Bronx Weekend News Roundup, Monday, May 2

Welcome back to the program, ladies and gentlemen of the Bronx and beyond. Lots of news to get to, so let's get to it. To the weather!

Weather: Cloudy and cool this morning, high in the mid-60s, with rain expected overnight and tomorrow morning.

Story of the Day: Bronx Homeless Intake Center Opens
Tomorrow, the city is set to open a new, $65.5 million homeless intake center in Melrose, on East 151st Street in the South Bronx. The new center replaces a former one on the same site, which was shuttered five years ago and criticized for being dirty, dangerous and inadequately staffed. Officials from the Department of Homeless Services say that at the old center, a family could wait up to 20 hours to be processed, while the new site predicts wait times of about 6  hours.

New studies show that homelessness in the city is on the rise, and that last year, 16 percent more families were turned away from the city's shelters than the year before.

Quick Hits:

Members of St. Stephen United Methodist Church, one of four Bronx parishes that was burglarized in recent months, say they're willing to forgive whoever is responsible for the crimes.

Some 32,000 cyclists rode through the streets of the Bronx yesterday, one leg of the annual Five Boro Bike Tour.

An 11-year-old Bronx girl, who was abducted from her home seven months ago and forced to have sex with her captors while being held in an apartment on the Lower East Side, tells her heartbreaking story to the Daily News.

Dramatists are taking their purchase of two Co-Op City storage lockers -- bought at auction after their owners missed monthly payments to keep the space -- to the stage of a Chelsea theater.

New Yorkers keep a bevy of weird--and illegal--animals as pets, according to according to Health Department records obtained by the New York Post. Found in the Bronx:  A large Colombian red tail boa constrictor, two ball pythons, a 2-foot-long Australian children’s python, and 11 crowing roosters.

Soccer club South Bronx United has formed the first-ever traveling girls' soccer team to represent the Bronx.

After a string of Bronx bodega robberies, the Bodega Association of the United States is urging deli owners to keep guns on hand for protection.

Bronx prosecutor Jennifer Troiano, who was arrested last summer on a DWI charge after getting into a three-car accident on the Major Deegan Expressway, may have skirted a similar arrest years earlier. 

--Compiled by Jeanmarie Evelly

Bronx News Roundup, Jan. 26-27

Hello, everyone. We're back with your News Roundup for the past two days!

The sounds of protest from hundreds of students, families and teachers were not met as it was decided early this morning that 19 of the city's schools will be closed due to poor academic performance, the Bronx's Christopher Columbus High School included. By 2:40 a.m., over 300 people had spoken at the panel held at Brooklyn Technical High School, only a handful of which were in favor of the closings. Despite these opinions, nearly every closing was met with an overwhelming majority vote. One representative from Queens laments the decisions: “Listening means to hear but also to digest and allow the information to have an effect on our opinion."

In related news, the Bronx's Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School was one of lucky ones. The Department of Education decided to keep the high school's doors open, thanks to an outpouring of community support.

An update on the wildly successful Bronx gun buy-back program: $184,000 was paid for 1,186 guns. Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said, in reference to the very recent shootings of two Bronx women, "This is bittersweet. These 1,200 weapons symbolize...another Sadie Mitchell...another Vada Vasquez. Perhaps we'll avoid another Vada Vasquez with these weapons being here." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is happy to announce that the guns will be melted down and turned into coat hangers: in his words, a "much better use of them." 

Several Bronx men were given the opportunity for employment in tearing down the old Yankee Stadium, only to be lied to and left where they started. David Phillips, the Goodwill job developer in charge of placing the men packed up and took off without notice. The "Back to Work" program's response: "move on."

Early this morning, a pedestrian was hit by a car and has sustained serious injuries. The driver of the car was also injured. The accident took place on East 151st Street and Grand Concourse. The area has been closed to traffic on the northbound side between East 150th and 151st street for investigations.

