MSCC, John Mudd, Tuesday, Sept 2, 2025,  Time: 9:30 am-11:00 am, Location: via video conference using ZOOM.US

SUMMARY

Founder of Food Not Bombs founder, Keith McHenry, and Professor of Economics, Rob Robinson are with us to discuss the policies that create poverty and dehumanizes the poor, who benefits , and what we can do about it. Katy Lasell, tenant advocate, organizer, and policy associate for New Economy Project, will discuss COPA, Community Opportunity To Purchase Act.

CHAIR: John Mudd

WELCOME / INTRODUCTIONS

We appreciate all suggestions to help us run this meeting proficiently.

• Housekeeping (Zoom protocols) copying chat, muting, etc.
  • Signing in: Please sign in with your name and organization
• Please email subject and speaker suggestions by the 15th of each month
• Items to Triage: To give time to pressing topics, please forward items at least 24 hours prior to meetings
• Introductions, welcoming new and old members (keeping it short and sweet)
• Need someone to summarize actions and followup

PURPOSE

The Homeless and Housing members, attendees, and speakers share knowledge, ideas, and resources to identify problems and find solutions to the homeless, housing, and health crisis.

5 min

POLICY MEETING UPDATES

The prior 8:30 Homeless and Housing Policy meeting wrap-up as presented by attending members.

0 min

COUNCIL HIGHLIGHTS

Council’s progress report on actions and initiatives.

• Events, initiatives:Annual Report
• Need Board and committee members (funding & Finance, Street Sheets)
• NYCHA rally against demolition: Kaziah Glow’s WBAI segment with Renee Keitt and John Mudd (7:30AM)
• Marquis Jenkins and I discussed development policies (particularly NYCHA) with Michael Haskins, on WBAI
• Renee Keitt, Marquis Jenkins, Ted Houghton, and I discussed development policies an the importance in protecting public housing with Joe Vega on his podcast
• Success! Generosa is back into her original apartment after 5 years
• MSCC receives Goddard’s Good Neighbor Award

2 min

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION(S) AND OR UPDATES: 

The below list of intros and updates should be brief; everyone is welcomed to present for a lengthier discussion at a planned date

• Elected officials/agencies—updates
• Alex Yong, WSNA NYC, RTC, Member of the End Apartment Warehousing Coalition, MSCC
• Stock Transfer Act Updates
• Public Housing
• Others & new attending members?

3 min

COMMUNITIES TOGETHER: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND MUSIC FEST

Finding solidarity around the core problem that seeks to destroy our society

Speaker(s): MSCC Team

5 min

CREATING, CRIMINALIZING POVERTY

Governing policies continue to expand inequality and limit people’s rights. We’re suffering a controlled demolition of our society to enhance the wealth for the few.

• Causes and effect
• Who benefits
• Actions to mitigate the abuse

Speaker: Rob Robinson leads with some talking points, Kieth McHenry follows

30+ min

PUBLIC HOUSING

Public housing across our city and nation are under attack. Private developers (Related) want to take over the largest stock of affordable housing. They are working to end Section 9, and demolishing Chelsea campuses for huge gains. We are continuing to discuss public housing tenant struggles in and outside of New York

• NYCHA/Related latest effort to remove seniors from their housing
• MSCC, FEC, Chelsea Neighbor Coalitions, Leaps, Penn South, and others efforts to save public housing

10 min

COPA, COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE ACT

Property and housing are being bought up across America. Rents are too damned high. COPA allows for community ownership through nonprofit organizations.

Speakers: Katy Lasell, Policy Associate for New Economy Project

30 min

PUBLIC CONCERNS

• Immediate needs?

ACTIONS

• Summary
• Additional Requests

2 min

ANNOUNCEMENTS / EVENTS

• Additional announcements from new attendees, committee members, elected officials, others 
• Last words?

2 min

DEVELOPING INITIATIVES & PROGRAMS

• One Stop Shop
• Hurt Committee
• Objectives/Mission/Vision: MSCC is busily restructuring to become more effective in accomplishing its goals and making plans for the coming new year to complete their:
  • Mission: Midtown South Community Council strives to dismantle the causes of homelessness by building an equitable, just, and sustainable social infrastructure to ensure dignity, health, and home for all. 
  • Vision: Midtown South Community Council envisions a city where homelessness and poverty are eradicated
• Committees: Managing our overwhelming tasks together with our intersecting network. If anyone wants to be involved with building committees to serve programs and projects of mutual interests (Housing, Urban Farming, Education & Awareness, healthcare, incarceration, workshops, health access, Home Improvement, communications/social media messaging, Midtown Street Sheets…), please let us know
• Street Sheets

