Harvard Alumni - Class of 1961

Hungary, Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Albania.)  He and my mother could not countenance the prospect of suffering yet again, at the hands of foreign invaders,    the utter terror and years of living like rats that they had just barely survived.  For months after the war, my parents visited almost daily the local offices of the Red Cross and the Dutch Civil Registry, trying to learn what had happened to their many friends and relatives. At first, they focused on finding Mom’s sister Margaret and her three children, who had been deported to Bergen-Belsen and were entrained eastward towards a death camp in the final days of the war. By great good fortune all survived, though my aunt was nearly dead from typhus when the family escaped from the train.    

My parents managed to locate Mom’s mother, whom the Resistance had placed in a Catholic residence in Utrecht and who, despite her Jewish background, had apparently converted seamlessly to Catholicism, much to my parents’ amazement.  Mom met her mother in Utrecht shortly after war’s end, hitching a ride on an Amstel River beer barge (there was no public transportation), and then riding on the back of a Resistance member’s bike through the streets of Utrecht.  My grandmother’s conversion was ultimately deprogrammed, but was, for a while, both amusing and a source of serious concern.  

My father’s parents also survived in Utrecht, despite having been jailed near the end of the war when the initials of the name on my grandfather’s false ID did not match those on his wedding ring; fortunately, too late to be transported to a concentration camp.  My brother “Henk” was born, according to my wife’s calculations, virtually nine months to the day after the war ended.  So we think we have a pretty good idea how my parents celebrated the end of the war.  Henk, (birth name Hendrik Jan Ullmann), was named after my “War Parents,” Hendrik and Jannigje Schimmel.

My father, German-born, came to Holland in 1932 after finishing high school in Cologne, just as Hitler was coming to power.  He faced a busy time for two years after the war trying to establish he was a trustworthy person and neither a Nazi sympathizer nor a collaborator.  This was critical to obtaining employment and establishing his eligibility for compensation for wages lost during the war years.  My father’s citizenship also remained in question.  

His April 1940 application for Dutch citizenship, shortly before the Germans attacked Holland, had never been acted on, so he was basically neither a Dutch nor a German citizen (a November 1941 German decree had terminated citizenship of all German Jews living outside Germany). He again sought Dutch citizenship in early 1946, but his application was not acted upon before our family finally managed to emigrate to the U.S. in late 1947.  My father had lost his job when Dutch businesses were forced by the Nazi regime to terminate all Jewish employees, but eventually received compensation for lost wages from that point to the end of the war.  Despite the immense devaluation of Dutch currency, those payments, Mom’s inheritance and the proceeds from selling our home enabled my parents to start a new life in America.

On December 8, 1947, we arrived in the U.S., landing in Hoboken, New Jersey after a 9-day voyage on the Westerdam, a cargo-passenger ship with approximately 140 passengers.  Because we had regular passage, rather than steerage, we did not land at Ellis Island.  My parents had already decided that we should drop the last “n” of our name so we could more readily become assimilated.  Even though we never landed there, I nevertheless tell people we lost that “n” on Ellis Island:  it somehow sounds more authentic. 

I distinctly remember going outside on the deck in the fog and rain with everyone else onboard when we first saw the Statue of Liberty rising out of the mist.  Like the day the war ended, it’s a moment I’ll always remember. When I looked at Mom, tears were streaming down her cheeks.  I heard her utter a phrase that dominated her thoughts throughout her life and that she repeated on many occasions, “We made it; we beat Hitler.”  Yes, we survived, and our lives would go on, with children, families and a future in America.  ▼ 

Of the 107,000 Jews deported from Holland, only about 5,000 returned after the war.  Most deportees had died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Bergen-Belsen or Theresienstadt.

A Country in Harmony by Joan Morthland Hutchins

With political polarization and mutual antipathy becoming increasingly prevalent these days both in the US and some parts of Western Europe, it is somewhat comforting to think about those countries whose populations live in apparent harmony, despite a significant variety of people making up their population.

