Affordable housing development replaces nuisance motel in North Philly

Be a Gem Crossing offers deeply discounted rents in a neighborhood where the median household income is roughly half of the city’s.

Kenya Scott’s life changed last month while she was standing in a suburban ShopRite.

Scott, a home health aide, was grocery shopping with one of her clients when she got a call she thought would never come. It was the property manager of a new affordable housing development in North Philadelphia. A three-bedroom apartment was available if she was still interested.

“I froze and a tear came down,” said Scott. “I was ecstatic.”

The news came nearly two years after Scott lost her only brother to gun violence, a tragedy that pushed her into a deep depression and drug use. She got the phone call on her final day of rehab.

When Scott broke the news to her oldest daughter, they both cried tears of joy. During her time in recovery, her three children lived with their grandmother. Now they would have a place of their own.

“This is a big blessing — something that I prayed for,” said Scott.

Be a Gem Crossing opened last month where a nuisance motel once stood. On Friday, nonprofit North10 Philadelphia will cut the ribbon on the project, an approximately $20 million development in Hunting Park. Scott is on the speaker list for the afternoon ceremony.

The four-story property on Germantown Avenue has 41 apartments and a ground-floor commercial space that will become the home of a yet-to-be-formed community organization. Most of the units have two or three bedrooms. All of them are heavily subsidized through the Housing Choice Voucher Program administered locally by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.