A crowd of applicants for subsidized apartments began forming before dawn on April 17th on E. 163rd St. Photo by Joe Hirsch

Nearly 200 wait for hours for a shot at a place to live

Police from the 41st Precinct were called to the main office of a housing complex on East 163rd Street on April 17th to disperse an angry crowd seeking to apply for apartments in several Section-8 subsidized buildings in Longwood.

In a sign of the demand for an affordable apartment, many in the line of about 200 that stretched for more than a block between Kelly and Tiffany Streets had arrived at PRC Management’s office during the night to secure a spot near the front of the line. Some cradled wailing babies, while others sat in fold-up chairs they’d brought to brave the long wait.

But when the doors opened at 9 a.m., a staff member told the applicants standing at the front of the line that there were no applications. Instead, they were instructed to send self-addressed stamped envelopes so the company could put them on a waiting list to be considered when an apartment becomes vacant in one of the roughly 400- federally-subsidized units in the eight buildings along E. 163rd and Simpson streets.

Terrence and Selena Brown came to claim their spot at the head of the line at 1:30 a.m. in front of the office doors so they wouldn’t miss their chance to apply when the office opened eight hours later.

“We’re in a shelter, trying to get help,” said Selena Brown, 36. Brown explained that she, her husband and two teenage children were forced to leave their Gerard Avenue apartment in February and move to a shelter in Soundview when the city’s Work Advantage program was slashed. The monthly check they used to receive from that program supplemented their low-wage jobs, helping them pay the rent.

“That’s why we’re number one in line,” said Terrence Brown, 41, who works in maintenance in Manhattan’s West Village. “They just told us you’ve got to beat the crowd.”

Leopole Roberts, 65, said that he had seen a mob of people in front of the building the day before while riding in the back of a car. When he got out to inquire, people told him he would have to come early to get an application.

“There are four people living in a one-bedroom apartment that’s broken into rooms. There’s too many traffic. I can’t live like that,” said Roberts, adding he showed up at 4 a.m. to “beat the hundreds.”

Tempers rose when word fanned through the crowd that there were no applications available. Some tried forcibly to gain access to the building’s main office, and shouted obscenities at staff and a local housing activist who tried to relay the company’s instructions. Security guards kept the crowd out of the office until two police officers arrived and told the group to leave.

David Gartenlaub of PRC Management’s main office in Westchester explained that the company’s local staff had handed out applications the previous day but then, too, some in the long line had become belligerent, so the staff decided to have prospective tenants send requests for applications in the mail instead of getting them in person.

Gartenlaub said a false rumor circulated among the crowd that vouchers for Section-8 housing would be given out, causing many to return to the central office on the 17th, although some applicants insisted PRC staff had sown the confusion by promising to hand out applications the following day.

“I’ve been here since 2:30 this morning,” said Jessica Hernandez, who lives in a shelter in Mott Haven and said she was told by staff while waiting on line Monday to return Tuesday. “I just want them to honor what they said.”

Michael Nowlin, the general manager of the 163d Street complex, said that although there are no apartments currently available, the first 500 applicants will be put on a waiting list.

“One of the things we don’t want to do is have people on the waiting list for 10 years,” he said, explaining that the company’s decision to cap the applicant pool at 500 is due to the sharp increase in the need for subsidized housing. “The demand is so overwhelming,” he added.

Through Section-8, the federal government’s Department of Housing and Urban Development pays private building owners up to  30 percent of tenants’ rents, making up for the portion low-income renters cannot afford to pay.

Those wishing to apply should send a self-addressed, stamped envelope no later than April 27th to: PRC Management LLC, 955 E. 163rd St., Bronx, NY, 10459.

The buildings included in the complex are 975, 985, 995 and 1000 Simpson St., 1075 and 1083 Longfellow Ave, 1076 Faile Ave. and 1240 Westchester Ave.

Mott Haven resident Maria Ojeda decided what initiatives to vote for, with help from her children. Photo by Sean Carlson

Playground repairs and public housing security cameras win

Millbrook Houses in Mott Haven will get long-awaited improvements to its playground on St. Ann’s Avenue, and public housing projects across the neighborhood will receive new tamper-proof security cameras as part of the city’s first-ever participatory budgeting initiative.

Over 1,000 voters in Mott Haven and in the Manhattan portion of City Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito’s district turned out to vote on March 31 for neighborhood projects they wanted to see funded with the $1.1 million she set aside for an experiment in participatory budgeting. In all, there were 29 projects on the ballot, ranging from playground upgrades to a solar-powered greenhouse. Each voter was allowed to vote for up to five items.

