The Providence House site is now an empty lot after the city demolished the abandoned building previously there. Photo: Melissa Smith

Reported on June 12, 2010

Rebecca D. Groom, 47, has never missed curfew at Providence House.  She follows the rules, as she has for the past 17 years in prison.

“There is no room for error in my life,” she said.

Groom lives in Providence House’s re-entry facility and is running through a gauntlet of programs to get back on her feet after spending most of her adult life behind bars. The Sisters of St. Joseph want to build a 26-unit permanent housing residence in a lot less than a block away from Groom’s temporary home at 329 Lincoln Road in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Groom is a candidate to live there. She would rent a 300-square-foot efficiency apartment along with 19 other graduates of Providence House’s transitional facilities – that is if the development moves forward.

Residents of the apartments and houses surrounding 329 Lincoln Road attended a Community Board 9 Brooklyn meeting on May 25, primed to speak out against the sisters’ proposal.  Barring a handful of supporters, whose pleas for community acceptance seemed to fall on deaf ears, one by one another resident stood and delivered a sharp declamation of the project.

Some spoke against the developers’ request for a zoning exemption permitting the building to stand two floors higher than its neighbors – thus ruining the feel of the block, they said.  Others felt that there is already a high concentration of supportive housing facilities in the area.

“I don’t know the love affair that Providence House has with District 9,” said resident Lisa Isaac.

Executive director of Providence House, Sister Janet Kinney, said that there are currently no city-funded supportive housing projects in CB 9.

“I am aware of only two other supportive housing projects which are administered by the state – one has been in existence 12 years, the other project, seven years,” she said.

Lydia François, 50, admitted to simply not wanting ex-convicts on her block.

“I work very hard – three jobs a day for me to live where I am now.”  François turned the tables on Providence House supporters and shouted, “Tell me you will take them to where you’re living.”

In 2005, Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg passed an initiative to help organizations acquire, build, or renovate 9,000 more supportive housing units, from 2006 to 2016.  Cynthia Stewart of the Supportive Housing Network of New York said that the housing unit yield, city-wide, has been alarmingly below target numbers and cited community opposition as the primary cause.

“There have always been concerns, the same concerns and [the projects] get extremely delayed,” she said.  “But there has never been a community that regrets it when it’s up and running.”

In accordance with land review procedures, community board approval is not a requirement but is a major stakeholder in the final decision to approve the sisters’ plan.

The Sisters of St. Joseph already run six Providence House centers throughout Brooklyn, where formerly incarcerated women, who have wrestled with mental or substance abuse, are given temporary or permanent housing and access to resources.

Sister Kinney tried to reassure the crowd at CB 9 meeting by citing Providence Houses’ recidivism rate of less than 3 percent and by referring to a recent report by the New York University Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy that dispelled the notion that supportive housing decreases surrounding property values. According to the report, property values only declined when supportive housing first opens but then showed steady growth.

The audience’s concerns were not assuaged.  Joanne Newbold, 33, said her recently retired mother will not be able to pay her mortgage if she cannot draw in rental income.

“When you have facilities like permanent housing in your community, people shy away,” she said.

Following a string of fiery opponents, Crystal P. Felder, 49, a 20-year resident, demanded compassion. “I was a drug addict for many years,” she said.  “Someone opened their door to me, and they didn’t think I was going to kill their kids.  You can open your doors to them.”

Groom shared a similar sentiment. “I’m not trying to disrupt anyone’s life. I’m trying to live and all I need is a chance.”

Father Juan Gonzalez, S.M., pastor of the St. Francis of Assisi-St. Blaise Parish – neighboring Providence House’s transitional facility – with Sister Janet Kinney circulated a petition collecting more than 400 signatures from residents in favor of the development. Meanwhile, Newbold and other neighbors are urging Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz to do something, and he recently released a statement about the plan recommending several major modifications to it.

Updated on August 28, 2010