Catchment Area: Primary catchment area greater community of Harlem (Community Boards 9 10 and 11 but accept inquires and request for assistance from folks throughout the five boroughs of New York City.
How to Join, Volunteer, and Obtain Services
Directions to Office:
Subway: #2 or #3 Express Train to 125th and Lenox Avenue; or #3 or #4 train to 125th and Lexington Avenue;
Bus: 60, 101, 100 or BX15 to 125th and Fifth Avenue.
Ways to join, get services, or get involved (contact the organization for more info on each):
* Come to a meeting - Please inquire by e-mail.
* Join the listserv
* Volunteer
* Become an intern or apprentice
* Walk in during any open hours
Fees for Membership or Services
* The Membership Fee is: $35 annually
Open Hours: ** We just moved into our new location at 21 West 130th Street (between Fifth and Malcolm X Blvd. We need volunteers to help get the office up and running. Office opening scheduled for June 24th from 3 to 7 PM.
Please call 646-812-5188 if you want to volunteer and receive more information. Seeking volunteers to perform clerical work, answer telephones, website designing and community organizing.
Music
"Inside Housing" produced and hosted byNellie Hester Bailey airs on Mondays from 6 PM to 7 PM on WHCR Radio 90.3 FM Radio, "Harlem's Community Radio".
WHCR is one of the few low powered FM stations licensed by the FCC to serve the Harlem community, home to half a million residents. WHCR's signal reaches as far south as 42nd Street in Manhattan, as far north s 240th Street in the Bronx, as far west as Teaneck, New Jersey and as far east as Flushing, Queens.
About me: Nellie Hester Bailey is co-founder of Harlem Tenants Council (HTC), created to "provide relief for the poor and to combat community deterioration as a result of the accelerated pace of gentrification in Harlem." HTC's goal is to build a broad-based bottom up tenants' movement that can influence policies and programs that impact on low-income residents and neighborhood small businesses. The group organizes educational forums, provides free legal counseling, builds ties with Harlem churches and businesses and organizes demonstrations to draw attention to the housing crisis. HTC's members are tenants living in public housing, city and privately owned properties and small business owners.
Recognizing that the lack of affordable housing affects all low income New Yorkers, HTC works in coalition with progressive groups throughout the city to create a comprehensive urban housing agenda, build a unified front to demand socially responsible housing practices and hold elected officials accountable for their policies. Together, they have protested compulsory work requirements for tenants living in public housing and demanded legal representation for all tenants in housing court. In 2000, HTC challenged the plan to transfer city owned buildings to third parties and won transfer of buildings now slated for low-income tenants' equity cooperatives.
Program Description
Harlem Tenants Council (HTC) founded in 1994 is a tenant led grassroots organization based on the self-determination tradition of progressive activism for people of color. Its mission is to provide eviction intervention services for poor & working class families in Central Harlem to realize the following goals: (1) to achieve concrete short & long term improvements in housing quality of life; (2) to engage tenants in campaigns that will empower them to resolve problems based on their own interest and agenda; and (3) to work with tenant leadership on direct actions for social change to alters power relations that allows tenants to become key players in decisions that affect their community.
Services & programs: Tenant and Community Organizing; Tenant's Rights and Education workshops and conferences; Education; Bi-monthly Housing Clinic will start in September 08; Senior Citizens Anti-Eviction Program; Direct Action Campaigns; *Developing program: one stop social service referral for clients.
Issues Dealt With: Anti- Evictions services, referrals and assistance
Elderly Rights
Homelessness/Hunger
Legal Issues (Referrals & Rent Clinic staffed by volunteer attorneys (start in Sept. 08)
Multi-Issue Community Organizing
Strategies and Tactics Used Advocacy/Lobbying
Community Organizing
Cross-community Organizing/Coalition Building
Direct Actions/ Civil Disobedience
Issue Campaigns
Legal Support
Rallies and Demonstrations/Public Speaking
Stay strong, y'all, been following you for some time and trying to help spread the word. Asante sana for such a powerful example, please be encouraged & fight on!!!
