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And Learning from the Experience

I made a tough call. I had no idea what I was doing. How could I? It was 2001. I was 26 years old. I had recently graduated with my law and social work degrees, and I was working as an attorney for children. I mostly represented children in custody and visitation cases in Manhattan Family Court. At one of their parent’s insistence, my teenage child client told me their other parent threw a shoe at them, and showed me a mark on their leg.I wasn’t worried for the child’s safety. I consulted with my supervisor, and made a report to the child protective services (CPS) hotline because I thought I was required to. I didn’t know better. Now, I do.

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or almost 60 years, professionals, like me, throughout New York City, New York State and the United States, have been making reports to CPS like our livelihoods depended on it. Over 4 million reports were made in the US last year, with 51,000 of those reports right here in New York City. Few of these reports relate to families in Park Slope, but not because Park Slope parents are perfect. We’re far from perfect, but very much protected by privilege.

Most reports come from professionals who are trained to believe that if they don’t make these reports they will lose their license, get sued, and go to jail (which hardly ever happens). What I didn’t realize when I made that tough call in 2001, is that these reports are more likely to cause harm than good to the families and communities professionals think they’re protecting.

The policy of mandated reporting was adopted across the country in the 1960s. The original policy was championed by pediatricians who sought the opportunity to identify child physical abuse and urge responsive government response that would protect children from further harm. The expectation in those days was that parents would get a talking to; they would learn the error of their ways; kids would be safer. If the parents didn’t “get it”, children would be removed from their care until they “got it”. In 1965 there were about 250,000 children in “foster care”. Then, things got out of control.

In the early 1970s, against the advice of lawyers, social workers, judges and other experts, the United States Congress passed into law the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (“CAPTA”) with problematic language. CAPTA required as a condition of federal funding that states adopt laws that required a multitude of professionals, not just 

doctors, to report a whole litany of concerns to child protective services, not just physical abuse. Most notably, CAPTA includes a requirement that mandated reporting laws include the reporting of “neglect”. The definition of neglect is closely associated with the conditions of living in poverty. Within 5 years of passing CAPTA, and requiring reports of neglect, there were over 500,000 children in foster care.

Many saw this rise in children in foster care as a success; more children would seem to be getting protection. But, the families impacted from these policies knew better, as did the professionals working in these systems. The most esteemed of these professionals called for the exclusion of neglect cases from the mandate to report. They explained: “[a]s a result of the often vague definitions of neglect and the consequent discretion granted reporters, it is probable that cultural, racial and economic distinctions between the reporter and the reported will influence and unfairly bias the reporting of certain groups of children” (Sussman, & Cohen, 1974). These experts explained that most professional reporters are white and middle/upper class; most families reported are poor and from cultural and racial minority groups. These experts argued that a law that required professionals to report neglect would hurt poor families, especially of families of color. They were right. Recent research finds that more than half of all Black families in America will be investigated by CPS before their children reach adulthood; only ⅓ of White families will have the same experience. Research suggests implicit and explicit racial bias factor into this disproportionality, as does the confluence of neglect and poverty.

Shortly after adding neglect to the mandate, reports of neglect made up the vast majority of reports to child protective services hotlines. Even today, neglect reports make up 60-70% of cases investigated by New York City’s Administration of Children’s Services (“ACS”). People without direct experience don’t realize that neglect is what CPS is most likely responding to, because the media focuses on high profile cases of extreme physical and sexual abuse, which happen to be really rare.

Substantiation rates of all reports are abysmal. Nationally, only about 1 in 5, or 20% of all reports are substantiated after investigation. In NYC, that rate in 2023 was 29%. The substantiation rates of neglect are even lower. Mandated reporting policies have been creating problems for a long time.

In 2004, I co-chaired a committee on mandated reporting sponsored by Fordham University. This group met monthly to discuss policy and training initiatives that would improve the practice of mandated reporting, so that the associated harms to low-income families and families of color could be minimized. We talked about statistics and training protocols; we analyzed statutory and regulatory language; we debated the best courses of action towards change. The dominant voices in the room were that of attorneys; the social workers were more reserved; the systems-impacted parent members of this committee were generally the least engaged, except for one particular voice. This voice made waves.

As a co-chair of this committee, I had an agenda to follow. I had tasks that needed to be addressed during and between meetings. I used my facilitation skills to get consensus, so we could make decisions and move on. The voice that made waves had other goals, namely to not sit idly by while the “experts” made recommendations that would impact others, not themselves.

This voice was of a system-impacted parent. They had been reported to ACS by their child’s schools multiple times. Most reports against them were unfounded. The allegations were never of physical or sexual abuse. The school officials were frustrated that the parent insisted they knew better than school personnel about the needs and ability of their own child. The school personnel wanted this parent to simply do whatever they asked of them, but that was clearly not the parent’s style (as I could attest from their participation in our meetings).

No matter what our committee was discussing, this parent would insist that we were missing the point. They insisted that mandated reporting couldn’t be made “better”, but that we needed to eliminate it. We ignored them, but they were not dissuaded. They would tell us that low income families of color, like their own, didn’t trust mandated reporters to help because  reports brought pain, not assistance. They reminded us over and over and over again that the vast majority of reports by mandated reporters were actually unsubstantiated after investigation; every report brought trauma and stress to a family, likely already experiencing stress and trauma. Reports didn’t bring help; they brought hurt. As anyone with significant experience in task oriented meetings can explain, when there is someone in that meeting who doesn’t share the same goal of getting the “task” done, the rest of the group will evidence their disdain. In our group, whenever we would get close to a decision point and received most members’ assent, we would collectively hold our breath, turn to this parent, and collectively roll our eyes when they opened their mouth to remind us we were completely off our rockers. These meetings were exhausting for me, and then I started to listen.

