In the late 1990s, HERG participated in several projects of the New York City group, The Task Force on City Owned Property (TFCOP). The Task Force brought together a coalition of community organizations, tenants’ associations, technical assistance groups, legal services, and others concerned with low-income housing in New York. HERG activities included the administration and analysis of surveys of tenants in currently and formerly city-owned buildings, as well as case histories of in rem buildings (buildings seized by the city government for tax arrears).
Several papers and reports were written based on the data collected through these surveys and case histories. One of these, Susan Saegert and Gary Winkel’s paper, “Social Capital and the Revitalization of New York City’s Distressed Inner Housing”, appeared in 1998 in a special issue of the Fannie Mae publication Housing Policy Debate on social capital, raising a host of new concerns about city-owned and distressed housing.
During this period, HERG also participated in the Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Support Group, which brought together residents, HDFC networks, financial institutions, advocates, and technical assistance providers with the goal of strengthening the viability of this form of co-op ownership in New York City.
Another measure of the extent of HERG participation in the dialog on city-owned and distressed housing in New York are the two briefing papers prepared by HERG associate Heléne Clark for TFCOP-sponsored roundtables:
Clark, H. (1997) Briefing paper on city-owned and distressed housing, Parts 1 & 2. Part 1: New York City Housing Policy: Consensus and Debates. Part 2: Programmatic Issues.
Clark, H. (1998) Second Roundtable on City-Owned and Distressed Housing: Outcomes and Vision for the Future.