Norway is a country that has intrigued me for many years during annual and semi- annual visits since 1963, mostly for skiing in the mountains, but originally for a week-long research conference at Oslo University during the “midnight sun” month of June.  Within a fairly homogenous population of about 5 million, most of them historically involved in the farming, fishing and forestry industries, there seem to exist two strikingly contrasting types: one attributable perhaps to the adventurous sea-faring Viking heritage, which in present day form seems apparent in risk-taking 

individuals, in worldwide enterprises exemplified by ship owners, and in the almost ritualistic trips to the mountains undertaken by many Norwegians, especially at Easter, for adventurous treks on skis by day with home brewed moonshine and raucous parties by night.  Summertime, too, draws many people to seaside cabins and active ocean activities 

Of a very different type are what some Americans might see as stolid bureaucratic socialists who enforce the many government regulations.  Negotiating with these individuals can be especially frustrating when you’re trying to buy land (foreigners are seldom allowed to own land), or acquire permits of various sorts.  However, the government’s extensive role in society has had the benign effect of ensuring a very level social hierarchy with open display of wealth much frowned on. 

What unites this varied population is an enormous sense of community that encourages self-reliance, and leads people to work together to help each other in a variety of circumstances.  The 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer were a superb example of the entire country uniting around a shared enterprise, exhibiting the athletic prowess and organizational skills of which Norwegians are justly proud.  Every detail, from transportation instructions for each ticketed event over the two weeks, in three major cities, to the incredibly supportive Norwegian fans, cheering not just their own, but other great athletes as well, was a joy to see. 

A major test of this sense of community came about 20 years earlier when oil was discovered in the North Sea.  The Norwegians were jokingly referred to as the “blue-eyed Arabs” in their tough negotiations with the oil companies, but when it was ultimately determined what should be done with this enormous windfall, the sense of community and an overriding desire for continuity prevailed.  The government essentially made the decision not simply to distribute this largesse to their population, as is done in some other oil producing countries and U.S. states, but rather to carefully invest the income and save for the future.  This has resulted in the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world – over $1 trillion in assets, amounting to $192,307 per Norwegian citizen.  While there was some grumbling that taxes were still as high as ever, the overall sense of wellbeing created by this decision led to a renewed confidence in their social system.

At a time when the costs of healthcare and education are foremost on many Americans’ minds, Norway offers a contrasting model.  Norwegians receive essentially free healthcare, which covers them both at home and abroad.  They pay only a minimum fee of US$30 for a doctor’s visit.  But these fees (including drug co-pays) are capped at US$480 per year: after that, all costs are covered.  Primary and secondary education is free, as are school supplies.  Tuition at public universities is also free, except for a modest administrative fee of US$200/semester.  Tuition at private universities averages around US$10,000-$11,000 a year.  Any university-related costs, including books and accommodations, can be financed with a 30-year government loan, interest-free until graduation and with very low interest thereafter.  But if you complete your degree within a specified time, the government will forgive 40% of your debt.

The same “safety net” continues past retirement.  If you’re old and cannot care for yourself, you simply assign 85% of your state pension to the nursing home, and they do the rest.  The government will even pay up to US$2,000 for your family to have your remains cremated.  

continued on page 4

The sense of security and well-being that this system has created is remarkable.  In my annual visits, I’ve noticed how rural farmers now live in increased comfort. The farmer in the valley who looks after our mountain cabin had well-scrubbed dirt floors when we first knew him in the early ‘70s, drew his water from a well, and slept on straw stuffed mattresses.  Now he’s very proud of tiled floors and running water piped into his house.  However there’s still an outhouse in the barn, as in most rural homes and the lakeside and seaside vacation homes, in order to prevent any water pollution. 

