Capital City Rescue Mission’s New Home for Women in Final Phase of Construction *

Tiffany Thomason | Albany, NY

The Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany’s South End is in the final phase of renovating a formerly vacant 45,000 square-foot-building that will offer housing and services for women in the Mission’s New Faith program.

Many of the women in the New Faith program were formerly homeless. Some will have their children with them in the newly renovated building. The three-year project is expected to be completed in early fall 2020.

The new building will mean that “more women will be able to participate in the program, and so the impact is going to spread because the women tell other women and they want to come in, and this way we can accommodate them,” said Susan Jones, the Rescue Mission’s director of development.

The newest addition to the “campus,” which is how Rescue Mission staff refer to the two-square-block area of the South End where the Rescue Mission’s eight buildings are located, is at 127 Arch St. in downtown Albany’s Mansion Neighborhood. The four-story building will hold 14 furnished apartments, program offices, teaching spaces, communal kitchens, an exercise room, salon, laundry services and a rooftop garden patio.

Each apartment can be occupied either by a woman and her child, or two women. The apartments will have heated floors, and some will have skylights. Women can also grow vegetables and flowers in the planters located on the garden patio connected to the building.

The crew renovating the New Faith building consists of men enrolled in programs at the Mission; volunteers; and private contractors such as electricians, plumbers, and elevator technicians. The renovation project enables men at the Mission an opportunity to work and receive an income of minimum wage or higher.

“We’re using it as a place where men who came from addiction now have paid jobs with us, and can work at a pace that they can do,” said Perry Jones, the Rescue Mission’s executive director and pastor.

Women in this program have been spread through four smaller buildings. Those four buildings will be transformed into additional transitional housing for women. This means that the Mission can now house more women for all of its programs, not just the New Faith Program. Having the Mission’s women clients under one roof helps create greater cohesion, said Executive Director Perry Jones. Transitional apartments will increase from two to eight once the New Faith women clients are in the new building.

The New Faith Program is a year-long residential addiction recovery program where women receive counseling, education and Bible study, and learn life skills such as cooking, managing finances and parenting, in a safe and supportive environment. Women who have suffered trauma, experienced a recent family breakup, are coming out of jail and are on parole are also welcome to join the program.

Renovation costs would have been upwards of $5 million or more if the Rescue Mission couldn't have used labor from its own crew, but because of savings on labor costs, the project was roughly $3 million. Funding for construction comes from donors, mostly private, including businesses, individuals, churches, civic organizations, office groups and foundations. “This was all supported by people who want to give towards us,” Perry Jones said. The Rescue Mission does not accept city, state or federal grants.

Perry Jones said the renovation process “ has been stressful but rewarding because the women will have a new facility, and they’ll be one block from a major park where they can do all kinds of things. They’ll be able to get away from wherever it is they were getting away from.”

The Rescue Mission bought the building which was constructed in 1875 for $150,000 from a private seller who originally acquired it from an auction. Jones quickly did the math in his head and estimated that a comparable building would have cost $10 million as new construction.

Pamela Howard, executive director of the Historic Albany Foundation, said the renovation of a vacant building does not just save that structure; it also has a positive effect on the surrounding community.

“We at the Historic Albany Foundation are always happy when an old building or a vacant building can find a new life.” Howard said. “The longer a building sits vacant, the better chance that it is going to fall into disrepair and eventually become a demolition. If it is not cared for, that dramatically increases its chances of being torn down. There are a lot of instances where vacant buildings become hosts for squatters, especially in the colder months.”

The New Faith Program is one of three that the Rescue Mission offers to women. From December to March, the mission operates an eight-bed emergency shelter for women, which allows women to stay for up to 45 days. From there, women can join the New Faith Program. When women graduate the New Faith Program, they may join the Transitional Program where they are required to either work, go to school, or be part of a training program for one to three years while paying $100 as a form of rent. The purpose of the Transitional Program is to give the women responsibilities in preparation for independent living.

