as well as the consulting firm TCC Group. Sesso said the process, which took about one year to materialize, included her calling every member to hear their thoughts. They were ultimately supportive of the proposal. “They essentially voted themselves out of these positions and were happy to do so,” she said. A cabinet of 50 executives will still meet quarterly as a Priority and Strategy Council to look at sectorwide trends. “Our front lines are often dominated by the working poor, the very people that government wants to help and we want to help,” Kohomban said. “So we are in a great place for us to test ideas and the stronger that we are as a sector, the more we can do on our front lines.”
SPOTLIGHT: IMMIGRATION
I
NYCT SUPPORTS IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES
n June, the New York Community Trust awarded several Muslim, Arab and South Asian-focused programs more than $500,000 in grants that will be used to support – among other initiatives – media campaigns that counter stereotypes about Islam and the creation of a pipeline to unify and train community organizers across New York. The two-year grants were part of the Trust’s largest funding round yet this year; $11 million was distributed to 80 nonprofits. Shawn Morehead, Program Director, Promising Futures: Education and Human Justice, joined us to discuss The Trust’s work with immigrant communities. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at nynmedia.com
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NYN MEDIA: HOW DID THIS ISSUE BECOME A FOCUS OF THE TRUST? Shawn Morehead: We were hearing from our grantees and former grantees that work in Muslim, Arab and South Asian communities that they were seeing an uptick in hate speech and hate crimes in the wake of a lot of the rhetoric that was flying around and continues to fly around. And at the same time we had one of our assets generate some unexpected additional income. ... Everyone agreed that this was an important issue. We’re about making sure all New yorkers find New York a great place to live and there’s a clear segment of New york that is feeling less that way then they did a year ago. NYN MEDIA: HOW DO YOU DRAW
DONORS TO A CAUSE: SM: The trust has a donor-advised program where we have donors who make contributions and then they make recommendations about where the grants go, and they do sometimes ask us for our advice … The trust is unusual though as a community foundation because we actually have a fairly large endowed set of funds that we as a program staff help advise our board on how to distribute. And those often do not have involvement from a donor. NYN MEDIA: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE OTHER HUMAN JUSTICE PROJECTS YOU ARE WORKING ON? SM: We have been one of the few foundations that actually makes grants directly to provide legal ser-
vices to low-income New Yorkers. We have been making some grants around immigration legal services in particular the unaccompanied minors who have been coming into the city from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and trying to make sure that they have lawyers so that the legal remedies that are available to them are also ones they can benefit from because they have a lawyer to help them navigate the process. We also have been looking at some ways to try to provide legal help that is more efficient given that the demand so far exceeds the supply, and so some work around non-lawyers working with lawyers in some settings and then also technology and whether technology can be a useful resource in that setting. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
SPOTLIGHT: IMMIGRATION
BUILDING RESILIENCE IN THE ARAB-AMERICAN COMMUNITY A Q&A with Lena Alhusseini, Executive Director, Arab American Family Support Center
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ena Alhusseini is currently the executive director of the Arab American Family Support Center, a settlement house in New York. They operate centers in Brooklyn and Queens and help recent immigrants by offering services such as legal help and English classes to help individuals get acclimated and become active in their communities. This interview has been edited for content and clarity. Listen to the full podcast at nynmedia.com. NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA: YOU’VE JOINED US ON THE DAY AFTER A MANHUNT JUST CONCLUDED FOR AHMAD KHAN RAHAMI, A NATURALIZED AMERICAN CITIZEN FROM AFGHANISTAN WANTED FOR QUESTIONING AFTER BOMBINGS IN MANHATTAN’S CHELSEA NEIGHBORHOOD AND IN NEW JERSEY. HOW IS YOUR COMMUNITY AFFECTED BY THESE KINDS OF TERROR THREATS? Lena Alhusseini: The first thing we do when we hear of anything – we just hope it’s not one of us. I hope he’s not Arab or South Asian or Muslim-American. It really makes it diffi-
Lena Alhusseini sits on a panel during a conference on disaster preparedness, held in August.
NYN MEDIA: WHAT TERM DO YOU PREFER? LA: I use anti-Muslim, anti-Arab. NYN MEDIA: YOU WORK WITH RECENT IMMIGRANTS. HOW DO MOST OF YOUR CLIENTS ARRIVE IN THE UNITED STATES? LA: Most of my clients they’re either escaping war zones or have come for economic opportunity; 98 percent of my clients come through legal channels whether it’s from immigration or through the green card lottery, or through refugee status or asylees.
