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Victor Bach
Senior Housing Policy AnalystPolicy, Advocacy and Strategic Planning Department
212.614.5492
vbach@cssny.org
Vic Bach direct and conducts CSS housing policy research and advocacy. He is currently working on the “Making the Rent” report series analyzing rent burdens and related issues affecting low-income New Yorkers; statewide analysis and report on rent burden issues in New York; providing technical assistance to public housing resident leaders on policy and advocacy strategies; ad hoc consultation, coalition work, analysis, and testimony on emerging housing legislation and pending policy issues.
WHY THIS WORK IS IMPORTANT TO ME:
“Housing is and has always been a pressing, critical issue for low-income New Yorkers striving to work and live in this great city. Using one’s training and experience to help shape a housing policy agenda that responds to their interests is challenging, gratifying work.”
PRIOR EMPLOYMENT:
Associate Professor, New School for Social Research, Graduate School of Management & Urban Professions, 1979-1983
Research Associate and Consultant, Brookings Institution, Governmental Monitoring Studies Program, 1976-79
PROFESSIONAL HONORS:
Catherine Bauer Wurster Fellow, Joint Center for Urban Studies of MIT & Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS/COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:
Co-Founder, Associate Board member, New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance
Past Board member, New York State Tenant & Neighborhood Coalition
PUBLISHED WORKS:
Co-author, CSS Making the Rent Reports, 2006, 2007, 2008, on rent burdens and housing hardships among low-income New Yorkers
Co-author, CSS Closing the Door Reports, 2006, 2007, on the status of subsidized housing in New York City
Resident Participation in Public Housing: Making it Effective, CSS Policy Brief, 2002
The Future of Public Housing in New York City, CSS Policy Brief, 1999
“The Future of HUD-Subsidized Housing: The New York City Case”, in Housing and Community Development in the New Fiscal Environment: Facing the Future, (editor, Michael H. Schill), SUNY Press, 1999
Housing on the Block: Disinvestment and Abandonment Risks in New York City, CSS report, 1993
Working Directory: The At-Risk Inventory of Privately-Owned HUD-Subsidized Housing Developments in New York City, CSS, 1990
“The Big Chill in Federal Subsidies,” City Limits, 1988
Alternatives to the Welfare Hotel, CSS Report, 1987
Co-author, Decentralizing Urban Policy, Case Studies in Community Development, Brookings Institution, 1982
Co-author, Targeting Community Development, Brookings Institution Report to HUD, 1980
Co-author, “Information Referral Services for Elderly Welfare Recipients,” The Gerontologist, 1977
“Visions Without Revisions: Urban Policy Orientations of the Kennedy- Johnson Years,” (editor, David Warner), University of Texas at Austin, 1977
SIGNIFICANT PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
Advocacy for passage of the New York State Shelter Allowance Equity Bill, 2007, to provide the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) with shelter allowances equal to those received by private landlords
Advocacy leading to the formation of the New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance, to significant changes in the 1998 Federal Housing Act to reform public housing, and to NYCHA withdrawal of its Moving-to-Work proposal
Advocacy leading to passage of Local Law 41, 1995, New York City legislation requiring the Department of Housing Preservation to identify distressed private rental housing to be targeted for its anti-abandonment programs
Expert testimony, in the Jiggetts case that led to Jiggetts relief for public assistance families at risk of eviction because of inadequate shelter allowances
BOOKS I WOULD RECOMMEND:
Government and Slum Housing by Lawrence Friedman
Dilemmas of Social Reform by Peter Marris & Martin Rein
The Tenant Movement in New York City, 1904-1984 by Ronald Lawson
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
EDUCATION:
B.S. Mathematics, Brooklyn College
B.A. Mathematics, Yale University
Ph.D. Urban Studies & Planning, M.I.T
PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, New York
Testimony before New York City Rent Guidelines Board (RGB) Hearings