Leonard Grunstein responds to NY Times front page article

Leonard Grunstein recently wrote a letter to the editor responding to a New York Times front page article, Public Housing in City Reaches a Fiscal Crisis.” Grunstein cites the articles as being further proof that the NYC Housing Authority can no longer rely on its current financial model.

According to Grunstein, the deficit faced by the agency is too great to solve the city’s current housing problems. “Rather than using costly government grants and subsidies to keep a flawed agency on life support, the city needs to tap into the power of capital markets.” Grunstein identifies a few options for taking advantage of capital market wealth, including relying more on public-private partnerships such as that of Battery Park City rather than relying fully on public funding.

To read the full response, “Money for Public Housing,” click here.

 

 

Transformation in the Willowbrook Community

Built during the late 1930s in Staten Island’s Willowbrook neighborhood, the Willowbrook State School was a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities. The school was originally designed for 4,000 residents, but by the mid-1960s had a population of more than 6,000 patients – making it the largest institution of its kind in the country.

A combination of rising placements, budget cuts, and ignorance resulted in the deplorable conditions Sen. Robert Kennedy famously compared to a “snake pit” after a visit in 1965. But it wasn’t until the early 1970s that the school’s abuse of its residents captured the attention of local and national audiences. In 1971, the Staten Island Advance published a series of articles detailing conditions. Less than a year later, Geraldo Rivera broke into the school using a stolen key and filmed a documentary segment for ABC exposing the squalor in which residents were forced to live.

Following the scandal, residents and their families joined civil libertarians and mental health advocates in a lawsuit against the state “to prevent further deterioration and to establish that residents had a constitutional right to treatment,” according to The New York Times. In April 1975, the parties reached a settlement: conditions at Willowbrook would be improved and current residents would be transferred to new homes. Despite intense opposition in some communities, by 1987, more than 1,000 former residents had been placed in more than 100 different homes.

In 1983, the state announced plans to officially close Willowbrook – by that time renamed the Staten Island Developmental Center. Two years later, construction began on four group homes for more than 70 former residents. Leonard Grunstein spearheaded the charge that resulted in the creation of the complex and negotiated a long-term permit with the state that enabled the creation of a park and ball field that, to this day, continue to benefit the Willowbrook community.

The shutdown of the Willowbrook State School helped transform the way mentally ill and disabled people are treated. In 1965, there were 26,000 mentally and intellectually disabled people in New York living in institutions and only a handful in community residences. By the 1990s, 26,000 were living in almost 5,000 community residences scattered across the state.