Monday, February 19, 2018

Homeless behavior is causing problems all over the city


From the Daily News:

The Daily News spent three months looking at life in neighborhoods with large numbers of shelter beds, documenting the cost these residents pay by shouldering a disproportionate share of the city’s collective burden.

The News found they often face a wide variety of challenges: verbal harassment and physical assaults; stoops used as bathrooms; outdoor flowerpots used to hide knives; prostitution and drug dealing; newly arrived gentrifiers unable to tell the difference between some longtime homeowners and shelter residents; real estate brokers warning that property values fall when new shelters are announced nearby; and a pastor who lost half his congregation after a parishioner was raped by homeless youths from a nearby shelter.


From the Daily News:

All along Queens Boulevard the Department of Homeless Services has placed homeless in one hotel after another. Residents believe two more are coming soon based on building permits touting new “hotel/apartment residences.”

Watchful residents complain about a history of complaints over incidents involving these hotels-turned-shelters, from prostitution to physical assaults.

Between 2013 and 2017, there have been 809 calls to 311 about homeless assistance in the two zip codes with the bulk of the hotels: 11377 and 11373.

Those two zip codes far outstrip all others in Queens for calls about the homeless.

On Jan. 4, the Department of Investigation revealed prostitution and drug arrests at 34 hotels where the city places homeless families. Twelve of those hotels are located in Queens, the report said.

Exhibit No. 1 cited by frustrated locals is the Pan Am Hotel.

Four months after the mayor’s promise to cut back on shelter-hotels, the city re-upped its contract with the nonprofit that manages a family shelter in the Pan Am — extending it through 2023.

Longtime homeowner Sally Wang, a member of Elmhurst United, a group pushing to close the Pan Am, said the new contract with DHS is just the latest insult to arrive from City Hall.

“What we’re finding is a lot of homeowners are selling out because of the shelter,” she said. “They don’t want to be near the shelter. They’re selling to investor owners who don’t live here and that starts the deterioration of the whole neighborhood. And it's worse now that the contract is in for six years.”


Violence at shelters has been redefined by the de Blasio administration.

And here's what Billionaire's Row has to look forward to.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here is what NYC has to look forward to under the progressive leadership of De Blasio
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Diseased-Streets-472430013.html

Joe Moretti said...

WHAT, this is new to city administrators, homeless people behaving badly!!!!! What you thought all homeless where cute little kids holding teddy bears. Just another example of put something in place, worry about consequences down the road.

Kind of ironic that a city that will spend millions of dollars on asshole studies, like tractor trailer parking on public streets or illegal truck driving on residential streets or is the sky blue, just implemented turning hotels into homeless shelter and expected that the area they were put it would see a rise in the quality of life and be good for the community.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.

If the government was an actual business, it would have been closed back in the 80's.

Anonymous said...

Forest Hills' central business district, Austin St, 71 Av, the MacDonald park, Queens Blvd, and lately, Metropolitan Av, are all teeming with the homeless refuse. Deranged and filthy people just roaming and sleeping, and begging. At times 71 AV looks just like Sutphin Blvd, another cesspool . FH has changed. Who would want to own a business there, much less live there in 5 years?. And what will the Gardens homeowners do when their $4 million homes plummet in value? Why aren't they speaking out about what is happening to the immediate community surrounding them now? What are they waiting for?

JQ LLC said...


With the addition of the bike lanes which are slowly killing businesses and the placing of homeless people many of the hotels and motels, Queens Blvd is going from the boulevard of death to a modern day skid row.

This also shows that the hotel industry's donor money has paid off swimmingly as they have managed make profits off of abject poverty. Of course the real estate industry has made immense dividends with the gerrymandering of homeless people as the city condenses them in residential areas far away from their luxury tower developments.

And it is quite obvious now that the manipulation and reclassifying of crime stats that was done by the NYPD in the last few years is being used to more nefarious effect in homeless shelters by the DHS and is being encouraged by the corrupt mayor just so he can show that crime has gone down under his helm.

This is fraud and corruption being committed at the expense of the constituency and the exploitation the destitute.

Anonymous said...

Wait! Hold on! Just a minute! you're telling me that the homeless aren't cuddly friends who improve the quality and appeal of a neighborhood. i find that hard to believe. who doesn't enjoy seeing a filthy vagabond arguing with his imaginary friend while pissing on the utility pole on the street corner.

This is the World's Borough, take in the sights people.

