Edward T. Chambers, a lapsed seminarian who succeeded Saul Alinsky as leader of Mr. Alinsky’s social justice foundation, advancing his radical agenda of community organizing and grounding its progressive objectives in the Gospels, died on April 26 at a nursing home near his home in Drimoleague, Ireland. He was 85.

At Maria Santana’s public housing apartment on New York’s Upper West Side, dirty, black water has periodically poured in from the walls, from the pipes, from the radiator. She says the problems started two years ago. “It’s so much water, it looks like it’s raining in here. I am scared,” Santana said. She has placed buckets throughout her apartment. Her couch is covered in plastic to keep it from getting wet.

Standing at the pulpit, Nancy Baptiste led her congregation in reciting not amens or hymns, but the number most public housing tenants have committed to memory: 7-1-8-7-0-7-7-7-7-1 That’s the phone number New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, tenants call when something needs to be fixed. Too often, Baptiste said, no one shows up, the wrong work gets done, or the maintenance crew makes the problem worse.

Mayor de Blasio has made the creation of higher density apartments in East New York the centerpiece of his housing agenda. Oddly, his administration never bothered to ask us for our thoughts on its plans to build on the work we’ve been succesfully doing there for 30 years.

Ten-year-old James Ford, who suffers from asthma, has been in and out of the hospital this school year — missing nearly 30 days at Public School 138 in the Bronx. And instead of doing the things boys generally do on the weekends, the public housing resident is taking classes on Saturdays just to finish fifth grade on time. (click link for more)

I am a lifelong organizer—in labor and community settings—and am proud to say that I helped spearhead the living-wage campaign in Baltimore twenty years ago this fall. Our campaign was led by the religious leaders of BUILD—Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development, an affiliate of the Industrial Areas Foundation—along with a team of determined low-wage service workers. While we received support from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), this effort was conceived, planned, implemented and owned by local civic and clergy leaders alongside local workers. We won in Baltimore. Then, two years later, with almost no support from organized labor, we won in New York City. And we found that we had sparked a wave of living wage battles in cities and counties across the country that continues to this day. (click link for more)

With Albany preoccupied with an election that inspires no one outside of the capitol bubble and with City Hall distracted by an inability to deal with a staffing crisis of its own making, it might seem foolhardy to expect the city and state’s top political leaders to look 20 years ahead. But that’s what the distracted mayor and preoccupied governor must do if a deepening crisis in senior housing and senior services is to be averted. (click link for more)

East Harlem — It’s been six months since two community groups and the New York Housing Authority signed a landmark settlement agreement to address mold and moisture problems in public housing units and three months since a federal judge ordered the new rules into effect.

When Mayor de Blasio appeared last Sunday before 2,200 leaders from Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, he was already beginning to pivot away from his bruising, but successful, struggle to secure pre-K funding and to talk about other important issues, housing being the most prominent.

Six-year old Amanda, who lives in Brownsville, New York and 12-year old Melissa, who lives in East Harlem, New York are struggling with the disease. Their parents, who are desperately trying to alleviate their suffering, and are about to make a devastating discovery.

The New York City Housing Authority will deal more quickly and more thoroughly with mold in its apartments as part of an agreement by the Bloomberg administration to settle a federal lawsuit by people living in housing projects and coping with asthma. (click link for more)

On New Year’s Eve last year, Rossana de la Cuadra wasn’t celebrating. She was in the hospital with her six-year-old daughter, Amanda Santos, who was experiencing yet another severe asthma attack. An inspection of the family’s apartment, in the city-owned Van Dyke building in East New York, Brooklyn, revealed a possible threat to Amanda’s health: heavy mold growth in the bathroom and moisture on the walls, including in Amanda’s bedroom. (click link for more)

EXCLUSIVE: The federal judicial intervention is seen as a step toward resolving NYCHA’s inability to tackle an issue that affects hundreds of tenants citywide. Tenants and their attorneys can now go directly to a judge to slap financial penalties on the agency if it doesn’t get the job done right. (click link for more)

The New York City Housing Authority will take majors steps to address the city’s severe and pervasive mold and moisture problem in its public housing stock, thanks to a settlement agreement reached today in a class action lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Center for Law and Economic Justice on behalf of affected tenants. This is especially good news for residents with asthma, particularly children and the elderly, whose health has been suffering as a result of mold in their apartments. (click link for more)