Honoring Harriet Putterman |
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Harriet Putterman, a long time Lower East Side activist and Housing Organizer/Policy Analyst for Cooper Square Committee, passed away peacefully in her sleep on April 10th at the age of 87. During her professional career, she was a Community Organizer, a Social Worker, a Fundraiser, and a Housing Policy Analyst.
Harriet was a Cooper Square Committee member since the 1970s, and was involved in CSC’s negotiations with HPD that resulted in a 1990 agreement with the Dinkins Administration to renovate and transfer 20 city-owned buildings to the newly formed Mutual Housing Association to be preserved as permanently affordable housing.
Harriet later moved on to other worthy projects, but returned to Cooper Square about a decade ago. She rejoined our board in 2012, and later became a part time staff member to engage more deeply in our organizing work to fight predatory equity, tenant displacement, and deregulation of rent stabilized housing. Among other major organizing campaigns, she was involved in organizing Croman tenants. This work later prompted the NYS Attorney General to investigate and prosecute the landlord, resulting in an $8 million settlement for the tenants and a prison sentence.
Harriet’s passion was developing new leadership for our organization, and she led work on the city-wide Stand for Tenant Safety (STS) Campaign, which resulted in the passage of a dozen new laws to strengthen tenant protections and safety in occupied buildings undergoing renovation. She helped organize a series of leadership trainings that we conducted over the past several years that brought new leaders into our organizing campaigns and onto our Steering Committee. She mentored organizers at CSC and within the housing justice movement, some of which have been engaged in impactful organizing work around the need for stronger laws to prevent lead poisoning in apartments, ending warehousing, and fighting against illegal hotels. More recently she had been involved in the Housing Justice for All’s (HJ4A) work to call for concrete rent arrears assistance by NYS amidst the Covid19 pandemic, which has caused over 1 million New Yorkers to fall behind in their rent.
Harriet had many interests. She enjoyed painting portraits, going to the theater, and she owned several Labrador Retrievers over the years that she loved dearly. She had a quick wit and loved to laugh, so it is no surprise that she had a wide circle of friends, many of them activists in the housing justice movement. She once traveled to Cuba as part of a delegation of activists in the 1970s that met with government officials, including Fidel Castro. Harriet recalled with a laugh about how he flirted with her and had asked his aides who she was.
Rest in power, Harriet!
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Public Bank Town Hall Recap |
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Progressives Call for Local Public Banks to Help Lead Recovery, Advance Racial and Economic Justice
On Tuesday April 13, Cooper Square Committee and community, labor, and cooperative groups from across the state joined NYS Senate Banks Chair James Sanders Jr. and NYS Assembly Banks Chair Victor M. Pichardo to rally for the “New York Public Banking Act” (S1762A/A5782). The bill creates a regulatory framework for New York cities, counties and regions seeking to establish local public banks—financial institutions created by cities and counties, and accountable to the people.
Fifty state legislators have endorsed the bill, joining more than 100 organizations waging a statewide public banking campaign to advance racial equity and ensure a just recovery. Through public banking, local governments can divest from Wall Street banks and leverage public deposits to invest in critical community needs, including permanently-affordable housing, small and worker-owned businesses, renewable energy, and more.
We're urging Albany to build on major progressive victories in the budget, including increased taxes on the mega-rich and equitable legalization of cannabis. As local governments seek new ways to address the COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis, local public banks would be mission-driven and charter-bound to promote racial justice, cooperative and community-led development, and ecological sustainability.
Under current state law, localities seeking to establish public banks must apply for a commercial bank charter. This forces local governments to retrofit their public bank business models into a regulatory system that was designed for private, for-profit enterprises. California recently established a regulatory framework for local public banking, and several cities, including San Francisco, are now in the early stages of establishing municipal banks. Speakers said it is time for New York to help usher in democratic financial institutions that can meet the needs of New York’s communities, particularly those hardest hit by COVID-19.
Multiple coalitions from across the state are driving the movement for local public banking in New York, including the NYS Community Equity Agenda, Public Bank NYC, and Rochester Public Banking Coalition. For more information, please visit publicbanknyc.org.
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Join CSC and lawyers from Brooklyn Legal Corp A on Tuesday April 20 at 10 AM. Grab a coffee at the Roost and learn about your rights as a commercial tenant. If you can't make it in person you can join for the lawyers' presentation on Zoom (but you'll have to byo coffee). If you have any questions or need immediate assistance with your commercial lease, email abigaile@coopersquare.org or call (347) 830-7014.