According to the U.S, Department of Housing and Urban Development, approximately 553,000 people experience homelessness in the United States, with women making up 39% of that number. The rate of women and families suffering from homelessness is increasing faster than all other groups. Families where the head of household is a single woman make up about three quarters of homeless families.

Homelessness often coincides with other serious problems. Eighty percent of homeless women with children have experienced domestic violence, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

The Rescue Mission is trying to make a difference at a local level.

Perry Jones explained that a lot of women are left outside the shelter system. “There’s just all kinds of issues in life, and so this gives them the opportunity to have a place to stay when they might not have anything. Just come and get settled, once you get here, we’re not satisfied to just see you stay here night after night, we want you to come and join one of the programs, and it’s much more reasonable and beneficial to your life,” he continued.

A woman named Beverly who works and lives at the Mission opened up about how the Capital City rescue Mission affected her life when she said, “it completely changed my outlook on life.” (The Rescue Mission never publicly identifies a client by her or his full name.) Before she came to the mission, Beverly suffered from addiction, living a “chaotic” life. “I was unfit, broken, trying to kill myself,” she said. She knew she needed a long-term program, but never thought Albany’s mission would impact her the way that it did.

Bouncing back and forth between being clean to “dirty,” Beverly was “sick and tired of living the life [she] was living.” She described how she felt by saying she was a hollow shell going from point A to point B, “just being a scavenger.”

Beverly started out in the emergency shelter program as many other women do, and then joined the New Faith Program after 30 days. Beverly credited the staff and other women at the mission as well as God for allowing her to get to where she is today.

She is now part of the LIFT, Leaders in Future Training, program working as a residential assistant while still living on the grounds of the mission. She is working on getting her GED with the help of the Learning Center and learning to drive as well.

Beverly acknowledges that if you try to move on too fast, you might fall into old habits. The long-term programs offered by the mission helped her stay on track with adequate support and reassurance that she’ll overcome any boundaries she may face.

The Capital City Rescue Mission also offers daily chapel services, medical care, educational resources with access to computer labs, clothing and household items, meals, shelter services for men and addiction recovery programs for men and women.

As stated in one of The Capital City Rescue Mission pamphlets, it prides itself on “proclaiming the life-changing gospel of Jesus Christ to the homeless and needy of the Capital region, providing for the whole person - body, mind, and spirit - to help them return to society in Christ as productive citizens.”

The Capital City Rescue Mission is located at 259 S Pearl St., Albany, NY 12202 and can be reached at (518)462-0459. Hours of operation vary across services.

* THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO BE PUBLISHED WITH THE NEW SCENE, A NONPROFIT NEWSPAPER IN ALBANY, NY, BUT DUE TO COVID-19, THE PAPER IS NO LONGER OPERATING, AND THIS ARTICLE COULD NOT BE PUBLISHED *

Is there hope for vacant buildings in the South End? *

Tiffany Thomason | Albany, NY

A drive down the streets of the South End reveals vacant buildings bearing nailed-on squares of red-painted plywood crisscrossed with a white “X” on street after street. For many residents of the South End, the sound of wood tumbling to the ground, framework crumbling, and construction equipment chipping away at neighboring properties during demolition of vacant buildings has become too familiar.

This is the result of years of neglect of vacant buildings sitting on lots without community investment.

Vacant buildings in Albany are not just a public safety issue, but deterrents to investment into the historic neighborhoods. The City of Albany has 943 vacant properties, and 120 of them are in the South End, accounting for 12.73% of the city’s total. The South End has the second highest number of vacant properties behind West Hill.

Residential buildings make up the majority of the vacant buildings in the South End – 99 out of the 120 properties in a neighborhood in the city’s southeast corner. The remaining buildings include commercial properties, community facilities such as libraries or schools, and structures at recreational areas such as swimming pools or playgrounds.

