NOTES from December, 1998

The first new rental subsidy units in four years were provided in the latest federal budget.The Center for Community Change (www.communitychange.org) summarized the new bill stating that there are 50,000 new vouchers, plus effectively placing another 30-40,000 vouchers by ending the 3 month delay in re-issuing vouchers. The legislation also provides $100 million increase for HOME and $76 million for the Community Development Block Grant.The good news should be appreciated and built on as we head into the next budget year. Hundreds of organizations around the country have already signed onto a letter to President Clinton and members of Congress calling for new support in the 2000 budget. The letter cites HUD’s own report "Rental Housing Assistance—The Crisis Continues" indicating that more than 5 million households already pay more than half their incomes for rent and/or live in substandard homes.The letter was prepared by the Campaign for Housing and Community Development Funding. Updated information can be obtained by checking with the National Low Income Housing Coalition (www.nlihc.org) or the Center for Community Change.

It is expected that Senator Gramm from Texas will assume the Chair of the Senate Banking Committee from Senator D’Amato in the new Senate. Senator Gramm has attacked the Community Reinvestment Act and the "Washington professionals" who use the CRA to extort money from banks. He went so far as to compare CRA groups to the Mafia extorting money from innocent merchants and went on to say that just like the small merchants who were being shaken down, the banks’ leaders were afraid to publicly criticize the Community Reinvestment Act.

Despite the fact that a majority of Congress co-sponsored the bill to increase Low Income Housing Tax Credits, it did not pass. Supporters of the increase promise a new push in the new Congress. Senator Moynihan occupies a key position on the Senate Finance Committee and that committee will be key to passage of any increase. While Senator Moynihan did not become a co-sponsor of the expansion, his staff reminded people of his long commitment to Low Income Housing Tax Credits.

The judge signed the order to take tax delinquent properties in Bronx Tax District 10 at the end of October. There are 25 vacant lots, 29 partially occupied buildings and 18 vacant buildings included in the vesting. Owners have 4 months from the date the judge signed the order to redeem the buildings. Under the selective vesting, the City can transfer the properties to a pre-selected third party in the next 4 month time period. The City must provide the listing of third party owners to the City Council which can reject the proposed owner for a specific site; the Council can act within a 45 day time period, which is in addition to the second 4 month time period.The City is in negotiation with a group in formation, Neighborhood Restore, a non-profit organization being established by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Enterprise Foundation for the purpose of assisting the City through the selective vesting.Neighborhood Restore may become the temporary ownership entity within the legislatively proscribed time period to ensure that the vestings are not voided.A request for Qualification (RFQ) has been issued to identify acceptable third parties. A pre-submission conference will be held on Friday, December 18th at 10AM at 100 Gold Street. The actual application can be picked up at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation office at 733 Third Avenue (212) 455-9897 or the Enterprise Foundation at 80 Fifth Avenue, (212) 262-9575.The application must be returned by Wednesday, January 20th, 1999.

On November 17th, HPD and the Department of Health sponsored hearings on proposed regulations to enforce Local Law 1, anti-lead legislation passed in l982. The City has been fighting the implementation of this law since then. Based on court order, the City is now proceeding with issuing regulations that could go into effect sometime in January.The only way to avoid this appears to be the passage of new legislation. The battle to pass legislation at the Council will be heating up in the coming weeks.Under the proposed regulations, the city would presume that peeling paint in an apartment in a building constructed prior to l;960 with a child under 7 years of age. If the paint is not peeling, the City could still issue a violation. If HPD gets a complaint from an apartment with no peeling paint, even in a post 1960 construction building, then the inspector is required to test the paint either by XRF machine or chip testing. If the result is positive, the violation must be issued within 10 days after the testing. A failure to comply would allow HPD to either litigate or order Emergency Repair of the violation. Relocation of any child or any pregnant woman is required unless the work areas is sealed.Local Law 1 would required re-sheetrocking, which is estimated to cost approximately $10-$15,000 per apartment.There have been proposed legislative alternatives to Local Law 1 for several years. Councilman Michels has sponsored legislation that is supported by a number of organizations involved with the lead battle. Councilman Spigner has sponsored legislation that has received support from the real estate community.Notes will provide an update in the next issue.

We’re starting early this year to talk about the spring water ritual. The City has commissioned a study to look at water and sewer rates and its impact on affordable housing. This study may result in a new proposal this spring to replace the ongoing renewal of the retroactive transition program for multi-family buildings allowing them to be charged an average charge as opposed to the metered charges.

