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The problems facing the poor loom larger today than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. As governments eliminate or retrench programs, CSS is in the forefront of developing responses to help the growing numbers of New Yorkers living in poverty. In this city of wealth and power, 1.7 million people are currently living below the poverty line; one-third are children under 18.
CSS has an urban agenda – access to health care, affordable housing, job training and job creation, properly financed public education. But we cannot limit our activities to the neighborhoods of New York. The pressure needs to be applied at the point of origin – whether it is Washington, Albany, or a block in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
We coordinate the city’s Managed Care Consumer Assistance Program, guiding New Yorkers through the maze of managed health care. Our Retired & Senior Volunteer Program – the largest in the country – mobilizes older adults to volunteer in their communities. Our voter registration drives empower people to participate in the civic life of the city by voting. We publish reports based on our own research on critical issues affecting poverty. We bring legal challenges to protect the rights of the poor. Our Center for Benefit Services provides training and technical assistance to both professionals and the public. We create and implement model programs – such as the Medicaid Managed Care Education Project – that are replicated across the country.
Throughout its long history, CSS and its predecessor organizations have been committed to improving the lives of New York’s poor.
The legacy of achievement includes such innovations as:
- Establishing the first public baths in New York State (1852)
- Erecting the first model tenement in New York City (1855)
- Launching the drive for pure milk laws (1862)
- Starting the first shelter for homeless men (1893)
- Helping establish the Board of Health’s child health clinics (1909)
- Setting up the prototype for the free school-lunch program (1913)
- Laying the groundwork for the state’s Old Age Assistance Act (1930)
- Completing the long-term tuberculosis control center in Harlem (1947)
- Instituting the Geriatric Rehabilitation Service Project with Goldwater Memorial Hospital (1961)
- Starting the senior volunteer program, now the nation’s largest with almost 10,000 participants (1966)
- Establishing the revolving loan fund for low-income tenants to buy their buildings (1984)
- Developing an eviction prevention program to prevent homelessness of people being sued for nonpayment of rent (1988)
- Initiating the Prejudice Reduction Program to teach tolerance and human dignity in public schools (1990)
- Designing the model for financing neighborhood health facilities adopted by the city in its Primary Care Development Corporation (1993)
- Establishing the Public Benefits Resource Center to address government inadequacies that prevent poor, disabled, and elderly people from receiving benefits and services (1994)
- Launching the Experience Corps, where senior volunteers provide literacy tutoring to elementary school children and play a direct role in ensuring that children from their community have a chance to succeed (1996)
- Helping to establish the Managed Care Consumer Assistance Program to assist consumers with managed care problems (1999)
- Providing $5 million of financial assistance to help New Yorkers who lost jobs and family members as result of the World Trade Center disaster (2001)
- Initiating “The Unheard Third,” annual survey of New Yorkers, only regular survey of low-income opinion in the United States (2002)
- CSS report on joblessness of city’s Black and Latino men spurred funding of job training program for chronically unemployed and establishment of Construction Opportunities Commission and high school for construction trades (2004)