Tempers flared Saturday at a community meeting over the opening of a homeless shelter in Crown Heights, with local residents and elected officials repeatedly berating representatives from the city about their plans for the shelter and demanding it be moved.
The hastily-called meeting came weeks after the city quietly announced that in mid-March, it would be opening the shelter at 1173 Bergen Street, just east of New York Avenue. According to the city, the shelter, which will be operated by the homeless services provider CORE Services Group, will house 106 men over 50.
Speaking to a standing room only crowd that swelled to more than 200, representatives from the Department of Homeless Services, the Mayor's Office, and CORE described the planning process for the shelter and repeatedly sought to assure residents that they were taking pains to ensure the shelter creates minimal disruption on the heavily residential surrounding area. They also described their safety plans for the shelter. (The meeting was held at the site of the shelter, which by all appearances is just about complete).
But attendees, many long-time residents of Crown Heights, expressed disbelief at the short notice provided, and broader, deep frustrations at the addition of another shelter in a community district that according to city data already has 15. At last count, there were more than 1200 individuals in shelter in community district 8. (Some residents cited the larger figure of 19 shelters in Crown Heights, which also includes parts of community district 9.)
"This is something we don't need," said Michelle Williams, who lives across the street from the shelter site and has lived in Crown Heights for more than two decades. "Everyone deserves to have a place to live. But we have too many."
This was the issue raised over and over—the distribution of shelters across the city. Residents repeatedly cited the dearth of shelters in several community districts in Brooklyn, in particular noting that there are zero shelters in Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst. They also pointed to the city's October decision to abandon plans to convert a Holiday Inn to a 110-bed shelter in predominantly white Maspeth, in the face of vociferous community opposition, as evidence of a double standard.
One attendee said Crown Heights has acquired the nickname "Shelterville."
Many expressed concern about safety issues, especially for neighborhood children. The Brooklyn United Marching Band, a youth marching band, practices at a church next door to shelter site.
Jenny Scott, 45, who has a daughter in the band, told the crowd she already fears for the safety of her daughter and other children in the neighborhood. "There's already panhandling that's going on, already currently in the neighborhood. I go home now and I'm asked for money. There are gentleman that are on the corners now that getting up early in the morning looking to collect their drugs," she said. "It's not right, it's not fair."
According to a fact sheet provided by the city, the shelter will have six uniformed security officers on duty at all times, in addition to shelter staff. Outreach staff will also conduct regular neighborhood patrols.
One woman suggested that the city put a shelter near Gracie Mansion or elsewhere on the Upper East Side. "They don't have one on Sutton Place," she remarked to Gothamist. She also suggested, sardonically, that the mayor shelter homeless New Yorkers at his home in Park Slope.
City officials were on the defensive throughout the meeting, with residents on numerous occasions shouting them down as they attempted to explain how the shelter will function and broader city policy on homelessness. At one point, police had to remove a man who was angrily demanding a chance to speak from the room. He later returned.
According to the city, the majority of shelter residents will be employed or "employable" men over 50 who have been living in community district 8. Individuals with serious mental illness, substance issues, or records as sex offenders will not be eligible for the shelter. The city said that all potential residents will be screened through intake at Bellevue Hospital. (Attendees expressed skepticism about these claims, jeering "How do you know?" to the promise that there will be no sex offenders and "Yeah, right" to the promise that there will be no individuals with serious mental illness.)
The meeting came on the heels of Mayor de Blasio's announcement of a major initiative to revamp the city's shelter system, with promises to phase out the widely criticized system of cluster site housing, often-dilapidated private apartments the city rents at exorbitant prices to house homeless families. There are currently more than 10,000 individuals living in cluster site apartments. De Blasio's plan also calls for the end of the practice of temporarily sheltering individuals in commercial hotel rooms. There were 6,000 people living in hotel rooms as of October.
To achieve these goals, the homelessness plan calls for the creation of 90 new shelters over the next five years. Under the plan, several new shelters are slated for Crown Heights, though the CORE shelter is not counted among that group. The first new shelter, a 132-bed shelter for families, will open this spring.
Dan Tietz, the chief special service officer at the HRA's Department of Social Services, acknowledged that the city will be increasing the number of shelters in Crown Heights, but said that it also has plans to shutter several local shelters this year. Three sites slated for closure are said to be cluster sites. "We are closing a number of shelters this year where we are unable to provide the kinds of quality of services individuals deserve," Tietz said.
Several local elected officials in attendance, including Council Member Robert Cornegy, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, and Assembly Members Diana Richardson and Tremaine Wright blasted the city for its handling of the shelter plan. "We've gotta shut this down. Shut it down," Richardson told the crowd, which roared in approval. Richardson said that she had been informed of the shelter's opening two weeks ago. The opening was apparently originally scheduled for March 15th, but the city has now moved back the date to March 22nd. She said the date change had only come after she pointed out that February is a short month.
"We are not anti-shelter. We are anti-disrespect, we are anti-saturation, we are anti-lack of communication. And we're going to shut it down," she said.
While de Blasio stated at the press conference announcing his plan that the city will "ask each community board to do their fair share," his vision focuses on keeping homeless individuals near their communities, which means the new shelters will not be evenly distributed across the city. In neighborhoods with high numbers of people becoming homeless, the shelter bed counts will remain high. According to city data, there are more than 1100 homeless individuals whose last known address is in community district 8, roughly proportional to the number of occupied shelter beds in the district.
"Homelessness is a complex issue that has built up over decades in all five boroughs and will not be solved overnight. To meet immediate capacity needs, in the short term, shelters may be placed in communities that already have a significant number of shelters," Isaac McGinn, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeless Services, told Gothamist.
"This approach will better serve all New Yorkers, including our homeless neighbors—by allowing them to remain closer to jobs, schools, houses of worship, and support systems," McGinn stated.
(Raphael Pope-Sussman/Gothamist)
Several attendees attacked the track record of CORE, which was the subject of a highly critical 2012 story in the New York Times that found widespread, serious deficiencies at a federally contracted halfway house operated by the program. (The organization investigated in that article was known as Community First Services, but based on public filings, they appear to be the same.)
Jack Brown III, the president and CEO of CORE, defended the record of his organization, calling the Times article "riddled with inaccuracies" and denying claims that there have have been problems with its contracts. "We have not lost a contract," he said.
Brown declined to speak to Gothamist after the meeting.
Fior Ortiz-Joyner, 42, has been in Crown Heights since 2009 and serves as the president of the Bergen Street Block Association. Ortiz-Joyner, who lives just down the block from the shelter site, said she was going to continue protesting the shelter, but that she wasn't optimistic about the community blocking it.
"At this point, it's a done deal and now we just have to make them accountable and make sure that the crime rate does not go up and our quality of life is not diminished," she said.
"I plan to continue my everyday life and the way that I do things. I just hope it doesn't change the way I feel about the neighborhood as far as it being unsafe."
