Rep. Rick Lazio is not exactly a household name outside his district—unless you live in public housing.

The Long Island Republican became a household name for public-housing tenants last year, when he sponsored a bill designed to facilitate the dismantling of public housing. That bill was defeated, due to heavy-duty organizing, much of it by Lower East Side project tenants and Margarita Lopez.

This year, he has sponsored a similar bill, H.R. 2, equally onerous to public-housing tenants. Passed by the House May 14, it would repeal the 1937 Housing Act, which sets the guidelines for all federal housing policy. It contains provisions that would allow local governments to charge tenants more than 30 percent of their income for rent. It would impose time limits and work requirements on residents, requiring them to sign a "self-sufficiency" contract and to "graduate" from public housing. It would also give housing authorities broad discretion to sell or demolish developments and to give units to higher-income households, ignoring those in greatest need.

So when word leaked out that Lazio was to be honored by his Vassar graduating class at a dinner on May 12, some action seemed to be called for.

The event was to take place at an elegant townhouse on one of far west Chelsea’s more gentrified blocks. A few phone calls to housing activists from the Hudson Guild, Elliot Chelsea, the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, and Upper Manhattan, and we had the makings of an "unwelcoming" committee.

It was a summery late afternoon when we arrived and lined the narrow street with appropriate signs. As Lazio’s former classmates appeared, we engaged them in conversation, causing many of them to wonder why this dinner was taking place. One of the guests even shouted out the window that he was tempted to join us.

When Lazio and an aide arrived, they played "good cop/bad cop." The Congressmember maintained a slick, smooth facade that contrasted sharply with the pit-bull responses of his aide. There was much back-and-forthing and discussion of possible meetings. But, finally, there was general agreement among the tenants and advocates there that continued militancy was more likely to be meaningful—the kind of militancy that convinced the New York City Housing Authority and Mayor Giuliani to withdraw a recent plan for a proposed demonstration project that would result in deregulation and privatization.

As one demonstrator put it later, "We’re in your face, Rick, and we plan to stay there."