Announcer: 00:00 Hey BK with Ofer Cohen.
Jill Eisenhard: 00:03 You know, part of the motivator and people have said like this work is really hard. Like why have you done it for so long is that it's hope.
Ofer Cohen: 00:10 I'm Ofer Cohen and this is Hey BK, the podcast about the people behind the Brooklyn transformation in this episode, I speak with Jill Eisenhard, the founder and executive director of the Red Hook initiative. Jill has recently announced that she's stepping down from the nonprofit she founded back in 2002. In our conversation, she looks back at her work in Red Hook, one of the last industrial neighborhoods on the Brooklyn waterfront. Red Hook is home to the city's second largest public housing complex with nearly 10,000 residents in 32 buildings. The NYCHA housing complex and Red Hook is riddled with problems from crumbling infrastructure to mold. These problems were only made worse when Hurricane Sandy hit Red Hook in 2012 most of Red Hook's residents are low income and African-American. According to Jill, the median family income in that public housing complex is $23,000 for a family of four. In the past 18 years, RHI has grown to serve more than 6,000 people with a budget of over $4 million. Not only does it help the young people with job training and afterschool programs, but it also has a larger vision to empower the community from within to create social change. Jill, Eisenhard.
Jill Eisenhard: 01:12 So I am from a place that's about as opposite from Red Hook Brooklyn is, could possibly be. I grew up in Western New York, a very, very small town had we had an Apple farm. I showed sheep, at the County fair. That's what you did when you were from, that part of the country. I had never been to New York City until I was in my twenties. My father had never come here until he was in his fifties is like, Oh, it took me 54 years to come here and it will take me 54 years to come back again.
Ofer Cohen: 01:43 And what brought you here?
Jill Eisenhard: 01:44 I came to visit a cousin and said I would never live here. But, um, someone, the hospital in Brooklyn had found my resume through some online portal, which I still am confused, not like it was that special, um, at that stage in my life. And I was called for an interview as like, ah, it's a good excuse to visit my cousin and I'll go to the interview. And then, um, it ended up being a job that I was interested in. And so I, um, told my mother I was moving to New York city and she didn't speak for about three days.
Ofer Cohen: 02:17 How did it start?
Jill Eisenhard: 02:18 So I tell people that I'm an accidental founder. I never intended to start an organization. And in 2002, I was a health educator at Long Island college hospital in Downtown Brooklyn. And, part of my job as a health educator was to go out into different neighborhoods and teach women about women's health. And I always felt like there was something wrong with the model where it would come out as an expert from the hospital into communities where I wasn't from there. I didn't look like the people who were there. And I was coming in having some kind of an expert status to tell people what to do. And so there was an opportunity to write a grant and I said, I want to change this model and I'd rather educate women from the neighborhood to become the experts who are teaching their peers. And so I wrote that grant and then I resigned from the hospital and went to do youth development work. And six months later they called me and they said, we have a $50,000 check sitting here for your idea and none of us are going to do it. And I said, well, it'll just be a year and I'll do it at night and on the weekend. And that was 18 years ago. Um, and so things from there just really became very organic. I initially hired 10 women who lived in public housing. I trained them to be health educators. All in Red Hook. And we got donated space, which especially now is really hard to imagine happening in Brooklyn, but we needed space. The police athletic league had a daycare. Someone said, I think they have extra rooms. So I went to the headquarters in Manhattan and I walked in and I said, I have money to hire women. And this man, literally, I don't think he even knew my last name, said it sounds like a great project. Opened his drawer, pulled out a key, handed it to me and said good luck. And we were basically in space for the first six years that we weren't paying for. There was no lease. We had our own entrance onto the street. Um, and it kind of magically expanded. Like we had run out of space and we looked at a door and we're like, based on how the walls go, what's behind that door and magically opened it and found another room. And I think over the 18 years, things like that have always happened where when you needed something, suddenly the Avenue would become available.
Ofer Cohen: 04:40 That's incredible.
Jill Eisenhard: 04:41 Yeah.
Ofer Cohen: 04:42 Let's talk a little bit more of, you know, the moment where you realize that the current systems don't work and you essentially basically felt like you want to make an impact. But I mean, kind of downplaying it a little bit.