Únase a CSC y a los abogados de Brooklyn Legal Corp A el martes 20 de abril a las 10 de la mañana. Tome un café en The Roost y conozca sus derechos como inquilino comercial. Si no puede asistir en persona, puede unirse a la presentación de los abogados por Zoom (pero tendrá que traer su propio café). Si tiene alguna pregunta o necesita ayuda inmediata con su arrendamiento comercial, envíe un correo electrónico a abigaile@coopersquare.org o llame al (347) 830-7014.
Interpretación en español disponible
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Eviction Moratorium Extended:
Fill Out Your Hardship Declaration
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Recently, NYS passed the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 (S.9114/A.11181). This Act has extended New York State’s Eviction Moratorium, and as a result of it getting passed in the State Legislature everyone is now safe from being evicted at this current time, but it’s important to note that landlords can still file new eviction cases against tenants whose ongoing behavior disturbs other tenants in their building, or tenants who cause a substantial safety hazard, but regardless, any new case started by a landlord between December 28, 2020 and January 27, 2021, will automatically be paused for 60 days,
NYS’s COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 is currently one of the strongest Eviction Moratoriums in the country, and as a result of its passage, all evictions and related new eviction case proceedings have been suspended until at least Friday, February 26. An additional two months of protection will be provided until Saturday, May 1st, but this extension is not automatically provided, tenants will need to fill out a Hardship Declaration Form. It is crucial that all tenants fill out a Hardship Declaration Form, or else they will be giving up their protections and could possibly face eviction after February 26.
Please note: if you’re planning to fill out a Hardship Declaration Form, we encourage all who participate to follow this simple step: after completing the form, you should not only proofread it prior to its submission, also make sure to print a hard copy for your personal records, and/or save an electronic version of the completed form on your computer, tablet or smartphone. It’s always good to have a backup copy for your personal records.
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The COVID-19 vaccine is now available to more groups in NYC!
- As of April 6, all New York residents over 16 are eligible
If you prefer, you can also call 877-VAX-4NYC (877-829-4692) to make an appointment at NYC sites.
If you would like help scheduling your vaccine appointment,
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Other Information and Resources |
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The City recently had its first Ranked Choice Voting elections, in CDs 24 and 31 in Queens and CDs 11 and 15 in the Bronx. Ranked Choice Voting is a new system of voting in which you can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, which will now be used in all primary and special elections.
On June 22, NYC voters will use RCV citywide in a pivotal Primary Election. This June Primary will decide the outcomes of many critical races, including for Mayor, Public Advocate, Comptroller, Borough Presidents, and all 51 City Council seats. New York State lags behind many others when it comes to voter turnout, and the implementation of a new system of voting makes public education more important this year.
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Self-care is being able to breathe, to pay your bills, to eat well, to move with ease, to talk to someone you trust. In a world where the health concerns of Black and Brown people are ignored, and where medical care is a luxury, self-care is also necessary to survival. That’s why the Lower East Side Girls Club launched the Center for Wellbeing and Happiness to provide free, intergenerational programs focused on physical, spiritual, emotional, social, economic, environmental, and educational wellness.
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1 in 2 NYC households are eligible for FREE tax prep. Are you?
Use NYC Free Tax Prep to file for free and keep your whole refund.
If you earned $68,000 or less in 2020, learn how you can file for free— including from home — with the help of an IRS certified VITA/TCE volunteer preparer. Preparers can help you file your taxes safely now and transmit the returns to the IRS when they open the tax season on Friday, February 12, 2021. Please note that any preparer promising a tax refund BEFORE February 12 may be selling you a Refund Anticipation Loan (RAL), which may come with fees and high interest rates.
Services are available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian Creole, Korean, and Russian. Additional languages are available through phone interpretation.
Learn more at nyc.gov/taxprep or call 311 and ask for tax preparation assistance.
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- Contact a mental health counselor at 1-888-NYC-Well (1-888-692-9355) or text “Well” to 65173
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Support Cooper Square When Shopping Online |
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If you shop online, Amazon Smile allows shoppers to designate a charity of your choice. When making purchases at www.smile.amazon.com, 0.5% of your purchase (with no added cost to you) is donated to the selected charity. Once you go on smile.amazon.com, you can add Cooper Square Committee as your preferred charity. It’s as simple as that.
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