Dave Powell

Lewis: [00:00:01] This is Lynn Lewis, and it's March 13th, 2023, and I'm interviewing Dave Powell for the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project. Hey Dave!

Powell: Hey, Lynn. [Laughs] Hello again. [Smiles]

Lewis: [00:00:19] Hello again. [Smiles] So, would you just share where you're from and some things about your family and your neighborhood—early life that will let us get to know you better?

Powell: Sure. So, I was born in 1972, born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, close to Fort Hamilton. And yeah, I think I'll probably just leave out my contemporary housing situation. But you know, I have basically been in Brooklyn for most of my life. You know, honestly Bay Ridge was sort of like, there was definitely class strata within the neighborhood, you know what I mean? It was not monochromatically working class or monochromatically middle class. But I think, more than a lot of Brooklyn neighborhood's, a pretty middle class neighborhood. And to some degree, I think my family reflected that, economically anyway.

Powell: [00:01:33] On the more middle class side, my dad was a psychologist for most of the time that I knew him. He had a private practice on West 12th Street. He split a rent stabilized apartment with two other practitioners, and in the sixties and seventies and early eighties, you know—a landlord was just glad to get rent on anything. So, you could almost do anything [smiles] in a rent stabilized apartment, at that time. So I actually, and my family's always had a little bit of a connection outside of the neighborhood and especially, to Manhattan. So, I kind of grew up in South Brooklyn, but also spent time in the West Village, at a time when the West Village was a very different place than it is today. And I definitely saw some of those changes that you—think of you at the New School now, you know, like I watched that. I watched that building being built. My dad's building was right next to that, you know so... That building on West 12th Street, that was a New School facility. I remember that well.

Powell: [00:02:43] My mom did a lot of different things. My mom is from England, and when she first came to this country, she was married to somebody who was in the United Nations. And my parents ended up getting together basically when they were both married, had a pretty intense relationship, and then had me and my dad was already in Bay Ridge in the apartment that's still in our family. And my mom did a bunch of things in New York. She was a radio person. She was with WNEW like in the early days of that, like when—I mean you'll remember. This is when rock and roll was not played on FM. It was like an AM thing, right? [Smiles] And do you remember this? [Laughs] Do not remember this? This is after your time? You don't remember this.

Lewis: No, because I'm not from New York, so I don't...

Powell: [00:03:47] No, but across the country, right? I mean, the way my mom tells it is that in the 1960s and prior to that, FM radio was classical music, and talk. And if you were like any other genre of music, and particularly like rock and roll, which was still kind of like rebel music, in the sixties, it was not being played on FM radio at all. It's being played on AM. And there were a couple of stations in New York City and San Francisco that broke that, and said, "We're going to do a full-time FM rock and roll station. And my mom was part of WNEW, which I think was the second one in the country, or at least in New York, to do that. So, she was on there. She mostly did media for them, but she did some deejaying, as well. And she was on there with Scott Munie, Allison Steele, Rosko... Do you remember Rosko?

Powell: [00:04:43] So, he was a New York City deejay personality that like, you know—through the sixties and seventies, and also [laughs] for those of us that were kids of the seventies, he was also a frequent voice-over voice, on the Electric Company and Sesame Street. Like, you know, he was around. He was kind of a... Anyway, so my mom did some of that. My mom ran a daycare center, like a preschool in the building that I grew up in, while I was that age, basically. Like, rather than send me to another place and spend money on it. My mom was like, "Well, I'll get five other kids and just do this in a studio apartment in our building." My mom did some journalism for local, south Brooklyn papers, you know?

Powell: [00:05:32] And then when my dad died, she went back to school. She went to CUNY,  CCNY, and did the Grad Center, and became a college professor, basically. And to this day actually, still teaches at BMCC. So, I am a second generation CUNY grad. My dad passed in 1983. He died of lung cancer, and that was shock to our family. And we were, you know, we were a small family, a small nuclear family. I'm an only child. It was just the three of us. So, it was a big deal. It definitely challenged the stability of our family. You know, for the first time—I think that was probably the first time that I didn't take certain things for granted. You know, just economically and in terms of just like my family's security, including housing security. But I've never really, I have to say I've never really experienced, I think partially because my mom... [Laughs] My mom was incredibly patient and didn't like push me out of the house at eighteen. I never really experienced housing insecurity in the way that I know a lot of people have, including friends.

Powell: [00:06:49] So, you know, that was not part of my direct experience. But I think I will say, you know... So, growing up as a kid, you know, in New York in the seventies and eighties and particularly in the eighties, I definitely watched—even though I was kind of in this corner of deep South Brooklyn, that was pretty sleepy in a lot of ways. My family was often leaving the neighborhood, going outside the neighborhood, had influences that were outside the neighborhood, and definitely watched, you know—the birth of the modern homelessness crisis in New York, and I guess which was happening in other parts of the country, too. But I think it was really extreme in New York and very quick in New York.

Powell: [00:07:41] I went to LaGuardia High [school]. I went to the same school from kindergarten through ninth grade, which was P.S. 104 in Brooklyn, on 92nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Gelston Avenue. So, I spent most of my formative pre-high school years there. But I went to LaGuardia High School. I got into LaGuardia High School, which was so exciting for me and like, such a blessing. By the time I was fourteen, I was into punk rock, and I was, you know, getting kind of restless and rebellious. And I was really not interested in anything to do with what I identified as kind of straight, mainstream culture. I thought of myself as really rebellious and I was like, ready basically not to go to school. My zone school was Fort Hamilton High School, and had I gone, I probably would have like, not gone. I probably would have just dropped out. But I got into LaGuardia High School, which was a real blessing for me and had the experience of meeting kids from all over New York City, and getting to go to a lot of different neighborhoods that I would not have gone if I'd been kind of still in that South Brooklyn, more provincial mode.

Powell: [00:08:53] I also witnessed, kind of like in real time, as everybody in New York City did to varying degrees, the triple crises of homelessness, crack cocaine and AIDS. You couldn't avoid that on the subways or in most neighborhoods in New York City. It did not impact Bay Ridge in the same way that it impacted so much of Brooklyn and so much of the city. But you know, you just... You, as a New Yorker, having been a kid and just knowing the subways as a certain thing. You know, [smiles] not always like the safest experience but, you know, a mode of transportation. It became clear, by the time I was in high school, that a lot of people were living in the subway, and that was new. That was not something that had always been the case or had always been the case to that degree.

Powell: [00:09:58] It was also clear that [pause] the impact on people… I mean, obviously, specific communities really bore the brunt of this. And in visiting friends, you know, and going uptown and going to other parts of Brooklyn, going to other neighborhoods, and seeing how this impacted, you know... But again, even on the train and just seeing the impact of the crack epidemic on New Yorkers, you know, like living on the train, or using on the train.

Powell: [00:10:29] And again, the thing I will... I mean, all of these things I'll never forget, and among those things is the AIDS epidemic and just the impact of that and the way that was handled, or not handled in New York. You know, where you just had literally people dying on the street. You know what I mean? I mean, a few places had that. New York had that, San Francisco had that. I mean, I had grammar school teachers that died of AIDS. I had high school teachers that died of AIDS. And you just like... We were still at that point where hospitals were not treating people with AIDS, you know—well. I mean, forget the medicine. Forget the fact that they didn't have anything for folk. It was like Saint Vincent's was like this outpost. And they weren't even doing everything right, either. But it was like, people were dying on the street, you know what I mean? I mean, I just remember that. It just felt like a plague, you know? And the way people were being treated was just so horrible.

Powell: [00:11:34] So all of that I think, left a real impression on me, as a teenager. And it kind of coalesced with a lot of questioning that I was already doing about the nature of this country and its history. You know, it's supposed supremacy in the world—in terms of like, you know, the best way of life, the way it treated its own people, the way it treated Black people and Native American people, in particular. The way it treated its veterans. My God! I mean… You would see Vietnam vets, like sleeping on the subway, you know what I mean? You know, for what? You know what I mean? Like, you were just like, what is this? What has this country done for you? And what have you done for it? You know what I mean? Like, that was a really, a sort of unavoidable thing. A lot of the homeless folks were vets, in the eighties. And yeah! I mean, I think, along with the threat of nuclear just extinction, along with apartheid, along with what was happening in Latin America, in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and the fact that we were thinking, like—as teenagers, that's where we were going to be sent to next. You know, that was going to be our Vietnam.

Powell: [00:12:50] I think one of the things that just disturbed me, and made me really viscerally angry was just, you know, the homelessness crisis in New York, and the way people were being treated. That was as a teenager and it wasn't until the mid-nineties that I really started to seek to understand the forces—beyond just colloquially knowing that that was fucked up, and knowing that it didn't have to be that way in the richest country in the world, one of the richest cities of the world... Beyond just having that feeling, it wasn't until the mid-nineties that I really attempted to kind of learn more about that, and unpack that. It never occurred to me, and still frankly, wouldn't occur to me at this point [smiles] to approach that academically, you know what I mean? I never thought like, "Oh, I'll go to college and learn more about that."

Powell: [00:13:40] You know, it was always like literally, when I wanted to know something about housing... You know, the day I was like, "I need to know something that's beyond just me being angry about it, or showing up at a rally or something." I called, the Met Council on Housing. And I didn't even really know what they were, you know what I mean? And I certainly didn't find them on the Internet, because there was no Internet. At least not one that we could, [laughs] that normal people could use. But I somehow like, you know... What it was, Giuliani was the mayor, and he was having a town hall event, in Bay Ridge. This must have been like '95 or so.

Powell: [00:14:24] And I remember that I wanted to go to the town hall, and I wanted to disrupt it, you know? But I didn't want to just be like, "Fuck you, Giuliani! You're a jerk." You know what I mean? I actually wanted to know [laughs] what I was talking about, right? So, I would have been like twenty-three years old. And so I was like, "Okay. Let me go to the organizations that I know of that actually can tell me, “This is what this person is doing that's wrong, in terms of AIDS policy. This is what this person is doing that’s wrong in terms of housing policy. This is what this person is doing that's detrimental to South Brooklyn, or whatever..." You know, I was trying… I was searching, for the first time, for that level of information, to be able to make a cognitive argument in public.

Powell: [00:15:11] And I remember I called ACT-UP, to try and get information on like, "What do I say about this person's policies, that are impacting LGBTQ communities and people with AIDS." And I remembered that I called Met Council on Housing and by some miracle, I mean—or not, because it was happening every minute of every day, Jane Benedict just picked up the phone, and I talked to her probably for like, an hour. You know what I mean?

Powell: [00:15:44] And it was a really profound experience because I had been... Well, for a few reasons. I had been exposed to… Like the people that I sort of had learned kind of radical politics from or, you know, kind of had worked with in doing youth work or...[Long pause] Like, I was in high school, I was part of this organization called, S.O.S. Youth Against Racism, which was actually an international organization that had a chapter at LaGuardia High School. And we would sometimes find ourselves at 339 Lafayette, at the War Resisters League building or like—you know, whatever. But, the people who I would engage, you know, who were older than me were all kind of like that "boomer generation." You know, they was sort of my mom's age, basically. You know, they were sixties babies, you know what I mean?

Powell: [00:16:42] And the boomer thing was interesting. For eighties kids, we were sold back a lot of that culture. And a very co-opted and a very superficial version of it. In the mainstream culture, right—they were trying to sell back to us like sixties nostalgia. Like, none of the politics, but the nostalgia. They would take the music, they would strip it of the politics, and they'd be like—you know, go to Saint Mark's Place, and buy a twenty-five dollar pre-tie-dyed t-shirt and [pause] a Grateful Dead Deluxe Edition commemorative album, or whatever. You know, I mean, it was that kind of superficial stuff.

