Community League of
the Heights
Newsletter, May 2016
Pot O’ Gold Fundraiser
Workshop for Local Merchants
From Homeless to Housing: Success Story
CLOTH Opportunities
Pot O’Gold Fundraiser
June 16th is the date for CLOTH’s
annual Pot O’Gold. This event
raises money for the CLOTH
summer program, benefiting 150
kids from the neighborhood.
Please help us enrich our children
and our community!
$100 ticket buys entrance for two
– dinner and drinks included.
Top Prize? $5,000!
Pot O’Gold
Washington Heights Broadway Business
Improvement District (WHBBID)
The WHBBID hosted a commercial lease workshop for neighborhood
business owners.
Building neighborhood stability
and empowerment relies on
strong, stable businesses!
Maximo Javier and Ingrid Amparo
brought in Rolando Gonzalez,
staff attorney for NY Legal Aid
and William Lang, private
attorney, to talk to local business
owners about how to understand
and negotiate a fair and
successful commercial lease. The
workshop was well attended, with
both live interpretation by Claire
Liberato and headset translators
for Spanish speakers.
BID Workshop
Homeless to Housing with help from the
CLOTH Technology Center
Ms. Barbara Kingstro wanted to make sure that I would include her
struggle with bipolar depression when I told her story. “A senior citizen
and diagnosed with depression”, she told me, which makes her story
all the more remarkable and all the more disturbing.
For 10 years, Ms. Kingstro was our neighbor on West 159th Street. In
May of 2015 it came out that her landlord had failed to get the proper
permits for his building. Soon after, Ms. Kingstro was made to leave
with little warning and no opportunity to find a new place in New York
City’s complicated, expensive housing market.
With her property in storage, Ms. Kingstro moved into the Dwelling
shelter, run by Franciscan nuns, officially homeless. To find housing,
she began at the CLOTH main offices, where she found information
about the CLOTH technology center. “Thank God for the Center,”
she said to me, “Thank God for Daniel.”
Ms. Kingstro soon became a frequent visitor to the Tech Center, coming
in several times a week. She had her favorite spot and often worked
with Daniel Mercado, director of the Center.
Continued on the next page:
Tech Center
Homeless to Housing continued…
It was a long and difficult path. She wrote letters and emails,
filled out forms, met with bureaucrats and politicians. At age
70, she is eligible for Senior Citizen Affordable Housing, but
the waitlist is 10 years long. On top of everything, she was
often subjected to abusive speech by those who were
supposed to help her, and to helping organizations that often
felt more like brick walls.
“I’m a baby boomer,” she told me, “and there are a lot of us
out here! How are they not building more affordable housing
for us?”
After almost a year of diligent searching Ms. Kingstro was
finally placed in a lovely apartment in the Bronx. But this
victory was hard won. As a senior citizen and her struggle with
mental health on top of the stresses of homelessness, this
ordeal was more than Ms. Kingstro should have had to deal
with.
For this reason, she wants to share her story to try to make
this process better for the next person. Without her
extraordinary personality, and access to the resources that
CLOTH and the Tech Center provided her, this story might not
have had the same ending.
Tech Center
Want to be involved in CLOTH?
Here’s what we have Upcoming:


Volunteer at Summer Sundays – Volunteers are needed to
help with the set up, running and break down of Summer
Sundays. Date: June 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th. 1PM – 6PM. An
excellent way to give back to the community and see CLOTH in
action!
Donate: The nature of CLOTH’s programming means working
dynamically to respond to the needs of the community! Your
donations help us respond in real time and serve our constituents
in the best possible manner. Thank you for your support!
CLOTH Opportunities