Cat Greenleaf finds solace near the water.
She and her husband, Michael Rey, left their brownstone in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, six years ago and moved to a house in Sea Gate — “a magical little gated community,” Ms. Greenleaf said — at the western tip of Coney Island.
“Moving to the ocean was so profound and restorative for our family that we wanted to share it with as many people as we could,” she said. “I wondered: Who needs the water the most? People who spent time living in cages seemed like a good place to start.”
So she connected with the nonprofit Osborne Association, which helps people who are leaving prison, and made it her mission to buy and rehabilitate distressed waterfront properties and offer them to low-income tenants who qualify for a subsidized Section 8 rent voucher — if possible, people who were formerly incarcerated.
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Ms. Greenleaf, 51, has always been an intrepid house hunter. She and Mr. Rey, 53, a producer for “60 Minutes,” married 20 years ago at Brooklyn Borough Hall. “I didn’t want a wedding — I wanted a house,” she said. They now have two sons who are 12 and 14.
For a dozen years the family lived in that Cobble Hill brownstone, where Ms. Greenleaf would sit out front and tape her television talk show, “Talk Stoop.”
They bought their first distressed property a year and a half ago, upgrading a row of three bungalows on City Island in the Bronx.
“Really interesting oddball properties exist in New York,” Mr. Rey said. “The goal is to find these waterfront gems to share the experience of the water. We still need to bring in rent and manage our costs, so it makes sense to be working with Section 8.”
They are creating a nonprofit to further their work, calling it the Restorative Housing Organization.
Last fall, Ms. Greenleaf was ready for her next project. With a budget of around $450,000, she began looking for a waterfront house in need of transformation, preferably an old one that had stood the test of time. It had to be free of moisture, mold and serious structural damage. She budgeted around $15,000 for upgrades, although she knew that renovating is always unpredictable.
She hunted throughout the boroughs, wherever there was water, and scoured online listings daily.
“I drive around watery neighborhoods,” she said. “I meet agents and talk to people on the street. When a good deal comes up, I want to jump on it.”
Among the options:
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