Minimum wage hike of $1.25 not enough, workers say

Mott Haven residents say a current proposal to raise New York’s minimum wage is welcome, but doesn’t go far enough.

Sen. Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx/Westchester) introduced the wage legislation to the state Senate on Feb. 7. Klein’s bill–the same legislation that Democrats brought to the State Assembly earlier this month―raises the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 and bases any future minimum wage increases on the rate of inflation.

If the legislation is passed, New York will have the third highest minimum wage in the country behind Oregon, at $8.80, and Washington, at $9.04. There are four states that tie their minimum wages to inflation rates.

“The New York City economy, especially the economy in the Bronx, is becoming more of a service economy,” said Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for Klein. “It’s unconscionable that these people who are struggling and who are working hard every day are getting paid an hour the same as two cups of coffee.”

One of those service workers, Tapia Alfredo, 43, who works in a Subway branch in Mott Haven, agreed that earning $7.15 an hour is just not enough. Alfredo, who moved to the Bronx from Puerto Rico seven months ago, took a short break from making sandwiches to describe all the expenses he is trying to handle: cell phone bills, rent and supporting his 19-year-old daughter who is in college. An increase in the minimum wage would be welcome, he said.

Many of the South Bronx workers interviewed gave a similar response: Of course they want a higher minimum wage, but would $1.25 really make that much of a difference?

“When you think about it, it’s $7.25 to $8.50. Wow, big deal!” said Takera Gweh, 22. She’s worked at CVS Pharmacy for the past seven months part-time earning $7.60 an hour to help pay for her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education. Not only is the pay increase small, but she predicted it will just result in employers cutting people’s hours.

Bronx resident Amir Korim said the minimum wage should be at least $10.

“My girlfriend works at Burger King and they’re making millions of dollars a day and they’re paying her $7.25 an hour,” he said as he shook his head. His $8 hourly wage at a newly opened deli on Third Avenue is not enough to cover the increasing cost of rent, food and “other basic stuff,” he said.

Nasir Muhammad, a business consultant in the Bronx and a staunch Republican, said raising the minimum wage could deter some businesses from creating new jobs, since they would have to pay their employees more. And in this tight economy, where jobs are at a premium, he thinks it’s better to focus on job growth than paying workers more.

“At this particular juncture, if small businesses aren’t creating jobs at the level minimum wage is now, I don’t know why you would expect them to be able to afford to pay someone at a higher level,” he said.

Given that many lower-income workers live in the South Bronx, Muhammad said it would be better to get as many people possible into the workforce so they can at least have some sort of income and gain some job experience.

Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. (D-Bronx), who represents much of Mott Haven, said conservative warnings that a wage hike will mean fewer jobs are just scare tactics. He wishes elected officials could increase the minimum wage by more than what’s being proposed.

“Adding $1.25 is not enough, but if that’s all we can go, then I will support that with my eyes closed,” he said. “It’s better than nothing.”

Photo by Gwen McClure Peer worker Gina Villacis helps participants sign up for lunch, one of the services offered at CitiWide Harm Reduction.

A Mott Haven health-care agency has embarked on a major expansion which will bring a full array of services to the neighborhood’s population of homeless and at-risk drug users.

CitiWide Harm Reduction, a 16-year-old program housed near a bodega and a diner on 144th Street, will begin construction on the new $400,000 Wellness Center this month.

The new center will be staffed with doctors, psychiatrists and nurses to help recovering and current drug users deal with problems ranging from homelessness to AIDS.

“It’s going to be very walk-in oriented,” said Robert Cordero, the executive director. “They can literally walk in and see a provider, and that’s critical when you’re talking about people who are experiencing homelessness and who are using drugs.”

CitiWide already offers its participants a variety of programs and services including needle exchange, basic diagnostic and preventive care, and support groups.

Founded in 1995 by Brian Weil, a photographer and drug user, the agency estimates that it has served 10,000 clients since its foundation. It currently serves over 2,500 clients in an area that remains one of the highest in HIV infection in the nation.

Upstairs on a recent Wednesday people were cleaning and clearing the second floor so that construction could begin.

In the midst of the activity, Randee Phillips stood behind a man seated in a chair with small acupuncture needles protruding from around his ear, a treatment for addiction-related cravings.

“It’s kind of a forgotten population and they feel safe here. It’s really important,” the acupuncturist said. “I see people turn their lives around. I love working here.”

