Sue Lob

Lewis: [00:00:01] So, good afternoon.

Lob: Hi.

Lewis: I’m Lynn Lewis interviewing Sue Lob for the Picture the Homeless oral history project and it is October 22, 2019. Hi Sue.

Lob: Hi Lynn, how are you?

Lewis: I’m great and thank you for this interview.

Lob: You’re very welcome.

Lewis: [00:00:22] We want to find out a little bit about who Sue Lob is and then we’ll talk about what brought you into working with Picture the Homeless.

Lob: Okay.

Lewis: So, could you share where you’re from and…

Lob: Sure. So I grew up in Brooklyn in the Borough Park community. My parents were immigrants, actually Holocaust survivors and refugees. And the neighborhood I grew up in had a lot of survivors in it and I’m sure that—that kind of understanding of my family history and background really kind of influenced who I became and my desire to make the world a better, fairer place for all people.

Lob: [00:01:18] Let’s see… So, I grew up Orthodox Jewish and broke away from that in my—I was kind of slowly moving away but then made a real break in my early twenties... And I went to Brooklyn College, and I majored in political science and then got a job at Legal Aid and worked on a class action lawsuit suing the welfare department—because when people were applying for… And I’m forgetting the category back then.

Lob: [00:01:56] This was in the… What was this? ‘74, ’75… 1974, ‘75. So, people who were single, not families applying—which included a lot of older people and people with disabilities, would all have to apply for welfare at this one welfare center on Jay Street in Brooklyn—in Borough Hall. And the system then was that everybody had to line up early in the morning and then at nine o’clock somebody came out with numbers, and gave them out.

Lob: [00:02:36] And if… And they only gave out like—whatever twenty people that could be seen that day. And whoever—you know, if you got a number you were seen and if you didn’t, you’d have to come back the next day and start all over again. And we sued the welfare department saying that that was basically a violation of peoples’ rights and that they didn’t have access to… And we actually got a film maker to videotape kind of the chaos on the line and people crying when they couldn’t get in.

Lob: [00:03:06] And I mean it was just really… And until then I had actually wanted to be a lawyer but watching the court proceedings and this kind of older white male judge making decisions that affected mostly—you know, poor people of color and many women, I just really thought, “Wow the system really kind of sucks and I don’t want to… That’s not where I want to work, and instead decided to go into organizing, and that’s… And then I actually ended up going to Columbia School of Social Work and got a degree—majored in community organizing. And my first organizing jobs were doing tenant organizing and I also worked at the Prospect/Lefferts Garden Neighborhood Association.

Lob: [00:04:03] And—what else? And then in my second year, because I had done a lot of work with older people, I worked for the Grey Panthers. That was my field placement and that had been like my fantasy like who I wanted to work with, but it turned out that I actually liked the concreteness of the tenant organizing better. What the Grey Panthers was doing was trying to get a bill passed in Albany that would basically outlaw mandatory retirement. And it was really a kind of difficult and frustrating process, and it was a good education for me, but it...

Lob: [00:04:47] Anyway, after that I did a lot of work. I did organizing in Coney Island and Brooklyn where there’s a lot of NYCHA housing and we did a lot of work with the tenants there and really pulled together a coalition of tenants from the developments there were actually really segregated by age. So, there were separate projects that were only for older people—mostly white older people and then there were all these other projects that had families, mostly Black families.

Lob: [00:05:24] And we were able to kind of bring together and create a coalition that first worked on transportation issues, because that was major. Coney Island at that time was a two-fare zone and just... People would have to get off the subway and then take a bus and the buses, you know—never came or they came in bunches or there were no kneeling buses and just all of that. Okay, and then—trying to think how this gets me into Picture the Homeless [smiles] but...

Lewis: [00:06:00] Well if it’s okay

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: to—to stay a little bit in this time before Picture the Homeless.

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: So you grew up during the sixties?

Lob: Yes. Yeah.

Lewis: So, in addition to the experiences of your family, what were some of the political things happening in New York City or nationwide that stand out in your memory as being really impactful?

Lob: [00:06:32] Well, so let’s see… I was a teenager in the sixties, well actually the late sixties and partly growing up in this really kind of, Orthodox Jewish community, I felt like I missed out on a lot of that activism that I would’ve been in, and it was really when I got to college—so, I got involved in the McGovern campaign… So, I really kind of missed those late sixties activism.

Lob: [00:07:17] I was aware of—you know, the civil rights movement and the March on Washington and those were the really formative things. My mom was quite liberal for that community, and you know, was following it but nobody I knew was active in any kind of social movements, or... And then New York kind of, in the early seventies was really… I don’t know what the right word is. You know, it was those days that everybody describes as kind of—crime was very high, people locked their doors and their cars, and you know—your car was stolen and just being on the street late at night was much scarier than it is now.

Lob: [00:08:16] But… I… Well it was like after—I guess I was in college already. Mayor Lindsay was the mayor, and I did an internship with the director of the, I guess she—was it the Brooklyn Office of Aging? I don’t think it was the city one, it was... And she had me go to all the community board meetings and they had—the community boards had just started. It was like this idea of really kind of having neighborhood representation in government. It was a big thing that Lindsay kind of introduced, and that was a very interesting eye opener for me as well. And you know, I was really young and partly because she had no other staff I feel like I got to do a lot of things that I would’ve never done, and I was really quite naïve. But…

Lewis: [00:09:23] So, you would’ve been twenty? In your

Lob: Yeah. Something like that.