TWENTY YEARS AGO THERE MIGHT HAVE BEEN RACISM, BUT IT WASN’T LIKE THIS. cult because you know you have the bad seed in every community. All of our communities united against this, and against terrorism and all its faces. The people who get the most terrorist attacks on them are actually Muslims more than anyone else. It just increases this whole rhetoric against Arabs - the “post-Trump” kind of rhetoric, where it’s divide and conquer. I won’t use “Islamophobia” because that word offends me. I think it puts the onus on us. You think of Islamophobia you think of a guy in Isis, you talk about anti-racism you think of a guy in a white Ku Klux Klan suit. So I don’t use that word, I think it’s racism. NYNmedia.com
NYN MEDIA: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CULTURE SHOCKS INDIVIDUALS IN YOUR COMMUNITY FACE WHEN THEY ARRIVE? LA: You get disoriented. You don’t understand the system. For instance the school system, back home in some countries you have to legally have your kids in school, in some countries you don’t – like Yemen you don’t have to. So some families they come here, they decide maybe my daughter should stay at home, they don’t know it’s illegal. NYN MEDIA: HOW DOES THE NEED FOR CULTURAL SENSITIVITY AF-
FECT HOW YOU OPERATE PROGRAMS LA: We understand their struggles. When our kids come to our after school we help them understand where they are in the educational system. A lot of them suffer from a lot of racism in their schools and to be honest it’s not just the students; sometimes the teachers – “you’re Isis,” or “Osama.” We’re there to advocate on their behalf. We go with them to the schools and try to create awareness about what is racist because some people don’t even know they’re being racist. NYN MEDIA: WHAT DO YOU DO TO HELP BUILD THE FORTITUDE OF INDIVIDUALS IN YOUR COMMUNITY WHEN XENOPHOBIA IS PREVALENT? LA: And you know my son, 19, he gets a lot of that as well. The way I tell my son is, every community has been through this. So we learn from others and we hold hands and stand with others. It’s racism – whether they divide you by color or by religion, or ethnicity. It’s this fear of the other. If the majority of us say no to racism, it will stop. NYN MEDIA: WHEN YOUR CLIENTS ARE AFFECTED BY THE “FEAR OF THE OTHER” DO THEY ACCEPT IT AS BEING PART OF THE PROCESS THEY HAVE TO GO THROUGH TO BECOME MORE ACCEPTED IN SOCIETY OR IS THERE FRUSTRATION? LA: Twenty years ago there might have been racism, but it wasn’t like this. With this whole Isis and all of
this fear mongering that’s happening now it’s kind of changed. The younger generation are almost expecting it – and I feel they have more resilience for it because they grew up post 9-11 and they’ve always been discriminated against. And the older generation, I think they’re just recognizing this is not going to go away. You build resilience by acknowledging this is going to happen and finding your inner strength. For me inner strength comes from being with others and uniting with others. … New immigrants – this is a surprise maybe, and for people who’ve been here or who were born and raised here - this is part of life in the United States. So it depends what generation you’re speaking to. Which is sad because the new generation are almost resigned to it … this is how the United State is. Well, I remember it not being like that. NYN: YOU ARE STEPPING DOWN TO BECOME THE NEW CHILD WELFARE DIRECTOR OF OREGON’S DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES. IS THERE A GOAL YOU’D LIKE TO SEE THE NEXT LEADER OF AAFSC ATTAIN? LA: I really believe it’s important to build the capacity of your community. Build services, more social services … help people to speak for themselves. I don’t have to speak on their behalf, I want them to be able, every child, every woman, every man, to be able to articulate their own issues themselves with their own voices. … I hope that’s where the organization keeps going.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
SPOTLIGHT: IMMIGRATION
IMMIGRANTS FUEL THE RISE OF WORKER COOPERATIVES By FR ANK G. RU N YEON
Worker owners Maria Damian and Isabel Solis of Si Se Puede! Women's Cooperative, We Can Do It! present at the Worker Coop Fair hosted by the New York City Council. (Photos courtesy of FPWA)
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he number of worker cooperatives has tripled in the last three years, according to an unreleased report by the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS). The businesses, which are owned and controlled by the people who work for them, have benefitted from millions of dollars in city funding. But despite the financial support from local government, these democraticallycontrolled enterprises continue to face significant barriers. Advocates say worker cooperatives, often simply called co-ops, provide a unique opportunity for poor New Yorkers by allowing workers in typically low-wage industries, like cleaning and child care, to form their own businesses and take collective control over how much revenue should go to advertising versus wages, for example. The city, in partnership with over a dozen social service-focused nonprofits and other organizations, has invested in incubation and supportive business services for the cooperatives, banking that the result will be better jobs for vulnerable New Yorkers. “It's not just any job. It's a sustainable job. It's a well-paying job,” said New York City Council Member Helen Rosenthal. “I am very proud that an additional 40 or so worker cooperatives have taken off.” Female immigrant entrepreneurs – many of whom are undocumented – are driving the current surge in New York City worker cooperatives, according to organizations that work closely with the groups. The vast majority of workers are women of color, largely Hispanic. For many of these women, English is a second language.
