Annie Troy Support Letter

October 22, 2024

To whom it may concern,

I have worked in the nonprofit sector of New York City for several decades and am currently full-time with a $70+ million nonprofit organization where to date this year, I’ve raised approximately $17 million to help underserved communities across the US.

I have known Howard Brandstein since 1985 when I was Assistant Director and then Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity on the Lower East Side, renovating 40+ units of affordable housing on East Sixth Street. Howard was with the Lower East Side Catholic Area Conference, coordinating the local affordable housing and homesteading movement with Fr. Don Sakano. Howard frequently convened neighbors to discuss housing needs and map strategies. It was a crucial time when developers were flipping local properties without regard for traditional residents, and much of the affordable housing that exists in the Lower East Side today comes from that era, largely due to Howard’s, Carol Watson’s, and Fr. Don’s efforts.

In 1990, I was a largely volunteer Executive Director of Sixth Street Community Center for nine months, raising public / private grants. Howard at that time chaired SSCC’s board, donated generously, and had recently completed the Center’s renovation. He ensured SSCC served as a true community center, where all staff and constituents were local low-income traditional residents, primarily living in the nearby NYCHA developments, working together to meet the needs in their own neighborhood.

What staff at that time lacked in college diplomas, they more than made up for in commitment and in their ability to network through their deep contacts in the neighborhood. By living nearby, they flexibly covered evening and weekend schedules to serve working families and supervise income-generating, community-building events and rentals. During the summer, they turned the block into a play street and recruited up to 100 children per day from NYCHA for SSCC’s summer program. New funding was fairly simple to find due to staff’s cultural and community competence and their documenting SSCC’s focus on local low-income residents.

Howard and I have continued to touch base about SSCC’s needs. In 2020, I found the opportunity and wrote the proposal to New York Community Trust that resulted in a two-year grant award of $150,000. In that NYCT grant competition which had just five awardees, two of the five awards were for proposals I had written. I assisted with SSCC’s successful proposal to the Pinkerton Foundation, a funder that I had worked with for years to support other groups. I’ve also had occasional contact with Jen Chantrtanapichate about records and potential funding.

Through the decades, Howard has shown leadership and financial commitment to the Center and to the neighborhood, including working onsite weekends and evenings – something the Center requires and in the past, was shared among the staff. We’ve discussed methods to secure SSCC’s future and restore its focus on underserved community residents:

October 22, 2024