From WPIX:
In the quiet neighborhood of Glendale, on Cooper Avenue, sits a dormant, run-down factory building hidden behind a chain-link fence. Neighbors see the building and surrounding facilities as a solution to overflowing classrooms in their neighborhood and others in the borough.
“It’s the most overcrowded school district in the City of New York. And this would be a complex for all district 24,” said former school board member Kathy Masi. “Kids from Ridgewood, kids from Corona, kids from Middle Village, Maspeth, everyone would be able to come here.”
But instead of a school, the building is slated to become a shelter. Once a rumor, the $27 million plan continues to inch closer to reality. And in the meantime, other shelters have popped up around the borough, seemingly overnight. That was almost exactly the case at the site of the former Pan Am hotel where families moved in under the cover of darkness back in June.
“This is going on all over Queens,” said Dawn Scala with the Glendale Civic Association. “There’s a total lack of transparency. They’re putting shelters in with no community notice or involvement. And every time we ask questions we get answers that are vague and inconsistent with prior information they’ve given us.”
The Pan Am shelter has been so controversial that both the shelter residents and neighbors protested outside shortly after it opened. Those staying in the shelter say they’re cramped into small rooms, have no way to control the temperature, and are told when they can eat.
“Being here is like being in Rikers Island, being in prison,” said shelter resident Weny Jamison.
And now for the good stuff. The IBO released a report that revealed the following (see pages 12-13):
Over the 2002 through 2012 study period, addresses of families prior to their shelter entrance were concentrated in the Bronx, central Brooklyn and upper Manhattan. The largest share of preshelter addresses were in the Bronx (39 percent), followed by Brooklyn (34 percent). About 13 percent of families listed prior addresses in Manhattan, with roughly 12 percent of entries coming from housing located in Queens and 2 percent from Staten Island. These distributions show an over-representation of shelter entries from the Bronx and, to a lesser extent, from Brooklyn. According to the 2010 census, 31 percent of New York City households lived in Brooklyn, followed by 27 percent in Queens, 19 percent in Manhattan, 17 percent in the Bronx, and 6 percent in Staten Island.
Despite more homeless families coming from the Bronx than any other borough, the top three neighborhoods where families lived prior to shelter were all located in Brooklyn.
Here's a map of where the homeless are coming from.
SO IF QUEENS DOESN'T SEND ALL THAT MANY PEOPLE TO SHELTERS, THEN WHY ARE MORE SHELTERS BEING DUMPED IN QUEENS, IN NEIGHBORHOODS THAT AREN'T SENDING PEOPLE TO SHELTERS?
Hello, Queens elected officials?
8 comments:
Brooklyn and the Bronx already have plenty of shelters. Queens doesn't have many. That's why the boro has been exporting homeless to the other boros for years.
Anon #1 has it backwards, homeless are being imported into Queens. Only 12% of Homeless are coming from Queens. Homeless Shelters should be placed where the residents come from so it will minimize the disruption in their lives (children's school, family, friends, etc.). Many homeless are being evicted by the developers of their newly gentrified neighborhoods. With the exception of Astoria/LIC Queens has not experienced this.
"Being here is like being on Riker Island" so that's the kind of people who will be living in Glendale.
How many shelter beds are in each borough?
I would have no problem with the shelter if they would give the local precinct an extra 36 cops and 4 new cars. And guarantee this as minimum manning.
There's an abundance of shelters, assisted living, halfway, three quarters houses where convicted felons, addicts and convicted sex offenders are released to by the courts, mental hospitals and/or the prisons. The Rockaways are overloaded. The administrators don't call them shelters. But that's what they are.
Build apartment buildings in the Bronx for them instead.
Ever wonder how these people get into these horrible jams of being homeless again and again? They know that they will be taken care of by the social services, charitable organizations and churches They go into the shelters with a plan that they will be handed housing vouchers to pay the bulk of the rent.
Very quietly 4000 housing vouchers were recently created by The City. Now there are people on the wait list for Section 8 for decades. but somehow these serial homeless have just been awarded 1000 housing vouchers. That's our tax dollars. There are 3000 left. Who is going to get them? Not any one who looks like me.
Did you hear about the 4000 rent vouchers? That means for say two years, the City will pay 70% of rent, the tenant is responsible for 30%. A lot of these people will be homeless again because they will come up with some reason why they couldn't pay a mere 30% of their rent.
It's a very sick mentality. Maybe it's from slavery times, that they feel they are owed something and that they will be taken care of by the Massah/ the authorities.
the city should build affordable housing in the bronx and concentrate all supportive services there. that way no one's is disrupted, including the homeless. keep them in their original communities.
If these people move in I'm leaving. My parents originally came to NYC during the 1920's and settled in what was then known as little Italy in the Bronx. Back then the Bronx looked much like Glendale looks today. Good, hardworking, Christian families, living in 2 or 3 family sized homes in well maintained streets and sidewalks. My friends and I walked to school with no worries because everyone knew each other. There was always a neighbor or family near by that would keep an eye on us. Every once in a while a police officer would come in to the stores just to make sure everything was safe. My mother and many of the other women in the neighborhood would sweep the sidewalks in front of their homes, not because they got paid, but because they had class and liked to see the neighborhood clean. Needless to say, we moved out, along with all the other White families, when the Blacks and Puertoricans started moving in. They subsequently turned what once was one of the most desirable working to middle class neighborhoods into the ghetto it is today. Their perpetual need to be taken care of and refuse to get proper work and education led the landlords to burn their own properties just to get out of the mounting debt of over due rent. This then led to the construction of an ocean of public housing buildings that are a stain on the NY cityscape. Said housing is riddled with crime and destitution the likes of which are comparable to third world nations. It is not a huge leap of the imagination to conclude that this is what will happen when the shelters in Queens open and these "people" start flooding in. It isn't even a matter of if, but when. However, once again,my family and I are not waiting around to see what happens. We're already making plans to leave before the Cooper shelter opens and we're forced to sell our property below value. Which is ultimately my advice to all Queens resident. If you own property, sell before you default. If you rent, leave anyway before you're living in the same house or building as a drug dealer.
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