Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC) is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
research
Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...
and
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
organization based in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
focused on advancing public policies that support housing and neighborhoods.
Mission
Citizens Housing and Planning Council mission, since 1937, is to develop and advance practical public policies to support the housing stock of the city by better understanding New York’s most pressing housing and neighborhood needs. They undertake research that reveals New York's housing issues and write publications, develop web features, and hold events to educate people on the results of the research and recommendations for policy solutions. CHPC uses
data analysis
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets and approaches, enco ...
and
data visualization
Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is num ...
to support housing.
Work
Citizens Housing and Planning Council was founded in 1937 by a coalition of intellectuals and activists who worked closely with Senator
Robert F. Wagner in crafting the
Housing Act of 1937
The Housing Act of 1937 (), formally the "United States Housing Act of 1937" and sometimes called the Wagner–Steagall Act, provided for subsidies to be paid from the U.S. government to local public housing agencies (LHAs) to improve living cond ...
and its advocacy helped to encourage NYC to maintain economically integrated public housing, well located in neighborhoods with access to services and transportation.
During the 1940s and 1950s, CHPC warned against the ghettoization of the city's growing minority populations and supported litigation and legislation opposing racial discrimination in housing, advocated for development of low-rent and racially integrated housing in the face of local opposition, and fought against attempts to place public housing in isolated areas of the city devoid of basic services. CHPC also stressed the need for preserving and renovating low-rent private housing long before that concept became
conventional wisdom
The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy.
Etymology
The term is often credited to the economist John K ...
CHPC's research helped to shape the City's policies regarding the large inventory of tax-foreclosed housing that was abandoned and left to decline in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1990s and 2000s, CHPC provided the analysis and advice when the City sought to rethink its policies regarding tax
foreclosure
Foreclosure is a legal process in which a lender attempts to recover the balance of a loan from a borrower who has stopped making payments to the lender by forcing the sale of the asset used as the collateral for the loan.
Formally, a mortg ...
and privatization. This led to the successful preservation of this critical housing resource. They also focused on the City's growth, the transformation of the old industrial landscape into mixed-use areas, inclusionary zoning policies, the critical need to address parking, the actual impact and effects of
gentrification
Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and urban planning, planning. Gentrification ...
, tax policies to encourage housing construction and affordability, the importance and impact of regional housing strategy, global Best Practice in affordable housing, and intervention after the global economic crisis.
Recently CHPC's
Making Room
Making Room is an approach to housing policy that seeks to match a city's housing stock with the needs of its households. It was coined in 2009 by Citizens Housing and Planning Council (CHPC), a New York City-based research and education organiza ...
initiative has launched a new approach to housing policy. This initiative spawned an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York.
Making Room exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York
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Staff
CHPC's current executive director is Howard Slatkin. Previous executive directors have included Jessica Katz, Roger Starr
Roger Starr (April 16, 1918 – September 10, 2001) was an intelligence officer during World War II, a businessman active in community organizations, and New York City housing administrator until his removal. Later in life, he became a writer fo ...
and Clarence Stein.
Archives
Over the last seven decades, CHPC has amassed a vast archive of primary source documents, including:
*Early drafts of FDR's New Deal housing programs
*Surveys and reports, from the 19th century onwards, that led to the creation of the Tenement House Act, the establishment of the Tenement House Department
A tenement is a type of building shared by multiple dwellings, typically with flats or apartments on each floor and with shared entrance stairway access. They are common on the British Isles, particularly in Scotland. In the medieval Old Town, ...
, the subsequent creation of the Department of Housing and Buildings, and its later separation into two distinct agencies
*Surveys and reports that set out the details of the work of these departments
*Personal correspondence between CHPC board members and prominent public figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
, Robert Moses
Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was an American urban planner and public official who worked in the New York metropolitan area during the early to mid 20th century. Despite never being elected to any office, Moses is regarded ...
, Fiorello LaGuardia
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from ...
, Al Smith, and William O’Dwyer
*Rare government reports and memoranda
*Legislative debates
*Original site planning and neighborhood analysis for housing developments from the 1930s to the 1960s; particularly public housing
*Surveys from all decades detailing NYC neighborhood populations
*Original marketing brochures for developments
*The first tenant application forms for a variety of public housing sites and subsequent tenant opinion surveys
References
External links
Photographs from an exhibition organized by the Citizens Housing Council of New York, documenting the streets and tenements populated by the city's poor as they struggled through the Great Depression. From the Collections of the Museum of the City of New York.Official site
{{Authority control
Non-profit organizations based in New York City
Housing in New York City
Urban planning in New York City