City Reneging on Homeless Intake Center Promise?
It’s looking like the city may be backing out of a promise to spread the burden of caring for the city’s homeless population by opening a Manhattan-based intake center to complement the one it’s dumping on Crown Heights. Here’s what DHS Commissioner Robert Hess said last year on the topic: We’ve received considerable feedback regarding…
It’s looking like the city may be backing out of a promise to spread the burden of caring for the city’s homeless population by opening a Manhattan-based intake center to complement the one it’s dumping on Crown Heights. Here’s what DHS Commissioner Robert Hess said last year on the topic:
We’ve received considerable feedback regarding our plans to move men’s intake from its current location at 30th Street in Manhattan to the Bedford Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn, when the current site closes. And based on that input, we have developed a new plan that will allow us to have in place two intake sites – one site in Manhattan, and a second site in Brooklyn at the Bed-Atlantic Armory. We will ensure that there is a new intake site in Manhattan by the time DHS exits 30th Street facility.
The only problem is that the city’s 2010 budget does not reflect any plans for a new Manhattan center, suggesting that the Bedford Armory will the single point of entry into the shelter system for the male homeless population in the five boroughs. In addition to being an unfair burden on the community, it also neglects the reality that the majority of homeless men are in Manhattan. To protest this, Council Members Letitia James and Bill De Blasio along with a number of other elected officials and community groups are holding a rally on the steps of City Hall on Sunday at 3 p.m. Meanwhile, some homeless folks are shacking up at a recently developed luxury condo building in the neighborhood. Not too shabby.
Update on the Bedford Armory Homeless Saga [Brownstoner]
Shelter Woes Spread From Crown Heights to Bed Stuy [Brownstoner]
Homeless Intake Center Plan Provokes Broad Opposition [Brownstoner]
Pols Gather to Pan Crown Heights Homeless Plan [Brownstoner]
Crown Heights Rally: Don’t Dump On Us! [Brownstoner]
Wow…from the “luxury condo” article:
“I’m a hardworking taxpayer, and I don’t think homeless people should be living better than me,” fumed Desmond John, 35, a window salesman who wanted to rent one of the fancy apartments. “They said it’s not for rent. It’s a shelter. I was shocked.”
Give the developer credit. He figured out a way to pay his mortgage when the economy tanked. Not a big surprise the mayor seems unconcerned with this plan’s impact on Crown Heights/Brooklyn.
Benson, I agree the armory is a magnificent building. The point is that Crown Heights is carrying the majority of the city’s burden, if not all. That’s not fair!!! The homeless that will be utilizing this facility on a daily basis will most likely not be John Doe who lost everything due to the ecomony. Granted, some are in this situation due to hard times, but a lot of these men are drug addicts, have mental illnesses, sex offenders and pedophiles. If you do a search for sex offenders living in Brooklyn, there are large number already at the armory. How much more can you ask of a community that already has 5x the number of social service beds than any other community?
I think that if the homeless are “deserving” of new condos for shelter, then they are certainly worthy of an intake center in this magnificent building.
Luxury condos, now this. Crown Heights “can’t catch a break”.
Gentrification is reversing. Rewind!
***Bid half off peak comps***
Well said MM!
I urge all concerned citizens to come out for this. If you can’t, then contact CHRM and other groups for future protests, and to sign petitions. It doesn’t matter if you live in Crown Heights or not. This will affect you.
How the city expects homeless men to make their way to central Brooklyn every day, especially in winter or a night like last night, FOR INTAKE, not a bed, is mind boggling. Intake means they are screened, and then sent elsewhere, or stay at this shelter. Are they supposed to take cabs, or the LIRR to the armory? This is also the worst men’s shelter in the city, the place of last, last resort, and there are no plans to do anything to change that, except to shuffle around the cots. Since many homeless men have substance abuse problems, as well as mental and physical illness concerns, why put an intake center in a part of the city that has NO HOSPITALS, NO MEDICAL FACILITIES, anywhere near it, unlike near Bellevue, or other Manhattan locations, where over 60% of the homeless are located.
This is not NIMBY. The Crown Heights community already has 5 times more social service facilities than any other part of Brooklyn. There is already a large shelter right across the street from the armory with an additional couple of hundred beds. What community has 2 men’s shelters in the same block? We do our share in taking care of those in need, how about spreading that around to places that do not. It is also a fallacy that we are only taking care of those in our community, so we should have the centers here. That has been statistically proven to be untrue.
This move by the city is a slap in the face to a community that is on the rise. It is a slap in the face of the homeless, and dangerous to them as well. Our community is not going to stand here and let the city do this to us, or to the homeless. Gone are the days when we just shrug to the inevitability of the will of the powerful at City Hall. We are going to fight this to our eventual victory.
People need to wake up to Bloomberg and his highhanded ways.
Stop believing is over-financed hype.
NYC needs new mayor. 8 years is enough.
Bloomberg and his administration need to be ashamed of themselves. Anyone attending the CB8 meeting tonight?
I’ve been hearing crown heights accommodation for the homeless has gone upscale.