Mott Haven Herald

Grant promises unemployed 300 ‘green jobs’

Posted on 29. Jan, 2010 by Bernard L. Stein.

The recipient of a $4 million federal grant is promising that 300 unemployed residents of Hunts Point, Longwood, Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris will find jobs under a new training program for “green” jobs.

The Consortium for Worker Education will use the money to establish a Center for Environmental Workforce Training to teach both job skills and offer general education.

The organization will partner with several non-profit organizations, including Mott Haven-based SoBro and Greenworker Cooperatives to train residents to build or retrofit energy-efficient buildings.

Most of the participants will “learn how to work with their hands—being able to fix things,” said Rebecca Lurie, director of development at the consortium.

Jobs will include window installation and building repair, installing insulation and repairing or installing boilers, she said Some participants in the program will also learn to conduct energy audits and market energy upgrades to building owners,

Lurie said the consortium hoped to launch the program, which will last for two years, within a month.

Sustainable South Bronx and The Point CDCthe Osborne Association, the Association for Energy Affordability, the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corp. and Bronx Community College’s Project Hire will also serve as partners in the program, which was hailed by Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. as “a big step toward becoming the ‘greenest’ borough in New York City.”

All told, the program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, aims to provide training and education services for 425 participants, while placing 297 of those who receive a degree or certificate in jobs.

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Mott Haven job programs offer hope

Posted on 28. Jan, 2010 by Joe Hirsch.

Two programs to help residents find jobs received hopeful news in January.

The Disconnected Youth Training Program and the Entrepreneurial Development Program, both run by Mott Haven based non-profit SoBRO, each received funding to help economically strapped local residents improve their prospects for earning a living wage.
(more…)

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Searching for work on a Mott Haven street corner

Posted on 28. Nov, 2009 by editor.

By Carla Candia
carla.candia@journalism.cuny.edu

Dozens of day laborers dressed in ripped jeans and worn t-shirts stood on the corner of East 141st Street and Jackson Avenue in the Bronx one morning this Fall.

The wind was blowing, and many workers wore sweaters and had their hands tucked in their pockets. They were eating sandwiches and drinking coffee provided by an evangelical group called Together in Misericordia.

“We see their needs and want to help them,” Ramon Mendez, a member of the religious organization, speaking in Spanish, as did all those interviewed for this story.

These days the men who wait for contractors to hire them for the day need all the help they can get. Things have been slow at “La Parada,” which means “The Stop.” (more…)

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New mall threatens Mott Haven businesses

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by Jeanmarie Evelly.

By Jeanmarie Evelly
Jeanmarie.evelly@motthavenherald.com

Third Avenue and 149th street would be the heart of many cities’ downtown. Shoppers crowd its sidewalks.

But many storeowners are worried that the Hub—as the neighborhood is known because its four streets intersect to resemble the hub of a wheel—will not remain the retail heart of the South Bronx. They’re afraid a new mall at the Bronx Terminal Market will lure customers away.

“The business community along Third Avenue feels they’re going to lose a significant amount of business,” said Mario Bodden of the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation. “It’s going to be very hard for them to compete.”

Their competition is the Gateway Center, 1.1 million square feet of retail space that opened in September at the Bronx Terminal Market. The mall features a number of brand name retailers and big-box stores like Target, Home Depot, Best Buy and BJ’s Wholesale Club.

“The smaller businesses, they don’t even realize it’s coming,” said Vincent Valentino, executive director of the Third Avenue Business Improvement District (BID), which promotes shopping in the Hub on behalf of storeowners.

“The bigger businesses know it’s going to be quite a change.”

On a Friday afternoon in September, much of Gateway’s six-story parking structure remained vacant. Rosa Pena emerged from Bed Bath & Beyond carrying several shopping bags. She’d taken the subway here, her third trip to the mall since its first stores opened in the spring.

“It’s the best thing they could do for the Bronx,” Pena said. “This is very convenient for me. Everything is kind of here.”

Pena, who lives on E. 198th Street, said she still goes to her local stores for small items, but she likes the option of having the mall nearby. If she needs paper towels, it just makes more sense to go to the new BJ’s and buy them in bulk, she said.

While several of the stores at the Gateway have been operating for months, Valentino believes it’s still too early to tell what the full impact of the new mall will be. But he predicts that many business owners, already reeling from the effects of the recession, might not survive.

A few local shops have already closed their doors this year, and several are asking their landlords to lower their rent.

“You can’t handle both of them at the same time,” Valentino said. “You can handle the recession, but not with a major shopping center opening up.”

