FAC Development at 575 Fifth Avenue
Tonight’s coommunity meeting at Grand Prospect Hall is going to put the South Slope’s liberal leanings to the test. Up for discussion will be a proposed supported housing facility that the Fifth Avenue Committee wants to build on a municipal parking lot at 575 Fifth Avenue. Here’s the rub: When FAC initially proposed the project…
Tonight’s coommunity meeting at Grand Prospect Hall is going to put the South Slope’s liberal leanings to the test. Up for discussion will be a proposed supported housing facility that the Fifth Avenue Committee wants to build on a municipal parking lot at 575 Fifth Avenue. Here’s the rub: When FAC initially proposed the project a year and a half ago, the group left community members with the impression that it would be open to restricting the occupants to seniors and/or youths who were transitioning out of foster care. Now that the project is getting ready to move forward, the word is that 60% of the 49 studios in the development will be reserved for homeless and mentally disabled tenants. Some nearby residents (especially those with children) are concerned about the high numbers of drug addicts and sex offernders that are in this group. (Tempers are already flaring on the Brooklynian boards.) It’s easy to be in favor of providing facilities for this segment of society until one is planned for your own backyard. The meeting is tonight at 7 pm at Grand Prospect Hall, 263 Prospect Avenue. GMAP
Fifth Avenue Affordable Housing Fight Intensifies [Gowanus Lounge]
6:26,
5:54 here, just trying to chill out and figure out how we can defeat this awful plan. And I continue to take all the bait you guys are dishing out…my bad, I suppose.
OK – provide concrete data to back up your lofty claims from these “reputable institutions.” And please, do tell me why there are ongoing problems that are seemingly unsolveable on the block occupied by the Armory, which houses a women’s shelter (15th st. between 7th and 8th aves)
Go ahead – keep trying to explain to everyone here why I’m wrong and you are right. and ask the people who live on that block if everything is cool and groovy and lovey dovey.
The armory housing attracts bad behaviour – drug using and drug dealing riffraff, and even armed thieves (yes, it’s true…they shot at the cops last year – check the police reports if you don’t believe me).
They happen to be visiting the armory residents, and they do their business right on the freakin’ street. You can try to spin it any way you want to, but I know the truth – I’ve seen gnarly shit go down on that block with my own eyes. Why will this place be any different? (Hint to those who are intoxicated with political correctness and/or are on the fence: It won’t be.)
What’s this obsession with sex offenders? I have worked in a large supportive housing program for mentally ill adults. We didn’t have any sex offenders, and in fact we didn’t have a lot of drug addicts either. We had a lot of very sad, very vulnerable people struggling with very unpleasant psychiatric symptoms. Supportive housing means these individuals are NOT hanging out on the street, but are inside and well-monitored for medication compliance, etc. FYI, there are highly structured specialty residential programs for mentally ill individuals who also have problems with addiction. Applicants for supportive apartments are extensively screened and those with a history of addiction have to demonstrate that they are involved in treatment and in recovery.
actually, anon at 5:54, research by a range of reputable institutions indicates that supportive housing neither increases crime nor reduces property values…
You can actually see my building in the picture above, I spent a lot of money on my apartment, I have a small child, and I’m not too stressed about this. As long as you live in NYC, you are going to be living near criminals and drug dealers. Better to know about them, and have people who are helping them out and keeping an eye on them.
Don’t get me wrong – I feel really bad for people with these problems – but I’ll feel worse for myself if this gets built in my hood and my property loses value. Or if crime goes up (Which in all likelihood it will.)
I don’t care what you think of me for feeling this way – I have a right to be protective of my investment and of my kid’s safety in this neighborhood.
What will happen when one of the future residents of this facility gets booted for using again, or theft, or violence – you think they’ll never return to the area?
You said these places are common on the Lower East Side and elsewhere. Great – take it there.
does anyone in your family have a mental illness? a substance abuse problem? come back from the war and had nowhere to live? or maybe you know a kid who’s spent their life in the foster care system and can’t quite live on their own? This is the sort of person who needs supportive housing — making blanket statements about how they’re sexual predators is incredibly offensive.
1:52 wrote: “residents are more likely to be victims of crimes than to commit them.”
Exactly! …which means the neighborhood will overall be more susceptible to crime. Sex offenders? This is insane…We’ve already got enough of them living in south slope, in case you didn’t know….
I have a little kid, and just moved to the nabe recently. How lovely.
actually 3:17, this type of housing does a lot to address the underlying issues of how to deal with homelessness on a real level. supportive housing provides them with housing AND services such that tenants are significantly more likely to be successful at, as much as i hate this term, being productive members of society. there is a lot of evidence that this is how to help people break out of the cycle of homelessness.
also, to those concerned about this stopping gentrification/improvements to the neighborhood/etc…you’ll find housing much like this in the east village, lower east side, harlem, etc. without ill effects on the neighborhood.
what a stupid plan: way to kill a neighborhood transitioning for the better.
put it on 3rd or 4th avenue, away from very expensive properties that people have bought in the last two years.
what about our concerns as homeowners? we invest in the area, we buy properties and send our kids to the local schools, we pay bigger taxes than brownstone owners do in the freakin’ named streets area of the slope and you think we’re unreasonable to want to fight this?
Just look at the Armory on 15th for ongoing proof that these types of centers invite complex problems with no easy solutions…I’m totally against it, and think many others will be too, once word spreads about this. especially if the goal posts are changing from the FAC.
damn right i’m a nimby.