JUST AS QUICKLY AS YOU READ THISYOU ARE NOW INVOLVED

in the city
OUR RIGHT TO THE CITY
MONEY

RETURN DISPLACED PEOPLE

D
IV
ER

SI
O

s
nt e
re ris

DISPLACED
PEOPLE
NEWCOMERS

INSIDE

NEWCOMERS

The History
And Strategies

FLOW

Frank
morales:
my life as a
homesteader
page 28

DEVELOPERS

DEVELOPERS

N
O

SI

ER

IV

MONEY FLOW OUT OF COMMUNITY

Combating displacement
in Bushwick, Brooklyn
CITYSTEADING

page 36

The people and community organizations of Bushwick are planning

to stay. Any strategy must adopt an integrated approach to consider
community owned housing, cooperative wealth building, and
participation in governance. Citysteading is the steady making of
economic life as a city and community through the creation of shared
assets and dialog.

BUSHWICK INCLUSIVE

page 40

If a more inclusive community of stakeholders have access to socially

innovative tools, resources and networks, community projects will
have a greater impact, leading to overall systematic change instead
of just local interventions. In short, we want to create an innovative
and sustainable social impact venture to build affordable housing
alternatives.

ENGAGING LOTS

page 44

Through agreements with the owners of vacant lots, we can begin to

build a space for our community to gather and pursue shared images
of our neighborhoods. Other spaces are set up to divert the problems
of displacement. The goal is to create permanent spaces of habitation
both for displaced people and our neighbors at risk.

From Urban
Homesteading
to A New
Ecology
Of Housing
This Gazette is part of a long term
urban research and design project
initiated by faculty and students
from the Graduate Program in
Design and Urban Ecologies at
the New School. Our investigation
begins with an overview of
city-wide processes, the current
housing condition, homelessness,
structural vacancy, and the success
and failure of federal and local
urban homesteading programs.
In todays context of for-profit
development, urban practices in
the legacy of Homesteading are
crucial to acheive the Right to
Housing. However, they must be
envisioned with complimentary
urban processes leading to
Citysteading, the path to fulfill the
Right to the City, and therefore
gain access to alternative models

of learning, working, housing

provision and ownership. The
project seeks to design alternative
strategies for community based
access to housing, renovation and
infill of existing housing stock,
structured around the provision
of subsidies, loans, sweat equity
subsities and developing expertise
with residents able to renovate
existing vacant buildings. In
addition, it envisions platforms
to recognize local knowledge,
resources and skills that could
be disseminated and exchanged
to collectively generate a more
sustainable and inclusive social
and spatial development.

THE ECONOMICS OF
HOUSING: PROGRAMS,
tHe economics oF Housing:
pRogRams AND INSIGHTS
POLICIES,& policies
A HISTORY OF UPHEAVAL IN ouR uRban landscape

Urban policy, profit-driven economics, INITIATIVES HAVE CHANGED

HOW DIFFERENTracial prejudice and political power have reshaped the city over and OUR URBAN LANDSCAPE
over, often at the expense of residents and the marginalized. Listed below are some of the most influential
urban initiatives: producing drastic impacts in the daily life of the city, and the bottom line of cities and the real
estate industry.
URBAN RENEWAL

shape a city. In the following article I will show how, through a political and economic lens,
certain policies, programs and housing initiatives have transformed our environment. The
goal is to show how different urban policies and practices in New York City have used the
people and the federalas a means to transform the citys landscape. Owners Loan CorpoOriginally a places policy, Redlining was introduced by Home

Redlining

This national program was instituted under the Federal Housing Act in 1949, as a means
to put new infrastructure in the cities. Although the program was also meant to stimulate
housing development, more emphasis was given refers development projects that did not
Beginning in the 1960s, this phenomenon to big to real-estate agents and speculative
prioritize housing, or at least not low-income housing.homeowners into selling their
developers working together to pressure white
Consequences: Some say that the idea over racial fears. Racial prejudiced was slums in
properties at below market rates behind urban renewal was to eliminate the directly

certain areas, waiting for these areas to devalue on their own, making it easier and cheaper to
proceed with redevelopment.

uRban Renewal

Title One of the Housing Act of 1949 kick-started the modern urban renewal
program that would reshape American cities. Although the program was meant
to stimulate affordable housing, more emphasis was given to large public housing
development projects that disrupted the social fabric of and displaced communities.
The Act provided federal funding to municipalities to cover the cost of acquiring
areas perceived to be slums. Those sites were then given to private developers
to bulldoze and construct new housing. In the process, entire neighborhoods were
destroyed, displacing thousands of residents (most of whom were poor people of
color). Because of the ways in which it targeted the most disadvantaged sector of
the American population, novelist James Baldwin famously dubbed Urban Renewal
Negro Removal in the 1960s.

blockbusting

ration in 1937. Redlining classified different urban districts to indicate which areas
offered investment opportunities and which were considered risky places for investment. Around these risky districts a redline would be drawn. to understand
provoked to convince white homeowners that their properties would loose value
cause they have had drastic impacts on its settlement patterns. It is important The determiningthese practices have always beenredlines could be drawn around districts with as
factor in Redlining was race: driven by a power structure where dominant economic from existing communities to city-initiative development projects, displacing many citizens.
as minorities moved into the neighborhood. Real estate companies and building
that
little as 5% people of color. In redlined areas, bank officials denied loans to landlords
developers went as far as to use paid non-white agents to deceive white residents
players have made the decisions. Though these are simple diagrams, meant to be guidelines
and homeowners, making selling or renovating the property difficult or impossible,
into believing that black people were moving in, thereby encouraging them to sell
to help understand the different policies and programs, it is important to understand the comand effectively removing any chance for people of color to acquire home loans.
their urban home (at a loss) and buy new properties in more racially homogeneous
plexity behindsupermarkets, First,even cannot be seen as separated from a contextualized
Healthcare, each drawing. and they jobs could and were denied based on the desuburbs. The tactics included hiring black women to be seen pushing baby carriages
and historical situation. Second, it is important to understandinsures the declinethe whole
lineation. The practice of neighborhood disinvestment the implications of of differin white neighborhoods, so encouraging white fear of devalued property; selling a
ent urban policies inhas continued for decades in variousour neighborhoods.
communities and the construction and transformation of forms through informal
house to a black family in a white neighborhood, etc. Blockbusting was a common
and profitable form of racist exploitation that lead directly to the phenomena of
itmechanisms.
is crucial to understand how these policies continue to shape our city.
white flight from urban centers.

SPATIAL DE-CONCENTRATION
Dilution of the urban poor minorities toward the suburbs.

DISINVESTMENT
This informal policy refers to both public and private development and maintenance
projects being deferred in areas slated for development or renewal, waiting
for these areas to devalue on their own, making it easier and cheaper to proceed
with redevelopment.

AREA
DEVALUES

SPECULATORS

CHEAPER TO PROCEED
WITH RE-DEVELOPMENT

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

PROJECTS DEFERRED

BLOCKBUSTING

could only be used in low-poverty areas (poverty rate below 10%, as measured by 1990 US

that local area properties might lose value because of racial minorities moving in.

REDLINING

borhoods to move to.

RACIALLY CHANGING NEIGHBORHOOD

Spatial deconcentration

gentRiFication

ing entire low-income communities in order to reduce the likelihood of civil disorsometimes thought of as green lining, which refers to the rapid increase in property
der. The policy grew out of studies of civil disorder in urban communities of color with a red line aroundassociated with the migration of creative class and affluent (usually
values and rents them would have
conducted by the Kerner Commission in 1968, whose recommendations on housing a hard timepopulationstype of insurance working class urban neighborhoods. The result
white) getting any into previously
advocated a theory of white middle class predominance as a requirement of stable or loan. It displacementhousing market, of the original communities, often low-income
is the paralyzed the and scattering
communities. The practice linked to motives of social control through the dilution
lowered the properties values and
communities of color, and transformation of the neighborhood.
and dispersement of poor urban communities of color to areas where people of color incentivized abandonment from those areas.
would not become a majority.
CHANGING INCOME NEIGHBORHOOD

LOW INCOME NEIGHBORHOOD

CITY CENTER

PLANNED SHRINKAGE
10 years

buildings.
Criticism: Hope VI has built fewer units of
public housing than it has torn down, not
having enough housing and displacing many
MTO began as a Housinglived in the torn
of the families that already and Urban Development social experiment in 1994 using
residents of public housing. Low-income families living in public housing in highdown complexes.

moving to oppoRtunity (mto)

crime and poverty neighborhoods were selected randomly to be assigned to one of

the three program options:

1. The Experimental group was given special assistance regarding rent subsidy
vouchers that could only be used in low poverty areas (poverty rate below 10%, as
- measured by 1990 US Census). This group also received counseling regarding the
rent vouchers and possible neighborhoods to move to.
2. The Comparison group was given vouchers that could only be used in Section 8
housing and did not receive counseling.
3. The Control group did not receive any vouchers or assistance.

and did not receive counseling

different urban districts to indicate which areas offered opportunities and which areas where
risky places for investment. The good places to invest where marked with a blue line in the
map, while the risky places were marked with a red line. Usually these redlined places were
The phrase Spatial de-concentration refers to a late 1960s federal program dispersZoning changes and tax abatements contribute to this contemporary phenomenon,
neighborhoods with low-income and minority populations. It became illegal on 1968.

ing sites built during urban renewal. Hope VI began in 1992 to eradicate and transform the nations severely distressed public housing by tearing apart the subsidized
complexes and replacing them with mixed-income development. The program
sought to reverse the spiral of decline by providing more integrated structures with
neighborhoods bring recover from their
the capacity to would new services, facilities and job opportunities. Like the Urban
problems.
Renewal programs which created the public housing, demolition, displacement and
relocation are at the center of Hope VI. But unlike Urban Renewal, Hope VI encourages and embraces displacement of low-income peoples from the area as a desirable
outcome. Moving to neighborhoods of opportunity is one of the benefits of the
program. However, there has been criticism of the program for not requiring a one
for one replacement of destroyed homes. It has built fewer units than it has torn
down, and those who used to live in the complexes can find difficulties returning to
the rehabilitated site, or establishing themselves in better neighborhoods.

1992, also known as Urban Revitalization Demonstration. It started as a program to eradicate

and transform the nations severely distressed public housing by tearing apart the subsidized
complexes and replacing them with mixed-income development. Hope VI is a program that
comes out of the idea of defensible spaces (Oscar Newman) and New Urbanism. Defensible
spaces states that an area is safer when people feel a sense of ownership, which are thought
to be strengthened by the theories of New Urbanism: walkable neighborhoods and shorter

A social experiment from the department of Housing and Urban Development that started
in 1994. Low-income families living in public housing in high-crime and poverty neighborhoods were selected randomly to be assigned to one of the three program options:

HOME OWNERS

HOPE VI

HOPE VI

MOVING TO OPPORTUNITY (MTO)

REAL-ESTATE
AGENTS

ing and troubled neighborhoods. In 1970,

Roger Starr proposed that these neighborhoods should not receive more funding and
instead to use those resources to invest in
This ongoing program responds to the concentration of poverty in large public housthose neighborhoods that could be saved.

15 years

20 years

By the 1970s, damage to urban centers was severe enough to justify the reduction
of essential services in troubled neighborhoods, usually low-income people of color.
In 1970, Roger Starr proposed that declining neighborhoods, should not receive
more funding and instead to use those resources to invest in those neighborhoods
that could be saved. The intent being that when services such as police, fire
departments, etc., were withdrawn, people would migrate to areas with services.

GENTRIFICATION
neighborhood.

No Help
EXPERIMENTAL GROUP
SPECIAL ASSISTANCE
rent subsity vouchers
and possible neighborhoods
to move into.

Help
COMPARISION GROUP
given vouchers that could
only be used in section 8
housing and no counciling

CONTROL GROUP
no vouchers
no assistance

MIDDLE INCOME NEIGHBORHOOD

DISPLACEMENT OF
ORIGINAL POPULATION

POOR SUBURBS
= LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD
= HIGHER INCOME HOUSEHOLD

Bloombergs Housing Plan

= LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD

Moving To Work 1994

Hope VI 1992

= MIDDLE INCOME HOUSEHOLD

CITY CENTER

Tenant Interim Lease (TIL)

Mitchell Lama Housing Project 1955
Community Economic Development (CED)
POOR SUBURBS

= LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD

Jane vs Moses

Planned Shrinkage 1970

Spatial De-concentration Kenner Commission Report 1968
Term Gentrification Coined 1964

Urban Renewal Housing Act 1949

= HIGHER INCOME HOUSEHOLD

BlockBusting 1950- continues to happen

Blockbusting
Redlining 1934
1930
2

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010
3

housing TAX
POLICY IN THE
UNITED STATES
Tax subsidies are, in fact, far larger than
direct expenditures for housing. The federal government subsidizes housing not
only through direct funding but through
tax expenditures: deductions and credits
connected to housing-related expenditures and investments. In 2004, the
federal government spent $30 billion on
direct subsidies (public housing, rental
voucher, etc.) and nearly $120 billion in
tax breaks to homeowners and investors
in rental housing and mortgage revenue
bonds.Of the $119.4 billion in federal
tax expenditures in 2004, 88% ($105.2
billion) went to homeowners. By far, the
largest tax break is the deductibility of
mortgage interest payments from taxable
income. Speculative investors in housing
received $14.2 billion (1/8 of the homeowner total). These tax expenditures also
include the Low Income Housing Tax
Credit; the single most important funding
source for development of low income
rental housing.

from tax advantages of homeowners. If

the tax code were to give more assistance
to them, the current set of deduction
could be changed to tax credits. In fact,
low and moderate income tax payers take
the standard deduction on their federal
income taxes and therefore receive no
tax benefit from mortgage and property
tax payments.

Although Canada, Australia and some

European countries have similar homeownership rates, they offer far less generous tax breaks.

Through 2003, the tax credit has helped

fund the development of more than 1.2
million housing units, or 28% of all multifamily units built during this period,
and it now accommodates more households than public housing, a program
that started 50 years earlier.

What benefits
for investors?
The LIHTC allows investors to reduce
their federal income taxes by $1 dollar
for every dollar of tax credit received.
Investors receive the credit for 10
years while the property must remain
occupied by low-income households
for at least 15 years. The amount of the
credit depends on cost, location and the
proportions of the units occupied by
low-income households.

to individual housing developments by

designated state agencies (usually state
housing finance agencies, or HFAs).
Rental housing developments are eligible
for the tax credit if at least 20% of their
units are affordable earning up to 50%
of the metropolitan areas median family
income or if at least 40% of the units are
affordable to households earning 60% of
the median. Although federal statute requires state housing agencies to allocate
at least 10% of all tax credits to nonprofit
housing developers, nonprofit groups
account for more than twice this amount:
22% of all tax-credit developments and
units placed in service through 2011.

Low-Income
Housing Tax
Credit

What benefits
for households?
The most controversial issue concerning
this program is that relatively few low
and moderate income households benefit

Tax incentives
for investors
Investor tax incentives account for only
12% of the total, and yet are essential for
the development of low income housing.
Although they can rightly be criticized
as inefficient, since only a portion of the
funds go to bricks and mortar, nevertheless, they do bring private investments
into low income housing. Tax incentives
can become more efficient over time as
in the case with the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.

What
developments
are
eligible?
Unlike other tax breaks associated with
real estate, the LIHTC is not awarded
automatically. Tax credits are assigned

Does it generate
segregation?
Tax credit housing is more likely to be
located in minority and low-income
neighborhoods than in other rental housing. This issue has opened the program
to criticism that it perpetuates existing condition of racial and economic
segregation. Still it is less concentrated
in these neighborhoods than is public
housing and other housing with project
based federal subsidies.

.
4

1. Unlike public housing and Section 8,

tax credit does not provide deep subsidies that adjust automatically with
changes in tenant income. In fact, the
percentage of income that tenants spend
on housing may increase if their incomes
decline and they may start out spending more than 30% of their income on
rent. Extremely low-income families
can seldom afford tax credit housing
unless they also receive federal housing
vouchers. 2. The program offers minimal
incentive for building mixed-income
housing. Because the amount of tax
credit available is directly proportional
to the percentage of low-income units,
the vast majority of projects are 100%
of low-income.3. It does not provide
for the long term sustainability of the
housing it helped financing. Some tax
credit housing is at risk of converting to
market-rate rents after the expiration of
the initial 15 years affordability period.
Perhaps more importantly, there is a big

Public housing originated in 1937 during

the New Deal, and is the oldest and
most widely known form of subsidized
low-income housing in the United States.
About half of the nations Public Housing Authorities (PHA) oversee fewer
than 100 units; almost 90% of all PHAs
are responsible for 500 or fewer units.
The New York City Housing Authority, whose portfolio of 180,000 units
accounts for 12% of the nations public
housing stock, is widely considered
among the nations best.
In the past quarter century, far more
resources have gone to the preservation
and redevelopment of public housing
than to the expansion of the program.
Only 5% of the current public housing
stock was built after 1985, and most
of that replaced older public housing
buildings that had been torn down. On
the other hand, 57% of all public housing
units are more than 30 years old, and
38% are 15 to 30 years old.
Since the beginning, the program has
targeted low-income families. However,
over time, the public housing population
has become increasingly impoverished.
Originally, public housing managers imposed strict criteria in selecting tenants.
The post war period saw less of the submerged middle class remain in Public
Housing since low cost homeownership,
made possible by FHA mortgage insurance, enabled working class families to
move to new suburban developments.
As a result, the median income of public
housing residents fell from 57% of the
national median in 1950 to 41% in 1969,
29% in 1970, and less than 20% by the
mid-1990s.

The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit

(LIHTC), established by the Tax Reform
Act of 1986, is the single largest active
subsidy for low-income rental housing.
It is not a federal housing program but
an item in the Internal Revenue Code.

Limitations and
critics

public Housing
IN THE UNITED
STATES

lack of funds to replace major building

systems. For overcome this issue, state
and local government are providing additional resource including new tax credits
to help pay for the capital improvement.
4. Limited supply of tax credits: there
are many more applications for tax credit
than credits to allocate.

STRENGTHS
The tax credit is a very flexible form of
subsidy. State housing finance agencies
have considerable latitude in deciding
the types of housing that should receive
tax credit and giving preferences to what
they think is a priority. It is often used in
conjunction with the federal HOPE VI
program for revitalization of distressed
public housing.

In 1998, Congress sought to reduce

the concentration of poverty in public
housing through a public housing reform
act (Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act of 1998). It mandated that
no more than 40% of the households
admitted into public housing can have
incomes below 30% of the areas median
family income.

Building typeS
Although many people associate public
housing with high-rise buildings, most
of them consists of other building types:
high rise elevator buildings account for
30% of the total public housing stock

and they are mainly located in the largest

cities. Low-rise townhouse and row
houses comprise an additional 25%.
However, the design of public housing
seldom blends in with the surrounding
community, regardless of building type.

Residents:
income
and racial
composition
The most common source of income
for public housing residents consists of
social security disability or retirement
benefits and pension payments. This reflects the large proportion of elderly and
disabled residents. One third of public
housing households are elderly, 38% of
whom are disabled. An additional 19%
of public housing households are headed
by disabled adults under age 62. Wages
and salaries constitute the second largest
source of income received by 31% of all
public housing households. A far smaller
segment of public housing tenants, 16%,
receive some form of welfare. Although
many public housing residents work, the
extremely low income of public housing
residents suggests that they earn very low
wages and/or work for a limited number
of hours. In terms of the total population
living in public housing, 42% are under
18, including 15% under age 6; 14% of
all residents are 62 or older. With respect
to ethnicity, Whites make up half of the
public housing population, followed by
African Americans with 46%. Hispanics,
Asian Americans, and other races, make
up 20%.

Effects of local
power on racial
and income
segregation
The original Public Housing legislation
is partly responsible for the location
of public housing developments and
therefore the tendency to be situated in
low-income, often minority neighborhoods. By relaying on PHAs to build
public housing, the federal government
gave local government the right to decide
whether to build any public housing at
all. Moreover, affluent suburbs and other
municipalities had no obligation even
to establish a public housing authority.
As a result, public housing could be
located only in jurisdictions that chose
to participate in the program, virtually
guaranteeing that public housing would

be concentrated in central cities and

working-class suburbs: absent from most
affluent areas. Indeed, 61% of all public
housing units are located in central cities,
compared to 45% of all rental housing.
Localities that decided to participate in
the program also had almost complete
control over where public housing would
be situated within their jurisdiction. This
virtually guaranteed that public housing
would be subjected to racial segregation.
White neighborhoods typically opposed
the development of any public housing
in their midst. If such housing had to be
built, it would be reserved for low-income Whites. On the other hand, elected
officials from black communities were
often more interested in having public
housing built in their neighborhood than
having it developed on a more integrated basis. More than half of all public
housing units are in census tracts with
poverty rates of 30% or higher, compared to less than 20% of other federally
subsidized units and less than 13% of all
rental housing. Public housing renters are
two to three times more likely than other
renters to live in predominantly minority
neighborhood. Half of all public housing
is located in tracts where minority neighborhoods comprise at least 50% of the
population, including 38% in tracts that
are 80% minority or higher.

Physical
characteristics
The poor design and physical condition
of public housing is partly, but not completely, due to the severe financial limitations imposed by the original legislation
(1937) on the amount of money that can
be spent on construction. Furthermore,
by linking public housing with urban
renewal, the legislation imposed additional costs that made even fewer funds
available for new buildings. The original
legislation also shaped the drab aesthetic
of public housing so that it would not
compete with the rest of the private real
estate industry.

Management
issues
Other major problems derive from the
choices, practices, and attitudes of public
housing administrators and government officials. Public housing in some
cities has been treated as a source of
patronage, with hiring decisions based
on personal and political connections.
This is reflected in lax tenant selection
procedures, failure to respond to tenants
complaints, failure to repair and maintain
appliances and building systems, and
failure to develop and implement long
term plans to replace building systems
as they approach the end of their useful
life. A key impediment to the effective
management of public housing is the
centralized operations and financing of
public housing authorities. Unlike other
subsidized housing and market rate rental
housing, PHAs report expenditures and
revenue on a system-wide basis and
assign limited authority and responsibility to on-site management personnel.
Public housing was originally structured
so the federal government paid the costs

of building the projects and tenants paid

for the costs of operating them. Local
housing authorities issued bonds to
finance the costs of project development
and Washington paid principal and interest. Maintenance and other operating
costs were covered by rental income.
The system worked reasonably well into
the 1960s. Eventually, operating costs
increased faster than tenant incomes. At
first, rents were increased regardless of
the tenants ability to pay but also many
PHAs deferred basic repairs and maintenance. In the late 1960s and early 1970s
Congress responded to the problem with
a series of amendments to the Public
Housing Act that capped rental payments
at 25% of income (later raised to 30%)
by instituting a new operating cost subsidy to supplement tenants rents.

perceptions of
public housing
Despite these problems, most public
housing is in decent condition and
provides satisfactory homes for residents. Established by Congress in 1989,
the National Commission on Severely
Distressed Public Housing estimated
that 6% of the nations public housing
was severely distressed, accounting for
86,000 units. A survey of public housing
residents conducted for HUD in 1999
found that two thirds of the respondents
were satisfied or very satisfied with their
apartments and the development as a
whole. Less than 10% were very unsatisfied. The survey certainly showed room
for improvement, with 21% expressing
dissatisfaction with their homes. Nevertheless, the results do seem to defy
the popular image of public housing as
an unmitigated disaster. Hence, Public
housing is unpopular with everybody
except those who live in it and those who
are waiting to get in it (Stegman 1990)

Main strength:
public
ownershiP
Public housing has proven to be the most
durable of the nations low-income
housing programs. The secret to its
longevity is its public ownership. Unlike
virtually all other types of subsidized
housing, public housing guarantees
perpetual low-income occupancy. The
central threat to its long-term viability
consists of poor management and
security and inadequate funding to
replace building systems and to provide
adequate maintenance.