When you first visit Norway, it’s the beautiful fjords, spruce-covered mountains and the midnight sun that grab your attention, but then it’s Norway’s unique social attitudes and its broad sense of social harmony (not to mention its remarkable athletic achievements) that earn your continuous admiration.  .   ▼

The Community of Healthcare by Bill Clark

As a doctor for more than 50 years, I’ve had enough of America’s unfair, dysfunctional, patchwork, and fundamentally immoral healthcare “system.”  Only if we adopt publicly-funded universal healthcare coverage can this country lay claim to being a true “community.” 

I’ve spent much of my career caring for patients in public hospitals and clinics. Until retiring in 2005, I practiced primary care internal medicine and addiction medicine in mid-coast Maine.  At a Brunswick grocery this week I encountered a former patient, Jan (not her real name). In her 50’s, we began treatment for a rare form of leukemia. Still receiving treatment at age 70, she looked well and spoke of selling her business.  During our conversation I remarked, “Well, now you have Medicare.”  Jan expressed deep gratitude for Medicare and vigorously decried many specific shortcomings of our healthcare system.  She said that everyone deserved the Medicare that she had had to wait until age 65 to receive. I was pleased to see her thriving and to witness her empathy for others and her true communitarian spirit.

Like Jan, many Americans criticize our healthcare system’s shortcomings. Democrats and Republicans alike agree that the “Affordable Care Act” is not affordable.  Polls repeatedly show that a very substantial majority of voters believe that healthcare is an absolutely fundamental concern and that government has a role to play in effectively addressing that concern. 

Current healthcare policies are unjust, unbearably complicated and wasteful. Millions of crowdfunding sites are symbolic of the humiliating unfairness inherent in lack of access to adequate health care.  As citizens, we should be ashamed that more than 25,000,000 community members have no insurance coverage, and millions more risk financial ruin when serious illness or accident strikes.

These problems do not exist in the other 34 developed countries that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  Only the USA fails to provide, in one way or another, universal coverage for its citizens.  Moreover, America’s per capita healthcare costs are more than twice the average of other OECD countries.  Their citizens generally enjoy better healthcare outcomes, as measured by reliable data on infant and maternal mortality, length of life, and other markers.

Most OECD members use a tax-based “single payer” system to provide comprehensive care. Those that use market mechanisms (Germany and Switzerland, for example) mandate purchase of not-for-profit insurance and heavily regulate all healthcare sectors.  These countries actively promote the health of their entire community, and constantly tweak their systems to better align services with that community-driven mission.

How can we spend twice the OECD average and still leave tens of millions to suffer without needed care or from financial hardship when they receive care?  A profit-driven system clinging to the idea that health care is a mere commodity can never benefit the entire community, as these other countries openly acknowledge Premium dollars spent on marketing, advertising, CEO salaries, legislative and regulatory lobbying – all to increase profits – cut deeply into the money available for delivery of healthcare.  Citizens are confused and sometimes enraged by denials, changing deductibles, co-pays, arbitrary coverage limits, pre-existing conditions and networks. Indeed, a serious conflict of interest is present when insurers deny payment for physician-ordered and appropriate standard care in order to protect or enhance their profits.  Or when members of Congress, dependent on campaign contributions, ban Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices.

Our problems are political, not practical. Ironically, America already has a functioning single payer system that serves Jan and other community members over 65.  Attempting to build on Medicare’s success, HR 676 is a bill in Congress that specifies a detailed and vetted plan for universal publicly funded Medicare (with improvements) for all Americans. Keith Ellison (D-MN) is the lead sponsor, joined by 120 co-sponsors (all Democrats).

Unfortunately, conservatives are increasingly pushing Medicare toward a market system.  “Medicare Advantage” uses tax monies from general funds to subsidize the insurers that provide it.  This betrays the essential thrust and fairness of the “pay when able, benefit when need arises” principle that underlay the creation of Medicare.  “Health Savings Accounts” and a proposed “voucher” system simply echo the notion that “you only deserve good healthcare if you can pay for it.”  Such measures serve only to further divide community members, rather than uniting them around a shared basic need.  Should fire and police protection be available only to “subscribers”?