Lewis: undergraduate?

Lob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah it was before—I was still in college, so yeah probably just around twenty.

Lewis: When you went to Columbia were there—did you stay in the dorm, or you lived at home?

Lob: [00:09:42] No, I had an apartment with roommates.

Lewis: Where?

Lob: Three of us shared an apartment on the Upper West Side. Actually, I started out my first year I was in Brooklyn in an attic apartment that I shared with another—with a friend and then I moved because the trip up to Columbia was a real drag. So, I was able to find an apartment on 86th Street. You know, the thing about Social Work School at Columbia is that three days a week you’re in the field and only two days a week are you up at Columbia. So, that’s when I was working with Prospect/Lefferts Gardens Neighborhood Association. That was the first year and then the second year was when I was doing the Gray Panthers.

Lewis: [00:10:34] When you were growing up, were your—were your family tenants?

Lob: No actually, we—we had a two-family house that my parents were able to buy in—kind of on the outskirts of Borough Park, between Borough Park and Sunset Park, really probably more in Sunset Park and we actually had tenants. It was a two-family house that we were—I was actually very close with the, they had a daughter and we hung out together. It was fun.

Lewis: [00:12:] So, when you started—when you became involved in tenant organizing, how did you learn to be a tenant organizer?

Lob: Right, that’s true. That’s a good point. How did I learn to be a tenant organizer? Well I got that people have the right to certain expectations of what their living conditions would be like and I was trained. There was a—the organizer—actually I give this example, when I was teaching organizing that I would—I think I learned really by sitting in on meetings that he did and then going with him to meet with tenants one on one. But, I remember sitting in a meeting with him where he said, “You know, when we’re here meeting, we leave everything else outside the door and this is just about tenant organizing and not what we’re bringing from the rest of our lives.”

Lob: [00:12:39] And I always give that as an example because later on I really came to realize that there’s no such thing as doing that. That you bring your whole self in that door [smiles] and that’s just not possible, and particularly when I was doing the work with the Voices of Women, you know we really had to talk a lot about what people were bringing in with them through that door just because peoples’ history of trauma and distrust and just everything else that people brought.

Lob: [00:13:15] But I did get I think a good basic education in, you know—negotiating with the landlord, bringing people together, coming up with common issues… And… I don’t know. I think really what I was able to bring to this is just that I have a genuine interest in and care about people and really wanted to just help and see how can I bring people together and then they make the decisions about what it is that they want, and how they’re going to do it.

Lewis: [00:13:59] So, as you know very well, social work and organizing are very different.

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: So, how did you negotiate those two very different things? And even could you share a little bit about what you think the differences are?

Lob: Yeah, sure. So, my mom went back to school when I was in high school and so she was actually a senior at Brooklyn College when I was a freshman at Brooklyn College. And there’s nothing less cool than having your friends say, “Oh, I just saw your mother on campus.” But she then went to social work school afterwards to be a clinical social worker and that’s what she wanted to do. And so, after college I worked for Legal Aid and then had that experience with the class action suit and decided—because I had been thinking I would go into law and then decided I really wanted to do organizing. I actually tried to get a job as an organizer and would write these letters, “Although I’ve never done organizing, I have done blah, blah, blah, and, you know—hire me.” [Smiles.] And really didn’t get anywhere and so was very reluctant about going to social work school because I was very clear that I didn’t want to be a social worker. I wanted to be an organizer.

Lob: [00:15:20] But Columbia had a separate track that was organizing, planning, and administration and there were actually eight of us that identified as organizers out of the fifty in that track. But… So, I feel like I struggled a lot between the difference. And you know, I’ve taught this class in community organizing at the social work school and really do spend some time in the beginning about looking at the difference between kind of helping people cope with their life as it is, which is really what I think social workers do, and then advocacy and then organizing. And so, organizing is really helping the people who are most affected by an issue come together to figure out their own solutions to those problems and then figure out how they’re going to make that happen. And that’s what really excited me and that’s what I really wanted to do.

Lewis: [00:16:29] Did you and your mom compare notes? [Smiles]

Lob: Did we compare notes? [Smiles] That’s a good question. I think I was very busy trying to differentiate myself from her [laughs] and was not so much interested in comparing notes. I was very busy saying, “I’m not a social worker. I’m a community organizer.” But, you know I think she was happy actually that I was kind of in the field with her.

Lewis: [00:17:02] Who were some of your organizing role models?

Lob: Hmmmm.

Lewis: Because often people don’t pick organizing out of the air as, “I want to be that thing.”

Lob: That thing, yeah.

Lewis: How did you know that?

Lob: How did I even know that thing? That’s true. Well I think I was very influenced by the farmworkers and that struggle. That was really going on at that time. And actually, before I got into social work school—or as I was waiting to get in, I had an interview with Fred Ross. I don’t know if you know who he is. So, he was—he was very involved with Chavez and organizing, and he actually was recruiting in New York—people to set up house meetings, which wasn’t really the organizing that I was excited about, but I was excited to meet him and talk to him about it. I don’t know.

