PEP, May 2007: Residency on the menu at City council breakfast

BY DIANE S. WILLIAMS

District Council 37 outlined its top legislative priorities to lawmakers March 21 at its annual City Council breakfast.

Intro. 452 — the bill to expand the area where many city workers must live by adding six surrounding counties — affordable housing, access to quality child care and combating homelessness were issues discussed at the breakfast, which brought over 40 City Council members and staff and DC 37 local leaders and executive board members to the union. The session gave the unionists an excellent face-to-face opportunity to explain DC 37’s position on these issues affecting members to the politicians.

“Equity is our number one issue,” DC 37 Associate Director Oliver Gray told the assembled city legislators. “For 20 years Police Officers, Firefighters, Sanitation Workers and Teachers have had the right to live where they choose. For too long our members have been denied that right. This is our civil rights moment, and this is your chance to correct a longstanding inequity.”

Partners for progress
Passing Intro. 452 would let city employees live in Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester counties, redressing the current two-tier system, said DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams.

Currently most DC 37 members must live in the five boroughs. Eighty-five percent of DC 37 members live in New York City — and that figure will probably not change, Gray said, but they should have the same rights as other city employees. About 45,000 DC 37 members would be affected by the change.

Assistant Director Moira Dolan of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept. pressed the union’s campaign for safe, affordable child care: “Subsidized, facilitated enrollment would mean that a family of four earning $53,000 annually would pay $80 rather than $200 a week for quality child care. This would be a win for the family, the city’s economy and the development of the child,” she said.

“DC 37’s successful Municipal Employees Housing Program has helped 1,700 members purchase homes in the city,” said Assistant Associate Director Henry Garrido. “But it is not enough. Affordable housing — there is no bigger quality-of-life issue.” He explained that the average price for a home in the boroughs is $200,000 more than in outer counties.

Garrido called on the City Council members to address the problems of the growing homeless population, including the illegal eviction notices that have hit some DC 37 members living in city shelters.

The union cited the loss of 100,000 apartments to vacancy decontrol as one of the main reasons for the current housing crisis, urged the council to budget a renters’ credit that would benefit 1.3 million people, and called for repeal of the state Urstadt Law, which prohibits the city from passing better rent laws.

“We have a long and deep relationship with DC 37,” said Majority Whip Leroy Comrie. “What’s important is that we hear your message and have an open and honest discourse on the residency issue.”

Although DC 37’s decades-old partnership with the council has not frayed, DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts expressed concern about the council’s reluctance to pass Intro. 452. “A lot of you are sitting on the fence on the residency issue,” said Roberts, who vowed to continue to press for Intro. 452. “We will deliver on our promise. We are coming with a mighty force.”