Good News for Bed Stuy and Crown Heights Armories?
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz isn’t giving his State of the Borough speech until tonight, but somehow The Daily News already knows that he’s going to trumpet support for creating state-of-the-art recreation centers at both the Bedford-Atlantic Armory and the Sumner Avenue Armories similar to the one that’s recently been completed in Park Slope. “Bedford…
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz isn’t giving his State of the Borough speech until tonight, but somehow The Daily News already knows that he’s going to trumpet support for creating state-of-the-art recreation centers at both the Bedford-Atlantic Armory and the Sumner Avenue Armories similar to the one that’s recently been completed in Park Slope. “Bedford Stuyvesant deserves it as much as Park Slope, and so does northern Crown Heights,” says the Beep, who will announce that he’s earmarking $1 million towards each project. (Council Member Tish James has pledged to come up with another $10 million for the Bedford project.) The contrast—with the comparatively wealthy neighborhood of Park Slope getting a fancy gymnasium while the poorer neighborhoods of Bed Stuy and Crown Heights get stuck with more than their fare share of homeless shelters—has not been lost on, well, just about anybody with any sense. The city however, continues to try to argue that Bedford Avenue is the most efficient place to locate the central intake center for the city even though the large majority of homeless are in Manhattan. To try to placate people in the neighborhood, the Department of Homeless Services has said it would build a $10 million rec center in the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, but only as a quid pro quo for moving the intake center there, a combo residents say (and we agree) won’t work. “The two cannot coexist,” Crown Heights Revitalization Movement co-founder Sandy Taggart.
Markowitz Wants to Turn Two Armories into Rec Centers [NY Daily News]
G-man, the economic and political clout of Park Slope compared to Crown Heights is like night and day. We are a growing and stable neighborhood, but we’re not Park Slope, in terms of income levels and influence. It’s just not a fair comparison.
“The contrast—with the comparatively wealthy neighborhood of Park Slope getting a fancy gymnasium while the poorer neighborhoods of Bed Stuy and Crown Heights get stuck with more than their fare share of homeless shelters—has not been lost on, well, just about anybody with any sense.”
This statement isn’t completely fair. When the concept of building a rec center in the Park Slope armory started to get off the ground, Bedford-Atlantic was also considered. But the elected officials in the Slope put the money together and those in Crown Heights did not. Park Slope is done, and so is Roger Green for that matter.
The Bellevue intake center serviced thousands of homeless men. According to the DHS own statistical surveys “over 11,500 men sought shelter and services at Bellevue in the first four months of 2008. On one night in January alone, a total of 241 men walked in to the center. ”
Relocating the intake center to Crown Heights is insane. There is no comparison to what the city is trying to do at the Bedford Armory and the current scenario at the Park Slope women’s shelter.
Dr. Dean Franklin is right- but the burden would not only be on the community- which already has far more than its fair share of City Services- but on the homeless, making it much more difficult for them to get services and help. Maybe that’s exactly Bloomberg’s intent. Less homeless asking for services, less money to pay out.
There is also a big difference between a women’s shelter that basically has a more or less stable population, and a gigantic intake center, where every homeless man in the city looking for shelter has to stand in line, get processed, hang around until they figure out where to send him, perhaps get detoxed, evaluated for mental illness concerns, or drug/alchohol treatment, etc, etc. Kinda like the difference between having the tickets-only, 100 seat, Metro North waiting room next door, or the entire Grand Central Station.
Yes, a smaller shelter, properly run, that is, with programs for the homeless and places for them to be during the day, could co-exist with a rec center, but not what they have now. Now, they kick the homeless out in the morning, lock the doors, and let them back at night. The homeless are in the streets and neighborhood hanging out all day with nothing to do, nowhere to relieve themselves, and no chance of job training, or mental health help. Some of them, not all of them, are dangerous. Who in their right mind is going to send their kids off to a gleaming rec center with that environment? This community cares about its children as much as they do in Park Slope or anywhere else.
We would love a rec center. We are not going to be suckered into the city’s carrot and stick offer. It doesn’t even guarantee that we’ll get the center, anyway. The more important issue is that Crown Hts North is not the ideal place for the intake center for the homeless men of New York City. Period.
The kind of shelter that 16Street describes (which is currently collocated with a recreational facility at the Park slope Armory) I think would be appropriate for the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, if it were to also have a recreational facility (or if not). Currently the city is proposing for Bedford-Atlantic a facility with 300-400 beds, serving what could be as many as 14,000 men per year (approximately what the current intake center serves).
Thanks mopar. I was trying to highlight the distinction between homeless who immediately try to get out of being homeless, and those who for various reasons linger in homelessness because of various issues they have.
CAMBA operates this Armory shelter for mentally ill and substance abusing women … the 70-bed facility serves about 150 women a year.
Infinite, you left out the type of homeless I see most: The mentally ill.