Participant John McDuffie echoed this feeling of comfort. He moved to the Bronx in 2005 in hopes that he would find better services than he had in Long Island and spoke candidly about his struggles with addiction and his mental and physical health.

“For the mental health service, I don’t have to go outside for the clinics,” he said. “It would be much better because I don’t like the buses or trains, I can come right here- at home.”

McDuffie now works in peer outreach, acting as a mentor.

HELP/Project Samaritan, an organization that works to make healthcare more widely accessible, will partner with CitiWide to run the center. Cordero expects the partnership to play a big part in its success.

“In addition to hepatitis, HIV and drug use, they’re struggling, a lot of them, with diabetes and high blood pressure and things that are related to diet,” he said. “So you’ve got this kind of synergy of plagues in the South Bronx that we have an opportunity to make a dent in it. No one agency is going to be able to do it.”

Cordero also said the new center will reduce the cost of healthcare for the government. “The goal here is to create a home for them, a health home,” he said. “They can receive ongoing preventive and primary care so they don’t wind up getting their primary care in the emergency room.”

“It’s very good,” McDuffie said, smiling. “It’s going to help a lot of people.”

Photo by Sarah Pizon Daniel "Kuwait" Adjei (left) and Greg M. Akologo

For West African residents in the South Bronx, Kuwait is not just a Middle Eastern country. “Kuwait” is a Ghanaian immigrant whose Morrisania-based business has become the conduit back to their nations of origin.

Kuwait Shipping & Packaging , which specializes in transporting items to West African countries, has made it possible for immigrants to ship raw construction materials along with American consumer goods back to their homelands. As the owner of one of the oldest companies in the area that ships goods to West Africa, “Kuwait” has made a name for himself.

“I’m a popular guy. Everyone knows me around here. If you ask a bus driver to take you to ‘Kuwait,’ he’ll bring you to my shop,” he said.

Kuwait, whose real name is Daniel Adjei, used to be a welder in Ghana. After he returned home following an unsuccessful attempt at finding work in the Middle East in the early 1980s, his friends nicknamed him “Kuwait.”

Adjei moved to the United States twenty-eight years ago and received citizenship under President Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program for undocumented immigrants, then began working for his uncle’s company in the South Bronx, which bought damaged cars at auctions and shipped them to West Africa via a third-party shipping company.

“I realized we could start organizing our own business and shipping the cars ourselves,” he said. Over the years, Adjei has seen his customer base expand because he offered personal business shipping experience, he said. “People know me and feel I’m putting my heart in it.”

“I do business with respect and dignity,” he said. “That’s a guarantee.”

Now, Kuwait ships not only cars but also a wide variety of goods such as marble, metals, refrigerators and toilet paper to West Africa.

West African culture has powerful ties to family. While a majority of African men have moved to America looking for better income, they still seek to build their dream house – a symbol of success – back home, explained Adjei.

“People might live like crap here, but back home, they’re building mansions. With Africa’s cheap labor, it’s easy,” he said.

Other local members of the Ghanaian diaspora echo this sentiment.  “This country has a lot to offer,” said Marc Anthony, owner of an adjacent auto repair shop. “With a positive mindset and hard working, you can get where you have to,” he said.

Over the last 20 years, Adjei’s growing shipping business reflects the remarkable growth of the South Bronx’ West African population, especially among Ghanaians and Nigerians. According to the 2007 Census Bureau American Survey, the Bronx’s sub-Saharan African population has ballooned from 12,063 in 1990 to 36,361 in 2000, to 54,932 in 2007.

Yet, as the population of West African immigrants increased, Adjei saw his profits fall as Nigerians started to open their own shipping companies. The 2008 financial crisis didn’t help either. While Adjei used to ship four 40-foot containers per week, he now only ships one or two.

Adjei still manages to make ends meet and tries to do some good, too. He hired Greg M. Akologo, a deaf man from Ghana who struggled to secure paperwork and a job. He regularly donates money to African humanitarian organizations and ships abandoned goods he finds on the streets– like bikes, computers and mattresses– to Ghana, because he knows that they will be well received.

Although Daniel “Kuwait” Adjei may be thousands of miles away, he hasn’t “forgotten the problems of my country,” he said. “If I can still make a difference, then God is going to bless me.”

Photo by Leo Sorel. Grace Outreach's class of 2012 celebrated graduation in June.

