Pataki, Giuliani Try to Kill Housing-Court Group
by Chiara Montalto

City and state budget cuts may force the City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court to close down after 17 years of service to the citizens of New York. The Task Force staffs information tables at Housing Court in all five boroughs, which are often the only resource for New Yorkers who cannot afford lawyers in Housing Court.

With an annual budget of $263,000, the Task Force is a highly cost-effective, nonpartisan organization, helping both unrepresented landlords and tenants. With a wide base of volunteers from various community-based organizations, it is also a comprehensive provider of eviction-prevention services.

In May, Governor George Pataki vetoed the Task Force’s $263,000 appropriation. The City Council then passed the appropriation for the information tables, and overrode a veto by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. The Mayor is adamant about withholding the funds. Without these monies, the Task Force information tables, which used to be open every weekday, are now on a reduced schedule and may disappear altogether unless the funding is provided.

“As of now, we’ll try to use private grants to keep the tables open on a limited basis,” says executive director Angelita Anderson.

On June 26, the Fund for Modern Courts released its first of four borough reports on Housing Court. Focusing on Queens, monitors observed Housing Court procedures for nine months. They were very concerned that the Task Force’s five borough Housing Court information tables may be forced to close, and strongly urged the Mayor to allow the Task Force to receive its funding.

Numerous city and state organizations, including the Mayor’s Action Committee, send people directly to the Task Force as well. When the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development sends complaint- acknowledgement forms to tenants who complain about conditions in their apartments, the forms have two phone numbers on the back. One is a non-working number; the other is the number of the Task Force.

“So many angry, upset people call us, complaining that repairs in their apartments have not been made. I’d say about sixty percent of the countless phone calls we get are from people who mistakenly think we’re HPD,” says Stephanie Townsend-Bakare, the Task Force’s Brooklyn coordinator. “We can explain Housing Part actions, tenant-initiated court actions about repairs, or we can give the phone numbers for HPD Code Enforcement, but beyond that, there’s nothing that we can really do. With landlord self-certification, it’s only going to get worse.”

The City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court is now on the following schedule: Tables are open in Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn Housing Courts Monday-Thursday, 9-12. The Staten Island table will be open Wednesday and Thursday, 9-12.

To help save the Task Force, write Mayor Giuliani and ask him to allow HPD to spend funds allocated by the City Council on the Task Force. Write him at City Hall, New York, NY 10007.

Chiara Montalto is Staten Island coordinator of City-Wide Task Force on Housing Court.