Maria Ojeda smiled as she checked off her ballot and handed it to election staff at the Betances Senior Center, where Mott Haven residents voted. Although the minimum voting age was 18, her two children, a boy and girl, whispered suggestions into her ear.

“To know what the people want is so important,” said Ojeda, who lives across the street from the senior center on St. Ann’s Avenue, where she cast her vote. “For me, education is the key. My kids are on the honor roll.”

The voting, which took place over the course of a week and ended on the last day in March, gave Mark-Viverito’s constituents in Mott Haven, the Upper West Side and East Harlem a chance to choose where a portion of their council representative’s budget will be spent.

Along with the Millbrook playground, transportation services for seniors in East Harlem, including a Meals-on-Wheels delivery van, and playground improvements at an Upper West Side housing complex rounded out the top three projects selected to get funding.

But Mark-Viverito had a surprise for her constituents as she announced the winners at an event in East Harlem after the votes were tallied. The Councilwoman pledged to fund the projects that came in fourth, fifth and sixth places, along with the top three vote-getters.

“It’s been great to see some of the creativity in these projects,” said Mark-Viverito. “This is democracy in action.”

An ultrasound system for the Metropolitan Hospital Center, new technology for the Aguilar branch of the Public Library and construction of a youth development headquarters and the DREAM Charter School in Harlem were the other three projects she approved funding for.

Even those whose projects were not voted in saw value in the process.

Community activist Ray Figueroa served as a budget delegate, helping organize the initiative locally and explaining the process to residents at various stages of the campaign. He also pushed a plan for the building and opening of a solar-powered greenhouse in Mott Haven. The project would have grown food that would then be sold at a farmer’s market run by young people from the neighborhood.

“We are not unhappy,” he said of the fact that his project will not be funded. “Mott Haven as a community is benefiting tremendously as a result of this process. Participatory budgeting is a great lesson in social responsibility.”

Angel Molina, a Mott Haven resident, also served as a delegate.

“The community knows what its problems are,” said Molina. “And because of that, they also know the solutions.”

The budgeting initiative was also implemented in three other city council districts, two in Brooklyn and one in Queens.

Community Voices Heard, a development organization with chapters across the state, was instrumental in persuading Mark-Viverito and three other council members to try the participatory budgeting experiment. Members of the group helped organize residents in the participating districts, and staffed some of the polling stations.

“A lot of people feel that the government doesn’t hear them,” said Stephen Bradley, an organizer with the group, who helped run the polling station at the Betances Senior Center. “But who knows what’s better for the community than the people?”

Participatory budgeting was first implemented in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1989. Since then, hundreds of millions of dollars from that city’s budget have gone to fund local initiatives through the process. Over 1,000 cities throughout the world have since initiated similar programs.

Cezar Busatto, who works for the city department in Porto Alegre that administers participatory budgeting, toured the polling stations in Mark-Viverito’s district on March 31st. He was impressed with how the process was being carried out in the U.S.

“People are conscious of what they need,” said Busatto. He noted that the most popular participatory budget projects in Porto Alegre were to improve housing, education and healthcare, particularly for the elderly.

“The community should be able to put public money to use to benefit them,” he said. “It’s just so exciting to see this happening in New York.”

The Andrew Jackson Houses on Courtlandt Ave. Photo by Sarah Grile

At Jackson Houses, maintenance is too little, too late

One bright spring day a year ago, Ivis Rosado opened her kitchen windows to allow dust to escape from her fifth floor apartment in the Andrew Jackson Houses, while her father Fernando chipped layers of plaster from her hallway walls. The patchwork of plaster piled on over 30 years by New York City Housing Authority maintenance workers was coming off.

For three weeks, Rosado’s Mott Haven apartment was turned upside down as she and her father worked. By the time her father finished, Rosado had amassed 16 contractors’ bags full of debris.

Do-it-yourself repairs have a way of turning any home upside down. But they’re especially traumatic when they have to happen because a landlord has failed to maintain an apartment in livable condition. For Ivis Rosado and thousands of other tenants, that landlord is the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, the biggest residential property owner in New York City.

Across the city, NYCHA tenants have decided to take repairs into their own hands, as the authority staggers under a massive backlog. Among its 178,000 apartments, more than 700,000 work orders await completion and another 300,000 are in the pipeline. Leaks, cracked walls, rodent infestations, broken cabinets and appliances and other deterioration demand the constant attention of work crews.

