Housing 
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Thu May 06, 2010 at 15:58:28 PM EDT
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"Through a golf ball-sized hole drilled into a front window, Keith Sadler has a message for banks foreclosing on people like him who fall behind on their mortgage payments..."
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Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 12:06:12 PM EDT
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In a strong article in the April 30 issue of Forward, Rabbi Jill Jacobs raises a difficult question: to what extent should the Jewish community hold bad landlords accountable? While in rabbinical school, I volunteered with two tenants’ rights organizations in Harlem and Brooklyn. I also spent hours investigating Jewish laws of landlord-tenant relations. I would talk to the other organizers and members about my discoveries: the obligations of landlords to keep their buildings in livable condition, to provide sufficient notice prior to evictions and to avoid evictions when substitute housing would be impossible to find. I spoke of the inspiration that I found in Jewish texts and in the Jewish historical experience of homelessness. And inevitably, heartbreakingly, someone would say to me, “Jill, you’re telling us that Judaism says all of these great things about how landlords should treat their tenants. So why is it that my landlord, a religious Jew, won’t turn on the heat?” Or worse: “You’re the first Jew I’ve ever met who’s not a slumlord.”... Will Jewish organizations continue to accept donations from landlords whose wealth comes at the expense of guaranteeing safe living conditions for their tenants? Will these landlords continue to be accorded positions of honor in their Jewish communitiess? Or are we finally ready for teshuvah?
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 20:55:02 PM EDT
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I was in Baltimore this Tuesday for the annual meeting of investors in an exciting project led by TRF Development Partners Baltimore, and BUILD, the Baltimore IAF affiliate, both long time partners of JFSJ. Together TRF and BUILD, led by a coalition of primarily African-American churches, are building housing and businesses for lower income ownership in East Baltimore, restoring hope in their community and bringing a long depressed urban area back to life. The most exciting new piece of the project, recently unveiled at a press event with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan and National Endowment for the Arts Director Rocco Landsmen, is the City Arts development site, just two blocks east of Baltimore's Penn Station. This site, scheduled to open in December 2010, will provide affordable rental apartments for lower income artist, townhouses for sale, studio space, and professionally managed gallery and performance space. In a challenging economic time, when construction is down and jobs are tight, TRF and BUILD are
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Fri Jul 31, 2009 at 12:32:31 PM EDT
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Cross-posted from jbooks.com
Perhaps now is a good time to redefine the term "displaced person." Consider the remarks a former homeowner made in the New York Times, "It's amazing--when you have a home, you're thinking about vacations, or who you’re going to have over for dinner, or when should you do spring cleaning,” said Jody Crispin, adding: “When you don’t have a home, you don’t think about any of that stuff. All you think about is when I’m going to have a home again?” To make matters worse, Crispin told the Times that she had already missed several days of work, out of embarrassment at the prospect of admitting her housing situation to her colleagues, and now risked losing her job.
Once upon a time in America, a person who worked full time and saved carefully could reasonably expect to buy a home for his or her family. This home might not be large or fancy, and might be in a remote area, but home ownership remained in the grasp of most families.
Today, of course, many who realized the American dream of owning a home now face foreclosure, high debt, and uncertainty about the future. This destabilization of the norm has effects far beyond the realm of housing: people living with relatives or friends, in temporary housing, or under the threat of foreclosure may find themselves ill-able to manage other areas of life.
Jews are no strangers to the feeling of displacement that Crispin identifies. Throughout history, Jewish communities have moved from place to place in search of a secure and permanent home. These wanderings began with the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the subsequent expulsion of most Jews from Jerusalem, and continued through the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and other countries in the Middle Ages; escape from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe; and flight from Iran, Algeria, Afghanistan, and other places where the political climate became hostile to Jews in the 20th century.
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Thu Jul 30, 2009 at 10:13:26 AM EDT
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Cross-posted from jbooks.com Perhaps now is a good time to redefine the term "displaced person." Consider the remarks a former homeowner made in the New York Times, "It's amazing, when you have a home, you're thinking about vacations, or who you're going to have over for dinner, or when should you do spring cleaning,” said Jody Crispin, adding, "When you don't have a home, you don't think about any of that stuff. All you think about is when I'm going to have a home again?" To make matters worse, Crispin told the Times that she had already missed several days of work, out of embarrassment at the prospect of admitting her housing situation to her colleagues, and now risked losing her job.
Once upon a time in America, a person who worked full time and saved carefully could reasonably expect to buy a home for his or her family. This home might not be large or fancy, and might be in a remote area, but home ownership remained in the grasp of most families.
