Sixty-year-old Frank Garrett and his wife Melanie have been together nearly 30 years, always in the same rent-stabilized apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. They have history here. Melanie’s grandfather also lived in the building. She grew up here,and here she met the man she would marry, Frank.
“I love our neighborhood,” says Frank. But the neighborhood, like so much of New York, has changed, becoming increasingly expensive as it becomes gentrified. Theirs is a two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment, renting for less than $900 a month. Determined to regain possession, the management company offered the couple a few thousand dollars to surrender the unit. Their refusal, according to Frank and Melanie, was followed by many months of harassment and essential repairs being purposefully neglected.
One crisis followed another. When Covid hit, the Garretts were already in court with the landlord because of the habitability issues. Then, the software company Frank worked for went out of business and he lost his job. Melanie’s hours as a medical secretary were cut back to almost nothing. Frank remembers, “We went through all our savings and resources.” In 2022, they received a long-awaited State subsidy (ERAP), but it didn’t cover all the rent owed, and the landlord was not crediting all of the couple’s partial rent payments. By 2023, Frank and Melanie were certain that they would finally be evicted and join the ranks of the homeless. In the nick of time, however, Frank learned about The Bridge Fund and received an offer of stable employment.
Today, Frank and Melanie are doing well and have only good things to say about their experience with The Bridge Fund. “They explained what we needed to do, and they walked us through every step.” Bridge Fund financial assistance totaled less than $4,200 and was used to pay the outstanding rent to settle the Housing Court case, avoid utility service disruption, and purchase a Whole Foods gift card that was quickly and conveniently emailed to the couple. Frank recalls the day he picked up the rent check from the caseworker. “When I came home from court and said it was all over, Melanie cried. The Bridge Fund really changed our life.”
“The Bridge Fund really changed our life.”