NYCHA and Kaboom! Begin New Partnership
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VOL. 47 NO. 8 NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2017 INSIDE THIS ISSUE 4 7 10 Childcare Business Two New Farms Live-in Pathways at NYCHA Caretaker Pilot Success! NYCHA and KaBOOM! Begin New Partnership Sherwin Darden, a Penn-Wortman Houses resident and community coach at the new Jobs Plus center in Brooklyn, speaks to the audience at the grand opening. NEW JOBS PLUS CENTER BUILDS FUTURES FOR PENN- WORTMAN RESIDENTS WHEN SHERWIN DARDEN, a Penn- Wortman Houses resident, walked into the new Jobs Plus Center in his neighborhood, he didn’t have a Social Security card, government identification, or health care, let alone a job. Now he’s got all of those, and he’s helping his neighbors too. He’s been hired by the Young volunteers help add color to the playground. center to be a community coach there, and has helped nine other residents land Playground Project at Pomonok Houses Is First of Many jobs so far. He has also been a mentor N NOVEMBER 4, volunteers trans- paint a basketball court and playground to his son, who is headed to Princeton formed an unused recreational area floors, and assemble playground equipment in the fall. O at Pomonok Houses in Queens into to build a new playground based on draw- The new center is the first Jobs Plus a safe, fun, beautiful playground. ings made by children at Pomonok Houses site funded by the U.S. Department of It took just six hours for residents, neighbors, during a KaBOOM! workshop. Housing and Urban (CONTINUED ON PAGE 3) and volunteers from NYCHA, KaBOOM!, Play- This the first playground built through world, and JetBlue to pour and lay concrete, NextGen NYCHA Plays, (CONTINUED ON PAGE 14) FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.NYC.GOV/NYCHA LETTER FROM THE CHAIR MAKING CONNECTIONS Boston Road Plaza, Middletown Plaza, and Twin Parks East. AS WE LOOK forward to 2018, this is the time of year Live-in caretakers are responsible for their normal janitorial many of us deepen our connections with the people most and maintenance work during the day, but are also available important to us: our family, friends, neighbors, our com- after hours in case of emergencies, which gives our senior munities. We take stock of what is most important to us. residents a greater sense of security. At NYCHA, the people most important to us are you, And you’ll read three success stories from NYCHApre- our residents, the more than 400,000 New Yorkers who call NYCHA neurs—resident business owners who have opened home daycares home. Our NextGen NYCHA promise is to create safe, clean and thanks to their participation in the Childcare Business Pathways connected communities for you. In this issue of The NYCHA Jour- (CBP) program, managed by NYCHA’s Office of Resident Economic nal, we highlight a few of the programs that provide Office of resi- Empowerment & Sustainability and our partners. Through CBP, dents with some of the best services New York City has to offer. these residents developed the skills and obtained the tools they In October, we held a ribbon-cutting for a new Jobs Plus Center that needed to open successful businesses. Their daycares are now will serve residents of Penn-Wortman Houses. This is the first federally helping the parents of our youngest residents. funded Jobs Plus Center; the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban NYCHA is always striving to be the best landlord we can be. Development (HUD) is providing $2 million over four years for the If there are ways we can do better, let us know – contact center, which will offer job training, career opportunities, and financial [email protected]. counseling. Jobs Plus has been proven to increase residents’ earnings Wishing you a warm and healthy holiday season, by an average of 16 percent. Since 2009, with support from our agency partners, Jobs Plus has helped almost 7,000 residents get jobs. In the Bronx, we’re piloting a program to improve customer ser- Shola Olatoye vice by having live-in caretakers at three of our senior developments, Chair and CEO NYCHA BOARD MEETINGS YCHA’S BOARD MEETINGS, open to the public, take meeting. For additional information regarding the calendar of place on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. in the NYCHA 12th floor meetings, dispositions, dates, and times, please call 212-306-6088. N conference room at 250 Broadway. People who wish to For those unable to attend the board meetings, please visit speak during the public comment period must pre-register at http://on.nyc.gov/boardmeetings at the time of the meeting to least 45 minutes before the meeting is scheduled to begin and watch live. You may also watch past board meetings by visiting can only comment about items on that meeting’s agenda. Each NYCHAnnel, NYCHA’s YouTube page at speaker’s time is limited to three minutes. The public comment https://www.youtube.com/c/nycha. period concludes either when all speakers are finished or after