Norwood News, in partnership with WFUV radio and BronxNet Television, presents a five-part series on national issues affecting voters during the 2020 presidential election, seen through the local lens of Bronx neighborhood communities. Part five looks at housing and education.

 

It’s no secret that the Bronx has challenges, that its richer neighbors to the North and South do not. It ranks last among New York counties in terms of health outcomes, has some of the poorest school districts, and some of the highest air pollution rates, but it also has people who care fiercely about it, people who want to see their fellow Bronxites succeed, despite the disadvantages and stereotypes that beset the borough.

 

Over the past five weeks, Bronx Connections has talked with the individuals, city officials and non-profits who are working across the Bronx every day to improve their own communities. They’re working at the local level to solve many of the issues being talked about at a national level.

 

Two of the major issues that affect Bronx low-income communities are housing and education. Both presidential candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, have proposed strategies to deal with these issues, and to increase upward mobility. Trump says school choice and voucher programs are the solution, while Biden’s plan focuses on economic stimulus for small, minority-owned businesses to help them through the pandemic, as well as investment in housing.

 

 

“Removing the barriers for Black and brown entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses is only one of many things we have to do, to close the racial wealth gap in this nation,” said Biden during a recent campaign speech. “Expanding Black and brown home ownership is another. Today, in American cities there are number[s] where about 75 percent of white Americans own their homes. Only 25 percent of Black and brown citizens own their homes.”

 

Generational wealth accumulation in the Bronx is not easy. The borough is at a severe disadvantage due to a history of red-lining, and now, amid the ongoing economic crisis, predatory lending, a point acknowledged by Jumelia Abrahamson and Jacob Udell from the University Neighborhood Housing Project.

Redlining is the practice of refusing a loan or insurance to someone because they live in an area deemed to be a financial risk. Since many Black and brown communities live in low-income neighborhoods, it means banks are reluctant to provide them with mortgages, compounding the problem of systemic racism. Even JP Morgan has acknowledged that obtaining a mortgage if you are a Black or brown prospective homeowner is not straight-forward. The group recently pledged $30 billion to fix systemic racism as it pertains to the mortgage application process.

 

Meanwhile, predatory lending is any lending practice that imposes unfair or abusive loan terms on a borrower. It is also any practice that convinces a borrower to accept unfair terms through deceptive, coercive, exploitative or unscrupulous actions for a loan that a borrower doesn’t need, doesn’t want or can’t afford. Low-income communities of color are frequently the target of predatory lenders, knowing that they are already at a disadvantage because regular banks won’t lend to them, and so the cycle of poverty continues. This also ties in with the problem of poor levels of education in these same low-income neighborhoods.

 

Abrahamson and Udell stressed that it’s not impossible to address this challenge head on. Indeed, Udell said his organization’s goal is to help people overcome these pre-existing disadvantages. UNHP offer a number of programs, including help filling out NYC housing lottery forms, and financial literacy classes.

 

“[It’s about] helping people have the tools, the products and access and information to be able to save, and prepare for financial crisis,” said Udell. “It’s not a coincidence that all of our work has housing at its root. I think that comes out of an insight organizationally that housing stability and housing affordability is at the core of all the other things that we want.”

One method of addressing the issue is the establishment of Co-Ops and Community Resource Trusts. According to a January 2019 academic paper entitled, “Mapping for Community-Driven Neighborhood Planning: The Case of the South Bronx Land and Community Resource Trust,” written by Monica Flores Castillo, Stephan Petryczka, Joyce Choi-Li, Karlo Ludwig and Yixin Li, the South Bronx neighborhood has historically been oppressed, and left behind by urban planning policies that deliberately created social exclusion in the area.

 

For example, We Stay/Nos Quedamos, a community development organization located in the area, is actively seeking to establish a Community Land Trust, a mechanism designed to provide homeownership affordability to low-income households.

 

Meanwhile, in the context of the ongoing fight for racial and economic equality, as it pertains to education, the president says vouchers and school choice are the solution. “Frankly, school choice is the civil rights statement of the year, of the decade, and probably beyond,” he said. “All children have to have access to quality education. A child’s zip code in America should never determine their future.”

 

Roseanna Gulisano is the librarian at one of the poorest schools in New York City – PS 11 Highbridge. She’s had to fight for every book and resource her students have. She even has a donation program for coats and shoes to make sure all of her students have their basic needs met, and can focus on learning. She says her school needs more resources.

 

 

“We have to beg, borrow and steal for our resources. Teachers are reaching in their own pockets,” said Gulisano. “We have children that are reusing the papers, the pencils, the notebooks over and over again. I can’t even do that myself, let alone expecting a child to pay attention, and yet they do.”

 

Of course, the coronavirus has just exacerbated the existing inequalities prevalent in the public school system. Social distancing is made harder in smaller schools with less resources, less ipads, and poor internet connectivity. Such issues have caused teachers and activists alike to rally across the Bronx to bring attention to them.

 

Meanwhile, Gulisano has also been helping her students’ families get groceries, and other necessities throughout the pandemic and she’s not planning to stop anytime soon.

 

It’s clear that Americans on both sides of the aisle have already cast their votes in the presidential and general elections. Now, the nation is simply waiting for the final results. Climate change, criminal and social justice, health, immigration, housing and education: they all have elements of racial and economic inequality attached to them. Whoever is sworn in as president on Jan. 20, the issues discussed in this series will not be new to them, and the activists, officials and individuals who are passionate about the borough of the Bronx will continue to work through them.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed additional reporting to this story.