Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

CITY

City

A RECOVERY PLAN FOR THE WHOLE CITY


The September 11 attack on New York City will have far-reaching consequences for all of us. Both businesses and residents have been affected by the disaster, some directly, some indirectly but no less profoundly. A great deal of attention has, quite properly, been focused on the impact of the attack on businesses and our economy in general, but the needs of New York residents are of equal importance. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, we must develop a coordinated plan to respond to both the short-term and the long-term needs of the city. We need a plan of recovery for all. Specifically:

1. We must respond to the immediate needs of businesses directly affected by the disaster, so that as many as possible are able to remain in New York City. These needs may include identifying temporary and then permanent office space and providing possible assistance with short-term cash flow problems.

2. We must establish a central office to coordinate the needs of residents directly affected by the attack and of all New Yorkers. Those who live near the World Trade Center need information and assistance with health concerns, the security of their buildings, and the availability of services and utilities. Other New Yorkers need information and help dealing with changes in services, such as transportation, and with the economic impact of the attack.

3. We need to develop a long-term plan to revitalize lower Manhattan and to rebuild commercial office space and residential housing in lower Manhattan and throughout all five boroughs of the city.

4. While the attack has had a direct effect on the businesses located in the World Trade Center, it will have perhaps an even more profound effect on entire industries, including the airlines, hotels and restaurants, and the entertainment business. Retail and manufacturing firms would also be affected by a decline in consumer confidence. We need to develop a coordinated plan to address both the short and long-term needs of our economy. This plan should address not only those industries most affected by the attack, but also those that can contribute to the growth of the city's economy.

The public advocate should play a leadership role in all of these efforts. It is the role of the public advocate to insure that the government is meeting the needs of all New Yorkers. The new public advocate should immediately implement a program to receive requests and complaints from New Yorkers about what services they need and to insure that government responds effectively. The public advocate should also take the lead in listening to the long-term concerns of New Yorkers and working with the mayor and the City Council to plan for the future.

In the aftermath of September 11, we will also need to create a process that will effectively enhance safety and security, while preserving the rights of innocent people, which is what makes our society worth defending. I have spoken throughout my campaign for public advocate about my plans to create independent neighborhood councils all over the city. These councils would meet periodically to discuss issues, with the goal of bringing people together. I would encourage those councils to play a lead role in opening the dialogue about how to balance safety concerns and individual rights. I would attract national experts to help in this process, and I would hold town hall meetings, listen to the concerns of New Yorkers throughout the city and work with the mayor, the City Council and local communities to address those concerns wisely and effectively.

Over the past weeks, New Yorkers have worked together with courage, determination and compassion. We must bring that same spirit both to the effort to rebuild and to the other problems that faced our city before September 11 and that still face us today: reducing racial tensions, improving police-community relations, assuring an adequate education for all children, and expanding affordable housing. If we can do that, we can and will have not only recovery, but a better New York for all of us.

Norman Siegel is the former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union and currently a candidate for public advocate. He will face Betsy Gotbaum in a runoff election for the Democratic nomination on Oct. 11

A Rocky Season


(Nov '01) When Michael Bloomberg takes office in January, he will be mayor of more than the city's sagging economy and the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center. He will also be taking the reins of a government that relies on private, nonprofit agencies for the day-to-day care of human beings that the rest of us take for granted. Watching over children while parents work, feeding the elderly at senior centers, clothing and sheltering the homeless. Even when there is no special emergency, much of the city is held together by a brittle web of government contracts and underpaid social workers.

That web has been strained by a double blow from the state budget and the falling towers. First, lawmakers in Albany delayed this year's budget from April until August, when they passed a "bare bones" budget -- lower than last year's and minus funding for crucial needs. In mid-September, they followed up with a supplemental budget restoring less than half the funds that human service agencies counted on to keep their operations going.

Since September 11, ripples of destruction have spread far beyond Ground Zero. Soup kitchens found themselves feeding families of unemployed downtown restaurant workers, and community service centers wrestled with the crippled computer system of the welfare bureaucracy. While millions of dollars flow into charities serving World Trade Center survivors, agencies that serve people with needs unrelated to that disaster face the threat of reduced donations from sympathetic individuals and foundations, and the certainty of cuts from the city's shrunken coffers.

