SoHo Project Will Make Room for Young People Aging Out of Foster Care

For dozens of young New Yorkers aging out of foster care, a set of keys to 257 Canal Street could soon offer something rare, simple and entirely life-altering: a place to call home and the room to figure out who they want to be inside it.

The Children’s Village and Alembic Community Development are proposing a 20-story building with 89 apartments permanently set aside for low-income residents in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District Extension. Sixty percent of the homes would serve young adults aging out of foster care and foster-care-involved young people who have survived trafficking, while the remaining 40% would be reserved for low-income New Yorkers.

On Sept. 15, that possibility moved one step closer to reality when the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the project’s revised design.

For Jeremy Kohomban, president and CEO of The Children’s Village, the idea behind 257 Canal Street begins with something more basic than buildings and approvals.

A safe place to live.

“Our young people, what they need, is a safe place to live, and then everything that we would give our own children, or what we would want to give the people that we love,” Kohomban told Straus News.

That philosophy is built into the proposal.

The Children’s Village plans to provide supportive counseling, service coordination, advocacy, life coaching and employment and education support on site. Kohomban said the goal goes beyond providing residents with a prescribed set of services.

That includes education and skill building, peer relationships, safety and something Kohomban returned to repeatedly: belonging.

“Foster care is a government system,” Kohomban said. “No matter how hard we work. It is never family.”

For young people leaving that system, the transition into adulthood can carry stakes far beyond finding their first apartment.

Kohomban said young people without stable housing can find themselves moving through uncomfortable and risky living situations, couch surfing or entering shelters without the services they need. In some cases, he said, young people exchange money or their bodies for room and board.

He said that instability can move young people from foster care into other systems, including homelessness and juvenile justice.

257 Canal Street is intended to offer another path.

The building would include studios and one-bedroom apartments. Kohomban said studios would be for single young people, while one-bedroom apartments would accommodate mothers or fathers with children. Young people leaving foster care would be referred and matched with available apartments through a process involving the city.

The remaining affordable apartments would be available to low-income New Yorkers. That mix, Kohomban said, is intentional.

“We want our young people to be integrated with the greater community and not be segregated,” he said.

That thinking extends beyond who lives inside the building. It also shaped where The Children’s Village wants the building to stand.

“The intent that we start with is how can we find a plot of land in a neighborhood where you and I would choose to live and build in that location?” Kohomban said.

For this project, that place is Canal Street.

The proposal includes ground-floor commercial space and a public art wall. Its art concept draws from the lotus, a symbol with deep meaning in Chinese culture, and is intended to acknowledge the neighborhood’s cultural heritage while reflecting growth, transformation and belonging.

At an Aug. 4 public hearing, the Landmarks Preservation Commission reviewed the original proposal to demolish the existing building at 257 Canal Street. Commissioners heard public testimony and provided feedback but took no action.

When the applicants returned on Sept. 15, the revised proposal strengthened the design of the building’s base, increased its articulation, refined the mansard and revised the color of the brick. This time, commissioners approved it.

“In approving the construction of a new building at 257 Canal Street, the Commission noted its thoughtful design, with features that reference the district’s historic architecture,” LPC Chair Lisa Kersavage said in a statement.

“The project demonstrates how new residential development can be thoughtfully integrated into our city’s historic districts while also adding much-needed housing for New Yorkers — including entirely affordable and supportive housing for young people aging out of foster care — to the neighborhood,” Kersavage said.

The approval brings the project forward, but there are still several steps between a rendering and a front door.

Kohomban estimated the project is about three years away, stressing that the timeline was only a guess. He said the development still has to go through the Buildings Department and planning process, work with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to assemble its capital stack and coordinate with other city agencies.

The development is expected to receive support through HPD’s Supportive Housing Loan Program, while rental assistance is expected through the NYC 15/15 program.

For Kohomban, however, affordability alone is not the finish line.

“Our intent is not to build affordable homes,” he said. “Our intent is to build affordable homes in communities where you and I would choose to live, that are incredibly beautiful.”

Eventually, if the remaining pieces fall into place, those homes will have people living inside them.

For some young residents, that could mean their first kitchen and their first pantry. Kohomban said young people entering their first apartment sometimes have to learn from scratch the ordinary tasks many others grew up learning at home, from setting up a kitchen to keeping things clean.

When Kohomban was asked what someone who has never experienced foster care should understand about young people leaving the system, he did not begin with what they do not know.

He began with who they are.

“The young people that we serve are incredible,” Kohomban said. “They are amazing. They have the same aspirations as you and I do. They want to live their fullest lives and their best lives.”

Growing up in government care, he said, can mean entering adulthood without someone constantly looking out for you, building your self-esteem, pushing you or giving you someone to look up to.

Still, Kohomban said the young people he works with are quick learners who aspire and work hard.

“When given the opportunities that you and I often took for granted, they do as well as we do,” he said.

At 257 Canal Street, the proposal is ultimately measured in 20 stories and 89 apartments.

For the young people who could one day live there, it could be measured much more simply. A key, a front door and somewhere safe to call home