City Reneging on Homeless Intake Center Promise?
It’s looking like the city may be backing out of a promise to spread the burden of caring for the city’s homeless population by opening a Manhattan-based intake center to complement the one it’s dumping on Crown Heights. Here’s what DHS Commissioner Robert Hess said last year on the topic: We’ve received considerable feedback regarding…
It’s looking like the city may be backing out of a promise to spread the burden of caring for the city’s homeless population by opening a Manhattan-based intake center to complement the one it’s dumping on Crown Heights. Here’s what DHS Commissioner Robert Hess said last year on the topic:
We’ve received considerable feedback regarding our plans to move men’s intake from its current location at 30th Street in Manhattan to the Bedford Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn, when the current site closes. And based on that input, we have developed a new plan that will allow us to have in place two intake sites – one site in Manhattan, and a second site in Brooklyn at the Bed-Atlantic Armory. We will ensure that there is a new intake site in Manhattan by the time DHS exits 30th Street facility.
The only problem is that the city’s 2010 budget does not reflect any plans for a new Manhattan center, suggesting that the Bedford Armory will the single point of entry into the shelter system for the male homeless population in the five boroughs. In addition to being an unfair burden on the community, it also neglects the reality that the majority of homeless men are in Manhattan. To protest this, Council Members Letitia James and Bill De Blasio along with a number of other elected officials and community groups are holding a rally on the steps of City Hall on Sunday at 3 p.m. Meanwhile, some homeless folks are shacking up at a recently developed luxury condo building in the neighborhood. Not too shabby.
Update on the Bedford Armory Homeless Saga [Brownstoner]
Shelter Woes Spread From Crown Heights to Bed Stuy [Brownstoner]
Homeless Intake Center Plan Provokes Broad Opposition [Brownstoner]
Pols Gather to Pan Crown Heights Homeless Plan [Brownstoner]
Crown Heights Rally: Don’t Dump On Us! [Brownstoner]
No Soup for You!
http://www.nypress.com/article-19475-no-soup-for-you_.html
Dr. Franklin, he doesn’t care. I don’t know how many times and how many ways we have to tell the world that Crown Heights is oversaturated for social services. Just last night, CB8’s land use committee heard a request from the Peter Young shelter across the street from the Armory asking that their building be approved for a 75-100 bed live-in drug treatment program. in a five block radius from Grant Square we have the Armory shelter, Peter Young, and another live in program on Bergen near Bedford. Expand the radius and more programs emerge. What other community has 3 large social service entities in that small a space? We have 6 times the saturation of social services, 6 times! Any other community would have long ago put their foot down, and we are making our line in the sand now.
Oh, Big Jugs, if you are in the intake center near Bellevue, help can be gotten quickly. THat’s far different than being at the Armory, and calling an ambulance to be trucked to Interfaith or somewhere else. Crown Heights has no hospitals at all within its borders. Interfaith in Bed Stuy is the only hospital in Bed Stuy, and is over saturated itself. This is not the place for the city’s sole intake center, and it will NOT happen.
Yes, Etson, that’s true, it was bad. Over time though the shooting galleries were brought and renovated and shootings on Columbus and 87th between warring dealers subsideded and eventually stopped. The “poor” remain, for a number of reasons, as do SROS blah blah that I listed before. Despite best efforts to turn the area into a rich-only enclave it has turned evolved, quite inadvertently, into a mixed income neighborhood. Compare Amsterdam to Columbus below 96th street and my point will be clearer.
Outreach to homeless by religious groups has been banned, basically. And the city is shifting away from its traditional liberal support systems for the homeless by making access more difficult. Attrition. I remember the days when vagrants were put on a bus with a 1-way ticket to NY because we had the services. What’s currently happening is IMO a passive-agressive way to bring that era to an end.
Hi Big Jugs!
I think you are partially right – the City’s plan will relocate a significant part of NYC’s chronically homeless population to Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy (for those wondering about the selection of neighborhoods, check out where Bedford-Atlantic sits on a map). This is why the community is freaking out. However, an equally significant portion of the population will remain on the streets of Manhattan, where the facilities they utilize, their existing networks and opportunities for work and panhandling will remain. This is why the homeless advocates are freaking out. The combination of these two effects is why people are maintaining that this plan is very bad.
Curious though – you sound like you think this plan is a reasonable idea. Do you feel that this is a fair and reasonable treatment of the community around the Armory? Or do you just not care? Just curious on how you came to your opinion on this… thanks.
Petebklyn, Interfaith Medical Center and Brooklyn Hospital are short ambulance rides away from the soon-to-be new intake center.
I don’t mind if the intake center comes to the armory. And I stand by my point that your efforts will be successful at blocking this.
Those are the statistics, big jugs. And they do “live” there albeit on the streets. There is a lot more going on than just “sparsely attended” rallies, but you wouldn’t be bothered to know that. Or do anything to help either.
The “most homeless live in Manhattan” argument is hilarious! How can a homeless person claim one borough as a residence when homeless people, by defition, are without a residence? What will happen is that DHS and other social service agencies will give homeless individuals one-way metrocards to the new intake center and, in one fell swoop, all of the former Manhattan “residents” will become Brooklyn “residents”. Really, I’m surprised at the naivete of many on this board. Did you really expect your sparsely-attended rallies to stop this? Get real.
“why put an intake center in a part of the city that has NO HOSPITALS, NO MEDICAL FACILITIES, anywhere near it”?
MM – you really need to ask why? out of sight out of mind.
And BTW, that condo turned into shelter has got to be 2 miles or so from here. On edge of Brownsville….hardly what most of us think as Crown Hts. I wonder if you followed the money – from developer/owner of the failed condo into politcal circles what you might find.