Open Thread Wednesday

My first paragraph was asking for clarification on the building on Sands, which you provided (thanks! to be certain, I wasn’t calling that building a housing project, I was asking if it was one). Supportive Housing, the term you used, sounds beneficial, perhaps because of its targeted specificity and being fully equipped to meet its goals. The way you describe this building it sounds like a really, really good thing. I hope that pans out.

The other thing I did in my last comment was vent about actual housing projects. Probably wasn’t the right place or time to do that, but I guess it has been weighing on my mind these last several years, especially as a parent who is pained to see how homogeneous our schools are. I’m also a teacher, by the way. We agree the problem is very serious.

My idea to provide rent subsidies or vouchers to poor families instead of housing them all together in a single area deals only with the matter of long-term shelter and the location of that shelter. We can have other conversations about mental health and other services that the poor or homeless may need, but when I said “lifestyle modeling” I was really referring to raising kids in safe areas, with (socially) healthier lifestyles such as those enjoyed by their would-be neighbors and classmates. This is in no way meant to demonize the lifestyles of the poor—not only do many of them suffer from the effects of stress caused by poverty (and, as is typically the case, racism) but studies show that this stress is actually passed on genetically, and can effect other patterns of behavior. My point is that concentrating the poor in housing ghettoizes that housing, so as a result housing projects seem like a huge misstep to me, almost transparently designed to create wealth for a few and keep it away from the rest.

Push the button for the floor, walk to the back and leave it up to fate.

There’s a crew out working on it now. It appears to be an independent contractor, not a city vehicle.

The house in front of it is a Brooklyn Law School dorm (and not the most attentive of neighbors, as anyone who has had to step over their often dirty sidewalks knows).

“Raised by wolves, Improperly”
Being my DNA is mostly Wolf, I take offense to that remark.
Actually, it’s a bad analogy. Wolves are pack beings, they support each other. A wolf would likely hold the door open for a straggler. Unlike “humans” who can be entirely self-centered, sociopaths.
WOOF

“Soul Search?” The Sands Street building is not going to be some half-way house for pedophiles, convicts or former drug addicts run by fly by night do-gooders without a proven track record. The building is going to be owned and run by Breaking Ground and will have on-site support for tenants. https://breakingground.org/
What is there to soul search about?

And YES, PS8 DOES need to be integrated as do all our public schools. One of the only ways to do it is through equitable housing since re-zoning made 8 less diverse. The other problem is that despite the re-zoning, Dumbo parents aren’t willing to send their kids to 307 because it’s “across the street from the projects” yet they were willing to buy their multi-million dollar apartments near the projects. In my opinion 8 would benefit by having the Sands Street building in its zone. It would require another re-zoning process which the DOE is not likely to engage at this time. The OTHER way to integrate PS8 and 307 is to do an admissions lottery that randomly assigns kids between each school zone regardless of their address. OR-do early childhood like Pre-K, K
at 307 and split the elementary grades between the two schools. That would have to be voted on by the PEP and like the re-zoning would take lots of community engagement. Again, the DOE is not likely to engage in that process now because of the recent rezoning and PS8/MS8 split. BUT like D15 parents in D13 can work with electeds to make new policy. Whether or not our families are willing to do that is another story.

2 quick points – besides some headscratching about “D15 parents in D13″ – talking to yourself is more than a little problematic on a blog….

a) I’m sure you’ve never lived anywhere near “transitional housing.” Your confidence that it’s no biggie would be fortifying if it wasn’t both naive, baseless and off-base. (jmho, of course)
b) You bear out what I said & meant by “cure worse than disease.” Again, I’ll guess you do not have any kids currently at PS8. School segregation IS intractable and deplorable, but all your proposed lottery would do would be to – maybe – get someone to found a new “academy” in the Heights or Dumbo. Parents not able to pay freight at roughly $60K p.a. and/or REALLY liberal would either leave NYC or gulp and accept a much diminished (any identifiable way beyond “that’s what Jesus would do”) quality of ed for their kids…. And THEN you’d get protests from some parents of color that their kids felt unwelcome on Hicks St. and that their heritage was not sufficiently valued. My takeaway – Playing God is not for sissies!