Press Room

The Jericho Project broke ground on supportive housing for homeless and low-income vets in Kingsbridge Heights Nov. 10, just in time for Veteran’s Day.

The 76-unit, six-story facility at 2701 Kingsbridge Terrace — cattycornered with the Veteran’s Affairs hospital — is projected to open in early 2011 at a cost of $20.6 million.

Sixty percent of the apartments will be reserved for homeless veterans recovering from substance abuse and 40 percent will be for low-income veterans from the Bronx, with preference given those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Jericho Project, a nonprofit organization that provides housing for the city’s homeless, originally announced its intentions to build the Kingsbridge Heights facility in January 2008 at a Community Board 8 housing committee meeting. The group was considering several sites in the Bronx, but closed on the local property in May 2008 with Community Board 8’s support.

When completed, it will be one of only two new residencies built in the last 15 years in New York City dedicated solely to veterans and will feature small studio apartments, a community room, computer lab, gym and garden.

A mix of private and public funding is behind the project. The city’s Department of Housing, Preservation and Development, low-income housing tax credits, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. who gave $1 million, New York Acquisition Loan Fund, Corporation for Supportive Housing and Jericho Project Veterans Fund all contributed.

Mary Taylor, senior director of development at The Jericho Project, said the organization would not start compiling names of potential residents until about six months before it opens. However, she said the organization would begin providing homeless veterans with a nearby place starting immediately.

With an additional 10,000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program vouchers currently being released and another 10,000 that will likely be released next year, Jericho Project and the Bronx VA have partnered to form the Veterans Supportive Apartment Program and will launch a pilot in December.

The program will help vets and their families, who have been awarded the Section 8 housing vouchers, which subsidize rents, by the Bronx VA, find and secure a place to live. The VA will provide the vets with case management services and Jericho will provide family support, vocational and other services.

Ms. Taylor said their apartments would be clustered near the two facilities under construction — there is another being built at 355 East 94th St. in the Bronx — so that vets can share resources and form communities.

Priority will also be given female veterans and who need vocational and educational assistance.

The Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that one in four homeless men and women in the country are veterans, and the number is expected to grow. Others are severely rent burdened. Five hundred thousand pay more than 50 percent of their income on rent. There is also a growing problem of homeless, female veterans.