I started to listen to this parent, and then to more system-impacted parents, like Joyce McMillan, of JMAC for Families, a family advocacy organization. The more I listen, the more I learn; the more I learn the more I share the concerns of those impacted. Without listening, I’d never really know. How would I? I am a White, upper-middle class, woman who was never subjected to government investigation of my parenting skills. The professionals I interact with do whatever they can to help me and my family members; they don’t question my judgment, or assume I’m not prioritizing my child.

After a lot of listening and two decades of conducting related research and training, I no longer think mandated reporting can be fixed. I think mandated reporting is a system broken beyond repair. Now, I use my voice and skills to support Joyce’s call for replacing mandated reporting with “Mandated Supporting”. Under “Mandated Supporting”, professionals would be required to offer services and assistance when they are concerned about a child or a family; norequirement to call CPS, but a report to CPS is available if other help won’t address the need. No tough call here.

Moving towards ”Mandated Supporting” is exactly what we’re working towards in a new organization I’m a co-facilitator of: the New York Mandated Reporting Working Group (NYMRWG). We are a group of professionals, practitioners and people who have been directly impacted by CPS. The goal of the NYMRWG is to raise public awareness about the realities of mandated reporting and develop solutions to narrow reporting laws and the invasive investigations they trigger, while refocusing on community-based support services, separate from government intrusion into families.

The NYMRWG wants to protect children from harm, just like the pediatricians of the 1960s who created the original mandated reporting policies. However, we believe that centering this goal on services provided by a government institution with a history of racial and social injustice has been a disaster, and only makes family and community conditions worse.

Twenty-four years ago, I made a mistake. I called the CPS hotline because I thought I had to; because I thought it would help. I didn’t have to, and it didn’t help. I made a tough call, and it was the wrong one. I’m hoping if more people learn about the problems with the current system, and demand responsive changes, there won’t be any tough calls to make, just support to provide.

Reference material available upon request: kathryn@kraseconsulting.com

Now that winter is upon us, we must learn to tell the truth. Instead of a still photo shot of rain falling onto a green bush of ivy, winter in Brooklyn pushes us inward forcing us to have a reckoning with ourselves. In the bustle of the holiday season, in the line at the grocery store putting the pine scented hand soap on the belt, we search for the voice of stillness. We search for balance as the cold creeps in. Are we ready for it?

I spent most of the fall this year watching young vloggers on YouTube talk about how to be more autumnal. There’s one girl who looks like Anne of Green Gables and suggests cozy hot chocolate, walks at dusk, and crafting pumpkins out of yarn. The visuals in these videos are awe-inspiring. 

There always seems to be a stark white background with the dash of a red scarf, or a close-up of an antique stovetop with a bright orange tea kettle whistling upon the burner. There is often butter being spread daintily across homemade toasted sourdough, the crusts flaky and powdery, and perfect. While all these moments are stunning examples of artistic cottage core creations, they are nothing like my life here in Brooklyn. Now that winter is upon us, we must learn to tell the truth. Instead of a still photo shot of rain falling onto a green bush of ivy, winter in Brooklyn pushes us inward forcing us to have a reckoning with ourselves. In the bustle of the holiday season, in the line at the grocery store putting the pine scented hand soap on the belt, we search for the voice of stillness. We search for balance as the cold creeps in. Are we ready for it?

Brooklyn is breathtaking. Nobody needs video as proof. Still, I watch the red-haired girl through my phone screen encourage me to decorate my surroundings. This week it’s

“The 10 best Books to read When It Snows” and “How To Make a Cozy Reading Nook.” I click off the video just as an advertisement for “Virtual Therapy” pops up interrupting the crisp winter ambiance, and intruding on my brain just in time so that I decide against buying the bookshelf candle sticks at Michael’s Crafts. I look out the window at my Brooklyn, the borough of nostalgia. What does Brooklyn have to teach us this year? As wars rage across the world, as conflicts arise in our own homes, schools, and neighborhoods. What does our borough murmur to us in the winter?

“Hi, how can I help you?” The barista with the brown sweater and man-bun reaches across the counter to serve the latte he has just made to a woman holding a Pomeranian in a fuchsia sweater.

“Just a chai latte if you have one? With oat milk?” I’ve started asking questions instead of making statements.

“Sure thing, will you be staying or going?” he turns to where the cups are.

“I was hoping to stay?” Again, with the questions.

“Great!” He reaches for a brown ceramic coffee mug, deep like a well. I’m hoping to sit in the warmth for a while. For an instant he looks like a boy I dated a long time ago. The one with the tattoos who walked me across the Brooklyn Bridge one night and stopped before Manhattan to recite Hart Crane.

“It’s freezing out,” I reach for my phone trying to open Apple Pay, hoping my phone will recognize my face so I can pay through the scanner and not have to make more small talk with my non-ex-boyfriend who looks like my ex-boyfriend. The phone takes a while to work. Maybe my phone thinks I’m ugly. Maybe I’m ugly. The new face icon that pops up when it’s trying to recognize me does seem like it’s laughing in my direction. 

“I know!,” The barista has started foaming and the woman with the Pomeranian is sitting in the window, her dog in her lap. “Yesterday was warmer, I went to the park after work and took a nice walk.”

“That’s nice, I didn’t know people did that anymore.”

“What?” He stops foaming for a minute, confused, “Walk?”

“Yeah,” I laugh, and he’s still bewildered. My middle-aged bitterness is showing. I think for a minute of the YouTube vlogger demonstrating to her viewers how to hang dead leaves from the doorway giving it a “Victorian feel”. Across the street a woman in a long navy puffer coat waves to someone out of sight. The brownstones look like someone sketched them into a children’s book. Magical.

“Here you are,” my not-ex-boyfriend puts the latte down. The saucer has black speckles, and the smell of cloves wafts up from the mug. 

“Thanks so much?” I’m still asking questions. It’s maddening. The computer finally takes my Apple Pay and the man-bun barista smiles a wicked grin. 

