Blackstone asked to re-invest in community

Boston-Bay State Banner
July 19, 2007

The Blackstone Group LP is clearly awash in cash.

As one of the world’s largest private equity firms and the City of Boston’s largest commercial property owner, it recently offered a $20.1 billion cash buyout to Hilton Hotels Corp. If approved by Hilton’s board, the deal would make Blackstone one of the world’s largest hotel owners, as well.

While business analysts have praised these multibillion-dollar business deals, a coalition of Greater Boston labor and community activists have started a grassroots campaign of sorts to get Blackstone to acknowledge its role in widening the gap between rich and poor and, more important, to start investing in Boston and other cities where they do business.

Local activists held a news conference last month in Downtown Boston and stood outside of 100 Summer Street, a Blackstone-owned office building. Representatives from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other members of the “Secure Jobs, Secure Communities” campaign highlighted pressing local issues and called upon the company to invest locally.

“At a time when Boston residents are reeling from the affects of the soaring costs of housing, health care and education, I’m very concerned that Blackstone is not investing more in Boston, where they do so much business,” said City Councilor Chuck Turner.

Blackstone is worth a total of more than $33 billion. It manages $88 billion in corporate assets, an amount 38 times the size of the City of Boston’s budget.

The company has not responded to Turner.

Though Blackstone’s recent stock offering raised more than $4 billion from stock market investors, much of the company remains a private equity firm and, as such, is treated differently than publicly held companies.

In an April 2007 report, “Behind the Buyouts: Inside the World of Private Equity,” the SEIU highlighted the role of private equity firms in engineering corporate buyouts.

According to the SEIU’s report, “private equity buyout firms operate virtually free of oversight and public accountability, their profits and practices largely hidden from view.”

The report goes on to suggest that because they are unaffected by the federal securities laws, tax liabilities and regulations that restrict public companies, private equity firms are a major contributor to the increasing concentration of wealth among the top 1 percent of Americans.

These firms generally raise capital from sources other than the stock market to purchase large companies, either restructuring them to make them more profitable or selling off their assets. While private equity firms have been around for decades, it has only been in the past five to seven years that there has been a serious concentration of wealth in these firms.

“The key principals at the largest private equity firms are billionaires,” the SEIU report continues. “Using money from banks, insurance companies, pension funds and other wealthy individual investors, they continue to launch corporate buyouts worth billions, even tens of billions of dollars, extracting fees of hundreds of millions of dollars from the companies they buy and often generate profits of 20 percent or more.”

The report also notes that firms like Blackstone have made huge profits during a period of increasing income disparity. For example, reports show that that the top 300,000 Americans received nearly as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans combined. SEIU also pointed out that the top half of the country received 440 times as much as people in the bottom half, doubling the gap from the 1980s.

The SEIU report connected this rising wealth gap to the ability of private equity firms to take advantage of tax loopholes. For instance, if Blackstone had paid taxes at the standard rate of 35 percent in 2006 — instead of the microscopic rate of 1.4 percent — the firm’s “tax bill would have increased from just $32 million to nearly $800 million.”

The organizers of last month’s conference, Community Labor United (CLU), are a coalition of seven labor unions and 10 community-based organizations that promote the interests of low- and middle-income families.

“We believe,” explained CLU Senior Organizer Darlene Lombos, “that they are making wealth off of the hard working people of Boston and that they are extracting that wealth and investing in other places. And all we are saying is that if you are going to make that wealth off of these people, that you [should] invest back in their communities. How many homes they could be saving with just a portion of the $4 billion that they made in two days?”

Various speakers called attention to the fact that security guards in buildings owned by Blackstone receive low wages and few benefits. They addressed this not only as a labor issue, but also an economic problem that has a real impact on the neighborhoods of Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, where many of the security guards live.

“We want Blackstone to put that money back into the community to better our community,” said Maggie Brown, a member of the Boston Workers Alliance.