Valentino, a retired NYPD officer, recalled working in the neighborhood during the early 1970s when many of the shops along Third Avenue stood vacant. He sees a thriving commercial street as a safeguard against the return of bad times for the entire neighborhood. The absence of a business and retail community makes the neighborhood more vulnerable to crime and drugs, he said.

In an attempt to keep residents shopping locally, the BID is petitioning Community Board 1’s Land Use Committee, asking for its support for a plan to build a parking lot on vacant land between Westchester, Brook and Bergen Avenues. Parking would be free.

Many business owners here think free parking is the key to competing with the Gateway Center, where parking costs $2.40 an hour. They also intend to launch a marketing campaign that emphasizes their low prices and the personalized experience of shopping with community stores.

“We’re proactively trying to go after this,” said Mario DeGiorgio, who runs Young Land Kiddie Shop, a children’s clothing store on Third Avenue. While he’s worried about the impact the Gateway will have, he’s hopeful his customers will remain loyal.

“Businesses like mine have been here for 50 years or better,” he said. “We don’t just have customers—they know us on a first name basis, and we know them.”

But supporters of the Gateway see the shopping center as a means to rejuvenate the borough. Most of the buildings of the Bronx Terminal Market were in a state of disrepair before the Related Companies took over to develop the shopping center.

The rebuilt site will “contribute to the resurgence of the Bronx and the revitalization of the immediate neighborhood,” Gateway’s website boasts.

The Gateway Fast Track Unit, in charge of job referrals, has held a number of job fairs for the new stores. Omarro Benjamin, Business Development Officer at the Bronx Terminal Market, insists that most of those jobs went to local residents.

BJ’s Wholesale Club filled 250 new jobs, 150 of which went to Bronx residents, according to Benjamin. Numbers were similar for Target and Best Buy.

“Residents are eager in getting opportunities for employment,” Benjamin said, adding that the turnout for job fairs was overwhelming.

“That’s great,” Valentino countered. “But what about the people that are losing their jobs here when the stores close?”

A version of this article appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the Mott Haven Herald.

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Mott Haven merchants are singing the blues

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by editor.

By Carla Candia
Carla.candia@journalism.cuny.edu

Rosemary Ortiz was her own customer, the only customer on a recent morning at Genesis, the beauty salon she opened 12 years ago on East 138 Street in Mott Haven. With no other patrons to take care of, one of Ortiz’s employees was giving her boss a pedicure.

“I have lost 50 percent of my clients. It’s hard to pay the rent on time,” Ortiz said. (more…)

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Manhattan nonprofit looks to bring jobs to Mott Haven

Posted on 13. Aug, 2009 by Jeanmarie Evelly.

Jeanmarie Evelly
jeanmarie.evelly@motthavenherald.com

A nonprofit with its roots in Manhattan and branches throughout the city has set its sights on the South Bronx, with hopes of bringing jobs to the neighborhood.

Fedcap, which creates jobs and trains people who have difficulty finding work to fill those positions, plans to expand its services locally. The organization held a “listening session,” at the Mott Haven Branch Library on July 28th to get feedback from residents about the community’s needs.

Residents and representatives from neighborhood groups gathered to ask questions and fill out surveys, in the first of several forums the group plans to hold over the next year to help locals overcome barriers to employment.

Wworking mothers’ need for childcare, transportation to and from work, the lack of job opportunities for high school students and young adults, and the need for more computer-training programs were among the concerns residents raised.

“We know that it’s not as simple as ‘bring the jobs in,’” said Christine McMahon, chief executive officer for Fedcap. “We want to gauge the barriers that exist to long-term economic independence.”

Fedcap created over a thousand jobs last year, according to McMahon, a number she said the organization hopes to double in the next five years. The group uses state and federal contracts to provide manufacturing, custodial and mailroom jobs, while also offeringtraining to help applicants land and keep work.

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo supported the nonprofit’s push for opportunities in the South Bronx.

“This is something that I think is going to be important for the community,” Arroyo said. “We’ll work together to connect as many of the dots as possible, to create as many opportunities as possible, so the people that I represent will have good jobs that allow them to support their families.”

Originally founded in 1935 as an employment resource for disabled workers, Fedcap has expanded its reach to serve communities around the city where jobs are scarce.

The Bronx has the highest unemployment rate in New York City—peaking at 11.7 percent in June, according to the Department of Labor.

“Each time we asked, where is the greatest need? We were consistently pointed here,” McMahon said.

Mott Haven resident Joyce Austin said she hopes Fedcap will meet its goals. “The neighborhood needs it,” she said. “In fact, the whole Bronx needs it. But if they can start with just one neighborhood, that’s great.”

Fedcap plans to hold more information sessions in the coming months, with dates and locations to be announced.

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