Powell: [00:17:22] On the political side, I definitely met some people of that generation who were much more committed, than the kind of like hippie-turned-yuppie. That was the other thing. It was all hippie-turned-yuppie. It was like, "Well, we went through this phase in the sixties son, but now I'm making money, and doing cocaine." Right? That was [laughs] part of the cynicism of punk, honestly. It was like, "You know, hippies are full of shit." You know what I mean? And not they’re full of shit necessarily, because the ideals were not sound or that good things didn't happen in the sixties, in terms of civil rights or Black liberation or American Indian Movement, or different things. But it was like, you know, look how many of these people sold out. Look how many of them were just like, in it for a minute and then they did their little hedonism thing, and then they went off to Wall Street, or whatever.

Powell: [00:18:11] So, you know, there was definitely a fertile [smiles] Left in New York City, but there was also some bullshit in it. You know, there was a lot of ego involved in it. There was a lot of a lot of factionalism. There was a lot of, cultism, actually, which was kind of crazy. There were like these political cults. I won't name them, but there were like all sorts of, you know, left political cults and kind of organizations built around one person or like, whatever. And it was sort of a weird thing to navigate as a teenager.

Powell: [00:18:43] But when I talked to Jane, and when I eventually got to know some of the people at Met Council, that was a whole different thing. Because I never had been... I mean, the broadest way of saying it, is that there's a big difference between people that were politicized in the sixties, versus people that were politicized in the thirties and forties—and especially among white people who were politicized during those times. The people I was meeting from Met Council had a totally different orientation, like very different orientation. First of all, they were unequivocally in it for life, you know what I mean? They didn't need to talk about it. It wasn't about me, me, me. It was just like—they were like, relating to you in a very straightforward way and their radicalism was inherent, you know? It wasn't performative, as the kids would say these days. [Laughs] Right? So, that was really interesting.

Powell: [00:19:40] And you know, Jane really embodied this, and Fran really embodied this. But it was Jane that I really got to know first and well, and who really mentored me. They both embodied the following—which was that they were incredibly intelligent and incredibly loving, and very strategic, very radical and very angry. They had all of that in them, you know what I mean? And I was just so taken by that. Because I'd never met anybody that age... See, most of the older folks that I'd been exposed to, including people in my own family, were not like that! You know, I didn't have a radical grandmother, you know what I mean? I didn't have anybody who was of that age in my own family, in my own circle.

Powell: [00:20:33] In fact, you know, like I had... You know, a lot of that generation… [Long pause] There were people I very much disliked and you know—my grandfather on my mom's side, for example, was palpably racist and I wanted nothing to do with him, you know what I mean? Like, I felt very alienated from that generation in a lot of ways. And the same thing in Bay Ridge. It was just like, you know, old, angry white people, you know what I mean? [Laughs] It was just like, you know—there was just so much like, "I don't want to be like you. I don't want to be like you. I don't know what I want to be, but I don't want to be like you. I don't want to be this reactionary, closed minded, angry fucking person." You know what I mean? Like, I just was seeking something else.

Powell: [00:21:21] And, you know, when I met somebody who could have been my grandmother, you know, in age... Who was just not preaching to me, not kind of talking to me about how great they were and all the things they did back in the day. But just like were really sort of listening to me, asking real questions, and giving me real information and just being nourished in a certain way. It was just a totally different experience. I didn't realize it at the time, but that kind of intergenerational exchange, which was something that had been missing in my life and something that became very important to me.

Powell: [00:22:07] So, in the... Let's see, 1996? I started to volunteer. I was working at a YMCA in Brooklyn, four days a week. I was going to Hunter College probably as many nights a week, and I had Fridays off—free and clear, and I would go to the Met Council office and volunteer there. And at the time it was on Fulton Street in Manhattan, 102 Fulton Street. It later moved to 64 Fulton Street, and then it went to 339 Lafayette, for a while. But, I was just in that office every Friday, answering the phones, doing the hotline, and would just soak up everything that Jane and Edith Kamiat, and Franz and Rose Lehman, and others, you know—would say, like a sponge, you know what I mean? Like, I just wanted to learn everything.

Powell: [00:23:01] And the approach I thought was so righteous and so smart—you know, so simple. It was like, people are calling because they're getting their asses kicked by their landlord, you know? And you're not proselytizing, telling them about, "Oh, the revolution's coming. Don't worry about it." You know, you're actually giving them practical information about what they can do. And then it's like, “And then if you have the bandwidth for it, we're this city wide tenant union. We've been around since the 1950s. If you become a member—you don't have to pay for the service, it’s free. But if you've got fifteen, twenty bucks and you want to become a member, or if you want to come with us to Albany, we're trying to like change the law, so this doesn't keep happening.” You know what I mean? Like, it was a very organic pitch. It didn't feel heavy handed, or self-righteous, or out of step with what people were actually experiencing when they called you, you know?

Powell: [00:23:52] And at the time, again, like pre-Internet days and pre... I mean, this is the other thing I have to say about New York, in the 1970s and the 1980s. The default expectation of New Yorkers, in the seventies and eighties in particular, especially if you were a young person growing up during that time—is that shit did not work. [Laughs]. The city was accepted as a fucked up, dysfunctional entity, right? And you know, it was a given that the subways weren't going to work properly, the housing department wasn't going to work properly, the welfare office wasn’t going to work properly, the schools weren't going to work properly. They weren't teaching you shit, unless you happened to get into [laughs] one of the specialized high schools, that I was blessed and lucky to get into. I mean, it was just dysfunction was an acceptable... not acceptable, it was not acceptable. A lot of us were very angry about it, but it was an accepted part of life.

Powell: [00:24:44] Like we didn't… You know, there was no 311. There wasn't like, "I have a complaint and somebody's going to listen to me, and they might actually follow up on it." It's like, "Are you fucking kidding? Like, how do I even find HPD? What is HPD?!" You know? So, the thing about Met Council that was very important at that time and how it sort of became this resource that was really critical, [long pause] was that we were a place where you could—you had a real problem, you had a real question, and you could get a real answer for it. You couldn't call the city and get a real answer. You might, if you had a really bang-up city council member, you might be able to call their constituent services person, and get a real answer. But for the most part, if you were if you were having a serious problem with your housing, that didn't exist.

Powell: [00:25:37] And like HPD, DHCR, Department of Buildings... They wouldn't even endeavor to answer these questions. They would give people Met Council's phone number. And so when people called Met Council, they sometimes thought they were calling the city [laughs] and they would start yelling at us. It'd be like, "Dude, no, no, listen! I'm a rent stabilized tenant like you. I agree. I agree with you. Fuck Giuliani. Let's talk about that. Like... [Laughs] And we're going to give you some strategies about, how to get what you need from your landlord and, you know... And we even have an organizer that can come and organize a tenants association with you." You know what I mean?

Powell: [00:26:14] So there was… This was really important. Because if you needed to find the emergency repair squad for Brooklyn North, because your building was like, the walls were falling down? Or you'd had no heat for six months? We had that phone number, and we would give it to you, and HPD would not. You know what I mean? And we had it, because we had a book, you know, literally that we would write… It was like, "Oh! You got this number?" We would write it. We'd call it the Bible. You know, we would write—every time you got a new, "Oh, I got this—I got this really good DHCR Brooklyn, in the Brooklyn office, their extension is blah, blah, blah. Or I got this person in Bronx housing court. Don't tell them, [laughs] don't tell anybody that they gave us their number, but they gave us their number and said, if somebody's getting evicted, you can come to me." You know what I mean? Like, we just… These were the resources that we had. It was colloquial. It was grassroots, but it was actually quite sophisticated. It had grown, you know—over, literally decades, within Met Council. Met Council was founded in 1959.

Powell: [00:27:16] So, it was really important because there was no website where you could go to. There was no NYC dot gov to get like even the most basic information. Then this was an opportunity for us to kind of help people, and then also, kind of build the movement. Because it was like, "Yeah, this is messed up, right? It shouldn't be like this. Like, you know, landlords shouldn't have all the power. The rent shouldn't be so high. You shouldn't have to go six months without heat, you know. HPD should be fining your landlord." Like all of these things, right? You know, it felt really important at the time.

Powell: [00:27:55] And at a certain point, I actually—I just dropped out of college and then Met Council actually offered me a job as an organizer. Which—this was a revelation to me. Like, I didn't know you could get paid to do this, you know what I mean? I was still sort of struggling and figuring out what I wanted to do for money. Initially, I went to LaGuardia High School as a drama major, and I thought that I wanted to be an actor. But I wanted nothing to do with commercial acting, you know? And I was really—again, remember the eighties, right? All of the stuff that people look at and they're like, "Oh, that's quaint. How ironic.” And I'm like, “No, that wasn't ironic. We were actually that fucking stupid as a mainstream culture. Like it was actually that bad." [Laughs] People actually voted for Ronald Reagan. They thought they thought this was a good thing, in large numbers, right? So, you know, that's what we were swimming against, and I didn't, you know...

Powell: [00:28:51] After three years of high school, where I was sort of around people and even teachers who were sort of led to believe there was kind of this ability to create a kind of bohemian—even radical practice as an actor. Once I got out of high school, I couldn't find it. You know what I mean? I was just like, "Where is it?" You know, I mean, not even just to make a living, but just like, "I don't want to just go on commercials." You know what I mean? Like, I just had no interest in that. It literally made my skin crawl. So I quit. I quit that fairly soon after leaving high school and I was sort of looking for what to do. And then when they were like, "Well, you can do this thing for pay, that you've been doing voluntarily, you know, one day a week." I was like, "Are you kidding? Oh my God!” They were like, "Well, the pay is not very good." And I'm like, "I don't care! Like, I'm working at a YMCA for minimum wage. You know, [laughs] like, how much worse could it be?" So, you know, it was really amazing to be able to work for Met Council.

Powell: [00:29:54] The first campaign, actually as a volunteer that I was involved in, in a deep way, was in 1997 George Pataki, the governor and Joe Bruno, the Senate majority leader basically announced that they were going to cancel rent stabilization. And the—you know, Sheldon Silver in the Assembly was supposed to be the savior of tenants who, of course, I mean—even without his criminal convictions, he was completely full of shit and completely sold out tenants for decades, as the speaker of that house. And, you know, despite whatever dysfunction there is in Albany, [laughs] I'm here to say it was once, much worse. And, at the time—'96, '97, the rent laws—rent stabilization, you know, has to be renewed every X amount of years. That's the way it's set up in New York State. And at the time, rent stabilized housing made up the majority of housing, the vast majority of housing in New York City. It's not anymore, because of deregulation that started in the nineties. But, the idea that people were not going to have the basic eviction and rental protections that they had in rent stabilization, set a lot of people into a panic, you know—justifiably.

Powell: [00:31:21] And the crazy thing was, at the time, every major newspaper in New York City was like, "Yeah, that's a good idea. We should definitely get rid of rent stabilization." New York Times was saying that. Wall Street Journal was saying that. I mean, forget the New York Post, like all of the, you know... The Times, which sort of posits itself as this liberal entity, pulled absolutely no punches. They were completely like, "Yeah, what we need is like more free market, blah-blah-blah. And to remove the only rental protections that people have in New York." So, I got thrown into the middle of that as a volunteer and was sort of, you know, helping to mobilize with that.

Powell: [00:31:57] And then on the other end of that, was offered a job at Met Council as an organizer. And I have to just give a shout out to Jenny Laurie, who was my boss. Who was just, then and now, just amazing. Just amazing to work with, amazing to learn from. And you know, Jenny really... And this starts to get into my earliest interactions with Anthony and Lou. You know, Jenny really—really like, let me make my own mistakes. Let me guide a lot of the organizing that I was doing, was never like, "Oh, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. You should be doing that." She really just like, you know, she knew that I had certain energy for certain things, and she gave me guidance about how to do those things better. But she never told me that my instincts as an organizer were wrong, or tried to redirect. And, you know, to be honest with you, I'm amazed at that to this day. I'm just like, wow. Like, I didn't really… There were times [laughs] when I didn't really know what I was doing, you know what I mean?

Powell: [00:33:03] But there was no school, you know what I mean, for this stuff, you know? And, you know, the way you learned was by sitting with elders and listening, you know? And then imitating and taking note, "Oh, I don't think they did that very well. I'll do this differently”, you know? Or like, "Oooh, that's really good. Okay, I'll remember that next time there's a landlord who's doing X, Y, Z in a building, or whatever." At that point Met Council only had one organizer. It was basically—Jenny was the executive director, and I was the organizer and then that was it. Everybody else was a volunteer. So we were doing everything.