The number of vacant buildings in the City of Albany—commonly called “Red-X buildings” because of the sign the city puts on them that designates them as vacant—has remained steady in recent years, without major increases or decreases in the total number, ranging from 800-1,000, said Cara Macri, director of preservation services at the Historic Albany Foundation. But a steady number isn’t a positive sign, she said.

“Although the numbers have stayed about the same, the situation is certainly not getting better because buildings are consistently becoming vacant,” Macri said.

Buildings can become vacant for a variety of reasons. Samuel Wells, neighborhood stabilization coordinator for the City of Albany, classified these reasons into five different categories: Tax foreclosures, bank foreclosures, estate issues, bad economics of repair, and X-factor owners.

Tax Foreclosures: If taxes are not paid on a building for more than three years, Albany County has the authority to foreclose on the property and take ownership in exchange for the owed taxes. These properties are then passed to the Albany County Land Bank, which works to put the property up for sale.

Bank Foreclosures: A building may become vacant if the owner is failing to pay their mortgage and has abandoned the property. Wells referred to these as "zombie properties," when the bank is in the process of foreclosing on the property. On average, bank foreclosures take around five years to complete. Under New York State law, banks are liable and responsible for the maintenance of these properties, and anyone can file complaints on these properties with their local code enforcement or New York State's Department of Financial Services.

Estate Issues: Properties may become vacant when the owner dies without a will or a plan for the property, or when the heirs are unable or unwilling to take on such property. Local authorities are limited legally and financially in how much maintenance work they can perform for the deceased owner, creating difficulties for local code enforcement.

Bad Economics of Repair: The high cost of rehabilitation often makes it difficult for landlords and investors to see a worthwhile financial return on a property, and homeowners often spend more money on rehab than the property is worth at completion. This leads to rehabilitated, formerly vacant buildings staying vacant.

X-Factor/Struggling Owners: These are properties that become vacant because the owner does not do repairs and maintenance that would allow the buildings to be occupied.

Sometimes buildings fall into multiple categories.

Besides the padlocked door and broken or boarded-up windows, a Red-X indicates a building is vacant and could be dangerous for first responders to enter.

Once a year, the City of Albany inspects vacant buildings to determine their fate. Once a building is classified as vacant, meaning it is unoccupied, has outstanding code violations, or underwent a foreclosure, it may either be rehabilitated or demolished.

If a building is actively collapsing and causing imminent threat to the public, the city will demolish it, with a sign-off from The Albany County Land Bank and Albany County. An engineer will decide if rehabilitation is possible by inspecting the structure and hardware of the property. Often, buildings will undergo demolition if the cost to repair the building is more expensive than the building itself.

There are dangers beyond the roof caving in if a building falls into disrepair. It may have severe water damage or be at risk of catching fire, or it may be a magnet for break-ins, vandalism or other crimes, Pamela Howard , executive director of the Historic Albany Foundation, explained.

The other approach would be to rehabilitate the property. Rehabilitation calls for a team to renovate the building and eventually pass inspection for potential tenants to rent it out or new buyers. For a building to be move-in ready, it must have an active residential occupancy permit issued by the City of Albany. Macri explained that although it would be ideal to fix the building in oppose to demolishing it, rehabilitation rarely happens.

“It sounds like a very simple problem, but the unfortunate truth is that you can rehab those buildings, but who can you get to move into them?” Macri said. “Rehab isn't easy and neither is new construction. Any efforts made down there in the South End, whether it's infilling vacant lots or rehabbing older buildings, you’re putting in a considerable amount of money that without a lot of tax credits and other incentives, you’re not going to make your money back.”

The implications vacant buildings have on the community affects its residents most. Macri explained that crime, looters, and drug use follow the vacant buildings as individuals or groups of people can take advantage of the open area inside. When looters strip the buildings of their metal, wood, and other materials, it only makes it more expensive to repair, thus leading to demolition.