Congressional District 16 (Morrisania, Mott Haven and Bedford Park) has been found to have the highest household hunger rate in the nation, according to a report by Gallup and the Food Research Action Center. The figures are startling, as families were asked whether they had ever been in a situation in which there wasn't enough money to buy necessary food. The percentage of households suffering from hunger in District 16 were found to be as high as 36.9%.

The New York Post reports on a neighborhood's response to Praxis Housing Initiatives' plans for a permanent supportive housing development on White Plains Road in Wakefield. While the Q&A session on January 7th attempted to clarify the difference between "permanent supportive housing" and "homeless shelters," residents remain uneasy and skeptical.

The Westchester Merchants Association's case with the Department of Homeless Services has been tossed by a Manhattan judge. The Bronx merchants argued that Homeless Services should be required to do a comprehensive study of a neighborhood before creating a shelter there. Local leaders were disappointed by the verdict as well: John Bonizio, president of the Westchester Square Merchants Association, said, "They don't consult with the community boards. They find a spot and put it in."

To end on a brighter note, the sculpture in front of the Bronx River Arts Center in West Farms Square is still free of any graffitti, six months into its installation ("Knock on wood," as the Daily News said, undoubtedly with all pun intended).

Bronx News Roundup, September 1

The Espada chronicles continue: Yesterday, Senator Espada fired his deputy chief of staff, Onix A. Sosa, after the New York Times discovered that he supervises 35 low-income buildings in Manhattan and the Bronx that are in violation of over 7,oo0 housing codes. City Officials have declared over 1,000 of these violations to be immediately hazardous. Furthermore, Sosa's real estate brokers license was revoked in 2004 due to his failure to return rental deposits, but he continued to manage buildings. Espada claims that he knew nothing of Sosa's property managing record.

Sosa was also 14th District City Council candidate Yudelka Tapia's former campaign manager. Click here for our post about how Sosa left Tapia to work for Espada.

Since the Department of Homeless Services began moving homeless families with children into a new emergency shelter near Westchester Square, multiple business owners and local residents have voiced their frustration with New York City agencies cramming social service programs into their area. The Department of Homeless Services failed to notify the community before moving families into the new shelter. Currently, there are around 20 social service programs in the Westchester Square area.

Bronx BP Ruben Diaz, Jr. recently declared that the BOEDC handled their funds from the Community Benefits Agreement at the Gateway Mall correctly despite not accounting for $1.6 million out of the $1.8 million given to them by the developer, Related Companies. Read more here.

Yesterday, Charles McDowell, a Bronx resident was charged with the murder of Amadou Ndiaye, one of the Bronx livery cab drivers killed in a series of cab driver murders. McDowell was arrested for an attempted robbery when police found his gun to match the murder weapon used to kill Ndiaye. Police plan to protect cab drivers in the future by using "Operation Safe Cab," a program in which police search cabs for dangerous passengers.

Homeless Shelters in Bronx Apartment Buildings: The Story Behind the Story

Henry Perry, a 68-year-old substitute teacher and Mosholu Parkway resident, is a star today. Not only did he appear in the first paragraph of a NY Times front page story, but also in the first paragraph of the Norwood News' top story on its Web site. (It will appear as a front page story in the Norwood News print addition, which will hit streets tomorrow morning.) Here's our editorial on the situation with Perry's building and others like it.

The Times story and the Norwood News story have some similarities, but also many differences, which I'll get to in a minute, but first let's rewind to see how this story unfolded.

In mid-January, I learned that a homeless shelter had quietly moved into a notorious and poorly-managed Bedford Park apartment building, 3001 Briggs Ave., which happened to be directly across the street from a school, PS 8. Teachers at the school were irate. They contacted the community board, 311 and the Norwood News. On Jan. 22, Community Board 7 invited an increasingly angry neighborhood to weigh in and, wow, did they. On this blog the next day I reported about the meeting and some of the other things I had found out. In the next issue of the paper, I wrote up a more in-depth story about it that focused on how upset residents were and how previous tenants may have been harassed to make way for the shelter.