How do small human service agencies cope with large financial uncertainties? In normal times, the City of New York takes an average of 4 months to start payments, from the day a contract is signed with a nonprofit provider. Most providers start work long before they receive payments, borrowing money to stay afloat. However, lenders usually want to see a signed contract as collateral, and contracts are hard to finalize these days, when the city has announced 15 percent budget cuts, and state legislators have not yet decided how to spend "member item" money, seven months into the state's fiscal year.

Instead of the $500 million individual state lawmakers controlled last year, this year they will have only $200 million to distribute. Small programs can be entirely dependent on these unstable funds. "Two hundred million dollars sounds like a lot of money, and make no mistake, we're happy for it," said Megan McLaughlin, executive director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies (see "Down and Out"). "But it's basically 211 elected officials battling over what amounts to less than $1 million each."

CHILDREN HIT HARD

Children are particularly hard hit this year. A new five-year limit on welfare benefits, combined with the weak job market, will force more parents into jobs that pay too little to cover unsubsidized day care slots. Advocates recommended an increase of $210 million in state spending for day care this year, to fund slots for 42,000 more children; only $32 million was approved.

State law says that by 2002, there should be enough room in free pre-kindergarten programs for every four-year-old to attend. However, the new state budget provides less than half of the $500 million needed. The state Senate Majority Leader, Republican Joseph Bruno, named the pre-K program as an example of the kind of spending New York cannot afford after September 11.

"We were asked to take in more children, but we just don't have the space," says Bernadette Wallace of Boys and Girls Harbor, which received no increase in funding this year for its three pre-K programs. "If there was to be additional money, we would probably open a new site."

RAINY TODAY

About $3 billion in state funds are being held in reserve "for a rainy day", much of it from savings due to welfare reform. To Michael Kink of Housing Works, the rainy day is today. "It would be wise to spend some of the surplus money on lifeboats," he says, "but Governor Pataki seems more interested in putting aside reserves for his election-year budget."

In addition to reduced state funding, many groups were directly affected by the events of September 11. Offices of some agencies were damaged: many had to delay or relocate services. Housing Works estimates that the disaster and its fallout have cost the agency over $300,000, including the cancellation of its 10th anniversary gala fundraiser.

The Haitian Women's Program hasn't been paid by the state for the last six months. "My accountant told me I couldn't go past October 31," says Gabrielle Kersaint. "We had no money." So the Brooklyn agency started laying people off, including a bilingual family specialist who provided permanency planning services to immigrants with AIDS. Now these parents will no longer have her help in figuring out how to provide for their children when they become too sick to do so themselves.

Legal Services of New York City is facing the possible loss of up to $3 million, nearly ten percent of their total budget. According to Communications Director Edwina Frances Martin, this jeopardizes their domestic violence program, whose lawyers represent survivors in court, in child custody cases, and in securing the benefits needed to become independent of abusive partners. Another program at risk helps welfare recipients to stay in school when their education is threatened by the demands of the city's Work Experience Program.

Brooklyn Legal Services laid off half of their lawyers in early November, and the Citywide Task Force on Housing is planning to close down in December, laying off their entire staff. Lawyers at the Task Force and Legal Services protect tenants from homelessness by fighting illegal evictions.

ELDERLY TOO

Worthwhile new programs may not be funded for a second year. The Park Slope Geriatric Day Center's program for Spanish-speaking elders depends on state funding that is still in question. "The state is finally recognizing a need and then -- boom," says Marianne Nicolosi of Park Slope Geriatric. The program's loss would deprive clients with Alzheimer's disease and severe physical conditions of the chance to take part in individual and group activities that give them physical, mental and social rewards.

The city was about to hire social workers to provide mental health services at senior centers, reaching elderly clients who would otherwise be reluctant to admit a need for it. "We fought for that money for four years," says Bobbi Sackman of the Council of Senior Centers, noting that as a new program, this item is particularly vulnerable to the planned city budget cuts.