Campaign members delivered a signed letter to representatives for Blackstone chairman and CEO Stephen A. Schwarzman, calling on him to meet with them to discuss how the Blackstone Group could help meet the needs of local residents.

They have not received a response.

City Council strikes down tenant bargaining bill

Boston-Bay State Banner
August 16, 2007

The Boston City Council voted 8-5 last week against the Tenant Collective Bargaining Act, a bill that would have protected the rights of tenants to bargain collectively to address rental issues. Exempting the overwhelming majority of landlords, this bill would have encouraged mainly large corporate landlords to sit down at the table with their tenant associations.

The 8-5 count was the same as the Council’s 2004 vote against the Community Stabilization Act, legislation that would have allowed tenants to appeal large rent increases while providing special protections for small owners. When that measure failed to pass, tenant leaders took over Council chambers for half an hour.

In the wake of that vote, activists organized tenant associations across Mattapan, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. Those associations have been successful in negotiating contracts with owners that provided three to five years of protection against arbitrary rent increases and evictions. With some landlords refusing to negotiate, this bill would have insisted that large owners at least talk to these associations, preventing those who refused to meet with tenant groups from receiving city permits.

Tenant activists said they initially received support for the new bill from councilors who had opposed the earlier legislation. In an effort to meet the concerns of real estate owners, affordable housing activists claimed they made multiple changes to the bill. But as the Greater Boston Real Estate Board maintained its opposition to the bill — referring to it as rent control — other councilors dropped their support.

Prior to the vote last Wednesday, more than 50 tenant and labor activists held a prayer vigil outside City Hall. Rabbi Victor Reinstein of Nehar Shalom Community Synagogue in Jamaica Plain and Minister Kenneth Simms of Boston’s New Hope Baptist Church led a brief prayer service.

In City Hall chambers, several councilors spoke in support of the bill. City Councilor Sam Yoon highlighted recent research indicating that over half of all Boston renter households spend more than 30 percent of their income to housing, an increase from 43 percent of renters five years ago.

“It seems like this legislation isn’t going to change the world, but [will] affirm the principle that those who are really struggling in their economic situation have a right to join together and work with the people who own their property,” said City Councilor Chuck Turner just before the vote. “This vote is important because it’s going to say where we stand in a city that is more economically divided each and every day.”

“I really don’t know what the real estate industry is afraid of. This is the most modest legislation,” said City Councilor Charles Yancey. “If we fail to pass this today, we are OK with the status quo, that tenants in this city have no rights that landlords are bound to respect.”

Immediately after the vote, supporters of the bill slowly marched out of Council chambers, clapping and singing “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.”

From inside the building, two activists dropped a “Council votes for Corporate Greed” banner. Chanting “a union at work, a union at home,” tenant and labor activists spoke out against the final vote from outside City Hall.

“Let’s just be clear that this is not just a landlord tenant issue, but it’s an issue of racial justice,” shouted Steve Meacham, a tenant organizer with City Life/Vida Urbana. “Only one of nine white councilors stood with tenants who are largely people of color. What did it mean that a white-led City Council voted to support white-led corporations?"

Two films reflect on Boston street violence

Boston-Bay State Banner
August 16, 2007

Though recent reports would seem to suggest a decline in shootings in Boston’s high crime neighborhoods in the past few months, a pair of films featured at this year’s Roxbury Film Festival showed just how heavily gun violence still weighs on the minds of local residents.

Screened earlier this month, “Bullet Full of Knowledge” and “Shots in the Hood” are two films by local filmmakers focusing on the issues of young people and gun violence.

“Bullet Full of Knowledge” depicts the story of Devaughn Woods, who was 14 when he was shot and paralyzed. A cautionary re-telling of Woods’ true life tale, the first half of the film details the life Woods was living the day he was shot, while the second half looks at the events of that day from a different viewpoint — the broadened perspective Woods gained following the shooting.

