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The New Schenectady: Exercises in self-reliance in Vale
Vale residents do their best to improve troubled neighborhood
Monday, September 5, 2011
By Kathleen Moore (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — Residents of the city’s smallest neighborhood don’t think anyone’s coming to fix up their troubled home. So they’re doing it themselves.

There’s the man who takes in the homeless and tries to counsel them himself, trying in some cases to break their drug addictions.

There’s the woman who moved to Vale four years ago, watched disconnected children turn into juvenile delinquents in their teens and felt called to open a church for them.

One man watches for store close-outs and after-holiday deals all year long, buying and stockpiling presents that Santa gives out at Christmas.

Others buy school supplies, which they give out to students just before the first day of school.

“To let the kids know we’re for them and to promote education,” said resident Sonja Moses, who also just started a teen ministry out of her house.

“After we moved here, I saw the need for a church to help, especially with the kids in the neighborhood,” she said. “To intervene with all the crime going on. I’m trying to let the kids know there is a better way of handling things. There’s more to life than what you see. To let them know God has different plans for their lives.”

She named her church the Victory House of Praise; it’s on Victory Avenue. It’s simply advertised with a hand-made sign outside the house.

The neighborhood has been rocked by high-profile crimes for decades. Last year, young men who grew up in Vale built a sniper nest in their parents’ attic and organized an ambush to kill another young man. When police came to their door in search of the killers, one of the teenagers shot two police officers before dropping his gun.

This summer, a man from Albany was shot and killed by police in Vale after he pointed a gun at them.

But residents in Vale weren’t shaken. Their main reaction was to criticize the police for what they said was their bad aim, because officers accidentally shot a porch and a car as well as the man.

Residents said violent crime hasn’t gotten worse — it’s just stayed bad.

“That’s been going on forever,” said David Madison, who has lived in the neighborhood for 34 years. “The difference is now you’re looking at 14-, 16-year-olds rather than 32-year-olds.”

He isn’t bothered by the crime.

“You need to make the best of the neighborhood you live in,” he said. “This is where we could afford to live.”

He raised seven children here. Now he fills his basement with storage bins of toys to give to children at a Christmas party he organizes in the street.

He grills hot dogs and hands out hot cocoa no matter how cold it is on the appointed day.

“Even when it’s sleeting out, we get 30 to 40 kids,” he said.

Up to 90 children show up when the weather is good, he added.

He’s particularly proud that the party is completely funded by volunteers from Vale.

“This is just a Vale thing. Our thing,” he said.......................................>>>>.............................>>>>..................................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2011/sep/05/Vale/

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But one 10-year-old bluntly said that he couldn’t enjoy the neighborhood because it was “full of crackheads.”

Children rarely play ball on the street, even though their neighborhood has several dead-end streets that get little traffic.

“I don’t feel like it’s that safe,” said Shireen Torres, 15. “So I do my best to stay inside.”