Substantial Number of Jewish Poor Will Be Tenants in Forest Hills Low-income Project, City Official

Dr. Marvin Schick, Mayor John V. Lindsay’s Assistant for Intergroup Relations, said today that in discussions with Jewish groups concerning the controversial low-income housing project in Forest Hills, top city officials have emphasized that a substantial number of the tenants will be Jewish poor. Dr. Schick also declared that leaders of the Forest Hills Jewish community have been extended invitations to have a major role in the process of tenant selections for the 840-unit low-income project.

He said that offers have been made repeatedly to responsible Jewish community organizations by Simeon Golar, the city’s Housing Authority chairman. An estimated 40 percent of the proposed tenants for the Forest Hills project will be elderly. Since elderly Jews comprise the bulk of Jewish poor in New York City, they will be among those slated for acceptance as tenants in the project. But Dr. Schick stressed that Jewish poor will be included in all types of tenants in the project.

The Mayor’s assistant said he agreed strongly with the proposal made by Murray Zuckoff, Jewish Telegraphic Agency News Editor, in an analysis yesterday in the JTA Daily Bulletin, that Forest Hills Jews–groups and individuals–now fighting the project should be demanding assurances of housing for poor Jews in the Forest Hills project.

In the JTA special analysis yesterday dealing with the situation in Forest Hills, the American Jewish Congress was inadvertently identified as one of the groups accusing the city administration of breaking up Jewish neighborhoods. It was actually the Queens Jewish Community Council which warned that there are Jewish communities “which find themselves in danger of destruction by the thoughtless policies of the Housing Authority.” Dr. Alvin Lashinsky. QJCC president, stated last month that projects “now proposed in neighborhoods that are primarily Jewish will lead to the start of the destruction of the Jewish community of Queens through the movement of Jews away from Forest Hills, Lindenwood and Flushing-Hillcrest.”