An unusual collaboration between Lancaster City and a Jewish Orthodox school has transformed a once-blighted row home into a renovated brownstone ready to welcome a new family.
Rabbi David Rose shows the transformation of a row home at 20 N. Pine St.
A student from the Lancaster Yeshiva Center stands in the kitchen of a row home at 20 N. Pine St. befo
...(more)
To tell the story of the house at 20 Pine St. requires the Yiddish word "mitzvah," which means doing a good deed.
"It's a win-win situation for everyone," said Rabbi David Rose, the new rabbinical leader at the Lancaster Yeshiva Center on Columbia Avenue. "It's giving boys a purpose in life and putting them on the right way. It increases their self-worth."
The Yeshiva Center, founded six years ago by Rabbi Shaya Sackett of Congregation Degel Israel, teaches Orthodox boys the construction trade along with religious studies. This is the second Lancaster home renovated by Yeshiva students.
For some Orthodox boys, higher education is not an option, and the center provides much-needed structure and a chance to learn a trade to support themselves.
But to practice their trade, they needed a house. And Lancaster city had just the project for them.
"Not only did the Yeshiva do something for the boys. They did something for the city," said Rose. "They want a property where they can do everything. We are interested in teaching the boys. The Yeshiva wanted to get a house and do it the right way."
The year-long program accommodates up to 15 post-high school-age students, mostly from the New York and Baltimore areas where there is a large Orthodox Jewish population. Tuition is on a sliding scale.
The students spend part of their day studying Jewish laws and ethics and the rest of the time in vocational instruction and actual building. All meals and instruction, both religious and vocational, take place at Degel Israel. The boys are housed nearby.
For the city, blighted houses are a place where gangs set up camp. The act of improving lives in the Yeshiva program is helping save a community as well.
One of the Yeshiva's success stories is Chaim Meister, who lives and works in construction in Lancaster. Meister also helped with the Pine Street house. What Meister appreciates most about the Yeshiva are the friends he has made, as well as the chance to learn a trade.
"I always had an interest in carpentry, construction," said Meister. "This was a way to ease into this system without leaving the Yeshiva system abruptly."
"It helps the community," said Jesus Vega, the city's housing inspection supervisor. "We are cleaning out a lot of the gang activity. Hopefully the streets get cleaned up. If the property stays vacant long enough, gangs will break in and move in."
Part of the roof on the Pine Street property had collapsed into the kitchen, the utilities were out and the house was cluttered, Vega said. The property was referred to the redevelopment authority before moving onto the planning commission for sale after the owners disappeared.
The Yeshiva purchased the house last year for about $24,000. The Yeshiva spent $60,000 and the students and instructors spent a year gutting and completely renovating the house with new windows, appliances, wiring, plumbing and flooring.
The house is on the market for $119,900 by Wright Realty. The city requires that any house purchased under the redevelopment program must be lived in by the owner for the first year and may not be used as a rental property.
Tony Quinn, the realtor selling the house, is thrilled with the results.
"It could be a real benefit to the community to pull people and students together. It was a wonderful idea. I'm very proud to be a part of it," he said. "These boys just do a phenomenal job beyond the average, way beyond the average. They just beam when you tell them they did a good job."
For Rose, it is all about the students.
"We expect them to earn an honest living. We expect them to act as a mensch (good person)," said Rose. "I hope this will make some family happy someday."
(2)
