Crown Heights Group Still Doesn't Want Homeless Center
Crown Heights residents continue to fight the mayor’s plan to move the intake center for homeless men from Manhattan to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory. Crown Heights Revitalization Movement (CHRM, pronounced “charm”) organizer Rachel Pratt said in an email about their planned June 1 rally, “At this point, we believe that we will be joined by Borough…
Crown Heights residents continue to fight the mayor’s plan to move the intake center for homeless men from Manhattan to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory. Crown Heights Revitalization Movement (CHRM, pronounced “charm”) organizer Rachel Pratt said in an email about their planned June 1 rally, “At this point, we believe that we will be joined by Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Member Letitia James, NYS Assemblymen Karim Camara and Hakeem Jeffries, and NYS Senator Eric Adams.” The massive armory at Bedford and Atlantic Avenue is already a temporary shelter that sleeps 350 homeless single men, and is known as among the worst in the system. In private, local residents told us they’re already overwhelmed by the crowds of homeless men who regularly congregate on the sidewalks surrounding the shelter, especially in the early mornings when the building is evacuated for cleaning. “I’m not exactly sending my kids out to play on the street,” said one. The community district has six times the average residential social services beds at 116 per 100 acres, the highest in the borough.
CHRM’s website also voices concerns about increased street homelessness (60 percent of the city’s homeless live in Manhattan, not exactly a quick jaunt to Crown Heights), more bus traffic and worse conditions for the homeless. A source close to the mayor’s office told us the goal is to make the intake center more difficult to reach so fewer men would turn to the shelter system, in hopes that they would instead stay with friends or family. The source said the city’s most at-risk homeless population tends to avoid shelters, and the mayor would rather use the money spent on shelters for permanent housing. We were told each bed cost $35,000 annually. But Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless told us the annual cost of shelter for a single homeless adult is $18,000, and $33,000 for a family. “Last year when the City closed a large shelter for homeless men NONE of the savings was re-directed to permanent housing for homeless individuals.”
Markowitz Eyeing Citywide Run, But Still Brooklyn-centric [Daily News]
Crown Heights Doesn’t Want Homeless Intake Center [Brownstoner]
Mayor’s Intake Plan Misguided [Coalition for the Homeless]
Go to hell.
Montrose Morris
Gee Montrose, to be best of my knowledge the mayor’s plan does not forbid teaching skills to the homeless. But you’re certainly right that, if his plan did forbid teaching skills to the homeless, that would be a bad thing.
Your claim not to care about your own property values because you don’t plan to move is ludicrous. Of course you care about your property values. You never know, you might have to move one day for a variety of reasons. So stop playing dumb.
And your “There an armory at this other location they could use” is straight out of the NIMBY playbook. Surely you can do better than that.
I was opposed to the mayor’s plan, but some of the CH posters here are convincing me that it has merit.
I am a part of CHRM because I believe that people can mobilize and together make things better. I am also a member because I am a mother, woman, and homeowner living in Crown Heights. I work from home, I raise my children here and want to make the right decisions to keep them safe. I am tired of apologizing for wanting a better quality of life and safe streets for my children. Don’t we all want that? I know we live in NYC, and the City is often a dangerous place, but if I have any power to minimize the danger for my family, I will do it. There was another shooting right in front of my house last Saturday–the second in two years. It happened in the middle of a sunny afternoon, about 15 minutes after I came inside with my children. In my opinion, police need to focus on policing the neighbhood, not on maintaining order in a City-run shelter and intake center. It is DHS’s job to run that shelter well, and we have to hold them accountable to higher standards.
I believe that the proposed changes to the Armory are wrong for so many reasons. First, of course, is that that place is no way for anyone to live–no services, crime, violence. And then there is the fact that 60% of homeless men are in Manhattan, and those in Brooklyn (16% of the City’s homeless men are in Brooklyn) are in Downtown Brooklyn, not Central Brooklyn. How will they get here in the middle of a winter night?
