Former Cluster Site Housing

Overview

Units: 412

Residents: 50% formerly experiencing homelessness

Partners: Neighborhood Restore, NYC HPD, NYC HRA

Settlement Housing was selected by the City in 2019 to assume responsibility for four buildings in the Bronx that were being used as temporary ‘cluster sites’ for homeless families.

These properties were neglected and costing the City substantial fees to be used as transitional housing, but without the services needed to help households secure permanent housing. The City turned to organizations like ours with experience as housing owners, developers and service providers to help households experiencing homelessness assume management, ownership and service provision so that the buildings could be rehabilitated, and families could become leaseholders.

Buildings on the Grand Concourse, E. 187th Street, and E. 182nd Street were transferred to Settlement Housing through a partnership with interim owner, Neighborhood Restore, while we assumed management and provided social services to residents who were transitioning to permanent housing in the buildings. We worked through 2020 to stabilize these properties, which have major repair issues, and support the tenants, while planning for the full rehabilitation of the buildings in 2022.

After this work proved successful, we were selected by the City to take over another four ‘cluster site’ buildings in the Bronx. Three more buildings near our New Settlement Apartments, and another in the Bronx, will become part of our portfolio and supported by our expanded Resident Engagement team. Between these two rounds of ‘cluster site’ acquisitions, we will be rehabilitating and upgrading eight buildings and supporting 230 households in their transition from homelessness to permanent housing.

This project will bring the total number of permanently affordable properties that we own at New Settlement to 23 and expand our footprint nearby the Fordham Heights community where we are now developing new housing with NYCHA. The preservation and expansion of affordable housing, while reducing homelessness, meets several of our goals as a mission-driven nonprofit housing developer.