Two-year $750,000 Grant to Aid Jewish Poor Stopped by City

The City Administration has stopped a $750,000 two-year grant to aid the Jewish poor nine months after it was approved, it was disclosed today by S. Elly Rosen associate executive director of the Association of Jewish Anti-Poverty Workers (AJAPW).

At the same time. Rabbi Jack Simcha Cohen, executive director of the Metropolitan New York. Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, sent a memorandum to the Council’s board of directors several days ago stating: “As of Sept. 30. all funds for CKA (the city’s Community Development Agency) programs has ceased. MNYCCJP’s request for funds in Oct. were dented with the statement that no additional funds for this project were available.”

As a result, Rosen and Rabbi Cohen explained five programs in Brooklyn, one in Manhattan, two in Queens and one city-wide program previously funded by the CDA and the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) are operating and incurring financial obligations without any authorization of funds from CDA despite the two-year funding commitment.

According to Rosen, the MNYCCJP was in-formed by the New York Council Against Poverty (CAP) last Dec. 28 at the end of the Lindsay Administration, that they would be receiving a two-year grant of $750,000 This was to be part of $6,219,031 granted for various poor ethnic and minority groups for which CAP had already received a check from the OEO.

The $750,000 grant was to be utilized to reach out to non-poverty areas to help locate poor Jews who had previously been neglected by anti-poverty programs because of their location; to strengthen the operation of the MNYCCJP and its affiliates; and to implement neighborhood Jewish community action programs.

TRYING TO SUSTAIN PROGRAMS

When the Administration of Mayor Abraham Beame moved into City Hall, an attempt was made to re-allocate this money into different areas. Rosen said. The move was fought and a temporary six-month compromise was worked out which gave the MNYCCJP $188,750 to operate its programs for that period. This amount. was used to fund eight Jewish Community Councils serving the Jewish poor in their areas and the city-wide AJAPW for outreach to Jewish poor residing in slum areas.

The six-month grant ended Sept. 30 and the MNYCCJP is attempting to sustain the programs with funds available from a separate city Human Resources Administration (HRA) grant, Rosen said. That grant, he noted, has funds available which are less than half the amount used by the nine programs during the past six months., “It has yet to be determined for how long a period the programs can survive with these funds and much of a cut will be incurred,” Rosen said.

Neither James E. Greenidge, chairman of CAP, nor Major R. Owens, commissioner of CDA under the Lindsay Administration, were immediately available for comment. Both officials had informed officers of the MNY CCJP on Dec. 28 that CAP had approved a two-year grant for $750,000 and similar notifications of approval were sent to other grantee agencies.

The eight Jewish Community Council programs affected by the cut-back are in Boro Park, Brighton. Coney Island, Crown Heights, East Flatbush section, all in Brooklyn; Washington Heights-Inwood in Manhattan; Queens and the Rockaway Peninsula; and the city-wide AJAPW program.

Rosen announced that Oct. 27 has been designated by his group as “Jewish Poverty Sunday” with a rally at City Hall Park at 10 a.m. to be followed by a 10-mile “Jewish Poverty Walk-a-Thon” to the Mayor’s official residence at Gracie Park. The event, Rosen said, “is being called to spotlight the plight of 400,000 Jews suffering in poverty in New York City, and to call to the attention of government agencies the demand for equal treatment in poverty programs.”