Lob: [00:18:08] You know, you were asking me about how did I learn. One of the big issues for me was that I was trying to figure out how to be a woman organizer—which was different than the role models that I had like that first supervisor at PLEGNA and, you know—really trying to figure out a style that made sense for me. And also as a young woman, how do I go up to strangers on the street and start making conversations in a way that’s clear that I’m not being flirtatious, or I don’t want to be picked up… And, you know—got people to kind of respect me enough to be able to have those kinds of conversations and I—I had a hard time finding role models. I just kind of started—you know, I looked for women organizers. I kind of picked up wherever I could and then made up—finally figured out on my own what to do. But you know, the civil rights movement—just the movements that were going on—there was the anti-war  movement, the… I mean, I just missed all the kind of wonderful—the, you know—and then I got very involved in the early days of the women’s movement. And I think that really shaped me a lot in terms of the idea of consciousness raising and you know—that notion of not bringing your shit in the room was the exact opposite of what consciousness raising was, right? And how the women’s movement really looked at the personal is the political and all of that. And so, that did have a huge influence on me.

Lewis: [00:19:59] Were you going to meetings where you were hearing these kinds of things? Rallies? Were you reading books?

Lob: Yeah, well you know—my first job after graduate school… So I was I guess, reading books in graduate school and I was talking about… Was I going to rallies? I don’t think—I think just around the end of that time, like just after that. So, my first job after social work school was with this group called Mutual Aid Project and that’s where I worked in Coney Island. But the two organizers—so it was Rick Serpin and Doug… I can’t believe I’m blocking his name because we had a relationship and lived together and I’m just... [Laughs]

Lewis: We’ll add it in the transcript.

Lob: Thank you!

Lewis: As soon as I leave, you’ll remember it.

Lob: I can’t believe I’m forgetting. Well Rick is still a friend and I’ve lost contact with Doug—which is one of the reasons and we’re going back like forty years, but... [Whispers] I can’t believe I can’t remember… So anyway, they were—Doug in particular was an amazing organizer and I really, really learned a lot from him.

Lewis: [00:21:23] What was amazing? Tell me—Do you have a story about him being amazing?

Lob: Do I have a story?

Lewis: It looked like you were picturing him in your mind. [Smiles]

Lob: I was. Well, he just had a way of cutting through and being able to like, kind of name the elephant in the room or be able to just kind of get at the heart of what people were feeling, and just... He was remarkable at connecting with people and he was a good supervisor. And so, I feel like I came into my own in terms of like what my style is and how I connect to people. And then I also had a partner. I can’t believe I’m going to remember everybody’s name but—Doug Dornan, thank you, God.

Lob: [00:22:27] So, Ellsworth Mitchell was my partner, who actually lives on Staten Island and—where I live now. [Smiles] But, he was this tall, thin African American man, very charismatic and stylish. And we would go tooling around Coney Island together in his car. [Smiles] And I think our relationship was one of just real respect for each other but also like being able to kid each other… And I think that really helped me work in a neighborhood that was really, you know—predominantly African American and that—you know, as kind of this white, young woman knocking on doors in the projects that I think the trust that he had in me and our relationship, helped people trust me. And you know, I think that really was part of how I was able to start to meet people and talk to them.

Lob: [00:23:52] But… What was it that you were asking me? Oh what—yeah, what makes for an amazing organizer? [Pause] I don’t know. That’s a good question. Well, one of the things that I did in Coney Island was I was trying to bring together women who were leaders and part of this coalition that was called the Concerned Tenants of Coney Island. So, there were five very powerful women, and they were—this is really interesting. They were all African American but there were some class differences, there was issues around skin color and age, and it was just really fascinating to see some of those dynamics play out—that within the same community, all of them women of color… You know that you would think that there wouldn’t be tensions and yet there were all these kind of, unspoken tensions that I think really… What I was trying to learn how to do was how to engage on what some of those issues were and be able to get people to address them and still work together and so that was quite interesting.

Lewis: [00:25:28] Do you have a memory of when it worked?

Lob: With these women in particular?

Lewis: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lob: Oh God. [Pause] I’m remembering a meeting that was very difficult. I mean, it did work overall because we had an effective coalition and what happened was this—we were organizing to bring this group together and we were looking for first issues that would bring together, you know—both the older white population and the younger African American population. And so, crime was an issue, but we thought that might be too divisive to start as the first issue. But transportation was the major one and we were able to pull together this coalition to look at—kind of come up with a platform that affected everybody.

Lob: [00:26:29] So, for some of the older people, having a direct bus to Coney Island Hospital, which was actually not in Coney Island proper but outside the neighborhood—and they would have to take two buses to get to it, was the main issue. And for working people, having a free transfer between—because in those days they didn’t have that, so they had to pay two fares, one for the bus and then one to get on the subway. So, having a free transfer was something that they really wanted and then there was also… So, the hospital was an issue for actually the whole community, and then a lot of the older whites would shop in Brighton Beach and that was two buses away as well and so having a direct bus that went there.