Hope VI And the

transformation
of distressed
public housing
Hundreds of public housing projects
across the nation have been transformed
since the 1990s into housing developments that defy popular conceptions of
public housing. Distressed public housing is being replaced by smaller scale,
often mixed-income housing, built to a
design standard inspired by new urbanism. Most redevelopment projects have
been funded through the HOPE VI program for severely distress housing. From
1993 through 2004, HOPE VI has funded
the demolition of more than 150,000
units of distressed public housing and
has invested more than $5.5 billion in
the redevelopment of 224 public housing
projects.
The National Commission on severely
Distressed Public Housing has defined
distressed public housing using four
criteria:
1. Families living in distress (low
levels of educational attainment, high
unemployment rates, low household
incomes)
2. High rate of serious crime within
the public housing development or the
surrounding neighborhood
3. Barriers to managing the environment
(high vacancy rates, high turnover rates,
low rent collection and high rate of units
rejected by applicants)
4. Physical deterioration of buildings

A New approach
HOPE VI design targets seek:
To overcome the physical isolation of
many public housing developments by
blending in with the physical fabric of
the surrounding community.

To minimize public spaces, over which

residents are less likely to exert control,
and give them instead private and semiprivate spaces.
Higher costs per unit than what has been
allowed for public housing in the past
for improving construction and design
quality.
The program has also engendered
changes in the management of public
housing, introducing a more decentralized approach: most sites are managed
independently.

Limitations and
critics
However, we notice that the program
does not necessarily improve the lives
of all the residents of the original public
housing. First, by replacing large public
housing developments with smaller
scale, mixed-income projects, HOPE VI
developments typically have fewer public housing units than the projects they
supplant. On average, only 39% of the
original units will be replaced by units
targeting households with incomes up to
30% of the area median income, and this
percentage range from 9 to 102% (Center
for Community Change & ENPHRONT
2003). A second and related criticism
of HOPE VI concerns the fate of public
housing residents who do not get to live
in the new housing developed under the
program. Residents of public housing
slated for demolition or re-development
under HOPE VI have four options: Pass
the screening test for the limited number
of public housing units in the new development; Use a housing choice (Section
8) rental voucher to find a home in the
private market; Move to a vacant unit,
if available, in different public housing
development; Leave assisted living
altogether. Not all residents of public
housing projects redeveloped under

HOPE VI are eligible to reside in the

new housing that replaced the old. Local
housing authorities and site managers
have the latitude to devise and enforce
stricter tenant eligibility criteria than is
typical for public housing as a whole.
HOPE VI developments may exclude
families with poor credit histories, with
criminal records, or that do not demonstrate acceptable house-keeping skills.
In Chicago, prospective tenants for new
public housing must also be working
at least 30 hours a week or enrolled in
school full time.

PRIVATELY
owned Rental
Housing built
witH FedeRal
SUBSIDIES
From 1960 to 1980, the federal government financed the development of more
than 1 million low and moderate income
rental housing units owned by private
entities. As a means of stimulating the
economy, these subsidies were intended
for families with income too high to
qualify for public housing but not high
enough to secure standard housing in the
private market.

Mortgage
subsidy
programs
Since the 1960s, three main programs
subsidize the interest on a projects
mortgage have been established: Section 221(d)3 in 1961, Section 236 in
1968, and Section 515 (for rural rental
housing) in 1962. All three programs ran
into serious trouble in the inflationary
1970s. Driven by rapidly escalating oil
prices, operating costs rose far faster than
tenant incomes. Many projects went into
default, unable to cover their debt service
obligations after meeting their operating
costs.

direct rental
subsidy
programs

When Reagan administration terminated

it in 1983, the program had subsidized
more than 850,000 new or rehabilitated
housing units. Section 8 NC/SR was an
expensive program. Development and
operating costs were often high. Developers have scant incentive to control
costs as long as fair market rents would
cover debt service and operating costs
and leave a margin for profit.
Eventually, unlike public housing, federal subsidies for all these programs extend
for only a finite period of time: allowing
the housing may be converted to market-rate occupancy.

VOUCHERS
Vouchers are the largest housing subsidy
program for low-income Americans.
Vouchers enable low-income households
to obtain housing that already exists in
the private market. Compared to project-based subsidies, vouchers are less
expensive and provide access to a wider
range of neighborhoods and housing.
However, the households must find an
apartment that does not exceed the programs standards for physical adequacy,
and whose owner is willing to participate
in the program. The Housing Act of 1974
established the first national voucher
program, originally known as the Section
8 Existing Housing Program. As first
designed, it provided rental certificates
to households with incomes up to 80%
of the area median income. The certificates covered the difference between
25% of family income (later increased
to 30%) and Fair Market rent (FMR).
The quality Housing and Work responsibility Act of 1998 merged the certificate and voucher programs into a single
program, renamed the Housing Choice
Voucher program (HCV) that mandates
that extremely low-income households
(earning less than 30% of areas median
family income) must receive at least 75%
of all vouchers issued annually. By 2004,
vouchers assisted more than 1.8 million
households, more than any other federal
housing program (40% of all HUDassisted).

Strengths and
limitations

In 1974, Congress established the Section 8 Loan Management Set-Aside program (LMSA) to improve cash flow and
also relieve the excessive rent burdens.
The program, destined for properties
funded through mortgage subsidy programs, covered the difference between
25% of tenant income (later increased
to 30%) and the rent. A very similar
program for new developments was also
established by Congress in 1937: the
Section 8 New Construction and Substantial Rehabilitation.

It is clear that vouchers provide a greater

degree of residential choice than project-based subsidy programs, enabling
recipients to live an a wider array of
neighborhoods. Compared to public
housing, a much smaller percentage of
voucher holders live in economically
distressed neighborhoods. For example,
while more than half of the nations
public housing units are in census tracts
with a poverty rate of 30% or more, this
is true of just 15% of all voucher holders
and 13% of all rental units.

Strengths and
limitations

Moreover, vouchers are far less expensive per unit compared to project-based
subsidy programs. The General Accounting Office estimates that public housing
redeveloped under HOPE VI program
will cost 27% more than vouchers over
their 30-year life cycle and housing
financed with LIHTC cost 15% more. In
2004, rental voucher accounted for 54%
of HUDs budget.

The Section 8 program, designed to

avoid the limitations of capital subsidies
that we have described, guaranteed a
combination of the deep rent subsidies
and generous tax advantages. This made
the Section 8 program very attractive.
6

BLOOMBERGS NEW Housing

maRketplace plan
three aims for a more affordable,
viable and sustainable city

pRoblematizing tHe new

Housing maRket-place plan

Bloombergs administration had the goal to build a total of 165,000 affordable units
by 2014. The plan was divided in three categories:

Bloombergs New Housing Marketplace Plan

1. Strengthen neighborhoods: Improving the conditions of the neighborhoods by

physically improving and financially aiding distressed properties to create stabilized
communities.

One-third units for the upper income limit

Half units unaffordable for many community districts

Housing affordabiltiy for short term

X
X

X
X

Goal:165,000 affordable housing units through new construction

and preservation

PHYSICAL AND FINANCIAL AID

X
X

RISK

2. Expand the supply of affordable and sustainable housing: Providing 165,000 affordable housing units, 36 percent new construction and 65 percent for preservation.

City will lose per year 11,000 units built with city subsidies starting in 2017
City will lose most of the affordable units built under the NHMP

Displacement of vulnerable households

Risk of homelessness
City will overpay to keep owners from eviction
PERMANENT AFFORDABILITY IS NEEDED

60,000

NEW

105,000

PRESERVE RENT LOCKED

3. Stabilize families: Keeping people in their homes. Using an educational strategy

the city advise, assist and educate the population living in areas threaten by foreclosure. It would also help vulnerable families such as those at risk of homelessness and
those already in the shelter system.

KEEP PEOPLE IN THEIR HOMES

educational strategy + council/assist/and educate
The New Housing Marketplace Plan was launched in 2003, and completed nearthe population against the threat of forclosure

ly 160,000 units of affordable housing by the end of 2013 (as of October 2013),
according to the latest report from the New York City Department of Housing
Preservation and Development. Under the plan Manhattan had 51,168 units built or
preserved, the Bronx had 49,426, Brooklyn had 37, 643, Queens had 16,530, and
Staten Island had 2,463. The question is what is affordable housing and who benefits
from affordable housing?

According to a recent report developed by the Association for Neighborhood and

Housing Development, the units developed as part of the Bloombergs New Housing Marketplace Plan (NHMP) do not always meet the actual affordability needs
of the neighborhood in which they were built. Approximately one-third of the units
constructed or preserved have an upper income limit above the median income of
the city. In half on the community districts, most of the affordable housing units
provided are too expensive for households earning the local median income of the
neighborhood.
The parameters used for the provision and distribution of affordable housing do not
always benefit households most in need. The Average Median Income (AMI), a statistical measure calculated annually by the Housing Preservation and Development,
is used for housing eligibility for the New York metropolitan area. AMI is calculated
taking into account the city and surrounding suburbs. The five boroughs plus Putnam
County are included in the equation creating an AMI of $85, 900 for a family of four
in 2013.
According to the report, approximately 83% of the units developed under the NHMP
targeted families making below 80% of AMI ($68,720). However, the plan primarily
served households at the upper end of this spectrum. Out of this number almost half
of the units targeted households earning between 60 and 80% of AMI ($51,540 $68,720) while the rest of the units (34%) targeted households earning below 60%
of AMI (the latest were developed using Low Income Housing Tax Credits). In
many community districts in the outer boroughs only the better off can benefit from
the NHMP. For instance, the median household income in Brooklyn in 2011 was
$43,592 (below 60% of AMI) and over 25% of its households earned below $18,689
the same year. Nevertheless, units targeting households earning less than 30% of
AMI have been provided in just a few community districts.
Moreover, housing policy, including some of the instruments used to implement the
NHMP, has not managed to provide long-term affordability. According to the report
the City will be at risk of losing an average of 11,000 units built with city subsidies
per year starting in 2017. In addition, new yorkers could lose the affordability of as
many units as were built by NHMP by 2037!
Most of the affordable units built as part of the NHMP are only affordable for a
short-term, approximately 30 years. This means that future generations will not be
able to benefit from the program and public subsidies. The expiration of affordability
restrictions will put households at risk of displacement and homelessness.
For more information about Bloomberg Affordable Housing Legacy go to http://
www.anhd.org
7

PRICES SKYROCKET,
Neighborhoods transform

REal estate Speculation,

Gentrification And
displacement

As gentrifying classes seek affordable rents in a low income neighborhood, real

estate interests sell the narrative of a positive transition, landlords dramatically increase rents, speculative developers build homes for higher incomes, and the original
working class community is displaced: low income individuals are scattered to other
parts of the city and beyond, and whole communities are dissolved.
In New York City, gentrification often follows subway lines out from Manhattan, but
the process can begin long before the first gentrifiers arrive. Speculators in areas further down train lines target cheep vacant land and abandoned buildings in the hopes
that a neighborhood will gentrify. These predictions are often self-fulfilling.

Some gentrification centers around the conversion of abandoned spaces into lofts.
Loft living had its beginnings among artists who were in need of an affordable space
for both working and living. Space in the inner city warehouses, where manufacturing was in decline, became an ideal setting because of its established mixed use and
large open spaces. This kind of spacious loft living became popular among the middle
class, and a battleground for gentrification. Then market forces got involved attracting only residential tenants while rejecting the last manufacturing small businesses.
Gentrification can be identified when new and upcoming businesses like coffee shops,
organic groceries, and vintage stores appear to cater to this new population. Neighborhood coolness is a common factor in New York City, but it is not the most important one. The real estate industry, aggressive landlords and speculative developers are
the primary drivers of gentrification, as well as its primary beneficiaries. Low income
communities suffer the most from this profit-driven process, and gentrification is far
more of a manufactured phenomenon than it seems.

Displaced job
opportunities from
inner city neighborhoods
Affordable housing is not only linked to the price of a home, but the income of the
tenant. We cannot explore housing without also recognizing larger economic factors,
and we have to rethink how to create job opportunities in the inner city, and build
community wealth. Perhaps the largest blow to the income of inner city neighborhoods was the de-industrialization that has occurred since the 1970s. Manufacturing
jobs have largely been displaced from the American city: outsourced to industrializing countries.
Money fled the city beginning with the suburbanization of housing and job opportunities, impacting differentiated communities in the inner cities. A transition to cars and
buses, combined with suburbanization, meant it became difficult to access many jobs
due to a lack of affordable transportation.

income inequality:
NEW YORK CITY is the most
unequal city, in the most
unequal state, in the most
unequal industrialized
nation in the world.

DISINTEGRATION OF THE
AMERICAN DREAM
The American dream takes money. If you cannot pay cash for a home, you have to
borrow the money. For most, therefore, owning a home means owning debt.
In the years leading up to the housing bubble, there were two basic interest rates on
home loans: Prime, or low interest for the best, low-risk borrowers, and Subprime,
or highest interest, for borrowers with more risk of not being able to make monthly
loan payment. As the housing bubble began to inflate, brokers found that they could
enhance their profits by selling packages or bundles of Subprime home loans, even
though investors were most interested in bundles of prime rates mortgages. But housing brokers made a market for subprime loans by putting the safest mortgages into
cocktails with higher risk mortgages.

10

Subprime loans increased dramatically, and whole new populations, usually low
income people of color, were sold the high-interest debt bankers knew they couldnt
afford. Eventually subprime purchasers began defaulting on their high-interest
mortgage payments, and the housing bubble burst. Banks foreclosed on borrowers
who could not afford their loans, and the market was left with millions of mortgages
in default. Banks and other lenders failed, construction of new housing dried up, and
a glut of foreclosed housing entered the market at greatly devalued prices. The most
disrupted communities were often the most vulnerable.

INCOME DATA: COMPARING

NYC WITH THE NATION
Housing cost and risk of
homelesSness
National income tax data show definitively that the nations income distribution has
become more unequal for at least the last three decades, with the top 1 percent capturing more of the national income and the rest, and especially the bottom 50 percent,
earning less. This is an exacerbated long-term trend in New York City.

How much people spend for their housing

poveRty & ineQualitY

income ineQualities aRe Rising in
usa and woRst in nyc
Across the nation, income equality has soared to the highest levels since the Great
Depression with the top 1% of earners taking 93% of all increases in income. As for
New York City, inequality grew over four times as fast, with 1% of city residents
earning 35% of all real income. In fact, New York City leads every major US city
in the category of economic injustice, such that if the borough of Manhattan were a
country, the income gap between the richest twenty percent and the poorest twenty
percent would be on par with countries like Sierra Leone, Namibia and Lesotho. New
York City is now the most unequal city in the most unequal state in the most unequal
developed country in the world.

11

MAPPING THE CRISIS

median sale
pRice oF single
Family HomeS

INCLUSIVE HOUSING

Median sale price reflects the property

values and state of the real estate market
in a given location. Half of the homes in
New York City sold for more than the
median price and the other half sold
for less.

Everyone shares the right to a decent standard of living. Essential to the achievement
of this standard and therefore to the fulfillment of human life beyond simple survival is
access to adequate housing. Housing fulfills physical needs by providing security and
shelter from weather and climate. It fulfills psychological needs by providing a sense
of personal space and privacy. It fulfills social needs by providing a gathering area and
communal space for the human family, the basic unit of society. In many societies, it
also fulfills economic needs by functioning as a center for commercial production.

As fundamental as food and water,

access to housing is a human right, a necessity to live a basic, safe, and comfortable life. Recognizing this, the state of
housing in this country, and in this city
especially, is appalling. The wealth disparity is disgusting, while real estate and
rental pricing is largely unregulated, allowing landlords to charge whatever rent
they can without any regard for who can
pay and who cannot. This often means
that, when the time comes, those who
can no longer pay get displaced. Without
any regulations, the aspirations towards
a society with actual equal opportunity, with any semblance of decreasing
disparity, continues to move farther and
farther into the distance. These largely
unregulated market forces also allowed
predatory lending and the housing bubble, resulting in the foreclosure crisis,
which made accesssing housing even
more difficult for many New Yorkers.
This section tries to explain who is most
at risk of losing housing in this city and
to visualize this instability through maps.

DETermining
affordability
Acess to housing is the product
of complex social relationships,
determined by many obvious and less
obvious things, such as work status and

occupation, education, the ability and/

or decision to purchase versus rent,
and, maybe the most important in New
York City, the ups and downs of the real
estate market.Affordability of housing
is, for the most part, dependent on basic
market forces - supply and demand which means rents continue to increase
as more and more people move to New
York City. These market rate properties
and processes are considered the 1st
sector of the housing market. Publicly
subsidized housing, through the policies
and mechanisms mentioned in this
pubication, are recognized as the 2nd
sector housing made affordable through
public programs, often lasting a limited
amount of time then eventually being
brought back into the free market, the
1st sector. Additionally, and much less
prevalent, are permanently affordable
properties the 3rd sectorusually
based on social ownership and
managed to be non-speculative, or
non-market based. These community
land trusts, limited equity or zero equity
co-operatives, and mutual housing
associations are the best opportunity for
broad and guaranteed affordability.

MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME=

$51,270
The Median Household Income (MHI),
or Median Family Income (MFI), is the
amount at which half the citys house-

The new settlement with the

Attorney General is trying to
push the banks to give these...
properties to non-profits... but
it seems like theyre only giving
away the terrible properties,
which non-profits dont even
want because they need so much
work it will cost the non-profits
money to demolish and rebuild
them.
Ingrid Ellen, The Furman
Center

Map 3: Median Sale Price Of

Single Family Homes, 2011

-Human Rights Education Association

www.HREA.org

HOUSING AS A
HUMAN RIGHT

beginning alternative models of acquisition and tenure because of the owners

liability of having abandoned and unsold
properties on their books. Today these
are often banks, who want to get rid of
toxic assets which hurt their profits.

As median sale prices reflect the

strength of a local real estate market, it
is unsurprising to see a correlation between lower sale prices and communities
with lower MHI. While lower sale prices
might also relate to lower rent prices,
with regards to ownership, it might also
reflect a higher rate of turnover and
instability in a neighborhood as it is
easier for new property owners to enter
the market. Similarly, neighborhoods
with lower median sale prices represent
easier access for buyers or groups of
buyers trying to work in alternative and
non-market processes.
Map 2

holds earn more and half the citys

houseolds earn less; in 2012 New York
Citys MHI was $49,461, as determined
by the US Census. This number is used
to determine the official Poverty Line as
well as household eligibility for public
housing assistance or low-income and
affordable housing.

OWNERSHIP

Map 1: MHI

Map 2:
Homeownership Rate

This map reflects the reality that poorer

neighborhoods tend to be located at the
periphery of the citys boroughs. Being
relegation to the exterior means that
these communities, that are already earning less, are also routinely farther from
the services and jobs usually focused
in the central business district, and thus
farther from the opportunities to improve
their living situation. Something else
worth considering is if we think about
this MHI geography in relation to the
subway lines, we can see a similar discrepancy between poorer neighborhoods
and access to, or convenience of, public
transport infrastructure as well. When we
use the general rule of thumb that 30%
of income should go towards housing,
reasonable rents for these households at
the periphery would need to be quite low.
The reality of the situation means that, in
addition to being farther from the opportunities available in the center of the city,
as well as having less access to these
resources, lower income households are
also paying a disproportionately high
amount of their income to secure housing, creating a greater financial burden
for them.

New York Citys homeownership rate

refers to the percentage of total housing
units that are owner occupied. In 2011
this number was 32.6%, according to the
US Census, which means more than twothirds of New Yorkers are renters

Areas of lower homeownership mean

higher rates of renting. Owning ones
home versus renting guarantees a certain
amount of stability in the cost of living in
a place, at least with respect to housing
costs. While homeowners must pay higher property taxes as their neighborhoods
improve, at the same time they reap the
benefits as the communitys infrastructure and amenities improve, such as local
schools, while the value of their property
increases as well. New York City is a
city of renters, which can be seen in Map
2, while the highest rates of ownership
in Brooklyn are seen along the periphery at the places with the greatest MHI.
Conversely, renters are susceptible to
the whims of landlords as well as market
forces, which reflect the desireability of
neighborhoods. These market processes
mean tenants have less stability as their
rents are more likely to change unexpectedly and at a more unsustainable
rate. Homeownership is lowest in the
poorest neighborhoods, those with the
lowest MHI, and this relationship helps
to express the increased precariousness
of those New Yorkers who rent.

maRket Rate
Rental units
Median
Market rate rental units are those found
in the 1st sector and are tied to the supply
and demand of real estate in a neighborhood, meaning the prices center will
increase as peoples desire to live in an
area increases. The other side of this data
represents the amount of 2nd and 3rd
sector housing in a neighborhood. These
2nd and 3rd sector units are subsidized
or managed to be affordable and less
intimately tied to, or totally disconnected
from, the effects of the real estate market.

Map 3

Map 4: Market Rate Rental

Units As Percent Of Housing
Stock
As more units are rented at market
rate, fewer units are subsidized and in
effect made affordable. Higher rents and
un-subsidized rents are both more precarious for lower income and already
at risk tenants. Historically industrial
parts of the city, which are often those
with the lowest Median Family Income,
and those with the highest Median
Family Income, have the lowest rates of
subsidized housing, affecting the former
population in a much more severe way
than the latter.

Map 4

FORECLOSURES:
WHO, WHAT and
WHERE
Map 5: Notices Of Fore-Closure
Rate, 2010.
Map 5 shows the rate of foreclosures at
the community district level. They are
most heavily focused in the poorest and
peripheral communities. These high rates
of foreclosure help to better understand
the relationship between neighborhood
wealth and how at risk residents are of
losing their home or losing their rental
tenancy without notice. At the same
time, though, these foreclosure rates also
reflect the most opportune places for

Map 5

Map 1

12

13

law, RigHts, Rent FRaud

Research on illegal rent increases and the loss of affordable housing in the city was
recently undertaken by Make the Road New York (2011). In 200 randomly selected
apartments across NYC the researchers found excessive rent increases with no explanation; landlords failing to register rents of their stabilized apartments; and evidence
of inflated rents when vacancies occur (over the 20%), upon renewal, or after major
repair work in the buildings. Rent overcharges have put tenants in difficult situations.
In the worst cases, they dont have any option but to move. The research also uncovered many of the difficulties tenants in preventing eviction, such as tenants lack of
knowledge on their rights and rent-regulations; language barriers when they want to
interact with the authorities; inadequacy in DHCRs complaint-driven enforcement
process; and a long backlog of rent overcharge complaints stretching in some cases to

over two years.

In New York City, rent control apartments generally applies to residential buildings

constructed before February, 1947 in municipalities for which an end to the postwar

rental housing emergency has not been declared. For an apartment to be under rent
control, the tenant must generally have been living there continuously since before
July 1, 1971 or for less time as a successor to a rent controlled tenant. Once the
unit becomes vacant, it leaves the rent control program and is not eligible for rent
stabilization. New Yorks current rent control program is the longest-running in the
United States.

Class 2 includes:
Sub-Class 2a
(4 6 unit rental building)

Sub-Class 2b
As with most metropolises of the world,
(7 10 unit rental building)
New York Citys most stable and con Sub-Class 2c
sistent form of revenue is its property
(2 10 unit co-op or condominium)
tax. In 1975, a descision for the state
Class 2

Supreme Court brought up the issue of

(11 units or more)
inequitable property assessments and
taxations, and Albany was faced with the
Class 3: Most utility property.
bringing this up to fix. S7000A, a New
York City law, was the response, and
4: All commercial and industrial
Class
it made New York City create a quadproperties, such as office, retail, factory
class property tax system in order to fix
buildings and all other properties not
the disparities
between homeowners

and commercial/large structure owners. included in tax classes 1, 2 or 3.

While it protected the small property

The Mayor and City Council annually

owners and ensured that their taxation each classs tax rate; and, this tax rate
set

wouldnt be overburdened, it would have is placed upon the assessed value of the
the inadvertent impact how property in order to determine the tax
on impacting
rental systems and costs would
that is owed. Assessed value is calculated

be pegged.
as the product of the market value by

Quad-Class

Property Tax

System

of assessment of the property.

the level

While this seems simple, it is far from

it. These tax assessments can vary from
year to year, and exemptions make the
formulas even more complicated.

Class 1: Most residential property of up

to three units (family homes and small
stores or offices with one or two apartments attached), and most condominiums
that are not more than three stories.

According to current trends in New

York Citys taxation, the property tax
has been in a consistent upward move
even including the economic downturns.
Moreover, the S7000A has not made a
equitable landscape in terms of
more
Class 2: All other property that is not in

Class 1 and is primarily residential (rent how taxation is pulled from properties:
even in the city, apartment buildings
als, cooperatives and condominiums).