JQ LLC said...

Here's a not so fun fact on that behemoth tower that now has a homeless hotel shelter in their backyard. Extell was awarded 421a and other property tax exemptions that were on prior city guidelines. Which turned out to cost the taxpayers over 25 million dollars that could have went to building a decent shelter or SRO building, an real affordable apartment building for struggling families priced out of their neighborhoods, to fund long overdue NYCHA repairs to the roofs and boilers or a medical center for weak junkies to get treatment or even to shoot up.

https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2015/07/15/billionaires-row-tower-one57-421-a-property-tax.html

Re: that NBC story, amazing that you can get better insight from a cute and amazingly smart 3 year old girl than from any elected official. In fact you can barely get any insight when they refuse to acknowledge to widening problem.

It seems all that money and innovation created from Silicon Valley has not stemmed the growing blight and poverty that they caused with their frivolous spending and exorbitant renting.

Anonymous said...

AND HIZZONER JUST DOES NOT GIVE A SHIT !! FUCK HIM . IT'S GETTING WORSE BY THE DAY.

Anonymous said...

"And it is quite obvious now that the manipulation and reclassifying of crime stats that was done by the NYPD in the last few years is being used to more nefarious effect in homeless shelters by the DHS and is being encouraged by the corrupt mayor just so he can show that crime has gone down under his helm."

People deny that such manipulation takes place, but an admission was recently made in a surprising place.

I was at a meeting of New York's Marine Resources Advisory Council, which is held at DEC Marine District headquarters in East Setauket, in Suffolk County. The Council, among other things, reviews all of the proposed salt water fisheries regulations and advises the DEC on such issues. As a result, a lot of people connected to the fishing industry, particularly the party and charter boat fleet, come to the meetings to complain about scientific and landings data that they believe will result in more regulations that they feel will hurt their businesses.

A few months ago--I think it was September, but it could have been November or July--tempers grew a bit heated over some data. One member of the audience, an ex-NYPD Marine Patrol officer who is closely connected to the Sheepshead Bay party boat fleet--not sure if he is a crewmember or owner of a boat, but he is certainly close to those who are--was very upset with some of the information being used, and said (quote is approximate, provided for the gist of what was said and not the exact words)

"Your data is no good and you shouldn't use it. When I was with the NYPD, and we had numbers that didn't make sense, we just changed them into something more reasonable."

So yes, numbers do get changed. All of us at that meeting heard it from the horse's mouth.

Anonymous said...

How can Queens claim to have a beautiful diversity and be a gorgeous mosaic without the homeless? Your diversity is your strength.

Anonymous said...

I live two blocks from the infamous Pan Am. Believe me, the very weekend it began to take on families en masse (still not officially announced), males were observed walking up and down our blocks with empty baby carriages, scanning and scoping every porch, driveway, parked car and alley ways leading to the back of the houses. My neighbors formed a human blockade on our block to prevent this. Soon after, in the mornings, obvious male residents of the "shelter" were seen wheeling dirt bikes, carts, carrying bird cages, you name it, down the subway.
I doubt that they arrived at the shelter with these items, besides, where would they be taking them except to sell elsewhere. Local store owners began to complain of shoplifting of cigarettes, beer, snacks--What can an Asian do when a bunch come in and overswarm the store--these owners tend not to report incidents because, who knows, they have their own things to hide! And rolling paper for reefer is always now sold out!

Then when school opened, the block leading to PS 102 on Van Horn was one cloud of reefer smoke, as the "parents" led their kids to school. Or let them cross Grand Ave alone while they rolled their joint.

That was at the beginning of the Pan Am, when it was cited as a "temporary" shelter. Some of these conditions have abated, or rather, I turn a blind eye, and make sure I stay home once it gets dark. Sad.

Anonymous said...

>"newly arrived gentrifiers unable to tell the difference between some longtime homeowners and shelter residents"

That shouldn't have made me laugh but it did.

JQ LLC said...

re: new gentrifiers aka the hipshits

That should be funny but it's not considering that this demographic tends to embrace diversity and tolerance for others allegedly.

re: Suffolk county revelation

I am very very curious about this story, it reminds me of how Eric Trump blabbed to a golf journalist that his pop got financing for his country clubs from Russian Banks and other foreign financiers. Although unrelated but yet intriguing the party boats on Sheepshead Bay were recently ordered not to do overnight cruises because of the rambunctious behavior of their patrons and from complaints from residents over the noise coming from the docks.

