In ‘Housing Works History,’ exploring the intersection of activism and real estate

A new project examines the nonprofit's decades-long history of combating AIDS and homelessness

Like most New Yorkers, Gavin Browning has long been familiar with Housing Works, the New York-based nonprofit with thrift stores around the city, along with a large used bookstore on Crosby Street in SoHo. And like many New Yorkers, Browning had little idea of Housing Work's tremendous influence in the city, particularly in the realm of housing.

The nonprofit was founded in 1990 with a mission to fight the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness. It was the brainchild of four members of the infamous, provocative AIDS activist group ACT UP, which continues its advocacy to this day. The organization's founders—Keith Cylar, who passed away in 2004, Charles King, Eric Sawyer and Virginia Shubert—believed that stable housing was the key to helping HIV-positive people live healthy, fulfilling lives, while also helping prevent the further spread of the virus.

"I've lived in New York for almost 20 years, and I've been around Housing Works in different ways," Browning says. "And I didn't know that Housing Works built housing."

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But no longer: Browning, who studied urban planning and went on to work for Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, recently debuted Housing Works History, an independent project funded by the Graham Foundation, which offers grants to foster diverse, challenging ideas about architecture. The project, presented as a timeline, provides an interactive overview of Housing Works' advocacy between 1990 and 2015, using everything from architectural drawings, protest ephemera, archival media and T-shirts to tell the organization's story.

It also touches on key moments in housing policy that relate to Housing Works's mission, ultimately proving the organization's work at the intersection of housing, health, and human rights, is "activist real estate development … from people who were not trained to be real estate developers," as Browning puts it.

The idea for the project hit Browning, who is not a Housing Works employee, about seven years ago. "I was working in SoHo and walking on Crosby Street, and looked up and saw the Housing Works flag outside with the triangle," he says. "It reminded me of the gay pride triangle, but it also looked like a roof. And I wondered, what does Housing Works actually do?"

Courtesy Gavin Browning/Housing Works History

A photo from the 1991 LGBT Pride March

A bit of research on Housing Works' advocacy work deepened Browning's curiosity, and he reached out to the organization hoping to dive deeper into its history. They were happy to oblige. "It was so great for us," says Elizabeth Koke, Housing Works's Director of Advocacy Communication. "We have boxes of archives, clients and staff who can speak to this history, but we've never had anyone with the time and resources to put it all together like this."

In his research, Browning found that much of the group's advocacy aligned with larger issues of health and housing policies in New York. ACT UP was founded in 1987 to challenge government indifference to the AIDS crisis, but its founders quickly realized how crucial housing played into their work. Throughout the 1980s, homelessness in New York skyrocketed due to the deinstitutionalization of individuals with psychiatric disorders, the shuttering of single-room occupancy hotels (SROs), and cuts to governmental benefits—factors that aligned with and compounded the AIDS crisis.

Housing support for people living with HIV and AIDS was, at the time, practically nonexistent: In the early 1990s, less than 350 units of housing were earmarked for an estimated 13,000 homeless individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and state plans only allocated for 75 more housing units in 1990.

Housing Works is activist real estate development from people who were not trained to be real estate developers.

But Housing Works fostered radical ideas of supportive housing, such as advocating for "Housing First" and "harm reduction" models. The idea was to prioritize providing shelter, then give residents access to a range of supportive services—job training, counseling, and health-related strategies like needle exchanges, to "minimize harm to individual and community health without requiring abstinence," according to Housing Works History.

The organization also spearheaded innovative projects like Scattered-Site Housing: Under this plan, Housing Works leased apartments in different buildings and sublet them to clients who met the clinical diagnosis of AIDS, acting as both landlords and case managers.

In 1994, Housing Works purchased land at 743-749 East 9th Street, in the East Village, for its first ground-up housing project. The 19,000 square-foot housing and health care facility, with 36 units for single adults living with HIV/AIDS, as well as a cafeteria, garden, roof terrace, gym and day-treatment center, opened in 1997.

In total, Housing Works built over 200 units of permanent and transitional housing for those with HIV and AIDS, and has served over 20,000 people through supportive services focused on healthcare, disease prevention, and job training.

Browning felt the timeline was a powerful tool to tell the organization's story. "I wanted to show that what Housing Works was doing was always within a context of legislation about housing, and how the disease was being measured by official bodies," he explains.

For instance, details on health and housing legislation are paired with New York Times reports on the organization, video interviews with Housing Works members, events, and even a menu from the commercial catering company established at 743-749 East 9th Street specifically to train and hire building residents. "It was exciting to see something like MTV video interviews of my colleague in the advocacy department, Valerie Reyes-Jimenez," Koke says. "Her dedication as an activist could be put into context with [Housing Works'] history."

Ephemera from Housing Works's 27-year history, including T-shirts and business cards, is all part of Browning's timeline.

The timeline also shows how the organization did this work during times of outright political hostility or indifference. Newspaper articles from 1993, for instance, detail opposition to Housing Works establishing a residence at 194 East 7th Street. "Opponents are spreading scare-stories about TB epidemics, declining property values, increased drug abuse and crime," reported Neighborhood News at the time.

"There was a major physical fear there … people were afraid of getting the disease from a toilet seat," Browning says. "It's hard for us to even go back to that time because things have changed so much. Not only with HIV and AIDs, but that visibility of difference in the culture."

Housing Works also engaged in a drawn-out battle with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In 1997, Giuliani withdrew $6.5 million worth of government contracts to Housing Works, potentially jeopardizing the organization's plans to house 200 clients in 181 scattered-site apartments across the city. The battle lasted until 2005, when the city agreed to pay a $4.8 million settlement to Housing Works. The ruling found that Giuliani pulled the contract as punishment toward Housing Works, an early critic of the mayor and his plans to consolidate the city's main AIDS agency.

Despite those challenges, the organization proved its staying power and helped contribute to a changed political landscape: At the end of 2016, Governor Cuomo announced a series of initiatives to end the AIDS epidemic in New York State by 2020. "To see the progress, and infrastructure, put into place by Housing Works' grassroots organizing definitely speaks to the current political climate," says Koke. "There's a hopefulness of what can happen when people work together and build something."

"Housing Works recognized really early on that housing is a form a healthcare," Browning notes. "You just can't expect people to get healthy if they're spending their time and energy finding somewhere to sleep."

Browning will present Housing Works History at the New York Public Library's main building tonight at 7 p.m.