Powell: [00:33:46] And the campaign we were working on... So, between '97 and 2003, the rent laws were renewed for six years, in '97 to 2003. So between '97 and 2003, the biggest campaign we would work—we worked on a few things. We were part of the New York Coalition to End Lead Poisoning. We were just a member organization with that. We weren't you know; we weren't as big as... Oh my God, I'm forgetting everybody that was involved with that. Make the Road—Make the Road by Walking, before they were Make the Road New York, when they were just a one office operation. Impact Brooklyn, before they were Impact Brooklyn, but they were Pratt Area Community Council when Artemio Guerra was there, and Gabriel Thompson was there. You know, they were much more deeply involved. We were just kind of on the periphery of that, trying to give support to it and going to hearings.

Powell: [00:34:48] But we were very involved and very much in the lead of the campaign around the Rent Guidelines Board, and trying to get the Rent Guidelines Board to give, you know—fair increases. We always called for rent rollbacks, and rent freezes. And at the time, that was so far from the political reality that was achievable, honestly. Like we were making that line in the sand. The fact that that actually got achieved under de Blasio, you know—credit to the movement and the tenacity of many, many organizers over many, many years, that made that happen. But that at the time, you know, we had a Rent Guidelines Board at that time that was… I mean, forget a two percent increase. We had a Rent Guidelines Board that was passing like, eight percent increases, six percent increases, even you know, under Koch—double digit increases under Koch and Dinkins, you know, thirteen percent, twelve percent. So, you know, these were sizable increases.

Powell: [00:35:50] And of course, we could see—like everybody else in New York, as the rent was going up, more and more people were becoming homeless. Anybody could put this together, that there was a link between these two things. Of course, the real estate industry and sort of reactionary forces in New York tried to obfuscate that and say things like, "Well, you know, people are homeless by choice. And, you know, all these people are like, you know, addicted to something... And it's not about the rent, it's..." You know, the same old bullshit. Right? But like, you know, we knew that that was not true. We knew that there was a direct correlation between high rents and homelessness.

Powell: [00:36:29] And Coalition for the Homeless, I have to say—I have to give them credit. I know they as an organization, they have some deltas in terms of organizing. But Coalition for the Homeless, Patrick Markee was really good about helping us make that argument, every year. Judith Goldiner, Adriene Holder from Legal Aid Society, were really good about helping us make that argument, every year. Ed Josephson and Jen Levy were really good from South Brooklyn Legal Services about helping us make that argument, every year.

Powell: [00:37:01] But really on the homeless side, the first people that really got that, and really were like, "Oh yeah! No, of course, you know" was Anthony and Lou in like the proto Picture the Homeless days. I didn't even know if they were… How much of a crew they had when we first started hanging out. For all I knew, they only had the name, you know? And what happened was, I don't—to be honest with you, I don't remember. I don't remember exactly. I think I met Anthony first. I don't remember exactly how I met him. I think he just came to the Met Council office; I think he just rang the bell and walked right in, and we just started talking.

Powell: [00:37:39] This would have been—you know, like... [Sighs] I'd have to look it up. 2000 maybe? You know, '99, 2000, 2001. But I remember that we were planning a sleep-out in front of Gracie Mansion. To make the point, you know, theatrically, right... Because most of us were tenants, very few of us were homeless, or had actually experienced homelessness. That, you know, an increase in rent was going to result in more homelessness. And Anthony and Lou were like, "Oh, yeah! No, great idea. And we know how to sleep on the street. We'll show you..." [Smiles] You know what I mean? Literally they were like, "We'll be part of the action. You bet!" So, they were totally down for it.

Powell: [00:38:28] And you know, I just remember... From then on, you know, Picture the Homeless kind of became—you know, first just Anthony and Lou, then Jean Rice. Like, I remember Jean… I vividly remember Jean Rice speaking at a rally we had in support of the rent laws in Union Square, in 2003. Vividly remember it. Vividly remember it—he was like the second speaker. And he had like, I don't know who it was at the time... I knew Jean at the time. I mean, I'd met him at least maybe even just before he spoke. But there was somebody else that was with him, at least one person, maybe a couple of people who were PTH members, and they were doing like a call and response thing. And I remember, you know, I remember just being like, "Wow, okay. So this is like a new and important part of this coalition." You know, that's helping to make this, like just really drilling down on the cause and effect of these things, you know what I mean? And just standing up as homeless people and saying, "Okay, we're not rent stabilized now, or maybe we are now—but you know, we were homeless previously, but we're here to tell you there's a direct link between these two things. And it's important that that link is articulated by homeless people directly."

Powell: [00:39:41] So yeah—I mean, I could talk a little bit about those early days, but that's when my Picture the Homeless story begins, if you will. It was 339 Lafayette and memories of hanging out with Lou and Anthony in that office, in the Met Council office. And again, Jenny Laurie—to her credit, was never like, "What are you doing just hanging out, talking to these guys. Like, why aren't you out organizing? [Laughs] Or why aren't you answering the phones? Or why aren't you out pushing memberships out the door?" She always—you know, she always made a home for that conversation to happen, and I was really grateful for that. And I think Anthony and Lou were grateful for that, too.

Powell: [00:40:20] Like I mean, I just remember—I remember actually talking with Anthony, a lot—you know, and the thing that was hilarious about it Lynn, was Anthony would come to me [smiles] and more than once I remember us having this conversation. He knew that he was on to something. He knew that what he was talking about was important. But he didn't know exactly how to structure it, and he didn't know exactly how to get support for it. I think actually that was more the thing. Like how do you financially support this, you know? Like, who is going to listen to homeless people enough to give them money? Not just be, "Yeah, yeah, that's cool." But, who's going to give this organization money, so that it can really function as an organization, independently. So it can actually have a place, you know what I mean?

Powell: [00:41:06] And I remember what was hilarious about that, is that—as far as housing organizations go, Met Council was and probably still is the brokest of all of them. We were the wrong people to ask. [Laughs] Because remember, Met Council on Housing was and is—I mean there's two sections of it. There's a nonprofit side and there's a membership side. But at the time we were one-hundred percent membership funded. We were a couple of thousand people paying twenty bucks a year, or whatever—whatever people could afford. And that paid for almost everything. Maybe one or two people, you know—passing away and leaving us their—remembering us in their will, right? But, we were not a funded organization. We didn't have funders. Our funders were our members. That was it, right?

Powell: [00:42:02] And so the... The thing with that, [smiles] as a result, I had absolutely... Which, I mean—I have a much different life now, in the movement. But at the time, I had absolutely no head whatsoever for fundraising, for the so-called "nonprofit industrial complex", right? It's one of the things I loved about Met Council, is that they were never telling, you, "No." You know? When it came to the intersectionality of certain things, it was never—it wasn't that we wouldn't have a discussion about it. We would talk about it strategically. But it was never, "Don't say that because you'll piss off the city and we have a city contract." We never had a city contract, and calling the city out was a big part of what we did. And no foundation and no HPD program officer, or no commissioner of HPD, and indeed no mayor, was going to tell us differently. Like, we were calling you out constantly if you worked for the city, you know what I mean? We were calling the mayor out constantly. We were calling out the dysfunction of HPD constantly. That's what we did. And being able to do that resolutely and without apology and to be somewhat militant about it was, I think was and probably still is, Met Council's strength.

Powell: [00:43:23] But as a result, when Anthony would come to me [smiles] and be like, "Dave, how do we get funded?" I was like, "I don't know! [Laughs] I literally don't know.” I don't—it's not just that I don't know because I don't have that experience. I don't know because the organization I work for is forty years old, and the way it's funded is by people mailing in a money order, every year [smiles] for twenty-five dollars, and like several thousand New Yorkers doing that, you know what I mean? That's how we did it. You know, there was no—you know… I remember conversations with Anthony about that, you know, Lou to a certain degree as well, but like Anthony intensely about, "How do we do it?" Anthony was literally like, "I know this is important. But I just don't know how to pay for it. You know, I know that homeless people have to be heard." He had this sort of...

Powell: [00:44:21] I think he had a sense of the history, the historic nature of it. You know what I mean? That there were, historically—landless and homeless organizations on every continent and in every country that had done this work, and that had done—that had been important parts of, or even completely distinct movements onto themselves. But it had not been done in modern New York, you know what I mean? It had not been done—in New York City, maybe even in the United States within the decade or so, or two or three.

Powell: [00:44:57] Where Anthony and Lou were like, trying to just conceptualize it, piece it together. I mean, they were totally in the wilderness, you know what I mean? They were totally, and I mean that in the best way, meaning that they didn't come to this idea derivatively. You know, they didn't come to this idea with any sense of self-importance or fame. It was just like; they just knew this had to happen and they like—like.... [Long pause, gets emotional, sighs] They just created it with their bare hands, you know? Absolutely... Like with just absolute purity, you know? Not [long pause] ideological purity, or dogma or anything like that. But just with [long pause] just like, pure hearts, you know?

Lewis: [00:46:06] Well, I really want—one thing I really want you to know, is that among the very early people that actually would take the time to sit down and talk to them, was you, and Charles King. Of course, Housing Works was much smaller then, too—and Terri Smith-Coronia at Housing Works,

Powell: Yup. Yup. Yup. I remember Terri.

Lewis: Yeah, I remember when Anthony first went to the Met Council office. He was really blown away, because there was a lot of other stuff going on there, too. And they had been to CHARAS and then they found you all, and he just kept going on—I didn't know you then. He kept going on and on about Dave Powell, “and Dave Powell…” And he had newspapers, and he was like so excited that somebody was giving him real information about how housing actually worked. And the homeless groups, were kind of like, not as [laughs] were not "kind of", were not as welcoming.

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: Because, you know, they had a—they had their policy agenda laid out, and

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: [00:47:18] And Anthony and Lewis were always opposed to shelters. They were always about housing. So you—you were very important to them, just like I—I know that they were important to you. So, you really should know that.

Powell: Thank you, Lynn. You know, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. No, I just—again, you know, I just remember it. And then I also do remember… I have somewhere, I'll find it. It's in the Met Council archives, and I think it's in the Met Council archives, because my mom I think, took the picture. But I remember there's a picture of—there's a picture of the sleep-in that we did at Gracie Mansion, or like opposite it. And there’s a couple of us in that picture and I don't remember the name… I remember the people; I don't remember their names. But Lou is like—Lou is like right there, you know. We're, you know, holding picket signs and it's like two o'clock in the morning and cold and shit and we're all stacked up with hats and sweaters and scarves and whatnot. But like, really smiling ear to ear.

Powell: [00:48:25] It's just, you know, great to be with those guys and just watching them work and just watching them think—like literally, again, just like, figure it out from scratch. It's not that they didn't have supporters, or they didn't have people that knew what they were about to do was important. But they didn't have, you know—they didn't come with any institution that was like, "Oh yeah! Great idea. Let us know what you need." They had to build that shit. They built that shit like with, you know, brick by brick, you know? Absolutely and totally, you know? And as they say, like with genuine, genuine curiosity about, like what is the best way to get there, you know? Genuine like—you know, genuine—work. You know, of thinking it through strategically, [laughs] you know? I just remember that. I remember just the weight of those conversations, you know?

Powell: [00:49:23] And mostly, I was just kind of sharing how we did it at Met Council, and just being a sounding board and just sort of trying to encourage them. Because I knew, you know—again, what they were talking about was necessary. But I don't know that I provided any—I don't know that I provided any useful like technical information, [laughs] you know what I mean? Especially on the funding thing. I'll never forget that. I very vividly remember Anthony being like, "How do we get money, man? Who is going to fund this?" And I'm like, "I don't know!" [Laughs] That's what I remember, just being, "I'm so sorry, man. I wish I could, I wish I could help you out." And I know that they had a couple of individuals, who were sort of like friends and benefactors, in the early days. And I don't know—honestly, it never was quite clear as to how much those folks were supporting the work or just giving them a place to stay, or whatever. But yeah, I just remember that, you know. I definitely remember those early days.