Considering that anonymous above witnessed and heard this cavalier statement recently, this needs to be probed and names have to be named. Because this odious practice could have been going on since the days of Giuliani and most certainly Bloomberg considering what Adrian Schoolcraft documented.

Anonymous said...

That true !!
All rolling paper with in 1 mile of that shelter in Maspeth sold out, the gas station and bodega can not re-stock it fast enough !!
Actually the Paki in the bodega is real pissed off and no longer stocking rolling paper & 64oz beer because he don't want the garbage in the store. You have to go all the way down by Fresh Pond
The poor guy had to moved the wine cooler & beer fridges where he can see them to discourage stealing. They are all boozers, drug addicts and thieves in the hotel.

Res Ipsa said...

>>And what will the Gardens homeowners do when their $4 million homes plummet in value?

They probably won't see a decline in value. Rather, they will just sell to developers who will greatly increase the density of the area. The mayor will say this is a win because it's near transit options. Think about how many apartment buildings could go up on just one block of the gardens.

There goes the neighborhood.

Anonymous said...

Oy Vey, them Jewish people in Forest Hills been voting democrat forever and deserve a taste of what they did for everybody else. They got exactly what they asked for IMO
Good, Now they and their children can be Jamaica II and have a taste of the bullshit we been putting up with for near 50 years since Abe Beam elected Mayor

Q:Do I feel sorry for them?
A:HELL NO !!

Should anybody feel sorry for them?
A:HELL NO !!

Anonymous said...

Where are your civics, community boards, elected officials, Queens weeklies?

Unless they say something and do something what you are describing does not exist.

Now lets move on to the real problems of illegals and sexual deviants and bicyclists and developers building on flood plains which takes all their attention.

Anonymous said...

"re: Suffolk county revelation

I am very very curious about this story, it reminds me of how Eric Trump blabbed to a golf journalist that his pop got financing for his country clubs from Russian Banks and other foreign financiers. Although unrelated but yet intriguing the party boats on Sheepshead Bay were recently ordered not to do overnight cruises because of the rambunctious behavior of their patrons and from complaints from residents over the noise coming from the docks.

Considering that anonymous above witnessed and heard this cavalier statement recently, this needs to be probed and names have to be named. Because this odious practice could have been going on since the days of Giuliani and most certainly Bloomberg considering what Adrian Schoolcraft documented."


I looked back at the public records. It was actually the May meeting of the Marine Resources Advisory Council. A description of what was said can be found at https://you.stonybrook.edu/mrac/files/2015/06/MRAC-Bulletin-May-16-2017-ss6rum.pdf. Verbatim minutes are taken, and a transcript can, I believe, be ordered for a minimal cost.

JQ LLC said...

Anon:

Thanks a lot. I will try but hopefully the fine writers at the Daily News, who did the NYPD crime manipulation expose, will notice.

Another thing worth ruminating about, the reason liberal de Blasio chose and hired Bratton in the first place after Banks decided to drop out (those ties to Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg, the latter who bragged about his influence in the NYPD, and Norman Seabrook was surely was a big factor)

Live long and prosper. Death to the Democrat Machine (and the establishment republican one too.)

TommyR said...

Hey, it's my backyard. Thankfully I'm a little further up and away from the Pan-Am, but I sympathize with the ^Anon above whose only two blocks out. Yikes...put in cameras and burglar bars, man! :O

Honestly the 'hood never needed this crap, but everyone jumped down our damn throats for WASCISM when hard-working brown and Asian ppl were like, 'Thanks, no thanks'. Granted, the Chinese were a little tone deaf about how they actually objected, but so what - the point was an honest, fair one for them to make.

I shop at Great Wall all the time. The duck over rice is quite nice.

Anonymous said...

Just a matter of time before the ‘high end’ homeless discover the beauty and personal economic ‘potential’ within Forest Hills Gardens. THEN, and only then, will sneaky Comrade Wilhelm get a fight on his hands that he will back off from.

Anonymous said...

Wilhelm need his ass kicked bad, sadly it may be at the price of homeless nutter or jailbird killing somebody before people wake up. I don't understand why people cant see or refuse to see things, why have people turned into such sheep and living doormats to this Nazi bastard.

Anonymous said...

There aren't that many Jews living in Forest Hills as there were 30 years ago. East Asians have supplanted them making up 40% of the pop.