Meeting Tonight to Protest Armory Intake Center
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
redirected from where?
14000 per year is about 39 each day. And where do the women go?
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.