The Reality of Jewish Poverty in New York

One of the major issues that UJA-Federation is faced with to this day is Jewish poverty.  Jewish poverty has been a concern to Federation of Jewish Philanthropies (FJP) and UJA-Federation (UJF) throughout its long history.  One agency in particular that FJP funded and UJA-Federation continues to fund that deals primarily with the issue of Jewish poverty is the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty (later the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty).  The files of this agency can be found in the annual agency budget files of FJP as well as UJF, starting in the 1978-1979 fiscal year as a subvention and later becoming a part of the Community Relations/Development files in the 1980s.  The files continue through the 1990s.  Files pertaining to Jewish poverty can also be found in the Budget Department Subject Files, in the Sanford Solender-William Kahn Subject Files, and in the Stephen Solender Subject Files.

In 1972, it was estimated that the number of impoverished Jews stood at approximately 300,000 people, most likely as a result of the 1971 Jewish population survey.  This statistic helped prompt the establishment of the Metropolitan Council in 1972 and its mission was “to combat poverty in Jewish neighborhoods through community-based offices on a city-wide basis.”  The agency’s mission was carried out in a two-fold manner.  First, social services agencies provided information and referral and crisis oriented services and second through community development programs which served to combat crime, improve housing and generate community policy in targeted areas.

In the UJF subgroup, during the 1990-1991 fiscal year, the Metropolitan Council provided services for the elderly, homeless and Jewish poor of New York in conjunction with 21 UJF-funded locally based Jewish Community Councils.  The Jewish Community Councils assisted the poor in their communities in obtaining essential services from government and private agencies such as Medicare, Medicaid, Public Assistance, SSI, Food Stamps, housing, employment, legal services, transportation and escort services, clothing and furniture.  The Met Council administered these programs in conjunction with the New York City Departments for the Aging, Human Resources Administration and the Community Development Agency, as well as UJA-Federation.

The Met Council also provided various neighborhood preservation services.  Crime prevention, housing issues and community policy were addressed in coalition groups with local synagogues, government offices and civic groups.  Funding for neighborhood preservation efforts came from the Department of Housing Preservation and Development of New York City and the State Department of Housing and Community Renewal.

Currently, Met Council works in conjunction with 25 locally based JCCs. The release of UJA-Federation of New York’s 2011 population study published in consultation with Met Council, “The Jewish Community Study”, is published on the Met Council website (accessible here).  On their website, it is stated that currently “the Met Council serves over 100,000 clients on site and throughout our network of Jewish Community Councils in each of the City’s five boroughs. From affordable housing, capacity building initiatives, career services, crisis intervention, and family violence services, to health insurance enrollment assistance, home care programs, home services, immigrant services, and kosher food distribution, Met Council continues to be the voice of New York’s poor and working poor.”

In the UJA-Federation of New York’s 2011 Executive Summary of this survey (http://www.ujafedny.org/get/196901/download), it was mentioned that today “nearly 1 in 5 Jewish households is poor today, with incomes under 150% of the federal poverty guideline, and the proportion of poor Jewish households is higher than it was 10 years ago.  The relative increase has been especially dramatic in the suburbs, where 10 years ago there was very little Jewish poverty.  In the eight-county area, 130,000 Jewish households are poor.  In terms of individuals, 361,000 people (both Jews and non-Jews) live in poor Jewish households.  About 19% of all Jewish households are poor, as are 20% of all people in Jewish households — a considerable increase since 2002, when 15% of people in Jewish households in the New York area lived in poverty.  Jewish poverty has increased considerably in the suburbs, but it is still greatest in New York City, where 24% of Jewish households and 27% of all people in Jewish households are poor (compared with 20% of all people in New York City Jewish households living in poverty in 2002).  An additional 1 in 10 Jewish households is “near poor” — households with incomes between 150% and 250% of the federal poverty guideline.  Beyond the people living in poor Jewish households, an additional 204,000 people can be classified as near poor.  Thus, 565,000 people living in Jewish households in New York are affected by poverty.”

In an email newsletter (“The Reality of Jewish Poverty in New York”) dispensed by John Ruskay, CEO of UJA-Federation of New York, nearly two weeks ago and accessible here, he mentioned that Jewish poverty is a painful reality in the New York community.  He cited the above statistics and talked about the magnitude of the numbers and why it is so difficult to comprehend.   In order to highlight the magnitude of poverty, Ruskay provided several examples such as the Masbia restaurant-style soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens run by the Met Council on Jewish Poverty and Project ORE operated by the Educational Alliance in Lower Manhattan.  He went on to mention how hundreds of people wait for hours on line for a package of groceries provided by the Met Council.  Finally, he stated that we must be a caring community and that no agency or philanthropy will eradicate Jewish poverty, but only through our eyes and hearts that we can make things better.

This day in Federation of Jewish Philanthropies history…

While processing some of the Federation’s Communal Planning Committee folders, I encountered an invitation for the dedication of the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds in Staten Island, held on June 14, 1953. The invitation indicated that the day campground provided “city youngsters with camping experience in a natural rustic environment without the trying break of family ties which comes when a young child is sent to a summer residence camp.”

The dedication ceremony featured speeches from the President of the Federation, Milton Weill, and Oscar-awarded actress Kim Hunter (who, along with Roddy McDowall, was in the film Planet of the Apes). Attendees of the dedication ceremony could have toured the swimming pool, the lodge, eight rainy day shelters, two athletic fields, nature trails, fishing ponds, and more. As the invitation explains, the Henry Kaufmann Campgrounds were part of a much larger program to build day camping sites to accommodate 3,500 children in facilities just outside of the city.

Dated June 14, 1953

Admittedly, the date of dedication ceremony was what caught my eye…today is exactly sixty years later.

Doodles redux

One more related doodle showed up this week, again in the Budget Department files.  Oddly, it is very similar to the doodles in last week’s post.  We’re wondering if this indicates that the doodling member of the department staff in 1975/76 was still in the department in 1990/91, or if there was a simply a departmental doodle style.

Budget Department Annual Agency Files, Educational Alliance, 1990-1991

Doodles

Members of the FJP Budget Department attended many meetings in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; their attendance is reflected in the Budget Department Subject Files subseries: many notes made on yellow lined paper, on agendas, worksheets and on the meeting minutes themselves.  Meetings attended include Distribution Committee meetings, various subcommittee meetings, individual agency budget meetings and departmental budget meetings.  Below is a worksheet for one of the camps funded by FJP from 1959:

Camp Isabella Freedman Budget Worksheet, 1959

At some meetings dealing also with Greater New York Fund (GNYF) budgetary issues, someone or various someones perhaps helped their concentration by doodling.  The notes below have doodles from meetings in the 1970s.

Notes from meeting with Budget Director, Jack Applebaum, 1975

Distinctive red ball point pen doodle:

Notes from Greater New York Fund Campaign, 1976

All three of these doodles could have been made by men or women;  I’d like to think they were made by one or more of the three women who were in the department at least in the 1960s-1970s (in Bea Newman’s case, she worked in the department from 1956 to 1994) – signs that their thoughts were straying to that evening’s visit to the hair salon or dress shop.  Each of these three also had signed correspondence in some of the Budget Department Subject folders in the 1960s: Bea Newman, who handled a lot of the GNYF correspondence for both Saltz and Applebaum , Mrs. Getzler and Miss F. (Frances) Klein.

We hope to find more examples of doodling at meetings as we get further into the collection.