Two weeks before her high school graduation in 1973, Harlem native Yvonne Chestnut was told she was one credit short and could not graduate with her classmates.  

When she learned she would have to wait until the fall and attend school full-time to receive her diploma, Chestnut gave up. She never returned to school, and turned her back on formal education.

Thirty-eight years later Chestnut finally got the chance to wear a cap and gown, thanks to an innovative Mott Haven program called Grace Outreach. Chestnut was one of 138 women who walked proudly down the gym aisle in June, while Pomp and Circumstance played on the boom box in the background. The graduates had earned their GEDs for the 2010-2011 school year.

“You’re never too old for a new beginning,” said the 56-year-old during her valedictorian speech at the program’s graduation ceremony.

Grace Outreach opened in 2004 as a humble Brook Ave storefront where two nuns helped girls with their homework. The program was about to close when a board member from Manhattan non-profit the Grace Institute, which helps underserved women prepare for the workforce, got that organization to commit funding to keep it open. The program graduated 22 women in its first year.  

This year, 120 women graduated from an applicant pool of over 600.

“Getting your GED is not the end, but just the beginning,” says the program's director Andrew Rubinson. “Ninety percent of the women who come to us have a plan.”They know what they want to do and we just provide the momentum to keep them going to the next step.”

The mission of helping low-income women become financially independent is made up of three components: a GED program, college preparatory classes, and career preparation.

There are many reasons women do not finish high school, Rubinson explained, ranging from economic hardship to teenage pregnancy to bad schools. “It’s our goal to help women of all ages and incomes defy the obstacles and reach the aspirations they’ve had since they were young girls.”

“GO is unlike any other GED program I know of,” says Math teacher Zeki Blanding, better known to her students as Ms. Zeki. She says Grace places students at different levels based on their most recent GED scores or practice tests. With three full-time certified teachers and seven tutors who graduated from the program, Grace tailors each student’s course of study to her specific needs.

Most GED programs require students to attend classes that cover all subjects all day, says Blanding, whereas Grace Outreach's more strategic approach allows them to focus solely on the subject they’re struggling with before advancing to the next level when they’re ready.

Standing over six feet tall in a brightly colored summer dress and glowing smile, Blanding displays an exuberance and enthusiasm that are contagious.

“In my classroom I have a confident mirror, which I call the 'I can mirror,'” she said. “I refuse to let students be negative.”

Last year’s valedictorian Derrian Robinson, who is also the school's lead tutor, says Grace works because of the program’s passion, commitment and structure. Robinson says students find a connection with the tutors because they know exactly what it’s like to be in their shoes. “It’s like a family here,” she says, adding,”we all empathize with each other and pride ourselves on the double support system” of teacher and tutor.”

Many women decide to enroll after seeing a friend or family member succeed.

Yvonne Chestnut, who will start her first semester in Hospital Administration at Lehman College, says she wants to run a hospital one day and has plenty of experience to reach her goal. Starting as a volunteer candy striper as a teen, Chestnut worked her way up the ladder and now works as an administrative assistant at a large Manhattan hospital.

“In my job there were so many opportunities for advancement but I could never take advantage of them,” because she lacked the education credentials,” she said. Afraid her colleagues’ perception of her would change if they found out she never graduated from high school, she kept her status a secret. “I didn’t want them to see me differently,” she said.

“I am living testament that good things do come to those who wait,” Chestnut told the crowd at the graduation, and ended by encouraging the other graduates to stand up to life's challenges.

“Don’t be afraid and don’t give up,” she beseeched them while receiving a standing ovation.  

Lauren Ballou preparing lunch in the school cafeteria.

Teens run the lunch counter at Mott Haven school

At 16, Lauren Ballou is the manager of a small business. The high school junior is in charge of the Mantis Store, which sells lunch to her classmates at Crotona Academy High School on St. Anns Avenue.

During lunch hour, Ballou can be found at the back of the cafeteria, flipping chicken patties and turning sausages.

“We started out with basics—burgers–and brought in new stuff: bacon and cheese,” said Ballou. “We get new things and see if it sells. After a while, if it sells, we raise prices,” she explained with the air of a seasoned businesswoman.

Victoria Andrades, 18, mans the cash register and dispenses change from her seat at the table that serves as the makeshift store, a few seats away from Ballou.

“I write down what everybody orders, how much it cost, and after the store closes up, I tally everything and put on paper how much we made that day,” said Andrades, whose interest in math led her to take on the job of cashier for her second year at Mantis.

