Layoff Notices Sent For 200 HA Social Workers

FAYE MOORE: Mixed signals from HA, city.

Layoff notices for social workers in the Housing Authority's community centers, which are due to be closed in February, were mailed out Jan. 2, although confusion remains over whether the Bloomberg administration may take over their operations.

District Council 37 Local 371 estimates that 165 of its members will lose their jobs due to the closing of 18 centers, which the HA says is necessary to fill a budget hole in the year ahead. About 200 at-risk notices were sent out. Local 371 President Faye Moore said that there had been a brief stay of execution during the holiday season, which left the union confused.

Got 4-Week Reprieve

"We had heard on Christmas Eve that the closing of the centers had been canceled," she said. "So that killed [the original closing date] Jan. 23, only for us to come on Jan. 2 and be told the at-risk notices were going out and the deadline was Feb. 20...we're talking about 165 jobs, we're talking huge numbers of children that are expecting their centers to be open from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m."

Ms. Moore countered that some of the centers scheduled to be closed were already operating on a shoestring, with no sign of help on the way from city agencies. "The centers in Manhattan are already closed. In The Bronx, one center that's scheduled to be closed is manned by one person and is servicing 40 to 50 kids," she said. "They have not been notified when the centers are going to close. And they have not notified the parents."

'We Haven't Heard Anything'

Because there still has not been a formal meeting between Local 371 and HA to resolve the closings and discuss the possible passing of the torch to other agencies, Ms. Moore said she was uncertain as to what would happen next. "When the announcement [on the closing] came in November 2008, they named five mayoral agencies that would take over," she said. "We represent people who would do that work or oversee that work in all five named agencies, and we haven't heard anything."

Ms. Moore said that the confusion about the centers' future was indicative of the city's attitude towards them. "There's an underlying current that it's permissible to play around with these services because these people are poor," she said. "Most of the people in public housing are tax-payers, so to be this dismissive of people's tax dollars is really unconscionable."

She added that Local 371 would continue to investigate ways to prop up the community centers, in particular by pursuing $18 million in City Council funding that is sitting in the Department for the Aging's coffers. "[HA's] claim to the union is that these layoffs and closings will save them $20 million," said Ms. Moore, who wondered why the Council's money, allocated for the centers in Fiscal Year 2009, couldn't close this gap instead.

"We're gearing up to continue doing what we began doing in the fall, which is talking to the Legislature, talking to the community groups and resident tenant groups, to let them to know that we have to fight every way we can," she said. "They continue to pay the city for police services, water services, sanitation services. Meanwhile [HA's] taking services away from the residents. They will end up paying for a lack of services in housing developments, because it's going to bring down the quality of life."