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“It's a particularly attractive option for a recent immigrant to the country, because you can own a business without employment papers,” said Michael Paone, who works on the policy team at the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies. “It's an interesting actualization of American values that you don't have to be documented to start your own business.”
nationally. “Of the 500 worker co-ops that we believe are out there right now, about 60 percent of them have been formed since 2000,” said Esteban Kelly, executive director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, a national membership group. “And 30 percent of all worker co-ops that exist now have just been formed since 2010.” “What we’re really seeing is a really sharp curve in that growth,” Kelly said. Exactly how many worker cooperatives are currently operating in New York City, however, is unclear. Worker cooperatives are largely defined by their ownership and governance structures. They are not all organized under a single legal framework and do not register their unique structure with any government agency. As a result, city officials and worker cooperative advocates said it’s difficult to pin down exactly how many there are in New York. Especially since, as several WCBDI partner organizations noted, small businesses often fail. An SBS spokesman did not respond to questions about how many worker cooperatives the department believes are currently operating in the city, and the department is not required to track this information.
services, and promote awareness of worker cooperatives, city contracts appear to be a distant goal. "This is what we're working on: How can we get a worker co-op city contract? That hurdle we haven't figured out yet,” said Rosenthal, citing bureaucratic and procedural barriers. But considering the headaches involved with holding a city contract – notably often having to wait months for reimbursement – it may not be a good fit for worker cooperatives anyway. "That's just a whole beast in itself,” said Gowri Krishna, supervising attorney at the Urban Justice Center, which provides legal services to worker cooperatives. “Not getting paid for eight months is huge. You have to be in a place where you already have enough business that if you take on (city) work, that you can wait as long as it takes for the city to actually pay you." Many worker cooperatives already operate in low-wage industries. And according to Krishna, city work doesn’t seem like a winning proposition for them. “Maybe down the line,” Krishna said. “But not now.” On Staten Island, co-op incubator La Colmena is preparing to launch the borough’s first worker cooperative: an at-home child care
“IT'S AN INTERESTING ACTUALIZATION OF AMERICAN VALUES THAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE DOCUMENTED TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS.” — MICHAEL PAONE, FEDER ATION OF PROTESTANT WELFARE AGENCIES
Just over $5.5 million in funding has been set aside to grow more worker cooperatives, in steadily increasing amounts – $1.2 million for 2015, $2.1 million for 2016, and $2.25 million for 2017. Rosenthal, along with 21 other council members, also sponsored a 2015 law that mandated that the city track and report on the progress made in creating more worker cooperatives. A fiscal year 2016 report by the SBS New York City Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI) noted that 17 new worker cooperatives were created that year, while 21 were reported the previous year, presumably adding to the 23 established worker cooperatives reported to the city council in 2014. The growth in New York is a reflection of a dramatic increase in the number of worker cooperatives
Organizations regularly working with worker cooperatives estimated the total was between 30 and 60 businesses, but none doubted that there has been rapid growth in the sector driven by the city’s investment. Nevertheless, advocates for the new worker-owned enterprises said that they have been operating with significant disadvantages compared with other small businesses in the city. Due to the city’s lack of experience with worker cooperatives, many banks have been reluctant to grant them loans, business lawyers and accountants have had scant experience with them and the city’s contracting system does not accommodate them. While the city touts its success in “building an ecosystem of support” to provide loans, legal and accounting
service. Immigrant workers on the island often have terrible jobs with poor pay and no benefits, said Gonzalo Mercado, executive director of La Colmena. But he’s hoping the democratic model offered by worker cooperatives can galvanize the entrepreneurial spirit of the immigrant community. In the future, Mercado hopes to create a worker cooperative for the many day laborers who currently line park benches and curbsides along Forest Avenue. He thinks they could do construction site cleanup or commercial cleaning. “For us it was a way to lift up the workforce and make sure our members can have pathways out of poverty into entrepreneurship,” Mercado explained Advocates and city officials said NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
FPWA CEO and Executive Director Jennifer Jones Austin talks about the importance of worker cooperatives and policies that advance upward mobility at FPWA’s annual City Advocacy Day.