The Housing Authority has a backlog of $7 billion in needed repairs. Meanwhile its capital budget, which pays for big investments such as roofs, plumbing and elevators, faces a $13 billion gap through 2015, and NYCHA expects a $138 million cut this year to its $3 billion operating budget, which includes salaries for maintenance staff.

The agency has cut one in 10 of its maintenance workers over the last six years, even as the number of work orders coming in has soared.

In the face of tenant frustration, last year NYCHA created a special repair team to target 10,000 apartments in buildings with the heaviest load of backed-up work orders. That effort is already yielding results, says authority spokeswoman Sheila Stainback.

“In just six months, the repair teams that include carpenters, plumbers, plasterers and maintenance workers successfully completed nearly 40,000 repair work orders,” she said.

A new City Council initiative aims to funnel $10 million to the Housing Authority to allow it to hire 176 residents to complete some repairs. But in the meantime, tenants like Rosado are taking the DIY route.

Nearly 30 years ago, Rosado remembers, green painted walls greeted her as she moved into her new home in the Jackson Houses on Cortlandt Avenue. From an early age, Rosado learned what it meant to be self-sufficient as she watched her mother Carmen fix up the apartment when she got tired of waiting for repairmen.

The most persistent problem, which to this day still affects tenants who live in the B and C line apartments, is a leak from a broken pipe on the 16th floor of Rosado’s building.  For more than 30 years, the leak has caused the plaster on the bathroom ceiling and adjacent hallway walls of her 5th floor apartment to chip and fall.

Over the years another leak, in Rosado’s son’s room, produced a gaping hole in his closet, exposing the hollow interior between his room and the apartment next door. It also gave waterbugs a portal into the apartment.

Stainback of the Housing Authority says that inadequate funding from the federal government has fueled delays and deterioration. Without additional capital funds, she says, “Ultimately, whatever we’re trying to do is patchwork.”

Part of the problem may be of the authority’s own making, tenants say, as workers turn to provisional fixes, like plastering over a hole, instead of tackling the cause, like the leak in Rosado’s building.  

A neighbor of Rosado’s, Danny Barber, has stepped into the breach. He is the tenant association president, and each week he conducts a vertical tour through every building in the complex. If he sees that a doorknob is missing or a light fixture is broken, he makes a note of it and puts in a work order for the repair.

Like Rosado, Barber, 42, is a lifelong resident of Jackson Houses. He is also the most formidable voice for the tenants at Jackson, having turned his volunteer duties as president into a full-time if still unpaid job.

In his eight years in the position, Barber has become a thorn in the Housing Authority’s side, using the high-level contacts he’s made in the authority and in the mayor’s office to advocate for tenants. Whenever an elevator is out of service, a call from Barber to the local management office usually gets it back in action within the hour.

But he is powerless to address NYCHA’s budget deficit, which has allowed crucial structural problems at Jackson to go unaddressed.

That’s why Rosado’s father took on the repair job. Plastering and painting the apartment took three weeks and cost $1,200 for materials. But because the leak from the apartment above persists, he still must return every few weeks to patch-up the plaster above the showerhead.

Barber applauds Rosado’s father for stepping in. “He’s willing to sacrifice his time,” says Barber, “and he’s willing to give up all his money to fix the problem in the building to help the Housing Authority.”

Not every tenant has the means and the resources to do their own repairs, however. Jeanette Otano, another Jackson resident, who has lived in the development for nine years, is also battling a leak in her bathroom ceiling.

Maintenance workers did not come soon enough. Moisture from a leaky toilet caused the plaster to break off in large chunks. Once parts of the ceiling fell, the Housing Authority sent a worker to inspect the damage.

Then, though, the urgency vanished. Three months later, a soggy layer of plaster and paint, created by the continuing leak, fell onto the floor. When Otano reported it, on November 20, 2010, she learned that her ceiling would not be fixed until May 2012. Like Rosado, Otano reached out to Barber, who was able to help speed up her appointment.

Otano, however, is bracing to repeat the ordeal. Until the upstairs leak is fixed, her ceiling will keep accumulating moisture, making it likely to fall once again.

Some tenant advocacy groups around the city have begun to pursue other strategies to generate results for tenants who can no longer endure the long wait for repairs to be made. They have been taking cases to Housing Court. Some tenants also withhold rent to force action.