The Mantis Store started five years ago as part of Crotona Academy’s Learning To Work program, a 10-month job training internship, funded by the city Department of Education and operated by SoBRO, the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation. The store takes its name from a praying mantis the founders discovered on the school grounds.

“Students gain the skills they need to enter the workplace,” said Eva Lopez, program manager for Youth Programs at SoBRO.

Each year about 70 students participate in the Learning to Work program. In addition to coordinating the program, SoBRO provides one-on-one student counseling that aids with the college application process.

“By the time they graduate, most of the students have a complete resume and know how to write cover letters,” said Lopez. They also learn office etiquette, including the importance of letting the boss know when they can’t come to work.

“I think it will help me get a part time job, if I work as a cashier,” Andrades said. “It gives you a lot of skills you will need for a first job,” said Ballou.

Three other girls join Ballou and Andrades to operate The Mantis Store food stand during the school year. On average, they sell 20 to 30 meals during the 45-minute lunch hour each day.

“If we own a store, this is what’s going to happen; somebody’s going to have to clean, cook and hire people.” said Ashanti Perderaux, 17, who is responsible for keeping the grill and tables clean. It was Perderaux’s idea to sell an assortment of M&Ms and chocolate bars.

She said that before she started the Learning To Work program, she didn’t know much about business.  Seven months into it, she finds running a store fun and enjoys the camaraderie and responsibility she shares with her colleagues. “I’m going to have to use these skills to go job hunting,” said Perderaux.

The students, who are expected to put in 10 hours a week, earn while they learn. SoBRO pays them the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. In March, Ballou worked five days a week and earned around $400.

The students who founded the Mantis Store wrote a business plan that they presented to the community and development department of SoBRO, which provided the capital to open the store. Each new group of students is charged with maintaining and expanding the business. They’ve done so by analyzing inventory and coming up with new strategies to make the store profitable.

Each week the group meets and considers which merchandise sold well. The students then decide what they need to restock, and whether they need to cook and serve faster or to expand their offerings.

Recently the students decided to make their offerings healthier, introducing fruit cups and switching from hamburgers to the leaner chicken burgers.

The store rings up about $400 in sales each month, yielding a profit of $200.The profit is plowed back into the store, to be spent on merchandise and equipment.

With demand rising, the students have decided to spend some of the store’s income on a bigger grill, one that will also keep grease away from the meat, making it healthier.

Hotdogs sell for $1 and a cheeseburger $2. Candy costs 75 cents while fruit snacks are 50 cents.The profit is modest, said Deborah Claudio, SoBRO’s senior youth advocate on campus “because we try to keep the prices reasonable for them to be able to afford it. We live in the Mott Haven area and money is tight, but we try to keep it as economical as possible and to put a healthy spin on it.”

A version of this story appeared in the June/July 2011 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

• One-on-One Public Benefits Counseling, M-Th, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. By appointment only. Residents can learn about access to public benefits, tax credits and other government services. English and Spanish. Call 718-665-5250 x262.

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• Small Business Assistance. Appointment only. Call 718-665-5250 x221.

Mothers on the Move marched in protest of the Housing Authority's failure to provide jobs to tentants. Here, the Rally moves down 138th Street on its way to the Hub.

The New York City Housing Authority has reneged on a decade-old commitment to put job-hungry tenants to work making the buildings they live in cleaner and healthier, according to housing advocates.

Advocacy groups in the South Bronx are trying to change that.

A tinny voice called out from a windy sidewalk to residents in Mott Haven’s Mitchel Houses in mid-April, persuading them to join a march through the neighborhood to pressure the city to provide them with green jobs.“Yeah you, looking out your windows,” shouted Cerita Parker of Longwood-based housing advocacy group Mothers on the Move, through a megaphone. “This is for you.”

“If you live in NYCHA housing, you have a right to NYCHA jobs,” she continued. “That’s a right, not a privilege.”

Activists are demanding Housing Authority officials live up to a 2001 commitment to spend 15 percent of the agency’s labor costs putting tenants to work on renovation and construction projects in the buildings they live in.

In a 2004 audit, the city’s Comptroller’s office found the agency had put barely half that amount into its Resident Employee Program. Then, in a 2008 follow-up audit, the Comptroller found that the Housing Authority had fully addressed only one of six recommendations it had made following the earlier audit.

