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June 25, 2009

Meeting Tonight to Protest Armory Intake Center

homeless-shelter-map-0609.jpg
Just a reminder that tonight there's a town hall meeting being hosted by State Senator Eric Adams to discuss Bloomberg's plan to stick Crown Heights with the city's main homeless intake center. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m. at the St. Peter Claver Roman Catholic Church Auditorium at 11 Claver Place between Franklin and Classon Avenues. Bed Stuy Blog has a flyer for the event posted here.




Posted by Brownstoner at 1:58 PM | Comments (20)
Categories: Crown Heights, Quality of Life

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i wonder what % of homeless persons panhandle. Those that do for the most part panhandle in Manhattan I'd guess. Therefore they would be much more likely to take public transportation to get to and fro the intake center...thereby creating more revenues for the MTA!!!!!!!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Posted by: ftgreenepark at June 25, 2009 2:26 PM

The only place I can think of that peopel might not mind this thing is a place where the homeless have histiorically been drawn to, a place that the city could use for public/municiple complex, say a railyard? I wonder where there is a railyard that could use another deap-pocketed bidder...

Posted by: Joe from Brooklyn at June 25, 2009 2:51 PM

I wasn't really convinced that Bloomberg's plan could redirect over 14,000 homeless men to Brooklyn every year until I saw the arrow labeled "14,000 homeless men redirected to Brooklyn." Now I am.

Posted by: Smudge at June 25, 2009 2:51 PM

redirected from where?
14000 per year is about 39 each day. And where do the women go?

Posted by: coopfornow at June 25, 2009 2:59 PM

Sadly protests of this nature seem to be little more than listening tours for low-level admins for a plan that will not be getting changed.

Posted by: infinitejester at June 25, 2009 3:01 PM

Since Bloomberg wants a third term, this may get more attention. My letter to Markowitz actually got back a letter specific to the matter, rather than the ordinary form letter response.

Posted by: bedstuy11216 at June 25, 2009 3:11 PM

They want to redirect all the City's homeless here. It's a cpompletely inadequate answer to the problem and it's only real vlaue is to Bloomberg who wants to dump Manhattan's problem on Brooklyn. On Crown Heights and Bed Stuy to be more exact. The majority of homeless are in Manhattan and the Bedford Armory is not only situated in a neighborhood oversaturated with shelters and social service programs, but a location that is far from convenient to get to. Try getting some homeless guy on a freezing winter night to come all the way ou here- on the A or C- and then a nice long walk. then they can get rerouted (after a nice long walk back to the station) to some other shelter- maybe Queens, the Bronx- who knows? where ever there is room. So explain to me how this helps anyone? And it's a huge slap in the face to 2 neighborhoods that have fought long and hard to improve.

Posted by: bxgrl at June 25, 2009 3:28 PM

Smudge - Curious as to where you think the rest of the 14,000 men who seek emergency shelter each year are going to go if not here. Unless you mean that they simply won't seek formal shelter, and will instead remain on the streets of Manhattan or seek other options, which I agree, some probably will. Do you think this is an outcome that City policy should seek to promote?

Coopfornow - Men will be redirected from the current intake center, which is centrally located in Manhattan in the East 30s, and will be turned into a luxury hotel. The average men seeking emergency shelter per day is 39, but some days will see little traffic and others heavy traffic. Peak days may see about 200 men, though it is hard to predict. The Armory is only being set up to accomodate about 250 men, so presumably other nearby facilities will have to accept overflow. Big question is how many of the chronically homeless will simply choose to move to the streets of Brooklyn to be closer to the shelter.

Posted by: Dr Dean Franklin at June 25, 2009 3:50 PM

My guess is a developer approached Bloomberg with the idea of turning the Bellevue shelter into a hotel -- a very handsome building, by the way; it even looks like the old Barclay/Intercontinental off Park Avenue! -- THEN the City figured out where to shove the homeless.

Posted by: NOP at June 25, 2009 3:51 PM

Hey ftgreenepark -

I bet you're right about homeless men currently panhandling in Manhattan. The real question is where they're going to panhandle if the mayor's plan goes through? Here's one of my guesses: in Fort Greene Park.

Posted by: Dr Dean Franklin at June 25, 2009 3:56 PM

NOP and BxGrl:

You've hit the nail right on the head. The reason that there is so much to do to maintain and improve the quality of life for the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant is twofold. We have had elected officials that are all too willing NOT to fight for their communities and the powers that be are alll too willing to dump services like the shelters on communities they perceive unwilling or unable to fight back.

Posted by: BrooklynIsHome at June 25, 2009 4:17 PM

Back in town for the week, I visited family in Gramercy Park and passed the old -- and empty! -- Salvation Army women's hotel on Gramercy Park South.

Move the homeless there! It's designed as a "temporary residence" with dorm-like rooms and a dining room on the first floor.

And the guys would enjoy a key to the private park.

Posted by: NOP at June 25, 2009 4:22 PM

NOP, are you talking about that building mentioned in that old article?:
http://therealdeal.com/newyork/articles/new-condos-on-gramercy-park

Posted by: lostintranslation at June 25, 2009 4:29 PM

Lost:

Yes. Perfect for a homeless shelter, don't you agree?

I'm sure the neighbors would be terribly supportive, too.

Posted by: NOP at June 25, 2009 4:37 PM

Makes sense.
That means that the city will not want to do it. WHERE'S THE CITY COUNCIL'S BRIBES, campaigns just don't pay for themselves and scumbags need good PR.

Posted by: Joe from Brooklyn at June 25, 2009 5:03 PM

Hey NOP! How are you?

Dr. Dean- my bet is that all Bloomberg cares about is getting them out of Manhattan. And making it so difficult to get a bed that they simply don't bother. So he is really shooting himself in the foot- if they won't come here, they'll stay on the street in Manhattan. But they won't be getting services or shelter- so the City"saves" money. It's just my guess but I can't find any good explanation to make this the one intake center for the City- especially a city as huge as this one is.

So the solution is to try to dump the problem on us. Bklyn is home- we are fighting back but we also have do nothing elected officials like Al Vann who can only be bothered to show up if he gets attention or press. We have people like Tish James fighting for us (her area of Crown Heights is only 2 blocks or something ridiculously small) , but Al Vann? MIA.

Posted by: bxgrl at June 25, 2009 5:10 PM

See you soon, Bxgrl. ;)

Posted by: NOP at June 25, 2009 5:26 PM

Infinitejester's post is the most intelligent in this thread.

Posted by: Big Jugs at June 25, 2009 6:29 PM

And Big Jugs is the least intelligent.

You have yet to define your position other than to say you're all for the intake center in Crown Heights. We have valid, sensible reasons to oppose it: it's bad for the homeless, it's bad for the communities around it. What have you got?

Posted by: Montrose Morris at June 25, 2009 10:48 PM

I believe Big Jugs' position would go something like this:

"I think it's a swell idea to concentrate all homeless services for the entire city of New York into a small number of working class communities of color in central Brooklyn. I furthermore think it would be great to make sure this concentration of services was in an area that is hard for the homeless to get to, and is devoid of hospitals, jobs and social service programs, but has an active drug trade and gang problems."

Am I getting this right Big Jugs? Please feel free to edit.

Anyhow, just got back from the Town Hall. Biggest and most animated crowd I've seen yet - probably about 250 people over the course of the night. Lots of pols (LJ, BDB, MM, KC, etc.) plus residents of the shelter, Coalition for the Homeless, PACC, neighborhood residents, etc. Seems like it's really picking up speed, but not sure if we'll get momentum in time.

Posted by: Dr Dean Franklin at June 25, 2009 11:24 PM

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