Danny Barber looks for solutions closer to home. He is convinced that regular tenant involvement and participation in Jackson Houses tenant association meetings, which usually see the same 20 or so loyal residents, could curb some of the persistent problems plaguing the buildings. He is disappointed when tenants compound existing decay by vandalizing buildings and elevators, breaking the glass panes from building entries or dumping trash in the hallways.

Frustrated at the apathy that he sees, Barber often thinks of quitting his post. Rosado jokingly threatens to kill him if he ever seriously considered stepping down.

This story is adapted from a longer version in The New York World. It was produced in the Jack Newfield urban investigative reporting class at Hunter College.

Ray Figueroa explains how a youth-run greenhouse he wants Mott Haven residents to vote for would operate, if they vote for it as part of a new community budgeting initiative. Photo by Alex Robinson

Ray Figueroa would like to see a solar-powered greenhouse at Millbrook Houses in Mott Haven, with a farmer’s market that would be run by young people from the neighborhood. Some want designated barbecue areas, while others want the streetlights fixed.

These were among dozens of initiatives Mott Haven residents serving as volunteer budget delegates presented at Betances Houses on St. Ann’s Ave. in late February, as part of City Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito’s first participatory budgeting project.

The delegates who decided on the projects volunteered last fall to take part in helping decide how to divvy up $1 million in funding for projects ranging from youth recreation to playground renovations.

All of of the delegates live or work in Mark-Viverito’s district. They have been shrinking the list since area residents came up with over 500 proposals in November. A mere 28 project possibilities remain. These are up for a final vote across Mark-Viverito’s district in March, which includes Mott Haven, East Harlem and the Upper West Side.

After the presentations, residents in the small crowd read descriptions of the proposed items on poster boards and had a chance to ask questions.

Other proposals that have survived the cut so far include the installation of security cameras at Millbrook Houses, new recycling bins, and playground renovations at numerous public housing complexes.

Ray Figueroa explained the value the solar-powered greenhouse at Millbrook Houses could have for the neighborhood.

“We’re talking about growing food and growing income; harvesting health and harvesting wealth,” he said.

“The greenhouse is an investment for the future,” said delegate Joe Perez. “It will teach our kids how to grow and how to run their own business.”

Perez said the farmer’s market would keep money in the community because local residents will not have to negotiate with farmers from upstate when they bring in produce.

Adriane Agostini of Mott Haven said she likes the idea of the greenhouse because it will show kids how to grow their own food and give them a safe place to go.

“We need more projects like this to get kids off the streets,” she said.

Perez said he may vote for a streetlight fixing initiative at a public housing complex.

“I’ve seen some of this housing at night and I wouldn’t walk through them unless I had the marines behind me,” he said.

Mark-Viverito said she will use the results of the project as a benchmark to help decide the rest of her budget. Even ideas that do not survive the final vote may get some funding, she said, depending how much she has available in her budget. She added she would consider allocating more of her budget to participatory budgeting next year.

“Looking at the projects people are coming up with and then looking historically at what I’ve allocated money to, I’m glad and comfortable that I’ve been able to put money where people say they want it,” she said.

The Councilwoman’s office has now given the delegates the task of informing residents about the process, and getting out the vote.

All residents of Mark-Viverito’s district who are over 18 are eligible to vote. Voters can choose up to five different proposals on their ballots.

Final voting on which of the 28 projects will get funded is slated to take place on March 31^st between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Betances Senior Center, at 401 St. Ann’s Ave, or during work hours at the Councilwoman’s office at 110 E. 116^th St. between March 25^th and March 31^st.

Mott Haven resident Aazam Otero urged Community Board 1 to consider a garden rather than new buildings on 149th St. and Southern Boulevard.

Protesters blast development plan

A heated war of words erupted at Community Board 1′s February meeting as protesters shouted down a developer and a city housing official’s efforts to explain the city’s plans to construct Crossroads Plaza.

The board voted to approve the city’s request for a zoning change that would allow the three-building complex to be built at the corner of 149^th Street and Southern Boulevard, but had to do so over the catcalls, jeers and sometimes profane objections of some 30 protesters who had cleared the lot of debris and turned it into the Morning Glory Garden.

“It’s a great site at the intersection of three major streets,” said Ted Weinstein, director of planning for the Department of Housing Development and Preservation in the Bronx, adding “it will bring a lot of people to the area.”