14

New York State Division

of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR)

Homeless people are generally viewed

in a couple of ways. One being that they
are solely responsible for their plight
and have failed at sustaining themselves,
hence failures of society. Another view
in line with advocacy efforts for basic
human rights, disputes the fact that
homeless people are solely to be blamed
for this and takes into account the many
factors that contribute to homelessness
and the lack of a system put in place to
reverse and counter homelessness.

Simply, anyone without a home!

New York City, rent stabilized apartments are generally those apartments in build

In
ings of six or more units built between February 1, 1947 and January 1, 1974. Tenants

in buildings built before February 1, 1947, who moved in after June 30, 1971 are also

covered by rent stabilization. A third category of rent stabilized apartments covers

buildings subject to regulation by virtue of various governmental supervision or tax

benefit programs.

EFFECTS OFS7000A: FOURPROPERTYCLASSES

Who ARE the

homeless?

of progressively increasing
a system

are still overburdened compared to the

heavily protected residential homes. This
rents/maintenance mechanics. If a more
becomes just one more reason why rents
equitable means was founded between
keep rising in Manhattan and surroundClass I and II,

apartment rentals might

ing areas. This notion has been noted in
be better to control in

terms of cost.

various academic studies as a reason why

This issue is not symptomatic in Manthe system should be reformed.
hattan considering that due to surrounding environs, properties will usually

at the higher rates; while, the

be taxed

outer boroughs will have properties

taxes will be impacted by vacancy

therefore creating a failsafe for ensuring

long-term speculation/investment.

Warehousing
from a
Property Tax
Perspective

In another twist, the condominium

of property
was not a popular form
Vacant spaces can be held empty and
tenure when the tax revision was
taxed at the Class I rate as long as they
passed; therefore, its definition within
have a sole tenant; therefore, ensuring

the tax code is still rather tenuous and

that it fulfills the class specification.
thorny. Considering the newer laws
This technicality allows for a five-story/
about the condo and their growing
multifamily building to be classified as a
presence in the real estate market, the
Class I property as long as only the one

tax
abatement system was created as
person/family is there. This clearly is an

a means to prevent units sometimes

inherent ability to allow for speculation

getting assessed even higher than

by allowing developers to take over a

the buildings they were inside of. As

building, keep an occupant, get the right
it attempted to rectify this growing
tax class, and
then wait for it to accrue
problem, it was only a Band-Aid as it
value over time. This is a noticeable

did little to fight inequalities

trend in districts like Bushwick, where
in assessments due to which buildings
the first floor will be occupied, but the
can even qualify for an abatement in the
top floors are not.

first place.
Another impropriety lies in the fact that

Class I properties are taxed on sales/

market data unlike Class II and IV that
are taxed by income stream. This causes
problems with apartment/condo buildings

and complexes by having to keep up

with income streams; therefore, creating

WHAT IS
HOMELESSNESS
There are many definitions of homelessness, but according to the Stewart
B. McKinney Act, 42 U.S.C. 11301,
et seq. (1994), a person is considered
homeless who lacks a fixed, regular,
and adequate night-time residence; and...
has a primary night time residency that
is: (A) a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide
temporary living accommodations... (B)
an institution that provides a temporary
residence for individuals intended to be
institutionalized, or (C) a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily
used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. The term
homeless individual does not include
any individual imprisoned or otherwise
detained pursuant to an Act of Congress
or a state law. 42 U.S.C. 11302(c)1

How Many are

homeless IN NYC?
Since the first annual street
survey in 2005, the number of
homeless individuals living in
public places has decreased by
26% from 4,395 to 3,262. Thats
more than 1,133 fewer New
Yorkers sleeping on streets, in
parks and in subways.
To quantify the issue of homelessness
and gain a better understanding of the
situation, the city of New York developed
an annual census program, called the
HOPE (Homeless Outreach Population
Estimate) survey, to dedicate a night on
which thousands of volunteers go out,
count and record the amount of homeless
people they see on the streets- those not
in shelters.

According to the HOPE Program:

New York Citys methodology for
counting the homeless is considered the
gold standard by the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. The
Citys streets, parks, and subway stations
are divided into approximately 7,000
HOPE Areas, each about the size of a few
square blocks. In the months before HOPE
DHS uses information from outreach
providers and past HOPE results to divide
the City into high density areas, where
we expect to find unsheltered individuals,
and low density areas, where we may
not. On HOPE night, teams of volunteers
survey a sample of the areas, collectively
walking over a thousand miles through
New York Citys streets, parks, and subway
stations. To maintain the surveys integrity
volunteers do not know if they are
assigned to a high density or low density
area.
Questioning its accuracy, the program
discloses, To ensure accuracy the
HOPE count has employed a quality
assurance component every year since
beginning its citywide count in 2005:
decoys. The Hunter College School of
Social Work, an independent research
organization, plants decoy homeless
individuals on some of the streets, parks,
and subways that volunteers will survey.
Decoys ensure that volunteers cover every part of their assigned areas, and that
they interview everyone they see. Hunters researchers report how many decoys
were surveyed, and the City adjusts its
estimate based on the percentage missed.
New York is the only U.S. city that ensures the accuracy of its count through
this plant-capture technique, providing
an additional measure of accuracy to
our methodology.
Even though the city is making an effort
to maintain accuracy in its census,
organizations such as Coalition for the
Homeless feel it is still unrepresentative
of the actual data of homeless -on-thestreets individuals.
According to Coalition for the Homeless,
Research shows that the primary cause
of homelessness, particularly among
families, is lack of affordable housing.
The U.S. Bureau of the Census has
recorded a steady decline in the number
of affordable rental apartments in New
York City, at the same time that wages
for low-income New Yorkers have stagnated or fallen -- thus creating a widening affordability gap.

a serious ISSUE
Recently homelessness has reached the
highest level its ever been since the
Great Depression, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

1400
1200
Amount
of Street
Homeless
per Borough

1000
800
600
400
200
0
SUBWAYS

1600

STATEN ISLAND

1800

QUEENS

According to the New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), landlords owning
rent controlled and rent stabilized apartments can increase rent 2% to 4.5% for oneyear leases, and 4% to 8.5% for a two-year leases. The only way to raise the rent
above these numbers is when an apartment becomes deregulated. The legal rent can
increase up to 20% and even more. Additionally, an apartment may become deregulated at the end of a tenants last lease commencing during the period of the tax
abatement (if it was stabilized as part of a tax benefits program); when a building is
converted to a co-op under an eviction plan; upon vacancy; and if the rent is $2,500 or
more, and the household earned $200 000 or more in the two prior consecutive years.

HOPE RESULTS IN 2012 PER NYC

BOROUGH & SUBWAY

BROOKLYN

THE FACE
OF THE
HOMELESS

BRONX

MANHATTAN

AMOUNT OF STREET HOMELESS

LAWS, Rights and rent fraud

BOROUGHS

HOPE RESULTS FROM 2005 TO 2012

5000
4395

4500
AMOUNT OF STREET HOMELESS

population and Housing

4000

3843

3755

3500

3306

3262

3111
3000
2648
2500

2328

Amount
of Street
Homeless
per year

2000
1500
1000
500
0
2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

YEARS

Total number of homeless people

in municipal shelters per night:

48,694

Out of this number

11,678 were homeless families

20,383 were homeless children
DID YOU KNOW:
Families comprise nearly three-quarters
of the homeless shelter population!
3/4 of the
shelter
population
are families

Youth
population
5-10% LGBT

Homeless Youth
population
20-40% LGBT

Number of homeless single men:

7,728

Number of homeless single women:

2,740

SOME
CONTRIBUTING
FACTORS
Loss of home

More than 1 in 4 children in NYC live in

poverty and are likely to be homeless.
A typical homeless child is under 5
years old.
Number of homeless adults in families:

17,843

Number of homeless single adults:

10,476

Loss of job
Unemployment
Disability
Illness/Mental Illness
Sexual orientation (Homosexuality)
Incarceration record
Lack of affordable housing
Low income
15

rooms, theres overcrowding and shelters

DEMOGRAPHICS
often dont make sense for everyone
OF HOMELESSNESS
RATE OF SHELTER
in nyc
RECIDIVISM
53% African-American

32% Latino
6% Caucasian
1% Native American
1% Asian

African-American and Latino New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by

homelessness. Approximately 53 percent
of New York City homeless shelter residents are African-American, 32 percent
are Latino, 6 percent are white, 1 percent
are Asian-American, 1 percent are Native
American or other race/ ethnicity, and 9
percent are of unknown race/ ethnicity.
This disproportionate correlation between minority groups and homelessness
has not always been this consistent. According to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless, homelessness
emerged as a national issue in the 1870s
(Kusmer, 2002). At that time in American
history, African-Americans made up less
than 10% of the population and although
there were no national figures documenting the demography of the homeless
population, some sources suggest that
African-Americans represented a very
small segment of the homeless population. As a matter of fact, in the 1950s and
1960s, the typical person experiencing
homelessness was white, male, and in his
50s (Kusmer, 2002).
Since that time, however, the scope and
demographic makeup of the problem
have changed dramatically. Not only
do families with children now comprise
41% of the homeless population (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2006),
but 42% of the population is African
American. The composition of the average homeless family living in a shelter is
a single parent household headed by an
African-American female (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2004).
Studies show the large majority of street
homeless New Yorkers (not in shelters)
are individuals living with mental illness
or other severe health problems. Four
out of five street homeless New Yorkers
are men.

INTERVIEW ON
NYC SHELTER
SYSTEM AND
HOMELESSNESS
Interviewee: Rob Robinson
Interviewer: Shirley Bucknor
Shirley: What are your views on the
NYC homeless system?
Rob: The NYC homeless system is complicated. To its credit, NYC has a robust
system in place and that system, goes
through a lot of different avenues, a maze
if you will. It can go into those dormitory style where bunk-beds exist, single
room occupancy hotels, even scatter site
apartments so its complicated. There

are shelters with dormitory style beds so

maybe 6 or 7 people to a room or single
16

Homelessness is not about

housing. It never has been. It is
about poverty!

Although the city of New York has made

substantial efforts to provide an ample
amount of shelters, it does not address
nor solve some of the key components
surrounding the issue of homelessness
such as skill-set, mental illness and rehabilitation. More than often the system
of shelters can become a trap for many
families below the poverty line.
According to an article in the New York
Nonprofit Press, about 40% of all families who seek temporary shelter have had
at least one prior shelter stay.
Take the case study shown in the diagram
on the adjacent page, in whcih a homeless person was asked to pay market rate
to live in the shelter system. She brought
the request to the attention of the media
and luckily the decision was revoked by
city officials. Unfortunately, this kind
of practice takes place on a daily basis
for the unaware. This same practice is
transferred to the government organizations such as the Department of Homeless services who have been reported to
be paying an underestimated amount of
between $150-$250 per head per day for
homeless individuals within the shelters.
An estimated $750 billion in funding
has been allocated for homelessness and
shelters in New York City, but are these
funds being properly allocated?
Why is the government continuing to
spend such high amount to the shelter
system, why not put the funds towards
helping people gain better permanent and
affordable housing?
In August 2010, Coalition for the
Homeless released a document discussing the flaws behind the then Advantage
Program. Realizing the glaring problem
of the assistance time limit placed on
the service by officials, Coalition for the
Homeless sought to acquire data on the
state of shelter recidivism.
They acquired the following:
From a document entitled, Reapplications of families with prior Advantage
exits, the Department of Homeless Services data show that between April 2007
and April 2010, 1,137 different families
have re-applied for shelter after receiving
Advantage. By April 2010, just 3,746
families had started receiving the subsidy
two or more years ago, meaning that the
recidivism rate could be as high as one in
three. Nearly half of these re-applications
were in the last six months, showing
a continued increase in the number of
families returning to shelter. Indeed, in
March 2010, 172 applications were filed
at the family intake center, PATH-- nearly six a day!
The Advantage program no longer exists
due to its inefficiency at helping families
get back on their feet and did not im-

prove the numbers of families in shelters.

A New Path: An Immediate Plan to
Reduce Family Homelessness proposes
using the family shelter as a tool for
parents with limited education and work
experience, as well as for victims of domestic violence, those with mental health
and substance abuse issues, and a history
in the child welfare system. Realizing
this pattern, hundreds of advocates and
providers from across the nation including the Institute for Children, Poverty
and Homelessness (ICPH) are proposing
a restructuring NYCs family shelter
system into three separate components,
based on assessments of a familys situations or needs. The report stresses that
approximately half of all families placed
in a shelter leave within 30 days and never return. It is the other half, those who
cycle in and out of the shelter system,
which requires more extensive services
and in some cases longer stays in the
shelter system to prevent recidivism.
Under the ICPH proposal, the shelter
system would be structured as follows:
Tier I Emergency Shelters would look
like the current system of services for
families who enter the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH)
Office. During an initial 30-day stay,
assessments would be conducted to 1)
identify those families unable to quickly
find and retain permanent housing, 2) determine their specific service needs, and
3) develop a future plan of service.
Tier II Transitional Shelters would

serve those families whose needs can

be addressed during shelter stays of between 2 and 12 months. These programs
would look similar to the current Tier II
shelter model but would be targeted for
households where the parent has some
education and work history and requires
only some help from case managers and
housing specialists in finding new or better employment and low-income market
housing.

HOMELESSNESS CONTINUUM

Tier III Specialized Shelter Programs

a new programmatic proposal would
serve families who demonstrate more
complex needs and have higher barriers
to maintaining permanent housing. The
Tier III sheltersalso known as Community Residential Resource Centers
-- would offer on-site employment opportunities for shelter residents starting
at minimum wage; job search, readiness,
and retention training; and GED classes.

habitat for
humanity:
advocacy for
affordable
housing
We talked to Matthew Dunbar, Advocacy and Community Relations Manager,
Habitat for Humanity New York. Since
its founding in 1984, Habitat-NYC has
provided more than 260 homes. At that
rate it would take Habitat for Humanity
more than 5,500 years to meet the current
housing deficit, which is why the advocacy work is at the core of the organization.

Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps and

VISTA):Provides Habitat affiliates with
the capacity to engage tens of thousands
of volunteers in efforts to rebuild struggling neighborhoods;
National Housing Trust Fund and
Capital Magnet Fund:Provides production resources for new construction and
rehabilitation of vacant properties;
SHOP (Self-Help Homeownership
Opportunity Program):Provides Habitat
affiliates with resources to acquire the
land and infrastructure needed to rebuild
communities hard-hit by the foreclosure
crisis;

Federal
Legislative
Priorities

Section 4 Capacity Building:Provides

resources to support the staffing and
skills needed to rebuild communities
with high foreclosure rates;

Invest in stabilizing communities and

maintain federal resources that support
the work of Habitat for Humanity nationwide. In support of the federal Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, Habitat for
Humanity International seeks to leverage
U.S. government programs and resources
to revitalize low-income neighborhoods
and to create resilient communities. To
support this initiative, the federal government must maintain and enhance the
following funding streams:

Preservation Programs:Provide affordable rental homes for low-income

families and individuals through public
housing, Section 8 Housing Choice
Vouchers and Section 202 housing for
the elderly.

New York State

NYC

Increase New York States capital investment in affordable housing. Habitat-NYC is urging Governor Cuomo to
increase the states capital investment in
affordable housing and the economic
activity and job creation that home building generates. Programs such as the
Low Income Housing Trust Fund (HTF),
the Affordable Housing Corporation
(AHC), and New York State HOME
provide essential housing development
opportunities that contribute to New
Yorks economic growth and the stabilization of struggling neighborhoods.
The state should also identify a flexible,
dedicated revenue stream for affordable
housing that is not subject to annual
appropriations.

Call for 2013 Mayoral Candidates to

produce comprehensive affordable housing plans that address the full housing
continuum. Habitat-NYC is pushing for
a plan that emphasizes the importance of
homeownership, homeless and supportive housing solutions, public housing and
rental preservation, tenant protection,
foreclosure prevention, and neighborhood stabilization.

Renew J-51 tax abatements for cooperative and condominium ownership

opportunities. The J-51 tax abatement is
an important mechanism for low-income
and working class homeowners; ensuring
that for the life of a familys mortgage,
their tax burden will be low enough to
maintain affordability amidst increasing
energy and maintenance costs. Habitat-NYC advocates for renewal of this
important legislation alongside measures
that strengthen, protect, and expand
NYCs affordable housing stock.

Ensure that affordable homeownership

remains an essential and central public
policy issue as a key solution to citys
affordable housing crisis. Affordable
homeownership gives low-income and
working families critical economic
and social benefits building equity,
significantly improving educational
achievement, fostering greater civic participation, inspiring pride and a sense of
accomplishment and improving physical
health. Building affordable homeownership units are powerful economic
engines that quickly create jobs, generate
new tax revenue and stabilize families
and communities.

Any plan should clearly define affordability and unit sizes, prioritizing need
over numbers so that distribution of
housing opportunities reaches very
low-income residents while addressing
the continued challenges of creating and
preserving workforce housing.

According to Habitat: Primary advocacy work this year will focus

on making affordable housing a top priority at the mayoral campaign.
We are looking to push different mayoral candidates to really come
out with a comprehensible housing plan which deals with the full
continuum of housing need.
17

HOMELESSNESS, SHELTERS AND

HURRICANE SANDY
Every night, thousands of homeless
people sleep outside in New York City.
What happens when there is a snowstorm
or hurricane? When Hurricane Sandy
was about to hit, a storm that was called
life-threatening, the mayor repeatedly
asked homeless and vulnerable people to
go to the safety of the extra storm shelters in the evacuation zones. Surprisingly,
though, a number of homeless individuals opted out of the shelters, and chose to
take their chances riding out the storm on
the streets.

WHAT IS
VACANCY?

What is vacancy? After surveying

multiple methods of counting vacancy across the city, there is apparently
no uniform, recognized definition for
vacancy. A project titled No Vacancy
stated Whether in decline, temporarily
unfit for use, difficult to use or awaiting
a specified future development, vacant
spaces are spaces in states of limbo
between prior and future uses. Vacant
spaces whether lots or buildings represent the in-between transient spaces withheld from the public. How, then, can this
data become public knowledge? And,
more importantly, how can it be used to
house the people without homes?

The shelter
is like jail, Ive
been there.
In an interview by the Huffington Post, a
homeless man named Michael explained
why he planned to avoid a nearby shelter
in Harlem: Those people, they have
AIDS, theyre always drinking, so I
dont want to stay inside today. Michael
sometimes works as a handyman, and
lived in an apartment in Brooklyn until
he fell behind on rent and was evicted.
He planned to ride out the storm walking
the streets of the Upper West Side. Ill
be better off outside than in there, he
says. He is trying to get back on his feet,
and explains, The things they do in there
make me lose focus.

Another homeless man, Carol, remarked of a nearby shelter

on the East Side, The shelter is like jail, Ive been there.
The most concerning thing about these accounts before the
storm, is that various homeless stated that they did not even
hear about the extra shelters that had opened up, let alone
their locations. The city had said that they were taking efforts
to do outreach on the streets, but was it enough?

That is the idea behind the Doe Funds

Ready, Willing & Able Program, which
provides paid transitional work and
individualized services to homeless
men so that they may join or re-join
the workforce and get out of a cycle of
homelessness, crime or addiction. The
organizations success rate is good, and
the backstory of the founders is worthy
of a movie.
18

The Ready, Willing & Able Program

recruits their men from various homeless
shelters in New York City. According
to Victor, who works in administration
at the Doe Funds East Williamsburg
location on Porter Avenue, when an
individual at a shelter shows interest in
the program, a case worker there will call
the Doe Fund, and a representative will
come to the shelter and give an interview.
The Doe Fund does a fair amount of
outreach, but the program is not allowed
to pick people up off the street. They can
only admit individuals who are living in
a shelter and specifically show interest in
the program, Victor says. Every day, the
Doe Fund sends out their vans to pick up
interested people and bring them back
to the opportunity centers for recruitment and sometimes interviews. If the
individual shows that they are serious
about getting their life back on track and

are accepting of help, the orientation

sessions and case management begins.

COULD THIS WORK

FOR BUSHWICK?
The Ready, Willing & Able Program
is set up in four phases, all which last
between nine and twelve months.
Graduates from the program leave with
full-time jobs, housing, sobriety, and
reestablished relationships with their
family. Each graduate also receives
life-long career counseling, job placement assistance and further training and
education opportunities. Throughout
their stay at the Doe Fund, the trainees
receive housing and three meals a day.
The facilities and housing are clean and
very well run, with a supportive and
caring staff. The trainees all work for one
of the Doe Funds social enterprises for
minimum wage. These enterprises include a community improvement project,
a pest control service, an administrative
assistance office, and a green enterprise
called Resource Recovery which provides restaurants with free waste cooking
oil pick ups to be recycled into premium
grade biodiesel.

VACANT UNITS IN
BROOKLYN

estate industry, which then blew up and

collapsed. A foreclosure crisis1960 - BLOCKBUSTINg
ensued,
1972 - ABANDONMENT
1830 - BLUE COLLAR
leading to the Great Recession of the
NEIgHBORHOOD
Many could not pay the bad loans and
In
21st century. Effects are clearly the 60s real-estate speculators tried to homes, which caused a
still befrighten white residents toabandoned their
sell their homes
Bushwick grew together with the industries
ing felt today, and with each foreclosure too late. They bought the of local property values.
further decrease
before The
of the nearby Brooklyn waterfront.it was
comes the displacement of distilleries,atand prices andOther them through
houses cheap
sold houses also emptied because of the
shipyards, warehouses, residents sugar
plummeting Puertofraudulent
the possible homelessness of families. practices to poor blacks andof the housing prices and buyers
refineries, and manufacturing plants attracted
avoided Bushwick.
Ricans prices
many German and later issuing at $10
The federal governement is Italian immigrant they could not afford.
a
workers. to resolve claims of
billion settlement

1972 - DEINDUSTRIALISA1960 - BLOCKBUSTINg

1972 - ABANDONMENT
TION
In the 60s real-estate speculatorscould to pay the bad loans and
Many tried not
frighten white residents to sell their homes homes, whichindustrial base of Bushwick was at the
abandoned their
The caused a
before it was too late. They bought the of local property values. in drastic decline. The once
further decrease
same time also
houses at cheap prices and Other houses also emptiednumerous knitting mills were also rapidly
sold them through
because of the
fraudulent practices to poor blacks and Puertoplummeting of the housing prices and buyers and all the remaining
decreasing in number
Ricans at prices they couldavoided Bushwick.
not afford.
beer breweries were either closing or drastically reducing staff.

vacancy
one and t

enthnicity

(Picture the Ho
(Furman Center for Real-Estate and (NYC Departmen
Urban Policy 2011

vacant
integrated neighborhood r
147
5%

vacant m
majority hispanic neighborho
55
49%

vacant lo
mixed-minority neighborhoo
182
46%
enthnicity

ethnicity b
vacancy in bushwick

(Furman Center for Real-Estate and Urban Policy 2011)

(Picture the Homeless 2011)

(Furman Center fo

integrated neighborhood
vacant residential buildings
5%
147

AGENTS OF VACANCY
EXAMPLES

majority hispanic neighborhood

vacant manufecturing units
49%
55

DE-INDUSTRIALIZATION

Finally, the death toll after the storm that was greatly publicized by various news sources never mentioned a single
homeless person; all included on the list of dead were found
in or around their home or car. Two people were killed in a
park but their neighborhood was listed as well. Did every
single homeless person in the city remain unscathed after the
deadly storm? Or did the city not tell us something?

THE DOE FUND:

Ready, Willing
& Able
TO SOLVE
HOMELESSNESS
FOR A NIGHT, YOU
NEED SHELTER.
TO SOLVE IT FOR
GOOD, YOU NEED
WORK.

