FINDING HELP TO GET STARTED

(Article published in HWW March 2009)

by Orlenda Ulerio

SemiPerm Housing, sponsored by Settlement Housing Fund, is a new idea for New York City. Tricia Blanchard, Community Program Coordinator, says “We call it ‘Transitional in time, transformational by design.’” It’s apartment housing for formerly homeless single parents designed to help them become self sufficient. Modeled after a semi perm facility in Denver, Colorado, called “Warm Village,” SemiPerm in Upper Manhattan houses for two to five years several dozen young women who commit to working or being in school full time.

I was staying in a shelter, the Skyway in Queens, for a year and four months. It’s so hard to find an apartment now. Landlords say “No, we don’t take this program – we don’t take that program.”

Then at Skyway they gave me an application for Semi Perm and I went for an interview.  I’m 34. I’d been working nine years at a temp agency. But I wanted to do something different and at SemiPerm they said they would help me get started.

I moved in last April with my three children – two girls, 5 and 9, and a baby boy 20 months old. I could drop the girls at PS 163 on 97th Street and the baby at his “baby sitter near Central Park. At SemiPerm they found me a tutor to get ready for the GED test. I took the test a week ago and when I pass they will help me go to college. I want to go to Bronx Community College to study to be a registered nurse.

I’ll continue working. Now it’s 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. But we’ll have to adjust that to make time for school.