“Enjoy,” his white teeth gleam as sun pours into the front windows.

Today I get to sit in a café in Park Slope. I’m not sure how this happened. Two of my children are already in school, the baby is at home with my husband, and I am early for a school event. Later today my children will be singing songs that I have heard them belt out all weekend. It’s Monday and I have a chronic cough because one of the children sneezed directly into my eye at some point over the weekend. I’m exhausted…all the time. All. The. Time. Yesterday I did at-home yoga, laundry, shopping, crafts, and I tried to write. I fell asleep reading on the kindle, but not before I gave myself a black eye by holding my phone above my head and dropping it on my face because I was so fatigued. I’m wondering which parent at the school event will ask me at full volume, “Oh my goodness, what happened?!?!?” Please lord no, not the lady with the skinny jeans and the fuzzy Marc Jacobs flats, please anyone but her.

I should be ecstatic that I have alone time in a café. I should be soaking it all in. There’s a gorgeous barista to admire, the weather is cold yet charming. The brownstones stand poetic, the neighbors smile. And still, I’m balancing. How do I balance? How do I tell the truth? If I told the truth I wouldn’t form my requests into questions when ordering my beverages. If I were honest, I would crumple like a paper bag. If I’m truthful, this is alright. It’s acceptable to crumple. Am I ready for this Brooklyn winter?

“I don’t know, I just don’t know,” a couple has walked in. The woman is upset. Her partner is carrying a two-year-old. The baby has a rash on his cheeks from the cold.

“I just can’t do this every day, it’s too much, it’s just too much.” The woman, a blonde wispy thing, begins to cry and her partner orders two cappuccinos to stay. 

“Let’s just sit for a minute,” her partner, also blonde, also wispy, rubs her back, “We can take a minute to sit.”

“But I’ll be late!” the woman screeches, tears streaming now, her bangs falling in front of her eyes.

“We can sit, and you can be late and it will be ok.” The blonde wispy partner holds her hands.

“Will it? Will it be ok? I feel like I’m going insane.”

Same, girl, saaaaaaame. Now this is a conversation I can get on board with. I have this conversation daily! Sometimes I even cry in my head. 

“It will be,” her partner hugs her and the little boy puts his head on her shoulder.

The couple sits close by. The man-bun barista lets them know that he will bring the drinks over as he sees the woman’s distress, and he goes to his steaming station to begin his concoctions. I wonder if his skin is so smooth from all the steaming or if he has naturally great skin which makes me hate him a little. I pretend to look at my phone while really being engrossed in this snippet of life.

“I can’t balance it all,” the woman uses a rough brown napkin from the table to wipe her eyes and nose.

No one can balance it all. This is what the winter wants us to know.

“I just can’t balance it.” 

What I want is to sit with these people for a long time and talk about the overwhelming pressure of life, motherhood, just being a person and walking around. I want to treat them to chocolate croissants and then tell them we should all take the day off and go to a bookstore. Isn’t everyone just too tired to move? Is that just me? This woman looks too tired to move. I would like to tell her that I know and that I understand, I would like to listen. 

As the barista drops off the cappuccinos, his man-bun bouncing with each step, there is silence after the tears. After all the overwhelming emotions, all I can hear is the clinking of coffee mugs, a soft jazz tune on low, and the cooing of the baby – who is now sitting on the blonde wispy woman’s lap leaning into her, his winter garb making it difficult for him to move at all. I sit in silence for a long time near this couple. The fuchsia sweater Pomeranian and its owner leave first. At one point I stand up to side-eye the pastries.

“Anything to eat?” My man-bun barista offers pointing to the glass case on the counter.

“No?” I catch myself, “No. No thanks.”

I decide to take a walk in the cold. I can’t seem to sit still, and the wispy blonde woman and her wispy blonde partner are too still. They have stopped talking, comfortable in the silence shared by two people who know each other in their bones. It’s beautiful to see such closeness, and it’s lonely, and it’s lovely, and it’s painful. It’s everything all at once, and it’s too much.

King winter scoffs at me from the corner, beckoning me with an icy finger, begging me to play. I start to get up. I’m ready. I can do winter in Brooklyn; I’ve done it before.

“Thanks so much,” I wave to my not-really-ex-boyfriend who looks like my ex-boyfriend.

“Sure,” he is cleaning the counter with a pristine white rag. 

At the door I pass the couple and smile at the baby. Just as I am about to open the door to face the wind, I take a deep breath. And that’s when it happens. The baby, still bundled, still leaning against his mama, opens his mouth and says the thing we’re all thinking.

“Shiiiiiiiit.”

His wispy blonde mother looks up at her partner and then looks to the baby, “What honey?”

“Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”

“Did you teach her that?” the mother scowls putting her cappuccino down. 

“SHIT!” The word comes out like the kid is a plumber, with a sharp “I” sound right in the middle. I open the door, step outside just as I hear the mother say, “well this is JUST what I need right now, a cursing baby.”

Brooklyn asks me if I’m ready, and I laugh all the way through Park Slope, still balancing my life. Me: the elephant. Life: the tightrope. Always knowing which way is home, always carefully taking steps to get there. I can still hear that baby cursing in my mind when I reach my children’s event at their school. I can still hear the baby when everyone stares at the black eye I gave myself dropping my phone on my face. I make that baby’s word my mantra. I breathe it in. I say it out loud: Shit. Bring it on, Brooklyn, bring it on. θ

Unlike Chicago, NYC’s waterfront and waterways were never adequately protected by anyone’s vision, but instead, abused. Living close to the “Superfund”ed, and still sewage-infested, Gowanus Canal, I am acutely aware of this reality. At the same time, I am awestruck at the rate at which dozens of buildings, with thousands of luxury rental units, are literally popping up before our eyes on the banks of a still contaminated industrial waterway. 

