Gimme safer shelter

 

QNS 

Victor Lopez, 59, has been struggling to hold a job for most of his life. Since the pandemic hit, he got passed around to different homeless shelters, where Lopez said he faced terrible violence. Now, all he wants is to find a safe haven at the Hungry Monk shelter in Ridgewood.  

Lopez said he’s been to many shelters throughout the city but never felt more unsafe than in Harry’s Place in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Close to 50,000 people in New York City are experiencing homelessness and Lopez knows his situation is not unique.

“It’s terrible,” Lopez said. “It’s crazy in there. Why would they put me in a shelter like that? I didn’t give anyone any trouble. I’m out here trying to get better and get help, not to fight with people.”

Lopez has been trying to get a bed at the Hungry Monk facility, but unfortunately, no beds are available. Father Michael Lopez (no relation), who started the nonprofit, said they have rarely had a free bed since they opened in 2019.

Lopez’s problem is indicative of a larger issue faced by many around Queens and the rest of the city. Council member Robert Holden said Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Steven Banks is to blame. Holden said Banks had been an advocate for the large “warehouse” shelters that pack people in without privacy and barely any security, resulting in the dangerous conditions Lopez spoke of. 

Banks announced his decision to step down last week. Holden is hoping this will kick off a more responsible homeless response.

“I would much rather have smaller, faith-based shelters along with letting a community have a say in where they would be located,” Holden told QNS. “The organizations that run the big shelters for the city have contracts that they often do not fulfill, such as providing adequate security, etc. Banks did not hold them accountable. Residents of the shelter often harass neighborhood residents and shopkeepers, as well as steal from them. Banks also created a culture of corruption, with one scandal after another.”

 

Steven Banks weasels out of the DHS

 

NY Post

The embattled head of the city’s sprawling network of social and homeless services, Steve Banks, has ended his pursuit of a position in Mayor-elect Eric Adams’ administration and will depart at the end of the year, he announced Monday.

The longtime lawyer’s decision to leave municipal service and return to the courtroom comes after a slew of newspaper investigations and city reviews exposed significant shortcomings and wrongdoing at key nonprofit shelter providers.

“Steve Banks is a skilled and accomplished public servant, who has navigated complex government problems to find essential solutions on behalf of New Yorkers,” Adams said in a statement. “I wish him well in his new endeavor.”

Might as well leave this here too.

NY Post

At least a dozen homeless people — each a “different shade of crazy” — have colonized the historic Manhattan Bridge colonnade, terrifying residents and besmirching the century-old neoclassical structure with shanties, tarps and tents.

Nearby businesses and residents told The Post their new neighbors are not only a blight near the 111-year-old span once hailed as the gateway to the Big Apple — they’re dangerous too, throwing things when jostled, stealing, and even pooping al fresco.

“Every day’s a problem,” said Zhong Yi Wang, 53, who manages his family’s restaurant, Jisu on Canal Street, where he said three bamboo plants — which cost $800 a pop — recently disappeared.

Bridge denizens often urinate on his door, bang on his window, and even barge inside to scream at him, he said.

Urine isn’t the worst of it, according to a woman who works at the nearby Mahayana Temple.

“Somebody pooped in front of the temple,” said the woman, who only have her first name, Cindy. “And when we talk to them, they just will throw things on you and do all kinds of strange things.”

“It’s not so safe,” she continued outside the Buddhist house of worship. “They will try to punch you or kick you, you have to run away.”

Even other homeless people avoid the area now.

Just a typical day outside the Glendale shelter

We just gotta keep Steve Banks on payroll!

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A post shared by Council Member Robert Holden (@bobholdennyc)

Delusional Adams wants to keep Steve Banks

Let's see the results of Steve Banks' DHS leadership. Taken outside the "Cooper Rapid Rehousing Center" in Glendale. Last year, DHS told us, "The shelter will serve 200 single men experiencing homelessness who are currently employed or actively seeking employment."

Do these guys look employable?

Great job, Steve!

