Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) Oral History Collection
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Abstract
Founded in 1973, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) creates and supports community-controlled affordable housing in New York City. UHAB supports New Yorkers to acquire, rehabilitate, and manage their apartments. Their programs include providing loans to first-time home buyers; developing new affordable co-ops; and organizing tenants facing landlord harassment and neglect. UHAB has undertaken a long-running oral history program with residents of HDFC co-ops, a type of resident-controlled, cooperatively-owned, and permanently affordable housing unique to New York City. The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) Oral History Collection (dated 2018-2022) consists of electronic audio recordings, transcripts, and photographs created in the course of the UHAB oral history program with residents of HDFC co-ops. The oral history interviews and supplemental materials document an under-represented but influential housing rights movement, spanning four boroughs and thousands of homes from the 1970s to the present day. The oral history project seeks to preserve the voices and memories of HDFC residents so that they may be passed down to future generations of building residents, as well as educate the public on the value of this affordable housing model. The interviews cover topics such as governance, time management, and equity; the internal politics of running a co-op; rehabilitation and renovation of buildings; squats and squatters; family life in co-ops; challenges of working with city officials; the long-term effects of secure, stable housing; navigating generational and demographic changes; community and building maintenance; and the struggle to remain affordable in a financialized housing market. Co-ops like Umbrella House are featured; participants are also spread out across New York in neighborhoods like Harlem, Washington Heights, South Bronx, Lower East Side, and Brownsville. Interviews address race, immigration, and gentrification.
Historical Note
Founded in 1973, the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) creates and supports community-controlled affordable housing in New York City. UHAB supports New Yorkers to acquire, rehabilitate, and manage their apartments. Their programs include providing loans to first-time home buyers; developing new affordable co-ops; and organizing tenants facing landlord harassment and neglect. UHAB has undertaken a long-running oral history program with residents of HDFC co-ops (Housing Development Fund Corporation cooperatives), a type of resident-controlled, cooperatively-owned, and permanently affordable housing unique to New York City.
Arrangement
Interviews are arranged chronologically.
Scope and Contents
The Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) Oral History Collection (dated 2018-2022) consists of electronic audio recordings, transcripts, and photographs created in the course of the UHAB oral history program with residents of HDFC co-ops. The oral history interviews and supplemental materials document an under-represented but influential housing rights movement, spanning four boroughs and thousands of homes from the 1970s to the present day. The oral history project seeks to preserve the voices and memories of HDFC residents so that they may be passed down to future generations of building residents, as well as educate the public on the value of this affordable housing model. The interviews cover topics such as governance, time management, and equity; the internal politics of running a co-op; rehabilitation and renovation of buildings; squats and squatters; family life in co-ops; challenges of working with city officials; the long-term effects of secure, stable housing; navigating generational and demographic changes; community and building maintenance; and the struggle to remain affordable in a financialized housing market. Co-ops like Umbrella House are featured; participants are also spread out across New York in neighborhoods like Harlem, Washington Heights, South Bronx, Lower East Side, and Brownsville. Interviews address race, immigration, and gentrification.
Subjects
People
Donors
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use, with the exception of interviews without release forms, which cannot be reproduced by publication. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) Oral History Collection; TAM 825; box number; folder number or item identifier; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Clara Weinstein, Assistant Director for Fundraising and Communications, and Margy Brown (Executive Director) in May 2023; the accession number associated with this gift is 2023.067. An audio recording and transcript of one interview intended to be included in the original donation was donated by Reb Ngu and Clara Weinstein in September 2023.
Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures
Advance notice is required for the use of computer records. Original physical digital media is restricted. An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Collection materials have been described on the collection- and interview-level, re-using description supplied by the UHAB. Some interview subjects chose to be identified by their first name only or remain anonymous. New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content. Release forms were separated from other interview materials and are stored in the collection file. Empty directories on the original flash drive were not transferred.
