Staff and Board

Mission
GOLES is a neighborhood housing and preservation organization that has served the Lower East Side (LES) of Manhattan since 1977 and is dedicated to tenants’ rights, homelessness prevention, economic development and community revitalization. GOLES accomplishes our mission by working with community residents to advocate and organize. GOLES’ long-term goals are to build the power of low-income residents on the Lower East Side to address displacement and gentrification, preserve and expand the low-income housing stock, assert community self-determination over the use of public space and ensure a clean and healthy environment where people live, work, and play.

HIstory
GOLES was founded as a response to the housing crisis in the Lower East Side. That crisis is characterized by severe affordability and housing quality problems as well as rising rates of eviction and homelessness amongst the Lower East Side’s low-income and long-term residents. The leaders of GOLES are life-long members of the Lower East Side community. We are intimately familiar with its poverty and critically aware of the fact that many residents— predominantly poor, Latino and Asian immigrants—are falling victim to the real estate market pressures that create an environment ripe for displacement. Because of our long-term connection with the community, GOLES’ work has evolved organically and has come to involve systematic organizing efforts aimed at giving tenants an effective voice in shaping their community. We have become a critical resource to the community as it seeks to maintain control of its future.

GOLES' work over the past 30 years has led to significant victories in progressive legislation, policy, public awareness, and more. We have succeeded in seemingly small efforts that have larger ripple effects—such as developing a neighborhood tenant leader and preventing a family from unlawful eviction and resulting homelessness; and larger issues which have longstanding effects on neighborhood residents such as pro-tenant legislation, and more responsive housing policies. GOLES also has an extensive history working in numerous coalitions and partnerships on local and citywide efforts that strengthen the voice of low-income communities. GOLES’ work has been recognized by both local and national organizations including a recent Neighborhood Leadership award from the New York Women’s Foundation.

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