Manhattan Together (MT)

In Judaism, as Rabbi Hillel put it, we believe “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

What We’ve Accomplished Working with MT

The SAJ has worked directly with MT in many ways:

We evaluated the compliance of polling places with election laws.
We trained poor people in preparing résumés and in interviewing skills so they’d be better equipped to get jobs that pay a living wage.
We interviewed individuals who earned $15,000 a year or under and families who earned $25,000 a year or under to see if they qualified for up to $5,000 a year in earned income tax credit.
When New York City said rats were no longer a problem, we designed a rat survey and stood on street corners asking people if they saw any rats and where, and we turned in our reports to the city.
We surveyed Harlem supermarkets to see if floors and shelves were neat and clean, to look for rat droppings and other vermin and to check food expiration dates. We reported our findings in church newsletters and by word of mouth.
We surveyed parents of children in public middle schools and found our children were getting an enriched curriculum, but those in Spanish Harlem weren’t learning anything in English or Spanish.

What We’re Doing Today

The SAJ currently supports MT’s efforts to provide basic services for poor people.

Through meetings with city housing officials, we help correct such problems as

drug-dealing in buildings.
refrigerators, ventilators and elevators that don’t work.
dirty lobbies.
leaky pipes and roofs.
mold.
rats, roaches and other vermin.

Through meetings with post office officials and politicians, MT secures clean and adequately staffed post offices and the repair of broken mailboxes.

Through meetings with police, MT makes neighborhoods safer by reporting the street locations of drug-dealing and securing more police patrolling of neighborhoods.

To preserve affordable housing, MT gets Legal Aid and stops owners who prey on poor tenants by

not maintaining buildings.
trying to buy tenants out.
getting tenants to sign new leases although their current ones haven’t expired.
applying for rent increases for major capital improvements not made.
refusing to meet with tenant organizations to tell them what they have a right to expect (e.g., Will the building be sold?).

MT also finds out which banks hold the mortgages.

It obtains a copy of each mortgage.
It notifies each bank that it has violated the mortgage because it has not required the building owner to maintain the building in good repair.
It threatens each bank with media coverage.

The outcome: The owner takes action and repairs the building.

How Congregants Can Get Involved

Congregants can contact the SAJ office to reach our MT coordinator for information or check the SAJ calendar for the date, time and location of upcoming MT meetings.