The sole mission of a community-oriented single payer system is to deliver high quality healthcare at reasonable cost.  Both of those objectives are met in other countries – why not here?     ▼

A Two-Part Account of Community by Eliot Putnam   My recent career has been as a consultant to primary healthcare programs in developing countries. This piece derives from a consulting visit I made to Bangladesh in the spring of 2015.

On a recent morning in Dhaka, in the course of a working visit to a leading Bangladeshi NGO that provides health services to underserved populations, I was invited to accompany a service delivery team to one of the nearby urban health centers it supports.  I was advised that the visit would involve a short boat trip.  Not a little intrigued by that particular detail, given our urban setting, and always anxious to see where services actually meet peoples’ needs, I immediately said yes.  

Shortly thereafter, my Bangladeshi colleagues and I walked down a crowded street to where a broad, stagnant canal traverses the city.  

Here a fleet of skiffs awaits anyone wishing to visit a large slum community, reportedly the largest in Dhaka, a city with a population of close to 20 million people, on the other side of the water.

Clambering down a rutted bank, I gingerly boarded a narrow, wooden craft as tippy as any round-bottomed canoe on a New England pond and sat on its floor (there were no seats), hoping fervently not to fall overboard into the thick, green, trash-strewn water.  I should not have worried.  The boatman guided us skillfully through the debris and between other boats to the far bank, where we carefully debarked to walk through the crowded, narrow passageways of the community, home to tens of thousands of people who have moved to Dhaka from the countryside in search of jobs and hope for the future.  

I was surrounded by commerce of every conceivable sort, by trash, noise, children, dogs and chickens, smells both intriguing and unpleasant, bicycle rickshaws, harried parents, busy workers, all in close quarters – the stuff of everyday community life in this crowded, bustling city.  Along the way we sidestepped a man stirring a very large, metal pot of some sort of stew in the middle of the alleyway.  We were told it was being prepared to celebrate an infant’s recent circumcision.  We passed through a slum area where ranks of bamboo poles functionally but precariously supported construction of two or three story additions on top of already crowded, ramshackle buildings.  Shirtless workers in loincloths clambered up and down rickety ladders carrying bricks, cement and other building materials. 

After threading our way through this sea of life we arrived at the health center that was our destination, entered its door in the wall, and found ourselves in the middle of a regular morning class for expectant mothers.  The midwife was instructing 10 to15 women in the importance of exclusive breastfeeding in babies’ early lives, the need to be sure to get their vaccinations on time (my particular technical preoccupation on this trip), and other essentials of pre-natal and post-natal care.  The atmosphere was as businesslike as it was caring, the people typically gracious and welcoming.

I am always humbled when allowed into such personal settings and this was far from an exception, as I was shown the health center’s modest but very functional facilities.  Happily, after saying hello to the white guy, everyone got quickly back to work.  We stayed to observe a while longer, while a young Bangladeshi doctor described for me the range of pre-natal, post-natal and maternity services offered by the health center to the people of the slum area.  We then wended our way back through this vibrant community, perhaps living on the edge but clearly doing so with purpose, to our waiting ferryman. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The following day Dhaka newspapers carried a front page story of the collapse, in another large slum in the city, of a partially constructed, multi-story building.  Ten or a dozen people had been killed in the accident, and I was acutely reminded of the building under construction that I had passed the previous day on the visit to the health center.  Building codes in such places are inadequate, if they are observed at all.  Saddest of all was an interview a newspaper published with a young man who had lost his pregnant wife and child in the collapse.  “She had just cooked me lunch” he said, “and I had gone back to my job selling sugar water on the streets downtown.  Now she’s not here.  I don’t know what I will do.” .   ▼

A Community Model for Access to Healthcare (the 25^th Anniversary of the Hillsborough County Healthcare Plan) by Peter J. Levin.  Peter Levin, Sc.D. was the founding dean of the College of Public Health at the University of South Florida.  He also served as an original member of the Hillsborough County Healthcare Advisory Board referred to in the report.    