the business model benefits all kinds of disenfranchised people. “Worker co-ops are a really good tool for people having trouble accessing the economy,” said Tamara Shapiro, co-director of programs at NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives. Some worker cooperatives have been started by people with disabilities and another may soon be started by formerly and
currently incarcerated people, she said. “The immigrant population, you know, that's where we grew first, but we'll be able to build in a lot of these other communities as well,” Shapiro said. Caracol Interpreters Cooperative might be a case in point. Most of its workers, including non-owners, identify as queer or LGBTQ. “Our
mission is to make it accessible to everyone,” said Patri GonzálezRamírez, an interpreter and one of nine worker-owners at Caracol. But while Caracol holds LGBTQ acceptance as a central value, González-Ramírez touts practical business considerations in explaining the benefits of being in a worker cooperative. By carefully laying out a sliding scale of interpretation rates for the nonprofit clients it targets, Caracol helped set a standard for the city’s interpretation industry, she said. “If we didn’t have a cooperative, the alternative business model would be a freelance model where each of us would be competing for the jobs … it would be harder and less sustainable,” she said. “I would be making less money.” Beyond simply raising incomes and creating jobs for low-wage workers, it’s not uncommon for leaders in the worker cooperative sector to see a much larger role for the business model – particularly as an answer to the country’s income inequality and even racial inequality. Brendan Martin, founder and director of The Working World, a cooperative financial institution that lends money to worker cooperatives, agrees that the business model can solve those problems but also
points to another looming economic problem for which he believes worker cooperatives may be the answer. The graying of the American workforce, the so-called “silver tsunami,” could result in aging business owners who are looking to sell, but who will face a market without enough buyers, potentially leading to the shuttering of businesses and losses of millions of jobs – many of them here in New York. It’s here that Martin sees a golden opportunity for the worker cooperative model. But many cooperative workers are focused on more immediate fears associated with their business, stoked by a presidential candidate’s promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. “The fear is that there's a paper trail to you and it could alert people that you are undocumented,” said Krishna, the Urban Justice Center lawyer, citing concerns from cooperative workers. “I don't know. I don't want to tell them, ‘Oh, you have nothing to worry about – that would be ridiculous.’ I'm not the one living in that fear.” And how justified are those fears? “How real is it that Trump becomes president?” Krishna asked. “You know, it's scary.”
PERSPECTIVES
THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF ETHICS REFORM By ALLISON SESSO
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ithout question Albany needs to make ethics reform a priority, which is why the goals of the recent anticorruption bill signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo should be supported. At the same time, it’s important that we appreciate the unintended consequences this new law will have on nonprofits and think about how to reduce the growing compliance
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and financial burdens too many organizations face. The new legislation lowers the reporting threshold for nonprofit 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in lobbying activity. Most concerning is that it also requires any nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that gives more than $2,500 to a 501(c)(4) to disclose all of its donors during that six-month filing period. These donors must be disclosed even if their funds were never intended for or even used for lobbying activities. The public certainly deserves transparency from our campaign finance system, but establishing blanket disclosure requirements is a worrisome trend that could have a chilling effect on donations to the nonprofit sector. Many nonprofit donors feel more comfortable giving anonymously for perfectly ethical reasons – perhaps the issue is politically charged and they do not want to be harassed, or, even
more mundane, they wish to give a gift without receiving credit – and may be wary of how their donations are listed and how that information is being used. Additionally, the requirement to list all donations, including those not used for lobbying activities, is confusing to donors who earmark funds for certain purposes, and nonprofits will have to explain this law time and again to donors who see themselves listed. At a time when these organizations are already struggling to close ever-widening budget gaps, nonprofits cannot afford to risk alienating even a single patron. Furthermore, the legislation’s inclusion of “in-kind” donations is incredibly unclear in a sector where partnerships are not only common, but also necessary in order to adequately support the wellbeing of our communities. This vague term could be interpreted to include a number of different activities like
shared office space or donated professional services. Without these donations, nonprofits would face even bigger financial hurdles. The sweeping requirements of this new law will likely create confusion and financial strain within nonprofit organizations that we depend on to deliver essential services on behalf of government. Accountability is important, but will not be realized in a sea of unread paperwork. Let’s examine what is needed and by whom and design the system accordingly, rather than piling on. This new legislation unintentionally creates more headaches for struggling nonprofits acting ethically and threatens their ability to attract the donations they need to maintain financial stability. Allison Sesso is the Executive Director of the Human Services Council, an association of nonprofit organizations providing human services in New York.
