Condo-Turned-Shelter Sparks Homeless Frenzy

I agree homeless families are different than homeless individuals. As a concerned mother of three, I know that children can not thrive in an environment that’s chaotic, temporary and/or dangerous. Therefore, turning this condo into a homeless shelter is still not solving the problem that these families face because it is still a temporary situation.

Bloomberg is trying to convince us to vote for him a third time because he’s a successful business man and he can save the city from its current economic woes. As a successful business man, doesn’t Bloomberg know that it’s more cost effective to find permanent housing for these families at market rate for the area as oppose to housing them in an apartment, way above market, temporarily?

Maybe the developer should be running for Mayor because he seems to have a better business sense than Bloomberg at the moment. He saves his property from foreclosure and will make a huge profit while the market corrects itself — great deal!!!

yes agreed with MM
again, as a society we need to be that one helping hand to lift someone out of their trouble. not give them hand-outs, but give that 1 break that could make a difference in someone’s life!
Its a shame though that landlords are the ones benefitting off of the Govt’s dollars while they pocket that money instead of making repairs or keeping their bldg clean

I would gladly rent my first floor to the city for an exhorbitant price like this to take in a homeless family. MM is right, they are under different circumstances usually than what we perceive homeless to be in the “individual” cases.

Homeless families are very different from homeless individuals. Most homeless families become so from economic disaster, domestic abuse, or fire, structural damage or some such. Usually, families just need permanent housing, enabling them to concentrate on getting back on their feet, finding jobs, schools, and solutions to problems.

My biggest concern with this kind of program is preventing large scale greed and exploitation from landlords and developers looking to cash in on the city’s uncomprehensible eagerness to overpay. As I said yesterday, remember the Granada Hotel, downtown in the 80’s? It was one of several hotels recruited to house homeless families that turned into a cesspool of crime, drugs, rats, roaches and squalor. Meanwhile the city was happily paying the equivilent of a 4 star hotel for each resident, and the landlords were living large on the profits, and doing nothing to improve conditions. It was shameful, and the fact that the building is no longer standing is a testament to how embarrassing it was for the administration.

I think applicants need to be properly screened, and opportunities made for them to be able to buy their units eventually, creating not clients, but neighbors with a stake in their surroundings. I can see how and why neighbors would be upset, and I can also understand the feeling from hard working people that this is “unfair”, although it is also unfair that one’s building burns down, or spouse turns abusive, or that someone loses a low paying job, and has no savings or alternatives but homelessness. This could be a fair opportunity for a win-win-win situation, IF DONE RIGHT. Homes for homeless families, a fair price for the developer, and committed new neighbors for a stable working class neighborhood.