the 30 minutes allotted by law for public comment, whichever Upcoming Meetings: comes first. November 29, 2017 December 20, 2017 Copies of the calendar for the upcoming board meeting are available on NYCHA’s website or can be picked up at the Office of the Corporate Secretary, 250 Broadway, 12th floor, after 3 p.m. on the Monday before the meeting. Copies of the dispositions The NYCHA of prior meetings are available on NYCHA’s website or can be JOURNAL picked up from the Office of the Corporate Secretary no earlier ESTABLISHED 1970 • CIRCULATION 200,000 than 3 p.m. on the Thursday after the board meeting. Any person PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK CITY HOUSING AUTHORITY requiring reasonable accommodation in order to participate in the DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATIONS meeting should contact the Office of the Corporate Secretary at 250 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 212-306-6088 no later than five business days prior to the www.nyc.gov/nycha 2 FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.NYC.GOV/NYCHA NEW JOBS PLUS CENTER BUILDS FUTURES FOR PENN-WORTMAN RESIDENTS (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1) Development (HUD) in New York City. A nationally recognized program that helps increase employment and earnings among public housing residents, Jobs Plus boosts residents’ earnings by an average of 16 percent. “One of our NextGeneration NYCHA goals is to engage with residents in new ways by connecting them to best-in- class services, like Jobs Plus. By combining stable, long- From left to right: Diana Reyna, Deputy Borough President for Brooklyn; Lynne Patton, HUD Regional Administrator term affordable housing with for New York and New Jersey; Tracey Capers, Executive Vice President of Programs/Organizational Development at thoughtful services, we are Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation; and NYCHA Chair Shola Olatoye at the opening of the Penn-Wortman strengthening public housing Jobs Plus Center. and empowering residents,” commend NYCHA for their said NYCHA Chair & CEO national leadership in piloting Shola Olatoye. and expanding a program Making NYCHA In New York City, Jobs that has placed nearly Plus is an interagency 7,000 residents in jobs that Developments Cleaner partnership between will increase their financial NYCHA, the NYC Human independence.” ANITORIAL STAFF AT Ingersoll Houses spent a day Resources Administration, the At the Penn-Wortman Jobs learning how to use new floor-cleaning machines that will Mayor’s Office for Economic Plus Center, Brooklyn-based Jsave them hours of labor, make developments cleaner, and Opportunity, and the NYC nonprofit Bedford Stuyvesant improve quality of life for residents. NYCHA plans to buy over Department of Consumer Restoration Corporation is 1,000 machines so that all NYCHA developments have access to Affairs’ Office of Financial providing customized educa- this time-saving equipment. All janitorial staff will be trained Empowerment. The Penn- tional curricula across the Jobs on how to use the machines by the end of the year. Wortman center is the tenth Plus model’s three core com- site in the city. Jobs Plus ponents: employment-related serves 27 developments and services, financial incentives, has helped almost 7,000 and community support for NYCHA residents find jobs. work. Additional services at “The Jobs Plus model the center include financial proves that with the right counseling, education assis- combination of support and tance, and help opening a safe opportunity, public housing and affordable bank account, residents can move toward decreasing debt, and increas- economic self-sufficiency,” ing and establishing credit. Benjamin Magwood, Supervisor Anthony Jones, Supervisor of said Lynne Patton, HUD Visit or call the center at 425 of Housing Caretakers at O’Dwyer Housing Caretakers at Mariner’s Regional Administrator for New Lots Avenue (between Gardens Consolidation, gets a Harbor, takes the Kaivac OmniFlex New York and New Jersey, New Jersey and Vermont) in hands-on lesson on how to use one for a spin. at the ribbon cutting. “I Brooklyn, 347-537-2925. of the new floor-cleaning machines. FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.NYC.GOV/NYCHA 3 City Hall in Your Borough: Manhattan NYCHA JOINED MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO for “City Hall in Your Borough: Manhattan,” from September 25 to 29, spending the week focused on the needs and concerns of Manhattan residents. This was the fourth borough in the Mayor’s City Hall in Your Borough initiative. September 25 September 27 September 28: New Farms at NYCHA NYCHA’s getting greener! Two new urban farms are being built NYCHA Chair & CEO Shola NYCHA participated in City at NYCHA developments. One is currently under construction at Olatoye and Council Member Hall’s Resource Fair held Forest Hills in the Bronx, and another will be built at a development Helen Rosenthal toured De at the Malcolm X and Dr.