The New York City Housing Receivership and Community Management Programs

Each year New York City landlords abandon buildings containing an estimated 10,000 apartments, forcing tenants to leave as the ownerless buildings plunge into decay. At least half of these buildings are structurally solid and might last several more decades if not abandoned. Most are found in areas where problem buildings- buildings which have a potential for abandonment- will most likely be found. New York City has instituted a number of programs for dealing with buildings which are headed toward abandonment. They include code-enforcement, emergency repair and receivership programs, foreclosure for nonpayment of property taxes, and rehabilitation programs involving municipal loans, housing-repair contracts, and the conversion of buildings to tenant-owned cooperatives. This Note will trace the history, development, and operation of the New York City Housing Receivership Program, placing special emphasis on recent developments and innovations in the area of community group involvement

Oklahoma School Finance Litigation: Shifting from Equity to Adequacy

This Article traces the history of Oklahoma school finance litigation from the initial challenge based on funding inequity to a recent lawsuit founded on alleged constitutional inadequacies in the state system. Although the legal challenge based on funding inequity was unsuccessful in the courts, the pendency of the suit helped push the state legislature toward some reforms. The threat of a new lawsuit based on alleged inadequacies in the state school system, together with a serious funding shortfall, propelled a comprehensive education reform plan through the state legislature in 1990. The association of local school boards that led the equity challenge nevertheless remained dissatisfied with the lack of sufficient funds and funding reform and again sued the state, claiming that, despite reforms, the school system was and would remain constitutionally inadequate. The author, one of the attorneys for the association, looks back at the genesis of the association and the impact of the equity lawsuit in Oklahoma and explains how this group of local school boards came to challenge the state school system as constitutionally inadequate. The author also explains how the association became sidetracked and ultimately was pulled apart before trial by political factors and tensions between its original goal of funding equity and the demands of an adequacy-based constitutional challenge

A Multi-Level Fit-Based Quality Improvement Initiative to Improve Colorectal Cancer Screening in a Managed Care Population.

IntroductionColorectal cancer (CRC) is a common but largely preventable disease with suboptimal screening rates despite national guidelines to screen individuals age 50-75. Single-component interventions aimed to improve screening uptake only modestly improve rates; data suggest that multi-modal approaches may be more effective.MethodsWe designed, implemented, and evaluated the impact of a multi-modal intervention on CRC screening uptake among unscreened patients in a large managed care population. Patient-level components included a mailed letter with education about screening options and pre-colonoscopy telephone counseling. For providers, we facilitated communication of screening test results and work-flow for abnormal results. System-level modifications included establishment of a patient navigator, expedited work-up for abnormal results, and stream-lined colonoscopy scheduling. We measured the rate of screening uptake overall, screening uptake by modality, change in the proportion of the population screened, and positive fecal immunochemical test (FIT) follow-up rates in the 1-year study period.ResultsThere were 5093 patients in the intervention cohort. Of these, 33.2% participated in FIT or colonoscopy screening within 1 year of the mailing. A total of 1078 (21.2%) participants completed a FIT and 611 (12.0%) completed a screening colonoscopy. The screening rate in the managed care population increased from 65.1 to 76.6%. Fifty-nine patients (5.5%) had a positive FIT, of which 30 (50.8%) completed a diagnostic colonoscopy.ConclusionMulti-modal interventions can result in substantial improvement in CRC screening uptake in large and diverse managed care populations.Translational impactHealth systems should shift their focus from single-level to multi-level interventions when addressing barriers to CRC screening

Insulator-to-Metal Transition in Selenium-Hyperdoped Silicon: Observation and Origin

Hyperdoping has emerged as a promising method for designing semiconductors with unique optical and electronic properties, although such properties currently lack a clear microscopic explanation. Combining computational and experimental evidence, we probe the origin of sub-band gap optical absorption and metallicity in Se-hyperdoped Si. We show that sub-band gap absorption arises from direct defect-to-conduction band transitions rather than free carrier absorption. Density functional theory predicts the Se-induced insulator-to-metal transition arises from merging of defect and conduction bands, at a concentration in excellent agreement with experiment. Quantum Monte Carlo calculations confirm the critical concentration, demonstrate that correlation is important to describing the transition accurately, and suggest that it is a classic impurity-driven Mott transition.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures (PRL formatted