In the 1980s, health indicators for Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa) were not good.  Hillsborough ranked 58^th out of Florida’s 67 counties in low birthweight, well below the U.S. average.  260,000 of the county’s 835,000 county residents were uninsured, and funds for providing care to them were very limited.  Clearly, the health of this community was at risk.  The obvious question was “Is anyone going to face up to this and do something about it?”

One County Commissioner, Phyllis Busansky, responded by proposing an innovative approach to providing needed services.  She knew that people could not obtain proper care if they lacked money, insurance or did not qualify for Medicaid or Medicare.  Unlike those who routinely oppose greater government involvement, Phyllis believed that government could be a positive force for the good.  And, due to her elected position, she was in a position to work for change.

Commissioner Busansky asked to meet with me.  She was charming, focused, a bit naïve about the medical care system, but not naïve about her fellow commissioners and their lack of enthusiasm for her good government ideas.  Together, we forged a health plan that would meet the needs of uninsured people, and Phyllis led the charge to make it a reality. 

 First, she had to explain the plan and obtain her fellow Commissioners’ support.  Some viewed her ideas with open disfavor; others were more reserved.  Nevertheless, the Commission agreed to form a citizens committee (the Hillsborough County Healthcare Advisory Board) to review the proposed program and analyze its feasibility. 

The Board had to determine how the plan would pay doctors and hospitals, and then win over County Commissioners and Managers.  It was clear that a sales tax was needed, but the business community could stop any increase in taxes.  The only funding options were 1) a sales tax increase to support healthcare with everyone contributing to that cost, or 2) a property tax increase that would disproportionately impact business.  Employers’ health insurance costs were continually rising, and they didn’t want care for the poor to be buried in their health insurance premiums.  So, a plan was created to cover the costs of uninsured individuals, that might reduce hospital bad debts and slow health insurance premium escalation.  Employers eventually “bought in.”

The money necessary to implement this plan, a half-cent county sales tax, also had to be approved both by the state legislature and then by the County Commission.  The speaker of the Florida House jealously guarded the legislative prerogative (Florida has no state income tax!) and initially was not cordial to the idea of a county healthcare tax.  Support from local legislators was obviously necessary.  But elected officials might just punt and refer this to a public referendum – which we knew would lose.  Our form of government is supposed to depend on the will of the people, but sometimes you don’t want to take a chance.  In many instances in the political arena, discretion is truly the better part of valor.

We visited legislators and were met with everything from genuine enthusiasm to stony silence.  The Dean of the House, the longest serving member, was from Tampa, and his support was crucial.  Phyllis and I made an appointment to visit him and explained why this proposal deserved his support.  He expressed some interest.  Suddenly, his office door opened and his close childhood friend “Baby” burst in.  He hugged Phyllis and asked why we were there.  “They want to create a plan to help people in the county get medical care,” the legislator replied and asked “Baby” what he thought about it.  “Baby” replied that Phyllis was a terrific commissioner and that our host should support her and the proposed local sales tax.  The legislator asked “Baby” how he knew Phyllis so well.  He proudly replied, “I prepared the spaghetti dinners for her first big fundraiser when she ran for office.  I served 350 plates of pasta and every one of them was al dente.”  He then explained his support for the plan and the sales tax.  While many people helped this plan come to fruition, “Baby’s” al dente pasta story played an important part. 

Eventually, the local sales tax increase passed the legislature and Hillsborough County implemented the Plan.  The County agreed not only to care for the sick and injured, but also to raise the income eligibility threshold so that more people were covered.  Today, states and the federal government struggle with eligibility limits and rarely increase coverage.  The Hillsborough County plan has evolved over the years and provider payments are based primarily on federal fee guidelines which are “Tampaized” in a complex process.  Fortunately, financial ingenuity and provider cooperation have produced positive results. 

Hillsborough County took a major step 25 years ago to solve its healthcare crisis.  Since the Plan began, approximately 250,000 individuals have been served.  About 1.5 million healthcare visits were provided to people who might not received care, and payments to providers have reached nearly two billion dollars.  As a partnership between county government and local providers, the Plan has been an outstanding success.  Jobs were created.  The burden of illness was reduced.  Per-person monthly cost is below that of Medicaid.   

