This is part of a series about New Yorkers who have recently relocated to the Bronx. It’s called The New Bronx.
Jadene Stewart, a 27-year-old married mother of one moved from Brooklyn to the Bronx three years ago. The rent was cheaper, and the apartment more livable. She had originally hoped to find a better job near her new home, one that paid more than minimum wage, but her daily one-hour commute, along with child care concerns for her toddler have made that search impossible.
Strapped for cash, Stewart now plans to send her daughter Joanna to her hometown of Kingston, Jamaica, where the 22-month-old will stay with her mother while Stewart goes in search of a second job closer to home.
“Joanna’s birthday’s coming up, so I’m sending her to celebrate in Jamaica. It’s part celebration and also because I have to save money,” said Stewart, as she played on the floor with her daughter. She tended to the child while her husband finished his late shift at Modell’s Sporting Goods store in lower Manhattan. Their cluttered one-bedroom, located on 223rd and White Plains Road was filled with party favors, Pampers and baby toys to match.
She had hoped to accompany the toddler on the trip, she simply cannot afford it. “I have to work, and I won’t be able to go,” said Stewart.
Each morning, she drops her baby off at the House of God daycare center near her apartment at 7 a.m. in order to get the Number 5 and D trains to her job by 8 a.m.
At 8 a.m, the young mother can be found tending to individuals with special needs at the Brooklyn based Beacon Therapy Group in Sunset Park. There she helps individuals manage their daily household chores from cooking to cleaning. Though she finds the job spiritually rewarding, the salary just isn’t enough.
Between her husband 50-year-old Kareem Harley’s $11 an hour job in retail, and her own wages, the couple makes roughly $38,000 a year, enough to pay their $1,000 a month rent, but not get ahead.
When Stewart first landed in New York from Jamaica three years ago, she had no job and barely any money. Not too long after, she moved into a friend’s apartment in Flatbush Gardens, a housing project at 1401 New York Avenue in Brooklyn. It was an aesthetic shock. Where Jamaica offered open spaces and tall coconut trees, her new home was crowded, and the streets high in crime.
For a month, she split the rent of the $400 apartment, paying with the money she brought with her from Jamaica, and searched for jobs. After what seemed like a year, Stewart found the position she still holds at the Beacon Therapy Group.
Seeking more space, but affordable rent, the 27-year-old took the advice of her coworkers and successfully looked for an apartment on White Plains Road in the Bronx. During the next three years in New York, Stewart accomplished a lot. She found her husband, Kareem Harley, a retired construction worker, and she got pregnant with Joanna.
The couple chose the nice White Plains road apartment for the neighborhood’s diversity, space, and easy shopping. “Change is good,” said Stewart, brightly, watching Joanna tiptoe to look out the window.
Joanna Harley is the first in her family to be born here in the United States, and Stewart is proud of that. Providing that she finds another job, the Caribbean native hopes to remain in the Bronx for the next several years.