In early November, I flew into Chicago with my family. We were on our way to a volleyball tournament for my son. My husband had never been to Chicago before, but I had. Approaching at night, the clarity of Chicago’s skyline was awesome. Over the central business district, we saw the grid of the city streets.  My husband remarked: “the streets are so straight!”. And they are. There’s a lot about Chicago that is remarkable: the clean streets, the multi-leveled central business district that separates pedestrian movements from truck traffic, and the amazing waterfront park spaces.

he next day, after watching some tournament play, my husband and I boarded a river boat for the “best boat tour of Chicago”, offered through the Chicago Architecture Center. We learned about the buildings abutting the Chicago river, the waterfront spaces, and the history of the development and protection of this well planned city with very straight streets. We also came to realize, by stark contrast, how our home city of New York, and specifically Brooklyn, has not been as well planned, or protected.

If you haven’t been to Chicago, it’s like a smaller and cleaner New York. It’s got some hustle and bustle, but plenty of space to spread out if mayhem is not your thing. One of the most impressive characteristics of Chicago is the beautiful lakefront. The frontage of the Great Lake Michigan within the Chicago city limits has largely been protected from industrial and commercial development. The effort to protect the lakefront started in the early 1800s with the creation of a “public ground” proviso to protect a mile stretch of the lakefront around where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. Decades later, the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 led to the dumping of debris along the banks of the lake, creating landfill. Chicago’s leaders planned to use this newly made land to create a civic center, along with a power plant and stables for wagons and horses. The Chicago-based industrialist and “catalog king”, Montgomery Ward, had another vision. He spent 20 years and a small fortune fighting the municipal and private efforts to develop this land for commercial and municipal use. His work ultimately preserved miles of lakefront for public parkland, and inspired efforts to preserve many miles more. 

In 1909, Montgomery Ward reflected on his efforts:

Had I known in 1890 how long it would take me to preserve a park for the people against their will, I doubt I would have undertaken it. I think there is not another man in Chicago who would have spent the money I have spent in this fight with certainty that gratitude would be denied as interest… I fought for the poor people of Chicago… not the millionaires. Here is park frontage on the lake… which city officials would crowd with buildings, transforming the breathing spot for the poor into a showground of the educated rich. I do not think it is right.

I have been considering, and then contrasting, Ward’s vision and efforts with those underway in New York City, and Brooklyn more specifically, to “develop”. This reflection has me wondering: whose vision should matter when it comes to decisions about community development and preservation? 

Unlike Chicago, NYC’s waterfront and waterways were never adequately protected by anyone’s vision, but instead, abused. Living close to the “Superfund”ed, and still sewage-infested, Gowanus Canal, I am acutely aware of this reality. At the same time, I am awestruck at the rate at which dozens of buildings, with thousands of luxury rental units, are literally popping up before our eyes on the banks of a still contaminated industrial waterway. The news coverage of these efforts focus on how important these efforts are to bring more “affordable housing” to our area. However, the definition of “affordable” is questionable to me. 

The housingconnect.nyc.gov website lists opportunities to rent privately developed “affordable” housing units across New York City. Viewing this list on 11/23/2023, I saw an upcoming lottery for 4 studio units in a building at 100 Flatbush/ 505 State Street in Downtown Brooklyn. These studios are only available for 1 or 2 person households making an income between $29,109 to $39,560 and $45,200, respectively. The rent for the unit would be $763. Seems like a steal for a studio in that location. But that’s $9,156 in rent annually, NOT including electric (and the units have electric stoves). How can someone making $30,000 per year, and bringing home less, afford that?  There are 8 one-bedroom units in that same building being held for 1-3 person households making between $73,886 to $98,900, 113,000 and 127,100 per year, respectively. The rent is $2,155 per month, or $25,860 per year. That’s a home mortgage in most of the rest of the country, but as rent in Brooklyn it has no benefit of tax deductibility. There will be 441 total units in that building, with 45 of them protected by these “affordability” requirements.  The other 396 units will be market rate, with most renting for $6000-$10,000 per month! The one major benefit of the “affordable” unit leases is that they are rent-stabilized. The renters, however, must stay within the income limitations, or else forfeit their rent protections. 

The vision for the 2021 rezoning of a large swath of Gowanus was to bring 8500 new dwelling units to the area, along with high hopes for containing housing costs.  The 3000 “affordable” new units from the plan make up about 35% of the units coming to Gowanus. About 425 of those “affordable units” will be reserved for households 

with incomes at or below 50% of the “Average Median Income” (or about $51,000 for a family of 3). These MOST affordable units in the Gowanus Rezoning are almost all being built on and adjacent to the site of the former Citzen’s Manufactured Gas Plant, amid significant concerns for the thoroughness of the environmental remediation effort and long term health consequences. 

The other 5500 new units coming to Gowanus through the vision of the larger rezoning will be offered at “market rate”. Perusing streeteasy.com, you find current “market rate” for recently built luxury rentals in Gowanus range from $2800- $6600 per month for an apartment with 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom. As these units have come online, they have driven the average rent of non-stabilized area apartments up, as well. Area rents have increased 20-30% over the past year. 

Gowanus has yet to realize the vision of affordable housing touted by politicians, and celebrated across the newspapers and other media coverage. And now, a new vision for a significant portion of Windsor Terrace was recently unveiled. If you haven’t heard, the owners of the Arrow Linen Supply commercial laundry business on Prospect Avenue between 8th and 9th Avenues have a plan to “upzone” most of the block where they’ve grown their business for over half a century. Arrow Linen has not identified a developer for the project they propose in their rezoning application; they probably don’t have the means to develop the property themselves.  So, it’s more likely their vision for this rezoning is to make their own property more valuable to sell to real estate developers. 

