A nonprofit in the Norwood neighborhood where Jashawn lived and died has started a fund to collect the $1,200 needed to purchase a headstone for the gravesite. Checks made out to Bronx Jewish Community Council with "Jashawn Parker" in the memo line can be sent to: Sally Dunford, Bronx Jewish Community Council, 3176 Bainbridge Ave., Bronx, NY 10467. The donations will be tax deductible. Read More»
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Blog Contributors
Jarrett Murphy
City Limits
Helen Zelon
Johann Hamilton
Neil deMause
A Headstone for Jashawn Parker
When City Limits reporters met with Paul Parker recently to discuss the 2002 fire that killed his eight-year-old son—one of several troubling incidents at buildings linked to a Westchester real-estate operation—he asked for a ride to the cemetery to visit Jashawn. It took Paul awhile to find the grave because he had never been able to afford a headstone.
Related topic categories: Housing and Development
Report Sees Renters' Crisis
In the idealized version of the world that exists on an economics professor's chalkboard, financial systems save themselves from disaster. Like a heated-up athlete breaking into a cooling sweat, the economy is supposed to self-correct.
So when a housing market collapse kicked America into recession four years ago, it was reasonable to hope that one benefit of the slowdown would be to reduce housing costs for low-income people, who had struggled to keep up with rising rents during the boom.
Related topic categories: Housing and Development, Housing Policy, Affordable Housing
A Tragedy in the Bronx
This month's City Limits magazine reports on a Bronx real estate operator linked to dozens of troubled buildings. It's not just a story about one landlord; it's an examination of the system New York has for reining in rogue landlords, and it asks whether the protections for tenants are robust enough.
Paul Parker lost a son in a 2002 fire at a Bronx building linked to the real estate operator. Below, he talks about the tragedy and his life since.
Related topic categories: Tenants, Housing and Development
As NYCHA Seeks Flexibility, Tenant Advocates Concerned
New York's public housing authority is hoping to enroll in a national program that will provide it with budgetary flexibility. But advocates for the authority's half-million residents are pressing for assurances that the move will not threaten tenants' rights.
At his agency's annual City Council budget hearing, New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea said that, outside of New York and Los Angeles, virtually every large public housing entity in the country has adopted the Moving to Work program.
Related topic categories: Housing and Development, Housing Policy, Affordable Housing, Public Housing (Last Stand)
Veterans of 'Battle of Brooklyn' Tell War Stories in Bronx
They came to watch the “Battle for Brooklyn.”
They left armed with some advice for their fledgling fight in the Bronx.
The documentary film, shown at the Bronx Documentary Center in Melrose last Thursday evening, chronicles the seven-year civic trench war against the Atlantic Yards development project in downtown Brooklyn.
About 30 south Bronx residents and activists, all adamantly opposed to Fresh Direct building a factory in the south Bronx’s Harlem River Yards, came to see it and learn some lessons about what they’re up against.
The B Read More»
Related topic categories: Economic Development, Housing and Development
Mortgage Woes Linked to Broader Neighborhood Despair
In a city with more than 3.3 million housing units, what does it mean for the rest of us that 3,000 properties went into foreclose in the 3rd quarter of last year, or even that 17,000 or so went into default in all of 2010?
A new report suggests it could mean a great deal: Turns out housing code violations are higher in buildings located close to multi-unit residences that have gone into foreclosure.
The research from the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, funded by Enterprise, looks at buildings that are over-mortgaged or have gone into foreclosure.
"Over Read More»
Related topic categories: Housing and Development
Feds Fall Down on Homeless Women Vets
The Government Accountability Office said women veterans failed to receive housing referrals, usually could not access a shelter that served both women and children, worried about the safety of such shelters and sometimes weren't even aware of the services that do exist.
What's more, the GAO found, VA's existing data on women veterans was spotty, making it hard to "plan services effectively, allocate grants to providers, and track progress toward its overall goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015.
Related topic categories: Homelessness, Housing and Development
Plan Calls for Longer Shelter Stays
A new report on homelessness in New York calls for some shelter residents to be housed for a year to 18 months, so they can get the time and resources needed to become self-sufficient.
The plan, by the Institute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness, says the current shelter system works fairly well for the roughly 50 percent of homeless families who need help only because of a temporary financial emergency.
But the rest of the homeless population, the report says, needs more help. Some 35 percent require a longer housing stay.
Other Read More»
Related topic categories: Homelessness, Housing and Development, Housing Policy
What’s Not to Like About the Cuomo Budget?
For a budget address, Governor Cuomo's speech on Tuesday spent relatively little time on the nuts and bolts of the state's fiscal 2013 spending plan. Seeking to turn a symbolic page from last year's nasty budget fight, the governor argued that closing New York's $2 billion fiscal hole is a simple matter of eliminating waste and cancelling automatic budget increases. The bulk of the gov's talk was about his "reform agenda" of economic development, government streamlining, avoiding future pension obligations and teacher evaluations.
Read More»
Related topic categories: Activism and Volunteerism, NYCHA, Albany, Urban Planning and Policy, Workforce and Labor, Housing and Development, Government, The Economy, Andrew Cuomo, Budget
Report Slams Housing Court For Tenant Treatment
A report by Make the Road New York titled "Home Court Advantage: How Landlords Are Winning and Tenants Are Losing at Brooklyn Housing Court," claims that 85 percent of landlords are represented in court while almost about 95 percent of tenants are not.
With a couple of police officers looking on from in front of Brooklyn Housing Court at 141 Livingston Street, members of the Brooklyn Tenants Union chanted "Si se Puede" ("Yes we can") at a rally on Wednesday.
Related topic categories: Tenants, Housing and Development