Congress has repeatedly demonstrated an inability to confront complex problems, to encourage open discussions, and to work out solutions.  In Hillsborough County, by contrast, local politicians, county managers, and providers of healthcare have shown what local government can do when there is enlightened elected leadership, a motivated bureaucracy, involved citizens and a source of dedicated funds. The County addressed its healthcare delivery problems head-on, something no other county in the country has yet managed to do.  Local communities have great potential for solving problems when community members are willing to work together. Against all odds, this local healthcare plan has endured for more than 25 years, and has improved health for all in the County.  ▼ 

Community by Mary (Minda) Wetzel

Our Class Newsletter’s request for submissions on the topic of “community” led me to think of the many ways that a sense of community has entered my life.  The ideals of community – shared aspirations and goals, mutual support and trust -- have been and still are very important to me.  From my beginnings, both nuclear and extended family have been at the very core of my reality and are buds that developed and flowered as I have lived my life.  To this day, my extended family comes together every year to renew our friendship and support for one another.  One of the last such reunions included 44 family members, as well as friends from near and far.  

The first real community beyond my family, with its values and expectations, was the Putney School in Vermont, a small coeducational boarding school that I found very challenging and stimulating.  For four academic years, I felt surrounded by students, teachers and staff who seemed to have a common purpose to understand and enjoy the challenge of learning and participating in activities both academic and recreational.  It was the first time that I truly enjoyed the hard work of understanding the many moving parts of the world’s workings, with all its diversity and complexity.  I felt an integral part of this endeavor:  a shared mission and camaraderie among students, teachers and staff that bound us together into an academic and social community.

A subsequent experience I now recognize as communitarian in nature stemmed from my life in the small unincorporated town of Cabin John, Maryland.  In the 1880’s, this was a small rural settlement on the banks of the Potomac, but over time was slowly swallowed up by the ever-expanding Washington metropolis.  During World War II, the federal government built the large David Taylor Model Basin just upriver from Cabin John.  Its mission was to design and test large military ships.  Two separate areas of Cabin John were used to build tract home housing for the installation’s workers:  one for whites and one for blacks.  When I moved to Cabin John in the 1960s, this segregated housing still existed.  All the town’s children attended a single public school which, compared to other Montgomery County schools, had a reputation for relatively poor academic achievement.   The town had a Citizen’s Association whose meetings were attended by many of the residents.  There was also a community newsletter which was published monthly and distributed to all homes in the area.  For several years I was the creator of this four-page newsletter. 

At one point while I lived there, a group of residents got together to create a “Community Plan” that was subsequently submitted to the county with a request for funding and implementation.  The plan included conversion of the public school building (by then closed and abandoned) into a daycare center and community facility.  We also persuaded one of our congressmen to seek historic landmark designation for the unique Cabin John Bridge: built in the early 1860’s for an aqueduct to bring clean water to the growing national capital.  That designation saved the bridge from replacement with a wider modern bridge and led to a significant reduction in commuter traffic. 

The bridge is now an alternately one-way street, stoplight controlled, with a dedicated walk and bike path that is much safer for pedestrians and bikers.  These and other improvements led to a renewal of community spirit and a vibrant town that often holds celebratory picnics and barbeques open to all.  

I was elected President of the community in 1976 when we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the country.  My vice president was a wonderful gentleman from the black community who could not read or write, but threw wonderful communal barbecues.  Despite our different backgrounds, the two of us had common goals and reached out to one another in warm and wonderful ways.

