Tenants Wary of Clustering of Homeless

Some New Yorkers See a Downside in City’s Efforts to Help the Homeless – NYTimes.com

Tenants Wary of Clustering of Homeless

By JULIE BOSMAN

Henry Perry just cannot get used to the 10 p.m. curfew notice posted since October in the Bronx apartment building where he has lived since 1963. Or the sign-in sheet, where the newer residents dutifully log comings and goings. Or the 24-hour security guard seated at a desk in the lobby.

“She came when the homeless people did,” Mr. Perry, a wiry, gray-haired man of 68, nodded at the guard last week.

Twenty-one of the 50 units in Mr. Perry’s five-story brick building are now occupied by homeless families as part of a Bloomberg administration program that has turned dozens of apartment buildings throughout the city, most of them in the Bronx, into de facto homeless shelters. Known as cluster-site housing, the program contracts with nonprofit agencies to temporarily place families in apartments; it has swelled in two years to 1,503 apartments from 1,092, at an estimated cost of $59 million this year.

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Luxe Affordability Marks Green Renewal In the Bronx- City Limits: News for NYC’s Nonprofit, Policy and Activist World

Luxe Affordability Marks Green Renewal In the Bronx- City Limits: News for NYC’s Nonprofit, Policy and Activist World.

Living In | Castle Hill, the Bronx Still Easy to Get to; Now Safer to Be In

Living In | Castle Hill, the Bronx

Still Easy to Get to; Now Safer to Be In

By JOSEPH PLAMBECK

IT wasn’t so long ago that Castle Hill was, by and large, a place to avoid. Crime was rampant. Properties were in shambles and abandoned. The outlook was bleak.

But things have changed in the last decade. The neighborhood has largely shaken off its past, with the help of drastically reduced crime rates and a spate of new development. On some blocks in the area now, there’s even a suburban feel.

In fact, says Francisco Gonzalez, who for the last 16 years has been the district manager of Community Board 9, which includes Castle Hill, some of the people who had fled for the suburbs 25 years ago are coming back. READ MORE…[NYT]

A matter of life and breath at Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx

A matter of life and breath at Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx

A matter of life and breath at Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx

By Simone Weichselbaum
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, September 6th 2008, 2:15 PM
Lombard Mariela, Freelance NYDN

Ayesha Payne, 29 with her daughter Malani, 2 and boyfriend Bellinger Moye, 26 wait for the elevator at the Castle Hill Houses in the Bronx.

Ayesha Payne, who has severe asthma and a 2-year-old daughter to tote, knows a broken elevator could be fatal in the Castle Hill Houses.

Payne, a 29-year-old manager at Montefiore Medical Center, lives on the 12th floor of 2140 Seward Ave.

Climbing the stairs always forces Payne to risk her life.

Armed with just a pocket inhaler, Payne reaches her apartment door gasping for air. “I have to take a break at every flight,” she said. “If I panic, I can’t breathe.”

During the last two weeks of August, Payne spent countless hours trudging up and down stairs. A day after a repairman came to fix one elevator, it was out again. The cycle continued for days.

Minding elevators is now part of Payne’s daily routine. She sends her boyfriend to inspect them before she leaves home. “If the elevator isn’t working, he has to come downstairs,” Payne said. “I can’t walk alone.”

Even if Payne can use the elevators, she knows to cut back on her breathing. The stench of urine and feces simply overwhelms her nostrils. “You need a white suit just to step inside,” she said.