NEWS
Page 4
September 25, 2019
Research Spotlight
USG Column
Student Researches NYC Housing Programs Creates Packet to Explain Voucher System By ELIOT SCHIAPARELLI
USG Talks Aramark Concerns By HASNA CERAN
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
When Jenna Koury, FCRH ’20, worked with the Department of Human Rights Housing Investigations Unit as a sophomore, she noticed a pattern of minority women, people with disabilities and domestic violence survivors losing their housing and unable to find new permanent housing. Working under her boss from that internship, Marleny Rubio, Koury developed a research project that she hoped could help some of these women find permanent housing. Koury originally wanted to connect with some of the women who had lost their housing and share their personal stories as a part of her project, but as she progressed she realized if she stuck with the government housing organization, there would be too much red tape that could stop her from meeting individuals. So Koury started to work with the Bronx chapter of the Violence Intervention Program (VIP). The organization caters primarily to the Latino community and provides emergency housing to domestic violence survivors with no questions asked. Participants have 90 – 160 days in the program’s housing and during that time they are supposed to use New York City’s voucher program to find permanent housing. At the start of Koury’s research, New York City had a complicated voucher system to help people move out of shelters. With seven different vouchers, Koury said it could be very confusing — even as she studied it full time. “Each of them had different income requirements, different family member requirements and immigration status,” said Koury. “It was so confusing for me and all I was doing all summer was researching them so you can imagine a woman who
On Thursday, Sept. 19, the United Student Government (USG) approved the Fordham Undergraduate Law Review (FULR) as a new club. Senator Tyler Raciti, FCRH ’21, editor-in-chief of FULR, described the club as a way to enhance the pre-law track for undergraduates by providing a student-run nonpartisan peer-reviewed scholarly journal of current pressing legal issues. Students who participate in the club will be able to network with undergraduate law reviews at other universities and Fordham University School of Law, as well as present at the undergraduate research symposium. The club mentioned institutional partnerships with the Fordham Law Review of Fordham University School of Law, as well as Hillary Mantis, director of the pre-law advising program. Furthermore, the motion to update the club suite guidelines was approved unanimously. The previous guidelines were written in 2016. Executive Vice President Ashley Qamar, GSB ’20, discussed the president pro-tempore elections on Sept. 26, emphasizing that the freshman senate would also be voting this year. Qamar also stated during the executive report that USG will be meeting with Campus Ministry, Development and Alumni Relations and Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the university, the following week. During the senate reports, Senator David D’Onofrio, FCRH ’22, proposed a new dining area in the copy rooms in Walsh Library that would be open from 11 a.m to 4 p.m. A pricing quote will potentially be available by next week, according to the USG minutes. The Dining Committee report centered largely around the previous issue of Aramark employees being denied seating. Senator Domenic Setaro, FCRH ’20, said he talked to Aramark during a Dining Committee meeting about a concern students had for one of its employees. Aramark got rid of the chairs for its employees at the entrance to the marketplace, but students noticed that one of the employees standing had recently had ankle surgery. Setaro asked Aramark about the situation and was informed that she was given a chair. Aramark also claimed that the lines in the Marketplace were shorter this year as a result of the employees being made to stand. In other business, the estimated cost to switch to a tap-in system for the cafeteria is around $1,500. There will be further updates if the change is to be implemented. Vice President of the Gabelli School of Business, Reilly Keane, GSB ’21, discussed the upcoming first town hall on Nov. 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. in Bepler Commons. The event will be catered by Chipotle and will feature a Gabelli speaker event rather than the originally-planned TED talk. During the open floor, Senator Chirayu Shah, GSB ’21, announced a workshop at 10 a.m. on Sept 26. featuring Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Jerry White.
Photo of the Week:
COURTESY OF JENNA KOURY
Koury’s research goal was to create a packet explaining the New York City’s voucher housing system to women at VIP.
is trying to find housing, is working and is trying to take care of her children, there’s no time to research this.” Rather than create a report, Koury started to look at how the voucher system discriminated against the women VIP helped. Her goal was to create a packet that could explain to the women at VIP which vouchers they were eligible for and how to use them. Right as Koury came to the conclusion of her research, the City of New York seemed to agree that the system needed to change and rolled out an entirely new voucher system. “I would love to go back and see if this new voucher system changed anything for these women,” said
Koury. “Because what we were seeing over the summer is that they would go in and find an apartment they loved and then the voucher would tell the landlord they were victims of domestic violence and while the landlords didn’t actually say, ‘Oh, we don’t want you.’ You could tell maybe the fear of the boyfriend or husband coming back and causing trouble meant they wouldn’t want these women in their housing.” Koury said she always thought it was crazy that vouchers told landlords why people were eligible for low income housing. When women were denied housing, Koury watched as they would essentially be pushed back into the shelter system and have to wait six months to be
PIA FISCHETTI/ THE FORDHAM RAM
The Brooklyn Book Festival was on Sept. 22. The festival is the largest free literary event in New York City and showcased many upcoming authors. The Ampersand, Fordham’s literary magazine, took a group of students to the festival.
eligible for another voucher. If they managed to find a landlord who would accept their voucher, they would have to go through even more bureaucracy and have the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) inspect the housing they had chosen. NYCHA’s inspection process often takes weeks, according to Koury, and by the time someone comes to check the apartment, the landlord has moved on to a different tenant. “Every situation was against them and it was just hard because a lot of them were dealing with immigration status as well,” said Koury. “As my research went on it just got deeper and deeper into these things and more complicated.” Koury also noticed all sorts of systems of inequality within public housing systems, both in New York and across the country. “A lot of buildings are split in half,” said Koury. “They’ll have regular housing and low income housing within it and a lot of times with the regular housing you get to go through a prettier lobby and the low income housing has to go through a back entrance or on the side and I think that’s an example of how society is still segregating and it’s just by class now.” Koury will graduate from Fordham in the spring with majors in political science and Middle Eastern studies. She then plans to take a gap year before heading to law school. In the future, she wants to be a criminal defense attorney and work for the Federal Defenders Office or the Innocence Project. She said she is grateful to have earned a research grant and hopes to continue her research. “Fordham students are super blessed to have the opportunity to get these research grants,” said Koury. “I was able to focus my whole summer into doing this so if you think of an idea I say go for it but definitely be passionate about what you’re looking at because humanities research can get so dense.”