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War On Poverty Is Proving A Messy Fightwere related to housing, 7 to welfare, and 52 to %u201cother%u201d problems. Housing cases include absence of services, relocation for people who want to leave, disposses for tenants who can%u2019t pay, and numerous related variations.A former truckdriver, Otis Upshur has been executive director of Gowanus since 1968. Inside the Gowanus Center storefront in his office, the last of four separate partitioned offices, Upshur explained that %u201c more monev needs to be put on the street :f Uowanus is to be effective as a housing agency. The center at present employs eight and is funded for $85,000 and in addition to intake it has organized some local block associations.%u2018 %u2018If we had the money to purchase buildings and fix up buildings to rent at reasonable rates, then we could get into management.'%u2019 said Upshur. %u201c If nothing else, it would j ustify our being here. %u201d%u201c Here%u201d is part of the stretch between the privately-funded restorations of Boerum Hill and Park Slope between Third and Fifth Avenues, where many abandoned buildings are still to be found. In addition there are many buildings under receivership, structures that landlords have abandoned, that still hold tenants, and that could be rehabilitated if only there was enough money.%u201c We haven%u2019t been able to get enough funds,%u201d said Upshur, who added that Gowanus had put in a request for $145,000 of the'federal Community Development funds that are supposed to be used just for that purpose, to develop communities like Gowanus. But they had no luck this year. Instead, the agency has continued to take its survey %u2018 %u2018week to week%u2019 %u2019 of area buildings to keep abreast of how many are abandoned, need %u201ctinning up%u201d and to stay informed about tax and tenant problems. The other principal focus of Gowanus is %u201c intake.%u201d%u201c We do intake. We try to help anyone with a problem,%u201d said Upshur, who added that while everyone %u201c has read the bad publicity%u201d most people aren%u2019t familiar with intake services and summer youth employment programs that delegate agencies such as Gowanus offer.The principal service of the summer youth program is that it gives jobs to %u201cyoungsters.%u201d At Gowanus, that means cleaning up vacant lots and other odd jobs for which the kids are paid $2.65 an hour.Not too far from Gowanus%u2019 own housing program situation is the Fort Greene delegate housing agency, located in a commercial storefront of the Ingersoll Houses at Prince Street and Myrtle Avenue. For $60,000 per year, the city gets rent and six staff people out of Fort Greene%u2019s Ingersoll-Willoughby Community Center. Both those tenants who live in the Ingersoll public housing units that the center is a part of and those tenants outside the projects, are served by Ingersoll. According to director Juanita Cherry, although her center has plans for redevelopment of ten abandoned houses between Myrtle and Park on Waverly Avenue, it has been unsuccessful in sealing up the houses. Two weeks ago, two of them, 108 and llOWaverly Avenue, were set on fire.%u201c We put in to try to get monies to seal up these buildings but we didn%u2019t have the politics or whatever to get it done,%u201d said Cherry, who says that her center%u2019s $200,000 rehabilitation nlan would nrevent the spread of housing deterioration across Myrtle Avenue and into the better-kept neighborhood of Clinton Hill.But these are circles of powerlessness. While Ingersoll-Willoughby%u2019s ring is far enough awaythat the Waverly project may never happen, the Center still serves a large clientele with housing problems. In June, the Center%u2019s staff handled 370 complaints, including 107 %u201cwalk-in%u201d problems, most of which were housing related.%u201c We have plenty of tenant problems with housing management. Our workers work withgeneral public. Fort G reene%u2019s chairman of the board David Billings was convicted of misappropriating $10,000 in special program funds that came in for a particular program in 1976, but Dougal defended him. %u201c Billings was a spokesman, and with all things taken into consideration, a champion for the poor%u2019s cause,%u201dThe devastation that hasoccurred in the waterfront areahas made La Casa's programfor social services, educationand housingincreasingly irrelevant.'relocation of tenants and organizing tenants to work with landlords, or if need be to go to court to oppose them,%u201d said Cherry. She added that their work is seasonal; for example, during the winter the demand for heat and hot water takes up much of her staff%u2019s time.%u2018ADAPTATION%u2019Not all programs result in the kind of program they are funded to be. the Fort Greene%u2019s Neighborhood Action #2, just up the street from Ingersoll-Willoughby, adapted its $56,000 manpower referral program to an education program in order to %u201c make us feel something is being accomplished,%u201d according to director Marion Holmes.Twenty adults are scheduled to take an upcoming high school equivalency test thanks to the NAB #2 education program and during the past year 300 income tax forms were made out by Homes %u2019 staff.Holmes called manpower referral%u2014which refers a person to a possible employment opportunity and in some cases direct placement%u2014a %u201cboxed-in program.