Interfaith Neighbors getting things done in Asbury Park... February 2, 2008
Staff, volunteers key to nonprofit's successes... February 2, 2008
A dream (home) come true for family of 7... January 25, 2008
A New West Side Story... August 20, 2007
A Neighborhood Investment... August 14, 2007
Interfaith Neighbors getting things
done in Asbury Park - February 2, 2008
Posted by the Asbury Park Press
BY NANCY SHIELDS
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU
ASBURY PARK — Paul McEvily looks like the quiet
type, maybe a finance guy, when you first notice him at city
meetings, sometimes jotting down notes, taking everything in.
But it's anything but quiet inside the head of this former
Federal Reserve Bank of New York careerist who teamed up with Joseph
Marmora, Interfaith Neighbors executive director, late in 1997 and
has helped propel the nonprofit organization into a vital player in
the rebuilding of Asbury Park.
Today, 20 years after Marmora founded Interfaith Neighbors with
the backing of six congregations to work poor families, the agency
has a $4 million budget and strong programs in rental assistance,
senior meals, the Youth Corps and affordable housing.
What
has caught attention lately is Interfaith's West Side Neighborhood
Revitalization Program that is expected to invest $1 million a year
in housing, recreation, economic revitalization, infrastructure and
public safety over the next decade.
"There are two kinds of
community-based nonprofits," McEvily, 54, now Interfaith associate
executive director, said in an interview last week. "There are those
who go into city hall and pound on the table and say 'You must, You
must,' whatever the social need is. We have for our entire existence
not taken that approach," he said. "Ours is 'Let's work together.'
Our only intent is to help the people who need the help and finding
a way to get things done."
Specifically, the first $1
million committed by five corporations to the project breaks down to
$581,000 for seven new, affordable homes; $100,000 to help restore
the swimming pool at the Boys and Girls Club; $96,000 to set up a
Police Athletic League boxing center on the second floor of the
city's public works building; $85,000 for Little League lights;
$38,000 for a police department video surveillance pilot program;
and $100,000 for pre-development costs for a new, three-story $5
million to $6 million building on Springwood Avenue to house
commercial retail, rental apartments, a senior center, the city's
job program and several police units.
Money to make that
first year of redevelopment happen came through the state's
Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit Program, which is
administered by the state Department of Community Affairs and allows
corporations that pay state business taxes to get a 100 percent tax
credit for money they invest in projects such as Asbury Park's.
The five companies that have invested so far are: New Jersey
Natural Gas, $500,000; Jersey Central Power & Light, $200,000;
Selective Insurance Co., $119,000; PNC Bank, $100,000, and Horizon
Blue Cross and Blue Shield, $81,000.
Interfaith also
received a five-year, $750,000 implementation grant from the
Wachovia Regional Foundation to pay the administrative costs for the
west side project so that all of the tax credit investment money
goes to the specific projects.
"They have a vision — the
community side, the spiritual side, what it means to build a
community — and they understand the business side of it, how you
bring real dollars to the table," City Manager Terence Reidy said.
"One of the keys to their success is they've been in Asbury
Park for 20 years, and while people know of their work, it's this
quiet competence that serves them so well," Reidy said. "They take
on projects. They don't overreach. Part of it is their commitment to
the clients they're serving. It's not about them (Interfaith). They
are assertive and do it well. There's nothing shy about them.
They're a gift to the city.'
"We are business people; we
take a business approach," said McEvily, who is so seeped in the
city's landscape that he can give you streets and house numbers
almost before you ask for them.
"We want to get things
done," he added. "We looked at 14 to 16 planning documents over 30
years that focused on the west side and were pretty consistent with
what the community said was needed. We only want to spend time and
energy if we see results.'
McEvily, who lives in Interlaken
with his wife, Nancy, and has three children, says it was Marmora's
periodic briefings about Interfaith's work during the 1990s at their
parish, St. Mary of the Assumption in Deal, that drew him in.
Born in New York City, he grew up in Maywood in North
Jersey. His family summered in Point Pleasant Beach and moved there
when he was in seventh grade. During his high school years at St.
Rose in Belmar, his family moved to Brick.
He went to the
University of Notre Dame and then started a 23-year career with the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where he worked in operations and
human resources and ran the bank's check function business.
One of his last projects for the bank spanned a five- to
six-year period in the 1990s when he was the senior officer and
project manager for a new $120 million operations center in East
Rutherford.
"I had the opportunity to be involved in
negotiations to acquire land, put together a project team and manage
professionals who designed and oversaw construction," he said. When
that project ended, McEvily did not look forward to commuting once
again into Manhattan and asked for a one-year leave of absence. He
signed on as a volunteer with Interfaith, helping with the nutrition
program. When the year was up, he made his decision to leave the
bank. He went on staff at Interfaith Neighbors in 1999.
An
early significant project was to help acquire a warehouse building
for the organization's current site at 810 Fourth Ave. so that it
could move out of cramped quarters in the former Taborn Building at
1206 Main St.
To do so, Interfaith used a $125,000 grant
from the Monmouth County Community Development Office. McEvily acted
as general contractor. The group renovated its new site with a
state-of-the art kitchen to support the senior meals program. It
also created room so that when it took over and expanded the Youth
Corps program, the corps had a place to meet.
Interfaith had
rehabilitated its first affordable housing home in 1996, a year
before McEvily signed on, and continued a pattern of doing one house
at a time. But in 2000, the agency was able to get its first HOME
program money, federal construction subsides for first-time home
buyers that came through the Monmouth County Community Development
Office. Those subsidies helped Interfaith to pick up the pace so it
could complete three-to-four homes in a 12-to-18-month period.
Interfaith has built or rehabilitated 17 homes, all in Asbury Park
or Neptune, except for one in Long Branch completed last week.
Laurence M. Downes, chairman and chief executive officer of
N.J. Natural Gas, said his company started as a partner with
Interfaith Neighbors on the first affordable home on Monroe Avenue
in 1996 and just completed the 17th.
"I can't say enough
about the people of Interfaith Neighbors, for all they do, their
resources, their talents and dedication," Downes said. "We're going
to do everything possible to continue supporting Interfaith because
now we're taking the program to a whole new level. We are going to
help more people.'
William Best, the Northeast territory
manager of community development banking for PNC Bank, said
Interfaith's mission of economic development and affordable housing
in neighborhood revitalization coincides with the bank's goals.
"We're very impressed they have the infrastructure to
advance that project," Best said. 'The NRTC (neighborhood
revitalization) program is very vital to prime the economic pump in
these urban communities. PNC took a leadership role in legislative
budget hearings so we could let legislators to see how important it
is.'
The bank has committed $3 million so far to the state
program. The $100,000 for Asbury Park is PNC Bank's first investment
of that kind at the Shore, Best said.
"I feel like I had the
opportunity to do some really interesting things in my prior career
with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but none of those things
can compare to the sense of satisfaction, contribution and human
elation we feel here when we are able to help an individual, a
family or for that matter, a community, get to a better place,"
McEvily said.
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