Categories: New York City, Member News, Openings
10.03.2013
Community Access opens 64-unit residence in the Bronx
Forty staff, partners and tenants gathered on October 2 for the official grand opening of Vyse Avenue Apartments, the latest Community Access supportive housing residence in the Crotona Park section of the Bronx. The building provides homes to 64 individuals with psychiatric disabilities and a history of homelessness.
The festivities were casual and family-like, with Community Access CEO Steve Coe welcoming the organization’s Board Member Ramesh Shah to the podium. Mr. Shah thanked all the partners who made the residence possible, including the community that welcomed the building – and its tenants – into the neighborhood. Mr. Coe followed up these remarks by noting that Vyse Avenue had been the easiest of the organization’s dozen permanent supportive housing buildings to site.
“We were told to meet with Bronx Desperadoes and it turned out the Executive Director’s mother had been involved with the mental health system, so he couldn’t have been more welcoming,” Mr. Coe said.
Steve then showed a short film that the National Equity Fund (NEF) and TD Bank had made about Vyse Avenue. The video, which you can watch below, features building tenant Katherine Brown.
NEF’s Tony Lyons then spoke, calling Community Access one of NEF’s favorite partners in New York City. Moira Tashjian, Director of Housing Development and Support at the NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH), praised the building’s beauty and dignity, giving shout-outs to OMH’s NYC staff, Caren Abate and Budd Isaacson, who were also in attendance.
Mr. Coe closed out the brief ceremony with thanks to his wife, Maggi Knox (“who I always forget to thank”) and the rest of the development team: SLCE Architects, Mega Contracting, Joe Biber, Sally Greene and Hedwig O’Hara of the Lawyers Alliance for New York.
Vyse Avenue Apartments was developed with funding from OMH and the NYS Housing Finance Agency. Tax credits were syndicated by NEF with TD Bank as the investor. OMH funds the on-site services.
Congratulations to Community Access and the tenants at Vyse Ave on this new residence! For more photos from the event, visit the Network's Facebook page.