Lob: [00:27:14] So anyway, as we were starting to pull that together and organize around that,  the city in its wisdom decided to reorganize Brooklyn buses and, “We’re going to make improvements in other neighborhoods, but we’re going to cut a bus in Coney Island.” Which really kind of spoke to how disenfranchised that community was and how... And so we organized a march to the community planning board, which was really the outer edge of the community, so it was this like twenty-block stretch of all these NYCHA projects and then the community board was really kind of in a more middle-class neighborhood like right outside Coney Island. And we got press coverage and I mean it was hugely successful. We had, you know—kids, we had older people, we had younger people. It was just really very impressive, and the community board had like never seen anything like that. [Smiles]

Lob: [00:28:14] And we had… The leadership was made up of this African American woman, Audrey Shields who was the tenant leader in O’Dwyer Houses. I can’t believe I’m remembering this, who actually just died recently. So, but… And then there was a man who… Now I’m not remembering his name—who was the tenant leader in another one of the projects, Sherman—Sherman something. And he was also—he happened to work for the MTA, so he actually was and interesting—you know, helpful in figuring out stuff. And then there was an older white man from this project that was run by JASA, that’s the Jewish Association for the Aging, right? In Coney Island. And so, the three of them really kind of reflected the community in a really good way and we were really able, I think, to develop some good relationships between them. And so… Anyway, I think once we had this under our belt it just made organizing much easier because people really felt like we could—we could get something done. And actually, we got the city to keep that bus—not quite as frequently as it had been, so it wasn’t a total victory, but...

Lob: [00:29:55] So, we should probably move on to Picture the Homeless [smiles] if you want to have time to do that.

Lewis: Yes. Can we… Share with me how you got to VOW

Lob: Sure.

Lewis: and why that work, which was actually in some ways very unique in ways that Picture the Homeless was unique.

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: So, maybe you could share that

Lob: Sure.

Lewis: and then how that led—that path led you to Picture the Homeless?

Lob: Yeah, sure. So I… Actually after organizing I ended up running—setting up and running a shelter for battered women on Staten Island. And that really kind of came out of the work I was doing around the women’s movement. And so then I ended up doing a lot of work around ending violence against women and supporting survivors and one of the issues that was coming up was that women were losing custody of their kids, that ACS was removing children.

Lob: [00:31:02] The child welfare system was removing children of battered mothers because they were being battered and so part of it was kind of the work that the battered women’s movement was doing was kind of... This was like one of those unintended consequences, or… That the child welfare agency knew just enough that battering was bad for kids and instead of helping women remove batterers or protect themselves or any of the other twenty ways that they could’ve been supportive, instead ended up just removing the kids and really punishing the mothers, and...

Lob: [00:31:41] So, I… This was under—when Giuliani was mayor and I tried to organize a demonstration in front of ACS, you know—to try to stop this practice. And at that point all the battered women’s programs were funded through HRA, and which is still mostly the case. And basically, if anybody criticized the city in any way they would get a call—you know, basically threatening their funding. And so, none—even though all the program—like all the advocates were clear that this was terrible, and we really had to do something about it, none of them felt that they could actually come to the demonstration. Like, they helped me write the press release and create flyers and do everything else, but they wouldn’t come. And in that—so, we ended up having just a very small group of us that—at that point I was doing consulting and you know—wasn’t being funded by the city and wasn’t expected to get funding through the city.

Lob: [00:32:58] But anyway, something about that just really made it clear to me that we needed kind of, an independent voice and that it really needed to be of survivors and not of advocates and that it couldn’t be… And so I came home, and I wrote a little proposal to David—did he fund—he funded CWOP. I’m forgetting his last name. It was the Child Welfare Fund because it was a child welfare thing you know, and seeing… And he was really interested in the idea of supporting parents in the system to do organizing and advocacy work. And so, I basically got a tiny little grant to just figure it out over the summer and to pay me part time to just kind of come up with a plan.

Lewis: How much if you don’t mind?

Lob: Oh, I think it was like ten thousand, no not even because... I think it was five thousand because it was just like for the summer, and it didn’t last very long I remember. But you know,  it was a planning grant, and it was some legitimacy and out of that I created an advisory committee to become like, you know… Anyway it’s a long story, but out of that kind of grew VOW and the idea... I mean, I think the uniqueness and the similarity to Picture the Homeless was this idea that survivors really you know, should have a seat at the table when policy was being decided and that they really could be the ones to come up and really organize to have the systems respond appropriately to battered women.

Lob: [00:34:55] And so I started talking to… And you know, I had done—I had run a shelter program and I had been doing a support group and so I was hearing all these stories all the time of survivors who just felt like the system… You know, the quote that I always used was, “The system will beat you down worse than a man.” One of the—I remember one woman I worked with say.

Lob: [00:35:20] And, you know—these women wanted to be involved in advocacy efforts, but they were not the kind of—the advocacy that was being done by paid advocates working in programs just didn’t work for them. You know, it was like not… The meetings weren’t held when they could attend. There was no childcare. There was no support for survivors. They would always be like the token survivor in the room and just—all of that. So, the idea of VOW was that we would train and support survivors and organize to really change the system and hold it accountable.

Lob: [00:36:03] And that’s how I got to know Picture the Homeless.

Lewis: So how—tell us that story.