Today, of course, many who realized the American dream of owning a home now face foreclosure, high debt, and uncertainty about the future. This destabilization of the norm has effects far beyond the realm of housing: people living with relatives or friends, in temporary housing, or under the threat of foreclosure may find themselves ill-able to manage other areas of life.
Jews are no strangers to the feeling of displacement that Crispin identifies. Throughout history, Jewish communities have moved from place to place in search of a secure and permanent home. These wanderings began with the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE and the subsequent expulsion of most Jews from Jerusalem, and continued through the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, and other countries in the Middle Ages; escape from Nazi Germany and occupied Europe; and flight from Iran, Algeria, Afghanistan, and other places where the political climate became hostile to Jews in the 20th century.
Jewish communities have experienced this intermittent homelessness not only as a material crisis, but also as an existential one. The liturgy, literature, and rituals that commemorate the numerous expulsions and escapes speak not only of a longing for physical safety, but also of a sense of loneliness and emotional displacement.
This commingling of emotional pain with concern for physical comfort and safety is most apparent in the literature and traditions of Tisha B’Av, the holiday that commemorates the destruction of the two Temples, and that has come to be understood as a day of mourning for dozens of tragedies throughout Jewish history.
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Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 23:40:45 PM EDT
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Because when you lose your job, it is easier to move if you rent. If you own your home, you may well be stuck; particularly if the value of your home has plummeted below the cost of your mortgage (known as "negative equity"). Full analysis here.
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Discuss
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Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 22:51:36 PM EDT
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( - promoted by Mik Moore)
In this week’s parashah we come across the following case: if a homeowner notices some kind of mold on the interior walls of his house, he should immediately inform the priest (local authority). The priest comes to the house and If, when he examines the plague, the plague in the walls of the house is found to consist of greenish or reddish streaks that appear to go deep into the wall the priest shall come out of the house... and close up the house for seven days. On the seventh day the priest shall return. If he sees that the plague has spread on the walls of the house, the priest shall order the stones with the plague in them to be pulled out and cast outside the city... The house shall be scraped inside all around, and the coating that is scraped off shall be dumped outside the city in an unclean place. They shall take other stones and replace those stones with them, and take other coating and plaster the house. (Lev 14: 37-42; JPS)
After the priest has confirmed the safety of the house, he leads a ritual through which expiation is made on behalf of the house for God and the home is deemed fit for habitation. How is it that expiation could be made on behalf of a house when in every other case
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Wed Jan 14, 2009 at 10:58:20 AM EST
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I am generally skeptical when people claim that something they have observed "could only happen in New York." Thinking that things happen only in New York is part of our charming, big city parochialism. And yet... reading the New York Times the other day, I came across this gem in a piece about a dispute over a very famous residential building on the Upper West Side called the Apthorp.
The original operating agreement for the property required that if problems arose and the board members could not reach unanimous agreement, they would handle the case through arbitration in a rabbinical court, or beth din. But so far, the two sides have been unable to agree on what branch of Judaism they want to hear their case: Mr. Leviev wants an Orthodox panel and Mr. Mann wants a Conservative panel. The sticking point is over which branch would have the greater experience in commercial matters.
If the two sides do not reach an agreement by Wednesday, a lawyer for Mr. Leviev says he will ask a State Supreme Court judge to decide what kind of rabbi should arbitrate the case. An Apollo spokeswoman declined to comment.
If I read this correctly, the original operating agreement should date from 1908, when the building first opened. I can only assume this was a common practice at the time, but admit to knowing nothing about how it actually worked. Even more interesting, from my perspective, is the body of law that emerged from these arbitrations. Does the beit din have anything to say about this:
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Thu Jun 12, 2008 at 17:30:16 PM EDT
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( - promoted by Hannah Farber)
Determined to take advantage of the time I got off for Shavuot, I stayed up all night at the JCC on Sunday, and on Monday headed down to see "The Isle of the Klezbos" peform in their 10th annual KlezBiGay Pride Show! held at the El Sol Brilliante Garden. I listened, and hummed along, to some quality music, interspersed with personal stories and histories which added each woman’s personal connection to the roots of Yiddish music and Ashkenazi Jewish history in New York. A beloved Florence received a dedication, for writing the grant which founded the park in commemoration of 3 tenement house plots which used to stand there. By playing in the garden, the Klezmer band was keeping alive the memory of this prior generation of Jewish immigrants. This celebration of yiddishe culture and way of life, was reinvigorating the past with the reality of today.
This tension is ever present in New York City. There I was, perched in a tree, listening to a queer Klezmer band, although “There is not even a word in Yiddish for "lesbian", and remembering the tenements, while surrounded by public housing projects and new condos. How did we get from shtetl Klezmer to PRIDE Klezmer, and from tenements to projects; and what does it mean to remember and commemorate that transition?
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