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Interviewee: Charity Simone

Interviewer: Anthony Abd-al Shafi

Summary by Hatoumata Tunkara

December 16, 2025

Born and raised in the Bronx, Charity Simone has been a resident of Co-op City since she was six. Growing up on Clay Avenue in a tight-knit family, she developed a feeling and sense of community that would later draw her to the world’s largest cooperative housing development. Having grown up in the community’s schools and built lasting bonds, Simone reached a major personal milestone in 2021 by becoming an official shareholder. This accomplishment was more than just a change of address and place of living for her; it was a symbolic homecoming where she finally claimed the apartment with “five closets” that she had dreamed of since childhood, a tangible declaration of her independence.

Simone explains that being a shareholder is fundamentally different from typical renting or homeownership. In the Co-op City model, shareholding residents don’t simply own a physical unit; instead, they own a share of the entire property, creating a collective responsibility for the broader community it supports. Not all residents are shareholders; only those who have purchased shares in the property are shareholders. For Simone, this shift was an important and meaningful step toward property ownership, deepening her commitment to the community that shaped her. By owning a stake in the community, her personal success became inseparable from the community’s overall development and well-being.

Disciplines

African American Studies | American Studies | Black History | Islamic Studies | Latina/o Studies | Oral History | Public History | Puerto Rican Studies | United States History

Abstract

Simone’s path to leadership was inspired by her late mentor, Charles Foster, who encouraged her to be an active voice in their community. After seeing issues with building maintenance and a lack of clear communication, Simone ran for office and was elected Treasurer of her Building Association in 2023. Through this role, she noticed that community work is complex and needs navigating different opinions, yet the experience ultimately reinforced her belief that community is a “verb.” To her, it is an intentional, ongoing action that requires showing up every day to hold the system accountable.

A significant aspect of Simone's story is her connection to the “foundation” of Co-op City: the senior citizens. She views these elders as her community's strongest warriors, commenting that they are the ones who show up at town halls to protest rent hikes and fight for their neighborhood's future. By participating in line-dancing classes with them, she bridges generational divides, exchanging contemporary perspectives for their hard-earned wisdom. Simone warns that while the seniors are currently leading the fight, the “youth them”  must step up and learn these traditions of activism before the community's affordable and supportive way of life is lost ([00:19:50]).

Professionally, Charity describes herself as a “certified operations girl” who recently earned her Project Management Professional (PMP) certification ([01:04:24]). She uses this expertise to view her community through an efficiency lens, intent on taking broken processes apart and putting them back together so they work better for everyone. She credits her drive to the excellence she saw growing up in the Bronx, where seeing neighbors succeed as doctors, pilots, and teachers taught her that high-level professional goals were always within her reach.

Today, Simone stands as a powerful voice for proactive change within Co-op City’s governance and resident engagement, reminding her neighbors to speak up for themselves before a crisis occurs. She believes that community engagement should not start when a pipe bursts, but should be a constant part of a resident's life. Through her leadership, the skills she gained from her professional life, and her deep love for her home, she continues to empower the next generation to protect Co-op City as a bastion of affordability and collective strength.

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