Lob: Yeah, so… I don’t really—I guess I was looking around for… So, actually I should start like this. One of the first things we did was really have women talk about the systems that they were dealing with, and Child Welfare was obviously a big one and that was really the impetus for starting the group, but the other big system was around the lack of affordable housing and that when women left their partners they would end up homeless often, because there were no other options. And there were battered women’s shelters, but you could only stay in them for ninety days. And then afterwards most of those women ended up in the homeless system because there really wasn’t—there was just so little affordable housing or Section 8 housing—and it was also very hard to get Section 8 and NYCHA had a program where battered women were supposed to have priority, but the waiting list was so long that it was meaningless.

Lob: [00:37:24] So—so anyway, we wanted to really do some work around housing, and I don’t—I’m assuming I must have reached out to Picture the Homeless [smiles] and said… Well, I guess one of the things that I was really conscious of was that I didn’t want to fight for housing in a way that was going to pit one group against the other. So I didn’t want to say, “Oh, you know—make battered women a priority and screw everybody else.” I just wanted you know—there needed to be a bigger pot of affordable housing that everybody could get access to. So I wanted to be allied with other groups that were fighting for affordable housing and I guess that’s how I ended up with Picture the Homeless and we... Picture the Homeless was I think like maybe a year or two—no, when did you guys start?

Lewis: We were founded in November of 1999.

Lob: Yes.

Lewis: So it wasn’t many years in

Lob: Right.

Lewis: when we met you.

Lob: [00:38:41] Yes, because that first summer that I was pulling the group together was the summer of 2000 and you know, I think we were doing our first actions in probably the beginning of 2001. [Smiles] So, Picture the Homeless had this action planned in front of the… What the hell was it called? The

Lewis: The Emergency

Lob: The EAU [Emergency Assistance Unit] yes.

Lewis: The Emergency Assistance Unit.

Lob: Assistance Unit in the Bronx. And there was that one… So anybody wanted to—who needed to apply for housing had to go to this one HRA office up in the Bronx called the Emergency Assistance Unit and it was just a zoo in there and people would wait for hours and hours and hours and if you went to the bathroom you were afraid that your name would be called and then you’d have to start all over again, or… And there was no food and people were sleeping on the floor and there were rats and... It was awful. And they had been sued by Legal Aid several times I believe and yet the system really never improved.

Lob: [00:40:07] So, Picture the Homeless was going to have a demonstration out front and we wanted to support it and so we had a group of our members come, and I was really impressed. We had never done our own demonstration—I think at that point we hadn’t done one yet. And I just… PTH had chants written and practiced and had press kits and actually had managed to get the press to schlepp up to the Bronx, which was like an amazing thing. And you know, we stood outside, and we were chanting.

Lob: [00:40:53] And one of the issues was that at that point HRA was claiming that—or DHS I guess. It was HRA that was running it right?

Lewis: It was a—it was the intake center to get into Department of Homeless Services, the shelter system.

Lob: Right, but it was run by HRA right?

Lewis: No I think that the director, Carol David, worked for DHS and the action was we were there to give her a heart transplant.

Lob: Oh, is that right? I don’t remember that. I thought it was we were targeting Linda Gibbs.

Lewis: That one—no we were targeting Carol David because of the conditions. So, Jean Rice was dressed up like a heart surgeon. [Smiles]

Lob: Oh, I don’t remember this. Are you sure, yeah? [Smiles]

Lewis: We can double check the archive.

Lob: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: That’s the beauty of an archive.

Lob: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah—no, what I remember is

Lewis: We had many actions there. [Laughs]

Lob: Yes you did.

Lob: [00:41:48] So I think the one… Because at that point, one of the big issues was that they were claiming that people were applying for shelter because that was the only way to get housing and that really—they had other places to live. And anyway, I thought we had a pretty successful demonstration, and you know, the press was there… And I went home, and couldn’t wait to watch the media and see us on the whatever—the eleven o’clock news, and was just shocked by the coverage, that it was...

Lob: [00:42:31] You could hear Picture the Homeless chanting in the background, but they were never mentioned. It was kind of like—you know, something like homeless people were out demonstrating but the group never got the credit and then—and then it immediately switched to a woman outside, at the front door being interviewed by one of the reporters saying—and she had a baby—you know, like little kid attached to her leg crying. And she was like, “I can’t take this shit anymore. I can’t stand it. I’m going to my aunt in New Jersey!” Which was exactly proving the point of the other side. And then there was an interview—I believe, with the head of DHS whose name

Lewis: Linda Gibbs at the time.

Lob: Linda Gibbs, yes—who the press loved. I mean, she was actually a social worker—speaking of social workers, and came across as very rational and measured.

Lob: [00:43:38] And so really the lesson to me was that even though you had done everything that I would’ve thought was you know, the right thing to do—the press ended up telling the story that the city wanted told and not the story that we were there to tell. And they managed to find somebody who could kind of seemingly bolster the city’s position and not interview all the other people who we had brought and who… You know like, for our members, people were being told that they could, “Go back to your husband.” Or, you know—we knew teenagers who were being sexually abused who had run away from home who were sending back—back to their home… Like, just obviously inappropriate expectations that they would stay with relatives that they were not welcome to stay with, or not safe to stay with. So anyway, that was a really big lesson to me about...