“A serious lack of NYCHA management oversight and commitment to the [program] resulted in program goals not being achieved,” read the 2008 report. “By not enforcing REP requirements, NYCHA allowed contractors to largely ignore the REP provision of their contracts.

But last year, when advocates approached NYCHA’s Environmental Coordinator, Margarita Lopez, requesting the city follow through on its pledge to create green jobs, “she told us, ‘we’re not an employment agency,’” says Nova Strachan of Mothers on the Move.

Members of Mothers on the Move say they have tried unsuccessfully to get a meeting with Lopez since October.
Housing Authority officials did not respond to requests for comment at press time.

More than two-thirds of public housing tenants responding to a survey conducted by Mothers on the Move and the Urban Justice Center earlier this year said they want jobs that would help improve housing conditions and air quality. Nearly all identified poor air quality as a factor contributing to health problems in their buildings.

Cockroaches, rats and mold, all of which are prevalent in NYCHA buildings, are known asthma triggers. Hospitalization rates for Bronx children under five with asthma were more than triple those of their Manhattan counterparts in 2008, the last year for which statistics from the state’s Department of Health are available.

The Bronx unemployment rate, 12.7% as of February, is more than three percent higher than the national average, and over five percent higher than Manhattan’s, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor.

A.D. Wade moved to the Mitchel Houses 15 years ago, and was diagnosed with asthma ten years later.“I can’t leave the house without this pump,” he said, holding up an inhaler.

Nathaniel Jones, a job-hunting former resident of the Mitchel Houses who stopped at the rally to take a brochure, said the two children he raised there were both diagnosed with asthma while infants.

Nova Strachan says employing NYCHA tenants to fix up their buildings would reduce triggers for disease in the buildings, while addressing job needs.

But while a green jobs initiative would be mutually beneficial, she maintains, residents should be hired for long-term jobs they can later parlay into private sector opportunities, rather than the kind of short-term jobs NYCHA has previously provided.

“We need more than a two or three-month job. It needs to be a career,” she said. “It seems like these jobs are setting people up for failure.”

But others, like Maria Cronin—the director of SoBRO’s adult educational programs—don’t think the books belong in the classroom.

Cronin works to promote adult literacy, and says preparing students for the workplace is the program’s top priority.  Urban fiction, she says, doesn’t factor into that goal.

“Urban fiction, the books that I’ve looked at, every other word is a profanity, and there’s a sexual component to it, and there are drugs and guns,” said Cronin.  “It’s the stories of the street.”

Where Cronin sees the glorification of the street life, urban fiction author Julie Ojeda Nin sees an alternative to it.

“I can’t speak for others, but I don’t think that I glorify it,” said Nin.  “I want to express to the youth, that if you are angry, you can write about it instead of doing it in real life.  Once you figure out where your pain is, you can get over it.”

Nin acknowledges that her work can be violent, but says it is also meant to depict growth.

“I write very raw, brutal stories.  I capture my people in a feeling of pain, and also a feeling of gain,” she said.

“It’s a learning process, and we can better ourselves,” she added.

Content aside, though, Cronin  has another objection to urban fiction that’s pretty important to a literacy educator.

“The grammar: we’re trying to teach them proper grammar,” she said.  “That’s not proper grammar in those books.”

If the cuts are passed by the state Senate and Assembly as proposed, the school districts that comprise Mott Haven, Melrose, Hunts Point and Longwood would not be spared.

The Mayor announced his layoff projections on Sunday, in response to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s earlier announcement that the state will cut $1.4 billion in aid to the city’s schools for the next fiscal year.

Among other cuts, the Mayor’s administration has it would lay off 15% of the elementary teachers in the city’s District 7, which comprises Mott Haven, the Concourse and Melrose. That represents the highest percentage of cuts to elementary school teachers of any of the city’s 32 school districts.

In Mott Haven, the Courtlandt School, an elementary school on E. 140^th St., would take a beating, potentially losing as many as a third of its 53 teachers.  Samuel Gompers Career and Technical High School on Southern Boulevard would lose seven of its 65 teachers.

Ten of the 34 Junior High and Middle School teachers at the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology on E. 145th St., otherwise known as MS 223, would be in jeopardy of losing their jobs, but principal Ramon Gonzalez is hopeful the cuts won’t be as extensive as the mayor as outlined.

“I don’t think it’ll get to that point,” Gonzalez said, adding, “it’s all about negotiation.”

