Francine Justa

Francine Cyvia Justa (1942–2016) was an activist and advocate for affordable housing in New York City.

Early life Justa was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1942. Her father abandoned the family during her childhood, and she was raised solely by her mother. They relocated to Miami Beach when Justa was a junior in high school, and she went on to enroll at the University of Florida at Gainesville. However, her mother suffered a nervous breakdown, necessitating a move north to Brooklyn, New York, where Justa's mother's only relative, her brother Howard, lived. Justa's mother was institutionalized and Justa moved in with her uncle Howard and found work at a department store. She remained in New York for the rest of her life.

Education and professional life Justa completed her BA at Hunter College in 1972, graduating summa cum laude. In September 1976 she completed her MA in Environmental Psychology at the CUNY Graduate from Center, and then continued on to get her doctorate, which she completed in 1984. Her doctoral work examined connections between housing issues and policy and development of community organizations. She also taught at Queens College as an adjunct professor while completing her dissertation.

In 1973, Justa started a block association for her block of Carroll Street in Park Slope. The Carroll Street Block Association was incorporated in 1974 with Justa as its first president, a position that she held for three years. The Carroll Street Block Association was a member of the United Block Associations (UBA) of Park Slope, of which group Justa also served as secretary.

In 1975, Justa studied the Little Italy Restoration Association as part of her graduate coursework, and it helped her to "recognize and understand the connection between not-for-profit groups and funding from city, state, federal and private sources." This work and the insights that stemmed from it eventually led to her dissertation, "Effects of Housing Abandonment, Resettlement Processes, and Displacement on the Evolution of Voluntary Community Organizations in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York," completed in 1984.

In 1976, after the release of a report by the New York Public Interest Research Group titled "Take the Money and Run: Redlining in Brooklyn," Justa and other concerned community members from the UBA started the group United Blocks Against Investment Discrimination (AID). The organization has been very successful and continues to thrive today. At FAC's 20th anniversary celebrations in 1998, Justa's early leadership was lauded: "She knew the challenges of trying to improve and redevelop a community like lower Park Slope while simultaneously preventing displacement and creating opportunity for low- and moderate-income residents. Those early strategy sessions and years of hard work laid the foundation for the next twenty years." In it, she lambasts the city officials and bureaucracy that prevented community residents from making meaningful change in their neighborhood.

According to her husband Moe Kornbluth, "there was a goodness and altruism that encompassed all that Fran did" and "she felt that all people should be treated fairly, justly, equitably, and sympathetically." In 1976, Justa gave birth to her and Kornbluth's only child, a daughter named Sarah. In December 1997, Justa was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, the complications of which led to her death in 2016.