City Councilman Alan Gerson on June 5 called for $75 million in federal money to be spent on programs to help Downtown youths, seniors and displaced workers, who he said have been hurt by the Sept. 11 terrorist attack but have been overlooked in the effort to rebuild Lower Manhattan.

At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, Gerson, who represents Downtown and chairs the Council’s Select Committee on Lower Manhattan Redevelopment, proposed spending the money on 12 projects, including after-school programs, an indoor recreation center, youth and senior counseling, health care services, the creation of a Downtown high school, English classes for immigrant workers and the reimbursement of Borough of Manhattan Community College for losses tied to Sept. 11.

"We have to insist that a reasonable portion of the federal funds designated to deal with the effects of Sept. 11 be devoted to human services," said Gerson. "The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has both a legal and a moral obligation to respond to the needs of the community, specific needs that relate to Sept. 11."

The $75 million represents less than three percent of the $2.7 billion in federal community development block grants allocated to Lower Manhattan after Sept. 11, he said. Much of the federal funding is being dispersed by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), the state agency overseeing the rebuilding of the Trade Center site and Downtown.

With a contingent of Chinatown residents standing behind him, Gerson said that Chinatown and the Lower East Side had been hit hard by Sept. 11 but were receiving less attention and aid than neighborhoods closer to Ground Zero. At a public hearing on May 23, representatives of those two communities criticized the LMDC for neglecting the needs of low-income residents and workers.

While many of the issues listed by Gerson existed before Sept. 11, he said that needs for social services have intensified since Sept. 11, with more people suffering from physical and mental health problems or facing economic hardship.

A new Downtown high school will open a temporary site in September, but Community Board 1 and School District 2 are seeking about $20 million to transform an existing building into a school. Gerson said that federal relief money should be used because the school will help attract and keep residents Downtown.

Other council members supported Gerson’s proposal.

"It’s not just the companies like Goldman Sachs, which are usually in the spotlight, that should be helped, but the residents, the mom and pop shops, small businesses," said John Liu, a Queens council member and chair of the Transportation Committee. "We need to help working men and women get back on their feet."

"Rebuilding involved not only economic development, but community development," said Yvette Clark, who represents a Brooklyn district and is a member of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee.