Probe Proves Charge Poor Jews Not Getting Fair Share in Anti-poverty Programs

The Association of Jewish Anti-Poverty Workers reported today that a six-week-long investigation under federal auspices of poverty programs in New York City has substantiated charges that poor Jews in the city were not getting their “fair share” in such programs. The investigation stemmed from testimony by S. Elly Rosen, executive director of the Jewish anti-poverty group, before a House subcommittee on manpower and poverty, which held a series of meetings here. Rosen testified on July 25 on a lengthy list of grievances by poor Jews against alleged mistreatment in the programs. He said there had been physical violence against Jews seeking to vote in anti-poverty elections; lack of Jewish representation on boards of anti-poverty agencies in neighborhoods with large Jewish populations; and “inadequate and disproportionate funding” for the needs of the Jewish poor. As a result, Rosen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a high-level investigation was ordered of the whole range of poverty programs in New York City.

Rep. James Scheuer, New York Democrat, called a meeting at his office in Washington on Aug. 2 which was attended by officials of the Office of Economic Opportunity, the federal anti-poverty agency; the General Accounting Office, the federal government’s highest investigating agency; and the Human Resources Administration, the New York City super-agency which directs anti-poverty programs as part of its responsibilities. At that meeting, it was reported that HRA officials had conceded that Rosen’s charges were “fundamentally correct.” Subsequently, Rep. Scheuer demanded a full report by Sept. 1 on the probe in New York City. Investigators of the OEO and the GAO have been in New York City checking out records, interviewing city officials in an investigation of Rosen’s charges since the June 25 subcommittee hearing. Rosen said that, at a meeting this week the federal investigators, it was disclosed that while the formal report will not be ready for release before Sept. 1, findings to date indicate that poor New York City Jews are being discriminated against in the anti-poverty pro- grams. In a letter to Jules Sugarman, HRA administrator, the Jewish poverty workers group warned that Jews would “no longer tolerate discrimination and tokenism. We aim to get our fair share.”

Rosen said the Jewish anti-poverty association was formed about a year and a half ago, comprised of Jews employed by anti-poverty and other government programs serving the poor in New York City. Rosen said that its members had learned that “officialdom could not care less” about the “horrible contempt and disregard for the poor Jews who still reside in the poverty areas of our city.” He said that Jews comprised the third largest poverty group in New York after blacks and Puerto Ricans but that too many people had a “stereotype” that Jews generally were “rich and well cared for” and found it hard to conceive “of dire Jewish poverty in our midst.” He said there are 26 officially-designated poverty areas in the city in which locally-elected Community Corporations prepare anti-poverty programs and dispense funds for them under the general direction of the Community Development Agency, the main city operational agency for anti-poverty programs. The CDA reports to the HRA which in turn reports to the OEO on such programs. He said that while 15 of the 26 poverty areas contain large groups of poor Jewish residents–in addition to Jews living in “pockets of poverty” in transitional neighborhoods–only five of the Community Corporations have Jewish representation. Of those five, he said, three have one Jewish representative each on their boards–those on the Lower East Side, the Upper West Side and Coney Island.