As he spoke, protesters standing on the sidewalk outside the community board’s Third Avenue office banged on the window and held up a sign reading “People over Profit,” with drawings of vegetables.

John McGrath, an official for Easter Seals in New York, said that the proposed eight-story Easter Seals building slated for the site was needed if children with special needs were to be served.

But the protesters loudly countered that the gardens they had grown are the best use of the land, and charged that the city was working for the benefit of the plan’s high-profile developer while excluding poor residents.

“I am a gardener from that lot and I am frustrated that these people come into our community and take our land,” said Samuel J. Gompers HS student Sony Cabral. “Can anybody in a suit please define gentrification for me?” he asked Weinstein and Douglaston representative Matt Feldman.

“What programs are subsidizing the developments?” asked gardener Aazam Otero, who also questioned the financing of the project and the affordability of the rents in the planned 13- and 15-story apartment buildings.

A half-dozen homeowners and renters representing the group We Are Mott Haven attended the evening meeting to express their own grievances to the board over a development for the mentally ill slated for 144^th Street and Brook Avenue near their homes. The homeowners have argued at past board meetings that the development would further destabilize a neighborhood already saturated with social services, adding they were not advised of the project in time to effectively oppose it, and they believe elected officials who represent Mott Haven and Melrose have abandoned them.

The homeowners ceded their own public speaking time to allow Otero to continue addressing the garden group’s complaints, shouting “Let the young man speak” while others yelled, “This is what democracy looks like.”

“You’re all on the take,” yelled Louie Melendez of We Are Mott Haven, as the group angrily walked out, chanting, “We voted you in, we will vote you out,” along with the gardeners. The community board is appointed by elected officials, none of whom were present.

A rendering of the city's proposed Crossroads Plaza at E. 149th St. and Southern Boulevard.

Community Board set to vote on proposed zoning change

The city has decided to build a massive, three-building complex at the intersection of Southern Boulevard and Union Avenue and E. 149^th St., where the eviction of the Morning Glory community garden in November led to the arrest of four protesters and a journalist.

The construction of a complex with buildings ranging from eight to 15 stories high requires a zoning change to accommodate denser development than is permitted under the current land use rules.

The complex would include an Easter Seals school for special needs children, 37,000 square feet of retail space and 430 new apartments. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development has chosen Queens-based Douglaston Development. The developer and the city would co-own the building.

HPD spokesman Eric Bederman says the complex will provide “badly needed new affordable apartments for low-income and moderate-income New Yorkers.”

But some residents say the project, dubbed Crossroads Plaza, is being pushed through without enough public notice, and add that it will sacrifice the need for green space to development. They want officials to address concerns about financing, environmental remediation and whether rents will be realistic for Mott Havenites.

“There haven’t been funds secured prior to asking for our support,” said neighborhood activist Mychal Johnson, who heard the Department of Housing and Development’s presentation, and found it short on details. “Not having finances in place gives me uncertainty about the future of the project. We’ve seen sometimes where funding wasn’t secured and it didn’t turn out the way it had been planned.”

Johnson also questioned whether the rents would really be affordable to area residents. “The rates they’re using for what they say is affordable don’t apply to our area,” he said.

Officials say the eight-story Easter Seals building will be built first, to be followed by 13- and 15-story buildings where the stores and apartments will be located.

The city says apartments in the first building will go for between $808 and $1,135 for one-bedroom apartments and between $979 and $1,371 for two-bedrooms. Families with incomes ranging between $31,700 and $79,320 will be eligible, including a 50 percent preference for residents of Community Board 1.

After hearing the city present its plan in early February, Community Board 1′s Land Use committee agreed almost unanimously to send it to a Feb. 23 vote on the zoning change. City rules require the community board to hold a hearing and vote on zoning changes, then to send the proposal to the borough president. Final decisions on zoning are made by the City Planning Commission and the City Council.

City officials removed the plants—which had been planted without a permit–and fenced off the lot in November. Angry members of the garden group briefly occupied the community board office later that month. When they staged a demonstration in December, police broke it up, arresting five.

Mott Haven resident Aazam Otero who gardened at the site, charged the city used “overly heavy-handed treatment” to evict him and other gardeners, and said the community board is not doing enough to inform the public about the proposal, and may even be trying to avoid public scrutiny. He thinks residents would support the urban farm he and his group want to create, rather than supporting commercial development.

“The community board is not willing to be contested or to give us an opportunity,” he said. “From start to finish, there’s been no real community input.”

