By Patrick Donachie
At the corner of Guy R. Brewer Boulevard and 112th Road in Jamaica, a new facility is offering affordable housing and services to grandparents who are raising teenagers or children, one of only two such facilities in the state.
The CGG Congregational Home is being maintained and sponsored by the Calvary Baptist Church, which is located on Guy R. Brewer two blocks to the north of the facility. Executive Minister Teddy R. Reeves said the new site would be a benefit to grandparents who find themselves in an unexpected parental role.
“These grandparents are 62 or older. They never planned on raising teenagers or children,” he said as he showed off the facility. “It’s beautiful to see this kind of inter-generational living. I think it could be a great model.”
The church acquired the property in the aftermath of protests over the shooting death of 10-year-old Clifford Glover at the hands of an off-duty white police officer in 1973. A picture of Glover hangs in the lobby, along with a framed photo of Mary Covington, a parishioner at Cavalry, who spearheaded the idea of the facility.
“We wanted to make sure we honored him,” Reeves said about Glover. “He was someone’s grandchild.”
Reeves said the majority of the 53 units in the building were filled with grandparents raising teenagers, with a few bringing up children under 8 years old. Each unit is currently occupied, and Calvary found tenants through signs posted in the neighborhood and through word of mouth.
Reeves pointed out an office where social workers can work, making it easier for the seniors in the building to access services. Reeves and Lawrence Campbell, a social worker with the Council on Adoptable Children, said maintaining heating was an essential concern for residents, with winter fast approaching. The apartments are affordable, but tenants must pay for their heating and other utilities.
“These are people on fixed incomes, and raising teenagers at that time of your life can be hard,” Campbell said.
Reeves said many of the tenants moved in the previous November. Children and teenagers can stay in the building until 21 or 26 years old if they are enrolled in school or in the armed services. In the community center, works by an artist were hung on the wall, and Reeves said he intended to have a new artist display their work every three months. Additional programs in the pipeline included services for building technological skills among the seniors.
“Computer skills will be essential to help build that inter-generational gap that can exist in the household,” he said. “You can miss a whole part of a young person’s life without that connection.”
Reeves said that ground breaking began in 2013, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony had been held earlier in October. He said he was elated at the opening and excited about the facility’s potential for residents and the greater Jamaica community.
“Actually seeing the people making it a home is rewarding and shows that the labor’s not in vain,” he said.
Reach reporter Patrick Donachie by e-mail at pdona