2min

AOB

• Topic & Speaker Suggests:
  • • Deregulations, development plans with Andrew Berman
    • Marquis Jenkins discusses public housing with members from Riis Houses, Ladan from Glendale Housing in Minneapolis — This discussion was on May 6, 2025. Further discussion is needed. 
    • Discussion with Andre P, about his Post Feb 4, 2025 Homeless and Housing Meeting Comments
    • Kieth McHenry, Food Not Bombs
    • Illusion of Choice: How Source of Income Discrimination and Voucher Policies Perpetuate Housing Inequality, UnlockNYC — Done!
    • Department of Building’s Office of Tenant Advocate (OTA) advocates for tenant against obtrusive or illegal construction within multi unit residential buildings. Speaker(s): Rakell Washington & Ana Pluchinatta
    • Charisma White (MSCC), what does deeply affordable housing mean
    • Network marketing and communications committee (suggestion)
    • Prison to shelter and back again
    • Policing the problem away; 50% of the Riker’s Island jail population are mentally ill
• Speaker Suggestions: All suggestions are welcomed
• New Members: Thank you for joining, feel free to tell us your needs, schedule a presentation, and connect with anyone within this network
• NEXT Meeting Homeless and Housing Meeting: 9:30 AM Tuesday, October 7, 2025
  • • Always the 1^st Tuesday of every month

2 min

Contact hello@midtownsouthcc.org or john.mudd@usa.net for more information and Zoom invitations.

ADDENDUM A: SHARING GOVERNOR’S RESOURCES

Below attached you will find important resources we wanted to share with you, for your reference:

• Fact Sheets on SNAP Benefits – Congressional Districts + NYS overall
• Testimony given by OTDA Commissioner Barbara Guinn before Senate re SNAP

Here are some bullets about the fact sheets:

• These fact sheets prepared by OTDA present facts/figures on SNAP in New York State, including how many New Yorkers rely on SNAP, a demographic breakdown of who receives SNAP, and the program’s effect generating economic activity
• OTDA developed fact sheets for SNAP in NYS as a whole, as well as the impact of SNAP in each of New York’s 26 Congressional districts

Here’s some bullets about the testimony:

• In her testimony, Commissioner Guinn spoke powerfully about the overwhelming popularity of the SNAP program nationally as well as the importance of SNAP in New York State.
• Commissioner Guinn shared facts and figures that underscore the positive impacts that SNAP has in New York – helping to alleviate hunger and also stimulate the economy, as spending of benefits generates revenues for small businesses, grocery stores, and farmers markets in local communities across urban, suburban, and rural areas alike.
• Commissioner Guinn outlined how the proposed changes in the House GOP Reconciliation Bill would not strengthen the program, but actually weaken an effective and efficient program through cuts and cost-shifts, undermining the ongoing work to ensure the program is as accurate as possible.
• Commissioner Guinn summarized the extreme nature of the proposed changes to the SNAP program, which would shift significant costs to New York State that State and local governments cannot absorb.
• Commissioner Guinn explained how, taken together, the proposed changes to the SNAP program  would impose an estimated $2.1 billion in costs on New York State and local governments annually, including by shifting a portion of benefit costs to states which have historically been funded 100% by the Federal government, increasing administrative cost share, enforcing more punitive requirements on recipients, and eliminating components of the program that promote related outreach/education and more
• These increased costs would have significant state and local budgetary impacts, including potential negative outcomes such as reducing benefits, limiting access to needed assistance, or increasing state and local taxes to cover these additional costs, which Commissioner Guinn emphasized New York does want to be forced to consider.

We are thankful for your ongoing commitment and collaboration.

I f you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Lillian Padilla, Chief of Staff to the Nonprofit Unit at  lillian.padilla@exec.ny.gov.

Best Regards,

Jessica D.

—

JESSICA DOUGLAS  (she/her)

Director of African American Affairs, Constituency

ADDENDUM B: ANDRE P: COMMENTS POST FEBRUARY 4, 2025 HOMELESS AND HOUSING MEETING

Gentlemen,

As a follow-up to today’s MSCC meeting, I’d like to add some comments; I posted some in the chat channel, but they seem to have gone unnoticed.

Thinking yesterday about today’s meeting, I had a eureka moment. The phrase “criminalization of homelessness” is always used in the context of homeless people being criminally charged, or harassed with “move along” orders, when they’re in streets, subways, or other public spaces. But we should also look into criminalization of homeless people *inside* shelters, safe havens, drop-in centers, supportive housing, and other institutions that are supposed to help them and care for them. It happens more often than we know.