And finally, we are all entitled to safety, order, and our fair share–just like New Yorkers from other neighborhoods?
Rachel
2:12, since you have no idea what I do or don’t do for the homeless, or anyone else, please spare me the false indignation over my post.
No one argues that a part of the Armory should not be used as a shelter. It already is. The argument is that, first of all, the existing shelter needs to be run correctly. Speaking solely for myself, I’d like to see the shelter have programs designed to train and steer these men back into jobs andsociety. Some will never make it, some could, if they only had second chances. Just providing a bed, and then booting men out into the street during the day is not enough.
Secondly, as has been pointed out time and again, we are not the right place to receive Manhattan’s homeless for all the reasons stated by CHRM and other posters.
Propping up my property values is not my concern, as I plan on staying here for the long haul, good or bad, so no game there. And please, spare me the class war remarks, as this issue is about a Manhattan-centric elitist administration’s lack of solutions to homelessness. If anyone is waging a class war, it’s the Mayor’s office, not the poor, working class, middle class and upper middle classes of Crown Heights, who are united in opposition to this policy.
If an armory is the ideal place for this, there are plenty of them in Manhattan. Pick one. There is a lovely one on Park Avenue. Why shouldn’t that one serve just as well as our 23rd Regiment Armory, as an intake center for the homeless of Manhattan? Centrally located, nice big space…..
Montrose Morris
For anyone who cares, I’m having some software problems, and it is affecting my ability to sign in and post as Montrose Morris. I hope to have this fixed soon. In the meantime, I’m posting as “guest” and signing in my posts. I know that leaves me free to be easily impersonated, but it always surprises me that someone with too much free time sits there and writes personal assaults and insults, spoofs my posts, and otherwise acts like a 12 year old.
I intend to be at the rally. This is an important cause for all of us, not just Crown Heights residents. Kudos to the poster who laid out the trickle down progression – loss of jobs, loss of economic upturn, and the stagnation of a growing and ever more vital neighborhood.
Montrose Morris
Bloomberg’s intent is to convince the homeless to stop trying to get services. How many in Manhattan will even have the transportation money to get here? And 2:23 is right- Manhattan is the biggest NIMBY of all. My neighborhood has far more than its fair share of shelters- we aren’t asking that there be no shelters. we’re saying everyone and every neighborhood do its share. A great number of people in Crown Heights have lived here all their lives. Some families have been here for generations – they’ve worked hard to bring back the neighborhood, and with all the churches and community groups, have done a great deal in caring for the less fortunate in the community. making the armory the primary intake center for single homeless men is an unconscionable added burden to a neighborhood that is already overburdened.
bxgrl
Sarah, good for you. Maybe the Montrose Morris / Rachel Pratt impersonator will eventually get bored and go back to his other zingers, such as “Slow day, Brownstoner?”, “zzzzzzzzzzz”, “dorks”, “this site has jumped the shark”, “the Flea is dead”, etc. Better yet, maybe he’ll just keep eating cannolis and stop typing altogether!
Now it is the Real Rachel Posting (not the imposter). The rally is on June 1st at 12:30 at the armory. It is NOT on June 3rd, and we have no intention of changing it.
Please join us.
If you want more information or want to join our email list for the most current info, email me at crownheightsrm@gmail.com
Thanks.
RP
“What is this mentality that’s being perpetuated as Manhattan vs. Brooklyn regarding homelessness?”
Because the reason they want to put this homeless intake center in Brooklyn is because they want to CLOSE the CURRENT intake center in Manhattan. And build a condo there. Try researching a topic first 3:03, before commenting on it like you’re the big expert.
The debate is about whether to stick with the old way to do it, an intake center in each borough, like it was done for ages. Or to have only one intake center way inside Brooklyn requiring the homeless you care so much about to travel on subways and buses to get there. The mayor hopes this arduous journey will make the homeless choose to stay with family instead. Again, not good for your homeless you pretend to care so much about.
Sometimes the banter we get from the clueless is ridiculous.