The image of the South End is affected by the unwanted associations made with vacant buildings, the South End Neighborhood Association President JoAnn Morton said. She explained that if the perceptions of the neighborhood changed, local investors would be more willing to dedicate time and energy to build upon what the neighborhood has to offer.

Properties in neighborhoods with a high influx of vacant buildings may lose property value as investors or new buyers might stray away from putting money into a building in an area that to some might not be an ideal neighborhood to live in.

So, what can we do to fix the problem? This is where local government comes into play.

Samuel Fein, Albany County Legislator for the South End, Historic Pastures and Mansion neighborhoods in Albany, and a candidate for the 108th District in the New York State Assembly, said that holding community leaders and banks accountable for enacting policies that help combat blight in the South End is a good place to start. Fein wants to help the community from the inside out.

“What we have to recognize is that a lot of blight that exists is because of decades of racially discriminatory housing policies both by the government and financial institutions that prevented many people, especially African Americans to have the ability to purchase homes, and that led to a lot of our communities here, like the South End, to be destabilized,” Fein said. “One thing I hear a lot from the community and staff at the Land Bank is that one of the barriers is that people still can’t get loans in communities like the South End from a bank. There are people who live across the street from a vacant building who want to purchase it and fix it up, but they can’t get a loan from the bank. We need to hold banks accountable and ensure that they are providing opportunities and loans.”

Fein believes that we have to push for policies that make it easier for the government to step in and aid individuals in obtaining a loan, when the banks fail to do so.

To help make these vacant buildings prosper, he said, residents need to have the tools to make that happen.

The Excelsior Scholarship: Is it Worth it?

Tiffany Thomason | Albany, NY

Whether or not college tuition should be free in the United States is a topic up for debate, but New York took the lead by introducing the Excelsior Scholarship, a program that grants eligible residents with free tuition for full-time study at its state universities, which includes State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY). If students choose to use this program, they must stay in-state for however long they use the scholarship, though, or will face penalties. For some, this may not matter, for others, it might.

Since inception in 2017, students at over 80 universities received the Excelsior Scholarship. The scholarship headcount of the Fall 2017 semester, the first semester this scholarship was active, consisted of 20,049 students, with a total of over $66,609,106 being allocated towards them. This eight figure number includes the Excelsior Scholarship itself, up to $2,750 per semester and $5,500 per academic year, plus any Excelsior Tuition Credit, remaining tuition expenses not covered by the Excelsior Award. Students attending college are responsible for all other costs, such as room and board or a meal plan.

To be eligible to receive the Excelsior Scholarship, applicants must have a combined federal adjusted gross income of $125,000 or less, be a resident of New York State and have resided in NYS for 12 continuous months prior to the beginning of the term, have either graduated from high school in the United States, earned a high school equivalency diploma, or passed a federally approved "Ability to Benefit" test, as defined by the Commissioner of the State Education Department, and be enrolled in at least 12 credits per term and complete at least 30 credits each year (successively), applicable toward his or her degree program through continuous study with no break in enrollment except for certain reasons that can be documented. A more in-detail list of qualifications is available through the Higher Education Services Corporation website.

Some reasons why a student would be penalized and have to pay back the award in the form of an interest-free loan include the following: moving out of state during their time enrolled in a university, moving after graduation but before staying in-state for the number of years they received the scholarship, taking less than 12 credits per term or failure to complete at least 30 credits each year, taking an unexcused break in enrollment without documentation, and changing majors resulting in additional time needed to complete the degree. If the award becomes a loan, students have a repayment term of ten years. When requested, the HESC stated that they “not possess records pertaining to students who have received Excelsior Scholarships and subsequently entered repayment.”