Shelter workers harass a client in various ways, then claim the client is harassing *them* and call the police. Or clients (perhaps acting in concert with workers) harass, assault, even murder other clients (Deven Black), and workers refuse to defend the victims, then paint the victims as perpetrators.

A similar issue is “psychiatrization” – intentionally false-positive psychiatric misdiagnoses or mischaracterizations, both of individual clients (often in their secret files) and of homeless people in general, eg. those found in the streets with clothing inadequate for the season (attributing the client’s “inability to meet his basic needs” to his alleged mental-health problems rather than failures of the homelessness and welfare agencies to live up to their duties of care – and then attempting to lock him up in a psychiatric facility under an expanded “basic needs” standard Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul are pushing for).

Most homeless outreach efforts, no matter how much good faith, effort, and taxpayers’ money or volunteers’ time goes into them, will be wasted if the DHS system continues to be as dysfunctional, dangerous, and abusive as it is. I believe the first thing to do would be to have it develop a fair and effective system for handling complaints. Currently, it’s geared to ignore, delay, then retaliate against the clients, rather than do justice and improve the conditions. That’s why people are put out or leave, and then are very reluctant to go back in. (And sometimes accused of “refusing help”.)

An important related issue is access to evidence. Workers write notes about clients, put them in the CARES computer record system, but never let clients read them, rarely tell them of their existence, and don’t respond to formal requests under the Personal Privacy Protection Law. Worse, the DHS forbade taking photos, videos, and live streaming (DHS-PB-2022-015), then also audio recording (DHS-PB-2024-005) – no exceptions, even for crimes in progress. Without evidence, we can’t prove the truth. And without the truth, we can’t have justice, except by accident.

In my opinion, concerned advocates should take a greater interest in what happens inside the shelter system and try to improve it, and help clients who have standing to improve it. When the shelters are fit for human habitation and the unsheltered know it, it won’t take much for them to get in.

Would you share your thoughts on this?ADDENDUM C: Damu Radheshwar’s Urban Planning Proposal

D R a d h e s h w a r Damyanti Radheshwar FIIA AIA LEED AP

Damu@DRadheshwar.com

www.dradheshwar.com

Architect + Urban Planner and Strategist

Updated February 23, 2025; Original: November 22, 2019

Living your life in Your Own Home in Public Housing

NYCHA Housing – a Pilot Program for Self-Management: An Abstract

Stakeholders: NYCHA Resident Tenants, Tenants Unions and Community Advocates

Ownership Structure: NYCHA, HPD, and NYC and NYS Agencies

Planning – Analysis and Recommendations

In my submission for the Loeb Fellowship a few years ago, I proposed a pilot plan for ‘self-management’ that

empowers residents to assume responsibilities through training, advocacy, and using available economic resources.

NYCHA Physical Need Assessment

Capital Need Categories

Housing Deficiencies

Capital Needs

Capital Funding Sources

Capital Commitment

Intention:

• NYCHA residents select a building to run the pilot program.

• Create a pilot program for residents’ self-management by offering them training in property management

and allocating funds typically budgeted by NYCHA for that specific property. Provide financing for physical

needs assessments, address deficiencies, implement necessary capital improvements, manage HAZMAT

mitigation, ensure code compliance for life safety and the environment, and carry out essential significant

repairs.

• Through participatory planning and budgeting, the stakeholder community will establish and prioritize the

specifications for a baseline level of well-built and well-maintained interior and exterior spaces to improve

conditions. The minimum standard for residential occupancy specified by the New York State Multiple

Dwelling Code will be met and exceeded.

• Support equitable social and economic opportunities for the residents in a democratically operated

cooperative arrangement.

• The concept of “towers in the park,” based on Le Corbusier’s proposed master plan for Paris, has not

succeeded in New York and other cities across the USA. In Paris, people prefer walkable streets that foster

social and commercial activities like shopping, dining, and cafés, creating economic opportunities for the

community. At night, the deserted sidewalks around NYCHA projects often evoke a sense of insecurity. A

focus on activating the streets could be integrated into the pilot program. This can be achieved through

small shops, farmers markets, and arts and crafts initiatives run by the residents, revitalizing the streetscape

and generating creative economic prospects. The value created can then be used to enhance the pilot

program further.

