UHAB's tenant organizing and homeownership project, called "Community Building From Within," was launched in 1998 when the city's housing department had just begun to implement new disposition programs (and speed up existing ones) for city-owned and distressed tax-delinquent buildings, with the goal of ending the city's quarter-century role of "landlord of last resort." Many of these buildings are potential candidates to become affordable, tenant-controlled co-ops. But residents in these buildings are usually unaware of the opportunities that exist for cooperative ownership, or are pessimistic about the possibility of improving their housing situation, due to years of mismanagement and neglect. This is where our dynamic organizers can make a huge difference, bringing information and inspiration to tenants to help them navigate the slow but rewarding road to home ownership.

For tenants living in city-owned, tax-foreclosed buildings, this road usually leads through the city housing department's 23-year-old Tenant Interim Lease (TIL) program. TIL allows tenants to take over the day to day management of their building while attending training classes in building management, bookkeeping, maintenance and repair, and cooperative governance. During this "interim" period, the city provides needed repairs, upgrading building systems such as plumbing, heating, roof and electrical. After three or four years, if a building is well run, the tenants can purchase it from the city as a low-income, limited-equity co-op for the nominal price of $250 per apartment.

For tenants living in other government-assisted or privately owned housing, paths to tenant ownership vary, and include negotiated sale from the owner and several new city programs to transfer ownership of both city-owned and privately owned, tax-delinquent buildings. Co-op Development.) Whatever the path to co-op ownership, the need for the tenants to organize themselves and negotiate government bureaucracy remains the same.

We are organizing primarily in Central and South Brooklyn, the Lower East Side, Harlem and the South Bronx - the areas with the greatest density of city-owned and distressed property. Families living in city-owned buildings have an average income of $9,700, which rises to just under $15,000 for residents who have completed the process of becoming cooperative home owners. More than ninety percent are African-American or Latino.

Since the inception of the organizing project in 1998, our organizers have reached out to more than 650 city-owned and distressed buildings. They have helped the tenants in more than 110 buildings to take the first steps towards ownership - in approximately two-thirds of these buildings by applying to the city's TIL program, and in one-third through other avenues such as negotiated sale or application to be designated as the new owner under the city's new "Third Party Transfer" program. Most of these tenants would never have considered the opportunity to take control over and purchase their buildings as co-ops without the pro-active outreach efforts of our organizers.

If you would like organizing assistance for your building, contact Dina Levy at 212-479-3302.