AFTER 9/11

The World Trade Center tragedy intensified the need for many agencies' services, while placing new barriers in their path. "We're feeling the crunch of more people needing food," says Rita Marie Trucois, director of social services at Riverside Church, which has extended its food pantry's hours in response to a 30 percent increase in families seeking help. Citymeals-on-Wheels is finding it harder to deliver meals to homebound older people in downtown Manhattan. "Our mission remains the same," notes its director of program services, Andrea Kopel, even though it now costs more to deliver the same level of service.

"In light of the September 11 attack, we have become more lenient," reports Shawniqua Ottley of the Fund for the City of New York, a major source of the bridge loans that sustain struggling nonprofits. "A lot of agencies are on the brink." Applicants for the Fund's loans are experiencing unusually long delays in processing contracts, particularly with city agencies displaced by the World Trade Center disaster.

Instead of requiring that an agency have a signed contract in hand, the Fund is now granting loans as long as it can verify that a contract is on the way to being signed. Borrowers are being given six months to pay back loans, twice as long as usual. Applications for loans have increased from about three a week to fifteen or twenty, according to Ottley. The Fund has had to draw on the Ford Foundation and the September 11 funds for an emergency injection of cash to meet increased demand.

Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless expects a time lag before we see the full impact of the sagging economy and the attacks on the World Trade Center. "The bigger question is, what's going to happen in the future with the city and state budgets?" Both the governor and the new mayor are facing large budget gaps in the next few years. Neither leader seems eager to raise taxes, even though higher unemployment will swell the need for social services. The Fall of 2001 may prove to be a dress rehearsal for uncertainty on a whole new scale.


Sites For Beginners:

  • Social Services Hotline for New York City Agencies and Services - Who to contact if you have no food, if your gas is about to be cut off or if you need information on HIV or AIDS; how to find an emergency shelter; what a battered woman can do--and more.
  • National Coalition Against Domestic Violence - Setting up a Safety Plan and Crisis Hotlines; Workplace Guidelines; Legal Guidelines; Public Policy which includes articles on Predictors of Domestic Violence and Barriers to Leaving a Violent Partner.
  • New York City Department for the Aging - Good resource for finding senior centers in your neighborhood. Where to turn for help with Legal Assistance, the Home Energy Assistance Program and Elderly Crime Victim Resources. Bilingual help in Spanish is available.
  • Center for Mental Health Services - Good resource for finding information on dual diagnosis problems of mental illness and substance abuse; Emergency Services; Children's Campaign; Mental Health Statistics. All information also available in Spanish.
  • Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies - Contains a neighborhood agency locator to find what services are available in your neighborhood; policy information and newsletters.

Other Recommendations:

  • Resources for Social Workers - NYU's social work library: key in any topic of interest and you are presented with a comprehensive listing of articles from government, not-for-profit groups and professional journals.
  • National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information - Extraordinary site, filled with alcohol and drug treatment information. Data archives include international articles on educational, political and social research on this topic. Go here for a primer on including persons with disabilities in a prevention or intervention program.
  • National Association of Social Workers, NYC Chapter - Social workers reporting on every issue: welfare reform, HIV/AIDS, addiction, mental health, families & children and health care
  • New York city Lesbian & Gay Community Center - Youth Enrichment Services, Gender Identity Project, AIDS Bereavement, Mediation Service, in addition to being cultural, political, educational and recreational mecca.
  • Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center - 312 East 94th Street, NY, NY 10128 (212) 423-3000 Confidential services for teens (ages 12-21) that do not require parental consent, including medical services, condom distribution, AIDS prevention & treatment, and counseling.

Archiving September 11


When Martin Scorsese wanted to recreate the city's 19th century tenements, bordellos, and saloons for his upcoming movie "The Gangs of New York," he sent his film producers to visit the archives of a neighborhood called Five Points. The collection contained over 850,000 items from the infamous slum -- dishes, thimbles, combs, medicine bottles, and children's toys -- that documented the history of working-class life in lower Manhattan.

A little over a year after the visit, the entire collection, except for 18 items that were on loan, was destroyed when debris smashed into the World Trade Center 6 building.

A few weeks after September 11, archaeologists sent a team of people into the partially collapsed building to try to recover the archives, but there was nothing to retrieve. Like nearly everything in the World Trade Center buildings, the historic items were buried in rubble and lost forever.