• Measure the program’s impact every 2-5 years. If it is deemed successful, build capacity for the other

properties in the NYCHA system.D R a d h e s h w a r Architect + Urban Planner and Strategist

Resources

• NYC Community Land Trust wants to “Go Big” partner with NYC Community Initiative (NYCCLI)

• NYC and NYS Economic Development Corporations

• Neighborhood Planning Playbook

• Research examples in other cities, e.g., Dudley Street in Boston

• The RAD Rental Assistance Demonstration for NYCHA?

Funding Resources:

• Leverage funding: NYCHA budget allocated for maintenance, federal resources, Low-Income Housing Tax

Credit (LIHTC), Private Activity Bonds, etc.

• Private sponsorship to partially or fully support the pilot program

• Other resources to be explored

Tools:

• Alternate Options ownership/rental

• Down payment assistance/ Incentives

• Upgrade aging boiler systems

• The Housing Plan: At Work In Your Neighborhood

• In May 2014, Mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled Housing New York: A Five-Borough, Ten-Year Plan to

create and preserve 200,000 high-quality, affordable homes over ten years.

• In January 2020, the Administration launched YOUR Home NYC, the next phase of Housing New York.

Through YOUR Home NYC, we are strengthening our efforts to build and preserve affordable housing, create

neighborhood wealth, and protect renters.

• Mitchell-Lama Reinvestment Program – help aging Mitchell-Lamas stay affordable

• HomeFix Housing provides financial assistance to low-income homeowners to make repairs and keep their

homes healthy and safe.

• Advance the growth of Community Land Trusts (CLTs) by working with Enterprise Community Partners to

secure funding for emerging and existing land trusts dedicated to preserving and creating affordable

housing in neighborhoods they know best.

• Tenant Union

• Capacity building

• Leverage funding: federal resource

• RADS

• Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC)

• Private Activity Bonds

• EDC and HPD

• Conditions Assessment, Participatory planning, and budgeting

• Explore Economic and Entrepreneurial opportunities in creative ways

ADDENDUM D: SPEAKER BIOS

Rose Roach bio

Rose Roach is the National Coordinator for the Labor Campaign for Single Payer and Chair of Healthcare for All Minnesota.  Ms. Roach retired in 2023 as the Executive Director of the MN Nurses Association after working in the labor movement for 34 years.  For more than two decades, Ms. Roach has been involved in the healthcare justice movement, both as a national speaker and trainer. She served on Governor Mark Dayton’s Healthcare Financing Task Force as well as Attorney General, Keith Ellison’s, Lowering Pharmaceutical Costs Task Force. In 2016 and 2020, Ms. Roach was recognized as one of the MN Physician’s Magazine quadrennials, top100 leaders in healthcare, was the first recipient of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s Women’s Trailblazer award this past February and received the 2019 DFL’s Paul Wellstone Lifetime Commitment to Organized Labor award.

Viren Brahmbhatt Bio: 

Viren Brahmbhatt is an architect, an urban designer, and the founder of de.Sign Studio in New York City -an international design practice that works towards significant and implementable change through design. His work includes various community and recreational centers and urban design projects for affordable housing including many for the City of New York and Seoul, Medellin, Mumbai and New Delhi. He has been teaching at various  schools of architecture as an adjunct professor including at GSAPP, Columbia University, Sam Fox School/WashU St. Louis, , CCNY’s The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture and Pratt Institute, New York.

Summary

The Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan (MSMX) faces major critiques for prioritizing market-driven development while neglecting affordability, climate resilience, infrastructure, and community input. Like past rezonings in SoHo, East Harlem, and Long Island City, it risks displacing low-income residents and industrial jobs, offers vague affordability promises, and lacks strong public benefits, inclusive economic planning, and future-proof zoning.

ADDENDUM E: GOV HOCHUL’S FELLOWS PROGRAM

Greetings Stakeholders Across New York State,

Governor Hochul announced that applications are now being accepted for the 2026–2028 Empire State Fellows Program, a prestigious, full-time, two-year leadership development opportunity in New York State government.

Key Information

• What: Leadership training program in NYS government
• Who: Aspiring policymakers and professionals (including displaced federal employees)
• Pay: $90,000/year + benefits
• Term: January 15, 2026 – January 2028
• Apply By: June 1, 2025
• Start Date: January 15, 2026

Important Dates

• Applications Opened: April 1, 2025
• Application Deadline: June 1, 2025
• Online Info Session: April 22, 2025 at 5:00 PM

Links

• Empire State Fellows Program
• The Application
• RSVP for the Virtual Info Session (April 22, 5 PM)

JESSICA DOUGLAS  (she/her)

Director of African American Affairs, Constituency

New York State Executive Chamber

919 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022

c: (212) 681-4999 | Jessica.Douglas@exec.ny.gov

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