Paper-pushing paper-pushers pushing persons

Here's what's most wrong with bureaucracy. The categories of right and wrong are budgetary items, not human concerns. Where the budget allows for discretion, no process is necessary. Through these little items, a world can be changed without accountability or transparency or process.

I spoke again to a Parks and Recreation deputy about the placement of the ping pong table in Tompkins Square Park to find out what their decision process was. Recall that Parks placed it right smack in the middle of the seating space that is used only by either a mixed group of homeless people or low-income people of color. It was uniformly avoided by the mainstream, the middle-class, the young white gentrifiers. For the homeless especially, this was a space to socialize with the only people who want to socialize with them, who like and respect them, identify with them: other homeless people. Socializing is an essential need for a social species. For some of these folks, it seems more important to them even than a home. The park is public; they have every right to be there. They are not criminal or disruptive; they are not less human than anyone else, or less a part of the public than anyone.

This was the second Parks deputy I've asked about the table. From his answer, it seems no one in the Parks Dept. knows that there even was a second ping pong table. They are in good company. The local Councilmember was not informed of it, neither was the Community Board. The Dept. deputy said that a ping pong table addition is a minor item.

That's evident from the lack of process, consultation with the councilmember and the community. I tried to explain to the deputy that while from the perspective of the Dept. it is minor, it might be an important matter to people, you know, human beings that are supposed to be served by the park and its administration. He responded that this was a minor decision. I tried again to explain that from the Dept.'s budget or definitions it may be minor, but for the people affected, it may be important. He responded, no, this is a minor decision. Then he complained that if the Parks Dept. consulted on every minor decision, nothing would ever get done.

In other words, they are clueless as to what decisions effect important changes in the park because they evaluate major and minor only through the budget lines. Driving the homeless from their socialization space is not a budget item in the Ping Pong Category Line. Social control has found its hiding place in the paper-pusher's pile.

The month before, a different Parks deputy suggested that the choice of placement was intended to drive away the homeless. That certainly is not minor. It's probably illegal to identify a specific, non criminal demographic for exclusion from a park without any process.

So either Parks is clueless or it is conducting gentrification and displacement through unaccountable means. Here's the map I presented to the Community Board. You'll notice the top right section "USELESS" indicates a roughly 2500 square foot space that is not only empty, but unused by anyone. no one goes there because there's nothing there, it's a dead end, it's not in a crosswalk. It's just a large, dead space in a park. It's an embarrassment to the administration. It's large enough for two or three ping pong tables. All it needs is a barrier -- row of benches, say -- to prevent ping pong balls from running into the basketball courts.

The mayor washes his hands on the backs of the homeless

Since de Blasio was voted in -- even before he was inaugurated -- the rich, the conservative and the middle-class comfortable have been more than grousing, more than worrying. They've been warning and predicting with the assurance of a street corner evangelist predicting Armageddon, that he'd bring New York City back to the "bad old days" of muggings and race riots.

Political executive office holders who win on a progressive ticket in this country feel compelled to show the rich, the conservatives and the comfortably middle class that their administration is not bent on destroying the fabric of society, increasing crime or allowing riots in the streets or desecrating their pristine neighborhoods.

Its a familiar story. Progressives overcompensate by being more reactionary than the reactionaries. I don't blame this on the progressive politicians. I blame it on the biased, bigoted, comfortable conservatives who complain about everything that doesn't directly benefit them and have zero faith in the potential of anyone but their own kind.

I received an email from the local councilmember passing along a particularly underhanded de Blasio effort to remove the homeless from sight under the guise of having the community "help" Homeless Services "help" the homeless. The administration wants you to identify homeless people on your street who might need "help."

To me this is just a way for the administration to harass the homeless while washing its hands of responsibility for it by blaming the community. The councilmembers no doubt can't push back against such an effort -- if they don't sign on, they look like they don't care about the homeless, and if they do collaborate, they gain the support of those who think the homeless are being helped by this city-wide street sweep of humans, as well as the support of those who just want the homeless removed from sight at whatever cost.

De Blasio already removed the homeless around the 9th Street walkway through Tompkins Square Park. Now it's getting anonymous residents to do the dirty work of fingering a homeless person so the administration can get credit for cleaning up the streets as well as "helping" the homeless.

In any institution or organization, those most vulnerable get pushed around. Denigrating them is often the license for the poor treatment. The homeless are the most vulnerable and the most easily denigrated. And out of sight, out of mind.

The consequences of unaccountability

The Parks Department closed the basketball court all summer to resurface it even though there were no complaints about the old court and there was no community need for a resurfaced court. The Community Board did not request a resurfacing. Calling it a "repair," the Department proceeded without consultation, consent, or process.

The Department also renovated the nearest basketball court on Avenue D at the same time, closing out basketball to the community youth for nearly the entire summer.

The placement of ping pong tables in the park was also done without process beyond finding a space. The installation of a police surveillance station: also without process or consultation. Both of these targeted the homeless in Tompkins Square Park who've been part of the park community for decades.

The police station was installed after an article appeared in which a new young white person complained about the homeless in the park. The article appeared in the New York Observer, owned by Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who owns at least 36 buildings in the neighborhood. The homeless are clearly an obstacle to financial appreciation of his holdings and his vision for the neighborhood, one that is cleansed of anything but wealth and whiteness.

The park is the center of the Alphabet City neighborhood and community. It is being transformed without any accountability. I often hear the simplistic analysis that gentrification is the inevitable the result of global capital accumulation seeking a place to develop new markets. But gentrification doesn't happen without government complicity. Parks, development, real estate taxes, zoning restrictions, housing availability and regulation, services -- all these are within government purview. Gentrification is as much a policy choice as a pressure from capital.

The government in a democracy purports to be us. But when a government agency -- whether it's Parks and Recreation or the NYPD -- or the mayor himself changes the landscape without process, that's where gentrification gets in the door.

Marginalizing the Homeless

Last night I attended a town hall on homelessness and homeless services. As would be expected, the local electeds and the city administration spoke mostly about public safety -- they have to appease the local residential voters. Only Gail Brewer, the Borough President, addressed her comments to the needs, rights and interests of the homeless themselves. Props to her.

In the Q&A, a couple of middle-aged white men asked pointed, testy questions about public safety. A few graceful senior white women made constructive suggestions on how the homeless could be better served. Not surprisingly, the most trenchant comments were made by the homeless themselves -- several members of Picture the Homeless were present: Why doesn't the city ask the homeless what they need rather than funnel them into the modes convenient to the city. Why solve a housing problem with a policing answer? Why is all the affordable housing in the mayor's housing program way beyond the means of a minimum wage worker?

I complained to the council members present that the Parks Department continues to marginalize the homeless in Tompkins Square Park (Parks last month installed a ping pong table right smack in the middle of the space where the homeless regularly gathered), a public park that has been for many decades a place for the homeless to socialize with their friends, feel at ease and enjoy. They have every right to be there. What they don't have is the political clout to protect their right.

Afterward, a well-intentioned rep from a city agency said to me, giving me her card, "If any of your homeless friends aren't being served, please contact me." IOW, 'help me funnel your friends.' My take-away: the people who've been funneled are the people working for the city.

The city is focused on dragging street people off the street.into shelters. They wanted residents to be complicit in this, distributing to the audience maps for residents to pinpoint places where they could identify "problems" (aka a homeless human that the resident wants to have disappeared into the system). Presumably that gives the police the excuse to forcibly remove the human. Providing homes seems to be way down their list below the level of constituency politicking.