Lob: [00:44:44] And if I remember correctly, I think Picture the Homeless after that started training members at Downtown TV. Do you remember that?

Lewis: Mm-Hmmmm. MNN.

Lob: MNN yes, to kind of create your own media so that you could control the narrative. And that was really a huge lesson for me about like thinking about both doing our own media but also like—how do we make sure that the message that we want gets out. And it’s really, really hard, so...

Lewis: [00:45:21] That—I think that reporter… That was the time that it was Melissa Russo.

Lob: Oh was it?

Lewis: She was a like bigtime reporter, and she actually was walking around saying, “I want to find somebody that’s not from New York.” And she interviewed someone from New Jersey. I don’t know if that was the exact same

Lob: Oh

Lewis: demonstration.

Lob: Oh, that’s interesting.

Lewis: But they were unloading families with their belongings in black garbage bags

Lob: Right.

Lewis: and stuffed animals were falling out and kids were crying, and we were saying, “Film this!”

Lob: Yeah!

Lewis: And they would not, and we were so angry.

Lob: Yeah, wow.

Lewis: We were so angry.

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: [00:46:03] But yeah, I—I think Nikita Price…

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: I associate meeting you with Nikita Price who was a homeless dad, and he was in our organizer trainee program and the first time I remember hearing your name was Nikita saying that he had gone to a meeting somewhere and had met a great group and you gave him a card and he was so happy that he had made the connection

Lob: Oh that’s

Lewis: because he was learning to be an organizer.

Lob: Oh, that’s interesting. [Smiles]

Lewis: And that you were very welcoming to him.

Lob: Huh. Oh, that’s nice.

Lewis: As an ED of another group—you know, who gave him the time of day as a peer

Lob: Mmmm.

Lewis: and how important that was to him.

Lob: Oh, that’s nice to hear.

Lewis: And to this day you know, if you say Sue Lob, or VOW, he comes out with a lot of

Lob: Oh nice.

Lewis: memories and good vibes.

Lob: Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. [Smiles] That’s nice.

Lewis: It’s so… as the gentleman—Ellsworth,

Lob: Yes.

Lewis: as people do for us

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: and if we are able to do that for other people

Lob: Yeah. It is

Lewis: it matters!

Lob: Yeah it does matter. That’s funny.

Lewis: I wanted you to know that.

Lob: [00:47:08] Oh thank you. You know, Brodie—who is now chair of the board… But I first met him because he was—he applied for... I was looking for an organizer. I was like—I finally had enough money to hire somebody else at VOW. And he applied and I—and he identified actually as somebody who had been abused in his relationship. And you know, I met with him, and I interviewed him, and I really liked him. But I just really felt like, for a group called the Voices of Women, I really… That, you know—we wanted women to see the role models of themselves as organizers and… But I must’ve handled it well enough that—because then later on I joined the board of Picture the Homeless… He was on the board, and he reminded me that we had met. I had totally forgot. You know, so it’s like you never know when you’re—how you’re treating people, but you really—I always hope that I’m doing it in a way that…

Lewis: [00:48:26] When you joined the board of Picture the Homeless, it was also historic because we needed people on the board who had been organizers. So, the majority of the board—per the bylaws, was that there would be folks who were homeless—most of whom came from the membership. But unless—because the mission was organizing it was important to have people with that experience on the board, because you’re coming up with collective decisions.

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: And so you were the first person

Lob: I see, yeah.

Lewis: that joined the board who had been an organizer and Emmaia Gelman was also

Lob: Right.

Lewis: on the board at the same time

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: who had similar—you know, organizing experience.

Lewis: [00:49:19] What was it like for you on the board of Picture the Homeless?

Lob: So I actually also thought that what I brought was that I had run a similar size organization and a similar mission and so had some idea of the administrative work that was required—just in terms of like the board being able to supervise you as director and in general have an idea of how to do that. I— you know, because at VOW the board had I think maybe one person… Well no, maybe two people who identified as survivors, but the rest were people who could help with fundraising. And you know, I remember at Picture the Homeless that was like a real issue. It was like—that nobody had those connections, or skills or...

Lob: [00:50:26] So, it was also—it was a real eye opener and learning like the… [Long pause] I mean, I was always very impressed with the space, and you know, having—and that your office really became like a second home or first home for many of your members. And you know, access to real bathrooms and showers and the kitchen and you know—all of that made the space.

Lob: [00:51:01] But it was intense. And there was always something going on and I… So, you know I have mostly fond memories of being on the board, but it was—it was not like, I don’t know, like a relaxing space. [Smiles] It felt like I was there fully trying to be present and there was a lot of things going on, always.

Lewis: [00:51:36] Do you remember any examples of some of these things that were always going on?

Lob: Always doing on… I’m trying, you know—at one point I was really pushing for more involvement of women members, and you know, what would that look like and how could we support the women and there weren’t… Most of the leadership of Picture the Homeless of the—from the members were men, and just trying to figure out like, what would that look like. And I remember some stories that I was being told, I think it must’ve been… Rice—I’m forgetting his first name.

Lewis: Jean?