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Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
PERSPECTIVES
LET’S MAKE AN ISSUE OF PRESERVING SOCIAL SECURITY By BETH FINKEL
M
illions of Americans who are paying into or receiving Social Security benefits tuned into two weeks of national political convention coverage this summer only to hear Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton offer a passing reference to the benefits and Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump not mention anything at all about the program while accepting their
parties’ presidential nominations. But now is a crucial time to hear our candidates speak out on their plans to make sure that Social Security remains strong: By 2034, this bedrock of American programs will be forced to cut hard-earned benefits by nearly 25 percent if our leaders fail to act. The 10.4 million New Yorkers paying into Social Security and the 3.5 million receiving the benefits they worked a lifetime to earn deserve to know what longterm impact the candidates’ plans will have on them and their families. Social Security’s impact on New Yorkers’ lives – and our economy – should not be underestimated. More than one of every six New Yorkers are receiving benefits and spending the proceeds, generating annual economic activity of around $87.2 billion. And that translates not only into millions of New Yorkers having the money they need to survive but also into supporting
over half a million New York jobs. Social Security must be updated. On average, 65-year-olds are living seven years longer than they did when Social Security was created in the 1930s. Fewer people are having children, so fewer people are paying into the system, while the aging of the baby boom generation is swelling the ranks of recipients. And larger shares of earnings are going to those who are at the top of the pay scale and are exempt from Social Security’s payroll tax. Add to that the fact that fewer companies are offering their employees 401(k)s or pensions and it’s clear that future generations will depend on Social Security. It’s critical to secure the futures of today’s millennials and Gen Xers so that by 2034 instead of fearing retirement, they will be able to choose to retire with confidence in their fiscal futures. Our volunteers at AARP New York are part of the association’s nationwide “Take a
Stand” campaign, which is aimed at elevating Social Security in the presidential campaign and pressing candidates to detail their positions as fully as possible. The overarching goal is to protect Social Security, not only for baby boomers but for their children and grandchildren – who are today’s Gen Xers and millennials – as well as for future generations. AARP and its volunteers will continue to keep the pressure on both during this election cycle and after the new president and members of Congress take their seats. We must take steps to update Social Security before our options become more limited. America needs Social Security to remain strong, and our next president should be able to show us that he or she can take the lead in ensuring it does. Beth Finkel is state director of AARP in New York.
PERSPECTIVES
WITH OPEN ARMS Helping immigrants and refugees find a home in New York By NANCY WACKSTEIN
I
’m pleased that I’ll be in attendance at this year’s biennial conference of the International Federation of Settlements and Neighborhood Centers in Berlin. The conference is called “On the Move – At Home in the World” with a focus on the theme of displaced people and migration as a global phenomenon and challenge. It highlights community work in the area of refugees and migration … and really, what could
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be a more relevant discussion topic today for Europe, North America and the world? As the former executive director of United Neighborhood Houses of New York (UNH), my presentation, in conjunction with the Brooklyn-based Arab-American Family Support Center, a UNH member, covers how the settlement houses and community centers in New York City are redefining what community means here in our city. Specifically, it discusses how the work of community-based agencies is essential to promoting the integration of immigrants and newcomers in new societies and the strategies they employ to do it. Many of the original and historic New York City settlement houses were founded in the late 19th century explicitly to help the millions of immigrants then “on the move” to New York. Like many of the refugees and immigrants today, these immigrants were seen to be “flooding” our city, with all the implications of that
word, and were generally seen as undesirable: unskilled, unmannered, unhealthy, unwashed and having far too many children. These 19th century immigrants were fortunate to have, in New York City at least, wealthy philanthropists and benefactors who saw the value in helping them “assimilate.” whether out of self-interest or altruism, or both. These strangers were to be taught English, offered citizenship classes and education in the arts, and of course job skills. The early settlement houses, supported at that time exclusively by private philanthropy, were funded to provide these services in what we now call underserved communities … and they largely succeeded. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants learned to become Americans through the social clubs and “improvement programs” run by the early settlement houses. Today we talk about integration and inclusion of newcomers, not assimilation. This is not simply an at-
tempt to be politically correct or to parse words. The language choice has great meaning, as it implies respect for the culture and identity the immigrants have brought, and suggests that they can be “real Americans” while still retaining the cultural markers, religions and connections of their homelands. The settlement houses today continue to play a critical role in embracing newcomers and helping them understand how to not only survive but to thrive in a multi-ethnic stewpot like New York. I believe the track record and experience of New York City communities is instructive and could even be sobering to our colleagues abroad. I look forward to sharing what we learn from them and what they find interesting or exciting about our approaches here. Stay tuned! Nancy Wackstein is the director of community engagement and partnerships at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. NYNmedia.com
October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
PERSPECTIVES
ANOTHER LOOK AT THE STATE OF DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES SERVICES By PAUL CASSONE