Under the current R5B zoning of the lots in the Arrow Linen proposal, around 80 brand new residential units could be developed on the site. Instead, the Arrow Linen application for rezoning to R7-1, would allow for the building of two 13-story towers, two 7-story towers, and five 4-story buildings on the site. The envisioned project would develop 244-352 new residential units, 61-88 of which would be “affordable” by similar standards to the 100 Flatbush/505 State Street offerings; that is, IF the eventual developer complies with certain mandatory inclusionary housing programs (which aren’t so mandatory). The other 183-264 units on the site would be “market rate”, likely resulting in RAISING the already high market rate for rentals in Windsor Terrace. The plans offered by Arrow Linen in their rezoning plan are NOT necessarily the plans for the eventual development of the site. After a zoning change were to take effect, there are plenty of other options that could be built, with many variables at play. For instance, there are a significant number of lots that would be rezoned by the plan that are not owned by Arrow Linen, and therefore, not included in their vision. 

Arrow Linen’s vision is not consistent with the vision of their neighbors, or the larger community. A large proportion of the Windsor Terrace community is organizing a response to this rezoning proposal through a group called “Arrow Action” (www.arrowaction.org). Arrow Action’s rally cry is: “Housing not Highrises”. The organized coalition stands for “more housing that works in our neighborhood”, and “a thoughtful, comprehensive approach to zoning”. Others within the community have a different vision; they flat out oppose any change in zoning. Both have concerns about the impact that the proposed plan would have on the density of the population in the area, the loss of sunlight to surrounding lots, and environmental impacts, specifically related to existing sewer and water main issues on that block. And yes. There are concerns about traffic and parking.

Concerns about scale and scope are not unanimously held in the community. A seemingly small minority of current community members welcome Arrow Linen’s vision for Windsor Terrace. They seem open to any number of new housing units, under the mis-guided assumption that more rental units of housing will mean reduction in area market rents. 

In addition to the visions of community members, there are the visions of outsiders, like Open New York, a new-to-the-scene policy advocacy organization. The self-proclaimed YIMBY (“Yes In My Back Yard”) group, founded by real estate investors and brokers with deep pockets, not surprisingly supports the Arrow Linen vision. They have an online petition in support of the project that has garnered 182 signatures over four weeks; more than 800 short of their goal of 1000. Largely funded by a million dollar grant from Open Philanthropy, a California based foundation supported by the private wealth of Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and his wife Cari, Open New York works to mobilize communities to say “Yes” to residential and commercial development; but they don’t seem to actually work in, or with, the actual communities they’re trying to mobilize. Open New York recruits members to their organization who share their vision of “market-based” solutions to NYC’s housing crisis without offering support for their theory through evidence. Open New York member voices are called to action to speak in support of development in almost any form at community board and city council hearings, even if the members have little or no connection with the community impacted by proposed change. Wouldn’t it be great if, instead, this level of wealth and organization focused on mobilizing existing community members towards a shared vision for their own future. Visions of change could be offered, evaluated and debated, and not forced down people’s throats.

I sat in a recent meeting of the “Arrow Action” group just hours after returning from Chicago, While the Windsor Terrace community meeting allowed the sharing of various perspectives on the current rezoning plan, one reality became clear: the community does not have ultimate control over the vision of zoning in Windsor Terrace; policymakers do. 

At this meeting, New York State Assemblymember Robert “Bobby” Carroll, who has no power in New York City level zoning policy, laid it out: expect a rezoning to happen on this site. Period. But, he offered, the community has an opportunity to collaborate with Community Board 7 and District 39 Councilmember Shahana Hanif to come to an informed compromise. A vocal group of community members were not happy with Assemblymember Carroll for “giving up” so easily. But Assemblymember Carroll’s important point was that he believes the community should have a role in shaping the vision for its own future, even if they don’t get the final word.

Last year, I personally worked tirelessly to bring community voice to the vision for a rezoning of Gowanus’s 9th Street corridor, separate from the larger previous Gowanus rezoning plan. We collaborated across constituencies from different perspectives, towards a shared goal. The local businesses, renters and property owners did not agree on everything, but we were united under the shared vision that the community at large, and not just a single property owner, should participate in decisions about our collective future. We were called NIMBY’s, directly challenged by Open New York members in zoom meeting chats and on social media, and painted in the (real estate industry dominated) press as selfish people, resistant to change. 

Luckily, Councilmember Hanif shared a vision for community involvement in shaping the future of our community. We met a compromise that satisfied all local players, including the single property owner seeking to line their own pockets through the rezoning application, much like Arrow Linen. But community power and compromise dismayed the powerful real estate industry. In the aftermath of this community success, I was lied to and misquoted by so-called journalists, and then raked over the coals on Twitter (now “X”) by trolls. Councilmember Hanif continues to be blasted for her role in the compromise. It’s hard to find an article about rezoning in New York City that doesn’t take an unfair and untrue swipe at her for “missed opportunities”. 

There are some significant differences between the Arrow Linen proposal and the 9th Street rezoning proposal. The 9th Street proposal came on the heels of the larger 2021 Gowanus rezoning. The only recent nearby rezoning comparable to the Arrow Linen proposal is the International Baptist Park Church site on Park Circle, by the Parade Grounds. Construction there is almost completed, resulting in the addition of 278 apartments, including 70 “affordable units”. The Park Circle rezoning, like the 9th Street rezoning, involved a change to residential zoning from another zoning classification. The International Baptist Park Church could have built a tall hotel or storage facility without a zoning change. A hotel or large storage facility was not part of then-Councilmember Brad Lander’s vision for the area. As a result, he supported the Park Circle rezoning after securing a commitment from the identified developer to a higher level of affordability. Much of the local community was dismayed. They expressed significant concerns including that the scale of the project was out of character with the neighborhood, the addition of hundreds of luxury units would lead to gentrification in the area, and there would be increased pressure on the already taxed transportation, sewer and sanitation systems.