Lob: Jean yeah. Some interaction that Jean had [smiles] with somebody that, and now I can’t remember any of the specifics.

Lob: [00:52:36] But, you know… Actually, the one thing that stands out the most for me—this is probably not the story you want to hear, but at one point—I’m sure you remember this very well, but the office had—was overrun with lice. Not lice, bed bugs. That’s what it was, bed bugs.

Lewis: Yes.

Lob: And you know, New York City at the time was overrun with bed bugs so it was not a surprise that it would be there, and you know, people actually were afraid to go to movie theaters and you know... And we had had… My son’s girlfriend had bed bugs in her apartment and so then, he had it in his apartment in our—his little space in our attic and we had just gotten rid of them. And so I was just like super phobic [smiles] about getting lice [bed bugs]. And so, you don’t know this, but I would go to meetings, and I would literally come home and strip in my hallway and take stuff straight down to the washing machine and just wash everything because I just… Because we had already gone through getting rid of them once and I was just like, “I can’t do this again.” It was so awful.

Lewis: It’s traumatic.

Lob: [00:53:54] I know—I don’t know how you guys were working there every day. It must’ve been awful.

Lewis: Yeah, it was traumatic, we had... And members were also—one time we got a donation of coats in these clear blue bags, like recycling bags

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: and people were looking in them and there were bugs crawling around inside the bags.

Lob: Oh God.

Lewis: And so, everyone was saying how, “Oh they’re blaming homeless people for these bed bugs, but these are some people…” Like…

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: And people who were staying—the people in shelters were also really, I don’t want to say paranoid as if they didn’t have a reason

Lob: Right.

Lewis: to worry

Lob: Right.

Lewis: all the time, because it’s congregate living.
 
Lob: Yes. Oh yeah.

Lewis: So, people were very concerned. People had their stuff in storage, and so they had more reasons to be worried

Lob: Oh yeah.

Lewis: than even we did

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: because they had less control over their environment.

Lob: Yes.

Lewis: So it wasn’t…

Lob: It was awful.

Lewis: It was a really hard time for

Lob: yeah.

Lewis: all of us.

Lob: [00:54:55] Oh I’m sure.

Lewis: Yeah.

Lob: But I think of it now as kind of evidence of how committed I was. [Smiles] To you know… And I was also—it was a trip to get up to the office from where I was living in Brooklyn. And you know, I was—I felt very honored actually to be on the board and to… You know, and that the members on the board trusted me enough and you know, all of that. That was—so, I took that very seriously.

Lob: [00:55:33] But you know, it was frustrating. It made me think a lot about what kind of skills… Because the skills to be on a board is really different than the skills to be an organizer or to be—to do the organizing that the members did. And so it really kind of required maybe some whole other extra... And I don’t know if you were following, but it was also like—in CWOP, which is another similar organization to ours, the Child Welfare Organizing Project, one of the comments in some article I read about it, was just like that the members didn’t really have the skills to be on the board and to be monitoring the director. And you know, that’s a real issue. I don’t know how to get around that. You know, on the other hand, they shouldn’t have to [smiles] and there should really be the trust that the staff is doing what it should be doing and certainly when you were there that was true.

Lob: [00:56:35] But… I know that you struggled a lot with trying to figure out like, could we have a different group that was doing the fundraising, you know—that maybe there needed to be… I don’t know, some other mechanism around supervision of staff that both included members but then also had—because that’s really hard. I mean, even people who are trained to do it, to supervise staff it’s a really tricky... It’s not something I ever felt I loved doing or was great at and you know—to expect people who’ve never been in those positions to now be able to do that, so yeah...

Lewis: [00:57:24] I remember my first evaluation—maybe you still were on the board, but Jean and Andres got copies of it and just took it to a housing meeting and said, “Now we’re going to evaluate Lynn.” And [laughs] I was so upset because it meant so much to me that I was going to be evaluated

Lob: Yeah. Yeah.

Lewis: and I wanted

Lob: I was on the board for that, yeah.

Lewis: And then I was just like, “They don’t even know what my job is!” And I think there’s a lot of lessons

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: around governance. One thing, because I know we’re going to wrap up soon, that I remember about your time on the board, is you were the secretary

Lob: yeah, right.

Lewis: for a while.

Lob: Yes.

Lewis: [00:58:08] And sometimes it seemed that you were—and—or, you were maybe frustrated with... You would follow up and maybe other members wouldn’t follow up and them... I always respected you for not allowing the homeless members to defer to you

Lob: Good.

Lewis: as a white woman ED, who had a master’s degree and all these kinds of—this privilege matrix [smiles] that we have in our heads

Lob: yeah.

Lewis: and that’s—because it’s real and you were always really good… And I think I have a memory of you one time of just saying, “Look. I’m not going to do more than what I’m here to do.” [Laughter] “And I got to go home to Brooklyn, so what are we doing?” And I really appreciated that.

Lob: Yeah, I don’t even remember that. [Smiles]

Lewis: [00:59:07] Because we—we structured Picture the Homeless so that homeless people had power but then how do you make sure that people know what power they have,

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: exercise that power when someone else is trying to, you know—take it away. It’s so complicated.