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ecent New York Nonprofit Media Perspectives pieces by Edward R. Matthews and Murray Schneps provide viewpoints regarding the current state of affairs for services and supports offered to people with developmental disabilities. Matthews’ perspective offers the view that parents and providers have been loath to accept the transition of services from the current fee for service structure to a managed care
longer so special. The perception of the field within government has morphed, and it is seen no longer as a “carved out, stand-alone, special industry” but rather as an expensive sector of the health care/human services industry that must begin to fit in with newly developing, post Affordable Care Act systems. • The cost for community based residential living for people with developmental disabilities in New York
state and has charged New York state of “breach of contract” regarding the provision of community based care to individuals in developmental centers and children sent out of state who must return to New York now that they’ve turned 21. • People with developmental disabilities have been cared for so well over the past 40 years that their life expectancy has increased to the point where it rivals that of the “typically developing” population. It is not unusual for group homes to serve individuals in their 80s and 90s. These individuals require more intensive care (translated to more direct support services) and often care within fully accessible facilities. • Despite the increasing demand for residential services, development of residences has been at a near standstill for the past 10 years. Due to this last factor, a large number of people with developmental disabilities have been confined to hospitals and nursing homes for the past 10
“... IT’S ALSO CLEAR THAT THE RESISTANCE IS LARGELY DRIVEN BY THE INEPTITUDE OF NEW YORK STATE IN DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING AN ORDERLY TRANSITION FROM ITS STANDARD FEE FOR SERVICE MODEL TO ITS NEW “TRANSITIONAL, OUTCOME, VALUE-BASED MANAGED CARE MODEL.” structure because it’s different from past services. Schneps believes that the transition of the service system is an attempt by government to downgrade the services and supports garnered through the hard fought “Willowbrook Wars” and to move backwards to a system of institutional care. From my viewpoint, both analyses have merit, but there’s a lot more to the story, namely the maturation of the developmental disabilities industry coupled with a period of unprecedented transition and flux within government and the moral compass of the United States. There are a lot of moving parts in this, and some of the more specific factors at play follow: • Long term services for people with developmental disabilities, an extension of the special education they received as children, are no NYNmedia.com
state has become “unsustainable” in the eyes of a government that wants to provide support services of all kind to all kinds of people. • Services in New York state had been relatively well funded for decades, which led to unprecedented growth of some agencies, as they de-populated Willowbrook and other developmental centers and kept up with the demand for residential and day services. Executive compensation rose as agencies grew. Executive compensation that is commensurate to other nonprofit industries and to salary levels of hospital executives is seen as excessive in this industry due to the devaluation of the “relative societal worth” of people with developmental disabilities. • Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) has become extremely unhappy with New York
years. New York faces Federal pressure to transition these individuals to community based care. • Due to frozen or reduced rates over the past eight years, a “rate rationalization system” and the lack of a mechanism to appeal rates if a provider suffers catastrophic losses, veteran providers such as Catholic Charities, FEGS, the Jewish Guild for the Blind and others have gone bankrupt and/or divested themselves of services to people with developmental disabilities. It’s clear from the above that Matthews’ perception of the resistance to transition and managed care is accurate, but it’s also clear that the resistance is largely driven by the ineptitude of New York state in developing and implementing an orderly transition from its standard fee for service model to its new “transitional,
outcome/value based managed care model.” The resistance is also at least partially driven by the sense that people with developmental disabilities will no longer be given the quality of care they’ve come to expect, and that they, and the people who support them, have been devalued in the eyes of government, media and large sections of the public. Schneps is correct in perceiving that what looms ahead smacks of the poor quality institutional care that became the standard of care in the 1960s and early 1970s. Proof of that suspicion is evident in the deterioration of funding to agencies currently serving people in community based care, the unfortunate individuals currently languishing in hospitals and nursing homes and the individuals in developmental centers and out of state placements still awaiting community based care. As they await services, still more individuals currently living with aging parents are perilously close to being homeless, and will likely be spending months or years in hospitals or nursing homes, as no residences await them. Will expensive, inefficient, institutional care in hospitals and nursing homes become the standard of care in New York state? It will, unless service systems undergo a well thought out revision, developed with the input and buy-in of stakeholders – and assurances that the rates for such services will be developed with actuarial projections as to actual costs of these services. Providers could then, once again, partner with New York state to make it all work. So, where do we go from here? Will a class action lawsuit be required to move the system forward in a better direction, as Schneps suggests? That was apparently the only thing that succeeded in ending the horror of Willowbrook. If appropriate legislation cannot be implemented to resolve the issues described, it may well be time to battle this out in court, so that New York state will have a court-mandated direction and a well-defined standard of care, once again, for people with developmental disabilities. Paul Cassone is executive director/CEO at The Guild for Exceptional Children, Inc. He is the brother and legal guardian of a senior citizen with developmental disabilities and has worked as a direct support professional and subsequently as a middle manager and executive director since 1972.