One undergraduate student at the University at Albany, Tyler Young, experienced first hand the process of receiving the Excelsior Scholarship, followed by many difficulties afterwards. Young’s anecdote is as follows: Young went to Onondaga Community College near his hometown before attending UAlbany to save money and build up credits that would need to be taken regardless of what college he attended. During that time, he received the Excelsior Scholarship for one semester. “Getting the aid was an incredibly frustrating process,” Young said. “I asked multiple times during the semester when I would receive aid over the phone after realizing it wouldn’t automatically be processed by the school and taken out of my tuition cost, and pretty much every time the answer was either ‘in a few weeks’ or ‘at the end of the month.’ Now a lot of that was on OCC from what I can tell, but it also shows that the state seems to have little control or oversight into how individual schools actually handle the excelsior money, which is concerning.” When Young transferred to UAlbany was when the problem of potential penalization arose. “This past summer I was billed for two semesters worth of Excelsior money that UAlbany originally checked off as having received and then later demanded from me. I was frantic, not really sure what to do. This was all because of those credits that didn’t transfer, which ended up translating to the state as not having enough credits to qualify for the Excelsior program any longer, despite the fact that had I continued to take classes as OCC I would’ve continued to receive the scholarship.” Young continued with, “ I’m still required to stay in the state for some amount of time after having accepted that one semester’s worth of aid unless I want to pay it back after graduation at which time I’ll be busy with plenty of other costs.” This goes to show the potential discrepancies as to how the scholarship is implemented into the billing of students.

The requirements of staying in-state may be a downside for some, but for others, it’s not a problem. Alexia Mikellides, a junior at the University at Albany, said, “Personally, the benefits outweigh the cons because I’m getting my tuition paid for and I plan on staying in New York City regardless, considering I was born and raised there. Technically, I will only be required to stay in-state for two years since that’s how long I received the scholarship for.” Mikellides said having tuition paid for is a big help with the cost of college as she has to also pay for rent, electricity, and groceries.

New York is the first state in the United States to offer a program like Excelsior where four-year public colleges are tuition-free. Having to stay in-state after graduation is basically a return on investment for New York State. The state invests into the student’s education, and would like to see such students work as contributing members of society while working and living here for at least the amount of time they attended school.

The scholarship can be combined with other grants and loans. Students may use the award to study abroad only if the study-abroad program is done through the SUNY or CUNY school, where the credits will count towards graduation. It does not cover foreign-exchange programs. Whether or not take advantage of the Excelsior Scholarship is up to the student’s discretion.

Trevor Dugan’s Thoughts on Being a Journalist: “I care about the truth above anything else and that’s what the people deserve.”

By Fiona Hernandez

Growing up in the hamlet of Port Jefferson Station in Long Island, Trevor Dugan was 5 years old when he was given a baseball and a glove from his father. From there on, Dugan picked up an interest in playing sports from baseball, to basketball, and cross country.

As a child, Dugan was an avid reader and writer, writing short stories and reading books such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Fahrenheit 451. With his love for sports and his passion for writing, Dugan dreamed of becoming a sports broadcaster for ESPN.

However, his high school years took him on a different path, fascinated with politics ever since the 2016 election. Dugan claims that the media today is untrustworthy when it comes to covering politics. “So much of the media today is inaccurate, biased, and it tells the opinions of others on what they think of Donald Trump,” he said. “I want to be able to let people know the truth and give honest, fair reporting because that is what the news is all about.”

But Dugan wouldn’t have been able to have the confidence and motivation to follow his dreams if it weren’t for his father. “He pushes me to be better than others and to do the best that I can,” Dugan said. His father has encouraged him to continue pursuing journalism, despite what others think. As an aspiring journalist, Dugan says, “I want people to know that I care about the truth above anything else and that’s what the people deserve.” He hopes to be able to change how the media operates nowadays by bringing the truth for the public to know, not biased, inaccurate news stories.

Dugan, 19, is a sophomore at the University at Albany majoring in journalism. He hopes to cover sports, politics, write for a variety of publications, and fulfill that lifelong dream of his as a sports broadcaster.