Not so, said Cedric Loftin, district manager of Community Board 1, adding all committee meetings are public, and that the area’s 22 Green Thumb-registered community gardens are more than in any other community district.

Loftin said the addition of more gardens is always open to consideration. “It’s not like that avenue is closed to anyone,” he said, but added, “that particular site has been earmarked for affordable housing.”

Speaking for HPD, Bederman offered assurances that any toxic material from the gas station would be cleaned up before construction begins and added that HPD is sensitive to the needs and demands of local gardeners.

“Unfortunately, the people who recently unlawfully entered this city-owned site did not seek permission to do so from HPD,” Bederman wrote in an email, and added they did not “consult the community board to determine the status of this property.”

In happier times, Yolanda Gonzalez (wearing sunglasses) was joined by a galaxy of Bronx politicians at the dedication of a street in honor of her mother, Nos Quedamos founder, Yolanda Garcia.

New director takes reins of pioneering housing organization

Nos Quedamos, the advocacy organization that has served South Bronx residents for nearly two decades on issues ranging from housing to immigration, is on the verge of a comeback, after nearly a year in limbo.

The agency has maintained a low profile since allegations emerged last winter that former executive director, Yolanda Gonzalez, who is also the daughter of the organization’s founder, Yolanda Garcia, had provided Nos Quedamos funds to family members without authorization from the board.

In response, last February, the board locked Gonzalez out of Nos Quedamos’ Melrose Ave. office and laid off about a dozen staff members. It closed entirely for a brief period, then reopened on a shortened schedule as it sought to continue to serve the public without a chief executive.

The State Attorney General’s office is conducting an investigation of Gonzalez. A spokesman for that office, Fernando Aquino, declined to comment on the investigation.

Nos Quedamos’ board has named former board chair Jessica Clemente the agency’s new volunteer executive director, while announcing that about five new staffers will be hired when the agency returns to a regular schedule in January.

Clemente says the organization is poised to put the recent dark chapter in the past and has nothing to hide. She maintains the group is eager to continue serving the community’s housing, public health and social justice needs, and to resume its long legacy in the neighborhood.

“We want to reestablish that same community morale,” said Clemente in an interview while hanging photos on the wall near the office’s entrance highlighting the agency’s past endeavors and its local folk-hero founder, Yolanda Garcia, who died of a stroke in 2005. “We want to connect to the real essence of what community building means.”

For now, Clemente said, the organization is holding project funds in an escrow account while it evaluates internal accounting practices. She added that the Attorney General’s “investigation is of an individual, not of the organization.”

Clemente is a product of the neighborhood. She was raised in the Millbrook Houses on East 137th Street and St. Ann’s Avenue before receiving her Masters in Urban Planning at NYU, and going on to lead a public health project monitoring air quality and asthma problems for South Bronx residents between 2000 and 2006.

While she helped Clemente arrange photos and award plaques on the office wall, long-time board member Sandy Quilico said she is confident Nos Quedamos can quickly return to the status it previously held as an advocate for needy Bronxites, recalling that “under Yolanda Garcia, we were doing phenomenally well.”

Photo by Kamana Shrestha. Sylvia Matos, who has lived in the St. Mary's Park housing projects most of her life, is one of many seniors NYCHA says will have to leave their apartments to make way for bigger families.

Short of apartments for bigger families, NYCHA tells elderly “we need your home”

In late September, 78-year-old Sylvia Matos opened her mailbox only to find an alarming letter from the city’s housing authority, asking her to vacate her apartment of almost half a century. The reason: she lives alone in a three-bedroom apartment that is “too large” and “under occupied.”

“It’s crazy they are asking me to leave,” said Matos. “This is my home, I raised my children here, my grandchildren grew up here too and we are used to the area,” said Matos, who emigrated from Puerto Rico in the 1960s.<!–more–>

Matos is one of many seniors in the St. Mary’s Park housing projects on Westchester Ave. and in the city who have received these letters. There are currently 55,000 people – half of whom are seniors – who the New York City Housing Authority has identified as living in apartments that are “under utilized.” The number of occupants that reside in an apartment determines the number of rooms assigned to them, based on NYCHA occupancy standards.

“To serve more families in need, it is critical that NYCHA utilize this scarce public resource as it was intended: to assist the greatest number of families eligible for affordable and subsidized housing,” said NYCHA Communications Officer Sheila Stainback.

These families make up the 161,000 people currently on NYCHA’s waiting list for public housing, according to a NYCHA statement.