Powell: [00:50:26] Then I remember, a few years later getting a call from... You know, we used to like—fax, you know? We were still faxing. I didn't even know how to do a proper press release. But it was like a flier, you know? And we would communicate with the press, and with allies by fax machine. So, I remember sending—you know, we had a list, you know. And it was like, "Okay, I'm going to send this over to Artemio at Pratt Area Community Council, and send this over to Jen Flynn over at New York City AIDS Housing Network. And I'm going to send this over to, you know, Colby and Craig over at the SRO Law Project. I'm going to send it to Terri Smith-Coronia over at Housing Works. I'm going to send it over to..." You know, and there were these people... And then, at one point PTH had a fax number! So, I was like sending this stuff over…

Powell: [00:51:33] And then, I remember one day—it's probably, you know, 2002, 2003, I got this call from this kid named Sam Miller. And I didn't know who that was. He was like, really enthusiastic and he was talking to me... He was like, "Hey! You know, blah-blah-blah." And he was like talking to me like he knew me, and I was like, "Do I know you? Who are you?" You know? [Laughs] And he was like, "You're Dave from—you're involved in ABC No Rio, right? You were in was Huasipungo, right?" Which was this band I used to play drums in, or still did at the time. He's like, "Yeah! We…" He was saying things like, "We love Huasipungo over here at Picture the Homeless! And I'm like, “Fuck you talking about? Anthony and Lou doesn't know any of the hardcore punk shit I'm into.” You know... [Laughs]. Like, you know, whatever. But Sam, of course, you know—he had some of the same influences, and, I grew to like, love Sam. Because who cannot love Sam? You know? And he really, he helped, I think, you know—scale up some of those things and those....

Powell: [00:52:41] I mean, that was my memory. It's just like, you know, at one point it was Lou and Anthony. And then, I mean—that's who I saw. It could have—there could have been dozens of y'all for all I knew. You know what I mean? It was just, at first it was just Lou and Anthony. That's who would come by the office. And then, you know, and then at some point I guess, you all got an office. And then at one point, you know, I'm like, "Oh, I'll add them to the list. That's great! You know, I guess I no longer just have to call Anthony, you know—figure out where he is this week, or whatever." And then like, and then as I said, there's this super friendly kid on the other, you know...

Powell: [00:53:19] I call him—first of all, let me just own like, I'm fifty years old. And in my, you know, upbringing, anybody who's my age or younger is a kid. So I'm just, you know, [laughs] I'm like, “yeah, this kid was giving me bullshit the other day”. That's just how I talk. It's not a—that's not even a diminutive thing. That's like a lateral thing. If you're older than me, then I'll probably not use that phrase. [Laughs]

Powell: [00:53:43] But I'm like, who is this kid on the other end of the phone? Like, who just—seems to be working with Anthony and Lou and is kind of like, "Oh yeah! We'll send a speaker to your rent laws rally at Union Square. I'm like, "Great! Who's it going to be?” And it's like, "Oh, this guy named Jean Rice." And that's probably the first—when I first met Jean. And if I had to guess Lynn, although I don't remember various—I remember Jean because he—the way he spoke, and I remember Anthony and Lou because I would hang out with them, and we did a lot of stuff together. But I don't know when you, I'm going to guess that the first time we met, might have been that same rally or around that same time, like 2003—maybe? Is that possible?

Lewis: [00:54:32] Yeah, because I was the civil rights organizer, and Jean was, of course, the civil rights kind of North Star, for us. [Smiles] And—but, he's such an excellent speaker and always had such a sharp analysis, right? So—and one of the things I loved about Anthony and Lewis... Because Lewis did this with the Anthony. Lewis would step back, so Anthony could speak. And that was always part of the ethos.

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: [00:55:07] And one of the things that you'll find really interesting in Anthony's interviews, and I've interviewed him three times, is that he talks about basically how Lewis organized him, when they first met, and then would push him. At first, he didn't—he didn't accept. But, you know, Lewis he says was very consistent. And then he agreed to go on the radio and then he pushed him to speak in different places, until he felt confident enough to do it. And so, Anthony also—not that Jean needed the confidence, but Anthony would always make that space.

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: [00:55:47] And so we—we would, we were very small then. You know, there weren't many of us, and so it would be typical for us all to go, and support Jean doing that.

Powell: Yep. Yep.

Lewis: And we would have been in Judson by then.

Powell: Okay. Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. That follows. That follows. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Lewis: [00:56:09] Were you the hookup from ABC No Rio, that gave us the first computer? Was that you?

Powell: If you got a computer from ABC No Rio, it's likely that I might have been the connection to the person who gave it to you, but that would have been... So, ABC No Rio, at that time had a computer lab and free internet, you know—which like, as you'll remember right? In the early 2000s, that was a big deal, that you could actually go somewhere, and not pay. You used to pay. You had to pay for the minutes, or the hour, for computer access and Internet access. Both of those things. So ABC had a kind of Anarcho-techno cohort that was emerging around that time, and they put together a computer lab. And so, that would have been probably Eric Goldhagen or Steven Englander. Steve Englander was—and is, the administrator for ABC No Rio. ABC's one employee since the 1990s and our de facto kind of director and, you know—glue.

Powell: [00:57:26] You know, ABC No Rio was broken up into collectives, depending on the activity. So, you had the hardcore punk collective, you had a free jazz collective called COMA. You had the Food Not Bombs collective that would do Food Not Bombs there, and serve food in Tompkins Square Park, and elsewhere. You had a dark room collective. You had an art collective that would do shows in the gallery, and we had a computer lab collective. So, if it was from ABC No Rio, I might have connected... That's a logical connection that I would have connected PTH to somebody over there. But the actual—they were always salvaging parts and building computers and like—you know, if they had an extra, they probably recognized PTH as a kindred spirit and were happy to help out. That all makes sense. That all fits. Yeah.

Lewis: [00:58:24] Yeah. Anthony one day was like, "We're getting a free computer from ABC No Rio. And he used to go there also, because he's a photographer, and so he was really down with the photography collective and there was a dark room, and it was... I think it was really a blessing that his entry into the social justice movement was with people, you know, who were kind of more of a mutual aid solidarity kind of mindset.

Powell: Right. Right.

Lewis: [00:58:56] And so we have this relationship with you and you're—you know, you're in different organizations doing housing work. And at one point, we wanted to hire you when we were in the Bronx.

Powell: [Laughs] That's right. That's right.

Lewis: And you came for an interview!

Powell: That's right. I did. I did. Uh-Huh. Yep.

Lewis: So what—could you, do you remember what that was like, what the office was like?

Powell: [00:59:24] I just wanted to, sorry. There's one other person from ABC that I wanted to give a shout out to. I mean, there's a lot of people I want to give a shout out to, but just it's really interesting that you say that Anthony—did you say it was Anthony or Lou that was going to the darkroom?

Lewis: Anthony Yeah. Yeah.

Powell: So, the person who was the sort of central person in the dark room and in a lot of like ABC activities like of that era, was Vikki Law. Who

Lewis: Oh!!!!

Powell: I don't know if you know her, but Vikki

Lewis: Yeah, a little bit.

Powell: is probably best known at this point as an author. She wrote—I had to look it up, because I wanted to make sure I got the name right. So, she wrote Resistance Behind Bars: the Struggles of Incarcerated Women, Prison by Any Other Name, The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reform and Prisons Make Us Safer and Twenty Other Myths About Mass Incarceration. Again, that's a really interesting connection because they would have... You could just picture those conversations in the dark room, right? I mean, that's a very logical connection. And then Vikki is, you know—was and is, just great people, you know? And just somebody literally, that I grew up with at ABC No Rio, you know?

Powell: [01:00:39] I mean ABC actually... ABC's a good thing to mention I think. So, I was part of the ABC No Rio collective, since like 1991, 1990—well 1991, '92 as a volunteer. Mutual aid is definitely like the currency there. And also, a big part of it is figuring things out, like DIY, figuring things out. I mean, that was how that space ran, and still, you know, [smiles] we're in exile right now while we rebuild the building. But that's still very much the ethos behind what we do. So I'm glad you remember, you reminded me of that connection because that again, that all fits, you know what I mean?

Powell: [01:01:24] Really ABC is part of what informed my approach to organizing at Met Council on Housing and maybe why I was sort of pushing more in the direction of mutual aid, kind of… Supplementing the socialist backbone of Met Council, you know? [Laughs] With a little bit of the—you know, a little bit of the Anarcho influenced mutual aid thing. Not that I can really claim the mantle of anarchism in any way, but influenced by it, you know?

Powell: [01:01:57] I used to joke about some of the internecine… It's funny, now being part of Cooper Square, some of the internecine fights in the 1990's between neighborhood groups—I used to say like, you know, "Well, the anarchist squatters are like..." You know, because the squatters and the housing groups used to fight, you know. They fought over space. There used to be arguments about approach. There used to be arguments about how people, homeless people were or weren't being placed in affordable housing, you know? Situations that were done by the city, right? And there was some of that whole like, you know, "Oh well, we've been waiting... You know, Adopt-a-Building or Pueblo Nuevo or Cooper Square or whoever, has been waiting twenty years to develop this building, and then a group of squatters would be like, "Well, we're just moving in." [Laughs] And that was just like, a serious... Those tensions were just big, you know? Even 13th Street, when 13th Street was evicted, right? It was supposedly evicted for affordable housing, right? So...

Powell: [01:02:59] So, the joke I used to make on the Lower East Side [laughs] was, “All my mentors are like socialists from the housing movement. And all my friends are anarchist squatters. [Laughs] That was kind of part of my nexus, you know?

Lewis: And that beef is still there.

Powell: [01:03:19] That beef is still there. And you know what? While we're talking LES shit, I'll just say in hindsight and hopefully most people would agree with this statement, although maybe some people—some people don't. And we're still, you know, there's still internecine battles that continue to take up so much energy, and so much space—disproportionate. You know, it turned out that while we were arguing about whether it was a nascently… Like my approach or your approach was the better way to preserve the low income character of the Lower East Side, and really fighting each other over it, and really not finding ways to connect and find common ground. It just so happens, it just turns out, that the forces of global real estate were actually taking our fucking neighborhood from—and our entire city, from right under our nose and carving it up in massive ways that we... You know, at the time, we never thought that was... The level I think, right? That we've seen this happen, we could not really comprehend it. I mean, many of us, I should say, not everybody. We couldn't comprehend this level of gentrification and displacement that has happened and neighborhood and city wide transformation, right?

Powell: [01:04:29] In the nineties—it's funny, I had sort of some of this conversation with Susanna Blankley when they were doing a timeline of the housing movement and they were asking me to fill in some gaps in the nineties, right? And one of the things I said to Susanna was, "In the nineties, you had to explain to people what gentrification was, and then you had to argue with people about—not only was it real, but if you got to the point where you could convince people that it was real, was it actually having a negative impact?" And now, that is so much part of our lexicon because the city has been so thoroughly transformed, you know what I mean? That it's like, there's no argument about whether or not gentrification is real. Or whether or not it's had a transformative impact on New York City, and our neighborhoods. The only argument people might have—might have, is whether or not they are benefits, you know, versus deltas. But there's… I'm not talking about the housing movement. I'm talking about the larger culture and the larger discussion, right? But, at the time, you had to define gentrification because nobody knew what the F you were talking about, right? [Smiles] And then you had to argue about whether it was actually happening, and then you had to explain why it was negative, you know? And people were like, "You're crazy.” You know what I mean?

Powell: [01:05:49] I had, when I was arguing, you know, where we were trying to stop vacancy decontrol and the two-thousand dollar—which was then the two-thousand dollar rent level, by which vacant apartments, rent stabilized apartments could deregulate. I had a senator from Bushwick tell me this would have been like, I don't know, 2001... “You know, this is—this thing about a two-thousand dollar rent? This is a Manhattan problem. This is a white person's problem. You will never see a two-thousand dollar rent, in Bushwick.” [Laughs] Right?