%u201d%u201c It leads to nowhere,%u201d said Holmes. %u201cWhen I came here as an aide, the job development program meant taking the newspaper and looking at the help wanted ads for jobs. %u201c The education approach makes us excel.%u201d Holmes added that an after-school study program for children 8-12 years old complements their summer program.Seeking to make programs and employees excel is one thing, but the constant refrain among directors of small agencies and large corporations is that if the antipoverty armies are to win the fight against poverty, salary increases and more funds for development are needed.Seated beneath a large photo of Malcolm X at his second floor office desk at Fort Greene%u2019s 205 Ashland Place headquarters, Dougal explained the poverty program %u2019s money needs.%u201c The average income of a Corporation employee is between $8,000-$9,000 annually and some staff salaries are as low as $5250. There have been no increments, no nothing since 1974, when those making over $10,000 got a 3% cost of living increase and those under $10,000got a 5% increase.%u201dDougal insisted that efforts such as Ingersoll-Willoughby%u2019s housing plans for Waverly Avenue were hampered by their limited funding. \anything like development because we never get any seed money. We%u2019re not sitting still, though. We%u2019re still writing proposals. %u201dPart of the dearth of seed money is due to the poor reputation community corporations have among funders and, indeed, thesaid Dougal. %u201c He fought tooth and nail for these programs.%u201d%u2018WE GET BLAMED%u2019Dougal did indicate that some programs weren%u2019t worth fighting for, but said that it wasn%u2019t necessarily the Corporation%u2019s fault. \prime contractor. We try to get rid of non-functioning agencies but because of petty politics we can%u2019t defund them,%u201d said Dougal, who described the petty politics as the bypassing of the Corporation board to involve CDA or lobbying among the corporation%u2019s own Board of Directors.Dougal claimed that only 5 of his 13 delegate agencies had an actual board of directors, that one agency director did %u201c nothing%u201d and that one board member from this same agency used the agency office as a %u201c numbers%u201d drop. Specifically, he charged that an effort to remove Eduquality from the Corporation%u2019s poverty fighting ranks had failed. Eduquality, an education program, was said by Dougal to have done little, to have no service files, and to have in fact refused to cooperate with the mandatory evaluation process%u2014but it is still funded for $48,000 as it has been under previous directors in the past, when similar charges were leveled.A spokesman for Eduquality refused to discuss Dougal%u2019s charges and instead maintained that there is a definite need for the education programs dealing with absenteeism, such as the Waverly and Fulton Street based Eduquality. According to June figures sent to the Corporation, the $48,000-funded agency handled 21 cases for that month.%u201c Whatever differences there have been, the lack of communication is being resolved,%u201d said Andy Priester, Eduquality staff worker.While the Eduquality dispute is over the agency%u2019s performance, there is no disputing the need for truancy prevention programs. A different case is South Brooklyn%u2019s La Casa%u2014an example of the population migrations not taken into account by CDA fundings. It is consequently an agency created to fulfill needs that have dwindled with its declining population.While a significant portion of South Brooklyn; Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, and Park Slope was being restored by private funds, other local areas went into a sharp decline. Certainly the most obvious is the waterfront section of Columbia Street and its surrounding biocks. La Casa, ai i 67 Columbia Street, is the principal anti-poverty agency in the area, and although it was funded before the South Brooklyn Community Corporation began, it became part of the Corporation in 1968. It wasdesignated as a delegate agency for housing, but like all other delegate agencies it is involved with a variety of services.The devastation that has occurred in the waterfront area has made La Casa%u2019s programs for social services, education, and housing increasingly irrelevant. The sewer excavation along Columbia and President Streets and the supposedly impending construction of a containerport drove much of the resident population away, until now the once thriving street is reduced to some 1,000 families from Baltic Street to Hamilton Avenue. The fight against landlords, which involved La Casa in court actions and rent strikes, has subsided. As Danny Esquilin, a La Casa worker, admitted, even the landlords have left Columbia Street.ALL THAT%u2019S LEFTThe only real housing problem left now is getting city agencies to seal up buildings in the area, according to Esquilin. %u201c W e%u2019re fighting for the seal-up and demolition of buildings in the area,%u201d said Esquilin. One of those buildings is right next door to the La Casa office. Its aging walls could cave in on the office much like the recent collapse of the next building down the street, forcing three families to move.La Casa, which used to receive $100,000 in funding, has been reduced to $80,000. Essentially, its ten workers help out the poor families, largely Hispanic, who remain in the area. The staff performs the time-honored duty of anti-poverty workers; that of bearing witness for the poor at public hearings and meetings. According to Esquilin both the organizing of and fighting for the neighborhood are becoming futile.