Still, he says his teachers have a right to be worried about the threats from City Hall, and should prepare themselves for the worst by completing all their certifications to advance themselves professionally, lest the hammer fall. Gonzalez acknowledges the teacher’s union will be forced to compromise with the city on its contract.

“We’ve been in situations like this before. It’s rally the troops time” he said. “As principals, it’s time to be listeners. I can’t guarantee them anything, which is frustrating.”

Schools in low-income neighborhoods like Mott Haven and Melrose are more vulnerable than others to suffer teacher cuts, due to the high turnover rate among teachers, and the fact fewer teachers have the seniority necessary to buttress them against layoffs, he added.

In District 8, which includes schools in Hunts Point, as well as Soundview and Throggs Neck, 14% of intermediate school teachers would get the axe.

In Hunts Point and Longwood, Banana Kelly High School would stand to lose five of its 27 teachers to the Mayor’s buzzsaw, while the high school with which it shares a building on Longwood Ave, the Holcombe L. Rucker School for Community Research, would lose 8 of its current staff of 24.

The two-year-old Entrada Academy on Fox St., which serves grades 6 and 7, would lose a third of its 27 teachers.

Middle School 424, otherwise known as the Hunts Point School, would take an 18% plunge, from 40 teachers down to 33. MS 48 on Spofford Ave would lose 6 of its 74 teachers.

The receptionist Heidy Rios juggles her duties at the busy Mercy Center

For immigrants and the poor, center offers a welcome and support

Heidy Rios knows what it’s like to be poor. Born and raised in the Bronx, for a time she had so little money that she and her children lived in an apartment that had no stove or refrigerator. She kept food cold by putting it on the windowsill during the winter.

She remembers being fearful and embarrassed when she went to job interviews. She didn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use one.

Then, one day when she dropped her children off at St. Pius V School on East 144th Street, Rios found a flyer advertising the services of Mercy Center, which was headquartered at the school at the time.

At Mercy Center, she learned parenting skills, graduated from a computer class and earned her GED. In gratitude, she worked at the center as a volunteer. Her commitment paid off when the center offered her a job.

Fifteen years have passed, and the confidence she gained shows as Rios greets visitors attending classes at Mercy Center, which is now located in its own building on East 145th Street and Willis Avenue. Her five children continue to attend after-school programs and girl talk workshops and perform community service.

Twenty years ago, Sister Mary Ann Dirr, a member of the Sisters of Mercy, arrived in Mott Haven. She found a neighborhood suffering from crack, crime and poverty. City agencies abandoned the South Bronx; the Catholic Church stayed.

Working with two volunteers from the neighborhood, Sister Dirr established a counseling center in a single classroom at St. Pius V.

Now, Mercy Center has grown to employ 20 bilingual staff members and 200 professional volunteers. Last year it served more than 2,000 clients from some 700 families.

Its focus remains women and families. It helps women learn parenting and family life skills, and prepares them to start their own businesses or work in the job market. Other programs include alternatives to violence classes, immigration services, youth services, after-school programs, yoga and spirituality groups and English as a Second Language.

From its beginning, Mercy Center’s programs have been geared toward women. “Women in poor or any community, from rural to urban, hold up the family. They keep it together, and need more help in sustaining family,” explained Blanca Ramirez, the center’s coordinator of direct social services, who has been at Mercy Center for three years.
The center’s English classes have proved to be among its most popular programs.

If people “can’t communicate with people important in their lives, such as teachers or doctors, it’s a problem,” says Ramirez. That’s why Mercy started teaching English as a second language.

America Reyes agrees. She can “socialize with people now,” she said, adding that she “was timid before, but is empowered through English.”

Areida Beltran a 50-year-old immigrant from Central America, has lost her fear of speaking English. Now when she goes to the hospital, she can speak for herself and ask for what she needs.
Margarita Navarro, can now speak English at her children’s school. She said she can read her children’s report cards and understand their needs.

The language classes, Ramirez says, do more than just teach English; they bring people together from all over the world to support one another.

Ramirez, who describes herself as an “old time organizer,” said the “spirit of hospitality is what makes Mercy Center different” from other social service organization that cater to women. Other places make you wait in line or take a number, she says. At Mercy, visitors are directed to a comfortable lounge to wait for help from a staff member.
The person who greets them warmly in either Spanish or English and escorts them to the lounge is Heidy Rios.

A version of this story appeared in the Summer 2010 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.