Lewis: Now that's on the cheap end.

Powell: And he was basically like, "I'm not wasting my political currency... Of course, he probably had landlord ties as well. But, you know, it was basically, "I'm not… Get out of my office. I'm not wasting my political currency on this issue. This is bullshit." You know?

Powell: [01:06:44] Anyway, so that was a real struggle, you know? To be able to just describe to people, and to fight for public space, and public discussion about gentrification. You know, just to explain like, "This is what's happening." And I just don't think we… You know—we sort of, we thought that the how—how we go about things, "Are you too militant? Are you not militant enough? Are you working with this person? Are you not working with that person? Are you..." You know, I think we mistook the importance of tactics, for the importance of strategy, overall. [Smiles] And we mistook the importance of the how, for the importance of the what. It's not that the tactics are not important, or the how is not important.

Powell: [01:07:39] But like, that little example of you know, the anarchists and the socialists in the Lower East Side arguing with each other about, “This much of the neighborhood and the land…” (indicates an inch with his fingers) While in the background, global real estate, and the real estate, you know REBNY, and you know… Swallow the entire city whole. I mean that just showed a real—I'm just going to say it. I mean, I was, to some degree as guilty of this as anybody else… A real lack of foresight of what was actually happening, you know? And a real lack of, "Oh, this is bigger! This is not an argument about who gets to swim in what part of the pool. This should be a discussion of how do we survive a tsunami. That's the level on which we're about to get cracked over the head, you know? And, you know, anyway, we lost a lot of ground because of that.

Powell: [01:08:56] And I'll say also, blissfully, I don't remember Anthony or Lou having any time for that bullshit. You know, they were never going to like pigeonhole one person and not work with them. You know what I mean? They weren't going to give you a radical test, you know what I mean? [Laughs] Or a legitimacy test. They were just like, you know, they were… What they were doing was radical, but they were very practical. I feel like I remember that about them, and you know, PTH as well. You know, just like—very smart, very practical, very strategic, you know—understood that we couldn't afford the bullshit basically. You fixate on those small things and your enemies eat you alive, you know? I mean, that's the lesson I take away from that time, anyway.

Lewis: [01:09:32] We got a lot of support from Valerio and folks at Cooper Square. And then we also got a lot of support from Frank Morales. And, you know, people that are not, [laughs] that don't see themselves as being on the same team,.

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: But who we saw as being on the same team—which was our team, [laughs] in that we were trying to fix some shit. [Laughs]

Powell: Yeah. And no, but that's so... That almost I mean, it's a small example and only some people will get sort of the personality clash that you've just described. But that is a perfect—to me, that's a perfect example of how Picture the Homeless was a real voice of clarity and reason. A radical voice of clarity and reason, but a real voice of reason, and a real… You know, you guys saw through that and made space for people to collaborate or support something, who probably should have been collaborating and supporting all along, you know? And it was just like PTH is too important... And it's just like, "Yeah. I'll sit in a meeting with you." [Laughs] You know what I mean? Like, "Or I'll find a way." You know, people find a way. Not to speak for Frank or Val, but you know, I feel like that small example is a proxy for a lot of other alliances that you helped to sew together, or open up, you being PTH—you know, as a sort of movement catalyst.

Lewis: We leaned on both of them a lot. You know—I mean, Frank was a staff person, and Valerio is—I mean, not just a dear friend. And I would also say Frank is a friend, but an advisor. You know, Valerio was very instrumental in supporting Picture the Homeless analysis around the community land trust work.

Powell: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm.

Lewis: [01:11:36] And so, I want to kind of fast forward a little bit. Still wishing—just want, for the record that you had come to work at Picture the Homeless.

Powell: Yeah, yeah, yeah—sorry, sorry. [Laughs] I didn't mean to deflect that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [Smiles]

Lewis: [Laughs] So anyway, in 2010.

Powell: Uh-huh. Uh-Huh.

Lewis: We had a meeting.

Powell: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: At the Ford Foundation, because we had done this initial vacant property count. And again, people were telling us all through the 2000's that, "This vacant property is not an issue anymore." And our folks were like, "Look! There's vacant buildings everywhere. What do you mean? It's not an issue anymore? It hasn't gone away." And even—one time we had a party at my house and Nikita Price and Roosevelt Orphee sat on both sides of Valerio and were like, "It's an issue. Like, talk to us about how it's not an issue. What do you mean?"

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm. Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: [01:12:39] And, we wanted—with Peter Marcuse and Tom Angotti, and John Krinsky, we wanted to launch a kind of citywide initiative around—how do we identify and get sites, for the development of affordable housing for the poorest people in the city, who are homeless or at high risk of being homeless? Like, that's the problem and we're not doing that and how can we not do that? How can we not figure that out? And so, we got a little bit of planning money, and we had it at the Ford Foundation, and you were there. And you were

Powell: Was I?!

Lewis: [01:13:32] You were from the—what… South Bronx? You were working on the expressway...

Powell: Oh, for God's sake! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. Well…

Lewis: What's the name of the of the group? I'm blanking...

Powell: Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, which was an environmental—and I believe still is, an environmental justice coalition that included Mothers on the Move, Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Nos Quedamos, Sustainable South Bronx, The Point CDC, and then they got technical assistance from Tri-State Transportation Campaign and Pratt Center. But yes, that's true. We were funded by the Ford Foundation, and I was a coordinator for that effort, for about a year and a half, two years—had an office in, had a desk at YMPJ, yep.

Lewis: [01:14:26] Well, we were begging the—you know, we were trying to talk it up to funders to support this kind of broad alliance of groups who would have an interest in dealing with vacant buildings and lots. And Cooper Square, of course had the community land trust, but there weren't any other community land trusts. And sometimes we would hear, "Oh that's Cooper Square. Like, that's them, like—a special case." And we were like...

Powell: Pay no attention to that unicorn in the corner, right. [Laughs]

Lewis: You know, as opposed to that's a model… That's like, “an aberration.”

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: And so do you have memories from that meeting? Because that meeting really launched what became the New York City Community Land Initiative—grew out of that.

Powell: Wow. Wow. So, I'm trying to remember. I definitely did have interactions with the Ford Foundation during that time. Jerry Maldonado was a—was a sort of champion of the initiative that I was working for in the Bronx.

Powell: [01:15:38] And I think, honestly—so what happened was... Okay, just to tell the full dirty story, or not dirty story, but the full details. [Smiles] So, it's true that I did—in 2009, 2010, [pause]  2008, maybe 2008, 2009, I interviewed for PTH, when you got when you were in the Bronx. I forget where exactly, but it was not a million miles away from... Was it near like Arthur Avenue?

Lewis: It was on Morris and Fordham.

Powell: [01:16:20] Yeah. Yeah. Near Fordham, right, right. And it was a house! You guys, I remember you all had a house. Like, it was a real big house, too! It was like this big house on this, you know… You sort of pull off—it was one of these Bronx blocks where you'd like, you're in the middle of the commercial side and you pull off and all of a sudden there are all these houses and like, wow! So, you all were in this big old house. And I absolutely came to interview for that position.

Powell: [01:16:50] And yes, I remember. I remember [Laughs] I remember that—I remember that interview well. Because I mean, at one point it was in some ways it felt like, you know, coming back and reuniting with like the PTH crew, and some people I'd never met before. [Smiles] I also remember, which is totally legit and just absolutely appropriate. I remember, part of my interview was a role play in which it was like, "Well, you're going to be going into homeless shelters and you look how you look. So like, we're going to role play how that might happen." And Jean Rice just like, totally fucking cursed me out. [Laughs] He was just like, "You..." I don't even want to repeat it. It was so good. It was like completely… And I was like, "No, I get it, totally..." And afterwards he's, "Sorry but, that's what you're going to face." I'm like, "No, no, I get it. That's completely, that's completely cool."

Powell: [01:17:40] I ended up—I don't remember if you all made an offer, or if I just found another spot to work. But ironically, I ended up… This is why it's ironic. I ended up working at Tenants and Neighbors. I'd been—and so basically, I'd just been, or was about to be laid off from Fifth Avenue Committee, because of the great financial crisis of 2008 and all of the nonprofits losing all this money, in funding. And so, I was going on job interviews to try and like... You know, I had a two year old at that point, at home and had to get another job. And I ended up working at Tenants and Neighbors and the ironic part of that is that seven months later, Tenants and Neighbors lost a bunch of funding, and then laid me off again. So, that's when I ended up just like, “Man—I thought I'd been in this movement a minute and I might actually be able to work here. And I've just been laid off twice, within a year. I need to go back to college and make myself a little bit more employable, or something.”

Powell: [01:18:42] So, I ended up at Hunter College for Urban Planning, which is not how I met Tom. I knew Tom from South Brooklyn stuff and from working in Fifth Avenue Committee, and he'd spoken at some events that we'd been involved with for accountable development, and around Atlantic Yards, and some rezoning stuff, and stuff like that. But, it was also during that time—where I actually had some free time, where I wasn't working full time and so, I ended up going on a couple of the building counts. I was actually part of the earlier, it was like 2010, 2011, around like when the building count was happening, or maybe earlier?

Lewis: [01:19:23] Yeah, the citywide one. We did two.

Powell: So, I was part of the second one, the citywide one. And then shortly after that, after doing a  little bit of volunteering on that, I ended up getting the job with Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance. And they were funded by Ford. And I had just recently been part of some of the building count stuff (?). So, I think maybe that's why. If I was in the room for that, that's why I was in the room. I think I was able to be like, "Well. I'm not representing, Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, but we are funded by them. Hi, Jerry. Hi, everybody. And also on my spare time, I volunteered for this count because it's like, really important." Like, I don't know. Does that make sense? If I was in the room, I that feel like that would have been why?

Lewis: Yeah, I know you were in the room, and I don't... I just remember you looking really interested and being like, "I have to go back and check back..." Because we formed committees in that meeting.

Powell: [01:20:29] Right, Right. Well, I think that the other part of it, right—is that Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, the primary goal at that time was to remove the Sheridan Expressway and to create... I mean, at the most basic level, to make that area safer. Like West Farms area, Hunts Point Area, Bronx River area, Mott Haven area, safer for people in the neighborhood. Because the highway infrastructure there, including the Sheridan, was an absolute Robert Moses act of hatred, you know what I mean? I mean, it was just, you know, and like the way... And then, of course, putting Hunt's Point where Hunts Point was, and having no direct access to Hunts Point, meant that trucks were coming off of the Sheridan at Whitlock Avenue, and then hammering through those neighborhoods to get to Hunt's Point. Thereby, not only creating an unsafe pedestrian situation, but also exacerbating the asthma rates of like, particularly young people, but all people and making the health of—the air quality worse, and compromising the health of folks in those neighborhoods.

Powell: [01:21:58] So, part of what we were trying to do, was to restructure the highway and actually even remove... The main call was to remove the Sheridan Expressway completely. And this was a campaign, by the way, that I just came into. I was hired for a short period of time. I worked there. I basically did what I was told. I learned a lot from the organizations that were doing that work. I did not have a history in environmental justice, like personally or politically, and I got completely schooled in it. I got completely grounded in it. It was an amazing experience. [Sighs] Man, really—the people that I met there just really opened my mind and educated me about a lot of things, and confirmed a lot of things that I knew but didn't actually really know—and were just like, "No, this is what this is about."

Powell: [01:22:50] So, I was part of that campaign for a very short period of time. So, all of the things I'm saying, none of them were my idea. I just held the ball for a little while and passed it, you know what I mean? And honestly, you know what I mostly did? What I mostly did was [smiles] coordinate the schedules of the staff that worked there. It's like, if you needed—if our coalition needed to call a meeting between MOM, Nos Quedamos, YMPJ, the Point... You know, it's like, how do you get David, Wanda, Jessica, Kellie, and Angela Tovar in a room? Yeah, Dave. Like, I was the scheduler, basically. That's what I did. That's a lot of what I did—was just facilitate the work that they were already doing, and had been doing, for literally decades.

