CU Endows New Lawyer for Tenant Issues

CU Endows New Lawyer for Tenant Issues
By Jimmy Vielkind
Spectator Senior Staff Writer

May 12, 2005



Columbia officials announced a partnership with Harlem Legal Services to increase legal assistance for poor tenants at a press conference today.

The University has appropriated $300,000 over the next three years to fund the service of a project attorney, Mary McCune in Legal Services� existing office. She will work to represent tenants in the area served by Community Board 9 facing eviction, harassment, or substandard apartments.

Administrators touted the move as part of an ongoing effort to strengthen ties with the Harlem community since University President Lee Bollinger took office in 2001. This effort is happening at the same time that Columbia is moving forward with plans to develop a new campus in Manhattanville.

�This is another small step, but it has very big consequences for individual people,� Bollinger said. �Insofar as Columbia can use its resources and its young people to be a part of this community and to help people�I can�t think of any higher purpose.�

Bollinger pointed to Columbia�s other projects in Harlem, including the staffing of Harlem Hospital, a new employment information center opened in January on Broadway near 125th St., the recent production of Tierno Bokar at Barnard Hall, and a similar program Columbia runs in conjunction with the Goddard-Riverside Community Center to help tenants with issues in the Mahattan Valley south of 110th St.

Harlem Legal Services helps low-income individuals with all legal services ranging from domestic violence counseling to HIV/AIDS referrals. A local branch of the larger Legal Services of New York, Harlem Legal Services closed approximately 1,100 housing cases in 2003.

�We are enormously grateful to Columbia for recognizing the need for greater help with this area� and for doing this project,� said Andrew Scherer, the executive director of Legal Services for New York City.

McCune is excited about her new position, which will allow her to work on individual cases and lobby the City government for changes in the housing court system.

�I�m very passionate about housing. I believe housing is a right, and the system is not very friendly,� McCune said. She has worked on behalf of tenant rights since the 1980s and presently works in the Bronx to help HIV/AIDS patients.

Elected officials at the press conference, despite having expressed some doubts at the announcement of the University�s employment information center, were more supportive of the new initiative.

�I�m so happy at this announcement,� Councilman Robert Jackson (D-Washington Heights) said. Turning to President Bollinger, he said �I�m here as a representative of the people to say �thank you.��

Jordi Reyes-Montblanc, the chairman of Community Board 9, agreed, noting that housing assistance is particularly needed at a time when Harlem is changing rapidly and rents are rising.