On December 1st, the City announced its intention to build a water filtration plant in the Mosholu golf course. This announcement concluded the current round in a multi-year discussion about the necessity of filtration of the Croton water system. The Northwest Bronx Coalition has been actively working to get the City to re-evaluate the necessity of filtration at all; the Coalition argues that better precautions upstate to safeguard the system would better protect the system and avoid the costly filtration plant.One estimate of the costs of filtration in water rates will be approximately 5% a year over the next 10 years.

UNHP is continuing to work with the Fannie Mae Mini-Loan Program. Owners of smaller multi-family buildings may be eligible to apply for loans for renovation and refinancing of their apartment buildings. Additionally, people may use the loan to purchase smaller multi-family buildings.Please contact Danny Ouk at (718) 933-3101 for more information.

UNHP is concluding its fifteenth year. We want to thank the many people who worked with us this past year to mark our anniversary year. We were successful in both celebrating our accomplishments and getting ready to keep moving forward.As the year ends and you may be looking for places to make last minute donations, we recommend consideration of donations to community organizations like ours that are actively working to preserve and improve the neighborhoods of NYC. It does irritate one sometimes to hear about the amount of money that people throw into political campaigns to influence the direction of the government. As you may see in our issues of Notes, there is significantly greater impact for your donation dollars to our organization. We would suggest that a donation to organizations like ours is a more cost effective use of your donation dollars.At UNHP alone, our loan fund which will shortly be hitting the $2 million mark in loans made to affordable housing projects has leveraged millions more. Please consider financially supporting our work.Also, please consider offering your time and energy to locally based organizations and organizing efforts around issues that affect neighborhoods. In this issue once again, we have written about a number of issues that are of great concern to the future of our neighborhoods. Taking the time to go to a meeting, write a letter and make a phone call can make a difference.University Neighborhood Housing re-dedicates itself in this holiday season to its mission to create and preserve affordable housing. We look forward to l999 and beyond.

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger just released its 1998 survey of New York City Emergency food programs. The survey documents a sharp increase in hunger as a result of the ongoing decline in the city's welfare and food stamp rolls, and NYC's high unemployment rate (consistently more than twice the national average). Nearly 40% of the city's approximately 1,100 emergency food programs responded to this year's survey, including 100 respondents in the Bronx. The survey reported that:

Requests for emergency food assistance in New York City grew by 24% from January 1997 to January 1998.
Among the food pantries and soup kitchens reporting, 74% said that over the past year demand for food had increased. Fully 83% noted that more food was needed in their communities to meet the needs of the hungry.
The number of people who were hungry and unable to get the meals at food pantries and soup kitchens totaled nearly 59,000 in January alone.
Children comprised 56% of those turned away, while the elderly accounted for 12%.
Food rationing grew from 1997 to 1998. Half of all programs said they had given out smaller amounts of food during the past year in order to avoid turning others away. A third said they limited how often people could come for food.

The two most common reasons for widespread hunger cited by emergency provides were "cutoffs of food stamps and welfare benefits" (76%) and "public benefits that were too low" (74%). Public benefits have become increasingly difficult to get in New York City. The declining in the City's caseload may be due to an increase in denials to needy New Yorkers resulting from the Guliani administration's restrictive practices. Recently, the city drew intense scrutiny from federal officials for Guliani's program of "diverting" people for applying for food stamps and Medicaid upon their visit to the local welfare office. The New York Times reported that early in November, city welfare workers began the practice of delaying Medicaid and food stamp applications until an applicant's second visit to the welfare office. (Federal law requires them to be handed out without delay.) According to the Welfare Reform Network, the city's percentage of public assistance applications which are rejected has doubled from 27% to 54%, and case closing for alleged non-compliance with workfare rules have increased from less than 15,000 a year to over 80,000 a year.The survey founded that despite the efforts of 1,100 emergency food programs in New York City, thousands of people were still unable to get food when they went to a soup kitchen or pantry. While the city has provided virtually no data on the success of its workfare participants' transition to full-time, living wage jobs, there seems to be an abundance of evidence of rising hunger. To obtain a copy of the report, Rationing Charity: New York City Struggles to Cope with Rising Hunger, contact the NYC Coalition Against Hunger at (212) 227-8480.