In this interview, Ivette shares her experiences growing up on the Lower East Side and her family’s deep ties to the Cooper Square community. As the third generation of women in her family to lead organizing for housing justice, Ivette continues this legacy as a Cooper Square resident, advocating for affordable housing and supporting the elderly and youth. Her commitment to the community stems from her early experiences in a multigenerational household during the formation of the Cooper Square Committee.
Today, Ivette lives just blocks from where she and much of her family have lived for multiple generations. Her father was born and raised in the Dominican Republic before moving to New York and her mother, who is of Puerto Rican descent, was born and raised in New York. Ivette tells of her experience being raised by her mother and grandmother. Both women were leaders in the early years of community struggle for housing affordability in Cooper Square. Witnessing the fortitude and persistence of her mother and grandmother, alongside other members of the community, instilled a deep commitment to advocacy within Cooper Square and beyond.
Ivette emphasizes the multigenerational legacy of leadership and community advocacy throughout her interview, from the forming of the Cooper Square Committee to the establishment of the Cooper Square Mutual Housing Association. Ivette relays her experience of becoming more actively involved in the leadership of the MHA, eventually serving as president and vice president of the MHA Board. Reflecting on her accomplishments, she describes the struggles, opportunities, and successes Cooper Square MHA experienced over the years, from formally incorporating as a cooperative and establishing a Community Land Trust, to maintaining services for seniors, families, and youth throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the lessons she learned, Ivette shares her thoughts on the beauty of living over thirty years in the same place alongside multiple generations of family and friends. She notes that such a sturdy foundation allowed her to attend college and have a family of her own. And how such strong network of community care and advocacy has shaped the way she raises her own children, striving to instill a sense of respect and responsibility for the legacy she and so many others in Cooper Square have fought to maintain.
Ivette also reflects how the areas around Cooper Square changed from one day to the next, from the neglect of planned shrinkage and the drug epidemic to the gentrification of larger and larger swaths of the city. She underscores the crucial importance of affordable, stable, and long-term housing in living a healthful life anywhere, and how unique Cooper Square and its community have been in maintaining such conditions for so many people over decades.
Looking toward the future, Ivette expresses her hopes to modernize organizational and administrative processes governing the Cooper Square MHA. As she tells it, a critical part of this process will be creating more opportunities for young people to develop leadership skills and building meaningful connections not only to their neighborhood but within the web of mutual care and shared responsibility that sustains Cooper Square. She envisions more opportunities to engage and organize shareholders along the same lines, stressing the role each member of the Cooper Square community must play in continuing the struggle for housing justice on the Lower East Side and beyond.