Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams today met with former City Councilman and current CEO of the Met Council for Jewish Poverty David Greenfield along with representatives from Brooklyn houses of worship to provide $3 million in his capital funding budget as part of Adams’ Faith-Based Property Development Initiative.
The initiative partners with local parishes and faith-based institutions to advance public and affordable housing. The funding provides financial assistance in both running programs and acquiring developmental rights, which these groups would otherwise not be able to get.
“We have a body of people in this city that I believe are often overlooked and that is various faith-based institutions,” said Adams. “Everyday stopping at their churches, their synagogue, the Imams of our city, the Sikh temples, people come in there broke, and the real indicators of how well we are doing as a city, the question has been with partnering with our faith-based institutions, and we have done that in borough hall.”
Adams made the announcement at Abraham’s House I, one of the two affordable housing buildings for both the formerly homeless and elderly that the MET Council manages in Seagate.
As the country’s largest Jewish community organization providing help to the homeless and elderly, the MET Council aims to provide “affordable housing for low-income seniors.” Currently they own two buildings with affordable housing with a total of 116 units for independent seniors over 55.
Greenfield stressed the importance of leadership as he thanked Adams for his donations towards preserving affordable housing.
“We have to give a thanks to everyone who makes a difference, its glamorous to open up something new and shiny it takes leadership to say let us preserve affordable housing, let us preserve the dignity that people have especially the elderly in Brooklyn who are so often ignored and that is the leadership today that our borough president has exhibited,” said Greenfield.
Adams $3 million allocation is going towards capital budget investments and maintenance for more than 500 new and existing affordable housing apartments throughout Brooklyn for the 2019 fiscal year, bringing him up to a total of $20 million in capital allocations through his office since 2014.
Before stepping to the podium, Adams also handed over a $500,000 check to Greenfield who represented the Met Council, along with Interest Coordinator Peter Osemobor, who represented Hanson Place Church Support Corporation, and Douglas DeVerges the associate project manager for Catholic Charities who received the largest check for $526,000.
“Far too often people who are not on the ground carrying out the actions are making the decisions,” said Adams. “I want to hear from those who are actually doing the day-to-day- ensuring that people have housing new housing, and the retention of affordable housing.”