Jill Eisenhard: 04:56 Yeah. I mean, I think I came in originally with this focus on women's health education. And in that first year or so, part of what started to happen is that people would walk in the door once we had this space and would say, I know you're doing women's health, but I need a resume. Or a 15 year old would come in in the middle of the day and we'd say, why are you not in school? And they would say, Oh, I don't go to school anymore. And so suddenly the needs started to become visible. And my own learning was that health is, is a piece. And if you don't have a foundation of, of housing and food and a steady income, health is very secondary. And so I think early on I learned a lesson of just listening to the community and knowing that community will ask for what it needs on its own. Um, and so by listening to that, I think our model quickly evolved to be focused on youth development. And as we started to do that, just recognized, um, if you're doing direct service and tutoring or, health information or counseling, but you're not actually addressing the systems, we will just do that forever. So we have, really three program areas. Uh, the first is our youth programs. So we're serving about 500 young people a year who are all from the neighborhood. And that's, um, anyone from sixth grade to age 24. And so there, a young person can walk in in sixth grade and be coming to an afterschool program that's led by someone from the neighborhood. When they get to high school, they're coming in and saying, Oh, I'm now 14. I have working papers. I need a job. And so we have met that need by creating positions. We employ, about 80 young people at a time, over in the summer it goes up. So over a hundred, high school students, throughout the year. And they're on our payroll. They're earning a paycheck. Um, lots of different things. They're trained to be peer health educators. They're trained to be peer counselors, um, youth organizers. They're looking at all the issues in the neighborhood and they're becoming specialists to then educate their peers or educating their family. We now have a young woman who started out in that program and she's finishing her master's degree at Hunter college school of social work and started out, she's like, it basically been a counselor since I was 15 years old. Our peer health education program, we had a young person who started out in that who's now at the Department of Education doing citywide program programs in health. So I think for a lot of young people getting a job at RHI thats serving their community also becomes the pathway to their future progression as an adult.
Ofer Cohen: 07:38 So I'm 15 years old and I come to Red Hook Initiative and I mean, you know, I'm being trained to help my peers and I'm being employed to help my peers in Red Hook Initiative is funding that.
Jill Eisenhard: 07:53 Yes, that right. We're paying them as an employee. And at the same time we're saying everyone who works here has a professional development plan. And so your professional development plan is a 15 year old is that you have to graduate from high school. And so the graduation rate in the neighborhood is around 60% and our young people are graduating at a rate of 95%. Um, and so that's the, the first piece of our model. So at any point in time, a young person from the neighborhood can walk into RHI and really get what they need. Many of them do start at sixth grade and are with us until age 24. Some of them kind of come and go when there's something that they need around work or emotional health or educational outcomes. And we have usually more young people than were we're able to have slots for particularly for the employment place.
Ofer Cohen: 08:41 So they're on a wait list?
Jill Eisenhard: 08:41 Yup. Yeah. Right.
Ofer Cohen: 08:42 So that's where the extra funding can help?
Jill Eisenhard: 08:42 Yes.
Ofer Cohen: 08:42 Because the need is much greater than what you can provide?
Jill Eisenhard: 08:49 And some of it is also space. So last year we, and I'll get to the second part of our model, but took on the two farms that are in Red Hook and they have come under our umbrella. We've rebranded as Red Hook farms. And so it's Brooklyn's largest urban farm. It's right next to the Ikea. Um, it's about a three acre space with an acre and a half that's active production of produce. And then there's another one acre spot on a NYCHA facility. And so young people also have jobs working on the farm, growing food, distributing that food to their neighbors. Red Hook doesn't have their, it's classified in, in department of health language as being a food desert.
Ofer Cohen: 09:28 So it sounds like kind of a radical model, right? This is more empowering from within and through the community and the peer group and collaboration. But like how did you guys come up with this model and is there other examples for it?
Jill Eisenhard: 09:43 There aren't lot of other examples So the, the youth development pieces are first core. And the second part is I think where we become more radical as you just said, is that we do organizing and advocacy and a lot of the groups, especially the bigger social service agencies throughout New York city, they just do the direct service. And I think the organizing and advocacy that we do is where the social chain starts to happen. And so some examples of that work, you know, NYCHA, especially after Hurricane Sandy, the repairs, I mean, people don't realize it's been seven years, they're still temporary boilers. Um, a lot of the FEMA money has an actually made it there yet. There's still all kinds of Sandy related things that have not been, repaired or fixed. And one of the things that's been happening, is that people don't have cooking gas. And so last year, for example, there are families that started to come to us and said, we haven't been able to cook for three or four months. And it took our organization organizing, people calling NYCHA, calling the press to actually get that story in just for people to have cooking gas. The same has been true with heat. Red Hook is top on the list for mold. We brought in a team from UC Berkeley who like looked at all the mold that had happened particularly after Hurricane Sandy. So it's really been residents who are driving that work. And so what RHI does is we are offering this space for them and the tools and connections to resources like a research Institute like UC Berkeley, but it's really the people who are driving, this is the need we go out of our way to make sure that they're the voices that are talking to press or I'm going to testify about something. For the young people, a great example of that is that two summers ago there was an increase in violence in the neighborhood and as a result of that, there is an increase in policing. And so a lot of the young men in particular were coming to RHI and saying, you have to help us. We don't feel safe in this neighborhood. @e feel like police are following us and we just kind of felt like we don't have expertise in gun violence. This is a little bit out of our range of what we know what to do with. And they kept coming. And so we said, Oh, this is a moment of community asking and we need to respond. And so we got some funding, and employed 12 young adults who did their own research and said, what is the story of violence, in this neighborhood and what are the roots of it? And they put together, they worked with a professor from Brooklyn college and the public science project. So there was real, like a real research presence. They're now known and people, researchers have come to them to talk about their model. They present to the Department of Health. Like a lot of the things that are coming out of their report are now showing up citywide and trying to figure out, looking at all of those issues. And so I think that's the place where it becomes a little more radical is saying like, this isn't a top down model. This is just giving community members, the tools and the opportunity to tell their own story and they have their own solution.