OF VACANCY
VACANCY IN DYNAMICS
BUSHWICK
NEW YORK CITY
OF VACANCY
BUSHWICK
DYNAMICS
OF VACANCY
BUSHWICK

knew a lon
climax wit
afterwards
waste or as
though the
illustrate m
Bushwick is one of the neighborhood
of the dyna
vacant properties, which includes va
New York
condos. This high level of vacancies
a different impact on the main compo
the former industries near Williamsb
knew a long decline when both indus
1830 - BLUE COLLAR
climax with the pillaging and burnin
NEIgHBORHOOD
afterwards is still reflected today in t
waste or as car parking lots. Howeve
Bushwick grew together with the industries
though the influx of artists in the neig
of the nearby Brooklyn waterfront. The
illustrate many aspects that created th
shipyards, warehouses, distilleries, sugar
Bushwick is one of the Consumer in Brooklyn
foreclosure abuses by 14 major lenders earlier this year and the neighborhoodsFinancial with one of
of the dynamics of vacancy in Bushw
refineries, and manufacturing plants attracted
vacant properties, which includes vacant lots, houses, industrial
New a similar crisis
City.
ProtectionGerman and later Italian new banking regulations to help preventYorkcomes from a long history
many Bureau has issued immigrant
condos. This high level of vacancies
workers.
in the future. However, it is too late for many different impact on theunclear exactlyof this community d
a families, and it is main components how
the former industries near Williamsburg and the shopping strip
many people became homeless as a direct result of the crash in 2008.
Though the amount of foreclosures
knew a long decline when both industries and people abandoned
1960
1830 - BLUE COLLAR- BLOCKBUSTINg
has gone down since 2010, when New
climax with the pillaging and burning around Broadway in 1977
enthnici
(Furman thes
afterwards is still reflected today in the many vacant lots in Cente
York City reached its peak of NEIgHBORHOOD 60s real-estate speculators tried to
foreIn the
It isfrighten white residentsthere is housing that or as car parking lots. However, property speculation is h
a scandal that to sell their homes
integrate
waste could easily be available for
closed homes, this is still an issue. What together with the industries
Bushwick grew
5%
though the influx of artists in the neighborhood.
before it and it is They empty
was
occupancy The too late.heldbought the only for speculative purposes, while But these great
of the nearby
happened exactly to make foreclosures Brooklyn waterfront. cheap prices and sold them through illustrate many aspects that created the different kinds of vacanc
houses at
shipyards, warehouses, distilleries, sugar are in desperate need of the dynamics of vacancy in Bushwhick illustrates the origins
whole families
of housing that they can afford. majority
so abundant? The volume of high-cost,
fraudulent practices to poor blacks and Puerto49%
refineries, and manufacturing plants attracted
New York City.
Ricans at prices
subprime mortgages issued tomany German and later Italian immigrant they could not afford.
lenders
-Peter Marcuse
mixed-m
starting in 2003 fueled a booming real
workers.
46%

vacant manufecturing units

55

The industrial base of the city declined leaving

derutilized. In central areas many of those experienced adaptive reuse, whereas some
others keep vacant in peripheral urban areas.
2000 - MIgRATION OF
1972 - DEINDUSTRIALISA1977 - BUSHWICK

vacant lots
182

1977 - BUSHWICK
1972 - ABANDONMENT
1972 - DEINDUSTRIALISABURNINg
TION

The Doe Fund has offices, supportive

housing, and opportunity centers
scattered all over the city. Although the
organization aims to rehabilitate new parolees, addicts, and homeless men alike,
Victor from Administration says that the
vast amount of trainees he has are homeless men. He says that previously, the
Fund was opened to men and women, but
because each gender has such drastically
different facility needs, the Doe Fund
was closed to women years ago. This is
unfortunate given that women and children lead the homeless demographic.

TION

BURNINg

vacant residential buildings

147

932
807
811
636

- structura
arsons - suspicious industrial

CREATIVE DISTRICTS

2005 1977 - BUSHWICK

2000 - MIgRATION OFgENTRIFICATION
BURNINg
CREATIVE DISTRICTS of artists in neighborhoods attracts
The influx

a creative industry and attracts other investors,

During the blackout of JulyBecause of ever rising housing prices artist
13, 1977 a maswhich makes prices rise. Bushwick has known
sive blackout looting broke out on the main
are priced out of their homes. This created a
a rapid increase in rents since the 2000s, but
shopping street Broadway. Many shops were from Greenwich Village in
migration of artist
also many new condos have been constructed
pillaged and set on fire. Whole 1950s to Bushwick since the 2000s. The
the blocks were
that now stand vacant.
abandoned and the citystarted knocking down the carrier of this artist-led
L-train seems to be
vacant homes clearing evengentrification.
more buildings.

Landlords holding vacant and

underutilized properties are not
penalized, thus these sites continue
unoccupied or underdeveloped. A
number of City Council Bills have
proposed a registration and annual city
wide count of vacant and underutilized
properties to end the practice of holding
properties out of service. A fifth property
class for vacant and underutilized sites
has been also proposed allowing for a
higher tax on these properties.

(NYC arson
(Parsons 2012) str
1969; NY daily

(Picture the Homeless 2011)

(NYC arson strike force 1986; NYC(NYC Departmen

department of cit
1969; NY daily news 1977)

Because of masThe industrial base of Bushwick was at blackout of July 13, 1977 aever rising housing prices artist
During the the
are priced out of their homes. This created a
same time also in drastic decline. The once
sive blackout looting broke out on the main
numerous knitting mills were also rapidly Broadway.migration of artist from Greenwich Village in
shopping street
Many shops were
the 1950s to Bushwick since the 2000s. The
decreasing in number and all the remaining fire. Whole blocks were
pillaged and set on
L-train seems down
beer breweries were either closing or drasti- citystarted knocking to be the carrier of this artist-led
abandoned and the
gentrification.
cally reducing staff.
vacant homes clearing even more buildings.

PROPERTY TAX

arsons b
vacancy -

vacancy in bushwick

Many could not pay the bad loans and

abandoned their homes, which caused a base of Bushwick was at the
During the blackout of July 13, 1977 a masThe industrial
further decrease of local property values. in drastic decline. The once
sive blackout looting broke out on the main
same time also
Other houses also emptied numerous knitting mills were also rapidly Broadway. Many shops were
because of the
shopping street
plummeting of the housingdecreasing in number andpillaged and set on fire. Whole blocks were
prices and buyers
all the remaining
avoided Bushwick.
beer breweries were eitherabandoneddrasti- citystarted knocking down
closing or and the
thousands of buildings empty or un- staff.
vacant homes clearing even more buildings.
cally reducing

Graduates from
the DOE FUND
program leave
with full time
jobs, SOBRIETY
AND housing.

mixed-minority neighborhood
vacant lots
46%
182

932

1968

807

142 1976

811

206
149 1985

636

commerci

arsons - suspicious - structural fires

(NYC arson strike force 1986; NYC department of city planning
1969; NY daily news 1977)

(NYC Departmen

vacant
1968 condos

932
807

14

(Right to the City Alliance 2010)

completely vacant
142 1976

20

811 partially vacant 206

149 1977 30

construction 149 1985

636

40

2013 - VACANT LOTS

2000 - MIgRATION OF
2005
FIRES AND DISTRICTS - gENTRIFICATION
ARSON PROPERTY
FORECLOSURES
CREATIVE
Despite this ongoing
The influx of artists in neighborhoods attracts gentrification, Bushwick
is still covered by vacant lots and
Properties affected by the housing prices industry WAREHOUSINGbuildings of AND
fire aepidemic
creative artist and attracts other investors,
Because of ever rising
vacant condos
which many known
which makes prices
of the 1970s andout of their homes. This created a rise. Bushwick has attract crime and pose health is- HIGH-PRICES
are priced 1980s keep vacant since
Properties are acquired by These vacancies are
sues to 2000s, but
a rapid increase in rents since the their environment. real estate
migration from from Greenwich Village
some may sufferof artiststructural damage in
completely vacant
20

L-train sto

(Right to the City Alliance 2010)

especially located shell corporations

also many new condos have been constructed the areas that were most
speculators, mainly in
and highthe 1950s to Bushwick since thenow stand vacant. hit by the fires of the 70s.
cost of rehabilitation. In 2000s. The
Stagnating wages and rising housing
that some
partially
30
L-train seems to be the carrier of this artist-led
and LLCs, and keep them unoccupiedvacant
occasions the destruction or damaging
costs are a threat for households.
gentrification.
while waiting for the rise of their value to
construction
40
of the properties has been intentional to
Families are loosing their homes due
sell or rent out the units. The bottle line
collect insurance money, to get public VACANT LOTS
2005 - gENTRIFICATION is making greater profit. In the meantime to foreclosures and evictions leaving
2013 assistance for relocation or to get rid of
properties vacant and in hands of banks.
buildings are stored, kept out from famiThe influx abuse in neighborhoods ongoing
drug dealing andof artists takingDespite thisattracts gentrification, Bushwick
place in
At the same time un affordable condos
lies lots and of housing.
a creative industry
is still covered by vacantin needbuildings of
abandoned buildings. and attracts other investors,
are being erected with public subsidies
vacant condos
which makes prices rise. Bushwick has known crime and pose health iswhich many attract
(Right to the City Alliance 2010)
and tax incentives, many times the units
a rapid increase in rents since the 2000s,environment. Thesecompletely vacant
sues to their but
vacancies are
20
sit empty side by side foreclosed
also many new condos have been constructed the areas that were most
especially located in
that now stand vacant.
hit by the fires of the 70s. partially vacant
30
properties.
construction

2013 - VACANT LOTS

40

vacant co
(Right to the City

19

vacant lot

cs, a pattern does emerge

omparing the different
on maps: there are clear
rations of vacancy in
eighborhoods: Harlem, the
lage, but especially East
The fact that owners of newly built
ford-Stuyvesant, which corresponds with
rk, Bedford-Stuyvesant but
condos do not lower their prices,
the red cloud of vacancies. In Manhattan
prefer to wait and store their property
and the Bronx the shelters seem to be
hwick it were, is an example of property
as stand out as dark
more evenly distributed.
warehousing. In general the term refers
stainsto speculatorsmaps. for the rise of
on the who wait Still,
VACANCIES IN NYC
property values to sell or rent out their
these concentrations is
New York City becomes a red nebula
houses, the property waits empty for fuputting
different in development. These units are when buildingan red dot for each vacant
ture use or character.
lot or
in the city. A history of
not abandoned, they are usually privately
all the Bedford-Stuyvesant speculation, demolitions, redlining, etc,
owned and the tax is correctly paid.
has left clear scars of abandonment on
hwick border variations of this, such some districts of NYC where the dark
There are other gathers
partial vacancy, which much harder
red clouds gather. But this image also imacant as recognize. For high isin Harlem
lots. The example,level
to
mediately poses the question: How come
and Bedford-Stuyvesant there are many
there
nt lotsactivea remnant of
is storefronts, but the apartments on these vacancies continue whenneed ofare
so many people in immediate
ging top are left vacant while the owners profit housing?
and burning that
off the ground floor commercial space.
ed during the blackoutrent tenants Making an accurate forecast of the
The owner accomodates low of

VACANCY AND HOMELESSNESS

until he can raise a higher rent or develop

the property in another profitable way.
The problem of tracing and recognizing
vacant property remains. Much of warehoused vacant property can be labeled
as shadow real estate owned. These
are often repossessed homes across the
city that banks or investors purposely
keep off the market. Because of the fear
that flooding the market with vacant and
foreclosed homes would present a danger
to the housing market as a whole, these
houses are not advertised for sale.

max was preceded

g run-up of housing
nment and arson. The

nebula and its densities becomes crucial

to expose this vast empty housing stock.
However, each map of vacancy becomes
erratic the moment it is made because of
the great turbulences in the property market of the city. Since the city has, apart
from its data on vacant lots, no accurate
information on the state of vacant property, many organizations have tried to

locate particular kinds of vacant property.

As mentioned earlier, Picture the Homeless did a block-to-block count of vacant
properties in fall 2010 in the areas with
highest expected vacancies. They found a
total of 3,551 vacant buildings and 2,489
vacant lots. Similar to this count the
Right To The City Alliance did a survey
of vacant condos in select New York City
neighborhoods in 2010. They found 264
completely constructed condos with an
estimated 4,092 vacant units.
Even though the accuracy of these
counts is hard to verify and the housing market has great dynamics, a
pattern does emerge when comparing
the different counts on maps: there
are clear concentrations of vacancy in
some neighborhoods: Harlem, the East
Village, but especially East New York,
Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick stand
out as dark red stains on the maps. Still,
each of these concentrations is slightly
different in character. First of all the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick border
gathers many vacant lots. The high level
of vacant lots is a remnant of the pillaging and burning that happened during

the blackout of 1977. This climax was

preceded by a long run-up of housing
abandonment and arson. The redlining
policies of financial institutions violated
the poor residents of these neighborhoods and denied them meaningful mortgage access and insurance coverage. In
some cases the houses were torched by
the owners themselves to collect the fire
insurance money, then by gangs to get at
the valuable fixtures and copper wiring.
A vast municipal demolition program
then radically cleared the burntout
carcasses of the houses. By the end of
the 1970s most of the land was cleared
in this way, resulting in vast numbers of
vacant lots. Many of these cleared sites
still remain today.

CORRELATION VACANCY
ons discriminated the poor
AND SHELTERS
s of these neighborhoods
(?)
These meaningful
ied them buildings and lots lie vacant and
unused for purely speculative reasons,
but on and insurance
ge access top of this some of these vacant
houses became crack dens, garbage-filled
e. The houses wereare now labeled
and weed-ridden. Many
by signs of firms that take care of pest
control. These spaces form potential
health hazards but could, if rehabilitated,
really enhance the quality of life of some
of these neighborhoods.

What
is being done
about Vacancy?
Organizations such as 596 Acres have
implemented an interactive website to
locate different classifications of publicly
owned vacant spaces and to identify the
agencies that possess each site.
However, 596 Acres is only one organization that has hypothesized and advocated for the potential of vacant spaces.
In 1987, the Architectural League conducted a study titled The Vacant Lots
program in which various sites across the
city were provided by the Department of
Housing Preservation and Development
for students to envision the potential for
what each site could become from an
architectural perspective.

This is not a
vacant lot
This is not a vacant lot as part of
Design Philadelphia provokes to question what does it mean to have a vacant
space in their neighborhood and what
vacancy represents.
Approaches to tackling vacancy are
coming from governmental legislation
as well. Land banks are emerging as an
alternative method of accounting for
vacant land at multiple scales. In November 2011, Governor Cuomo passed
a bill instituting the call for the first ten
land banks in New York State, as yet
unrealized New York City. Land banks
are emerging programs that provide for
an additional method for taking control
of the vacant land for productive use.

What is a Land
Bank?

STRUCTURAL VACANCY FROM

A TAX PERSPECTIVE

A land bank is the combination of at least

two tax districts, or foreclosed governmental units (FGUs), that obtain property
from various sources such as donation
or purchase, manage those properties,
and then distribute that land once again
for productive use for parks, affordable
housing, etc. Land banks are more
transparent in their processes due
to their requirement to make their database of vacant lots and buildings accessible for public knowledge. This program
has yet to be implemented within New
York City, but with groups such as 596
Acres already advocating transparent
processes and previous legislation for
Urban Homesteading, land banks could
provide a vehicle for strengthening both
of these aims.

As a whole, both the affordability of housing and the survivability of a newly revised
and implemented urban homesteading program depend on a more equitable property
tax system. While we need to find a better balance between homeowners and apartment complexes through a more transparent, clearer assessment process, there also
comes the danger of policy-process to be influenced by developer-influenced government officials or policymakers. Moreover, a comprehensive study and property tax
reform is needed as mere patches to the current system will not stop current inequalities, but exacerbate them, like the condo/apartment abatements.
As for the idea of taxing or penalizing vacant property owners, the concept is simple:
Create a disincentive for owners to sit on vacant properties. The same would apply to
residential properties and abandoned houses with little maintenance and overgrown
yards that are seen as a blight in neighborhoods. One proposal to triple the property

tax on these propertiesmight provide the sort of stimulus that would allow for the
acessing of otherwise inaccessible vacant and underutilized properties for the production of affordable housing.

ce money, then by gangs to

RELATION
VACANCY AND
SHELTERS

Picture the Homeless paid

because they werehave already

pointed out that there is a correlation

between neighborhood vacancy and
homelessness: The community districts
from which most homeless people came
are the same ones where you can find the
highest rates of vacancy. It shows a direct
link between property warehousing and
homelessness. Many of these families
have lost their homes and end up in the
homeless shelter system, sometimes in
their own neighborhoods.

d them. A vast demolition

ically cleared the burntasses of the houses. By

of the 1970s most of the
s cleared we overlap all the maps the at
When in this way and
vacant lots where houses were demolpplied a safer environment
ished, the (warehoused) vacant buildings
and the locations of the homeless shelters
ple parking spacetheir interrelation
on these
further questions of
arise: Why not connect cleared
ots. Many of thesethe homeless
shelters and the vacant houses? Why
l remain today andtooften
not use these vacancies house
e the homeless people?
same use.
From the data we were able to collect it
seems as if the shelters in Brooklyn are
situated more or less in and around Bed20

new york city Vacancy

and shelter correlation

21

Homesteading
History
HISTORICAL
ANALYSIS: 19TH
CENTURY
Before homesteading was urban, it was
the mechanism used to manifest a rural
landscape from the virgin land of the
open west. The conversion of frontier
wilderness into productive land was
initialized by granting federal territory
to entrepreneurial farmers in return for
making use of the richness of the continent, starting in 160-acre plots. Free
Soil was the property of the free farmer,
the American Farmer, who independently wrests from the land the bounty of a
growing nation. According to the American Government, the national frontier
belonged to those willing to work it.
Driven by a national destiny, the
Homesteading policy marched settlers

1862

westward with little respect or understanding that this unused space was
in fact long inhabited land. The steady
erosion of First Nation lands and their
people amounted to displacement and
genocide, while a zealous attitude concerned with making use of the earth
lead to ecological devastation that would

1937

1961 1964

culminate in the dust bowl of the 1920s

and 30s, when enormous tracks of once
prairie land turned into desert due to over
farming. The political history of Homesteading has never been simple. The first
Homestead Act was signed in 1862 by
then President Abraham Lincoln, after
the south had seceded from the Union,
and southern Democrats could no longer
block legislation designed to proliferate
independent, free farmers at the expense of wealthy slave-owning planters.
The west would be won; this was understood before any official homesteading
began. Before the Civil War, it was only
unclear who would be the winners.
Northern politicians promoted the Jeffersonian ideal of the Yeoman Farmer
throughout the 19th century, and by the
time of the 1862 Homestead Act, which
allowed anyone who had not taken up
arms against the United States to homestead, they had a particular population in
mindthe act included the participation
of freed slaves. Homesteading, it seemed,
was an answer for freed slaves and poor
European immigrants, including single

1968

HISTORICAL
ANALYSIS: MID
20TH CENTURY

women, to participate in the democratic

project of independent land ownership.
The process was straightforward: apply,
work the land into productivity over five
years, and thus earn the deed through
sweat equity. Scrutiny on behalf of the
Government was minimal, Homesteading
was often abused, and its intended users
were not always the ones homesteading:
including freedmen and the most poor.
Humanitarian and ecological consequences proliferated. The policy would
be amended and expanded to encourage
ranching in the mountain west, reserve
portions of homesteads for planting
forests, and subsistence farming during
the New Deal, but only a few of these intentions ever materialized. Making use of
what is unused, a frontier mentality, the
freedom of ownership earned with hard
work and the opportunity that homesteading offers to the disenfranchised,
were rhetorical legacies that continue
into the contemporary, urban era. Direct
links to this history helped develop the
program of Urban Homesteading, and
similar trouble between intention and
reality linger through the decades.

Fast-forward to the inner city of New York in

the late 1960s: think of the South Bronx, the
Lower East Side, and large sections of Brooklyn. Seemingly, whole worlds have come and
gone in the meantime, but as these neighborhoods declined, a new frontier was opening
up inside the abandoned core of Americas
largest cities. Dozens of city and federal
programs would be developed to counteract
this downward spiral as part of the War on
Poverty, but Urban Homesteading was alone in
its rhetoric describing this exploited landscape
as a new frontier: ripe for the expansion of
entrepreneurial urban pioneers.
National housing policies were the main catalyst
for Urban Decay in the first place. The policy
of Redlining restricted mortgage financing
for urban neighborhoods of color, and though
revised on the policy level, continued de facto in
the private market for decades. Top-down policies of Urban Renewal, where large sections
of American cites were demolished and replaced
with housing projects, became politically
unpopular during the 1960s as the public began

This ACT established Local Housing

Authorities (LHAs) with the power to
develop and administer housing policy in
municipalities across the US.
It too introduced Section 8 (42 U.S.C.
1437f) Low Income Housing Assistance,
which was later expanded in 1974 and exists
to this day.

ALTERNATIVE PLAN FOR

COOPER SQUARE (1961)
In 1961, in opposition of Rober Mosess
urban renewal plan for the area, the Cooper
Square Committee released the Alternative
Plan, NYCs first substantial community
initiated plan. The result of over 100
meetings, it focused on the rehabilitation of
existing housing stock for the purposes of
creating long-term affordable housing for
local residents. Cooper Square exists to this
day.

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY

DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1968
This ACT established Section 235 - Home
Purchase subsidy. This program was
intended to support home ownership for low
income minority households, through
subsidization of private development. It has
been criticized for assisting mostly middle
income white households and enforcing
racial segregation in housing. It too was
criticized for contributing to mortgage
defaults and housing abandonment in the
1970s.
Section 236 - Rent subsidies program

HOUSING ACT OF 1964

This ACT established Section 312
Rehabilitation Loan Program, which
authorized direct low interest federal loans
to eligible borrowers for the rehabilitation of
single + multi family units. It eventually
became the Primary source of rehabilitation
funds in urban homesteading. Section 312
was canceled in 1991 - 42 USC 12839 .
.

GRASS ROOTS SWEAT-EQUITY:

FATHER FOXS FULL CIRCLE
PROJECT

A QUICK HISTORY OF:

URBAN HOMESTEADING
FEDERAL POLICY
NYC MUNICIPAL POLICY
NON-PROFIT /
GRASSROOTS
ORGANIZING

In 1960s and 70s Father Foxs Full Circle

Project saw the Sweat-Equity based
rehabilitation of abandonded tenement
buildings in East harlem.

NYC HOUSING CRISIS

CONFERENCE
In 1972 a conference was hosted by Rev
Dean Morton and attended by other housing
advocates, City officials, and activists. It in
part lead to the development later homesteading strategies and municipal programs.

The original federal Urban Homesteading

Program was included in the 1974 Housing and
Community Development Act. It allowed homesteaders to own housing through sweat equity
by renovating derelict and abandoned property.
Because it relied on the gumption of individual
soon-to-be homeowners, the program was seen
as a bottom-up answer to the centralized programs of the preceding decades. Before the federal program was signed into law, Urban Homesteading had gained notable publicity on various
local scales for seeming to solve the issue of
abandoned housing and home ownership in one
fell swoop. Meanwhile, the easy comparison to
traditional Homesteading during the frontier era
catalyzed an unusual degree of romanticized interest and cross-sectional support. The chance to
transfer massive amounts of government-owned
abandoned property to those willing to make
use of the buildings seemed like an idea whos
time has come. It was a difficult logic to deny,
and because Urban Homesteading initially faced

little political opposition, the first federal program was hastily enacted less than a year after it
was first written.
There is little evidence, however, that Urban
Homesteading was portrayed overly optimistically, even at the outset of federal programs.
Most journalistic descriptions included a
disclaimer that homesteading would still require
a large investment of work and equity, and
many cities choose to demolish buildings they
concluded would not be worth the effort and
money required to renovate them. A critique
developed that Urban Homesteading lacked the
productive element which made rural Homesteading viable, while many speculated that
initial public interest wouldnt necessarily result
in large numbers willing to follow through with
the whole process.

After a brisk but limited beginning, the urban

homesteading program is falling victim to
the common American attitude of excessive
expectations and instant cynicism. Actually less
a program than an ad hoc effort to rehabilitate
abandoned housing stock by selling buildings
for token sums to those who will restore and
live in them, this pioneering experiment is now
undergoing all the pains common to bootstrap
renewal. The fact is that urban homesteading, a concept of good sense and humanity,
still provides no free lunch. After that initial
dollar purchases price, the work to be done
is neither easy nor cheap. Sweat equity has
to be matched by funds that are too frequently
underestimated.

