State Sen. Tony Avella has joined the opposition to the planned conversion of an emergency homeless shelter at the former Pan American Hotel into a permanent facility due to what he called “horrendous” conditions at the site.
Avella, who is chairman of the Senate’s Social Services Committee, joined residents and local leaders to speak out against the proposal to convert the shelter at 7900 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst to a permanent facility under a $42 million contract with the city.
“It is an outrage to take an abandoned hotel, warehouse homeless families inside it, ignore shocking City Code and HPD violations, waste an exorbitant amount of taxpayer dollars in the process, and then award a $42 million contract to a questionable-at-best organization, making the entire situation permanent,” Avella said.
According to the senator, the shelter houses over 700 residents, made up of families of which many have small children. Each unit at the shelter holds four to five people.
Because the shelter uses former hotel rooms, they are not equipped with cooking facilities. The senator and organizations such as Elmhurst United claim this goes against a NYC Administrative Code requiring that each unit at a family shelter have a kitchen, and in order to do this, there would need to be major renovations at the site.
The shelter has also had a large number of violations such as failure to provide hot water or heat for days, reports of bed bugs, peeling of lead paint in one unit, and garbage left sitting in front of the entrance to the children’s play area, according to the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.
Due to all these conditions, Avella said he calls on the city to reject the contract that would covert the former hotel into a permanent homeless shelter because he believes it is “not fit for long-term housing for the homeless.”
20 comments:
New York City is not fit for housing all the homeless from out of state. Go back to Pennsylvania!
900 Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst: isn't this address in Peralta's district and not Avella?
Nope, it's in Stavisky's district.
This is a terribly flawed system at best, but families need a roof over their heads until a more permanent solution is offered. Where are people supposed to go? Of course conditions can be made better. So how about all the critics start helping?
Avella for mayor.
Yes we need to help more than the tens of millions of dollars we've already donated.
Good to see the State politicians questioning these Homeless Depots but I doubt that any legislation would go anywhere as the Governers family is hooked-up with one of these "nonprofits". Help USA was his baby.
They should open the books on what people are being paid so we can see who is running to the bank on this deal. The Pan Am rican should be sold and developed to improve the taxpayer base, not left for the city to dump whatever they want there.
So how about all the critics start helping?.... We are helping by pointing out the fact that the only ones who benefit from these quasi-penal institutions are the politically connected who run them. These "non-profits" get almost all their funding from government contracts they are awarded and pay out big salaries. If you want to help the homeless raise your voice to stop these corrupt practices that make these fat cats fatter but don't do anything to help homeless people get out of their predicament. The longer people stay in the homeless system the more money these profitters make. What helps the homeless is good paying jobs and affordable housing. The mentally ill homeless should be in hospitals. As to the homeless that are just in the system for a free lunch...f***em.
P.S. A great start to good paying jobs and affordable housing would be to deport all the illegal immigrants.
Avella for Mayor! #AvellaForMayor
Since I live in the area of the Pan Am here is what I have seen.
1. Homeless adults with 2,3, 4 or more children. This should be considered child abuse.
2. Shelter residents stealing from surrounding businesses.
3. On serveral occassions a shelter father taking his two young children to PS 102 screaming and cursing trying to intimidate the neighborhood.
4. Shelter residents in the nice weather standing around Qns Blvd & Grand Ave. That will lift them out of poverty.
5. Lots of smart phones & jewerly.
6. Lots of tattoos and body piercings.
This is just another case of NIMBY. Not that I blame them, though. It will only bring more problems to the neighborhood.
No, NIMBY projects generally are those that contribute toward the greater good but have a negative impact locally. Warehousing people in shelters and throwing millions down the drain are not contributing toward the greater good.
Finally, a politician who actually cares about neighborhoods and people who live in them. Where are the politicians who represent the Elmhurst district where the Pan Am is situated? Nowhere to be found. They just don't care. This is why they should all be term limited. All they care about is the money. They don't care that these once nice neighborhoods are being ruined. They should step up to the plate and pass a residency law for the homeless. Watch the Pan Am empty out when the non-residents have to leave.
Danny Dromm knew all about this from the get-go -- he should be ashamed of himself --
FL, PA, GA, NC... all get sent our way!
Dromm is a piece of excrement. I happen to meet him on the street when he first campaigned after Monserrate was tossed. Had I known what his agenda was I would have bitched slapped him.
I hate to say it, but that shelter ain't going anywhere. Neighborhood is doomed.
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