A citywide affordable housing organization, Metropolitan Council on Housing, echoes NYCHA’s dilemma to find scarce public housing that has now brought homelessness to a new high.

“With too few affordable units for the vast numbers of low income people in New York, the homelessness crisis is at its worst with no end in sight,” states the organization’s website.

As of October, there is an all-time record of 41,200 homeless people, including 10,000 homeless families with 17,000 homeless children in the city’s shelter systems. In addition, the number of homeless New Yorkers in shelters increased 37 percent from 2002 to 2010, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

Although the statistics show the need for available space is urgent, the question remains – where do these seniors who need to downsize go?

NYCHA says they are helping seniors move into smaller units by working with Metropolitan Council, which is developing new senior housing in Flushing, Queens. Nineteen of the 78 units in the new development will be designated for NYCHA seniors, according to Stainback.

However, relocating seniors has been met with much resistance from the community.

“If the government is going to downsize the seniors, they should keep them in the same building or in the same area, because this is the place where they’ve lived for so many years,” said Wanda Abeyllez, program director of E. Roberts Moore Senior Center on Jackson Avenue, which Matos frequents. “And this is what they know.”

About 10 others at the center have received similar letters and have come to Abeyllez seeking advice. Like Matos, these seniors are divorced or widowed and still live in the large apartments where they raised their families.

The ordeal has left them frustrated and fearful they will be evicted from their apartments and moved to other boroughs, as NYCHA has not guaranteed them a smaller apartment in the same neighborhood.

“The seniors that have come to me have been panicked and angry,” said Abeyllez. “They are upset because they say they pay their rent on time, never owed any rent and these have been their apartments, some for over 40 years.”

But the administrator says she can also see NYCHA’s point of view: “I understand that NYCHA sounds like the villain but we need to realize other families are raising their children and are in need of these apartments.”

Matos and many other seniors said they won’t go down without a fight. Some are seeking legal action to keep their homes.

In the letter addressed to Matos, NYCHA offered her $350 for moving expenses and wrote, “It is time to give another family who needs a larger apartment the chance to get one.”

“And I said, ‘What? They are throwing me out for $350? That’s all I am worth?’” said Matos.

Desperate to keep her home, Matos included her granddaughter in her new lease to show her apartment was no longer under occupied. However, this action only resulted in a rent increase, from $233 monthly to $644. Matos will have to pay the increased rent starting this month if she wants to stay.

She cannot afford the steep increase; she receives a monthly fixed income of $637 from social security.

Matos has made regular visits to the St. Mary’s housing offices to plead her case, without much luck. She recently went to Congressman José E. Serrano’s office in hopes that he can help.

“I’m going to keep fighting this,” said Matos. “They can’t take away my home.”

Gilberto Rivera

Activist fought to save Hostos and improve housing

Gilberto Rivera, one of the co-founders of the Melrose-based housing organization Nos Quedamos, died on Nov. 25. He was 75.

Rivera, who had been president of Nos Quedamos’ board, suffered a massive stroke shortly after a board meeting at the Nos Quedamos office on Melrose Ave. on Oct. 5. He was rushed to Lincoln Hospital, then later transferred to the Veteran’s Hospital where he died.

Rivera was one of the main grassroots organizers with a group of South Bronx Latinos who helped tenants forgotten by the city’s housing bureaucracies battle for their rights against slumlords and against the city’s own plans to remove the families that remained in Melrose after the fires and abandonment that devastated the area in the 1970s in order to build highrise housing projects.

Rivera was born in 1936 in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico. He moved to the South Bronx in the 1960s and began organizing South Bronx residents in a variety of causes soon after his arrival.

Tenant advocate Maximino (Maxi) Rivera of the neighborhood advocacy group Pueblo en Marcha met Gilberto Rivera in 1976 while both men were helping Hostos Community College students and faculty fight the city’s plans to close the institution as part of the city’s belt-tightening during its fiscal crisis.

They organized a takeover of what was then the college’s lone building at East 149th Street and the Grand Concourse, resisting the city’s attempts to get them out and remaining for several months. The school was a crucial resource South Bronx Latinos could not afford to lose, they argued.

Shortly after they succeeded in convincing the city to keep Hostos open, Maxi took a job as a tenant organizer and hired Gilberto as his partner.

“We spent more time together than we spent with our families,” Maxi recalled.

Together, they visited beleaguered tenants in dilapidated buildings, negotiating with landlords and often taking them to court to force improvements.

