Currents News Staff
The Catholic Church is dealing with New York City’s affordable housing crisis.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan and other Catholic leaders are working on new ways to transform church properties into living spaces for low income families.
“For us in the Church, this is a no-brainer. It’s a duty,” said Dolan.
At least six church properties are being converted into low-income and affordable housing within the Bronx and Manhattan.
The initiative will create nearly two-thousand units over the next decade. That doubles the two-thousand units developed over the last forty years.
Monsignor Kevin Sullivan heads Catholic Charities in the New York Archdiocese and he said “in this day in age, when housing is such a challenge, when affordability is such a challenge, that the church is doing this as an affirmation of our continued reaching out.”
At Saint Augustine Terrace, a third of the new units will be set aside for adults with mental illnesses, where they’ll receive services from Catholic Charities.
The city’s First Lady, Chirlane McCray, stressed the importance of treating mental illness saying, “for New Yorkers living with serious mental illness it means stability and the freedom that comes with living independently, surrounded by the support they need to stay healthy.”
Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens is also hard at work setting up affordable housing.
Since 1975, more than four-thousand units, with supportive services, have been developed through the “progress of peoples” corporation.
Anyone interested must apply in writing to:
CCPOP Management
191 Joralemon Street, 8th floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201