Grid Philly - March 2009 - (Page 21) ← Walking Fish Theatre: an abandoned building loved once more. Here we are now, wrapping up our second season, and we’re really happy. Our business has grown exponentially in between the first and second years. Weisbrod & Hess Brewery on Amber and Hagert in 2001, New Kensington sought them out and started a relationship. Since then, Yards has split into two companies, with the Philadelphia Brewing Company (PBC) keeping the Kensington building, and the relationship has continued. “They contacted us; it was nice they called,” says Nancy Barton, co-owner of PBC. “They gave us lots of information about other local businesses.” Along with other businesses, PBC helps sponsor the biannual Frankford Ave. CleanUp by running a big barbecue afterwards for the tired community cleaners. “They [New Kensington] go around and help get a lot of things donated—Fishtown Beverage donates soda, the Thriftway gives rolls,” says Barton. Barton has also been on the board of New Kensington for the past seven years. Although she is about to step down, she has seen the area change as a result of New Kensington’s focus on attracting artists and helping businesses get access to city and state grants. “The Frankford Ave. Arts Corridor has been a big thing, and it’s really changed the face of Frankford Avenue, so coming into the neighborhood, it’s a much better feeling; there’s a lot of new businesses and a lot of storefronts being rehabbed.” Strong communities of course, without a strong community of residents, there’s no point to helping businesses. On a recent February morning, the New Kensington office was bustling with residents looking for help in filling out applications for the Low Income Heating Emergency Assistance Program and Crisis Grants to get service restored. New Kensington functions as an energy center for the area, connecting residents with help paying for energy bills and making improvements on their homes. It’s also a housing agency. Counselors walk new homeowners through the process of buying a house and help them access any extra loans and grants. They also try to help the community by assisting people who are about to lose their most precious assets, their homes, to foreclosure. William Ortiz was facing a bad situation. After making some poor choices and letting his credit card debt get out of control, he followed some bad legal advice to declare bankruptcy and in July ’08 he, his wife and their two kids were about to lose their house. “We would have been homeless,” he says. “My situation wasn’t like a lot of the other ones out there. I was making good money—I just made some bad decisions.” The company that held his mortgage, Washington Mutual, didn’t want to deal with him, and he and his family were getting prepared for the worst. “I would be on hold for hours,” he says. “They didn’t want to talk to me, and when I talked to other people in my situation, it was the same all around.” Fortunately, in June, the city had created the Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Pilot Program in response to the mortgage crisis, forcing lenders to meet with delinquent payees and mediators to try and make some kind of deal. Ortiz was referred to the housing counselors at New Kensington, who had recently extended their service area into his neighborhood of Frankford. “I talked to the NKCDC and got a package together of all my information, and we sent it to the company,” he says. “It took weeks to get a response, and we had to eventually go to court to get them to talk to us.” 21 Eventually, thanks to the city’s new law and the help of the housing counselors, Ortiz had his foreclosure date pushed back and then worked out a deal where the interest was lowered and he didn’t have to pay anything out of pocket. Ortiz, who works as a nurse, is grateful, but aware of how close he came to losing everything. “We’re on firm footing now, but if it wasn’t for this program and the counselors, I would be homeless, god’s honest truth.” a few blocks from New Kensington’s offices is one of the most impressive sustainable ventures in the city, Greensgrow Farms. On 2501 E. Cumberland St., the organic farm lies on a rehabbed brownfield—formerly abandoned industrial land—and grows organic produce for the area. They offer a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that allows residents to pick up fresh produce from the farm every week during the spring, summer and fall. The farm also uses Integrated Pest Management, which uses natural predators and deterrents to keep out bugs and animals that eat crops, and runs equipment on reused biodiesel. Several blocks in a different direction is New Kensington’s Garden Center, at 1825 Frankford Ave. The center offers information on urban gardening, plants for sale and free compost and mulch from spring through late fall. It is precisely those kinds of efforts, along with the creative reuse of our existing structures and reinvesting in our local communities and businesses, that can make our future sustainable. While more efficient lights are important, getting really connected with our local area is what sustainability is all about. Thanks to all the previous efforts and continued community-building, Sustainable 19125 has a chance of making some good changes in the area, which Salzman, though proud of how much has already changed, still sees as a necessity. “On any given day, you can feel really good about what’s going on, like the day after a clean-up; and on another day, like trash day with trash blowing around, you can think, ‘Oh my god, there’s so much to do.’ ” But she isn’t leaving—after living her entire life in the area, she’s invested for the long-term. “My sisters all live in the neighborhood, too. It’s amazing we’re all still here, almost hard to believe.” ■ + m a r ch 20 0 9 g r i d p h i l ly. c o m 21
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