 

Unlike the 9th Street and Park Circle rezoning proposals, the Arrow Linen site is already zoned residential. Without a change in zoning, 80+ residential units could be developed on the existing Arrow Linen lots. There’s got to be some entity interested in doing just that, without a zoning change. But that’s not Arrow Linen’s vision. Arrow Linen’s vision is not about the future of Windsor Terrace; it’s about the future of their bank account. Changing the zoning classification would allow the property owners to sell the property for significantly more money. The vision of a single property owner seeking to personally enrich themselves will alter the entire character of a well-established community under the guise of improving the community, even against significant, and even overwhelming opposition from the community itself. I’m not particularly comfortable with this. Are you? 

I think about whose vision for the future of a community should be realized. Should it be the vision of local business owners, like Montgomery Ward or Arrow Linen? Should community outsiders, like Open New York, determine a community’s fate? What priority should be given to the vision of the people who live in that community?  Should the vision of elected officials who represent a community be different from the majority of those who live in the community? Should access to resources, like money and media control, give one vision more power over another?

Beneficent intentions are touted by all visions presented in these current Brooklyn neighborhood development debates.  Simultaneously, all sides claim malicious intentions from their opposition. There is no trusted arbiter to resolve these conflicts. These debates will always result in winners and losers, and ultimately disrupt community cohesion, unless there is compromise and conciliation. 

I implore everyone to take a position on this, or any, issue that will impact their community. But, I beg of everyone to work towards a shared vision. That vision might not be perfect, or meet everyone’s goals. But, maybe. Just maybe, 100+ years from now, someone flying over Brooklyn will find beauty in what they see. 

It’s as if once motherhood erupts out of us, we are unseen. The world looks away as it asks us to nurture and inspire, just not in the way we used to- with out sexuality and our youth-so that we might go unnoticed.

Once, coming out of a dive bar on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, I threw up in my own hair. I was twenty-one years old. A fun-loving sprite who loved to throw darts, dance, and drink until I hurled. I was searching for something; what that something was I couldn’t ever say. But the act of searching promised something glamorous and untouchable, and so I kept at it. That was exactly half my lifetime ago. Now, at the age of forty-two, it seems as if I am just now learning how to walk instead of run, or at least I’ve been learning how to sit down when I’m tired. Today I’m a mother, not a sprite. Yet, that title seems too often to become a be-all end-all for women. It’s as if once motherhood erupts out of us, we are unseen. The world looks away as it asks us to nurture and inspire, just not in the way we used to – with our sexuality and our youth – so that we might go unnoticed.

“Oh, you’re a mother, that’s so nice. You must be a great mother,” people say when they meet me. Often, I want to shout, “Yes! It’s great! But I’m also a writer, and a teacher, I’m a great friend and I love to learn!” Instead, because I don’t want these strangers to only see the “mother” in me, I begin speaking of the past. “You know, once, I used to dance on tables. Once, if I had too much to drink, I would put my hair in a side ponytail and sing AC/DC songs. Once, I worked in restaurants. Once, I was a bartender.” Once, once, once. Meeting new moms, or making small talk at the supermarket, I strut those memories around like boxing trophies. After all, when I was younger, my youth was an elixir that helped me stay relevant – or so I thought. 

There is a truth about motherhood that no one wants to admit. My very womanhood as a mother in her forties is a powerful cloak of invisibility, and that twenty-one-year-old self is still somewhere inside of me, afraid to look. The day I was leaving that bar throwing up in my hair, I was on my way to another bar. Some nights it was dinner, sometimes drinks. Then it was always boyfriends, or bowling, or boyfriends. There was always a boyfriend, a man to match my mood. There was always one hero on the way in, and another write-off closing the door in my face. I carried one diamond sparkle clutch, one lipstick, one pack of green minty gum, and one dwindling credit card. 

In pictures from that time, I’m always smiling and I’m never happy. In fact, I was always passing through Brooklyn at that time looking for something original, unique, magical even. I was always on the move, running from a friend’s house to a restaurant, to a Brooklyn bar. I was always searching, trying to find that one real instant of significance or substance, the true occasion that would change my life. What no one tells you at twenty-one is that those junctures don’t exist. Coming out of my Brooklyn bar twenties and heading toward my thirties, I changed my own life. One morning I woke up and said “Enough, enough, enough,” three times like a mantra. I slipped out of my heels and put away my shiny tops. I was tired. 

When I have the memory of vomiting in my own hair, it’s because I am walking through Park Slope with my three-year-old son, searching for the tax office. I pass Commonwealth Bar on Twelfth Street and Fifth Avenue and recall a terrible affair that lasted as long as a hangnail and was just as uncomfortable. I walk past the corner where my wallet was stolen. I look through the window of the coffee shop where my heart was broken. I strut by the bank when I left the one who was never the one. 

My journey to the tax office stupefies me. I reach into my backpack to search for my water bottle and pull out a half-eaten Ziploc bag full of goldfish. I have children now, and a husband. I don’t drink anymore. I don’t even want to. I am Mother, Madre, Ma, Mama, Mom. I am Mami. When I write about it, my life sounds boring, mundane even. In the elixir of my youth, I measured life by the dangerous risks I took, by adventure, by never sitting still. But something about this new self has erased something crucial and it is my spirit’s job to figure out what that is and come to terms with it. Even in the comfort of my children, of my family life, I left something behind that I never really let go. 

I begin many of my conversations leading with the phrase “My kids,” or, “This weekend, my kids,” or, “The baby is….” Or, “You know I have three kids.” It gets a little ridiculous for the listener. In Park Slope I look around to see armies of baby strollers outside of restaurants. Women everywhere rush their sick children into doctor’s offices. There are rosy couples with bundled newborns meeting their friends for walks through Prospect Park. None of us have anything to say to one another. We’re all exhausted, and besides, we can’t find the girl who used to throw up on the sidewalk, wipe her mouth and keep going. We miss her a little bit. We feel guilty for saying it, for writing it. 