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Issue N°12
October 2016
The go-to career center for New York’s nonprofit industry. Featuring thousands of jobs each year, NYN Careers helps large and small nonprofits fill positions ranging from directors to human resources staffers. Contact: Lissa Blake LBlake@NYNmedia.com
CAREERS
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MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
MANAGER OF REVENUE AND ACCOUNTS RECEIVABLE As Manager of Revenue and Accounts Receivable, you will be responsible for the day to day management of the Revenue Billing Cycle function and supervision and training of Revenue and Accounts Receivable staff. The role will ensure the accuracy, reliability and timeliness of all Revenue submissions, Collections, Reporting, all information generated by the Revenue function. Experience in non-profit industry a must. Prior Medicaid, Medicare, Managed Care billing experience required. Position is based in Rockland County, NY. Experience with OMH, OPWDD, SED, DOH, and Health Home Services a plus. Education/Experience – Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance or related field; 5 years’ experience in a not-for-profit human services agency. To apply for this position or to view all of our openings go to: www.jawonio.org/ careers
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, ROCKLAND COUNTY Summary: Directs and manages an IRA, our PJT supervised and supported residential program, to ensure Developmentally Disabled consumers are provided with qualitative, person-centered services. Oversee all direct care, clinical staff, residential services and program activities. Ensures implementation of guidelines prescribed by OPWDD to guarantee compliance. Education/Experience: Master’s degree in Human Services, plus a minimum of three years supervisory experience and a minimum of three years working with developmentally disabled population. To apply for this position or to view all of our exciting openings go to: www.jawonio.org/careers
OUTREACH SPECIALIST Health and Welfare Council of Long Island seeks an energetic and passionate individual to plan and coordinate outreach and advocacy for recently arrived immigrants. The position includes working directly with agency partners to foster coalition building as well as working directly with community members to educate and empower them resource connectivity and access. Specifically, related to health and nutrition supports, HWCLI provides education and application assistance to Long Island’s most vulnerable residents including recent immigrants.
CLINICAL COORDINATOR
HOUSING COORDINATOR
Clinical Coordinator needed to provide supervision to school psychologists, therapists, and social workers, and oversee other school staff in conjunction with the Director of Education at Clearpool. This position will conduct all school interviews and prepare intake documentation while communicating with all necessary departments. Master’s Degree in Psychology, Counseling or Social Work and NYS Certification or Licensure in area of study required. Previous experience in an administrative capacity is desired.
The Housing Coordinator will work with both our residential as well as non-residential programs to improve housing outcomes for our client base. The Coordinator will work with counseling staff as well as Assistant Directors to create housing strategies that optimize the wellbeing of survivors we work with. This is inclusive of working with the current housing programs that are available to domestic and sexual violence survivors within New York City as well as our own Transitional Housing program.
Apply here: http://jobs.greenchimneys. org/careers/
MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES Life’s WORC is a leading Agency which provides services to individuals with Developmental Disabilities and Autism. We have just been named as one of the 2016 Best Companies to Work for in NY by the Society of Human Resources Management. We have positions available as Direct Support Professionals, Residential Nurses and Managers. We offer competitive salaries, excellent benefits and opportunities for advancement. For consideration, please email your resume to: employment@lifesworc.org Visit our website at www.lifesworc.org for more details about our Agency.
MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES SCO Family of Services, a human services agency serving New York’s most vulnerable children, youth and families, is currently seeking experienced, professional: Nurses Psychiatrists Therapists Counselors Case Managers Child Care Workers Teachers and Teacher Aides Positions include Full Time, Part Time or On Call openings at locations throughout Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Nassau and Suffolk. SCO Family of Services offers a competitive salary and benefits package including, vacation, holidays, sick days, health and dental care, life insurance, long and short term disability, 403(b) retirement account, flexible spending account, credit unions, and direct deposit. If you are interested in joining our team, please apply online at www.sco.org/jobs.
Please visit http://nyawc.org/about/employment.html for complete JD.
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR The Assistant Director is responsible for oversight of Residential Programming which is inclusive of both counseling services as well as operation management of two emergency residential facilities. She/He works with other staff to improve service delivery across the program, supports the Director in formulating and implementing new programs, and monitors and supervises program staff including counselors. Please visit http://nyawc.org/about/employment.html for complete JD
SOCIAL SERVICE, EDUCATION AND HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS Are you looking for an exciting and rewarding career that enriches the lives of children and families? If so, then Children’s Village might be a great fit for you. We offer competitive salaries, comprehensive benefits, 401(k) plan after one year of employment, three weeks vacation, sick days, and so much more! We are seeking qualified professionals in the Social Service, Education and Healthcare fields. Some of the positions we have available include Direct Care Sociotherapists, Clinicians-Bilingual, Psychiatrists, Academic Enrichment Coordinator and more! Positions are located in Dobbs Ferry (Westchester County), New York and NY Metro area. Recruiting a Diverse Workforce EOE -consideration without regard to disability or protected veteran status To apply online please visit our website at www.childrensvillage.org/employment. Please contact us with any questions at (914) 693-0600 x 1754.
Please send cover letter and resume to efdundon@aol.com.
