Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Housing and Services, Inc.


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Stifle (talk) 10:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Housing and Services, Inc.

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WP:NORG. WP:NONPROFIT. Area specific provider of supportive housing that was added to Wikipedia by the organization itself. Graywalls (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * follow-up - coverage in other area article was about a particular hotel being renovated which focuses on the building but not this organization. The organization is in New York and works on New York and evidence of scale of work in national and international scale not found. HSI does not inherit the notability of Hotel Kenmore Hall per WP:INHERITORG. Graywalls (talk) 12:13, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Management-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Graywalls (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.     

<ol> <li> The book notes: "The Cecil Hotel on West 118th Street in Harlem was once the home of the celebrated jazz club Minton's Playhouse. Like many properties in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx, it had been seized by the city in the mid-1970s for long-overdue property taxes. In the mid-1980s, Vera bought the vacant and vandalized ninety-apartment building for $25,000 and formed the Public Service Action Center, to develop the property with $2 million from a private investor, a $300,000 loan from the Harlem Urban Development Corporation and a $1.7 million loan from the City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development for renovations. [paragraph about Public Service Action Center's use of Cecil to house people] The Public Service Action Center evolved into Housing and Services, Inc., which filled a void for those community-based nonprofit groups that were willing to own and manage housing but did not want to act as developers. Housing and Services identified sites that could be developed without zoning variances, community partners to manage the projects, finances to build or rehabilitate housing, and an operating budget that often depended primarily on the $215-a-month allowance that public assistance has granted single individuals since 1975. Housing and Services also leveraged loans from the city to create specialized housing, for low-income members of the Actors' Fund including retirees, young performers and actors with HIV and frail and poor elderly people. It established a residential health care facility for families with AIDS, the first of its kind in the country eligible for Medicaid funding that offered medical, social service, substance abuse care and child care. Overall, Housing and Services was instrumental in the development of more than 2,000 housing units valued at over $200 million. And it helped preserve affordable housing under the subsidized Mitchell-Lama Program, which allowed owners to convert buildings into market-rate cooperatives. In 2005, Housing and Services engineered the transition of a Mitchell-Lama complex in the Soundview section of the Bronx into affordable co-ops where maintenance costs were kept comparable with previous rents. The complex, with 1,865 apartments, was the largest to preserve Mitchell-Lama housing in New York State. In 2008, on Housing and Services's twentieth anniversary, Robert V. Hess, the city's commissioner of homeless services, said: 'Thousands of New Yorkers have a better life today in large part thanks to your efforts.'"</li> <li> The article abbreviates "Housing Services Inc." as "HSI". The article notes: "HSI has helped develop 1,000 housing units serving 3,000 people at 16 different city locations across the city since its inception in 1987. 'Homes Away From Home' is an HSI project on East 116th Street in Manhattan. The $500,000 development is managed by Youth Action Home Away From Home, a youth-assistance organization in East Harlem. ... Last May HSI helped the Highbridge-Community Life Center open the Highbridge Woodycrest Center in the Bronx for families affected by the AIDS virus. ... HSI manages the Cecil Hotel on West 118th Street in Manhattan. The hotel provides housing and services for 115 single homeless men and women housed in single and double rooms. It opened in 1988 and was financed by $4.1 million in federal and private loans and grants. The Cecil looks more like a midtown luxury hotel than a homeless shelter. The lobby has a fish tank, plush leather chairs, a television and v.c.r. Each floor has a well-kept dining room and nearly spotless hallways."</li> <li> The article notes: "... Housing and Services Inc., a nonprofit developer that works under contract to community organizations. It was started in 1982 as part of the Vera Institute for Criminal Justice. ... Housing and Services now operates separately from the Vera Institute, with a $37-million development budget and a blue-chip board of directors. In its first nine years, it completed eight projects housing more than 750 people — all on time and on budget, [Claire] Haaga said. This year alone, another eight projects for 970 people are under way."</li> <li> The article notes: "A a year later, a small not-for-profit company called Housing & Services Inc. bought the building. The company was founded in 1986 by lawyer Clairo Haaga to create homes for low-income and homeless people with special needs. Although drugs had been cleared out of the Kenmore, HSI found itself saddled with a squalid building with a disastrous infrastructure. HSI made cosmetic repairs to make the building livable, and began shifting around the 300 or so people who remained while embarking on a complete overhaul. ... With a baby grand piano donated by Haaga in the lobby, and a motherly manager named Pearl Poole, the restored Cecil is so appealing that a group of investors plans to revive Minton's Playhouse, a closed jazz club on the ground floor where many of the all-time greats played."</li> </ol>

There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow Housing and Services, Inc. to pass Notability, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Cunard (talk) 06:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC) </li></ul> <div class="xfd_relist" style="border-top: 1px solid #AAA; border-bottom: 1px solid #AAA; padding: 0px 25px;"> Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 00:10, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep: Per WP:NRVE as evidenced by reliable sources. Passes WP:GNG and WP:NONPROFIT. In a city with from 63-70,000 homeless, a 33 year old non-profit is certainly worthy of notice. I would venture that reliable sources can be found for expansion.  --  Otr500 (talk) 07:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.