%u201c The landlords are gone except for those who live in their own buildings, but what we have is local terrorists burning and gutting buildings. %u201c he said. %u201cThe city is concentrating on better neighborhoods for its seal-up program, even though many of these buildings are city-owned. Trying to form neighborhood groups down here now is very futile. People are tired of hearing the same thing and not getting no results.%u201dAdmittedly, the obstacles that La Casa faces in the waterfront neighborhood are ones whic h have%u2018 If we had themoneythen wecould get intomanagement.If nothing else,it would justifyour beinghere.%u2019left them largely helpless to prevent their own community's nose-diving decline. But the lack of a development strategy is common among most delegate agencies. Most of them concentrate on the %u201c intake%u201d of social service problems and a host ofrber %u201c hand-aid%u201d problems, whileini.- m t u u s iiciu uitagcs of housingdecline, unemployment, and other urban ills continue largely unabated.GRASSROOTSThe lack of direction%u2014except for straight-ahead funding by CDA inthe past that rarely questioned need or performance%u2014may account for the mayoral shake-up of corporations and corporate agencies. But for Manpower director Jimmy Denegal, the community corporations are %u201cthe only vehicle for grass-roots poverty work. %u2019 %u2019Denegal, who earned his masters degree in sociology while working at the Corporation, said that whatever their intentions, Koch, Deputy Mayor Badillo, and other mayoral advisers are the wrong people for the re-organization of the antipoverty program.%u201c I don%u2019t think Koch, Badillo, or any of their advisers have a feel to strengthen the community action program, and I don%u2019t see how the restructuring of the Corporation can be accomplished,%u201d said Denegal, adding %u201c As it is, we are operating in 1(>78 with a 1975budget.%u201dThe %u201c degree-oriented, theoretical%u201d people in Koch%u2019s office cannot understand fully the community action war against poverty, according to Denegal. %u2018 %u2018Theory tells you one thing, experience tells you another. We%u2019ve always been given guidelines on how to operate aprogram on theory, but all of that has to come from within. %u2019 %u2019The Manpower agency provides job and training referral to applicants. Most are low-paying factory and clerical jobs, Denegal said, but he pointed out that his 21-person Manpower staff, housed at 205 Ashland Place, provides services that aren%u2019t %u201c recognized,%u201d such as helping applicants with social services, food stamps, and relocation shelter.Denegal said that the absence of%u201c outcry from communities%u201d over the threat to the corporation irked him, but he admitted that community activists%u2014such as Reverends Alfred Sharpton and Herbert Daughtry%u2014outflanked the Corporation and Manpower in their recent efforts Jo secure employment for black youths and adults at Fulton Street%u2019s stores. In truth, the demonstrations and confrontations that put community corporation troops into the streets in the sixties and early seventies have declined in spirit and number. Daughtry and his followers%u2019 revival of these techniques over the past months on Fulton Street have beat the corporations at what used to be their own game. Whether this represents a certain sophistication on the behalf of community workers and community organizers or the corporation%u2019s acquisition of an %u201c establishment\your point of view.FEW MONUMENTSIf in fact Koch does dismantle the poverty program there will be few visible monuments left behind in the scramble to line up behind the various new commanders in the presumed re-engagement with the war against poverty. One of those local operations which will remain though, regardless of what happens to the corporations, is Myrtle Avenue%u2019s Fort Greene Cooperative Consumer Society, a successful community takeover of an A&P supermarket led by Fort Greene%u2019s Golden Key Society.Emil Curry, Golden Key director and chairman of the Fort Greene Co-op, explained how the supermarket began while he was taking a break inside the 217 Myrtle Avenue supermarket%u2019s office. %u201c We used to run a buyers club for meat and poultry,\after a year and a half it seemed a dead end, because we were subsidizing it.\Curry thought that the money would develop but it hadn%u2019t. Before ho could shelf his co-op dreams, A&P started to make plans to move out of the neighborhood following aCONTINUED ON PAGE 19Augusta, 1978, TH E PHO ENIX, Page 7