Later in my career, I again experienced a genuine sense of community as a trustee and eventually the president of a small environmental foundation.  The trustees met annually and chose projects worldwide to receive our financial support. The projects were judged as to what we considered most important for their scientific or environmental impact. The foundation members had diverse educational and professional backgrounds, but shared a common purpose – using our accumulated wisdom to decide what was important to support at that particular time.  Sometimes nuclear waste disposal or the threat of nuclear holocaust topped our agenda.  At other times, overpopulation of the planet or the protection of a particular environment or species headed the list.  There were always books to be published and distributed, seminars to promote, research to be funded.  But the sense of a shared purpose gave meaning that exceeded that of our individual efforts and reinforced our commitment to do something more than any of us could attempt singlehandedly.  This group was also a true community, albeit of a different kind.▼

The New Mt. Eden  by Carol Lamberg.  A very condensed portion of "Neighborhood Success Stories:  Creating and Sustaining Affordable Husing in New York," published by Fordham University Press 

This is my story of the transformation of a devastated, bombed-out area of the Bronx into New Settlement Apartments, a mixed-income residential community that has remained stable for almost 30 years.  In the 1980's many people regarded Mt. Eden – indeed, much of the South Bronx – as a virtual war zone.  "Crime, huge empty buildings, fire, the Bronx is Fort Apache – never go there," was the conventional wisdom.  Between 1950 and 1980, the South Bronx population had declined from 436,923 to 167,370.  Mt. Eden, west of the Grand Concourse, had become a frightening eyesore.   Still, many of the buildings had sound superstructures, well worth saving despite the fire damage and vandalism. "Good bones" would be the current architectural lingo.

The Mayor of New York City and the Governor of New York State have always found reasons to hate one another. In 1986 Mayor Edward I. Koch and Governor Mario Cuomo were not exactly in love.  But amazingly the Mayor and Governor located their smartest advisers to work on a housing program.  Enabling legislation was passed later that year.  I participated in the final negotiations that led to passing the legislation.  I was representing the New York Housing Conference, a broad-based advocacy group, which included Settlement Housing Fund, where I was longtime Executive Director.

In 1987 Settlement Housing Fund, then an 18-year old nonprofit organization, was selected through a competitive process as the future owner of the largest site in the City's plan.  That site consisted of 14 large, burnt-out buildings, which would be gutted and renovated to provide 893 affordable apartments with community rooms and space for management.  The buildings would be known as New Settlement Apartments.  

Although the new program included policies that we had in fact recommended, the Board of Settlement Housing Fund was still nervous and insisted on a number of conditions, which were accepted by the City.  

Key to the long-term success of this undertaking was the City's forward-looking financial plan.  To fund the project, the City issued bonds to be repaid from excess revenue from Battery Park City, a large financial and residential enclave in lower Manhattan.  As a result, debt service would not b one of the project's expenses. The project would also be exempt from real estate taxes. No similar financing is available today.

This favorable financing allowed an income mix that we recommended.  Ten percent of the Project’s rental income was dedicated to pay for community programs The staff grew the programs over the years, winning many awards. Thirty per cent of New Settlement's apartments were reserved for formerly homeless families, who received rental subsidies. Forty percent went to very low-income families, twenty percent to twenty-five per cent to moderate-income and five to ten percent to market rate. Every floor of every building reflects that economic mix. As a responsible landlord, Settlement Housing Fund selected tenants with good credit and no recent history of violence. 

Three other factors are equally important to the project's success: management, community programs and good security.  

Twenty-eight years later, the buildings are in excellent repair, with no graffiti, almost no vacancies and a long waiting list.  Rent arrears are extremely uncommon.  In 1995, Jack Doyle, who understands both buildings and people, became Executive Director of New Settlement Apartments.  In the first years of operation, we developed high-quality programs, open to the overall community. Jack expanded and improved all the programs, and keeps a close eye on the physical plant.  New Settlement now has after-school programs, adult education, and many other programs in large community rooms.  One New Settlement program sends young people to college and provides support while they are there. 

Over the years, four new buildings have been added to the complex, which now consists of 18 buildings with 1,082 apartments.  Of course there are problems, as with any undertaking, but the overall success is hard to deny, especially compared to how the neighborhood looked in the eighties.