Powell: [01:23:39] The plan was to create a better—to create access from the West Farms side to Concrete Plant park, and Starlight park. Because, for decades, all the groups I just named and local residents had been fighting to make the southern part of the Bronx River as beautiful and pristine and cared for by the city and state, as the northern part of the Bronx River, which is served by Westchester, which serves Westchester County, right? So folks were like, "We have a river, it's polluted. We have these places. We want parks." So, Concrete Plant park, Starlight park—one-hundred percent community created parks, one hundred percent based on those demands. And then, you had the—even on the Bronx River side, even on the Bronx River Houses and Westchester Avenue, you still… It was hard to get to those parks and on the West Farms side, it was impossible! Because the Sheridan Expressway would block them off.

Powell: [01:24:48] So, it was a twofold campaign—really a threefold campaign to increase access, neighborhood residents access to those parks, get those trucks off the street, and then it was like, “Well, if we're taking the Sheridan, what do we do with that land?” Like, "Oh yes! We absolutely have plans for that land, beyond just crosswalks, like on the West Side Highway.” You know what I mean? And it was, "Yeah, let's take that land back. You know, let's do something with that land. Let's build affordable—like truly affordable housing, on that land." And so, as other South Bronx residents and entities started to consider community land trusts, that was a moment at which Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance was also considering—maybe a land trust could be a means to securing that land and reclaiming highway space from private interests, and bringing it back to the community, and what would we do with that land, you know? Beyond just good pedestrian crossings. Which in and of itself was a noble and important goal. But that's what I think, you know.

Powell: [01:26:03] And so I was there, and I sort of had an idea of what Cooper Square had done, both from the movement and because at the time [smiles] I was at Hunter, starting this project. It's now, you know, Rabble Rousers, Fran Goldin documentary film. So, I had an idea about what that was about, but I think that I wasn't so sure, at that point. And I think the Coalition was still figuring out whether or not it wanted to go in on the community land trust thing. And, so I think that's where that was.

Powell: [01:26:41] Again, you know, yes, I think that when you say like I was curious, I think part of my curiosity wasn't like… I knew from the first count, because I remember. I remember when that report came out. I was a tenant and land use organizer at Fifth Avenue Committee. And I remember when that report came out, it was like, "Holy shit, this is amazing!" You know, and we got to do this in Gowanus! You know what I mean? Because Gowanus was being considered for a rezoning for many years, and finally was rezoned. And there's a lot of untold stories in Gowanus. Same thing! People were saying to us, "Oh, Gowanus is already gentrified. The land's already spoken for; you know. It's already, you know… The battles already been lost. There's no vacant housing here." And I'm like, "No, that's not true." And then when PTH came out with that first report, which—was it focused on East Harlem? Was that the...?

Lewis: [01:27:35] We—way, way, way back, even before Sam started working at Picture the Homeless, we did an East Harlem initial count. We never did a report or anything. It was like a totally like on like ninety-nine cent store composition notebook kind of thing. And then, we used that to be able to actually write a proposal to get funding to hire a housing organizer. Because we didn't have one, and we hired Sam. And then in 2006, 2007, we started—we did a Manhattan vacant property count, that Scott Stringer jumped on.

Powell: Uh-Huh. Right.

Lewis: Yeah, we were calling for Community Land Trusts—was one of our recommendations.

Powell: That's when I, yeah, mm-hmmm. That's when I became aware of that.

Lewis: Yeah. It got no traction. Like, there were really hardly any other housing groups that were interested.

Powell: But you did—I remember you did... I don't know if it was a full on report. It might not have been the nice glossy thing that Angela and Tom helped you with, but there was definitely a report that came out.

Lewis: It was glossy!

Powell: It was—that was the one? That was the nice one? It was downloadable, the PDF. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Lewis: Yeah.

Powell: No, I remember that. I remember being like, really blown away by that.

Lewis: [01:29:00] We had a fight with Scott Stringer because they wanted to issue their own report and we were like, "Go ahead. But we're doing our own report." And we even had members, and we have this in Nikita—in his interview, he talked about it. Where Scott Stringer's office at one point didn't want to share the data. And we're like, "Oh, hell no." And our housing campaign almost pulled out. And then Scott Stringer was like, "Oh no, everything's fine!" And our members were so upset about politicians trying to get over, that they held watch at the state office building and made sure that we got all the copies of the surveys.

Powell: Wow.

Lewis: That day, [laughs] before we would leave. It was pretty intense. And so, then we issued our own. Because we wanted to make sure… People wanted our report to look just as good, and be just as credible.

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: [01:30:03] But I was wondering, you know, since you know Anthony and Lewis, from the very first days, what was it like for you to witness Picture the Homeless kind of evolving and doing these like vacant property counts, and the reports and really shifting the narrative about land use in the city.

Powell: Well, it was amazing! I mean, you know—like yeah. I mean, I remember being at Fifth Avenue Committee, in a very different job. Artemio Guerra was my supervisor at the time. So I was working with Aura Mejia, Artemio… And I was basically doing tenant organizing. And then they got some money to do, like accountable development and land use organizing. So, when the Picture the Homeless report came out, I was like, "Oh my God!" You know what I mean? I mean, first of all, it was beautiful, you know what I mean? It was. it really did look like… You know, the way it was articulated, the way it was laid out, really... You didn't have to struggle through pages and pages of pages of graphs. It was a good read; you know what I mean? It emphasized the important information, but the information was solid. You know what I mean?

Powell: [01:31:30] It was like—and because I was sort of tasked with trying to help figure out.... Like to organize residents around land use policy, I was like, “Exactly! Like, this is exactly...” And what we ended up doing, was copying the methodology a little bit. So, we got residents that were involved in our organizing. We had a tenant's committee called Inquilinos Unidos, that was like the resident, you know, the tenants from the area—and to define the area, was basically Park Slope, Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Sunset Park. And those residents… Literally—we actually took the report, and we were like, "Look what they did." You know what I mean? Like, homeless people just were going around and they're like, “We know this is vacant. We know this is vacant.”

Powell: [01:32:26] So, we did the same thing because what we were trying to do with the Gowanus rezoning, was we were trying to make the case. Park Slope had already been rezoned. Fourth Avenue, North and South had already been rezoned, and it was a total disaster. There was like no tenant protections. We had organized with residents who—the landlord had basically been like, "Oh, I'm just building a condo here, forget it." And they just stopped providing services to like five buildings. There were five buildings on Fourth Avenue, right next to each other. And you know, today I can point out to you—ten years, fifteen years ago, I could point out to you, the new disgusting building that was there where forty families used to live, you know what I mean? Forty Brooklyn families used to live in these five rent stabilized buildings.

[01:33:10] The demolition provision in rent stabilization is so weak that when you do that kind of rezoning, you basically incentivize the destruction of rent stabilized housing. And we were like, "We've seen this happen on Third Avenue—on Fourth Avenue, rather. We can't let this happen in Gowanus." And we were getting pushback from—you know, not just developers and landowners, but local elected officials, some of whom posited themselves as quite progressive... That there was not necessarily any rent stabilized housing to save.

Powell: [01:33:47] And they were relying on the DHCR data. And in our area, as in many parts of New York City, there's informal housing that is rent stabilized, should be rent stabilized, but was not recognized as rent stabilized, because the landlord simply didn't register with DHCR! And DHCR doesn't come looking and do their own... So we were like, we know that—some of the people were like, "I live in this building! I'm rent stabilized! What are you talking about, that there's no rent stabilized housing in Gowanus? Bullshit! You know, "I live on Third Avenue in a rent stabilized building. I live on Union Street in a rent stabilized building, you know? And my landlord's harassing the crap out of me because they think this rezoning is about to happen.” And that's how they got involved with Fifth Avenue Committee’s organizing department, right? We were helping—you know, similar to what I was doing, some of the same things I learned at Met Council, like helping, helping the tenants with meat and potatoes, so to speak, housing issues—with essential services and eviction prevention, but also then organizing into tenants associations and in larger coalitions for rights. And we were having a real problem making this case for rent stabilized housing in Gowanus. And the idea that there should be tenant protections in Gowanus, that protect rent stabilized housing and other affordable housing.

Powell: [01:35:19] And so we totally imitated PTH's methods. I mean, I have an urban planning degree at this point. So I'm embarrassed, I should probably know the name, but like that type of neighborhood and resident informed research, right? Where it's like, "No, we're not sociologists. You know, we're just neighborhood folk. But we can go to a building, and we can count buzzers. One, two, three, four, five, six. That's rent stabilized. Is it on the DHCR list? No! But here they are. Six people, six households live here. This is a rent stabilized building."

Powell: [01:35:56] So then, we took those methods that you all used, on a smaller scale, because it was a smaller neighborhood and then we went to Pratt Center and worked with Paula Crespo, who mapped it out for us. And we were like, "Look! Here..." And again, we were like, "Let's make it nice! Like, let's do it the way PTH did it. Let's make it pretty." Again, like this is all like, whatever—graphic design 101. But you know, at the time I was like, "Wow, we actually pulled it off!" You know, “A bigger dot for a bigger rent stabilized apartment building, a smaller purple dot…” You know like, whatever. And then the key—zero to six units, six to twenty units, whatever… We completely cobbed that off of PTH's work, absolutely. And…

Lewis: Nice.

Powell: [01:36:46] You know, Fifth Avenue Committee… Fifth Avenue Committee, at the time, you know—six to ten million dollar organization. You know, Michelle de la Uz, you know, well-known award winning executive director, member of the City Planning Commission, for many years. But what was my department doing? Following PTH. We weren't hiring consultants. We were like, "That makes sense. We're doing that. We're proving—we're having everyday people prove, what the city tells us doesn't exist. We're going to go out and document this."

Lewis: [01:37:25] You know, I have to send you the... When we were trying to get the City Council to pass Intro 48, to force the city to actually do this citywide. The city should do it. [Smiles] And Christine Quinn was saying it would cost millions of dollars.

Powell: Yeah. Yeah. yeah.

Lewis: And it's expensive. And we calculated it cost one-hundred and forty thousand dollars—like with all the staff time and all the paid... Tom and

Powell: Angela, Angela Tovar, right.

Lewis: Angela Tovar—and getting the Pluto data, and all this stuff.

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: And so I have a picture I found in the archive of an invoice that we sent to Eric Dilan, who was head of the Housing and Buildings Committee of the Council. [Smiles] And it just says, "Amount owed: millions of dollars." [Laughter] And we said, "To pay us to do the work, that you all should be doing."

Powell: Yeah, right.

Lewis: [01:38:20] And it has our crowbar and stuff on it. But I just want to—I guess to, to kind of wrap up. I'm so happy that you are… You're already part of this history, but that it'll be documented. And, you know, just to kind of segue, you know, we… At Picture the Homeless, people worked really hard under pretty dire circumstances. And at the same time, we would have parties that our friends would come to, and I know you came to some of those and...

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: So what—you know, if you could just kind of share, as somebody in relationship with Picture the Homeless, like what was it like for you to not only, you know—be supportive of the housing work but also benefit from it in some ways, as you just described.

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: But then also just hang out with people and the organization. It was really important for us to have parties where people had fun together and we really saw that as movement building

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: and relationship building. And so I know you were there, at some of those. And so particularly, for you as one of the, I think—few people that had a relationship with Picture the Homeless from the, almost the very beginning.

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: [01:39:53] What was it like for you to come to those parties in later years, where there was a lot of folks and organizations, and to see that.

Powell: I mean, it was great! You know, I mean, obviously... Well, like Lou wasn't there, you know, and Anthony by that point, I think had moved out of state. So, it was different for sure. But I mean, I think... Well, a few things. First of all, you know, to see how the network of friends and family had grown, you know what I mean? In terms of organizations and just like people, you know, to meet more people that were members. And sometimes it was even like—there were people I would know from the movement. I'm like, "Oh, you're involved with PTH too? You know, like I didn't realize that you're... I see you all over the place, but I didn’t know you're a PTH member. Oh, it's so cool." You know? So, that was always like sort of catching up with the true reach of PTH, just in terms of people, like individuals involved and the members and the organizational reach. But, I mean—yeah! It was great. I mean, it was not… It never felt—it always just felt like a wonderful progression, you know what I mean? And a wonderful expansion.

