Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams yesterday listened to concerns from Brownsville residents and community activists while a tenant association president led Adams around the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA)Marcus Garvey Houses to address poor conditions and a lack of opportunity for Brownsville youth.
Tenant Association president Jerome Bolden, alongside Marcus Garvey Houses tenants, showed the borough president the conditions of the playground and Marcus Garvey Park Village Community Center while discussing the problems that make life harder for tenants and limit opportunities for Brownsville youth.
Bolden’s passion and devotion resonated with the borough president, who has worked with Bolden and his organization before, but this meeting comes at a critical time when the neighborhood’s problems also include poor relations with law enforcement that escalated last July when teens dumped water on two police officers.
Bolden showed Adams how Marcus Garvey Houses needed everything from a completely repaved basketball court to basic upkeep of the residential buildings. He said that these improvements could produce more recreational activities for youths and keep them out of trouble, but this goal is hard to achieve when he couldn’t even get NYCHA to fix the air conditioning in the community center over the summer.
“That money they put towards scaffolding and NYCHA development, if they put some of that money back into the community, it would be a different look and it would probably be a different type of energy going on in these inner cities and in these developments that NYCHA is running,” Bolden said while sporting a pair of dark sunglasses on a shaded and breezy late afternoon in the housing complex’s outdoor area. Some residents played basketball while the borough president walked through on his tour.
The renewed focus on these problems follows a highly publicized video of that July incident when the young men poured water on police officers. After this incident and others like it, some law enforcement sources said a lack of consequences created an environment for this behavior to flourish and go unpunished. One source told the New York Post at the time that “There’s total anarchy out here. This is very sad.”
Bolden has had his own experiences with law enforcement and was arrested multiple times. He spent a few years behind bars for stealing food. He talked about how he was a growing boy who lived in a household with a lock on the refrigerator, and he lacked opportunities. He has more opportunities now but still spends a lot of his time working to improve the lives of at-risk youth in Brownsville.
The borough president’s visit to Marcus Garvey Houses comes as NYCHA continues to provide inadequate services to some of the tenants in the buildings it oversees.
A recent NY1 investigation found that many elevators at NYCHA properties do not work and have not been fixed, stranding elderly and disabled tenants. Tenants had to climb the stairs on hot summer days, and some properties in recent winters went days without working heat. The city comptroller found that 19 roofs were deficient in ways that made mold possible. The housing authority serves over half a million New Yorkers.
Adams took time for reflection at a memorial devoted to Rakeem Edwards, a 31-year-old Queens resident who was shot dead last August while visiting his mom at Marcus Garvey Houses. The display and accompanying wall graffiti serve as a haunting reminder of the grim reality the youth in Brownsville face and the heartbreak it causes in the neighborhood.
After a community center worker gave everyone a tour, the borough president said that his office has “really been zooming in on NYCHA” and has been working with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to improve conditions.
Adams also reminded everyone that residents of NYCHA properties like Marcus Garvey Houses pay rent just like everyone else, with all of these citywide residents making up almost 8% of the city’s rental apartments.“These tenants are not here for free,” Adams said.
There were no concrete solutions that came out of the discussions and tour, but Bolden said the neighborhood needs the help of local elected officials who should reach out to people like him. “We need your help,” Bolden said.
He added that they should visit the neighborhood so they can better understand the problems and figure out how to work with the community to create solutions. He wants them to “come to the ground floor” where they can find people like him who want to improve the community.
