POLICY EXPERTS

• William E. Spriggs, Ph.D., Senior Fellow
• Margy Waller, J.D., Senior Fellow
• Victor Bach, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst, Housing
• Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin, MSPH, JD, Director, New York Healthcare Restructuring Initiatives
• Jeremy Reiss, MSc, Director, Workforce Mobility Initiatives
• Gabriel Torres-Rivera, J.D., Director, Reentry Initiatives
• Sabine Salandy, M.S., Policy Analyst, Labor Market
• Lazar Treschan, MPP, Director, Disconnected Youth Campaign
• Tom Waters, Policy Analyst, Housing

William E. Spriggs, Ph.D., Senior Fellow

Dr. William E. Spriggs has been Chair of the Department, and a professor, of Economics at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before coming to Howard, he was at the Economic Policy Institute as senior fellow. He also serves as Chair of the Independent Health Care Trust for United Auto Workers (UAW) Retirees of Ford Motor Company, and is on the board of the Retiree Health Administration Corporation, which administers the health care trusts for UAW retirees of Ford and General Motors.

In 2007 Dr. Spriggs was named a Senior Fellow to the Community Service Society of New York, with a focus on labor market issues affecting traditionally disadvantaged groups and resulting wage disparities.

Bill has served as Executive Director of the National Urban League’s Institute for Opportunity and Equality, he has held various positions in government service during the Clinton Administration and also served as a senior economist for the Democratic staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress where, among other things, he worked on the passage of the increase in the minimum wage.

Dr. Spriggs has a Bachelor of Arts cum laude from Williams College and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Margy Waller, J.D., Senior Fellow

Margy Waller is Director of The Mobility Agenda at the Center for Community Change and a co-founder of Inclusion at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Previously Margy was Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, with a joint appointment in the Economic Studies and Metropolitan Policy programs. Ms. Waller serves as Senior Fellow at CSS focusing on issues concerning economic mobility. Ms. Waller has also served as Senior Advisor on domestic policy in the Clinton-Gore White House and as Senior Fellow for Social Policy and Director of the Working Families Project at the Progressive Policy Institute. Lastly, Ms. Waller served as Director of Public Policy at United Way of America, and Director of Policy Development at Public/Private Ventures in Philadelphia. She received her BS in communication studies at Northwestern University and a law degree from The Ohio State University.

Victor Bach, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst, Housing

Victor Bach, Senior Policy Analyst, directs CSS’s housing policy research and advocacy agenda and provides technical assistance to resident and community organizations.  At present, he is focusing on the impact of rising rents on low income New Yorkers and on the preservation of the City’s existing affordable housing—including HUD-subsidized housing, public housing, and Mitchell-Lama housing. Mr. Bach helped form and provides technical assistance to the New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance, a nonprofit citywide organization to inform resident leaders on emerging policy issues.

Recent studies by Mr. Bach include "Making the Rent: Rent Burdens and Housing Hardship Among Low Income New Yorkers " (2005), “The Future of HUD-Subsidized Housing: The New York City Case” in Housing and Community Development in the New Fiscal Environment: Facing the Future (1999, Michael Schill, editor), and CSS Policy Briefs: “Section 8 Housing Vouchers: Block Grants to the State?” (2003), “The Future of Public Housing in New York City”(1999), and “Resident Participation in Public Housing: Making It Effective”(2002).  Earlier CSS reports under Mr. Bach's direction include, Closing the Door: Accelerating Losses of NYC Subsidized Housing (2006), Keeping the Doors Open: Subsidized Housing at Risk in NYC (2003), Housing on the Block: Disinvestment and Abandonment Risks in NYC Neighborhoods (1993), Balancing Acts: The Experience of Mutual Housing Associations and Community Land Trusts (1993) and Lenders & Landlords: A Guide to Tenant Organizing in Financially Distressed Housing (1996).

In 2002, Mr. Bach was appointed to the Mayor's Neighborhood Investment Advisory Panel. He is also an Associate member of the Board of the NYC Public Housing Resident Alliance and a former board member of Tenants and Neighbors.  He served as expert witness in the Jiggetts case, brought by the Legal Aid Society successfully challenging the adequacy of State shelter allowances.  Mr. Bach has testified in hearings of committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Prior to joining CSS in 1983, Mr. Bach was on the faculty of the New School for Social Research and the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.  Between 1975 and 1979, he was a consultant and Research Associate in the Brookings Institution Governmental Monitoring Program, where he contributed to research and reports on the early stages of the Community Development Block Grant Program. 

He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Studies and Planning (1977) from M.I.T., where he was Catherine Bauer Wurster Fellow at the Joint Center for Urban Studies. He received a Bachelor’s Degree at Brooklyn College and a Master’s Degree in Mathematics at Yale University.

Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin, MSPH, JD, Director, New York Healthcare Restructuring Initiatives

Elisabeth Benjamin is the Director of the New York Healthcare Restructuring Initiatives project at the Community Service Society. The project works at removing barriers to self-sufficiency for low-wage health care workers. In 2007-2008, the project will focus on developing a proposal and campaign to promote access to affordable high-quality universal health coverage to all New York State residents and low-wage workers.

Ms. Benjamin previously worked as the Director of the Reproductive Rights Project at the New York Civil Liberties Union and, before that, as the founder and Director of the Health Law Unit in The Legal Aid Society’s Civil Division, which helps low- income consumers access health care and benefits. Ms. Benjamin serves on the New York State Medicaid Managed Care Advisory Panel and the New York State Indigent Care Technical Advisory Committee, which formulates recommendations about New York’s uncompensated care pools. As a health specialist, Ms. Benjamin worked in various community health and hospital projects in the United States and abroad.

