Shadow Eviction: What’s Happening to the City’s Neighborhood Service Organizations

As the deadline for the expiration of the rent laws ticked close, Mayor Bill de Blasio was there to sound the alarm. Even though their long-term renewal is virtually guaranteed, and periodic lapses have occurred in previous years, he loudly proclaimed that “if rent regulation expires, it’s the end of New York City as we know it,” and warned of mass evictions taking place.

Landlords prefer to work in the shadows; the tenant movement needs sunlight to succeed. The mayor was absolutely right to raise hell.

But across the city, there’s another mass eviction underway: the social service agencies that are a safety net for millions of New Yorkers. I’m talking about the nonprofits that have served their local communities for decades, providing culturally sensitive education, day care, nutritious meals, legal services and everything in between. They assist poor families in neighborhoods government has neglected, and help longtime residents hold on to their homes in rapidly gentrifying parts of the city. They give single parents the opportunity to earn a living, knowing that their kids are well cared for.

At least 14 providers are on the cusp of eviction right now. But this time, the only response from City Hall is radio silence.

How is this happening? The root cause is that groups that have received city funding for decades, many run by blacks, Latinos and members of the diverse populations they serve, are suddenly losing government contracts to outside organizations moving in on fresh territory.

How are these organizations getting beaten? It’s all about assessment scores that the Administration for Children’s Services and other agencies use to award competitively bid contracts.

But it’s not that scores for the groups facing eviction have necessarily declined, it’s that the game has changed. The advantage in securing these contracts has skewed from these small and minority-owned service organizations to larger entities with high executive compensation, connected lobbyists and deep capital reserves. One measure that particularly seems to hurt small providers’ scores is ‘organizational capacity,’ which is worth up to 15 points, giving larger providers a leg up.

Take Nasry Michelen Day Care in West Harlem: It’s been offering free bilingual day care to a primarily Dominican clientele since 1980. And it’s been successful—ACS gave it a 91 percent score on its latest assessment. And even that impressive score doesn’t award any specific credit for the deep local understanding and connection they’ve built through decades of hard work.

But instead of guaranteeing their future, ACS is uprooting them from the community they know and replacing them with an untested outsider. While well intentioned, the new awardee, Lutheran Social Services, does not have this deep understanding of the parents and kids they’ll soon be expected to serve. LSS is a growing organization, rapidly expanding across the city—it’s hard to understand how they can be expected to familiarize themselves with all of these new communities simultaneously.

City Councilman Mark Levine has asked ACS to overturn its decision and keep Nasry Michelen alive. ACS has until June 30 to respond to the appeal. Elsewhere in the city, at least 13 other appeals are underway, particularly in Brooklyn.

A new working group is forming, led by Levine and fellow Councilmen Mathieu Eugene and Steve Levin, and they are seeking the mayor’s direct involvement in this escalating, but unnoticed, crisis. Other Council members, like Laurie Cumbo, Andy King and Antonio Reynoso, are fighting for organizations in their districts.

Individually, these are local issues. But viewed collectively, there’s a clear narrative at work. With rumors of alleged impropriety circling the agency, it’s time for City Council oversight at ACS hearings to find out the truth.

Bertha Lewis is president of The Black Institute.