Final guidelines for the federal program

wouldnt arrive until 1978: well after criticism
of the programs varying degrees of support and
specificity rose to the surface. In 1975, the same
year a study concluded that Urban Homesteading in Baltimore, Wilmington and Philadelphia
had failed to provide a large-scale solution to
housing, a New York Times article described the
core issues:

URBAN HOMESTEADING RENAISSANCE

1975

1974
*HUD owns over 75,000 vacant homes
(Largest residential land owner in country)

RURAL HIOMESTEADING
ACT OF 1862
HOUSING ACT OF 1937

to refer to slum clearance as Negro Removal. The failure of federal mortgage programs
resulted in massive foreclosure and, coinciding
with abandonment, meant that tens of thousands
of empty properties were now owned by the
government. By 1973, then President Nixon
approved a moratorium to freeze all federally
subsidized housing programs.

1981

1976

1983

1989

1991

*NYCs HPD owns over 100,000

vacant / partly occupied units
(Largest land owner in city)

* NYC fiscal crisis

FED URBAN HOMESTEADING

FEDERAL HOMESTEADING PROGRAM:

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ACT OF 1974
12 U.S.C. 1706e

This ACT established the first official federal Urban

Homesteading policy in the form of Section 810 legislation. It
too reintroduced the Section 8 Low Income Rental Subsidy,
and implemented Community Development Block Grants
(CDBG).
Section 810 inititiated the federal Urban Homesteading
Program, establishing LUHAs (Local Urban Homesteading
Agencies) and giving local governments and HUD area
offices the discretion and flexibility to implement programs
that made use of housing acquired by HUD through defaults
on federal mortgages. Basic goals were to 1. utilize existing
housing stock to provide homeownership, 2. encourage public
+ private investment in specific neighborhoods and 3. foster
neighborhood revitalization. Section 810 funds reimbursed
federal agencies for the section 8 value of the transfered
properties. Funds were specified for use in identified
homesteading neighborhoods only. Section 810 did not offer
administration or rehabilitation loans and or grants. As such,
local governments had to raise funds elsewhere, often
utilizing Section 312 Rehabilitation Loans, and funds from
Community Development Block Grants, the source of
administrative funding for most LUHAs.
Federal Homesteading Program Timeline
:
1974-1977: Demonstration program takes place in 23 cities
1978: Program is officially operational
1983: 110 cities + 12 counties participate
1979: 1335 properties occupied through federal program
1984-1985: Multi Family homesteading demonstration
undertaken, considered a failure.
1984: City owned properties become eligible for purchase
with Section 810 funds.

URBAN HOMESTEADING
ASSISTANCE BOARD (UHAB)
In 1973 UHAB was launched in Harlem to
offer assistance to builidngs interested in
cooperatively goiverning and operating
themselves. It has since assisted the
preservation of over 1700 buildings and
created homeownership opportunities for
over 30,000 households. (UHAB)

CDBG

CDBG: The Community Development Block Grant

program provides communities with resources to address a
wide range of unique community development needs
including urban renewal, neighborhood development,
model cities, water + sewer projects, neighborhood
facilities, Open space, loans for public facilities. Beginning
in 1974, the CDBG program is one of the longest continuously run programs at HUD. Can fund 100% of project to
purchase land for housing or infrastructure improvements

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

HOME IMPROVEMENT
LOANS (HPD)
The Home Improvement Program (HIP)
provides renovation loans to assist
income-eligible owner-occupants of
single- to four-family homes to make
repairs to masonry, roofs, plumbing, and
other building systems in need of repairs.
1982-present.

Habitat for Humanity International was

founded in 1976. Today, It was developed
upon the concept of "partnership housing."
The concept centered on those in need of
adequate shelter working side by side with
volunteers to build simple, decent houses.

NYCH
In 1983 the New York
Coalition of Homesteaders is formed.

Prior to the introduction of of a municiple

Homesteading program in NYC, between
1976-1980 HPD administrated a Sweat
Equity Program which offered 1%
government mortgages for people willing
purchase and rehabilitate city owned
property with sweat equity.

DIVISION OF ALTERNATIVE
MANAGEMENT PROGRAMS
(DAMP) (HPD)
In 1978 NYCs Housing and Preservation
Department creates the Division of
Alternative Management Programs (DAMP)
to develop new housing programs that
respond to the housing crisis. DAMP soon
launches HARP, HAMP, TIL and other
experimental programs.

HOUSING AND URBAN-RURAL

RECOVERY ACT OF 1983
The 1983 ACT directed HUD to undertake
both Local Propoerty and multifamily
homesteading demonstrations
Multifamily Homesteading Demonstation:
After members and associates of ACORN
and other low income advocacy groups
testified at the 1982 congressional hearing
on homesteading for its neglect of low
income persons , legistlation was developed
to adress this challenge. In 1984 and 198S
Multifamily Homesteading Demonstration
was undertaken.

LOCAL P. DEMONSTRATION

Local Property Urban |Homesteading

Demonstration (1985-1987):
The Local Property Demonstration provided
participating cities, for the first time, with
funds to aquire private 1-4 unite properties
for use in homesteading. A report on the
demonstration was published by HUD
in 1987.

NYC HOMESTEADING PROGRAM

SWEAT EQUITY

SWEAT EQUITY (HPD)

MULTIFAMILY DEMONSTRATION

CITY LIMITS
MAGAZINE LAUNCHED.
In 1976 City Limits Magazine is launched
by advocacy organizations to improve the
information flow among communities hit
hardest by the city's fiscal crisis. Exists
today.

TENANT INTERIM LEASE

PROGRAM (TIL) (HPD)
TIL is an HPD program that assists
organized tenant associations in
City-owned buildings to develop
economically self-sufficient low-income
cooperatives where tenants purchase
their apartments for $250. TIL exists to
this day.

NYC MUNICIPAL HOMESTEADING PROGRAM (HPD) (DAMP)

The Citys formal Urban Homesteading program was officially
launched by HPD in 1981. The program involved three
elements: Housing Stock, Financing, and Technical Assistance.
The Housing was selected from HPDs large housing stock,
much of which was abandoned. It offered a budget of up to
$6000 per unit for base rehabilitation costs, as well as technical
assistance services through the Urban Homesteading Assistance
Board (UHAB. In 1983 HPD released its first homesteading
Request for Proposals (RFP), by which community groups
could apply to HPD to obtain resources and support for
homesteading. A second RFP was announced in 1986. 2000
New Yorkers lined up to get applications. 60,000 applications
were distributed, 700 submitted and 33 accepted. In 1987 HPD
changed its RFP system, pre-selecting sites, revoking the right
of community groups to propose sites, and changing the
financial assistance from a $10000 per unit grant to $15000 loan
(30 year 1% interest). In 1991 the program was ended even
though thousands of applications had recently been submitted
by New Yorkers.

TIL
HOME IMPROVEMENT LOANS

22

23

HISTORICAL
ANALYSIS: MID
20TH CENTURY
(CONTINUED)

Available sources of funding for Urban

Homesteading were complicated. Federal
management of the program was carried
out through the department of Housing
and Urban Development. HUD offices, via
Local Urban Homesteading Agencies, were
responsible for the cumbersome task of
choosing federal properties, accepting and
reviewing applications, and matching property with Homesteaders. Section 810 of the
1974 Housing and Community Development Act, which authorized the first federal
Urban Homesteading program, provided
federal funds to buy HUD properties back
from the government, and section 312 of
the 1964 Housing Act opened low-interest
loans for the rehabilitation of dilapidated
housing. A main source of federal funding came from Community Development
Block Grants, CDBGs, which could also
be used by the locality to run the administration of their Local Urban Homesteading
Agency.

The poor and the underprivileged need

special help and guidance to do what
the middle class has the training and
resources to carry out. And a few restored
houses do not turn a neighborhood, or
a city, around.
Yet, the author goes on to defend Urban
Homesteading against such cynicism, arguing that well managed group efforts
on the local scale were overcoming
obstacles and succeeding in their mission
to Homestead. In New York, the proliferation of Homesteading was spearheaded
as early as 1973 by the Episcopal Church
of St. John the Divine, and its Urban
Homesteading Assistance Board, UHAB.
Despite localized success, spokesman for
these groups still noted delays, citing our
necessity to borrow money from the city
to accomplish rehabilitation as the main
obstacle.

Local sweat equity programs in New York

had offered low-interest loans to anyone
willing to purchase and rehabilitate city
owned property from 1976 onward. In

1981, New York City began a formal

local Urban Homesteading program. The
program, ran by HPD, was coupled with
funding from Home Improvement Loans,
which began in 1983 and continue today.
But this formal history neglects the popular
movement to use sweat equity to earn
housing for the disenfranchised. The maze
of programs and funding sources was provoked by a peoples movement that began,
for New York City, in Harlem following the
1967 riots. From here, the radical idea of
tenants taking housing into their own hands
was further developed by the Episcopal
Church and UHAB, while the story of ama
teur builders beating the odds to earn their
housing captured the popular imagination.
Rehabilitation efforts were often combined
with community gardens, solar water
heaters, and even wind turbines for power
generation. Homesteading legitimized
ongoing squatting efforts while it capitulated them, and the homesteading process
built community along with livable housing
stock. With urban pioneers willing to see
projects through, when sufficient funding
could be acquired, and technical assistance

properly administered by organizations

such as UHAB, homesteading worked.
It wasnt enough. Though Urban Homesteading worked for some, it was not
prolific enough to be deemed a successful
program in the War on Poverty. Despite
its bootstrap ethic, the program struggled
through the 80s and early 90s under conservative administrations who perceived
programs designed to assist the urban poor
as failures that were wasting government
money. A general narrative developed that
Urban Homesteading was not scalable, and
only applied to a small population that was
willing and capable of providing sweat
equity. There was truth in this assessment,
and many homesteaders even burnt out;
never finishing their projects. Just as in
frontier homesteading, the reality of Urban
Homesteading never quite matched the
rhetoric that described it. The same cynicism for top-down government housing
initiatives that helped launch Urban Homesteading eventually consumed the program.
Despite continued interest from prospective
homesteaders, in 1991 Urban Homesteading formally ended.

HISTORICAL
ANALYSIS:
CURRENT ERA
The formal end to Urban Homesteading
could not suffocate the concept of sweat
equity initiatives to earn housing. Nor
was it the last time the bootstrap rhetoric
around entrepreneurial homesteaders
would be evoked. Over the next twenty years, the housing ecology in New
York would change dramatically, but the
legacy of Urban Homesteading lives on.
Sweat equity based programs, such as
Habitat for Humanity, have since been
widely successful. Technical assistance
organizations such as UHAB have continued on: further developing models to
allow a transition into ownership models.
After Hurricane Katrina devastated New
Orleans in 2005, then President Bush
proposed a homesteading program to
aide recovery in affected areas. The plan,
touted by republicans for its self-help
style, was derailed by democrats who
noted that, like previous homesteading

programs, the initiative would be too

limited to have any real impact on the
post-storm housing crisis. A new ecology
of private funding has developed out of
the burgeoning non-profit and social entrepreneurial sectors. Crowd funding provides an intriguing model for financing
housing projects, which may be applied
to sweat equity initiatives. New organizations around housing advocacy and direct
action have proliferated as the need for
equitable housing grows. Homesteading
has rediscovered its productive roots,
now transplanted by Urban Homesteading into the city. The term is most commonly associated with urban farming and
self-sufficiency: in the classic rhetorical
tradition of Homesteading.
The elements of Urban Homesteading:
willing urban pioneers, financing models,
and technical assistance, are all alive and
well. Taking lessons from its history into
consideration, the program could awaken
from its dormancyso long as new
properties can be accessed.

INCREASINGLY BROAD-BASED URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

EXPANSION OF PUBLIC - PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

1990
HOME PROGRAM

1994

1996

2007
2007

2002

*Sub Prime Mortgage Crash sparks recession

SHOP PROGRAM

EB5

2011
2011

2010

2013

2012
*Occupy movement emerges

CDBG

HOPE VI - 1992

HOUSING ACT OF 1990

HOME PROGRAM
Cranston-Gonzales National Affordable
Housing Act in 1990, established the HOME
program. HOME is the largest Federal block
grant to State and local governments designed
exclusively to create affordable housing for
low-income households. Under HOME, HUD
funds local participating jurisdictions (60
percent of funding) and states (40 percent )
for housing development purposes. Fifteen
percent of the grant amount must go to
nonprofits known as Community Housing
Development Organizations, or CHDOs.

HOPE VI is a major HUD program

meant to revitalize the worst public
housing projects in the United States
into mixed-income developments
utilizing federal block grants. Its
philosophy is largely based on New
Urbanism and the concept of Defensible
space. Many have criticized HOPE VI
for not enforcing one-for-one
replacement of demolished public
housing. Furthermore, local housing
authorities have been criticized for
using the program to displace poor
residents in favor of more affluent
residents.

NEHEMIAH PROGRAM (HPD)

Under the Nehemiah Program, HPD supports the construction
of homes on vacant city owned land in the East New York and
Brownville sections of Brooklyn developed by East Brooklyn
Congregations (EBC), a consortium of over 30 congregations.
HPD also works in the Bronx with the South Bronx Congregations
(SBC). Involved churches contribute donations into a revolving
construction fund while HPD provides below-market rate
second mortgages to keep the homes affordable to occupants.
1985 - Present

NEIGHBOUHOOD ENTREPREUNERS
PROGRAM (NEP) (HPD)
Only a few years after the Urban Homesteading Program was
canceled, in 1994 HPD launched NEP, extending wholesale access
of city owned housing stock along with financial support to private
developers. NEP enabled neighborhood-based private development
companies to purchase and manage clusters of occupied and vacant
City-owned buildings. Buildings selected for NEP were sold to the
Neighborhood Partnership Housing Development Fund Corporation
(NPHDFC), a subsidiary of the Enterprise Foundation, for $1 each
and then leased to the entrepreneurs. The properties were eligible
for Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), local
property tax abatements and other financial support. HPD provided
permanent financing through a mix of City Capital and Federal
HOME funds at a cost of approximately $120,000 per unit. This
program saw hundreds of buildings and thousands of units
rehabilitated into affordable housing by private for-profit entities.
TIL
NEHEMIAH

24

HOUSING OPPORTUNITY PROGRAM EXTENTION ACT OF 1996 /

SHOP PROGRAM
The SHOP program awards grant funds to
eligible national and regional non-profit
organizations and consortia to purchase home
sites and develop or improve the infrastructure
needed to set the stage for sweat equity and
volunteer-based homeownership programs for
low-income persons and families. Homebuyers
must be willing to contribute significant
amounts of their own sweat equity toward the
construction or rehabilitation of their homes.
SHOP Grantees include Community Frameworks, and Habitat for Humanity International
amoung others.

A RIGHT TO HOUSING
The seminal book A Right to
Housing: Foundation for a New
Social Agenda is released.

CHOICE
NEIGHBORHOODS

RIGHT TO THE CITY

COALITION FORMED
Right to the City (RTTC) emerged in 2007
as a unified response to gentrification and a
call to halt the displacement of low-income
people, people of color, marginalized
LGBTQ communities, and youths of color
from their historic urban neighborhoods. We
are a national alliance of racial, economic
and environmental justice organizations.
www.righttothecity.org/

BANKING ON VACANCY REPORT/

PICTURE THE HOMELESS

Building upon HOPE VI, Choice

Neighborhoods grants aim to
transform distressed neighborhoods
and public and assisted projects
into viable and sustainable
mixed-income neighborhoods by
linking housing improvements with
appropriate services, schools,
public assets, transportation, and
access to jobs.

In 2011, NYC non-profit PICTURE THE HOMELESS

completed a citywide count of empty lots and buildings in
low-income communities! They found 3351 vacant, publa
report Banking on Vacancy and developed legistlation
INTRO 48 that would have NYC undertake an anual
vacant property count. Picture the Homeless working to
start a citywide Community Land Trust. http://www.picturethehomeless.org/

OCCUPY WALL STREET

TAKE BACK THE LAND

MOVEMENT

HOMEWORKS HOMEOWNERSHIP PROGRAM (HPD)

UHAB UNDERTAKES CO-OP

DEVELOPMENT PIPELINE

Through HomeWorks New York City

conveys small, vacant city-owned
buildings to not-for-profit and for-profit
experienced builders at a nominal price,
and may also provide a subsidy. The
builders then rehabilitate the property into
one- to four-family homes for sale to
individual homebuyers at market prices.
There are no income limits for buyers.
1995 - present.

In 2002 UHAB began developing

affordable housing Co-ops. It has since
rehabilitated over 70 buildings.

The Take Back the LandMovement is organized towards

achieving secure Community
Control Over Land; and
elevate Housing to the Level of
a Human Right. Pursuant to
these objectives, we are
building a movement to
fundamentally transform land
relationships in this society.
This movement, comprised of a
trans-local network of Local
Action Groups... http://www.takebacktheland.org/

O4O
On July 23, 2011 an inaugural
conference launched O4O.
Organizing for Occupation (O4O) is
a group of New York City residents
from the activist, academic, religious,
homeless, arts, and progressive legal
communities who have come
together to respond to the housing
crisis. http://www.o4onyc.org/

Occupy Wall Street is a

people-powered movement that
began on September 17, 2011 in
Liberty Square in Manhattans
Financial District, and has spread
to over 100 cities in the United
States and actions in over 1,500
cities globally. #ows is fighting
back against the corrosive power
of major banks and multinational
corporations over the democratic
process, and the role of Wall
Street in creating an economic
collapse that has caused the
greatest recession in generations.
- Occupywallst.org

H.R. 41: HURRICANE SANDY

RELIEF BILL (2013)
NYC SPECIAL INITIATIVE
FOR REBUILDING AND
RESILIENCY
In December 2012, Mayor Bloomberg created
the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and
Resiliency (SIRR) to address how to create a
more resilient New York City in the wake of
Hurricane Sandy, with a long-term focus on
preparing for and protecting against the impacts
of climate change.

RIGHT TO HOUSING
IN THE CITY REPORT

OCCUPY SANDY
Occupy Sandy is a
grassroots disaster relief
network that emerged to
provide mutual aid to
communities affected by
Superstorm Sandy.
http://occupysandy.net/

ALTERNATIVE FUNDING SOURCES EMERGE

NEIGHBOURHOOD
HOMES PROGRAM (NHP)
(HPD)
The Neighborhood Homes Program
(NHP) transferred occupied,
city-owned one- to four-family
residential buildings to selected
community-based sponsors for rehabil
itation and eventual sale to owner
occupants. 1998 - 2008

ARTISTSHARE
CROWDSOURCING
PLATFROM

A United States based company,

ArtistShare (2000/2001) is documented
as being the first crowdfunding/fan-funded website for music followed
later by sites such as Sellaband (2006),
SliceThePie (2007), IndieGoGo (2008),
Spot.Us (2008), Pledge Music (2009),
and Kickstarter (2009).

SOCIAL IMPACT BONDS (UK)

Social Impact Bonds, also known as a Pay
for Success Bond or a Social Benefit Bond,
are performance-based investments that
encourage innovation and tackle challenging
social issues. First social impact bonds were
launched by Social Finance UK in 2010.

CROWDSOURCING EMERGES
AS MAJOR FUNDING SOURCE

SOCIAL IMPACT BONDS

(US)

CHC LAUNCHES CROWDFUNDING PILOT (2012)

JUMPSTART OUR BUSINESS

STARTUPS ACT (JOBS ACT)

$530 million 2009 - 1.5billion 2011

Social Impact Bonds emerge in US

as Pay For Sucess Bonds. In 2012,
the city of New York financed a $9.6
million social bond for prisoner
rehabilitation led by The Osborne
Association.

First-of-its-Kind Campaign in the

National Affordable Housing Field.
Community Housing Capital is using
crowdfunding to fund an ongoing
mission, to provide affordable housing
and stabilize communities nationwide.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act or

JOBS Act, is a law intended to encourage
funding of United States small businesses by
easing various securities regulations, in
particular around online crowdfunding. signed
into law by President Barack Obama on April
5, 2012.

US CONGRESS PROPOSES
EQUITY CROWDFUNDING
PLATFORM

NEP

HOMEWORKS

25

Philadelphia
model
of urban
1.homesteading
THE ORIGINAL

HOMESTEADING
NEW YORK CITY
Sweat
equity and
homesteading
in NYC

LOW - INCOME
HOUSING
PROGRAM
A HOUSING
PROGRAM FOR
LOW-INCOME
PEOPLE

In the late 1970s there was an estimated

31,000 vacant buildings in Philadelphia.
With the goal of supporting affordable
housing for low-income people the Association of Community Organizations for
Reform Now (ACORN), lead a sophisticated squatters movement throughout
the city. This grassroots action spawned
a model of Homesteading designed as a
housing program for low-income peoples rather than a property rehabilitation
program.

community boards, restricted eligibility

to low-income and moderate-income
families, and allowed for the acceleration of tax foreclosures of abandoned or
blighted housing for homesteaders.
The program was first administered by
an Independent Homestead Board nominated by the City Council. It eventually
transfered to the non-profit Philadelphia
Housing Development Corporation
(PHDC). It had authority to:
1. Identify and select property

In the late 1970s there Institute foreclosure proceedings

was an estamated
2.
3. Propose
31,000 vacant buildings in Homesteading areas
Philadelphia.
4. Establish local Community Boards
With the goalCity Council Homesteadingaffordable
of supporting Requirments:
In 1973, the Philadelphia
passed Ordinance 543, establishing a
housing for lowserve as a 1. Proof of trades skills + financing
municipal program that would income people the Asso2. 5 year occupancy requirement
comprehensive resource for the rehabilitation of vacant properties by homeNo retake policy
ciation of Community3.Organizations for
steaders. The Philadelphia homesteading
model was considered highly progressive 4. Community approval of Homesteader
because it empowered residents through
Reform Now (ACORN), lead a sophisticated squatters movement throughtout the
city. It spawned a model of Homesteading
designed as a housing program rather
than a property rehabilitation program.
In 1973, the Philadelphia City Council
passed Ordinance 543, establishing a
municipal program that would serve as
a comprehensive resource center for the
rehabilitation of vacant properties by
homesteaders. The Philadelphia homesteading model incorporated: 1. Restriction of eligibility to low income and

moderate-income families, 2. Sufficient

time to facilitate homesteads, 3. Financial
assistance for rehabilitation, 4. Production
quotas dependent on city size, administrative capacity, and level of abandonment,
and 5. aggressive solicitation of houses
through acceleration of tax foreclosure.
Administration:
The program was first administered by an
Independent Homestead Board nominated
by the City Council. It eventually transfered to the non-profit Philidelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC).
It had the authority to:
1. Identify and select property
2. Institute foreclosure proceedings on
vacant or blighted property to speeded

From 1976 to 1980 the New York City

Sweat Equity Program, reacting to calls
for the rehabilitation of abandoned buildings and the growing demand for low-income housing, sought to facilitate transfer of ownership of city owned housing
to low and moderate income people by
way of sweat equity. In exchange for
labor performed by prospective residents,
the city offered one percent interest
rates on 30-year mortgages for the gut
rehabilitation of city owned abandoned
buildings. Unfortunately, despite positive
support from then President Jimmy
Carter, along with financing from four
major New York banks, by 1980 the
program was defunct. But it wasnt
defunct for long! In 1980 the New York
City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) initiated
an Urban Homesteading Program as a
response to residents illegally inhabiting
vacant buildings (squat-ting) in poor and
red-lined neighborhoods. At the time, the
program granted up to $10,000 per unit
to tenants willing to inhabit and simultaneously renovate vacant city-owned
buildings. Participants qualified for the
program through a Request For Proposal
process. After renovation, HPD sold the
buildings to the residents for $250 per
apartment with the stipulation that the
building operate as a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) under

Article XI laws, which included limited

equity on resale profits. The classification
as an HDFC ensured building affordability for 40 years. In 1991, the Urban
Homesteading Program was repealed by
order of then Mayor Ed Koch, effective
Oct. 1, 1991. Currently, there are some
1500 HDFCs in NYC. -Frank Morales.

HDFC
COOPERATIVES
Housing Development Fund
Corporation or HDFC is a special type
of limited equity housing cooperative
in New York City which is incorporated under Article XI of the New York
State Housing Finance Law. Under this
law, the city of New York is able to sell
buildings directly to tenant or community
groups to provide low-income housing.
Many HDFCs were created through a

- Eleanor Bumpers Homestead -East 8th Street. LES / NYC

process of co-op conversion of a foreclosed, city-owned property. As of 2008,
over 1,000 HDFC cooperatives have
been developed in the city.