Meanwhile, Patch is busy looking for "experts" to call Douglaston residents "NIMBY" for not wanting a shelter in their neighborhood. Gee, I can't imagine why they'd be opposed.

Homeless housing provider busted for falsifying addresses while embezzling $500,000,000 from the city

 

 New York Times

 One company was supposedly based in a vacant house in New Jersey. Another company had no office; its address was a post office box inside a shipping store in Nassau County. A third operated out of a Harlem apartment.

The companies were all listed in paperwork as subcontractors for Childrens Community Services, a nonprofit that the city has paid about $500 million since 2017 to provide roughly 1,900 units for homeless people, including families with children.

Authorities believe that the nonprofit defrauded New York City through a network of at least six subcontractors that did not appear to provide the supplies and services listed on invoices, according to a lawsuit the city filed against the nonprofit on Wednesday. The fraud could be millions of dollars, but the lawsuit was not specific.

Two days earlier, federal prosecutors and investigators from the city Department of Investigation executed search warrants at the offices of Childrens Community Services and the addresses of the subcontractors.

 Steven Banks, the city commissioner of social services, said the alleged fraud had no direct impact on the homeless served by the nonprofit.

Nonetheless, the city took the unusual step of asking a judge to place Childrens Community Services under receivership, seeking to take over the nonprofit’s operations of 28 shelters, including 25 in commercial hotels.

The city would then seek other nonprofits to run the buildings and continue services. “We’re seeking a remedy that the city has never sought before,” Mr. Banks said.

One of the subcontractors, SASY Enterprises, is owned by Peter Weiser, and appeared to be connected to at least two other subcontractors.

“I have lots of comments about it. My lawyer told me not to speak to anyone,” Mr. Weiser said.

SASY Enterprises, based in Lawrence, N.Y., was supposed to prepare so-called cluster apartments, which are private apartments used as shelters. The agreement between Childrens Community Services and SASY showed that SASY charged a fee for getting the apartments ready, and a 25 percent markup on gas and electric bills as well as on construction materials and furniture.

 

 

de Blasios DHS kicks out homeless people from a hotel to move in homeless people kicked out of another hotel

 

PIX News 

  In response to neighbors' complaints, Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration vowed to move hundreds of homeless men out of an Upper West Side hotel to a shelter just south of the Empire State Building, but that shelter is currently full of adult families, many with disabilities.

The city not only neglected to tell the families that they were forcing them to move, it also didn't tell them that they were being transferred out immediately, without time to even pack all of their belongings. The Legal Aid Society is now launching a lawsuit.

The city on Wednesday morning formally announced that it was moving 300 men out of the Lucerne Hotel in one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods. By Wednesday afternoon, residents of the Harmonia Shelter, on East 31st Street in Midtown, still didn't know that the de Blasio administration had decided to relocate them to make way for the men displaced from the Lucerne.
Maria Lopez has lived at the Harmonia for two years.

"Why are you going to take out families that are doing something positive," she said, "and bring something that's negative? And make it some men's shelter, that don't make no sense."

 NY Post

With little warning, City Hall moved more than a hundred disabled New Yorkers out of their Midtown shelter to make way for the homeless who were booted by Mayor Bill de Blasio from an Upper West Side hotel.

Frustrated and fearful residents of the Harmonia, a former hotel located on East 31st Street, lined the streets with their belongings Thursday as they awaited their sudden transfer to other shelters in the Big Apple’s sprawling system — with some saying they are being moved to Brooklyn and Queens.

“We’ve been living here for two years. We’ve accumulated so much stuff and they want to just bring one bag. I feel mad,” said Moises Oliveras, 44, who suffers from a host of medical issues and lived at the shelter with his wife, Maria.

“They use us like chess pieces. Moving us around like that.”

The Oliverases only found out Wednesday that they were being moved, just a day after City Hall quietly acknowledged its decision to stop housing the homeless in the Lucerne Hotel.

“We’re human beings, man. And they treated us like garbage,” Oliveras added.
An undated fact sheet posted online reports that more than 170 families call the Harmonia home, though it’s unclear how many lived in the facility as of Thursday. The Post observed dozens of residents standing outside near the facility preparing to move.