Powell: [01:41:13] But also it just… Like, you all [smiles] threw great parties. They were a lot of fun; you know what I mean? And it's funny, because I do definitely, in my own current [smiles] practice, I do definitely feel like that's lacking, you know what I mean? And I'm aware of it. And it's like PTH is definitely one of the groups where I'm like, "Well, you guys definitely got that right." You know what I mean? You definitely had a good sense of… I don't know if this work can ever be—you know, people like to use the word balance. I don't know that we’re actually ever afforded balance [laughs] in this culture, or that the work that we do lends itself to balance.

Powell: [01:42:00] But it definitely felt like this is yet again another aspect where PTH, is kind of the best of the housing movement, you know what I mean? Like, there is a real sense of fun, there's a real sense of replenishment, you know what I mean? Restorativeness, you know? There is a sense of irreverence. [Laughs] There is a sense of like, you know... I mean, it was not your lazy little gala, you know what I mean? [laughs] It's definitely a party, you know. Which in the best way means, "We're here together to have a good time." And also, I don't want to say like, "Anything can happen." Because that sounds sort of unnecessarily salacious, or weird. It was a great time, but it also was—it was fun oftentimes in ways that were unpredictable. Or at least that were not—you wouldn't go to another housing organization's gala and be like, "Oh, I kind of expect to see...".

Powell: [01:43:01] Like, who is the member that always used to sing, A Change is Going to Come,

Lewis: John Jones.

Powell: by Sam Cooke.

Lewis: John Jones, he used to do that.

Powell: Yeah. I mean, the first time that... I think it was like one of the big ones, at Judson. And I don't even think I was—was it the first time I heard him sing in a PTH gathering? I don't even know if it was, but I just remember that being particularly powerful. Maybe it was just the size of the room, and the way he held it, you know what I mean, and brought everybody into it at the same time.
 
Powell: But I, you know—I remember being at multiple events where he would sing that and it's just like, this is what this song is about, you know?

Lewis: Yeah.

Powell: And this is what a movement should feel like, you know? It should feel bigger than us, but also intimate, you know what I mean? It should feel bigger than us, but also about the relationships between people. It should be, you know—respectful, but also fun and irreverent, you know what I mean? PTH gatherings were all of that. And also, you know, great—I mean, that's enough. That's like church, you know what I mean? Like, good church. You know what I mean?

Powell: [01:44:31] But, you know, it's also like a great, you know—whatever. To put on my little pop sociologist hat for a minute. It's also like a great nexus of just cross-cultural, cross racial, cross New York... You know what I mean? There was just a lot of good mixing, a lot of good exposure, a lot of good conversations happening in those meetings, in those little nodes of two or three people and in those bigger conversations. I mean, all of that just felt really nourishing and really, really important. So, I really appreciated that. I really appreciated the experience of that, you know?

Powell: [01:45:18] And it's funny—it's funny for you to mention it that way and sort of thinking of it like almost historically, like having known Anthony and Lou at the beginning and then looking at that. It just—it all felt pretty seamless, you know? It all felt pretty like, you know… And like a different experience. Because those weren't the events I was with Anthony and Lou at per se, but PTH wasn't that big at the time, you know? That was the other thing. The parties got bigger as time went on. [Laughs] Right?

Powell: [01:45:55] It was like, "Oh, cool! Like this many people are hanging out with PTH now, great." But then, of course, I'm glad PTH stuck around long enough for people to catch up with them, basically. And that was great to see. That was great to see—PTH in like a proper position. Because I feel like this was a big part of what Anthony and Lou were about. And not just Anthony and Lou, I don't mean to keep going back to them, but you know—a lot of the members, I feel like they were conveners, you know—like proper conveners of the movement. Primarily and with the mission of organizing homeless folks, but also just like opening doors and opening minds to people who were not part of that experience, you know what I mean?

Powell: [01:46:49] And I would definitely count myself among those people, you know? I've never experienced homelessness. But, I definitely, definitely felt nourished by PTH. I definitely felt like my city and my experience as a human being is bigger and richer for both my individual relationships with PTH staff and members and just the experience of being with the organization at different, different times, you know what I mean? Or being able to bear witness to certain things, or just to hang out, you know, just to be in a social space and partying space. Which, as you say, you know, it's true. It is it is an important part of movement building. But, I have to say, I don't always… I don't—I haven't followed that example to the degree that I would like to and need to—like in my own organization currently. But it's something… It's a place I know I need to get to. It's important, like you said, it's important.

Lewis: [01:48:06] You know, Lewis's family was at the Judson, and the one at the Firehouse. They would always come.

Powell: I remember that.

Lewis: Yeah, they would always come, and it was a way for us to stay connected to him, like them and us, together. And Anthony was at both of those.

Powell: That's true! He did come to those, didn't he?

Lewis: Yeah. He spoke at both of them. He's on the advisory board for this project.

Powell: Uh-huh. Oh great.

Lewis: He will love this interview with you.

Powell: Oh, great. Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: [01:48:48] And so, like—looking a little bit at the present and in the future, I do want to give a big shout out to you and the film that you worked on for so many years with Ryan Joseph and other people about Frances Goldin, who really shaped both of us, right?

Powell: Yep. Yep.

Lewis: And then—and the role that Picture the Homeless has played in the CLT movement,

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: in New York. If you just have any reflections about that, and then I'll, I'll let you be.

Powell: Absolutely. No, I mean that… You know, thank you for that shout out. And I also want to just bring Kathryn Barnier and Kelly Anderson's name into that circle because Ryan and I started it. But, you know, Kelly and Kathryn and Ryan really finished it. And yeah, we're really excited to share that with everybody. It's actually—the timing of this interview is funny, because it premieres in two weeks, basically—a little bit less. So, super excited to share that with everybody. And like it, indeed like—you know Fran I think, mentored us in different ways, and at different times but also like in the same way, right?

Powell: [01:50:09] I mean, Fran was… Fran was all of those things that I was describing about what I found nourishing about Met Council. And it's not necessarily something to go into in this interview, just for reasons of time and topic. But you know, Fran, along with Jane Benedict—who you know, mentored me, and brought me into Met Council—and really brought me into the housing movement, and others, founded Met Council on Housing in 1959. The same year that Fran founded Cooper Square Committee. And you know what I like to say... It was the timing of meeting—like, I'd met Fran and I knew who she was, and I just knew she was a total badass. And I knew she had proximity to, and history with Met Council on Housing that was not contemporary to when I got there. But I knew of her, you know what I mean? I knew her reputation for many years.

Powell: [01:51:20] And then this film project, which started basically in 2010, was when I really got to know Fran, very well. And that was kind of my role in this film. I was like, "Hey, I'm a housing movement person. I can sort of help you with these interviews, and ask questions. And I know some of her relationships [smiles] because they're like movement folklore, you know, at this point and some of the things she did at Cooper Square." But of course, I didn't know the full picture of that history. And I didn't know, Fran—I wasn't close to Fran, you know. And the thing I like to say is, Jane Benedict brought me into the housing movement and Fran kept me here. Because I've quit more than once, you know? I'd been like, I've had enough. [Laughs] You know? But you know, Fran—Fran's the reason...

Powell: [01:52:13] So, I mean, I'll just state it, if it's not, you know, whatever… Somehow indicated in bio stuff. So, right now, I'm the executive director of Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association II, HDFC, which is the co-op, and one of the many organizations that Cooper Square—that Fran, founded. It was founded within a year of the Community Land Trust being founded and as you've alluded to, it was sort of the model, or at least the first example, probably better to say that of what a neighborhood based, community land trust that is dedicated to deeply and permanently affordable housing, that is directed by the people that live in it, looks like.

Powell: [01:53:00] You know, I think it's safe to say Cooper Square was the first out of the gate, with that example. And where does Picture the Homeless fit in with this picture? Picture the Homeless is the reason, as far as I'm concerned, unambiguously the reason why our little example has become a city-wide movement. And to the degree that the CLT movement explicitly aims to house and preserve low-income folks in cities, in communities of color, in racially diverse neighborhoods, in old school, long rooted, intergenerational neighborhoods… As long as—insofar as CLT's in this country, are aiming to house homeless people, and not simply make homeownership a slightly more affordable option—which is great, by the way, I don't cast shade on that work. But I think that Cooper Square is one of the few, and one of the earliest urban CLT's, not just in New York State, but nationally, to really hold that down. And I think the PTH saw that and of course, you have the connection to PTH and so do other members, but you have the connection to Cooper Square as a former resident, right?

Powell: [01:54:37] But I think PTH is unambiguously the reason why this thing grew from—you know, as I said before, the little unicorn in the corner that HPD and others encouraged the rest of the city, and every other neighborhood, not to look at. [Laughs] Because it's just like, "We don't want to do that again! We don't want to give up that much again. We don't want people to know that that's possible." PTH is the reason why that scaled up, right? And, I'm sure others will tell it. But as I see it—I remember, again, being in Brooklyn, working at Fifth Avenue Committee and hearing about HPD funding, or considering funding… Or doing—no, it was doing an RFP, a request for proposals for community land trusts.

Powell: [01:55:32] And even before that [smiles] I think I actually remember before that, if I'm remembering this correctly. That HPD was reaching out to Cooper Square and Picture the Homeless, to ask (to help) HPD to get a proposal together, to create the RFP from the settlement money so that New York City could avail itself of Attorney General settlement money, and HPD could actually be the recipient of that, right? Because it was initially it was given to different—am I remembering that right?

Lewis: [01:56:07] Well, it went to the East Harlem El Barrio Community Land Trust that Picture the Homeless helped found. There was a half a million dollars. And at first they just wanted it to go for the rehab, and not be used for any organizing. And we were like, "Are you crazy? Like, we have..." You know, [smiles] you have to organize to make this happen!

Powell: That's right.

Lewis: It's not just about brick and mortar, it's the people in the neighborhood that need to know about it and fight for it, and make it happen. But, we would not have known about community land trusts if... I mean, it helped that, of course that I'm a former resident, but people were looking for solutions.

Powell: Yes.

Lewis: As you mentioned, Anthony and Lewis, were trying to figure stuff out! And

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: [01:57:01] You know, people would come to—a lot of people would come through Picture the Homeless. But the ones that stayed were really people that believe in New York City, that believe in our better selves and just refuse to accept that the conditions that they found themselves in were the way things should be! And

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: often, you know, in the interviews that I've done with long term leaders, they all say—in one way or another, and some very explicitly, "I didn't want anyone else to go through what I've gone through."

Powell: Yeah, yeah.

Lewis: And that's why I got involved and—or that's why I slept out, or that's why I did all this stuff. And we took a delegation of like sixteen housing campaign members to Frances apartment one time. And she was like, "Why aren't you all taking over buildings? Like, what are you waiting for? What do you have to lose?" [Laughs] And people were just...

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: Because people didn't know her, and they're like, "Why are we in this old white lady's house?" You know?

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: I was like, "Just wait. Just wait."

Powell: Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lewis: [01:58:14] And so I… People felt like—accountability, I think, also to not just her, as a person, but that idea that—here is a solution. People have done it. It helped tremendously that Valerio was always available.

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: He and Jasmine, many times—you too, remember we had meetings in Taino Towers?

Powell: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: You were there, and

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: so I think that the connection isn't just that the model, it's that the people—like you and Jasmine and Valerio and Tito and Willie Arroyo, went out of their—Frances, out of their way to say, "We're here if you need us."

Powell: Yeah, yeah.

Lewis: And you can do this.

Powell: Yep, yep.

Lewis: When everybody else was saying, "Well, too bad there are so many homeless people, but we can't do anything about it."

