Executive Summary

Good Old Lower East Side, Inc. (GOLES) was born in 1977, in a time of arson, abandonment, and economic crisis.  It began with the simple idea that tenants could exercise their legal rights and defend their homes and their neighborhood.  Over 45 years later, GOLES’ work has led to significant victories in policy and public awareness, as well as in seemingly small wins with immeasurably broader ripple effects, like preventing a family’s unlawful eviction or developing a neighborhood tenant leader.  In particular, GOLES has been a pioneer and a leading voice in public housing organizing, both locally and nationally, for over twenty years, and our environmental justice and resiliency leadership in the wake of Superstorm Sandy’s devastating impact on our community led to the formation of LES Ready–an innovative grassroots disaster resiliency network, which GOLES continues to coordinate.  We work with community residents to advocate and organize to build the power of low-income residents on the Lower East Side.  As a community membership organization that stands with the people to preserve, protect, and defend the Lower East Side, we serve over 3,000 people and reach over 10,000 people every year. GOLES’ multi-pronged approach consists of community organizing, public education, and direct service, focused on five interrelated issue areas: housing; land use; environmental justice and disaster resiliency; healthy aging; and workforce development.  GOLES sees racial justice as deeply interconnected across all areas of our work, and our work also explicitly addresses issues of race and racism.

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