UHAB
In 1973 UHAB was launched in Harlem
to offer assistance to buildings interested
in cooperatively governing and operating
themselves. UHAB eventually became

the key Technical Assistance provider

for Urban Homesteading program in
NYC. While this program was canceled
in 1991, UHAB continues to support the
rehabilitation and management of co-op
housing in the city. Since its creation
UHAB has assisted the preservation
of over 1,700 buildings and created
home-ownership opportunities for over
30,000 households.

transfer to Homesteader.
3. Propose Homesteading areas
4. Establish local Community Boards
Vacancy Identification Process:
1. City owned vacant housing
2. Fast tracked foreclosed buildings
2. Water Meter workers identify abandoned properties and the Homestead
board inspects and builds a list of potential homesteads

Homesteading Requirments:
1. Proof of trades skills + financing
2. 5 year occupancy requirement
3. No retake policy
4. Community approval of Homeste

- A map of UHAB supported sites as of mid 1980s

26

27

MY LIFE
AS AN URBAN
HOMESTEADER
By Frank Morales
Although Ive been a NYC squatter since
about 1980, I have also been involved
with the official urban homesteading
movement. When I speak of urban homesteading I am speaking of two distinct
but interrelated aspects. One is the legal,
official, permitted, somewhat bureaucratic urban homesteading program
initiated by the federal government in the
mid-1970s and implemented in various
municipalities around the country. The
other involves the un-permitted, extra-legal, walk-in urban homesteading called
squatting that also occurred in various
parts of the country. Seeming opposites,
they are actually quite related and Ive
been part of both.

cleaned out the debris, gutted out all the

rot, and utilizing local skills and very
little money, but with a ton of spirit, we
made homes for ourselves, including me.
With Brother Roger and the local Franciscan religious community, including
Mary Kay and Sharon women religious,
we organized a narcotics and alcohol
abuse counseling and detox center in
our storefront that also provided meals.
Orlando, a long time resident of the
neighborhood stripped the motor out of a
washing machine left for dead in the lot
across the street, installed it in the remnant of the rusty boiler in our basement
and we had hot pipes, hot water and heat
all winter.

In 1980, I was living in the South Bronx

in a neighborhood overwhelmingly Puerto Rican and Afro-American. Portrayed
in mainstream media as the symbol of urban poverty in America, having suffered
decades of politically motivated policies
of forced displacement and calculated
disinvestment, my neighborhood was the
prime time destination of touring popes,
presidents and buses full of gawkers
gazing at the barely living testament to
societys disdain for its poor citizens.

We raised funds to purchase building

materials by throwing hip hop shows at
Saint Anns gym where - if my memory
serves me well - the Orange Crush and
troops from the Zulu Nation (up on Cypress Ave) scratched and danced, along
with others during those days when rap
was being born. Jane Dickson, Charlie and John Ahearn, Kiki Smith, Tom
Otterness and artists from COLAB also
contributed to the cause, part of a wonderfully engaged art movement centered
around Stefan Eins and Fashion Moda
up on 147th street - if my memory serves
me well.

As for me, I was finishing up my church

assignment at Saint Anns Episcopal
Church where Id been functioning as
an associate priest.Wanting to remain in
the neighborhood and needing a place
to live, I decided with others to move
into two abandoned, city owned buildings sitting along Saint Anns Avenue.
Motivated by need as well as desire to do
something creative with all the devastation, and not all that mindful of the
illegality of the situation (seems like all
the empty houses with all the homeless
is the real crime), I was excited to work
with others on such a project.
The buildings, 281-283 Saint Anns off
139th Street had, like so much of the
neighborhood and borough, been slated
for demolition. Sitting adjacent to a giant
corner vacant lot, the buildings were
about to be destroyed. So with a bit of
fanfare, an Easter liturgical action to
remove the stone from the front door,
we moved in: Me and Stevie Montalvo, Frenchie and Capon, Brunie and
DooWop, Catherine and Tim, Juanito,
Robero, Jorge and Kaz, and some members of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican
Liberation organization that had deep
roots in the neighborhood and Peoples
Park on 142nd Street, who some years
earlier in 1970 had participated in Operation Move-In squatter actions in East
Harlem and various parts of the city.
Neglected for years, the buildings were
a wreck so we organized workdays,
28

So there we were, dug deep in the epicenter of urban poverty in America in the
era of Reaganism, engaged in a direct
action, self-help, DIY operation when
one day, six months into our residency
and a lot of hard work, a few guys in
suits from HPD (Housing, Preservation
and Development) show up and proceed
to inform us that, according to our
records you are illegally occupying city
property. In fact, we were. Nonetheless,
recognizing that we were not about to
leave, they eventually saw fit to invite us
down to their offices at their alternative
management division at 75 Maiden
Lane to discuss the matter. About a dozen
of us from the hood went to negotiate
with the man.

ing to contain urban grass root squatter

movements that were breaking out all
over America and incorporate them into
more acceptable channels. Attempting to
come to grips with the crisis in the cities,
the consequence of massive planned
shrinkage and the resulting endemic
vacancy and crumbling of inner city
neighborhoods, these projects, though
limited, were also creating opportunities
for poor and working people to utilize
their sweat equity in exchange for an
opportunity to acquire a home, or maybe
even own a home.
Now, to be precise, the design of these
official efforts sought to incorporate
willing and eligible urban homesteaders in strictly weekend work projects in
vacant and dilapidated buildings in poor
neighborhoods.
They were never intended nor did they
allow for outright, full-time occupation,
but only a closely monitored type of
workfare over the course of what often
amounted to years of weekend labor!
And you werent always assured that
you would even acquire the property in
the end! In our case though, wed made
it clear that despite our newly acquired
legal status, we would never leave our
homes, and that if need be, we would
fight for our right to rebuild our community! Fortunately, with people like Bruce
Dale and others in the alternative management office in our corner we were
able to remain and live in our buildings
full-time as legal urban homesteaders.
Practically, what that entailed was our
providing regular reports to our HPD
contact, Simon Keifer about the work
that we were doing, how much cash we
had in the bank, producing copies of receipts and records and being available for
occasional inspections, all situated within
the context of the usual administrative
paternalism familiar to poor people. As
it turned out, when things seemed pretty
secure with our buildings, having spent
about four years there, including collaborating with hundreds of neighbors in
building a park on the vacant corner of
139th Street called Childrens Park (still
there), I decided to hand my very first
squatted apartment over to friends, leave
the South Bronx and the urban home-

steader status and head back down to the

Lower East Side where I was born and
raised.
That was 1985 and again, in need of a
place to live, I discovered a neighborhood that had similarly suffered the
epidemic of abandonment and vacancy.
With boarded up and cinder-blocked
buildings all over, the Catholic Churchs
local Joint Planning Council had organized a number of HPD sanctioned urban
homesteads in the neighborhood that
were in various stages of accomplishment, all aiming to occupy and eventually own their homesteader apartments
as low-income coops legally as Housing
Development Fund Corporations (HDFCs).
Myself though, having become acclimated to a more immediate, direct action approach, and having an immediate need to
create a place to live, and quite possibly
feeling some sort of entitlement (I was
born here), and simply loving the thrill
of working in vacated and abandoned
spaces, I was fortunate to meet and connect with dozens of neighborhood people
all committed to the same end: un-permitted squatting of the vacant property
on the Lower East Side with the aim of
creating housing, centers of art, culture
and politics, and whatever creative hearts
and minds could come up with. At the
same time, it was announced that there
would be no more official urban homesteading slots in the pipeline, at least not
in the soon to become very fashionable
and profitable East Village.
In fact, by the mid-1980s the legal option
for sweat equity minded folksthe
Urban Homesteading Program was
dead in NYC. I remember speaking with
HPDs Urban Homesteading Program
director at the time who told me that they
had put forward an RFP or request for
proposals for those willing and able (if
not desperate) to enroll in the Program.
According to the director, they received
some 12,000 applications to urban homestead. Thats 12,000 separate addresses,
12,000 separate groups of desirous
homesteaders who wanted to homestead
vacant spaces, 12,000 plus citizens of
NYC who really wanted a shot at renovating a vacant space in order to build

Well, lo and behold! While we were

chastised as squatters in the beginning
of the meeting, by meetings end, we
were accorded legal urban homesteader status. Thats right! In fact, they even
offered urban homesteading leases to
each of us on the spot!
All across the country, publicly assisted
efforts that engaged low-income people
in self-help renovation of vacant housing were in operation. Spurred on by
mid-70s federal legislation that allowed
for, financed and studied local urban
homesteading demonstration projects,
in truth, the government was attempt-

a home they could afford and guess

what? The city accepted TWO of those
12,000 applications and SHUT DOWN
the Urban Homesteading Program!
And further still, many of those official
homesteads on the Lower East Side, like
the Eleanor Bumpers Homestead on 8th
Street (B and C), who had worked for
years, lost them and were swindled out of
their buildings which are condos today.
Consequently, my only option at the
time (1985), and the option left open
to those of us who sought to act on our
belief in the human right to a home, who
are drawn to the intrinsic goodness of
creative and collective work, who bask
in the joy of mutual aid and meeting the
needs of those who suffer the violence
of homelessness; our only option was
to squat, which we did, enacting, not
without resistance from the forces of
speculation and greed, a form of walkin homesteading which eventually lead
to the occupation of some thirty buildings on the Lower East Side, with eleven
remaining today, one within which I
still reside.
In conclusion, Id like to point out that
that two aspects of urban homesteading
to which I have referred; namely the permitted and the un-permitted, are part of
my history and the history of the urban
homesteading movement as a whole.
With this in mind, I would suggest that
overcoming the tyranny of speculation
on housing will require the bridging of
both legal and otherwise un-permitted
means to achieve our ends; that merging these two strategies will continue to
prove its relevancy in opening up space
for negotiation and insuring progress in
our non-violent struggle for homes for all
and the practical realization of our right
and opportunity to rebuild our city in the
vacated and warehoused urban spaces all
around us.

TEN POINTS UNFOLDING THE DISTRICTS CONDITION

1. Housing developments targeting
moderate- and high-income households
have replaced former housing projects
targeting low- and very low-income
families in the district. Upscale developments are flourishing and old multifamily
buildings are being transformed into condos. Rezoning processes, tax incentives,
public policy and grants have facilitated
the new developments benefiting the
wealthy at the expense of those in critical
need. Gentrification has been desired
and promoted by real state investors and
developers due to the rise of property
values in adjacent districts, such as Williamsburg. Displacement in the name of
development has become a policy.
2. Population is increasing and demographics are changing. The arrival of
artists, students and single professionals looking for affordable housing has
opened new housing markets typified by
rent and sale price increments and real
estate speculation, as well as changes in
local economies. Newcomers, mostly
white non Hispanic, have the tendency
to stay temporarily. Making roots and
forming families in the district is not
always in their agenda. This has generated anxiety among long term residents,
mostly Hispanic and African-American,
which are welcoming. However, they
feel threatened since those leaving may
not be aware of the implications of tenants rotations. Most of the time housing
prices go up when tenants come and go.
3. Owner occupied and rental housing
prices are rising. The median monthly
rent in Bushwick in 1999 was $500. It
increased to $1,176 in 2011 and continued climbing to around $2,099 in
2013 (NYCHVS; Furman Center; Real
Impact Real Estate 2013). Likewise, the
price of owner occupied housing has
sky rocketed. The median sales price per
unit (2-4 family building) in year 2000
was $119,720 climbing to $173,031 in
2010 (Furman Center, 2009; 2011). The
median household income of the district
is $34, 813 (Furman Center 2012), which
means that families must expend more
than 50% of their income in housing.

SOURCES

Frank Morales is an American writer, squatter activist, ordained

Episcopal priest (1977) and author of Police State America (Arm the
Spirit, 2002) and numerous published articles on housing and social
justice matters. Frank worked with the homeless population of NYC
back in the late 70s and early 80s, while living in the South Bronx, first
as a legal urban homesteader and then as a squatter. He has spoken
at numerous conferences, lectured at universities and given many
interviews on these subjects.

FROM URBAN
HOMESTEADING TO A
NEW ECOLOGY OF
HOUSING IN BUSHWICK

New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey. Online Acess:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/nychvs/nychvs.
html
Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy State of
New York Citys Housing and Neighborhoods. Online Acess:
http://furmancenter.org/research/sonychan
Real Impact Real Estate (2013) Brooklyn Rental Market
Report. New York: Real Impact Real Estate.
Sanchis, E. (2010) Stimulus Funds are not Enough to Fight
Foreclosures in New York. Online Access: http://news.
feetintwoworlds.org/2010/02/10/stimulus-funds-are-notenough-to-fight-foreclosures-in-new-york/

4. Rent overcharges are becoming more

common in rent regulated units, the
district is losing its affordability. Rental
housing comprises about 84.1% of the
districts occupied housing units. Out of
this number a significant portion is rent
regulated. The portion of rent regulated
apartments decreased from 58.8% in
1999 to 32.1% in 2011. Likewise the
percentage of subsidized units declined
in the same period, from 17.3% in 1999

to 6.2% in 2011 (Furman Center, 2001;

2012). Rent increases, often illegal, have
put tenants in difficult situations, in the
worst cases they dont have any option
but to leave.

that buildings sitting empty in the district

could provide affordable housing and
accommodate over 1,500 community
members. Permanent affordable housing
is in great demand.

5. Housing decay due to lack of mainte-

9. Bushwick has plenty of assets starting

with its people and grassroots organizations. However, residents, local grassroots groups and community organizations who have worked diligently to
improve the housing conditions, maintain
housing affordability and guarantee the
well being of its residents are facing new
challenges. Their endeavours which
include dissemination of tenants and
housing rights, legislation enforcement,
legal advice in court procedures related
with evictions, etc will fail given compartmentalized visions and limited funding vis a vis the aggressive profit-driven
strategies currently talking place in the
district. Thus, new alliances must be
formed to exchange knowledge, social
capital and resources to collectively win
the ongoing urban battle.

nance has severely affected residents in

Bushwick. Some landlords have run into
trouble paying mortgages and property
taxes, thus buildings are being abandoned without basic services and in a
state of despair. In 2005 the district had
the highest number of serious code violations in the city, ranking second in 2011.
In addition, the district was recognized
as having the fifth highest rate of severe
overcrowding in the city during the same
year. Housing units with serious code
violations accounted for 150.1 per 1,000
rental units in the area in 2011, whereas
the rate of severely crowded households
increased from 3.3% in 2005 to 7.7% in
2010 (Furman Center, 2011).
6. Eviction notices have increased in
the last years, especially in the western
area. Part of the housing stock has been
acquired by unscrupulous and exploitive
landlords interested in profit not people. These practices have caused illegal
evictions of low-income residents. Some
landlords have even offered flight tickets
to Puerto Rico, Ohio and other states to
get rid off tenants! Multifamily homes
are being bought, cleared, rehabilitated,
turned into condos and sold for two times
the price.
7. Banks are taking over the district with
foreclosures. Foreclosures have evicted
long term families, especially Hispanic,
in recent years. Of the 59,000 foreclosure processes initiated in the period of
2006-2010 in New York City, over 1,600
have occurred in Bushwick (Sanchis,
2010). Stagnating wages, unemployment
and predatory lending have resulted in
the loss of properties of many families
leaving behind vacant one- to four-family homes.

10. Alternative housing models are

already taking place in Bushwick. There
is a demand for social and economically
sustainable models of living, working
and learning. Thus, long term strategies
and coalitions must be formulated and
coordinated by residents, local groups,
resistance movements and community
based organizations invested in the district with the following aims: preserving
and expanding rental housing for lowand very-low income citizens; protecting
undeveloped land and vacant properties
from market development and speculation transferring those sites to Community Land Trusts and other sorts of models
guaranteeing permanent affordability
and community control over land and
other local assets; and designing alternative models of housing challenging the
current unafordable market models.

8. Bushwick has plenty of space to

house its community. While people lose
their homes there are hundreds of buildings and lots sitting empty in the district.
Many buildings have been neglected
for decades, while other ones have been
bought and warehoused in recent years
by speculators, mainly shell corporations
and LLCs. These landlords usually keep
properties unoccupied waiting for a rise
in their value. Property owners holding these properties out of community
service are not penalized. It is estimated
29

COLLECTIVE
OWNERSHIP: A
MODEL FOR
PERMANENT
AFORDABILTIY

Before moving to the proposed community-based strategies, which are mainly

based on the legal adquisition, rehabilitation and occupation of underutilized, vacant and derelict properties, it is critical
to acknowledge that these properties are
the most contested spaces in the district.
Many of these sites have been seized by
developers and investors in recent years.
Therefore, if underutilized, vacant and
derelict properties are not taken by people and local groups invested in Bushwick, they most certainly will be taken
for profit development.

It is also critical to recognize that those

tactics can only be achieved through collective efforts and models of ownership,
as we suggest in the different strategies.
This can be fulfilled through the formation of Community Land Trusts (CLT).
A CLT is a local non-profit organization
created to acquire land on behalf of the
community and hold it in trust. The CLT
provides 99-year renewable leases for
exclusive use in accordance with the
terms of the trust. The lessee is typically a non-profit housing corporation, a
non-profit mutual housing association,
or limited-equity cooperative, closely
related to the CLT, that rents to qualified
tenants, or an individual owner whose
ability to profit from equity gains is
severely limited. CLTs are one of the
most efficient instruments currently available to provide and preserve
low-income housing for todays and
future generations.

It is also important to understand the dynamics of vacancies and the changes in

the demographics of the district, as well
as the needs, demands and priotities of its
inhabitants and community stakeholders.
Thus, prior to learning from the strategies, some facts about vacancies will
be outlined.
30

Industrial buildings keept abandoned ultil recent years. Artist and

creative insdustries priced out from
Manhattan and Williamsburg have
repursposed these spaces. Today,
there are still a number of vacant
buildings with the capacity to provide affordable working and living
spaces. However, the influx of the
creative population and activities
have attracted investors and speculators interested in profit not people.
A number of buildings have been
bought and keept warehoused, out
of community use and service, until
their property value increases.

(brooklynhistory.org)

arsons suspicious structural

932

1968

807

206

1950
1960

7% 5%

1970

Demographics started changing with the

decline of the manufacturing industry
and German breweries. Families with
European background gradually moved
out to suburban areas while AfricanAmerican and Puerto Rican families
arrived during the so called Great
Migration.

30%

27%

African-Americans and Puerto Ricans

established in Bushwick. The percentage
of white-non hispanics decreased almost
reaching the same share of these two
minority groups.

1980

redllining / blockbusting

Redlining and Blockbusting

assisted in the decline and
abandonment of multifamily
housing. Banks would draw a line
in declining neighborhoods preventing any investment, while real
estate speculators tried to frighten residents to sell their homes
before it was too late. Buildings
were bought at cheap prices and
rented or sold through fraudulent
practices to low-income families at
prices they could not afford. Many
of the new homeowners held their
houses only for 10-15 years, losing
them as their income declined
and foreclosure set in. These
houses were eventually boarded
up and abandoned.

56%

26%

1990

Residents with strong roots in the area

kept leaving the district due to the urban
and economic decline. Puerto Ricans
and African-Americans residents kept
growing.

65%

25%

Today new and habitable buildings

are held total or partically vacant.
Foreclosures have risen leaving
hundreads of homes empty and in
hand of financial institutions. On
the other hand, the city has assisted
with the provision of tax abatments
and re-zoning approvals the construction of condominiums. New
housing units have been constructed but many are still unoccupied.
Prices are way to high for the the
Hispanic and African-American
population.

Bushwick is consolidated as a Hispanic

community. Ecuatorians, Dominicans
and Mexicans joined the Puerto Ricans.
The background of the district is
essentially Hispanic. African-Americans
concetrate mostly in the souhtern area of
the district, while cohabitating with the
Latino population.

67%

24%

The districts population increased with

the arrival of young white non-Hispanic
residents, a group that has tripled in
the last decade and keeps growing in
north Buhswick.

65%

20%

142 1976

811

Bushwick was populated by residents

with German, Polish, Irish, English,
Russian, and Italian background. These
families joined the first Dutch settlers
during the industrialization of the area in
the 19th century. By 1950 Bushwick had
the greatest concentration of ItalianAmericans in Brooklyn.

2000

UNDERSTANDING
VACANCIES:
AN OPPORTUNTIY
FOR COMMUNITY
BASED STRATEGIES

2010

THIS IS AN OPEN CALL FOR ACTION IN

BUSHWICK, A DISTRICT REPRESENTING
MANY NEIGHBORHOODS IN THE CITY
EXPERIENCING MASSIVE DISPLACEMENT
AND THE LOSS OF AFFORDABILITY

(Brooklyns Bushwick, Brian Merlis & Riccardo Gomes)

real estate speculation

The proposals, which are described in the following sections, respond to economic
development trends that ignore social development and the role of citizens in the
construction of the city. These propositions encourage citizen involvement in planning
and development processes, the right to the city and the right to housing acknowledging housing as a human right, raising up a use value over exchange value. Furthermore, the proposals acknowledge the demographic changes seeking ways of integrating the long term community with the newcomers through initiatives addresing
the creation of living and working models with alternative ownership and managing
approaches.

Toward the end of the 1960s and

1970s the city stopped investing in
public services in declining neighbohroods. The socalled planning
shrinkage would cut police and
fire services and assist in the urban
decline and fire epidemic that
destroyed large sections of Bushwick. Hundreds of fires took place,
some were indicated as suspicious
since residents would torch vacant
properties to clear those areas from
crime and drugs. These fires only
attracted public attention after two
devastating events; the looting and
fires that erupted along Broadway
during the Brooklyn Blackout of
July 1977 where many shops were
pillaged and set on fire; and, a large
fire that destroyed part of the heart
of the district only ten days later.
Around 20% of Bushwicks housing stock was burned out and abandoned causing long-term residents
to move. A portion of the cleared
spaces still remain vacant today.

FORECLOSURES / CondoS

This section opens the discussion depicting the planning phase of our work. In fact
this is only the result of a complex process developed during the first phase of this
ambitious project. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to analyse the strategies proposed
in order to ackknowldege that there are alternatives to prevent displacement and take
control of our own living environment. These proposals were developed during five
months with the assistance of local residents and organizations. A number of activities
were organized as part of this project including a panel on Urban Homesteding and
a discussion group on housing accesibility, as well as field work including surveys,
key informant interviews and participant observation in community board meetings
and other local housing meetings.We conducted a block-by-block vacancy survey and
analysed different aspects of the vacancies. Furthermore, we selected some clusters of
vacant buildings and lots and did field work to analyse in depth the potential of those
properties. At the same time, we conducted additional research on urban and housing policy influencing the development of the district, current urban developments
and trends, as well as the districts demographics, median household income, local
facilities, public services, public spaces, housing, and the real estate market. Finally,
we proposed three commuity-based strategies: (1) City Steading in Bushwick: A way
Forward, (2) Buhswick Inclusive; and (3) Engaging Lots.

Bushwick flourished in the 19th

century with the industrialization
of the nearby Brooklyn waterfront.
The shipyards, warehouses, distilleries, sugar refineries, breweries and manufacturing industries
attracted immigrant workers with
European background to Bushwick.
At the begining of the 20th century
economic changes took place with
the gradual deindustrialization of
the area. Most of the 14 breweries
located in Bushwick were gone
by the 1960s.

PLANNED SRINKAGE / FIRE EPIDEMIC

The aim of this research and design project is not only to reflect on the current urban
condition and the agents affecting us and our neighboorhoods, but also to react and
thus propose some actionable alternatives for housing accesibility that could delinate
some directions for future development, legislation and policy reform. This is an open
call for discussion, organization, mobilization and intervention.