"There were hundreds of offices in the World Trade Center that lost all of their records and documents," said Kathleen Roe of the New York State Archives in Albany. "Some of those were originals items that had no duplicate and can not be replaced."

Photographer Jacques Lowe, who intimately documented the life of President John F. Kennedy and his family, lost the negatives to 40,000 photographs that he had stored in a bank vault in the Trade Center. Helen Keller Worldwide, a nonprofit agency dedicated to eradicating preventable blindness, lost letters gathered during Keller's travels between 1930-1950 as well as several first editions of her works. And thirty years of photographs and musical scores from Broadway and Off-Broadway plays -- items like photos of the original cast of "A Chorus Line" and "Miss Saigon" -- were destroyed.

In the weeks after September 11, a coalition of New York historians and archivists met to assess the damage to the dozens of archival collections in lower Manhattan. To their surprise they found that although nearly everything in the World Trade Center was lost, many collections in the surrounding area -- like the American Express records, Trinity Church, the Federal Reserve, and the Stock Exchange -- were not damaged.

HOW TO ARCHIVE 9/11
Links on from the New York State Archives

Documenting the World Trade Center Tragedy
Information about some of the efforts underway to ensure that the records and stories surrounding the tragedy survive for the future.

Status of Repositories in the Affected Area
Alphabetical list of historical records holders located below 14th Street, with information about staff, records, and facilities.

Federal Agencies
Alphabetical list of federal agencies whose staff or records have been affected by the disaster.

State Agencies
Alphabetical list of New York State agencies whose staff or records have been affected by the disaster.

Local Governments
Alphabetical lists of New York City agencies and other local governments affected by the disaster.

Information for Businesses
Resources for corporations and small businesses trying to recover records and data essential to their current operations.

Technical Assistance
Information about salvaging and preserving affected records.

Financial Assistance
Information about sources of funding for disaster recovery.

Volunteering to Help
Information for those interested in volunteering their time and expertise or offering temporary records storage space.

The group then turned to the new collection accumulating right before their eyes -- the photographs, memorial candles, missing person posters, makeshift shrines in front of every firehouse, emails, and phone messages -- that make up the spontaneous archive of the events of September 11.

"We are rarely in the midst of the event we are trying to document and archive," said Roe. "The result is that we have an almost incomprehensible amount of information with no way to organize or sort it out."

Some groups have tried to provide centralized places for information.

The Library of Congress commissioned the September 11 archive project, an online database of over 3,000 web sites. An organization called Television Archives has collected video coverage from around the world. And Columbia University recently received a grant to record the oral stories of more than 300 New Yorkers.

Locally, nearly every kind of group or organization with a specific interest is collecting stories, mementos, and information to help understand how people were affected and responded.

The New York Fire Museum is collecting images and stories about the rescue efforts and the memorials to those lost. The South Street Seaport Museum is gathering information about how boat operators responded. And the New York Center for Urban Folklore Culture is searching for photographs of the individual shrines that sprung up around the city. And the list goes on.

There are debates about how all of the information should be organized, whether too much money is going to online projects, which institutions or government agencies should oversee the projects, and how to keep the process from being overwhelmed with bureaucracy.

"Some people have a grand vision of one place where someone can find any piece of information, but the best solution may be getting different institutions to cooperate with each other," said Richard Wandel of the Archivists Round Table of New York.

Historians also fear there some stories may be overlooked or lost. They are eager to record the accounts of mental health workers, the stories of the Arab community in New York City, and anything that can help the city learn to respond to catastrophes. To help in the effort, the New York State Archivists are awarding grants of up to $50,000 and offering professional archival assistance to groups.

"We need to continually look for what stories need to be told, how best to tell them, and which stories are being overlooked," said Roe.



Print Friendly and PDF

Editor's Choice


Gotham Gazette: New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
New York Voters Approve $4.2 Billion Environmental Bond Act
Gotham Gazette: 
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
New York City Voters Approve Racial Justice Ballot Measures
Gotham Gazette: 
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Housing Development in New York City Slows to a Crawl as Officials Debate Tax Incentives
Gotham Gazette: 
City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years City Council Examines Low Voter Turnout, Moving Local Elections to Even Years