Driven by an old school hip-hop soundtrack, the film follows Woods’ character through his morning routine, first into the streets, and then off to school. Woods, who co-wrote the screenplay with director Jibril Haynes, provides the film with a haunting narration that slides easily from humor to pain. Woods and Haynes also have the actors perform without dialogue, creatively using T-shirts to identify particular characters as “O.G.,” “Tattletale” or “Champion.”

“The T-shirts were a fun way to approach dialogue,” said Haynes after the screening. “I’ve never made a film like this, going so bold as to not use dialogue and just have T-shirts.”

Shot on Morton and West Sheldon streets in Dorchester, the film vividly portrays topics like family life, drug addiction and teen pregnancy. “Bullet Full of Knowledge” also opens and closes with a close-up of Woods in his wheelchair, reflecting on the decisions that led him to where he is today.

After the screening, Haynes explained how he and Woods collaborated on the script, writing it in only three days. After waiting two years to get funding, they worked with Angelface Productions to shoot the film in two weeks. The filmmakers have already distributed the film in barbershops and summer festivals and hope it fits into anti-violence workshops for schools and church groups.

“I hope it makes a positive impact, because [the] 16-to-21 [age group] is an endangered species right now.” Woods told the audience after the screening. “I don’t want anyone else to catch a bullet full of knowledge, or 10 years in the pen full of knowledge.”

A Dorchester native, Haynes has worked with his partner Nicole Parker to make 22 films through their company, Origin Nile Films. This film was supported by grants from the LEF Foundation and the Color of Film Collaborative.

Where Haynes’ film uses creative techniques to tackle the topic of gun violence, “Shots in the Hood” approaches the issue head on. It is the first film by Bill Willis, a Mattapan resident and 21-year veteran of the Boston Police Department (BPD), assigned to the K-9 unit in Special Operations.

A self-financed director and producer, Willis uses his camera to interview young men about the causes of the shootings that have surged in particular neighborhoods over the past several years. Without special effects, this film puts the thoughts of young men of color at the center of the conversation.

According to BPD statistics, the number of shootings in Dorchester though July 25 dropped 30 percent compared to the same date last year. In Roxbury, shootings plunged 31 percent. In Mattapan, the numbers have declined 22 percent, from 59 shootings in 2006 to 46 this year.

Citywide, the number of shootings has fallen by nearly one-third compared with the same time last year. The number of homicides has also decreased, down 17 percent. Overall, violent crime is down by roughly 10 percent.

Yet, listening to the young people, there is a clear sense of the physical and mental scars left in the wake of gun violence.

Willis gives the camera’s full attention to young men who describe the ease of getting their hands on guns, the challenges they face from other teens carrying guns, or the day when they were shot at by an unknown assailant.

In one instance, eerily similar to Woods’ story, a young man describes his own experience of getting shot and being left paralyzed.

“I’m a statistic of teen violence,” the young man says softly to the camera, as he recounts how he bled on the ground. He then lifts his shirt to show the deep scar that runs down the middle of his chest.

Here, he explains, is where the surgeons cut to take out the bullet, and here, he points, is where his belly button has been sewed back on, much lower than it should be.

The teens in Willis’ movie touch on a range of topics, from the impact of rap music on youth violence to the use of the n-word in youth culture. In turn, Willis also interviews a handful of adults, including METCO Executive Director Jean McGuire and Tina Chéry of the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute.

Rather than blaming the youth for the recent wave of violence, Teens Against Gang Violence’s Dr. Ulric Johnson argued that recent shootings demonstrate in part the failure of both older and younger people to connect in a meaningful way.

Though most of “Shots in the Hood” relies on interviews with teenagers and young men, Willis also captures several images of street corner memorials, including the Codman Square Academy’s memorial for the 75 homicides in Boston in 2005.

“I made this film to get it out to the young people,” Willis said during an audience question-and-answer period. “We are locking them up in record number and it’s not a deterrent. Most of these kids have been incarcerated, are unemployed, are unemployable, and angry.”