Brooklyn YWCA = provider of affordable housing downtown

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JOYCE SHELBY in The NY Daily News wrote: YWCA to build 84 affordable apartments
Will rent for no more than $600


While luxury housing is going up all over Boerum Hill and other parts of the borough, the Brooklyn YWCA is creating 84 new units of affordable housing for women.

A gut rehab is underway on four floors in the 11-story building at Third and Atlantic Aves.

The popular swimming pool has been ripped out. In its place will be studio apartments that should rent for no more than about $600 a month.

"The expansion is a good thing," said Deborah Johnson, 62, a retired schoolteacher who has lived at the Y for 20 years.

"At the present time, there is no affordable housing for women," Johnson said.

But she said she will miss the pool, where she took swimming lessons as a child.

Once the new units are completed, the 214 single-room-occupancy units on the upper floors will be renovated.

"When we're done, we'll be the largest provider of affordable housing in downtown Brooklyn," said Martha Kamber, executive director of the YWCA.

Since 1929, the building has been a community fixture. But in 2001, the Y's board of directors said the facility was falling apart.

"The [third-floor] pool was leaking onto the floors below," Kamber said. "They needed $3 million to make repairs, which they didn't have."

"Developers were interested, but the directors looked at the mission of the Y and at the women who lived here. If the building was sold, they would be homeless," Kamber said.

Instead, the Y received federal and city funding for the additional housing.

The first two floors of the building will have offices for nonprofit organizations and a community room, Kamber said.

The total cost of the project is estimated at $25 million.

Kamber said 30% of the new studios will go to homeless women. The rest will go to low-income tenants.

"Women need this place," said tenant Sonia Pais, 65, who has lived at the Y for 11 years.

"It's a safe haven for women who could fall through the cracks, especially when we start becoming seniors."