Lob: It’s very complicated. No, I know. I was… [Sighs] Yeah. I struggle with that a lot. Yeah, I do remember about—you know, not getting feedback from people or not… Or just waiting for people to do what they said they were going to do and yeah, it’s hard. And you know, at the same time, I appreciated what it took for some of those members to be able to attend meetings and then, you know—expect them to do all these other things.

Lewis: [01:00:05] Or you know, be riding the train all night, and...

Lob: Yeah!

Lewis: So, there was a space created but we couldn’t change peoples’ lives outside of the space, and it was a real… Sleep deprivation, I think... We never forgot that people were sleep deprived, but you know, when you have to take minutes, when you have to read financial statements…

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: How do we create spaces where people—and I think people had the space to do all those things, but—the digital divide… There are just so many factors

Lob: Yeah.

Lewis: that were obstacles to...

Lob: [01:00:46] Yeah, I mean this is some of the stuff that actually would be amazing to document and to kind of raise as… Because I do feel like these are really hard and important discussions to have. It’s like… What was I? Oh, yesterday I went to this training around behavioral science and—what were they calling it? You know, kind of engagement, of community engagement, like… And I was going there as part of the work I’ve been doing around voter stuff, and you know, I did a lot of work in this—in Staten Island to try to flip the district and so I’ve just been thinking a lot about all of that.

Lob: [01:01:41] But—so one of the things they were talking about was just like—you know, the issue around incentives and… Like, if you give people—you know, like should you offer people goodies for coming to things? And I know in VOW we really struggled with that about—and we would give our members ten dollars for each meeting they attended. You know, and I… It was a topic of discussion a lot, among the members and the board and in my own head about how… You know, what’s—I wanted to convey that we respected peoples’ time and energy and that often they were at meetings where everybody else was being paid and they weren’t and that just didn’t feel fair. And just to kind of acknowledge that it costs money to go to a meeting and you could afford a cup of coffee while you were in the city kind of thing. But not make it so much that people were coming for the money. Plus, we had to raise that money, which was not easy.

Lob: [01:02:53] But there’s just so many issues around doing this work that it would be really great to start to kind of lay out—and certainly the stuff that you guys were doing with the board and with management and leadership... Really, they’re big lessons if we could figure out what.

Lewis: Well hopefully, a lot of the lessons will come through in these stories. So even this conversation, you know—and we’ve interviewed other current board members and I think that it’s kind of in the quilt

Lob: Mm-Hmmmm.

Lewis: that will be created from all these stories because it’s the… No one has answers yet, but we did land on a lot of really good questions. [Laughs]

Lob: Yeah [laughs] I think so.

Lewis: [01:03:43] And I want to flag—because I know we’re going to end soon, that you were—have been a donor

Lob: Yes.

Lewis: for many, many years and you brought in your friend Wyleen, and you had an event on her rooftop.

Lob: That’s right I forgot about that, yes.

Lewis: What—why is it important for allies to help raise money for grassroots organizations like Picture the Homeless?

Lob: Well, you know—because I had run a small organization, I get how hard that is and the kind of constant struggle to raise money. And, so I don’t know—I just felt committed that I could—would do whatever I could. I mean, as much as I hate fundraising and hope I never have to do it again. [Laughs] I’m trying to remember how I got Wyleen involved. I don’t know. I guess I must’ve talked to her about the group, and she offered to. She had this great space, so yeah, that was king of wonderful. That was really fun. So, yeah. I think it’s really important for allies to put their money where their mouth is as well as be there with boots on the ground but also support in any way that you can. I mean one of the—one of my fantasies at VOW was always that there would be some rich survivor of domestic violence who would donate to us. [Smiles] And we never found that rich person, but Picture the Homeless almost by definition isn’t going to have that. [Smiles] I mean we didn’t really have it either. But, I think that makes it that much harder for you all to raise money and that’s partly why I feel even more that we need, you know—that it’s something that I care about and so I need to show up for.

Lewis: [01:05:53] And do you have a final, I guess—reflection on why Picture the Homeless is important?

Lob: [Sighs] I just think it’s really important to have homeless people represent themselves. And I know what it’s like to—you know that moment where people stand up and say, kind of like the famous civil rights signs, “I am a man.” You know like, “I’m a person deserving of dignity and respect and I’m going to demand it! And I’m going to hold the city accountable for all their really crappy and terrible policies.” And you know, the more that we—and to have an organization that supports that and makes it possible is really quite remarkable.

Lob: [01:06:52] And you know, I think Picture the Homeless has been extraordinary in giving voice to and the whole idea of “picture the homeless”, you know—like having homeless people be visible as full people and not just be referred to as “homeless”, or I mean, I can’t stand when I see those articles that don’t even say “homeless people”. They just say, “homeless”.

Lewis: “The homeless.”

Lob: “The homeless” or ‘homeless’. Don’t even say “the” —I mean, and it’s just like, really? And you know, Picture the Homeless changed that in New York and continues to do that and there’s no substitute for that, I think.

Lewis: Well if there are other burning memories that you have, I will come back

Lob: [Smiles] Okay.

Lewis: another time.

Lob: Okay. This was fun.

Lewis: Thank you.

Lob: Yeah, thank you.

[END OF INTERVIEW]