In 2012, through a joint venture with New York City, New Settlement Community Campus opened its doors. This is a complex of pre-K through 12 public schools with an adjacent community center, 75-foot swimming pool, art studios, a green learning roof garden and more.  The school includes a health center, two gyms, a large auditorium and classes for children on the autism spectrum.   

Settlement Apartments has succeeded due to excellent government financing combined with good management and close attention to the needs and values of the community.  I strongly believe projects such as these could and should be replicated.     

continued on page 9

Community Evolving by Wendy Shepard, author of "Lucky to be Alive"

...Oh, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!
             “The Tempest” (V.1.) by William Shakespeare

In my dream, I rolled a small suitcase into a large dormitory with stark white walls, white floors, white ceilings.  Bedrooms lined the halls, but they were taken by other students.  The bathrooms in the hallway were taken as well.  At the end of the hall was a bathroom door decorated with colorful fabrics and hanging beads, 1960s style, but it was reserved for a man and his girlfriend.  Rather intense people were trying to form groups of those who were like-minded, but I moved on.  

I awoke before finding a place for me, but I was unconcerned.  Here in 2018, my dreams were playing their usual games, helping me in their own weird way with an essay on community.  For there I was, barreling down the corridors of life in a dormitory, a community to which I no longer belonged, on my way to discovering many other kinds of community.

In my college years, the Radcliffe and Harvard students were primarily white.  The seeds of diversity and activism (and cohabitation!) were barely sprouting, and would not fully bloom for many years.  The white, almost monastic environment of the dream seemed less about race and more about a spiritual place to work out issues of community, past and present working together.

“Together.” A better definition, perhaps, of community than that in the dictionary, which focuses on “common.”  For the challenge is, as always, how to get human beings – each one unique in all of time and space (Oh, wonder!), each having only a modicum “in common” with others – to live Together.  Whether as a couple, a family, a nation, a planet, a universe or universes – how do we coexist? How did the simple Oh, wonder! of being alive transform itself into fear? I have no answers; I can only try to follow the wonder.

Community is, in my opinion, one of our greatest illusions. Some try to mold it into something warm and fuzzy, but the hard truth is that humanity, from moment to moment, has to overcome its fear of the nature of life – of differences, of change – if it is to create even a semblance of community.  Differences are an inescapable condition of being born human; the illusion of like-minded people is a myth. Even those who share the same spiritual tradition have their own private ways of living in accordance with their beliefs. As for change...the cells of our body laugh, teasing us: all your cells will die and be replaced in a space of seven years, they say, and you will not even be aware of it. We are all ever-changing pieces of the giant, wondrous puzzle of being alive, trying to find where we fit at any given moment.

Perhaps that is one reason why the theory of evolution is frightening to many people.  Much easier, surely, to pretend that life is a static thing, something foreordained, uncontrollable.  But the challenge of being  human belongs to everyone: to have the courage to take responsibility for how we change, grow, evolve; and to have the courage to embrace the fact of differences.  Today, as a species, creating community seems to be beyond our grasp.  The rule of money shatters Togetherness on this planet among cultures, nations, or people and their environment.  The human race seems bent on extinction, poisoning its relationships to the air, water, and land so essential to its survival.

“So what?” some might ask. Ninety-nine percent of all species since the beginning of time are extinct.  Well, really!  If we are going to be extinct, and all signs point to that outcome sooner than later, might we at least create an extinction with distinction?  Instead of going out with destructive wars and suicidal poisons, might we at least go about our demise with a degree of caring and compassion – for ourselves, each other, and the planet?  Isn’t that what community, tiny or huge, is all about? 

As I muse on the dream that spawned these thoughts, the sheer bravery of the students in that dormitory, carving out their futures, striving to make their lives shine, humbles me.  Community can only flourish when we recognize that in our very uniqueness lies our equal worth; each human being has an equally important purpose for being alive.  One can try to be more special than others, but the unchanging truth of existence is that no one is more, or less, important than anyone else.

            Oh, wonder!     ▼

Editors’ Comment