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The Shelter Wars: City’s Need for Beds Meets Opposition in Several Neighborhoods

7 Comments

  • G.O. Wanus
    Posted September 10, 2019 at 12:45 pm

    Kudos to Brad Lander and others who are standing their ground and actually welcoming homeless families into our community. The 5th Avenue shelter is a block away from where he lives and two blocks from my family’s house. Like many of our neighbors, I much prefer families and children moving into the neighborhood than more Manhattan transplants who aren’t “tuned in” to the community and use this area as an affordable springboard that will eventually launch them back to Manhattan, or – if they do have families – to larger homes in prettier areas or out of town. While landlords and real estate agents profit from that type of constant turnover, the sense of place and community we have here suffers. It should be noted that most people in this community (Gowanus, Park Slope, South Slope) – while rightly shining light on financial issues – are in support of welcoming these homeless families. While they won’t come out and say it, most of those who are opposed are concerned about property value – i.e., meaning they’re not planning on staying here anyway. That’s not how we do it in Brooklyn. To them I say, “good riddance.” To the arriving families I say “welcome home.”

    • Rosa
      Posted October 10, 2019 at 12:46 pm

      This is a dishonest argument. The fact is that residents stay only a brief time in homeless shelters. WIN estimates that the residents of the shelters at 535 and 555 4th Avenue will stay only about 15 months on average. They will not be integrated into the community. They are an inherently transient population–much more transient than property owners, and even more transient than renters. But most of all, public policy should not be based on certain individuals’ prejudice towards whole groups of people, including newcomers to “your” neighborhood.

  • Cathy
    Posted September 11, 2019 at 7:03 am

    With regard to using stats to prove a point that crime is down near shelters – many crimes were reported in the Elmhurst area that were directly related to shelter residents at the Pan Am hotel. The police came and refused to take reports, most likely under direct orders from the PC who reports to de Blasio. Walk into any business on QB near the hotel and talk to the managers and owners. They’ll tell you an earful.

    • nyc101
      Posted September 15, 2019 at 3:44 pm

      Then the councilmember for that area is not doing their job. The CM and other local elected officials need to make a big deal about the intentional lack of NYPD response. If they don’t get in front of this nothing will happen.

  • Rosa
    Posted October 10, 2019 at 12:54 pm

    This article claims–with no supporting evidence other than to quote Christine Quinn, an interested and biased source–that community fears about homeless shelters are unwarranted. Now we have hard evidence that proximity to homeless shelters does indeed lower property values. See this New York Times article, “How Homeless Shelters Affect Property Values,” published September 25, 2019.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/25/nyregion/nyc-homeless-shelters-property-values.html

    If proximity to shelters lowers property value than it is incumbent upon the City to disperse shelters as widely as possible so everyone shares the burden equitably.

  • Robin
    Posted December 24, 2019 at 12:55 pm

    A little late to the party but… Parkchester already has its share of shelters while other communities have none. Why should we be slotted for another while other communities don’t have any? Some articles cite the statistics of number of people in the shelter system who are “from” certain communities. It stands to reason, that if one is “from” a wealthy community, that they would downgrade to a middle class, then a lower class, then a poor community… tilting the numbers and making it seem like they are “from” areas that are already economically challenged, and hence, justifying concentrating homeless shelters in only some communities.

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