Ofer Cohen: 12:56 So, as I'm listening to you, I mean, what comes to mind is this sort of like, why, you know, if there's so many issues in public housing, why is it a nonprofits organization's job to fix all these issues?
Jill Eisenhard: 13:11 Yeah, great question. We asked that all the time. I mean, I think to the, the one thing when I was very young, when I accidentally started this organization and had actually only lived in New York City for two years, and I think if I'd been here for a little longer, I never would have even tried to have done this or just would've felt like that. What could I do? And I think, um, but you know, part of the motivator and people have said like, this work is really hard. Like why have you done it for so long? Is that, and this is gonna sound. I mean it's hope, like understanding and seeing it's just incredible to see what happens when people are given the space and the opportunity. I got a note two days ago, a young person who had been a part of our program who was connected, with a company, and got a job in basically in the construction field, and is now moving his family out of public housing after a few years. I've had young people come in with offer letters from jobs when they're like, here's my offer letter and I'm like, you have a retirement plan. I don't have a retirement plan or seeing people being the first from their family to graduate from college and knowing like, I don't think a lot of people try to give us credit for things like that and like, this is 100% that the young person showing up in doing it but I think it's the access to opportunity. I think that's the part that feels hopeful is that the human spirit is amazing and I think having done this for 18 years, it's, there's just an opportunity to see all these things that can happen. And that when residents come together to talk about public housing, they love their neighborhood, they love their building, they love their community. And people are like, I don't want to, I don't want public housing to go away. I don't want to move out of public housing. I just want it to be adequate. Like I wanted to be healthy and safe and not wondering if there's lead in the walls or mold growing on my children's skin, which actually happened in one house because of the situation there. And so I think that the drive is to really say, what would this city be without public housing? I mean, the majority of people who live in NYCHA work for the DOE, they work for NYCHA. They're in city jobs, like NYCHA residents are running the city. And I think as we look at what's happening, and the financial crisis that NYCHA is facing and, and I think people need to really understand who's living there and what, what that, leap would be if that isn't. And I think we have seen people who feel like I now make enough money where I can't, like I almost make too much money to live in NYCHA and there is a gap and I, there isn't anywhere to move in between. And so we've seen a lot of people moving to Pennsylvania moving back down South of just feeling like there isn't space for me in this city if I've succeeded enough to, to move beyond, the public housing or section eight or section nine options that are here.
Ofer Cohen: 16:29 Like, can, NYCHA fix all these issues from within can actually NYCHA with the right leadership and funding for that matter.
Jill Eisenhard: 16:38 Yeah, I mean the money is significant. I mean the Red Hook on the East side of the Red Hook houses, those buildings were built in 1938 and there hasn't been a significant upgrade. So any building that's been, around for that long and hasn't actually been cared for in the right way, there's a real question about how, you know, how healthy and strong, like what's the infrastructure of this building, how long is it really going to last and where does the, where, what is the smart investment and what does that look like? Um, and so I don't know. I mean, I think that the NYCHA, what happens with NYCHA is a significant one. I think within our organizing work, there are so many things that are playing out in the neighborhood right now. There's the port authority parcel that everyone's kind of wondering, is it, you know, is it going to be sold and if it's going to be sold, what, what's the plan? There's the governor's proposal for the subway, subway line, to come. There's the BQX all of the ball fields in Red Hook right now are closed for lead contamination. So there's a parks, open parks department conversation around what's happening with this space. There's also a current, I feel like I'm reading every possible list of what could be happening in a neighborhood in New York City. And it's all happening in Red Hook. There's a current, conversation about districting um, related to education in the elementary schools that are in the neighborhood. And so I think from our point of view, we're really just working to figure out how can residents know about all these conversations and where is there an opportunity for them to really be the ones who are speaking up and driving and saying what they want.