Ms. Benjamin received a master’s degree in Health Policy and Management from Harvard School of Public Health in 1988 and a law degree from Columbia University in 1992.

• Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need Webinar (PDF)
• Partnership for Universal Health Coverage Hearing (PDF)
• Letter to State Health Officials to extend eligibility under the SCHIP program (PDF)

Jeremy Reiss, MSc, Director, Workforce Mobility Initiatives

Jeremy Reiss recently joined CSS as Director, Workforce Mobility Initiatives, where he will be developing the agency’s workforce and economic development policy, research, and advocacy agenda. Previously, Reiss was Director of Legislation and Public Policy at the NYC Employment and Training Coalition, an umbrella association of approximately 200 workforce development providers.

Reiss is also the Co-Founder and former Co-Director of Urban Agenda, a research and policy organization affiliated with organized labor that leads the NYC Apollo Alliance. In addition, over the last decade, Reiss has worked as a community organizer, workforce development practitioner, an evaluator of social policies and programs in New York City and London.

Reiss is an Adjunct Professor of Urban Studies at the Joseph F. Murphy Labor Institute, CUNY, and serves on the Board of Directors of Urban Agenda and the East River Development Alliance. He has a Masters of Science in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors of Arts in Sociology from Wesleyan University.

• New York State Division of Budget (PDF)

Gabriel Torres-Rivera, J.D., Director, Reentry Initiatives

Gabriel Torres-Rivera is Director of the Reentry Initiative at the Community Service Society. He has worked at CSS since 2000 where he headed CSS’s nonpartisan voter registration campaign. Torres-Rivera directed the effort to register disadvantaged people in New York, focusing on the formerly incarcerated, immigrants and low–wage earners. Since 2005, he has directed the CSS Reentry Initiative, chairing monthly Reentry Roundtable meetings to determine what policies and resources are necessary to facilitate the successful reentry of formerly incarcerated individuals back into their communities. On May 22, 2007, Torres Rivera led more than 100 advocates of prisoner reentry to Albany to discuss Reentry Roundtable legislative proposals affecting the formerly incarcerated with legislators and staff of key committees overseeing correctional issues. Prior to joining CSS, Gabe worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights as coordinator of the Movement Support Resource Network focusing on issues surrounding police brutality in New York and nationally. He coordinated two marches on Washington, while at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Lastly, Torres-Rivera served as a spokesperson for Amnesty International speaking at 19 colleges and universities throughout Europe including Oxford, Cambridge, and the University of Dublin. Mr. Torres-Rivera has a Bachelor of Science in Education from City College and a Juris Doctor from the City University of New York Law School at Queens College.

• CSS Reentry Initiative (PDF)
• About Advocacy Day

Sabine Salandy, M.S., Policy Analyst, Labor Market

Sabine Salandy is a Policy Analyst at the Community Service Society.  She provides research and advocacy to further CSS labor market policy and program priorities.  Ms. Salandy prepares reports, conducts data analysis, and makes presentations on labor market issues relevant to New York City’s low-income population and contributes to the development of policy advocacy strategies.

Prior to joining CSS, Ms. Salandy worked as a Senior Analyst in the Finance Division at the New York City Council. She consulted on proposed budgetary and tax policies, forecasted revenue for the personal income tax, and provided statistical information regarding the economic effect of policies on constituencies. In addition, Ms. Salandy monitored the New York City budget and advised the Finance Committee on cost containment and improvement initiatives.
 

Ms. Salandy received her M.S. magna cum laude in Urban Policy Analysis and Management from the Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School for Social Research.  She obtained her B.A. summa cum laude in Communications/Media Studies from Hunter College.

Lazar Treschan, MPP, Director, Disconnected Youth Campaign

Lazar Treschan recently joined CSS to direct its new campaign to address the crisis of disconnected youth, the approximately 200,000 16- to 24-year-olds in New York City who are out of school and out of work. Previously, Lazar worked in policy and program development roles at the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development, New Visions for Public Schools, and Abt Associates. He is an adjunct lecturer at The New School University, where he teaches a graduate school class in community development leadership. He is also a long-time teacher of GED courses in second-chance programs for older youth.

Lazar is a native New Yorker, graduate of local public schools, and has a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University.

• NY1 Interview: Restructuring of the DOE’s Alternative High School Programs (RM)
• Testimony before the City Council Committee on Education (PDF)
• Presentation to the NYC Inter-Agency Coordinating Council on Youth (ICC) (PDF)

Tom Waters, Policy Analyst, Housing

Tom Waters is Housing Policy Analyst at the Community Service Society. He conducts research on housing issues that affect New York City’s low-income population, with an emphasis on state and federally subsidized housing, and advocates for policies to increase access to affordable housing. With Victor Bach, he is the author of Closing the Door: Accelerating Losses of New York City Subsidized Housing, a CSS Policy Brief. Prior to joining CSS, Mr. Waters was organizer, editor, development director, and interim executive director at New York State Tenants & Neighbors, an organization that works to preserve and improve the state’s existing stock of affordable housing. He now serves as president of the Tenants & Neighbors board of directors. Previously, he was a community organizer in East Tennessee and a journalist in New York and Wisconsin.

He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University and has received additional training in organizing, popular education, and social science from the Southern Empowerment Project, the Commission on Religion in Appalachia, the University of Wisconsin, and Hunter College.