DYNAMICS OF VACANCY
Deindustrialization

DETAINING DISPLACEMENT
THROUGH THE ACQUISITION,
REHABILITATION AND
OCCUPATION OF VACANT
PROPERTIES

636

149 1985

149 1977

White NonHispanic

Hispanic

AfricanAmerican

SOURCES: NYC Department of City Planning

1969,1980; US Census Bureau 1980, 1990, 2000,
2010 and 2010; NYC Arson Strike Force 1986; NY
Daily News 1977

31

VACANT PROPERTIES BY TYPE

VACANT PROPERTIES BY SIZE

UE

UE

VEN
GA

VEN
GA

IN
SH
FLU

IN
SH
FLU

ENUE

ENUE

MYRTLE AV

MYRTLE AV

YC
KO
F

YC
KO
F

FA
VE

FA
VE

NU

NU

BR

BR

OA
D

vacant PROPERTIES
surveyed 357:

vacancy

32

totally vacant

partially vacant

OA
D

WA
Y

WA
Y

structurally vacant

no data

156 vacant lots

201 Vacant buildings
These maps are the result of a block-by-block vacancy survey conducted by students from the graduate program in Design and
Urban Ecologies, Parsons the New School for Design, The New School. The vacancy survey was conducted during two weekends
in March 2013. A survey sheet assisted to collect information about the vacancies including: typology, number of stories, condition, and address. Afterwards, addresses were mapped using a Geographic Information System (GIS). Some of the properties were
matched with data from the Department of Finance, which included taxes, ownership and zoning. Part of the research is presented here, but there is still information that need to be matched and revised. The vacancy count reveals 156 vacant lots and 201
buildings throughout the neighbourhood, 357 properties in total. We estimate that this amount could go even higher if we consider
a five percent error margin. The area between Flusing and Myrtle Avenues manifest fewer vacant properties. One explanation
might be that this area has become more popular for investors and real estate speculators due to it closeness to Williamsburg. This
area has been even re-branded as East Williamsburg. Vacant properties and lots in the rest of the district seem to be dispersed,
although there are some concentrations of vacancies in the sourthern area. Most of the vacant buildings are residential, with two
and three stories, and habitable. Most of the lots are fenced or used as an informal parking lot. Regarding ownership, most of the
investigated lots and buildings are privately owned, mostly by LLC and shell companies. There are some buildings owned by financial institutions and just a few properties owned by the city. We stipulate that the 201 vacant buildings could house over 1,500
persons struggling with housing issues including those in the shelters located in the district, long term community members and
newcommers seeking affordable housing.

vacant lot

1-2 stories

Land USe

mixed use
commercial

3-4 stories

condition

residential
industrial

abandoned
dilapidated

5-6 stories

ownership

habitable
no data

private owner
city owned

bank owned
no data

33

FACILITIES

DEMOGRAPHICS
private,
non-profit
and public
facilities
The map of the facilities was generated
using information provided by the city,
which was checked and extended by
looking at the actual facilities. For some
layers, such as the daycare centers and
after-school programs, not all the information is compiled and available. The
facilities are mapped using the size of the
lot, the actual facility is usually smaller.

UE

VEN
GA

IN

SH
FLU

ENUE

MYRTLE AV

YC
KO
F

FA
VE

UE

ING

SH
FLU

N
AVE

ENUE

MYRTLE AV

OA
D

FA
VE

NU

BR

Day care institutions are mainly located

along the commercial avenues, such as
Broadway and Myrtle Avenues. They are
also part of housing corporations, such
as Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizen
Council, and the Bushwick United Housing Develoment Fund Corporation. These
facilities include: child care centers (40)
and senior care centers (4).

WA
Y

YC
KO
F

Schools in Bushwick seem to be equally

spread thoughout the neighbourhood
and are usually quite large in size. The
afterschool programs are usually located
near the schools. These facilities include:
highschools (8); middle schools (10);
elementaty schools (17); private schools
(4); parochial schools (4); and afterschool programs (11).

NU

BR

RESIDENTS
SPEAKING SPANISH
AT HOME

The maps representing the demographics of the area reveal a sharp Spanish
speaking community in Bushwick
flowing into the neighboring areas of
Ridgewood, Queens. The dominance of
Spanish is clear in both maps; Residents speaking Spanish at home and
Hispanic demographic. It is particularly interesting how sharp the contrast
is with neighboring area of Bedford-Stuyvesant, which has a predominantly African-American population.
The border of Broadway is clearly the
boundary between the two populations.
The young white-non hispanic population has recently established in the
northeastern part of Bushwick, the area
adjacent to Williamsburg.
Based on 2005-2010 data
source: http://www.city-data.com/
neighborhood/Bushwick-Brooklyn-NY.
html#boxMAPborder

OA
D

WA
Y

Healthcare facilities in Bushwick

include:
hospitals (7); diagnostic and treatment
centers (3); hospital extension clinincs
(6); mental health care facilities (8); and
a residential health care facility.

AFTER SCHOOL

SCHOOLS

DAYCARE

HEALTHCARE

PUBLIC

unemployment

median
household income

$70,000

55

0%

$12,000

100%

90%

80%

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%

POPULATION DENSITY
(PEOPLE/SQUARE MILE)

median
resident age

100%

Public facilites in Bushwick include: the

Knickerbrocker Avenue NYC Police Station; the Wilson Avenue NYPD Facility;
the Central Avenue NYCHA Police Svc
Area; and four NYC Fire Houses.

african-american

WHITE-non hispanic

ASIAN

310,000

100%

100%

100%

20,000

0%

0%

HISPANIC

0%

100%

0%

This section was written and designed by: Stefano Aressti, Joshua Brandt, Braden Crooks, Kaitlin Killpack, Katya Levitskaya,
Alberto Salis, Gabrielle Andersen, Charles Chawalko, Bonnie Netel, April De Simone, Ferhat Topuz, Charles Wirene,
Shirley Bucknor, Caitlin Charlet, Jonas De Maeyer, Wendy van Kessel, Luca Filippi, Jessica Kisner Giraldo, and Thomas Willemse

34

35

Citysteading: the steady

Making of economic and
political life as a community.

BUSH

WICK

PLAN
TO S NING
TAY

Stefano Aressti, Joshua Brandt, Braden Crooks, Kaitlin Killpack, Katya Levitskaya, and Alberto Salis.

The process is more than hip new-comers, more than galleries and coffee shops
and hot-spots. There are two critical
factors to consider. One is the story
being told about Bushwick. The narrative
of change is powerful, and its used to
justify raising rents and new developments. It is self-fulfilling. Second is the
private ownership and rent economy of

Looking to the past and key precedents,

we can begin to predict some clear
paths forward. When Bushwick burned
in the 1970s and 80s along with many
disenfranchised neighborhoods in New
York, squatting and other reclamation
projects began taking root in abandoned
buildings. These efforts were formalized
in Urban Homesteading policy, which
allowed for legal transfer of housing to
groups who renovated the buildings.
This bottom-up process began to form
places of larger community organizing,
particularly when coupled with other
endeavors like community gardens.
Some of this property was transfered to
Community Land Trusts, which keep
housing in perpetual affordability and
community control.
These efforts helped reshape some
neighborhoods in New York, but were
often not enough to effect the larger
processes of the city. Today, there are

STORY BANK
Community Commons
COLLECTING STORIES FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

DISPLACEMENT / COMMUNITY CONTROLLED ASSETS / SPACES OF OPPORTUNITY

growing efforts to combine community

economic activity with housing in order
to effectively form alternatives to the
dominant system.
In Cleavland, since 2009, a network
of worker-owned cooperative businesses
intend to fund a Community Land Trust
that will begin to pull properties off
the for-profit housing market, creating
affordable housing for workers and the
community alike. Credit unions, revolving loan funds and ethically grounded
investment institutions are bringing
needed finance to the Solidarity
Economy globally.
In New York, networks like Solidarity
NYC and the Right To the City Alliance
are beginning to strengthen the political
power of urban movements and community wealth building. Meanwhile, groups
like Picture the Homeless and Sandy
Storyline are producing people-powered
narratives that tell a different story about
key issues in the city.

Together, the planks of community

owned housing, cooperative wealth
building and capturing the narrative of
political discourse, form the agenda we
call Citysteading.
Under many names, the process of Citysteading is expanding globally, nationally
and even in Bushwick. Nonetheless, its
a long way from the people-powered
strength needed to counter community
displacement.
The project focus concerns whats
needed now to lay the foundation for
Citysteading, a conceptual structure for
expanding the process, and a first step to
intervene in the story of gentrification.
We suggest legislation to empower local
non-profit developers of affordable housing. With the participatory development
of a Community Commons we believe
gaining the right to our city will happen
as residents, organizations and community groups to work together for each
others sake.

Important Examples:
Community Owned Housing

A network of strategies

Community Land Trust
Co-ops

Perpetual Affordability

Quality and Sustainable

Community Wealth Building

Worker-owned business
Co-op groceries
Credit Unions
1. GATHER PROJECT Funds
Revolving Loan
TEAM
Equitable Finance
The STORY BANK Project could be catalyzed by a core
Time Bank
team of long-term community members, new local
creative professionals and local arts and culture
Community Block Grant

organizations committed to anti-displacement

community organizing. As the project develops other
partners could join. The Story Bank could symbolically launch the Bushwick Commons with the collection
Bank of local stories
of local knowledge through a Participatory Action
Research framework. It will be a starting point to build
Independent media
a new discourse around urban change in Bushwick.

Narrative and Discourse

Local production
Coalition Building
Local Politicians

Members

Su

a
Bo rd
CT

PRESENTATION

The STORY BANK project team would work with the Story
Assets to develop a performative event that presents the
stories back to the community in the form of a Parade
Against Displacement.
The group will define a route, write a script, produce
multimedia installations, and invite other local organizations
to contribute. Additionally Bushwick Collective will create a
series of murals inspired by the STORY BANK meta themes
and real stories of community members.

By framing actions taken by individual

groups or as a coalition with a simple
plan and vision for the future of Bushwick, these groups can begin to alter the
story being told about Bushwicks future.
This can begin as simply as saying we
are planning to stay, and can over time
become as detailed as some proposals in
this document.

When oppositional stances must be

taken, they can also be framed by this
CLT
CET
Community
Community
shared vision and plan. For example,
Land Trust
Energy Trust
Community Trust
residents who are in opposition to new
developments may explain their opposi3. BUILD STOR BANK
Maintains in
perpetuity
The story assets wouild be collected within an online by noting that the project is not adStory Bank
2. GATHER STORIES
tion
STORY BANK, where people cound watch stories, and
Our team of local adults and youth would pan out into
vancing the shared vision for Bushwick
add new ones. All stories would be located on a map,
Community
South Bushwick visiting significant sites, some of which
allowing for a spatialized analysis. The STORY BANK it stands. This keeps a community
have alreaduy been identified. The team will meet with
Asset Trust Space just be a database. It would be used asas
Time Bank
would not
a
residents and gather digital stories about three meta
determined plan for Bushwicks future
generative Bank
pedagogical and organizing tool.
themes:
at the center of the discourse.
Diversity of New and Long term Residents
1. Gentrification and displacement
2. Community controlled assets
3. Spaces of opportunity

Cross-Sectional Assets

By collecting stories, histories, plans

and hopes for Bushwick into a common
story bank, we believe that the process
of placing a positive future at the center
of discussion can begin, and some first,
simple commitments to each other can
take place.

Materials Exchange

The begining of a movement?

4. CO-CREATE PUBLIC

36

Organize a Participatory Process

Each of the groups mobilizing in this

effort has a remarkable amount in
common. Each of these groups may be
displaced within the next ten to fifteen
years if current trends are not abated.

Do we have a right to our city? The people of Bushwick are finding the answer
is no, they were just passing through: the
city often belongs to for-profit interests.
The story goes that Bushwick is changing, and only a certain class will benefit.

Therefore, an effective reckoning with

the crisis will involve community intervention in the story being told about
Bushwick, and the transfer of housing
ownership rights into community hands.
Neither goal is simple or easy.

Numerous and diverse groups of stakeholders in Bushwick have begun meeting

and planning to counter the raising rents
and development that threatens to displace them from their homes. Bushwick
is planning to stay.

er
or t
pp

This up-rooting process has already

begun to dispossess the communities of
Bushwick of the common wealth they
have created: in social bonds, small businesses, informal networks, civil society,
local culture and daily life. It is a force
we reckon with.

most housing and commercial space in

Bushwick, which effectively seperates
the rights over space from the people
who make a life in those spaces.

In the fight against displacement, its easy

to become overwhelmed by everything
we dont want. We need to put a positive
vision at the forefront of our efforts.

Netw
or
k

The shadow of Manhattan has cast itself

upon the working communities of Bushwick. The crisis of gentrification, with all
its complexity and seeming inevitability,
is in full-bloom. Landlords will raise
rents, developers will change zoning,
real estate will hype the neighborhood,
and investment speculators will rush to
cash in. For many residents, community
groups, churches, and working-class families, the boom times mean displacement
from their homes and the neighborhood.

Working
together

6. PLEDGE
5. ANTI - DISPLACEMENT
PROCESSION

There is a strong history of walking tours, street parties and

protest in Bushwick. The Procession Against Displacement
builds off this tradition. Through the live telling of stories,
multimedia projections on buildings, street theatre and
music, the event would publicly honor stories of struggle,
celebrate collectively controlled assets, and identify sites of
opportunity including viable vacant buildings.

CEREMONY

The Procession could coalesce in a Pledge

Ceremony, where individuals, organizations,
and public officials would pledge a contribution
towards the creation of a Community Trust.
Contributions could be as simple as volunteer
hours or in-kind legal services. Large organizations could pledge staff power, or even pledge
to their properties for the future Land Trust.

37

STORY BANK

PROPOSED LEGISLATION
NEIGHBORHOOD OPPORTUNITIES PROGRAM (NOP)

COLLECTING STORIES FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

HPD Urban Homesteading

CREATING OPPORTUNITIES FOR COMMUNITY DRIVEN AFFORDABLE HOUSING

AND SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

DISPLACEMENT / COMMUNITY CONTROLLED ASSETS / SPACES OF OPPORTUNITY

In neighborhoods such as Bushwick which are experiencing the fact paced erosion of affordable housing, there is a
need for renewed City support for community driven affordable housing and small business development. As such
it is proposed that New York Housing Preservation Department (HPD) introduce such a program.
The Neighborhood Opportunities Program (NOP) would support community based organizations to undertake the
rehabilitation, management and acquisition of clusters of distressed multifamily privately owned buildings that
have either been in Liens or vacant for more than 2 years. NOP support would be made available in specific
neighborhoods experiencing exceptionally high rates of housing market inflation and the loss of affordable rental
housing. It is our belief that given the political will this legislation could easily be put together by HPD utilizing
fragments of past and existing law including the Homesteading Program, and Neighborhood Entrepreneurs
Program (NEP), and the HomeWorks Program. A minimum of 60% of rental units developed in each building under
NOP would be made available low-income (50% to 80% of MFI) or very low income residents (30% - 50% of MFI).

HOW IT COULD WORK

HUD Multifamily +
Local properties
Urban Homesteading
Program

Philadelphia UH
HPD NEP Program

HPD Multi Family

Preservation Program

FRAGMENTS OF LEGISLATIVE PRECEDENCE

- Temp conveyance by NPHDFC
- Funding package of
Rehabilitation grants + loans,
Low Income Housing Tax Credit,
low interest City loans, + more.
- Access to HPD vacant property

- Building purchase funds

(Assessed land value)
- Technical Assistance
- Rehabilitation funds
- Gov. Facilitated
purchase of vacant or
distressed private
Property

- Authority to
fast-track
Foreclosure of
vacant buildings

- Building purchase funds for

Multifamily distressed +
In-liens buildings.

A NEW MODEL FOR THE ACQUISITION AND REHABILITATION OF VACANT PROPERTY

1. GATHER PROJECT
TEAM

The STORY BANK Project could be catalyzed by a core

team of long-term community members, new local
creative professionals and local arts and culture
organizations committed to anti-displacement
community organizing. As the project develops other
partners could join. The Story Bank could symbolically launch the Bushwick Commons with the collection
of local knowledge through a Participatory Action
Research framework. It will be a starting point to build
a new discourse around urban change in Bushwick.

4. CO-CREATE PUBLIC
PRESENTATION

The STORY BANK project team would work with the Story
Assets to develop a performative event that presents the
stories back to the community in the form of a Parade
Against Displacement.
The group will define a route, write a script, produce
multimedia installations, and invite other local organizations
to contribute. Additionally Bushwick Collective will create a
series of murals inspired by the STORY BANK meta themes
and real stories of community members.

3. BUILD STOR BANK

2. GATHER STORIES

The story assets wouild be collected within an online

STORY BANK, where people cound watch stories, and
add new ones. All stories would be located on a map,
allowing for a spatialized analysis. The STORY BANK
would not just be a database. It would be used as a
generative pedagogical and organizing tool.

Our team of local adults and youth would pan out into
South Bushwick visiting significant sites, some of which
have alreaduy been identified. The team will meet with
residents and gather digital stories about three meta
themes:
1. Gentrification and displacement
2. Community controlled assets
3. Spaces of opportunity

NOT FOR PROFIT

IDENTIFY
PROPERTY
CLUSTER AND
SUBMIT A
REQUEST FOR
QUALIFICATIONS
TO HPD

HPD ACCEPTANCE

WORK WITH HPD

TO DEVELOP FULL
FINANCIAL
PACKAGE + SITE
DEVELOPMENT
MANAGEMENT
AGREEMENT
(SDMA)

HPD NEGOTIATED
PURCHASE OF
PROPERTIES

OWNERSHIP
TRANSFERED TO
NEIGHBORHOOD
PARTNERSHIP HOUSING
DEVELOPMENT FUND
CORPORATION.

BUILDING
REHABILITATION

HPD BUILDING
INSPECTION

TRANSFER FULL
OWNERSHIP
TO BUSHWICK
COMMONS

TENANTS
SELECTED

HPD
(NOP)

PRIVATE
OWNERS

TEMP PROPERTY
CONVEYANCE
TO BUSHWICK
COMMONS

SWEAT EQUITY
BUSHWICK
COMMONS

TECH ASSISTANCE

BUSHWICK
COMMONS

STRUCTURAL RENO.

POTENTIAL CLUSTER

6. PLEDGE

CEREMONY

5. ANTI - DISPLACEMENT
PROCESSION

There is a strong history of walking tours, street parties and

protest in Bushwick. The Procession Against Displacement
builds off this tradition. Through the live telling of stories,
multimedia projections on buildings, street theatre and
music, the event would publicly honor stories of struggle,
celebrate collectively controlled assets, and identify sites of
opportunity including viable vacant buildings.

The Procession could coalesce in a Pledge

Ceremony, where individuals, organizations,
and public officials would pledge a contribution
towards the creation of a Community Trust.
Contributions could be as simple as volunteer
hours or in-kind legal services. Large organizations could pledge staff power, or even pledge
to their properties for the future Land Trust.

key precedents
Evergreen Cooperative Corporation
501c3 Non-Profit

Evergreen Coops are a network of worker-owned businesses in Cleveland, OH.

The organization began in 2009 with a green woker-owned laundry and a worker-owned solar energy cooperative. The network expanded in 2012 to include an
urban farm and newspaper, both worker-owned. Worker-ownership allows workers to make decisions about the future of the businesses, and receive their share
of profits. A 501c3 umbrella organization ensures that the mission of community
wealth building and sustainability are followed throughout the companies. Soon,
Evergreen will create a Community Land Trust along with ever more worker coops in order to further integrate itself in Cleavland.
www.evergreencooperatives.com

Evergreen
Cooperative
Development
Fund
(Funds new co-ops)

Cooperatives:
Ohio Solar

Business
Services

Land
Trust

Evergreen
Laundry
Green City
Growers (Urban
Agriculture)
Neighborhood
Voice (Paper)

456 Central Avenue

Year built: 1910
2 fam with one store

454 Central Avenue

Year built: 1915
3 Units

452 Central Avenue

Year built: 1910
2 fam with one store

630 Central Avenue

Year built: 1910
5-6 fam with 1 store

621 Central Avenue

Year built: 1910
6 fam with one store

Market Value: $363,000,

Assessed: $6,152
Current Status: Vacant
Owner : Private owner
Years vacant: Unknown

Market Value: $430,000,

Assessed: $14,804
Current Status: Vacant
Owner : Private Owner
Years vacant: Unknown

Market Value: $310,000,

Assessed: $11,734
Current Status: Vacant
Owner : Private Owner
Years vacant: Unknown

Market Value: $533,000,

Assessed: $51,608
Current Status: Vacant
Owner - Ivie LLC
Years vacant: 10 +

Market Value: $501,000,

assessed: $16,338
Current Status: Vacant
Owner : Private Owner
Years vacant: 8 +

cooper square
community land trust

Evergreen Cooperatives

38

BUSHWICK
COMMONS

Cleveland
Neighborhoods

The Cooper Square MHA/CLT is a shining New York based example of a working collective ownership model that removes housing from the speculative
market, and holds it under community control for permanent affordability. It is
the result of six decades of community-based planning and political organizing.
Today the Cooper Square MHA manages 25 buildings, 399 units of affordable
housing, 14 lofts, and 24 storefronts. Tenants own their buildings collectively as
part of a scattered-site non-profit cooperative under a Mutual Housing Association (MHA). The housing stock is thus managed at an economy of scale, which
supports both affordability as well as the adequate maintenance of housing for
future generations. The land under these buildings is owned by a Community
Land Trust (CLT), a non-profit organization, which stewards the use of this land
for the purpose of low-income housing in perpetuity. A rigorous board structure in
each entity, distributes the balance of power between tenants and a broader group
of community members, assuring accountability and protection from internal and
external threats.

39

Bushwick INCLUSIVE
Gabrielle Andersen, Charles Chawalko, Bonnie Netel, April De Simone, Ferhat Topuz, and Charles Wirene.

WHAT will THe NEW ECOLOGY

OF HOUSING LOOK LIKE?
to the Right is a vacant building
showing the possibilities of
innovative renovations; the map
below illustrates the idea of
building clusters and is used in the
financial model projections below.

3rd

2nd

Floo

r: S

Floo

hor

t Te

rm

Ren
te

rs -

r: Lo

ng Te

rm R
ente

6U

rs - 4

1st Floor: E
xisting Fam
ilies

Towards Inclusivity &

NonDisplacement
There is a chronic housing crisis in New York City
that is founded in limited access, unaffordability, a
speculative real estate market, and the precariousness
of tenure for both renters and owners. The effects from
this crisis reverberate throughout the wider community
and influence health, economic vitality, educational
opportunities, and other social capacities. The Brooklyn community of Bushwick represents both acute
and extreme cases of these conditions and therefore
provides a fertile opportunity to co-design innovative
solutions that drive social change.
Our framework is based on the belief that if a more
inclusive community of stakeholders have access to
socially innovative tools, resources, and networks
that take into account their skills while engaging their
participation, community projects will have a greater
impact - leading to overall systematic change instead
of just local interventions.
This projects end goal is to create an innovative and
sustainable social impact venture to build affordable housing alternatives. These alternatives will be
fundamental in generating a variety of transformative
and developmental experiences to spur economic
development, educational growth, and community
engagement. We believe our model supports a healthy

and positive balance by bringing together existing and

new residents of Bushwick to enjoy simple, comfortable, and affordable living in both the short and long
term. Additionally, the proposals flexibility means the
model can extend beyond housing to generate opportunities throughout the community, improving the overall
quality of life for ALL.
Instead of the sorting out and separation of different
people that has characteried New York Citys evolution
over the last few generations, our work aims to (re)
establish a more integrated city, made up of healthier, more diverse, and inclusive neighborhoods. This
proposal begins with affordable housing, but naturally
extends to the other systems that make up the city.

WHOS LIVING IN
BUSHWICK
Bushwick is a melting pot with a population of over
112,000. The existing neighborhood is in part represented by the nearly 66% of Hispanic origin and 20%
is African American. It is important to note that the
minority is the majority in Bushwick since the largest population of Hispanic/Latinos in New York City
resides here. When looking at homeownership, as of
2007, 17% of Latino residents have owned their home
in relationship to the 31% of African Americans and
10% of Whites. However, the percentage of renters
in Bushwick is evenly spread in which 82% of both
White and Latino populations rent in Bushwick.

How do you build that awareness between new people and

people who live in the neighborhoodand house some kind of
unity between people from both sides?
Laura Gottesdiner, Freelance Journalist

40

This neighborhood has seen a history of redlining and

other neighborhood challenges, however, have also
been seeing waves of growth most recently. Part of
this growth is due to the moving in of young professionals and other members of the creative class. This
pattern has also taken place in the bordering neighborhood of Williamsburg. The 2010 Census shows us
that the white population of Bushwick has increased
over 200%, including an increase of the population of
whites over 18 by 270% (since 2000). This represents
that the rate at which these new residents are moving in
is increasing dramatically.

nits

Units

- 2 Units

projected financial model

One concern with these new residents is that with or

without knowing, their short-term residency in an area
such as Bushwick causes a quick turn over of increased
rents. This turn over then causes those that have roots
in the neighborhood to move due to unaffordability.
According to a survey conducted by the Design and
Urban Ecologies program at Parsons, residents in
Bushwick that had a longer tenure of over 20 years still
rented, including those born in the neighborhood. This
population of people is being pressured to leave due to
increasing rents. While this influx of new short-term
residents creates an increase in the local revenue (by
opening bars, restaurants, creating community gardens,
and galleries), these new residents (new graduates/
young professionals and artists) remain in a similar
precarious economic situation as the local long term
residents, and may not even know it; hence their
reasoning for moving to a more affordable community.
Long term or new, 85.1% of the people in Bushwick
are renters, and 58% of those people pay more than
30% of their income toward rent. Housing must be
inclusive of all people based on this commonality.