Soon after that story appeared on Feb. 5, Perry called us to say he too was living in a building, 15-19 Mosholu Parkway, with a homeless shelter and said he would be attending the next Community Board meeting to discuss his situation and express his opposition to it. The Bronx Times published a story about Perry's building and the Bedford Park building on Feb. 27.

Regardless of how it started, we now have a better picture of what the city is doing with its homeless population and how it's affecting tenants.

The NY Times story focuses on the city's new policy of creating so-called "cluster-site" homeless shelters, which are similar to the controversial "scatter-site" policy, which was denounced in the early 2000's as an "expensive failure." It includes some good details and stats like the fact these cluster sites are growing exponentially and mostly in the Bronx.

The Norwood News story focuses more on the events leading up to Perry's building becoming half a homeless shelter -- mass evictions and landlord intimidation, no tenant notification, 3 suspicious fires -- and how it mirrored what happened at 3001 Briggs. We also report that the outcry over this is forcing the city's Department of Homeless Services to rethink its policies.

Combined, they make an even more complete story. And that's our goal as reporters and journalists.

Note: One of our ideas to open up dialogue on this blog is to give some of the back story behind what you see in print or on our Web site and this our first attempt to do that. Let us know what you think. Is it interesting? Does it help you understand the story better? Is it pointless? Whatever the case, we want to know what you think.

Outrage, Apologies Over New Bedford Park Homeless Shelter

The outrage was on the part of local residents who, at a Community Board 7 housing committee meeting inside the Bedford Park Senior Center, vehemently opposed the opening of a new homeless shelter on Briggs Avenue, directly across the street from PS 8. Teachers, parents and other residents found out about the shelter only after it began taking in homeless families on Christmas Eve.

The apologies came from Peter Rivera, the director of the firm, Aguila, Inc., that manages the new facility (and several others in the city), who said he took "ownership" for making the mistake of not coming to the community sooner. "Mea culpa," he said, trying to explain, but was soon drowned out by a chorus of angry yelling.

This story is a can of worms that we'll only open slightly on the blog today, but here's a few notes of interest.

-The homeless shelter will cater only to homeless families -- parents with children. However, there is no guarantee that the residents will not have prior criminal records (something residents were extremely apprehensive about). Most of the families currently in the building are single mothers with their kids.

-One woman, who's 91-year-old father lives in the building, said the families all seem "earnest" and that conditions and the atmosphere of the building had greatly improved in the past few months.

-The building, 3001 Briggs Ave., has a terrible history of housing violations and landlord neglect.

-There may be evidence that previous tenants were harassed out of the building to make way for the homeless shelter. If the evidence is compelling, the Dept. of Homeless Services says it will terminate the contract with Aguila and move the transitional residents elsewhere.

-If the evidence is not compelling, it's very unlikely DHS will terminate the contract or move the facility elsewhere simply based on residents' complaints.

-PS 8 teachers are worried the influx of children from the shelter will overburden an already vastly overcrowded elementary school. But only one child from the center has enrolled at PS 8 and they have yet to show up for school.

-Housing advocates say the bigger issue, aside form overcrowding or bringing in criminal elements to the neighborhood, is that the city is knowingly taking away affordable, rent-stabilized housing, and replacing it with transitional housing. This only perpetuates one of the main factors of homelessness, which is a lack of affordable housing.

-Rivera, the son of Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera, did not lose his cool once, despite an incredible amount of anger and animosity directed at him. He also couldn't explain why he didn't come to the community beforehand or how the building became empty and available for lease as a homeless shelter.

-The owners of the building, Briggs Realty, LLC, declined to show for the meeting.

-In the end, the CB7 housing committee said it would not support the new shelter and they would bring it up at the next general board meeting, Feb. 17, at the Bronx Library Center. At that meeting, they will also discuss Rivera's plan to open a similar shelter just a couple of blocks away at 2903 Valentine Ave.

Homeless in the Bronx

This week's New York Magazine takes an intimate look at the faces behind the the Department of Homeless Services recent homeless count.

Particularly good (and sad) is the story of Nancy Quinn, a drug addict and prostitute, who for the past year has lived beneath an underpass in the South Bronx, next to the Bronx River.