If I tell the truth about my life, most mornings I am ok. I say that I don’t really want to find her, that I don’t need her anymore. And it’s always when I stop looking for her that she appears. One morning, trying my best to do an at-home yoga routine, twenty-one-year-old me shows up when I bend forward to do the easy pigeon pose.

“What’s wrong with you?” She’s chewing that minty green gum, leaning against the window. She appears sparkly in a sequined top and ripped jeans, a Guns N Roses jean jacket covering her chubby arms. She twirls one strand of wavy brown hair around a pointer finger.

“Don’t lean on the window, you’ll hurt yourself. And we’re doing yoga now.” I try not to look at her. The video suggests that I breathe into any pain I am feeling, and when I deepen my breath, twenty-one-year-old me glows.

She pops a big teal bubble and the crack when it pops spits in my eardrum. “Yoga? Who even are you? Let’s go dancing. Remember Saturday nights in the East Village? Let’s go meet somebody.”

“Um, we’re married now,” I lean into the pose trying my hardest not to hold my breath, trying to remember what I’m doing here on the floor at five a.m. before Brooklyn starts to hum.

“Well, nothing ever used to stop us,” she looks around the apartment. “Hey, how many kids do we have?”

“Three.” I realize I have just woken up and she is just getting in.

“We have three kids, and you picked the smallest apartment on the planet!?!? Are we a good mother?” She’s walking around the room now.

“Yes, most days. But it’s hard.” My hip is killing me. Some instructors say hips are where humans hold anger. What am I so angry about? What is she so angry about?

“Why is it hard?”

There’s a long space between us and I consider ignoring my past self, but I know my own persistence all too well. “No one listens to us,” I begin, “No one hears us when we need help. We always feel bad, like we’re not doing a good enough job. We always think our kids are going to grow up and hate us, nothing is enough. We’re self-critical and we wish someone would help us. We have no time. We can’t read a chapter of a book without falling asleep. There’s always a lot of laundry. Also, we’re kind if invisible.”

“Help?” Her eyes widen, “we never need help. We’ve never needed help. You just need a drink. And we are NOT invisible.” I can tell I’ve insulted my own self by the way she starts to fade as I gently move into the next pose, an extended child’s pose that challenges the yogi with the quintessential self-care catch-phrase.

We are NOT invisible. I think of setting this intention for the day. But in Brooklyn, as the spring creeps up on us, as the winter plays peek-a-boo, we are invisible. Some days we are invisible. What I’ve come to realize is that at twenty-one I was also invisible; I was just self-involved. I was fun, and funny, exciting to be around and that really hasn’t changed much. I still love to dance, just in the living room, in my pajamas. I still clean up vomit, just not my own. Some days I’m still confused and searching. When I ask myself on the yoga mat, “why anger?” The answer comes in gently. Many days I feel angry at the way the world has labeled me, as if “mother” is the only thing I have inside. My twenty-one-year-old self knows why she is angry too. She can’t find her peace; she looks ahead toward my yoga mat for the wisdom she hasn’t yet grown into.

On a Wednesday morning, weeks after I find the tax office, I spot a group of mothers in Prospect Park. They are having a sing-along and reading time for all their tiny babies who gather on the cool, crisp grass. One woman has a pink streak in her hair and a naked woman tattooed on the back of her neck. One holds a rainbow bouncy ball; she looks drowsy and ready to go home. I take a seat on a green bench not too far from them. My daughters are in school, and my husband is taking a nap with the baby. In my moments of free time, I have stumbled upon my tribe. All the women in the circle are different. They all look different, must have different jobs, they raise their children differently. In the scheme of things no one really notices them. They’re inconspicuous in their sneakers, searching the bottom of their strollers for juice boxes and tissues. I squint my eyes from the sun hitting my bench. And there, watching babies grow and mothers thrive, I understand that the adult woman does not exist without the young girl. The sparkly bar hopping youth can’t draw breath without the forty-two-year-old who is able to sit down and take a respite. 

“We are NOT invisible,” the twenty-one-year-old-self whispers in my ear. 

The woman across the park with the rainbow ball throws it up into the air as high as she can. The ball seems to pause at the top of the sky before crashing down again into her arms. Some of the bigger babies laugh. A wind spreads across the grass and everyone tightens their already zipped coats. Traffic honks from the streets, squirrels jump onto branches, everything is distinct in its nature.

I walk home to read, and to write, and to mother, and to be, and to become. 

Each month it becomes more apparent the cost of living here in Brooklyn is not getting any lower. Only higher! After 9 consecutive months of rent increases, this past June 2022 experienced the highest year-over-year median rent growth. Bringing the median rent in Brooklyn to $3,500.

Each month I share in the struggle of paying rent I feel I can barely afford while consulting on which meal we should skip to save money. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Meanwhile, I walk down the avenues here in Park Slope and notice yet another of my favorite local businesses closing. I ask why, and the owner talks about lower profits and higher rent. Later I receive a text that a friend has to move because their “covid rent deal” is over, and their rent went up over 50%. Along the way home, I spot a flier for “Brooklyn Eviction Defense.”

We all know these situations too well. It’s a struggle, and often one we feel powerless against. However, Brooklyn Eviction Defense is working to bring the power back to us!

Brooklyn Eviction Defense (BED) works as a grassroots, mutual-aid organization providing resources, education, protest, and training for tenants. They understand the need for long-term political and legal solutions, while also providing service for the immediate needs of tenants and members of our community. The group has weekly meetings, hosts events, has zines and online reading resources, community fliers, and organizes community activists events and protests— all with the goal to combat landlord harassment, disrepair, rising rent, and threats of eviction. Their network understands and lives the experience of us individuals in Brooklyn, those who have called these neighborhoods our home for generations, and those beginning a new chapter of their life here.