41

THE HYBRID IMPACT MODEL

IDENTIFY INVOLVEMENT
From the strategic analysis we look to expand the scope of potential stakeholders and identify collaborative partners to form Collective Action Agreements, aka CAAs, with. CAAs
define the terms and conditions of the partnerships while outlining the B-Corps mission
to have positive community, educational, and economic impact. CAAs bring community
stakeholders into the development process while ensuring the B- Corps activity aligns with
the community agreement.
One partnership our B-Corp model looks at is with academic institutions and the
potential of expanding their role as community anchors. Students, faculty, and
university staff need and pay for housing, while the universitys costs of acquiring
and maintaining dedicated student housing are quickly becoming unsustainable. A
partnership and CAA between the B-Corp and The New School or other academic
institution would:
Establish a pre-identified source of income to support the return on investment, aka
ROI, schedule, which acts as an incentive for social impact investors to invest;
Create research opportunities on the effectiveness of academic institutions becom
ing a community anchor through collective agreements in and with communities;
Generate opportunities for students and faculty to offer services to community
members in exchange for affordable housing, student debt forgiverness, funding
opportunities, etc.
An alternative to the dominant narrative of university development models accelerating gentrification and displacement, this agreement transforms the inescapable
student housing process into a vehicle for social impact, inclusion, and neighborhood
stability, making the university part of the solution towards a new ecology of housing.

STRUCTURE: FORM THE B-CORP

The Benefit and B-Corp structures legally allow for-profit businesses to include
social impact goals in their corporate charter and by-laws, defending the pursuit of
social and environmental bottom lines in addition to increasing share holder value.
Third party evaluators certify and rate the B-Corps performance, allowing potential
investors to compare the companys activity to their social mission. B-Corps allow for
more innovative and unrestrictive financial modeling, which can be tailored to meet
community needs or creatively support non-traditional models.
Prominent New York City development models that already exist are Community
Development Corporations, aka CDCs, the New York City Housing Association, aka
NYCHA, and private developers. CDCs are not-for profits created to manage local
government economic development projects. CDCs are exempt from laws that guide
governments operations and financial transactions, increasing the risk of waste,
fraud, or abuse of taxpayer dollars and assets. NYCHA is a public authority with an
enormous operating shortfall ($60 million / year), disappearing housing subsidies, and
troubled relationships with their residents. Private developers focus on maximizing
profit by replacing affordable real estate with luxury housing and displacing those
who cannot afford market prices.
Taking these things into account, the B-Corp offers more flexibility, transparency, and
community involvement in the processes, alongside access to more diverse financing
sources and a wide community of social change agents.

Strategic Analysis
The strategic analysis component of our model promotes an informed design process.
In this phase, we expand our understanding the socio-demographics, challenges,
goals, values, as well as the constructed environment of the targeted community.
Further, we encourage a participatory process by working closely with community
members to facilitate an informed analytical lens that seeks to promote inclusive
strategies.
Using census and other demographic survey data, we can understand who lives in the
neighborhood and the changes happening there before speaking and working with local residents. Additionally, we are able to visualize the public amenities and services
in Bushwick to get a better understanding of the neighborhoods infrastructure and
resources, or lack thereof, and the possible opportunities to improve them.
In addition, using a survey and spatial analyses we identified potentially vacant
property clusters that serve as possible areas to begin the acquisition and occupation
processes. The clusters are made up of smaller one to four story residential buildings
whose proximity to one another creates better opportunities to share resources among
and create services for residents. They also recognize the possibility for efficiencies
that come with undertaking multiple projects within a certain distance from each other, such as bundled property buying, coordinated volunteer labor, or shared decentralized power generation.

Resources
In addition to standard affordable housing incentives - Affordable Housing Tax
Credits, 80/20 New Construction Housing program, 421A Residential Property Tax
Breaks, Inclusionary Zoning, etc - what makes this development model unique is the
B-Corps opportunity to access private and for-profit sources of capital with a focus
on social & environmental impact, including Social Impact Investors, Development
Impact Bonds, and Crowdfunding.
Social Impact Investments, aka SIIs, create positive impacts beyond standard financial returns. They provide capital, with the expectation of some financial returns, to
businesses dedicated to creating positive social and/or environmental impact. SIIs
will take risks that traditional investors or lenders are not willing to, specifically into
innovative models that deliver these social impacts. Examples of Social Impact Investor Platforms: Mission Markets RSF, Investors Circle J.P. Morgan.
Social Impact Bonds, aka SIBs, raise private investment capital to fund prevention
and early intervention programs that reduce the need for expensive crisis responses
and safety-net services. The government repays investors only if the intervention
successfully improves social outcomes, such as reducing homelessness or the number
of repeat offenders in the criminal justice system. SIBs are also called Pay for Success

or Social Benefit Bonds. Crowdfunding can replace traditional grant applications

and fundraising with a more grassroots approach of crowd participation and smaller
investments pooled to achieve a larger outcome. Although popularized by smaller
social, personal, and cultural endeavors, new streamlined approaches can quickly
implement crowdfunding for small-scale or sudden needs, while structures are
being created to further formalize and legitimize the tool for investors with
different strategies.

Inclusive DESIGN MODEL &

CommunitySteading
After on the ground analysis, strategic partnering, and securing funding, the development process begins. Having identified and acquired properties through donation,
government subsidies, and individual or bundled purchases, we can start to design
living spaces. This process will question standard housing design, working with community members to ensure appropriate living spaces. Considering both the long-term
and newly arriving Bushwick residents, innovative possibilities for shared amenities
and spaces, as well as considerations of different housing needs, create an entirely
new housing model - a model responding to the reality of the neighborhood.
Once designed, the build-out process will include local residents, organizations, and
volunteers, while utilizing sweat equity, local unions, and other local tradesmen.
These partnerships will help reduce the project costs while also forging new relationships and cultivating the seeds for a healthier, stronger community. The rehabilitations
must take advantage of sustainability and building efficiency resources to further cut
their build-out costs as well as residents long term operating costs. This process will
also engage residents to take more agency in their infrastructure and housing ecology.
Residents will enter into a CommunitySteading Agreement which commits them
to acting as engaged members of the community. By providing skillsets and and
expertise to the neighborhood, the model promotes daily interactions among diverse
residents, strengthening the social fabric and community network. Examples of this
CommunitySteading could be working in a local grocery, supporting a childcare cooperative, starting a local clinic, working in a community kitchen, providing tenants
rights or public defender services, or collecting community organic waste for the
community garden

POLICY
To address the structural vacancy and speculative purchasing trends happening in
Bushwick, there should be property tax and other financial penalties for keeping spaces permanently unoccupied. An example is charging property owners a higher Class 4
tax rate if they own a vacant Class 1 or 2 property, responding to an inherent problem
with the City tax code. Another penalty could be created for vacancies existing for
more than six months. Additionally, if these regulations are not followed, legislation
can be proposed for the city to acquire these warehoused properties for entrance into a
land bank and eventual community land trust.
In tandem with these first policies, New York City should create a formal land bank
that can acquire vacant building or lots for the purpose of developing affordable housing. This land bank should be held in the stewardship of qualified housing advocates
and community representatives, acting as a check against the incursions of speculative developers.
Finally, we can pursue the creation of a State-Appointed investigation committee to
look into the current problems with the NYC Housing Court. From previous conversations with housing advocates working in the city, major interventions by landlords
and developers in the housing court system give them unfair representation and
friendliness. This makes it incredibly difficult for renters to voice their complaints or
situations in a system that was originally meant to allow them the opportunity to
try their cases.

42

43

ENGAGING LOTS

TOWARDS SPACES OF HABITATION

Shirley Bucknor, Caitlin Charlet, Jonas De Maeyer, Wendy van Kessel, Luca Filippi, Jessica Kisner Giraldo, and Thomas Willemse.

DIVERTING THE CAUSES

OF DISPLACEMENT

market conform

first newcomers move on

followed by more affluent
newcomers

RENTS

RISE
NEWCOMERS

residents move out

out stipends, etc. The houses are then renovated

and the rents multiply. The local residents are
being displaced by the rapid rent increases
and have pressingly become people at risk of
entering into the shelter system and facing the
overall reality of homelessness.

vacant house

resident owned

127 houses

15% rents

SHELTER

house renovated
house deregulated
landowner stops upkeep
of rent-controlled house

newcomers
rent +4%/yr

rent +20%/yr

Speculation: This wave has also brought

the overwhelming interests of profit-driven
developers. New condos are erected at an
alarming rate, targeted for affluent populations
that are coming from outside the neighborhood,
and excluding local residents, who mostly fall
within lower income brackets. The money flow
coming from rents of the newcomers benefits
absent landlords instead of the local economy.

seed capital $

A strategic and supportive system of spaces is

introduced here, starting with both spaces of
engagement and spaces of production. These
physical spaces both enable the community to
reinforce and come together on vacant lots, and
to support and create jobs for the people in need
of a stable income.

SHELTER

lease (a)
job income (b)
a. lot owner
b. displaced
people
c. community
corporation

income $
people at risk

community members
divert rent $

spaces of transition
Here, spaces are introduced for temporary
residents, providing a money flow that
financially supports the founding of spaces of
habitation for people at risk of loosing their
homes and already displaced people through a
CLT. These spaces can absorb the pressure
created by the newcomers on the permanent
housing stock, to at least slow down the increase
of rents that cause displacement.

reinvestment $
lease (a)
job income (b)
rent (c)
a. lot owner
b. displaced
people
c. newcomers
community
corporation

INSIDE

NEWCOMERS

ER

D
IV

NEWCOMERS

s
nt e
re ris

DISPLACED
PEOPLE

SI
O
N

divert newcomers

RETURN DISPLACED PEOPLE

FLOW

tenants

S1

O
SI

DEVELOPERS

C1

H1

R4

R2
C2

R3
R7

R6

R8

R5

R9
R1

When we look at a map with the new

developments in Bushwick it is clear that
they follow a general direction from EastWilliamsburg into West-Bushwick, but have not
yet crossed Myrtle Avenue where the M-train
line is currently being renovated.

Together these effects instigated by the

newcomers together with the speculative
developers that followed them, form a powerful
change within the community of Bushwick,
displacing local residents in the process. We
believe that a strongly engaged local community
can counteract this process, welcoming the
changes and new residents on the one hand, but
preventing the displacement on the other hand.
The strong engagement of local residents can
separate the speculation that is happening from
the wave of newcomers that is moving in and
create a double diversion: First to divert the
short-term newcomers away from competing

With financial support from the CLT, current

long-term residents that are at risk of loosing
their apartment, spaces of habitation are created
to prevent them from being displaced of their
(foreclosed) homes. The CLT and the residents
together buy the property. Eventually, residents
become co-owner and the CLT owns the land.

lease (a)
job income (b)
rent (c)
a. lot owner
b. displaced
people
c. newcomers
community
corporation

lease (a)
organisation
asssets (b)
a. residents
(people at
risk)
b. CLT (owner
building/land)

ER
IV
D

MONEY FLOW OUT OF COMMUNITY

continuing spaces of
habitation

investment capital: income out of rent $

DEVELOPERS

new spaces of
habitation

generated income
investment capital: income out of rent $

with the permanent housing stock and engage

them and secondly to divert speculative
development. Under the heading of prevention
is better than cure, our aim is to first prevent
the displacement of long-term residents out of
their (rent-controlled/rent-stabilized/foreclosed)
apartments. Secondly by using the money flow
of the newcomers, instead of letting it flow
out of the community through speculative
development, we aim to bring back the displaced
people, intertwining both groups in the process.
1. Spaces of habitation: Rather than just
providing new houses for already displaced
residents, we want to tackle the problem at the
root; increasing home-ownership in Bushwick
for the long-term residents to counteract the
volatile market fluctuations. To transform the
home-ownership and turn these dwellings into
permanent housing - spaces of habitation we
need a strategic and supportive system of other

lease (a)
job income (b)
rent (c)
a. lot owner
b. displaced
people
c. newcomers
community
corporation

spaces. These are the spaces of meaning that

both expose and sustain a new housing strategy
for Bushwick. The spaces we identified are:
2. Spaces of engagement: providing
informational support. It can be a space for the
education of tenants in their legal rights but it is
also a physical space to come together and find
communal support.
3. Spaces of production: providing job support,
creating work- and learning places for people at
risk to eventually become more self-sustainable.
4. Spaces of transition: providing financial
support, generated on vacant lots from
temporary housing for temporary residents.
These spaces can absorb the pressure, created
by the newcomers, on the permanent housing
stock, to at least slow down the increase of rents,
causing displacement. They could in future
become permanent.

The interplay between newcomers and

developers causes higher rents. The long-term
residents consequently are displaced and move
into shelters. This gives the opportunity to
developers and homeowners to start renovating
and the rents rise accordingly. Spaces of
habitation are needed for the current temporary
residents, to prevent them from being displaced.
The great number of vacant lots forms a
potential to start this.

spaces of
engagement/spaces of
production

displaced people

MONEY FLOW OUT OF COMMUNITY

MONEY

shelter

market conform

85% rents

vacant lot

new large
developments for affluent
newcomers
residents
move out

DEVELOPERS

Short Leases: First of all he short stays

of students and young professionals have
provided the perfect opportunity for very fast
readjustments of rental prices every time a new
tenant moves in. This has made these short-term
tenants preferable to the landlords compared to
the long-term contracts which most of the local
residents have. At the same time, there have
been instances where landlords persuade and
help the long-term residents vacate properties
sooner by presenting incentives such as
refunding moving costs, airplane tickets, pay-

resident owned

residents move out

DISPLACED
PEOPLE

Nowadays, Bushwick finds itself at the centre

of a culture quake. New, hip and young people
are attracted to the neighborhood bringing
with them new lifestyles and identities. New
bars and places to eat are popping up, streets
are cleaner and properties appear to be well
maintained. This wave of newcomers therefore
appears to be a positive influence in the
neighborhood; however, the new popularity has
had some major effects on the housing stock
of the neighborhood that may not be viewed as
favorable to the local residents, of which not all
newcomers are aware.

government support $
408 lots

overcrowding

We believe the aim to divert the causes of displacement will lend the foundation
towards a more engaged community. Through agreements with the owners of vacant
lots, the actors can begin to build a space for the community to gather and pursue
their shared image of the neighborhood. Other spaces are set up to divert the problems
of displacement. The creation of skills and jobs are crucial as it can provide the people with a tool towards a more self-sustained future. The goal is to create permanent
spaces of habitation both for the people at risk and already displaced people.

NEWCOMERS

rent $
rent controlled

DISPLACED
PEOPLE

current situation

sweat equity &

lease (a)
organisation
assets (b)
a. residents
(displaced
people)
b. CLT (owner
building/land)

SHELTER

Following the same strategy, displaced people,

temporarily housed in shelters, are supported to
become a co-owner of a renovated vacant house.
Sweat equity - learned through skill training and their income, supplemented by the CLTs
assets is used to buy the property. Eventually,
residents become co-owner and the CLT owns
the land.

displaced people
lease (a) job income (b) rent (c)
a. lot owner b. displaced people
c. co-owners / CLT

co-owners
CLT

spaces of habitatioN

co-owners
CLT

The people at risk of the first street have

become secure homeowners through the co-op,
the displaced homeless people from the shelter
have found a new permanent home in one of
the former vacant houses. Once the spaces of
transition have supported the creation of spaces
of habitation, it can itself transform into a space
of habitation.

SHELTER

co-op

market conform resident owned

co-op

shelter

market conform

co-op

resident owned

bushwick goes viral

Starting with grounds for agreement, vacant lots
will be transformed into spaces of engagement
or spaces of production. Subsequently, spaces
of transition will be established on these
lots, creating a money flow that enables us to
transform houses from people at risk and vacant
houses into spaces of habitation for long-term
residents.

spaces of engegement/production
ground for agreement
spaces of transition
spaces of habitation

44

45

PHASE 1:
DISCOVERING
PLACE
SPATIAL ANALYSIS

What happens in the neighbourhood?

What facilities, public spaces and
public services exist?
Who lives here?
What skills and jobs exist?
What are the development patterns?
What are the zoning policies?
How many vacant lots and
buildings exist?

LOTS

Where are these lots located?

Who are the owners?
What types of lots are these
(Benevolent or Speculative)?
Identify condition of lots- paved,
plumbing infrastructure, unpaved,
abandoned, parking lot etc.

PEOPLE

Identify the people that can help

Identify the organizations from the
neighbourhood
Identify local authorities
Identify potential lot owners
Continue dialogue with potential
players
Pilot: Identified groups: The church,
school, local shelters and neighbours

PHASE 2:
ENGAGEMENT
PROCESS
IDENTIFY NEEDS

Identify the needs of the key players

and representatives of community
Pilot: The following needs have
beenidentified:
COMMUNITY
Education
Skill
DEVELOPMENT
RESOURCES
c ommunity
CENTRE

CHURCH
Parking
SPacE for
EVENTS
I.E. BIBLE
STUDIES,
GATHERINGS

FORM COMMITTEE

Identify specific roles within

committee
Vacant lot & research group
Administrative group
Grant writing & treasurer
Look for funding through the
following:
Crowdfunding
Grants
Sponsorship
Investments
Development & design group
Look for potential partners to build.

PHASE 3:
GROUNDS OF
AGREEMENT

PHASE 4:
DESIGN PROCESS

MAKE CONTACT

DESIGN

Identify a potential owner

Direct conversation with lot owners
Possible development discussion
(Proposal)
Agreement types
Define lease terms and development of
vision of permanent structure with lot
owner Pilot: Lot will be leased through
a 99 year agreement with the owner In
talking with the church, we discussed
the need to establish a working partnership with Bushwick Leaders Highschool to negotiate use of the schools
parking lot

Collaborate with the design committee

to co-design the shared vision of the
community.
In the pilot, the following space unctions
have been determined:
-Spaces of engagement
-Spaces of production
-Spaces of transition
-Spaces of habitation

PAR (Participatory Action

Research methods)
Conduct Fieldwork & ethnography
Surveys & interviews
Identify secondary sources:
Look-up archived information
via internet, libraries
Mapping:
Retrieve archived maps

Owner: Iglesia Cristiana Sinai

Margie Santiago
718-443-0289/718-443-1757
Price: 992,000
Zoning: R6
Lot #: 31-29
Block #: 3265
Lot area: 9447sq. ft.
Front: 79 ft
Depth: 360.09 ft

The spaces of engagement will seek

to provide information and enhance
community support. For example,
these spaces can serve as platforms for
the education of residents in knowing
their legal rights and how to avoid
unwarranted evictions or foreclosures.
Inherently, these spaces will serve as
physical locations to come together
to find communal support and build
solidarity.

METHOD

Create an organization or company to

be recognized as a legal entity.
Define whether it is a nonprofit, for
profitorganization or an LLC with a
social context, for example a B-Corpmodel, under a Co-op or / and a
Community Land Trust (CLT).

Design - Assembly - Deliberation

Redesign - Assembly - Deliberation...
Consensus - Approved project
limited equity cooperative
organization owns

Pilot: Start with a Non-profit and then

form a Limited Equity Cooperative (Fig.
2) in hopes of establishing a CLT in the
future.

buy
shares

residents

If possible find a space to gather =

A space of engagement
Invite the lot owner to meet
Make a presentation
Pilot: This space has been identified as
the bigger lot owned by the church on
Stanhope Street. (See image 2)

shareholders

the residents become shareholders and

are entitled to a long term lease and
a vote in the governance of the co-op.
They become both the tenants because
of their lease and owners because they
have stock ownership
Fig. 2

Sociogram/ fluxograms to understand

power relationships, problems and
networks in the community
Spiral method to understand the
strengths and weaknesses of the committee and the community as a whole
Focus groups
Programs
Park activities
Sidewalk bus (Metro World
Child)
Other activities...

To define the physical component

of the proposed space, a first and
strategic space of meaning could be
a gathering room. This room can be
used to strengthen the ties between
people as they organize to meet.

Function of space:
Community Kitchen
Events

Function of space
Construction Workshops
Education
Meetings
Assemblies
Events

The spaces are always spaces

of production in the phase of
construction. Construction skills can
be developed and shared between the
novice and expert groups.

SPACE OF
HABITATION

The goal of these spaces of transition

is to provide housing to the short
term residents likely to stay for less
than 3 years

The spaces of habition is the

proposals aim. These spaces will
serve to house permanent local
residents at risk of losing their homes
and those who have been displaced.
These residents can eventually
become owners by the purchasing
the units under a cooperative model
governed by the CLT.

Function of space:
Housing for short term residents

OR

Why is this important?

It is a strategy to maintain the flow
ofmoney within the community
Income out the rent charged will
remain within the community to
support and invest in people at risk
of displacement as well as aid those
already displaced.

For whom is this space for?

Open to the public
Who is going to construct this space?
Actors
Social architecture organizations
Local construction companies
Community members
(novice & experts)
Members from the local shelter

possible
partners
not for profit
income

not for profit

income
LEC

income
LEC

T
CL
income

vacant
house

income
LEC

CLT
LEC

foreclosure

income

for profit

TRUST

committees

LEC

34.5% PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS

8% CITY
5.5% GARDENS
4.5% CHURCHES
0.5% NON-PROFIT
47% CORPORATIONS

production

possible
partners
CORPORATIONS

Chart of Lot Ownership - Fig. 1

The aim behind the spaces of

production is to provide training,
jobs, and skill development for
people at risk of displacement either
from work or home to eventually
become more self-sustaining.
Here, a community kitchen will serve
as the place of production to develop
cooking skills and serve as a profitable
component while creating jobs.

SPACE OF
TRANSITION

FOR
SALE

LEGAL
REGISTRATION

MEETING SPACE

LS
LOTS
18.5% BENEVOLENT
81.5% SPECULATIVE

SPACE OF
PRODUCTION

Follow-up with any revisions or

updates until a general consensus
has been attained within a reasonabletime frame. This design should
reflect the needs the community.

METHODS
METHODS

SPACE OF
ENGAGEMENT

NON-PROFIT

PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS

CITY

COMMUNITY GARDENS

CHURCHES

Map of Vacant Lots in Bushwick - Image 1

profit

vacant lot

B-corp

engagement

transition

possible
partners

Pilot site
46

47

JUST AS QUICKLY AS YOU READ THIS...YOU ARE NOW INVOLVED

DESIGN
AND URBAN ECOLOGIES
SPRING 13 STUDIO

DEVELOPED FOR
Graduate Program in
Design and Urban Ecologies
Miguel Robles Duran, Director
School of Design Strategies
Parsons The New School for Design
The New School

COORDINATED BY
Gabriela Rendon
Architect and Urban Planner
Adjunct Professor
School of Design Strategies
Parsons the New School for Design
Frank Morales
Housing Activist and Writer
Adjunct Professor

RESEARCH AND
DESIGN STRATEGIES
CitySteading in Bushwick:
A Way Forward
Developed by Stefano Aressti, Joshua
Brandt, Braden Crooks, Kaitlin Killpack,
Katya Levitskaya, Alberto Salis
Bushwick Inclusive
Developed by Gabrielle Andersen, Charles
Chawalko,Bonnie Netel, April De Simone,
Ferhat Topuz, Charles Wirene
Engaging Lots
Developed by Shirley Bucknor,
Caitlin Charlet, Jonas De Maeyer,
Wendy van Kessel Luca Filippi,
Jessica Kisner Giraldo, Thomas Willemse

School of Design Strategies

Parsons the New School for Design

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank
Tom Angotti, Dan DeSloover, Brenda Stokely,
Hannah Dobbz, Brent Sharman, Lenina Nadal,
Gladys Puglia, Andres Perez, Howard Brandstein,
Laura Gottesdiener, Sister Katie Maire, as well
as all the members of the Bushwick community
that participated in this research and design project.

in the city
48