Powell: [01:59:13] Right. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think it's worth mentioning, right? Because again, we go through these things and then we kind of take it as a given and then we maybe forget that this is not a given to everybody. And hopefully, you know, as this gets heard, increasingly it's less and less the case. But I think one of the things… Well, let me just say two things. First of all, I think you're absolutely right that that exchange was critical, right? And the generosity of Cooper Square folks and the curiosity and the tenacity of PTH folks was really important.

Powell: [01:59:47] I think I defaulted more to the legacy of that, because I can't claim to have really been a part of that. It was really before my time. Those relationships were being built and the generosity of some of the people that you mentioned, I think was really being extended. And when I got to my current position, which is relatively recent, 2017, so, you know, not that long ago. That path and that exchange had already been well-established. But as you mentioned, it was not a given. And the other thing was, it was also very much that PTH was dealing with a city—successive city administrations, that were hostile to actually building and preserving and doing anything in terms of housing, for low-income people, and for homeless people or formerly homeless people, right?

Powell: [02:00:42] The AMI levels—the area median income levels that were being targeted, you know, throughout the nineties and through the zeros and, you know, then into the teens… They were not—these were not low income apartments, right? The city had made basically, its de facto policy that it was going to build middle-income and even, to some degree, you know, I would consider, you know, housing for wealthy people. And it was going to subsidize that. But it wasn't really interested in housing homeless people, or formerly homeless people, or preserving low-income communities in any meaningful way. You know, it was just kind of, "Wouldn't it be great if we could do that? But we can't do that, because it's just too expensive and building in New York and blah-blah-blah. We have to get this kind of financing and this many low-income housing tax credits and it's just—the project just doesn't work. Blah-blah-blah."

Powell: [02:01:42] Of course, you had a real natural connection. Even beyond the personalities and the history between PTH and Cooper Square. Because PTH was saying, "Well, God dammit, it needs to happen!” And the Cooper Square was saying, “Well, God damn it, we did it!" You know what I mean? Like, “It is possible.” So, I think that exchange was really organic in terms of just the two entities and those two people, you know—groups of people just finding each other. Because they had something to offer to each other. They had a conversation that had to be had, you know what I mean?

Powell: [02:02:22] Again, I remember that was… I mean homeless people were left out of successive so-called affordable housing plans. It's Picture the Homeless that we have to thank for really driving home the phrase "affordable to whom?" Affordable to whom? Right? Because affordability, it turns out, is a relative term, right? We should all know that. But the city had us kind of… The city had us a little tricked. The city had us a little bit—accepting. That even though it's called affordable housing... "Yeah, you know, really low income people are actually going to be left out of that." And that made no sense at all and continues to make no sense, you know?

Powell: [02:03:17] So, you know, Picture the Homeless held successive mayors accountable for that phrase—or at least wouldn't let them off the hook for it, you know? “Affordable to whom? Who are you talking about? Who are you talking for? Who do you think you're housing? I can't get into that housing. Bullshit-bullshit-bullshit”. You know, calling them out! That's important, you know? That was super important! And then, half the—or more than half, of the affordable housing world is running scared because they know that these policies are inhumane. But they don't want to say anything, because they don't want their funding cut. You know, they want to build whatever they can build, right? So they're not going to say anything. So, it was up to PTH to step out and call them out and PTH did that.

Powell: [02:04:07] And then the other thing I did want to say, the reason that HPD ever changed their mind, is because PTH would not let successive administrations off the hook—and pointing out that this housing was for essentially middle-income people, and was not doing anything to abate homelessness, right? And the entire reason that HPD and the City Council have funded this is PTH. I mean, that's PTH's advocacy, one-hundred percent. It's more PTH than it is Cooper Square, I think. Like, without a doubt, you know. The entire—the blossoming of the movement and the demand, which has been realized! It hasn't been realized on the scale it needs to be realized, but it has been realized. I mean, that there's a City Council pot of discretionary money that every year funds CLT's and burgeoning CLT's… I'm not going to get into the big, big problems [laughs] with that money and drawing it down, of which they are substantial... But the fact that that exists at all, you know what I mean? The fact that there's millions and millions of dollars that have been put into CLT's and that we might see more CLT's actually take—and we have seen other CLT's take over, among them, of course, El Barrio. First and foremost of the new CLT's—El Barrio CLT, which was a Picture the Homeless project, as you mentioned.

Powell: [02:05:47] I mean, that to me is... I'll just say this, just to own it and be transparent. That to me is sort of the sad part of this particular chapter, right—of PTH. Is that, like—I'm in rooms with the Cooper Square CLT, and in the NYCCLI spaces, and you know… All of this movement is now quite big! It's quite substantial. And it's even funded to some degree—not adequately but, you know. And I don't think PTH gets the credit, nor is PTH in its current state in a position as much to benefit from all the work it did. I mean its members continue in these other organizations, and even some people show up to meetings and still identify as PTH.

Powell: [02:06:41] But you know like… PTH is the reason for the season, you know? That's the only reason we're here, folks. I'll tell anybody that at a NYCCLI meeting. I'll tell anybody that at the City Council hearing. I'll tell anybody that who'll listen. You know, more so than Cooper Square. Fran would have—Fran told us, when we were making the movie, "I'm so excited that you're going to talk about us and our example and promote us a little bit, because we never did a good job about it." They were very generous with their time, but they weren't necessarily like, "Look at us, look at us." And fundraising off of it, or anything like that, you know? Same thing with PTH. PTH brought it home and is the City Council funding PTH? No. You know what I mean?

Powell: [02:07:24] So, you know, that's a little… I mean, I'm not going to speak for PTH members, or you. But to me it's a little bittersweet because I'm like, "We're all here because of PTH, you know? The Cooper Square CLT itself, went from a volunteer organization to a partially funded organization. I say partially because city council and HPD don't actually cough up the money that they owe us, because of PTH! Not even because of its own advocacy. It's because of PTH. We owe all of that to members and those demands that were made in that work, you know? I believe that firmly.

Lewis: [02:08:02] Well, that I know—members and myself, and that's much appreciated. I think one of the things that's really bittersweet though, is that the housing that's being preserved… There's no, really no new units being created for homeless people. And, for many of the CLT housing, that I'm aware of and I think that there's—there's been a lot of settling for policy change and for preservation. That is important. But it's, I think it's been at the expense of forcing the city to cough up money for new units, or in the case of the East Harlem El Barrio, the vacant apartments are not going to poor people.

Powell: Is that right? Okay.

Lewis: [02:09:00] That… Maybe they've got down to forty percent of AMI, but that's higher than the neighborhood AMI, let alone the people that are getting, you know, nine-hundred dollars a month in Social Security checks, and which translates to less than twelve-thousand a year. What are they? Ten percent of AMI? And so what's bittersweet, is Picture the Homeless members really believed that the CLT and Mutual Housing Association on top of CLT's—that model would result in housing for homeless people. It would change the market. It would be a serious intervention. Maybe not change the market, but be a carve out. And that has not resulted in housing for extremely low income people, except preserving units. And the CLT movement's not fighting for that. And maybe it's for the same reason that you mentioned before—that people are afraid, “If we're in these negotiations right now, and if we rock the boat too much, they won't talk to us.”

Powell: Yep.

Lewis: [02:10:15] When the PTH move was, "Look, they're not talking to you anyway. They're only talking to us, because we did this shit."

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: So, we need to keep doing this shit, [laughs] to make them _really talk to us. _

Powell: Yeah.

Lewis: And so, I think

Powell: Well, that's true. I mean, I just… Yeah.

Lewis: So. That’s the most bittersweet. Yeah. That's the part.

Powell: [02:10:38] That shows you how little… I'm in the weeds of what other CLT connected groups are doing. Because I'm, you know—my job is, I have Val's old job. Val somehow found a way to do both. But, I'm on campus most of the time, so to speak, you know what I mean? It's hard for me to get into movement spaces these days. I mean, not emotionally. Like I want to be there, but I just… I can't find the time; you know what I mean? I'm just running around trying to serve the community I'm hired to serve.

Powell: [02:11:10] You know, so I don't—that detail and you're right, that is much more of a serious, and bitter pill. That detail, I did not know, although in some ways, given what we know about how the city works—or doesn't work, that does not surprise me, unfortunately.
 
Lewis: I would love if... I would love to be wrong; you know? But I think it is something—the lessons are not only that Picture the Homeless created that space, but how was that space created? So those lessons can be replicated. And so, I guess I'll just ask you for some final words.

Powell: [02:12:03] [Sighs] Wow. Yeah. I mean, first of all, just thanks so much for the opportunity to talk about the wonderful family that is Picture the Homeless. And I'm glad to have been—I'm glad to have just been a witness to it all, you know what I mean? Be an ally to it, you know. And I'm so thankful for just the individuals that came into my life as a result of that, you know what I mean? I don't really know how to summarize it, you know?

Powell: [02:12:40] Other than to say, I think PTH… You know, Anthony and Lou and you and Jean and everybody else’s instincts were right. They were right back then, they're right now. There is no reason why, there's no good reason why homeless people should not be designing the solutions, if you will, to the crisis, the twin crises of housing affordability and homelessness. And I think that that's like… I think one of the great things about PTH… I mean, you know, you hear this, people say this. This is sort of a phrase you hear, and it's like and it's true. It's sort of like a stock phrase. You know, people say that thing about like, “Some of the smartest people you're you'll ever meet are in prison.” You know what I mean? Right? And it's true! You know, it's absolutely true.

Powell: [02:13:57] And how have we shot… In addition to the inhumanity of disenfranchising people and counting people out, you know—and the institutional oppression that goes into the prison industrial complex, and also what happens to people when they get out. In addition to all of that, there's also the deprivation to our society of those minds—that brain power. And I would say that it's not completely analogous, but I don't know if this analogy is helpful or meaningful, but you know, what I was trying to say is, I feel that same thing can be said about homeless people. You know, some of the sharpest minds like our city has ever known are homeless people, you know what I mean? And I mean, I luckily—it was pre-PTH that I had that experience of, you know, more anecdotally, just having conversation with folk on the street, having conversation with folk in the parks, having conversation with people on subways, and just realizing, as a young person, “Wow, like the stereotypes really are bullshit.” You know what I mean? Like, not only is this city and this culture consciously undermining the humanity of people who are homeless—and our collective humanity. But they're also counting out, and depriving the city of the intellectual power base in the homeless community, you know what I mean?

Powell: [02:15:53] And I feel, among other things, that there is a real… PTH valued and was a venue where homeless people and formerly homeless people's—not just activism, but intellect was valued. And I'm really thankful to have benefited from that, you know what I mean? I mean that. Like, to have really just had the chance to be among heavy minds, you know what I mean? [Smiles] Like people who were thinking about things well beyond the boxes that we're supposed to think about these things and like, not just in terms of housing, but in terms of like—our city as a city and the society that we live in and the things that we share—common space, common culture, you know—all of these things.

Powell: [02:16:51] The exposure was not just an exposure to wonderful people with big hearts, but also like wonderful people with big minds, you know what I mean? With like—with solutions, you know what I mean? So, I think if nothing else, PTH again—shows the ongoing need for homeless people to be at the forefront of unscrewing this world and not just fixing the housing affordability and homelessness crisis, but you know—in many other ways that go beyond that. And I'm just thankful to have been exposed to that light, you know what I mean? Like, by a collective of people and individuals who were willing to share that with me, I feel really privileged for that.

Lewis: [02:17:55] Well thank you Dave.

Powell: Thank you.

Lewis: And appreciate your friendship.

Powell: Yeah. No, likewise Lynn, I really—absolutely. And thank you for letting me be part of this. I feel honored and I'm really glad that we got to take the time and thank you for [laughs] your patience. I remember talking about this for like—maybe before the pandemic? Is that possible?

Lewis: It might be! Yeah. And I'm going to harass you about your transcript when I get it ready. So I'm just apologizing in advance.

Powell: No, no, no. That's good. That is necessary. [Laughs]

Lewis: All right. Okay. See you on the 25th.

Powell: Yeah. See you soon, Lynn.

Lewis: Okay, Bye. All right.

Powell: Take care. Bye.

[End of Interview]