Newsday from New York, New York • 21

ff I 1 i la i I Why Homeless Fight for Their Right to Vote Photo by Maura Marine 111 Students participating in the computer program surround Leonard J. Fassler. Back to His Roots just the opposite in June. The Washington turnaround started when a group called the Committee for Creative Nonviolence, which runs a shelter for 1,000 homeless men and women, began gathering the signatures needed to place a proposition on the November ballot to require that the city provide overnight shelter to homeless people. New Yorks homeless have that right as a result of a judicial ruling.

The city of Washington, with 5,000 to 10,000 homeless people, runs only two 150-bed shelters for men. A committee leader, Mitch Snyder, said that his group registered hundreds of homeless people, most of whom were living in shelters. The Washington Board of Elections and Ethics then approved shelters as legitimate residences. But it balked at two persons who lived on the heating grate across from the State Department, two who lived in the alley behind a YMCA, and one who lived on the steps of Constitution Hall. "A registrar of voters rejected them because the forms had no address, said the boards executive director, Emmett Fremaux.

Snyders group appealed to the board, which reinterpreted the statute after a hearing and issued regulations June 7 that ap- Sly to all voters, but particularly to omeless ones. They stipulate that a residence must be specific "not just First and Street but exactly what corner or what steam grate, Fremaux said so that voters can be placed in the proper ward or precinct. A homeless person must state that the residence is his fixed abode; if mail cannot be delivered to a location, the voter must have a separate mailing address; and anyone using a separate mailing address must file a form annually certifying that the mailing and residence addresses are valid, he said. "In the face of the heavy constitutional issues, there's no basis to deny the right to vote to those individuals, Fremaux said. By Terry Williams and Neill S.

Rosenfeld Myrtle Dillard, staying at a Manhattan shelter for homeless women last night, isnt at all upset about being denied the right to vote in New York City. "I dont get bugged very much, she said. "Its no crime not to vote. Dillard, who is 59 and was staying at a shelter in the East Village, said that she had never voted. But she agreed that a lawsuit to extend voting rights to people who live on the street probably had some merit: "I feel all right about it, she said.

Others see the issue as critical to helping the homeless to retrieve their personal dignity and gain the political clout that can make life better. Representing the Coalition for the Homeless, which had filed the lawsuit Tuesday in federal court, attorney Robert Hayes said, "The underlying strength of our claim is the long tradition of courts recognizing that no right is more fundamental than the right to vote. But the defendants, the Boards of Election of both the state and the city, disagree. State law requires a residence as a qualification for registering to vote. State spokesman Thomas R.

Wilkie cited Section 1104, subdivision 22 of the Election Law: "The term residence shall be deemed to mean that place where a person maintains a fixed, permanent and principal home and to which he, wherever temporarily located, always intends to return. Wilkie said, "It has been the view of our board that the homeless would not qualify under this statute. The chief of the city board, Betty Do-len, agreed that park benches and alleyways are not legitimate addresses, without which the board cannot guarantee the legitimacy of a voter. In her opinion, a shelter also does not qualify as a residence. The District of Columbia, with a statute similar to New Yorks, decided When Leonard J.

Fassler was graduated from PS 53 in 1945, personal computers existed only in the realm of science fiction. Now, as a top executive in a telecommunications, firm, hes giving youngsters at his alma mater a crack at science fact by donating 25 of the devices for an experimental summer program. "That old feeling" drew him back to the school in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, he said yesterday. "I wanted to get back to the area where I grew up because of my feeling for my roots I think I got a really good education in New York City. I had a lot of important firsts at PS 53.

I began understanding math and science. I got a motivation for learning, and I got my first kiss. In December, he donated one computer to the school and toured the school and the area. He had come a long way. He attended City College and Fordham Law School.

A legal client had led him into business and he became a founder and top officer of TIEEquitiea a worldwide telecommunications firm. Now 52, Fassler found Morrisania as poor as when he was a boy, although the mixture of blacks, Jews and Italians he grew up with had changed to blacks and Hispanics. But some things hadnt changed. "I found such an excitement among the kids and the leadership of the community that I got turned on, he said. "My perception of that part of the Bronx was.

somewhat different from what it' turned out to be. I saw an upward, vibrant feeling and a deBire for education. There was good teaching When the community affairs office in the 44th Precinct heard of the gift, the idea arose to give some poor kids an opportunity to use personal computers at home. The Police Athletic League backed the idea and school officials made a pitch to Fassler, who donated 25 personal computers. Fifty youngsters are being trained in Jiow to use them in a five-week program, and 25 of them will take a computer home to practice.

Fassler said poor children need help: "I really believe that kids need to learn to use computers because if they dont, theyre going to be left behind. Fassler shied away from calling himself a philanthropist. "I like children. A philanthropist is a person who writes a check and leaves, but thats hot what Im doing. This has to do with people becoming involved with people again, which weve drifted away from.

People have to become responsible for people, or were all lost. Choice of a Woman Calls Up Volunteers for, as well as raising a family and doing all the womanly stuff were expected to do, that makes me feel theres just no end for us. Sharon Teitel a secretary at Queens Hospital Center, where Manes wife, Marlene, is associate director added: "When you see a woman coming so Zaccaro May Oust Tenant Continued from Page 4 istration, mailings and working the phone banks. "We have to do a very big voter-registration drive fast, said the executive director of the State Democratic Committee in Manhattan, Libby Manofif. She said that her office was getting "hundreds and hundreds of phone calls.

And everyone who is political is saving theyre getting calls from everyone their mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles asking, Where shall I come? What should I do? The calls also came into Ferraros district office in Forest Hills, where aide Barbara Leahy said the callers were evenly divided between men and women, from as far away as Illinois, Florida and Mississippi. And calls were coming into party headquarters and focal clubhouses all over the city. "Monday was a zoo, the phone rang constantly, said the executive director of the New York County Democratic Committee, Dene Zucker. "Many people just want to defeat Reagan, she said. "Mainly what youre getting la: We have to defeat Reagan and now we have a ticket we can work for.

Individual voters questioned by reporters supported the political organizers belief that Ferraros presence on the ticket has brought in people who might otherwise have stayed out. One woman who plans to volunteer for the Mondale-Ferraro ticket said that shed never worked in The first report on the Zaccaro-managed building came in a story published Tuesday by the New York Tribune. Before yesterdays statement, Widmeyer answered questions on the building at 200 Lafayette St. by Baying that details of Zaccaros finances would be included in a campaign report being prepared by Ferraro, who is an officer and shareholder in her husbands company. Bo-Na-Te has been linked by investigators to organized crime through Star Distributors described as its affiliate and as one of the nations largest pornography distributors.

A 1971 report by the state Commission of Investigation calls Bo-Na-Te "a local distributor of sex-oriented books and magazines affiliated with Star, whose officers included a reputed organized crime leader, Robert The Associated Press John A. Zaccaro, husband of vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, may try to evict a reputed pornography distributor that rents space in a Manhattan building he manages, Zaccaros real estate company said yesterday. Zatxaro has asked his lawyers to investigate reports that police have linked the tenant, Bo-Na-Te, to organized crime and pornography, according to a statement issued last night by Scott Widmeyer, a spokesman for Ferraro, a Democratic congresswoman from Queens. Zaccaro "has no knowledge of the exact use of the two floors rented in the building, said the statement from P. Zaccaro Co.

Inc. "Mr. Zaccaro has asked his attorneys that if any of the allegations are true, that immediate action be taken to terminate the lease of the company, it Baid. IO politics before but "now that shes in the race, I definitely want to. If itiFFAril.