Gilberto had savvy, not just for skillfully negotiating contracts with greedy landlords, but for understanding the nuts and bolts of how buildings are built: wiring, plumbing, the quality of construction work, Maxi recalled.

“Gilberto knew what he was talking about,” Maxi said, and, as a result, landlords couldn’t fool him.

Over the years, Rivera continued to fight for tenants’ rights on a number of projects. In the early 1990s, Melrose resident and social justice advocate Yolanda Garcia asked her friend to help her form an organization to be christened Nos Quedamos (We Stay), that would help tenants fight against the city’s efforts to displace residents and for the participation of residents in planning the neighborhood’s renewal.

Rivera’s advocacy was not confined to Mott Haven where he lived, or to Melrose where Nos Quedamos has worked for nearly 20 years.

“His door was always open to us,” said Mildred Colon, former president of the Phoenix House Tenants Association on Coster St. in Hunts Point. Colon said Rivera’s dogged advocacy in 2007 and 2008 on behalf of the tenants there helped take the property from the landlord who for years had allowed it to crumble. Under a new owner and management, extensive renovations on the buildings have been underway for two years.

“Gilberto would never say no to anybody,” Colon said.

At the December meeting of the 40th Precinct Community Council, Council President Alex Diaz paid tribute to Rivera and said the council would ask Community Board 1 to support renaming the block of Bergen Avenue where he lived Gilberto Rivera Way.

Rivera is survived by his wife, Raquel, a son in Florida and another who is a detective with NYPD, grandchildren and great grandchildren.

GrowNYC representative Ermin Siljokovic had attendees play the “recycling game” to show them how to separate materials. Photo by Elizabeth Chen

They say they have to because officials aren’t following through

Mott Haven Houses’ resident Brigitte Vincenty doesn’t want to go all the way into Manhattan to make sure her trash gets recycled. So she and her neighbors are taking on the challenge of recycling their community’s trash, which they say the New York City Housing Authority fails to do.

“NYCHA talks a lot about green roofs and retrofitting, things that haven’t been made into law yet,” said Vincenty, organizer for Mott Haven Houses’ Resident Green Committee. “But recycling is the law and they’re not even doing that.”

NYCHA officials did not return calls for comment.

Out of the five boroughs, the Bronx lags behind on recycling, according to a Department of Sanitation annual report. The Bronx recycles at a rate of 10.3 percent compared to Manhattan’s 19 percent. Community District 1, where Vincenty lives, has the poorest recycling rate in the Bronx―only 4.8 percent of the total trash in that neighborhood has been diverted for recycling.

The Natural Resources Defense Council observed an 0.6 percent increase in trash collection in the Bronx in the past year, despite a 1.4 percent decrease city-wide, according to a Daily News article in October.

Vincenty and members of her initiative, named the InnerCity Green Team, plan to go door-to-door to collect recyclable materials. They held an event on November 17 to educate residents about recycling and saving energy at the Mott Haven Community Center.

“This is a little helpful,” said Alfonso Dingwall, a 45-year-old resident. “We could be doing better with recycling.”

They hope their efforts will encourage NYCHA to hire public housing residents to work in maintenance, which they believe will help bring down their community’s high levels of unemployment.

But a week earlier, NYCHA representatives held a closed meeting with the residents  to hear details of their recycling program.

“They were very skeptical,” said Erica Ramos, a Resident Green Committee member. “They sounded like they wanted to help, but you could tell they were really hesitant because of they were worried about costs.”

NYCHA officials said in a statement that they support the efforts of the concerned residents, or Resident Green Committees, that work on  NYCHA’s “Green Agenda” program. However, they refused to comment about the residents’ allegations about recycling in their facilities or about the closed meeting.

Representatives from GrowNYC, Mothers On the Move and the state’s Public Service Commission also attended the committee’s green awareness event, and distributed compact fluorescent light bulbs and recycling collection bags that colorfully explained how to separate plastic and paper materials.

“NYCHA’s green efforts mostly focus on gardening and planting trees,” said Nova Strachan of Mothers On the Move. “That’s important, but NYCHA also really needs to work on recycling.”

Vincenty’s volunteers see a daunting task ahead of them. Rachel Osorio, a volunteer, said she felt encouraged by the information given at the event.

“Especially in the Bronx, we get forgotten about,” said Osorio. “This is a lot of info I didn’t know before. It makes me want to know more about how I can improve my community.”