COOPER SQUARE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE INC
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Mission Statement
The Cooper Square Committee works with Lower East Side/East Village residents to contribute to the preservation and development of affordable, environmentally healthy housing in order to maintain the racial, economic and cultural diversity of the community.
About This Cause
Cooper Square Committee provides the following programs and services: - Tenant Organizing and Counseling - Housing Preservation and Community Development - Green and Resilient Buildings - Neighborhood NORC/Senior Service - Small Business Assistance and Organizing Tenant Organizing and Counseling: Cooper Square Committee’s largest program is Tenant Organizing and Counseling. Each year, CSC provides one-to-one counseling for over 500 community residents. Our counselors specialize in eviction prevention as well as securing temporary and permanent housing for families and individuals experiencing homelessness due to fires, domestic violence, and otherwise unstable housing conditions. They also assist tenants with Section 8 certifications and applications for SCRIE, DRIE, food stamps, and Medicaid. CSC organizes tenant associations and coordinates multi-building coalitions comprised of tenants who share the same landlord (e.g., Steve Croman, Icon Realty, Jared Kushner, Madison Realty Capital). These multi-building coalitions can include up to 45 buildings per landlord, and they comprise some 150 buildings and over 2,200 households all together. Tenants in these coalitions are experiencing similar systemic issues such as harassment, disruptive renovation work, frequent buyout offers, interruption of essential services, and frivolous litigation. CSC’s outreach, tenant education and organizing has been very effective in preventing widespread displacement in these buildings, thereby keeping more apartments in the rent regulation system. We have worked closely with the Urban Justice Center to help tenants bring HP actions to get repairs, stop the harassing tactics, and—in some cases—win financial settlements and rent abatements. Stand for Tenant Safety and Lead Dust Free NYC Campaigns: CSC spearheaded a city-wide Stand for Tenant Safety (STS) campaign to confront “construction as harassment” which was forcing tenants to contend with disruptive and unsafe renovation in their buildings, often willfully done to drive them out of their homes so that their units could be deregulated. Tenants won a major victory in the Summer of 2017 when the New York City Council passed a dozen bills to strengthen tenant protections in occupied buildings undergoing building-wide and apartment renovations. The new laws included creation of a “real time” enforcement unit, increased fines on construction work without permits or outside the scope of permits, increased oversight on contractors who have a history of doing work without permits, a safe construction bill of rights, and a multi-agency task force on construction work in occupied buildings. CSC participates in the Task Force and continues to monitor implementation of this bill. As part of our STS campaign work, CSC increased our focus on the issue of lead dust disbursed throughout buildings undergoing apartment renovations. We have documented some 20 buildings where the NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has found high levels of lead dust. In 2019, we created the Lead Dust Free NYC (LDFNYC) campaign to highlight how prevalent this issue is, and tenants impacted by it have advocated at City Council hearings for better enforcement of Local Law 1 (the city’s lead law) as well as improvements to the law. Several bills we supported were enacted in the past 3 years, including a reduction in the lead levels required for the NYC DOHMH to post a violation on the property, more timely inspections by DOHMH, improved coordination between DOB and DOHMH. In the wake of the major Rent Laws victory in 2019, CSC has done a lot of public education work with tenants to make them aware of the many provisions in the law as it relates to individual apartment improvement (IAI) rent increases, major capital improvements (MCIs), preferential rents, and other issues. Tenant Association Organizing Work: In March, 2020 when the Covid19 pandemic resulted in a nationwide lockdown, CSC’s staff began working remotely, and continued to conduct tenant meetings and coalition meetings via Zoom. In the past year, CSC has continued to work with tenants facing building-wide or systemic issues, such as the following: - Assisting tenants of a building destroyed by a fire (48 East 7th Street), housing code violations (298 East 3rd Street, 69 First Avenue), lack of essential services like lack of heat and hot water (114 1st Avenue, 108 East 4th Street, 209 East 25th Street, 79 St. Marks Place), lack of cooking gas (428 East 14th Street, 233 East 4th Street), disruptive renovation (336 W 17th St., 120 East 4th St.), lead dust contamination (216 East 5th Street, 236 East 5th Street), as well as illegal hotels (43 East 1st Street) and the threat of mass evictions (225 Rector Place). Housing Preservation, Greening, and