©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

New Covenant leaders attempt to repair trust
The city also announced a new director of Office of Adult Services, Dianette Mintz, and PEC’s Gloria Guard shares scope of proposed training program.
by Kristin Pazulski

Supporters of the transitional housing program proposed for the campus of New Covenant Church of Philadelphia are speaking out after a spate of overwhelmingly negative reaction.

Church leaders asked their congregation to write letters to local newspapers and place calls to West Mt. Airy Neighbors and Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller’s office.

Sought or not, the church has been receiving feedback about the proposed program without needing to. A variance is not needed, therefore community reaction is not required to establish the program on New Covenant’s campus.

New Covenant’s 38-acre campus, at 7500 Germantown Ave., includes a sanctuary, ministry and administrative offices, a residential senior center, a business center with about 20 tenants, and five schools, public and non-public. The proposed addition to the campus would be housed in the Eagles I building, under a lease with the city.

New Covenant’s business, educational and senior tenants have not been very vocal on the proposal. Paul Vallas, CEO of the city school district, has said he opposes placing such housing on a campus with schools. Attempts to contact businesses have led to phone tag, and an attempt to set up a meeting with senior residents has not been met with success.

However, one such resident, Juanita Upshur, who wrote a letter to the Local last week, said in an interview that in general, the seniors seemed to favor the program, which she supports.

“We know the value of mentoring anyone,” Upshur said. “For generations we have been mentoring our own children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” She said she was happy as a New Covenant tenant, and was surprised by the attacks on the church at the March 29 community meeting, which she attended.

The Rev. Ora Love, an associate minister for New Covenant, said she was confused by the community’s concern about a church serving as a landlord. “What about us does not allow us to handle finances?” she asked, saying that the gospel promotes prosperity. “The things people are saying, it’s not as much about what is, but it’s personal opinion. It’s not the majority.”

At the meeting, the only public forum on the proposal, the community voiced concerns about the church and the lack of details on the housing proposal.

Officials from the city and New Covenant have said they would host another forum when more details emerge, but none has been scheduled. Robert Hess, the former director of adult services for the city and the main spokesman for the proposal, recently left Philadelphia for a similar job in New York City. Last Wednesday, May 10, the city announced that Dainette Mintz would replace him.

Hess’ leaving raised concerns because of his leadership role in the proposal, but according to Gloria Guard – the director of People’s Emergency Center, which is expected to provide training for the residents of the program – Mintz is a positive.

“She really has a deep history with the homeless and a broad base of experience,” Guard said. Mintz was formerly the director for special needs housing with the city’s Office of Housing and Community Development. She was unavailable for an interview by press time.

Guard said the training proposal that PEC made to the city covers basic life skills, and includes cultural workshops and personal management and assessment to help the women in the program get steady work.

Guard said the PEC program is used throughout the city, but that the New Covenant version would be different in three ways. One, the families would not come directly from the streets, but from shelters. “They will be somewhat stable,” she said. Two, each applicant for the program would be evaluated to determine whether she is ready for the training and employment, with the goal of independent living; the program would be more selective than other PEC programs. Finally, the residences at New Covenant would be more private than other, more dormitory-style programs in which PEC is involved.

PEC proposed budgets to the city for both 25 and 50 families, each costing approximately $5,000 per family. Most of the training programs would take place on the campus. For those elsewhere, PEC would provide transportation.

Guard estimated that each family would spend about a year in the New Covenant program was, though that would vary with a woman’s employment situation and her ability to get her own apartment.

The proposal did assume childcare and schooling facilities would be provided, either on or off the campus. City and church officials emphasized that they would work to ensure the children were placed so that local schools were not overburdened.

New Covenant representatives are working to convince the community that they are sincere about mending their relationship with the community. A large ad in the Local last week featured a letter from New Covenant’s Bishop C. Milton Grannum, apologizing for an erosion of trust between the church and the community.

Critics have focused more on the neighbor-church relationship rather than on the proposal.

New Covenant’s ad also stated that church leaders would be willing to set up a committee with neighbors and community leaders to address not only concerns about the housing program, but other issues that have come up at neighborhood meetings as well. Ellis said the process to establish this committee is in the works.

The idea for such a committee came out of a meeting between people who live near the campus and WMAN on April 24. At that meeting, the neighbors decided to support the program. Neither WMAN nor East Mt. Airy Neighbors have voted on whether to back the proposal, and the CHCA said they would support the position of WMAN and EMAN when they decide.

Susan Segal of Gowen Circle and Marilyn Lambert of Mount Airy talked to the Local about why they had voted against the program. “I feel like eventually you have to say no,” said Segal, adding that Mount Airy has welcomed social programs to the neighborhood, such as Northwestern Human Services, a health care facility for people behavioral problems, at 27 E. Mt. Airy Ave.

Segal is concerned that as an adjacent neighbor, her property value would go down. She also does not view New Covenant as a good landlord or neighbor. “They just don’t really seem to want to become part of the community,” she said.

Both Lambert and Segal said that had the church organization been more “transparent” throughout its 13 years in Mount Airy, they might have been more inclined to support the program. They spoke highly of Hare Krishna and the Lutheran Theological Seminary, and the relationship the two groups have established with the community.

“When they don’t answer questions, it adds to the perception that New Covenant is not transparent,” Lambert said. “I don’t want to hear the best public relations work, I want to know the answers to these questions.”

Segal added, “I think New Covenant is used to doing things how they want to do it, and they weren’t expecting the negative feedback.”

Mount Airy USA’s President Farah Jimenez said her organization, which works to revitalize Mt. Airy’s business district, is not concerned about the proposed program from a business point-of-view, and even said it could add business to the Avenue and give opportunities to local organizations. However, she said the secrecy surrounding the initial planning of the program had led to neighborhood suspicion and hindered the project.

She said that when she first heard about it, she thought it probably wasn’t true because Mount Airy USA had not been notified. “It made me nervous,” Jimenez said. “What is it they are doing that it’s being kept so secretive? … There’s work to be done on the process [of communication]. Who knows, maybe if they improve the process people will open their hearts to the project.”