LIKE A BIG ‘FAMILY’
Bronx development offers haven, opportunities for veterans and LGBTQ youth
When retired Air Force Capt. Karen Wharton returned to New York in 2014 after four years at a Texas air base, she not only was jobless — she was also homeless, as her Coney Island home was wrecked by Hurricane Sandy.
So she crashed on her brother’s couch, and asked the Department of Veterans Affairs for help “to get back on my feet,” she said.
Trouble was, she still owned her Coney Island property, even though it was uninhabitable.
“They said because I had a home, technically, I couldn’t get any assistance from them — including housing,” she said.
After a meeting at the VA in the Bronx one day, Wharton, 53, happened upon a building with a mural portraying members of the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines.
Curious, she stepped inside and learned the building was supportive housing for vets run by a nonprofit called the Jericho Project.
“They told me to come back in the morning and ask (for) the director, which I did,” Wharton told the Daily News. “That’s how I got in.”
After getting an apartment at the Jericho Project building on Kingsbridge Terrace and Kingsbridge Road, Wharton got help polishing her resume and landed a job at the VA in the Bronx focused on disaster prep.
She’s since left that job to pursue a masters in international relations at Webster University and says she’s able
to do so because of Jericho House’s ongoing support.
She walked into the building “with my head down,” she remembers. “Now I hold my head up high,” said Wharton, who came to the U.S. from Trinidad at age 19 and has since become a citizen.
For veterans like Wharton at risk of winding up on the streets — as well as vulnerable LGBTQ youth — a new development in the Bronx offers stable, affordable housing, and help getting work, schooling and health care.
Walton House, a $35.6 million project that will provide 89 “supportive housing” apartments like the one where Wharton found a home, is to officially open Tuesday.
Fifty-six apartments will be for veterans and 33 for young adults, 40% of whom describe themselves as LGBTQ, city officials said.
The University Heights project, located on Walton Ave. at E. Burnside Ave., is being developed by the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Jericho Project and affordable housing developer B&B Urban.
“This administration has made a significant commitment to create more supportive housing, one of the most effective solutions to help individuals struggling with homelessness get back on solid ground,” HPD Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer said in a statement.
“Walton House is the first supportive housing project to be completed under the Mayor’s 15/15 Initiative to build 15,000 units of supportive housing over 15 years and provides 89 brave veterans and LGBTQ young adults with safe and secure permanent homes to build a foundation for the future.”
Maria Luisa Martins is another resident of supportive housing who told The News how its services — like the ones Walton House is expected to provide — got her life back on track.
Raised in a Catholic household, Martins said that when she came out at age 16, her relationship with her mother deteriorated.
When Martin was 18, her mom found out that she had left Queensboro Community College and started working. Martin’s mother told her she couldn’t stay unless she was taking courses.
Martins left home and stayed with her partner for a while. But relationship problems drove her to the Ali Forney Center, a nonprofit that provides housing to LGBT youth.
After several years, Martins, now 23, qualified for an apartment at a supportive housing development in the Bronx.
“It’s like a family,” she said.