Ofer Cohen: 18:23 It's very interesting. So the question is sort of philosophically 25 years ahead, public housing is not going anywhere. The needs just getting bigger. Like what do you, how do you connect these two?
Jill Eisenhard: 18:37 I mean, I think it used to be that NYCHA actually ran community centers and did some form of direct service and I think that was a big mistake, that they need to be a landlord. They need to focus on the things related to being a landlord and that other groups should be doing the social services and the supports that happen. I do think that it's important that different housing communities have something like an RHI that is present and that are partnering and we do partner with NYCHA. And sometimes it's that we're really holding them accountable by issuing your report or going to the press. And sometimes we're saying like, let's work together on this.
Ofer Cohen: 19:15 Well, and there are people, you know, there are people in my industry, that think that the city should not be in the business of owning and managing a housing.
Jill Eisenhard: 19:25 The thing about it continuing to be held with the city is that I think there's some level of, control over making sure that it's staying low income or affordable or whatever term that you want to call. And I think that if it all becomes privatized, that there's going to be concern of like, what does that ultimately mean for the 400,000 people that are living there now, if those, you know, if markets start to drive those what is that, what's the longterm question? So I think the idea of it staying public is really focused on ensuring that it continues to be there for families who are at the, at the beginning of the spectrum of what they can afford.
Ofer Cohen: 20:12 So you touched a couple of times on Sandy. Tell me about that night and that morning.
Jill Eisenhard: 20:17 This is interesting. This is kind of, most people don't know this. I actually had had, surgery three days before Sandy. We just had our annual benefit and I said, this is actually, I need to have this surgery. And this was going to be a great time going to like take a week and a half off and, really like not be checking my email, not working. I'm just going to have the surgery and recover and I'll be back. And then I'm on day three, Sandy hit. And so that night I was just, you know, getting tons and tons of text messages and I'm thinking like, our building is ruined. All of our technology's ruined. I'm sure no one thought to like pick our server up off of the floor. Um, and the next morning people started telling me, everything's fine. I didn't believe it. I'm like, they want me to rest. And so they're not telling me the truth. Like there's no way that everything's fine, you know, looking at the news. And it was true and no one understands why it was the only building in Red Hook that like, it's as if nothing had happened, the phones are working, the lights were on, everything was fully intact. And so that next morning I got a call from a staff member and she's like, Hey, is it okay to open the building like none of us have? And at that point, no one knew how bad it was. Right? It's like, you know, just the next morning the sun is out. It's like, Oh, it'll all probably be fine by five o'clock today. And the water was gone by then. I was like, of course, of course you should be there. And so they started calling staff. And people started coming in and then people started saying, Hey, I need to charge my phone. Can I come? We can't cook. The occupy, the group that became occupy Sandy people came in and said, can we use your kitchen to like cook soup? People are going to need dinner tonight. And from there it just became full on the headquarters. And I was home. I had a, long crazy story, I was on incredible pain medication. I had tubes coming out, I had a tumor taken out of my leg and, was working like 14 to 16 hours a day for like weeks after that but never actually set foot in Red Hook until the power was back on.
Ofer Cohen: 22:35 It was a pivotal moment for Red Hook, but it was a pivotal moment for the organization too, in a way.
Jill Eisenhard: 22:40 Yes. I mean, there were people who came in, during the storm or right after the storm to make a donation and they were like, I live a mile away. I had no idea that you were here. And some of those people became longterm supporters. There are people who donated $5,000 in the time of crisis. And then once they learned what we were about are now donating $50,000. And so I think for us, you know, at the point that Sandy happened, we were 10 years old and we had that we're like, no one knows about us. We need a PR campaign. Of course we didn't have a director of development and we don't have communications team or PR people. So in retrospect it was like, Oh, we got, you know, through a storm. We actually had the PR campaign, I mean the number of journalists and TV crews and everyone that was coming through responding to Sandy and for people who realize, wait a minute, this group has actually been around for 10 years. They didn't just pop up during the storm. That really helps to us to kind of move to the next level.
Ofer Cohen: 23:42 Very interesting. So I typically ask if he listened my show, I typically ask, is there anything that the public doesn't know about you? So you did mention the surgery, which I didn't know. Is there anything else that the public doesn't know?
Jill Eisenhard: 23:56 So when we when I brought the question to my board about taking on the farm in Red Hook, they were like, what in the world do we know about farming? Like, why would we do that? And I said, well, here are all the reasons why, and if that's not enough to give you confidence, I do not, you probably do not know this about me, but I'm the 1989 New York state junior horticulture champion, at which point they just said, of course you are. And then we kind of proceeded with that. So yeah, that's been, something that as a teenager was really fun and I never thought would matter again, but has given lots of credibility as we've added the farm to our portfolio.