Word: lindseyism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Lindsey joined a group of four tenants trying to organize a rent strike, using their rent money to make repairs. One of the first steps was to install security fences and better lighting. Such measures irritated the thieves and drug peddlers who ruled the streets. They tore down the fences. Lindsey and some neighbors put the fences up again, then stood guard. One thug attacked Lindsey with a knife, slashed through his windbreaker and cut his stomach. Lindsey whipped out a .38 and shoved it under the knifer's nose. "I told him to get on his knees...
...rent strike, which Lindsey by now headed, began working. When the strikers cited 200 building-code violations in one block, the city authorities did nothing, so the strikers got the state to bring the landlord to heel. To get more trash collections, the strikers trucked garbage downtown and left it to rot in the sun. Says Lindsey: "People were taking things into their own hands, and that generated a lot of excitement...
Within a year, Citrus Park underwent some remarkable changes. Houses were painted and repaired, gardens were planted, crime rates fell, garbage was , collected. So Lindsey went downtown in his blue jeans and ponytail and applied for the vacant job of city housing-authority director. The housing commissioners at first "freaked out," he says, then listened to his ideas and astonishingly gave...
...Lindsey's notions was to concentrate on what he called oasis areas. Another was to spend about half his time working with repair crews in the streets of such areas, even in private yards. "I wanted the people in the projects to see the man in charge," he says. "When people asked what I was doing, I'd say, 'The first time, I'm cleaning it up for you. The second time, I'll be cleaning it up for the new tenant.' " Lindsey had remarkable authority not only to evict tenants while he renovated buildings in oasis areas but also...
...worked, both because Lindsey had won a lot of neighborhood support and because he used a variety of methods to make each oasis grow. He started a tutoring program, for example, that now teaches 150 youngsters reading and arithmetic, plus a variety of "coping skills." He started a plant nursery in what was once a junkyard, where tenants can pick out trees for their yards. With the help of Ronald Range, a black detective from Boston, he organized "X-ray units," small tactical police squads that worked closely with community leaders to protect each oasis...