This post is a part of a series on New Yorkers who recently relocated to the Bronx. It’s called The New Bronx.
Elazar Hoch was 21 and living in Brooklyn when he first decided not to continue his studies to become a Rabbi. Instead, he enrolled in Pratt Institute to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. Since then, he has battled alcoholism and a bipolar disorder. Living in a cramped, basement apartment in Crown Heights Brooklyn for $360 a month compounded his problems. He described it as “squalor, almost slum-like.”
The Bronx turned out to be the best move he could make. He finally found a decent apartment through Heritage and Health Housing, an organization that provides health care, housing and a wide range of social and support services to people with physical or mental disabilities.
He pays $246 for a studio of his own in Morris Avenue. “People pay much more than that for a bunk bed,” said Hoch, who moved in in September. Now at 32, Hoch’s transition into life as an artist with a room of his own looks like a possibility.
Harmony Court is in a neighborhood where the median income is around $13,000, far lower than the city’s average. Only 6 percent of the population is white, like Hoch. “I find everything here,” he said. “Grocery store, hospitals, banks. I can go out to bodegas at three a.m. It’s totally nice and safe.”
His living expenses are supported with federal benefits including food stamps and Supplemental Security Income for the disabled.
His next step is to bring in his paintings and other belongings from a storage facility that his mother and sister helped provide for him. He hopes that this time, his disabilities will not hamper his professional life. “I went through a six-month training so that I could be a pet-care technician,” said Hoch, “and I got a dog-walker job right of the bat. But I couldn’t keep it with my herniated disk.”
He hopes his days of living on federal benefits are nearly over. “I am a 35 mm photographer, usually working with black and white photography,” he said. “I am an artist.”
Photo by Aditi Sangal/The Ink