While there is always change, it is essential we do not feel powerless against these forces. Brooklyn Eviction Defense is here to empower our neighborhood community so we may all live safely, justly, and happily.

Below is my interview with some members of BED.

Who makes up the Brooklyn Eviction Defense?

BED is composed of organized worker-tenants either unaffiliated or affiliated with a formal tenant association within the BED union. We do not have staff. We are a member-led organization. “Volunteer” makes what we do sound like charity. What we do is collectively and consciously build power with and for tenants (including ourselves) in order to combat the dispossessory conditions baked into the landlord-tenant relationship. An important part is also leadership development— the process of unearthing the true potential of every tenant to their own protagonist in the struggle for a right to housing.

What are some of the major programs BED runs?

In recent months our work has focused on building tenant associations to fight disrepair, rent hikes (legal and illegal), and harassment by landlords. Tenants will reach out through our hotline or email to report issues in their building; then we get to work with them, sending organizers to help doorknock, flier, attend meetings, and organize a TA to fight back against those issues. Importantly, we do not view tenants as “people to help.” We are tenants organizing alongside

tenants towards the common goal of ending tenancy— that is, of building a world where we control how and where we live. We have been very successful in the past 9 months at building dozens of TAs across Brooklyn and hope to continue. As tenants, we are strongest when we realize our collective interests and organize alongside each other!

Whom are you fighting for? On an individual level? On a collective level? Your strategy includes “a collective fight for tenant’s rights and tenant protection.” What does that look like in an emergency situation, for example, if an individual is facing eviction?

We are fighting for the precarious and unstable; those who do not control the means of production, specifically those who are systematically denied control over their housing and communities. In an emergency situation that means we recognize that eviction is never an atomized or individual event. We fight to defend our neighbors not out of a sense of goodwill but out of the recognition that the forces behind eviction are the same forces exerting control/power over each of us in our daily lives. Eviction defense then is a defense against the violence of capitalism.

That also means we recognize that the law, being a tool of capitalism, won’t save us. The legal system treats evictions as isolated events, but we know that evictions are not an aberration or extraordinary event, but the rule. That means we aim to not just mobilize in “emergency situations” (quotes because evictions don’t represent a state of emergency, the intended outcome of capitalist logic), we aim to organize tenants to take back control over their homes/communities in a long-term way. Done through tenant associations, rent strikes, and collective actions that mobilize entire buildings and blocks. We are not here to play whack-a-mole with evictions, we are here to build power and transform power relations.

Currently, Brooklyn is facing rezoning; major rezoning projects are expanding from downtown Brooklyn, including Gowanus, Park Slope 5th and 4th Ave, even talks of condos on Governor’s Island— Do these projects pose a threat to the work you do? How? And what are some of the harmful effects?

Rezoning, displacement, and gentrification are inseparably linked under the tyranny of real estate. As long as housing exists for profit rather than its use (the actual lived home, the site our social lives are (re)produced, raise our kids) then it will always be mere commodities for developers, financiers, and landlords to profit from. There’s no such thing as affordable housing and new development will always impact, and disproportionately displace, dispossess, and genocide the culture of black and brown communities. We must demystify the market-based policy solutions (a strategy to build more without considering the inevitable and historic consequences) in favor of our work to sharpen analysis of the terrain and antagonisms lurking within it.

These projects pose a threat to where and how we live. Our mission is to empower greater sovereignty of those things. Is it a threat? It is more like our class enemy.

Our readership is mainly in Park Slope; many residents here own homes, rather than renting— some of them landlords themselves. Are they still at a disadvantage when it comes to these rezoning projects? What advantages and disadvantages may they need to be aware of?

We do not support landlords— nor the false dichotomy of big vs small landlords. They subsist on the life force and stolen value that tenants produce. Rezoning affects homeowners in many ways: sometimes it increases their property’s value i.e. their equity, sometimes it blocks the view

of a toxic river, or, like many racists would say, “affordable housing” invites “undesirables” into their backyards and they oppose them. There are many camps that oppose development without a clear political framework.

We exist to help tenants actualize the power they already have and build movements from that collective power. Also to protect the cultural identity and demographic of a community, including homeowners who are not landlords and are often targeted by refinancing deed theft schemes. We are not a safety net for small landlords. There’s enough of that already.

What effects has gentrification created here in Brooklyn? How is it impacting your organization’s work?

Gentrification is the process of developers, investors, and landlords identifying neighborhoods where they see a “rent gap”— that is, a gap between how much tenants are paying in rent and how much they could be paying— and then evicting long-time, disproportionately black and brown tenants, lobbying for favorable rezonings and subsidies, and effectively remaking the neighborhood into a new, whiter, more profitable(!) set of buildings. This is, by design, a process that dispossessed working-class tenants, which we all are, wholeheartedly, committed to fighting.

We believe the best defense against the forces of gentrification; against the oppressive and genocidal tactics of landlordism; against the financialization of people’s very lives, is, undoubtedly, an organized community— from the building to borough level. Strong, militant tenant associations can fight against dispossession, and when tenant associations across neighborhoods band together, they can fight gentrification. The key is this: landlords, developers, investors, and their political friends are highly organized toward the pursuit of their class interests (reaping immense profit from tenants). The only way we beat them is to out-organize as a class— which we intend to do.

How can individuals support Brooklyn Eviction Defense?

Join our growing union, organize with your neighbors, and create a democratic culture of decision-making and leadership in your buildings! Share our stories about our wins and our struggles, come to our general assemblies, and share our literature and know-your-right pamphlets. Connect to a wider (international) struggle against the bulwark of displacement which is capitalism. We are a member-led organization, with no staffers, no 501.c3 status, no bank accounts, no grant funding. Our movement is powered by the people— so that means support means we need you. Supporting us is just like supporting yourself.

Learn more at brooklynevictiondefense.org