Thirty-eight years ago, Verona Middleton-Jeter came to the Henry Street Settlement as a live-in social worker. Today she is executive director, managing a $37 million budget and overseeing a vast array of programs for 60-thousand New Yorkers. Middleton-Jeter, who will be retiring next June, told us “never in her wildest dreams” did she imagine herself leading such a large and influential organization. We sat down with her recently to take a closer look at one of the Lower East Side’s most important institutions — and to hear from one of the city’s most inspiring women.

Middleton-Jeter grew up in rural South Carolina. She once told the Robin Hood Foundation that school is someplace she went when it rained or it wasn’t cotton picking season. She was the first in her family to attend college (Benedict in South Carolina) before being recruited to work at a residential treatment center in Westchester, where they were looking for African American counselors. There she was first introduced to the field of social work. Determined to make a difference in the lives of poor people, she went on to earn an MSW from Smith College and upon graduation in 1972 was offered a job (and, more importantly, an apartment in NYC) as a live-in social worker at Henry Street’s shelter, the Urban Family Center. It was the early 70′s – and New York was reeling – crime, urban decay and poverty were rampant:

Middleton-Jeter: The city was putting homeless, largely single, mothers with children, in hotel rooms… Prostitutes and drug users were (often) living (in the room next door)… Kids were living in that kind of environment… It was just terrible.

After newspapers exposed the horrible conditions in which these families were living, the city turned to the Henry Street Settlement for help.

Middleton-Jeter: So that’s how the Urban Family Transitional Center came to be, and most of the city’s transitional housing programs today are really a (version) of that program. Each family got their own apartment – and what was important to Henry Street was the idea that, just because they’re in crisis, why should they be stuck in a room?  They should be in an apartment – and we had on-site social services. The idea was that once they left Henry Street to live in permanent housing, they should be functioning at a higher level… We all know the theory around crisis is, if you’re in a state of crisis, there’s a great possibility that you will regress unless you have the proper support to help you spring forward… Henry Street played a major role in bringing respect to the way homeless people were and are treated.

Middleton-Jeter is carrying on the legacy of Lillian Wald, the social-work pioneer who founded Henry Street in 1893. The organization was one of many settlement houses that were created to help immigrants adjust (and assimilate) to life in America. Today, the Henry Street Settlement can be thought of as a very large community center, offering many programs for seniors and kids, providing job training/job placement and aiding abused women. HSS also runs the Abrons Arts Center.  Middleton-Jeter is especially proud of her organization’s commitment to helping battered women.

Middleton-Jeter: In our battered women’s shelter… we have 85 beds for woman who are, well, we call them domestic abuse survivors, because that’s what they are. The primary reason for that program is to try to help women be safe.  When I was the director of the battered women’s  program, I always said it is quite ironic that we are trying to make women safe, but as a society, we haven’t done anything about the perpetrator. Over the years, we’ve made some strides. There are some programs, we’ve tried to use the courts. But, you know, if a man wants to beat a woman, he beats her. Hopefully she’s strong enough to leave, but we don’t have an organized system that says you don’t beat your wife and if you beat her, this is going to happen to you…

We asked Middleton-Jeter how the HSS became involved in domestic violence issues.

Continue reading TLD Interview: Verona Middleton-Jeter of the Henry Street Settlement