Illustrates examples of successful community development on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and in the Bronx, using seven different methods of finance, only one of which is still available ...today.Spells out the author's policy recommendations, based on developing over 50 sites and visiting many others. Settlement Housing Fund's model is to create mixed-income developments, integrating low income families with middle income families in need of housing, while serving the needs and goals of various communities.Highlights the redevelopment of the Lower East Side of Manhattan involving six different Federal housing programs with all the buildings remaining in great shape today, forty years later.
The high cost of building affordable housing in New York, and cities like it, has long been a topic of urgent debate. Yet despite its paramount importance and the endless work of public and private groups to find ways to provide it, affordable housing continues to be an elusive commodity in New York City-and increasingly so in our current economic and political climate. In a timely, captivating memoir, Carol Lamberg weighs in on this vital issue with the lessons she learned and the successes she won while working with the Settlement Housing Fund, where she was executive director from 1983 until 2014. Lamberg provides a unique perspective on the great changes that have swept the housing arena since the curtailment of the welfare state in the 1970s, and spells out what is needed to address today's housing problems.
In a tradition of "big city" social work memoirs stretching back to Jane Addams, Lamberg reflects on the social purpose, vision, and practical challenges of the projects she's been involved in, while vividly capturing the life and times of those who engaged in the creation and maintenance of housing and those who have benefited from it. Using a wealth of interviews with managers and residents alike, alongside the author's firsthand experiences, this book depicts examples of successful community development between 1975 and 1997 in the Bronx and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the "West Bronx Story," Lamberg details the painful but ultimately exhilarating development of eighteen buildings that comprise New Settlement Apartments-a dramatic transformation of a devastated neighborhood into a thriving community. In "A Tale of Two Bridges," the author depicts a different path to success, along with its particular challenges. The redevelopment of this area on the Lower East Side involved six different Federal housing programs and consisted of six residential sites, a running track, and a large scale supermarket. To this day, forty years later, all the buildings remain strong.
WithNeighborhood Success Stories,Lamberg offers a roadmap to making affordable housing a reality with the key ingredients of dogged persistence, group efforts, and creative coalition building. Her powerful memoir provides hope and practical encouragement in times that are more challenging than ever.
"Carol Lamberg knows her stuff, and she shares it all in this book. It's a testament to her decades-long struggle to create affordable housing in New York City by any means necessary-one that has great relevance today, even as federal support for housing programs has dwindled to a trickle."-Gale A. Brewer, Manhattan Borough President, from her Foreword
Shows the dramatic transformation of a devastated Bronx neighborhood into a thriving community. "West Bronx Story," describes the details, painful and exhilarating.
The new Mt Eden Lamberg, Carol
Journal of urban regeneration and renewal,
2015, Volume:
9, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Community development works with great financing and competent people in charge. We got it right in the West Bronx. But it was not easy. In 1987 14 large buildings, originally constructed in the ...1930s were a scene of serious blight. Drug dealers and dangerous-looking dogs provided the neighbourhood street life. The Mayor and Governor decided to do something. Today, in 2015, the buildings look clean and are in excellent repair. Neighbours walk by safely. There is a long waiting list for the apartments. It is hard to believe the before and after photographs. In 1987 Settlement Housing Fund, a non-profit organisation in New York City, was chosen by the local government through a competitive process as owner of these 14 newly renovated buildings, providing 893 apartments. Because of favourable financing, rental income was used to run the buildings meticulously and to create educational and recreational programmes for the neighbourhood residents. Every floor of every building was economically integrated with tenants whose incomes ranged from public assistance levels to middle income. Most people agree that this was a great public investment. This development could be replicated.
