TESTIMONY
Testimony: Shams De Barron on Support for Timbale Terrace Project in Harlem
0:53:12
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167 sec
Shams De Barron, identifying as a housing hero from Harlem, testifies in support of the Timbale Terrace project for offering unique benefits to the community, including supportive services, workforce housing, and maintaining cultural integrity. De Barron emphasizes the importance of prioritizing housing over shelters and the critical need for affordable housing in Harlem to prevent displacement due to gentrification. He urges support for developments that consider the well-being of the community, highlighting the project's commitment to addressing affordable housing challenges.
Speaker 20
0:53:12
As a part of of Harlem as someone whose family originates in East Harlem, I'm obviously concerned at what goes on in harm.
0:53:22
And so one of my objectives in what I do now as a housing hero, is to ensure that communities like Harlem that are having developments or having developments that not only benefit the developers, the the the nonprofit partners, the residents, but also the overall community.
0:53:42
And our support to Volley terrorists because this is one of those projects that is unique to the community that offers not just the supportive services that address communities like, you know, those that experience in homelessness, etcetera, but also workforce housing we've seen so much due gentrification of the means of our people from Harlem have to leave Harlem and go out of state in different places So we lose our our low local workforce, which are many of them are city workers, many of them are law enforcement.
0:54:14
I deal with these people all the time who they're processing the application for someone who's facing eviction or someone who's exiting a shelter, but they themselves are facing homelessness.
0:54:24
They themselves are saying, I don't got long on this job because I can't afford to live in my apartment and haul them.
0:54:30
Shams, can you help me?
0:54:31
Because I can't I I can't access a voucher.
0:54:34
So there's a lot of different reasons why I have to support projects like this.
0:54:38
And the fact that half of its residents are going to be under the 30% of the AMI.
0:54:46
Is important.
0:54:47
The fact that it maintains its cultural integrity specifically in East Harlem to a Afrolact, you know, cultural center is important to me.
0:54:57
The fact that they have heard the community and there are certain things that they had to change because the community wanted it.
0:55:04
And they did that.
0:55:05
Here's why I have to support it.
0:55:07
And last thing, we can't continue to build shelters.
0:55:12
As the alternative for people that can't afford to live in the communities.
0:55:17
We have to center housing over shelters.
0:55:21
Harlem is saturated, oversaturated with shelters.
0:55:24
They keep building them because it's easier to build shelter.
0:55:27
You build them within a year, 2 years.
0:55:29
With housing has taken 3, 4, 5 years and especially affordable housing.
0:55:34
The fact that we have to struggle to get affordable housing in Harlem is crazy to me.
0:55:41
So we need to change this, and I hope all of you can support that and do a development that can actually show the rest of the city and the rest of the world, how we need to properly address affordable housing and communities like Harlem.
0:55:53
Thank you.
Speaker 1
0:55:54
Thank you so much.
0:55:58
Well done, everyone.