Norwood News

Residents of a large apartment building complex on the north side of Mosholu Parkway were confused and upset when their mail stopped being delivered in late January.

“I thought it might just be me,” said Henry Perry, a substitute teacher and longtime resident of 15-19 West Mosholu Parkway North, as well as tenant association president. “But as soon as I talked to the mail carrier, I realized this was a bigger issue.”

Just over two years earlier, half of Perry’s building was turned into temporary housing for homeless families. The conversion has not been completely smooth, especially for permanent residents who were suddenly forced to live side-by-side with vagabond families and other temporary tenants.

The mail stoppage, which has since been resolved, is another recent example of the logistical problems that crop up at apartment buildings where transitional and permanent residents mesh. Perry and other permanent residents at 15-19 have endured problems with noise, cleanliness and safety, but the mail problem was probably the most maddening to date.

Perry said that it wasn’t until Feb. 7, nine days after mail stopped, that a notification was posted on his mailbox informing him that, from now on, residents needed to pick up their mail at the Williamsbridge Post Office, a mile and a half away.

Permanent residents, including Perry, believed the building’s transitional tenants, who had increased in number over the past two years, were somehow to blame. (Landlords at what Department of Homeless Services calls its “cluster sites” receive more from the city than they would from renting out to regular tenants.)

When the complex first started housing homeless families in October 2008, about half of the units were transitional. Now, “About 90% of the residents at 15, 17, & 19 West Mosholu Parkway North are from shelters while the other 10% are tenants who permanently live in one of the 3 buildings,” United States Postal Service spokesperson Darleen Reid said in an e-mail.

When building management told Perry they didn’t see a problem with residents trekking over to the Williamsbridge branch, Perry reached out to Councilman Oliver Koppell’s office as well as Community Board 7.

According to a press release, Koppell’s office was told “the post office does not deliver mail to transitional homeless shelters because of the impermanence of the residents.” (Reid confirmed that USPS does not automatically deliver mail to transitional housing.)

A member of Koppell’s staff contacted the local post office to explain that permanent residents still lived in the Mosholu building and were entitled to regular mail delivery.On Feb. 9, according to Board 7 District Manager Fernando Tirado, the Department of Homeless Services met with the local post office branch manager. The Department of Homeless Services said impermanent residents were not to blame. Tirado said the post office, which would not specifically comment about the Mosholu Parkway case to the Norwood News, told DHS the problem had to do with the building’s confusing address, which is two numbers, 15-19, separated by a dash, and is similar to others in the area.

Much of the mail, DHS told Tirado, was addressed to “1519 Mosholu Parkway,” which doesn’t exist.

In any case, tenants suffered.

“I work nights so I sleep during the day, which means I can only go down to the main post office once a week,” resident Rose Joseph said.
Others were physically unable to pick up their mail at the main post office. “I just had open heart surgery and I’m a diabetic,” said James Srikishu. “I’m in bad shape, I can’t walk down there.”

On Feb. 10, regular mail delivery resumed.

While residents are glad to be receiving their mail again, they remain angered by the inconvenience.

Most feel the fact that the building is a cluster site definitely played a role in the mail cutoff. Residents at 15-19 did not have any mail problems until this January, despite their confusing address. Since the building has been part shelter, the number of tenants who pass through the building has increased (Perry said homeless tenants were passing through more quickly than they were previously), which means there has been a greater opportunity for error or confusion with the address.

DHS was reluctant to speak about its cluster site program, but eventually, spokesperson Heather Janik responded to questions via e-mail. She said the city operates six cluster sites in the Bronx and seven in Brooklyn. Those two boroughs, she said, have the highest percentage of homeless applicants with children — 37 percent from the Bronx and 29 percent from Brooklyn.

Janik said no other cluster sites were experiencing mail delivery problems. In March, however, AM NewYork ran an article exposing the dismal building conditions at another cluster site in the Bronx.

When asked if DHS believed cluster sites were a long-term solution to housing the city’s homeless, Janik wrote, “Shelter is a temporary, emergency housing option for those in crisis.”

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.