The high cost of building affordable housing in New York, and cities like it, has long been a topic of urgent debate. Yet despite its paramount importance and the endless work of public and private groups to find ways to provide it, affordable housing continues to be an elusive commodity in New York City―and increasingly so in our current economic and political climate. In a timely, captivating memoir, Carol Lamberg weighs in on this vital issue with the lessons she learned and the successes she won while working with the Settlement Housing Fund, where she was executive director from 1983 until 2014. Lamberg provides a unique perspective on the great changes that have swept the housing arena since the curtailment of the welfare state in the 1970s, and spells out what is needed to address today's housing problems.
In a tradition of "big city" social work memoirs stretching back to Jane Addams, Lamberg reflects on the social purpose, vision, and practical challenges of the projects she's been involved in, while vividly capturing the life and times of those who engaged in the creation and maintenance of housing and those who have benefited from it. Using a wealth of interviews with managers and residents alike, alongside the author's firsthand experiences, this book depicts examples of successful community development between 1975 and 1997 in the Bronx and on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the "West Bronx Story," Lamberg details the painful but ultimately exhilarating development of eighteen buildings that comprise New Settlement Apartments―a dramatic transformation of a devastated neighborhood into a thriving community. In "A Tale of Two Bridges," the author depicts a different path to success, along with its particular challenges. The redevelopment of this area on the Lower East Side involved six different Federal housing programs and consisted of six residential sites, a running track, and a large scale supermarket. To this day, forty years later, all the buildings remain strong.
With Neighborhood Success Stories, Lamberg offers a roadmap to making affordable housing a reality with the key ingredients of dogged persistence, group efforts, and creative coalition building. Her powerful memoir provides hope and practical encouragement in times that are more challenging than ever.
Lamberg, Carol: - Carol Lamberg started working on Settlement Housing Fund in 1969 and becameExecutive Director from 1983 until she retired in February, 2014. Before that, shewas Vice President of Roger Schafer Associates, a housing consultants, and in thatcapacity worked for the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, KnickerbockerHospital and Settlement Housing Fund, among others. Ms. Lamberg was also StaffDirector and co-founder of the New York Housing Conference before becomingCo-Chair from 2008 until 2016. She is now the only Life Trustee. In that capacity, she had drafted amendments to several housing laws.She has written policy studies and articles for housing and architectural journals, op-ed articles, and hastestified before legislative bodies, commissions, and government agencies. She was Regional Vice Presidentof the National Housing Conference. She is on the boards of the New Settlement Apartments, RISE, Rockaway, the Two Bridges Neighborhood Council, and the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.She is a graduate of Radcliffe College and was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. She received theLifetime Achievement award from the New York Housing Conference in 2013. She has also won awardsfrom the National Housing Conference, Citizens Housing and Planning Council, LISC, Flemister House, Hamilton Madison House, and the American Institute of Architects of New York. Carol Lamberg lives inManhattan with her partner, Prof. Donald Pfaff.