Development Over the past decade, CSC’s preservation work has included a Greening and Resiliency Program that has enrolled 20 buildings in the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). Low income buildings have benefitted from new, energy efficient boilers, better insulated windows, reduced carbon emissions and reduced heating and electricity costs. Through this program, CSC has leveraged over $1.4 million in public and private dollars. In 2020, 172 Forsyth Street, a 17 unit HDFC that CSC enrolled in WAP received a new boiler and window repairs, as well as energy efficiency retrofits. Another HDFC at 298 E. 3rd Street received a new boiler and numerous building improvements to clear well over 100 building code violations due to CSC’s organizing work. CSC was instrumental in getting HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP) which paid for the repairs. A 7A Administrator was appointed to manage the building. CSC assisted the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association in closing on a Green Housing Preservation Loan on March 30th, 2020. The loan of $610,000 will fund resiliency and energy efficiency upgrades, including rooftop solar installation at 5 MHA buildings with 89 units from 69 – 77 East 4th Street. CSC continues conducting quarterly resiliency workshops for HDFC shareholders to educate them about resiliency techniques, public and private programs and financial resources to implement the work scopes they have obtained. In 2020, workshops covered topics such as Community “Shared” Solar (with SolarOne) and Con Edison’s MultiFamily Energy Efficiency Program. HDFC’s continue to sign up for Community “Shared” Solar as a result of these workshops and our outreach. CSC and the newly formed This Land is Ours Community Land Trust (TLIO-CLT) have been meeting with city officials and representatives of several church denominations -- Catholic, Episcopal and Presbyterian - to discuss opportunities to create affordable housing on vacant or under-utilized sites. The Catholic Archdiocese plans to develop a substantial amount of low income housing on the St. Emeric’s site at East 12th St. and Avenue D, which can hold about 400, housing units under the existing zoning. CSC is pursuing other potential development sites, including 2 city-owned under-utilized parking lots that collectively can hold over 120 low/moderate income apartments. Having done a zoning analysis, our development staff met with the the office of Deputy Mayor of Housing and Economic Development, Vicki Been and with representatives from NYCHA and HPD to explore potential development of these sites. N-NORC/Senior Program: CSC’s Neighborhood Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (N-NORC) Program pivoted its work when the Covid19 pandemic hit in March, and began doing ongoing wellness check in calls with over 200 senior citizens, especially in the early months, to make sure they had access to PPE if they were going outside, and to get confirmation that they had access to food through Meals on Wheels, Grab and Go meals, or via grocery store deliveries. CSC worked with neighbors of seniors to help with getting their groceries to reduce the risk of their going to the store themselves. By early June, 2020, CSC case management staff began going to our office once or twice a week to do in person counseling for low income and senior clients who did not have reliable internet or phone services to process their benefits assistance such as SCRIE and DRIE enrollments and recertifications, Section 8 recertifications, Food Stamps/Medicaid certifications. Our N-NORC Program did a couple of online workshops for seniors on health and legal topics such as preparing life planning documents. Small Business Assistance Program: In 2020, CSC expanded our Small Business Assistance Program beyond referring small businesses to free legal counseling. CSC was awarded a 2-year Avenue NYC grant starting on July 1st, 2020, and has worked to assist the East Village Independent Merchants Association with holding monthly membership meetings on Zoom, growing their dues paying membership, recruiting new board members, obtaining a non-profit 501©6 status, and developing a marketing plan that includes a series of promotional events throughout the year. CSC has hired a public relations firm to assist with promoting the commercial district as a dining and shopping destination. In addition to our work assisting EVIMA, CSC has been referring small businesses to the Commercial Lease Assistance Program (CLAP) to negotiate their leases. Given the impact of Covid-19, which shuttered many businesses for months, rent arrears are an issue for many who saw their sales drop over 50% at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Many businesses are recovering, with sales down only slightly from pre-pandemic levels, but others are behind in their rent. In response to this crisis, our Project Manager has helped EVIMA to engage in the Save Our Storefronts or #SOS campaign that seeks rent relief for business owners, and has connected many of them to PPP and EIDL loans as well as pro bono counseling from the Pace Small Business Development Center.