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October 2016
Issue N°12 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
CHILD PSYCHIATRISTS AND NURSE PRACTITIONERS Astor Services for Children & Families is looking for full time Child Psychiatrists and Nurse Practitioners who want to make a difference in the lives of children. This candidate will provide psychiatric care for children and adolescents receiving services within a residential program and outpatient counseling centers at Dutchess County and Ulster County, NY. Duties include psychiatric assessments, development and implementation of treatment plans and monitoring for effectiveness and side effects of medication management geared towards recovery. The MD/NPP will work as part of a multidisciplinary team and will collaborate with other providers, school and community resources as needed; Telepsychiatry is offered from some of our sites. Experience with population served is preferred. Must be a New York State Licensed Nurse Practitioner or Psychiatrist. Please visit our website at www.astorservices.org to apply or email your resume to Alyssa Devens at adevens@ astorservices.org
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
TEAM SUPERVISOR
Camp Venture, Inc. is a not-for-profit provider of family-like care and services to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Executive Director is responsible for all areas of agency operations and policy compliance and implementation. In partnership with the Board of Directors, this dynamic and innovative leader will develop and implement strategies to promote Camp Venture’s mission. The candidate will create business plans as a roadmap for success for the attainment of goals and objectives set by the board of directors; review financial reports to develop a thorough understanding of the organization’s financial position and, in working with the Associate Executive Directors and staff, oversee the efficient and effective day-to-day operations of the agency. Qualifications: MBA or Master’s degree in Public Administration or a related field; proven experience as an Executive Director, or related managerial position for a non-profit organization, a plus. Candidates must have outstanding organizational and leadership abilities; excellent communication (oral and written) and public speaking skills and proven ability to manage and support staff in attainment of established goals to ensure quality standards.
Lower East Side Family Union, A Non-profit organization established in 1974 to strengthen, preserve and empower families seeks qualified professionals to assist in its efforts of enhancing the quality of family life through the delivery of culturally linguistic and responsive services. Qualifications: · A commitment to the mission and programs of LESFU · Masters Degree in Social Work (MSW/LMSW/LCSW) or related field · Must possess some knowledge of child welfare and of ACS · Outstanding interpersonal and communications skills, both oral and written · Passionate and demonstrated commitment for working with children and families in underserved communities · Demonstrated ability to manage deadlines and to make decisions · Ability to use MS Word, spreadsheets, and familiarity with PROMIS and CONNECTIONS Preferred* Some knowledge and experience with mental health and substance abuse Preferred* Bilingual (Cantonese or Mandarin/English or Spanish/English)
Qualified candidates should send resumes to: bvoellinger@campventure.org.
DON’T JUST HAVE A JOB. HAVE A PURPOSE. Our accelerated degree programs, flexible schedules and scholarships can help you make an immediate impact on your career and in your community. • School for Business • School for Human Services and Education • School for Public Affairs and Administration
WHAT’S YOUR PURPOSE? FIND IT AT OUR GRADUATE INFO SESSION
Thursday, Oct. 20 6-8PM
RSVP ONLINE: WhatsYourPurpose.NYC
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10/4/16 1:34 PM
Issue N°12
October 2016 MEDIA - REVIEW - DIGITAL - CAREERS - EVENTS
JOB ANNOUNCEMENT Executive Director National Association of Social Workers New York City Chapter The New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, with a membership of 7000, is seeking an Executive Director with strong leadership and management skills, as well as substantial knowledge of the social work profession and social work values. NASW-NYC is the leading social work membership association in New York City, representing social workers across all health and human service systems. The Executive Director is accountable to the Chapter Board of Directors and reports to the national Chief Executive Officer. This position requires: • Senior leadership experience working with professional or non-profit organizations and their volunteer Boards • Strong executive management skills, including the ability to provide oversight for organizational and leadership development priorities, relevant legislative efforts, membership services, and continuing education programs and large events • Strong budget, financial management and fundraising skills • Excellent public speaking skills and experience working with the media; excellent written communication skills • Knowledge of the issues and challenges impacting the social work profession and its diverse New York City population in the public, not for profit, and private practice sectors • Experience and ability to advocate for social justice with an understanding and analysis of structural racism and oppression in the United States • • • •
Demonstrated excellence in interpersonal skills Commitment to providing excellent membership support and engagement Minimum of 5 years of executive level experience MSW, DSW or PhD, and a social work license preferred.
• Residents of the New York City metropolitan area preferred Salary: $110,000-$145,000, plus excellent benefits, including health and life insurance, retirement. Application deadline: October 24, 2016 Only electronic applications will be accepted. Applicants will email a cover letter expressing your interest and relevant experience with your CV or résumé to: president.naswnyc@gmail.com The NASW-New York City Chapter is an equal opportunity employer, committed to a policy of equal opportunity and nondiscrimination. 28
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