“It’s unfair. It’s last notice. Everyone is running around. We were just told this yesterday,” said Lisa Feliciano, 49, a childcare provider who has lived at the shelter for eight months with her daughter.

The Mayor's office and the Department of Homeless Services refused to respond about these transfers

de Blasio clearly doesn't have a soul.

de Blasio and Banks exporting homeless crisis to other states

NY Post

 
New York City generously shares its homeless crisis with every corner of America.

From the tropical shores of Honolulu and Puerto Rico, to the badlands of Utah and backwaters of Louisiana, the Big Apple has sent local homeless families to 373 cities across the country with a full year of rent in their pockets as part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Special One-Time Assistance Program.”  Usually, the receiving city knows nothing about it.

City taxpayers have spent $89 million on rent alone since the program’s August 2017 inception to export 5,074 homeless families — 12,482 individuals — to places as close as Newark and as far as the South Pacific, according to Department of Homeless Services data obtained by The Post. Families, who once lived in city shelters, decamped to 32 states and Puerto Rico.

The city also paid travel expenses, through a separate taxpayer-funded program called Project Reconnect, but would not divulge how much it spent. A Friday flight to Honolulu for four people would cost about $1,400. A bus ticket to Salt Lake City, Utah, for the same family would cost $800.

Add to the tab the cost of furnishings, which the city also did not disclose. One SOTA recipient said she received $1,000 for them.

DHS defends the stratospheric costs, saying it actually saves the city on shelter funding — which amounts to about $41,000 annually per family, as compared to the average yearly rent of $17,563 to house families elsewhere.

But critics says the “stop-gap solution” has been wrought with problems, and ultimately has failed to help curb the city’s homelessness.

Not only are officials in towns where the city’s homeless land up in arms, but hundreds of the homeless families are returning to the five boroughs — and some are even suing NYC over being abandoned in barely livable conditions. Multiple outside agencies and organizations have opened investigations into SOTA.

“We were initially seeing a lot of complaints about conditions. Now that the program has been in operation long enough that the SOTA subsidy is expiring, one of our main concerns is it might not be realistic for people to be entirely self-sufficient after that first year,” said Jacquelyn Simone, policy analyst at Coalition for the Homeless.

DHS said 224 SOTA families have ended up back in New York City shelters. The agency did not answer The Post’s repeated requests for the number of families who wind up in out-of-town shelters.

“We suggested that DHS reach out to people as their subsidy runs out to confirm they will be secure and not have to re-enter shelter, but the agency told us they have no plans to do that,” said Legal Aid lawyer Joshua Goldfein, whose firm represents SOTA families who say the city pressured them to move into New Jersey slums, then ignored calls for help.

de Blasio's and Banks' DHS covers up the severity of violence and drug dealing in city shelters

NY Post


City officials covered up nearly 120 “serious incidents” at homeless shelters by downgrading their severity so they wouldn’t have to be disclosed to state regulators, according to the city Department of Investigation.

The DOI conducted a yearlong probe into allegations that the Department of Homeless Services wasn’t “adequately” reporting arrests and other problems to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which is responsible for ensuring that shelters are safe.

The investigation revealed that DHS created its own “priority codes” that minimized “life-threatening injuries,” mental-health emergencies and some arrests of residents, visitors or staffers, according to an April 8 DOI memo obtained by The Post.

There were “approximately 117 internal reports” from January through June 2017 that contained information that should have been reported, the memo said.
City Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), who tipped off DOI to the situation, told The Post, 

“There’s only one word for the conduct of DHS: inexcusable.”

“DHS adopted a dubious definition of serious incidents that it knew would lead to the under-reporting of incidents consisting of serious injuries, mental health emergencies, arrests and situations affecting the safety of its own residents and staff,” Torres said.

NY Post 

 Security at the city’s homeless shelters is so shoddy that one Harlem facility had its own in-house heroin dealer, according to records and fed-up workers.

Parkview Inn resident Alice Cuesta, 52, was finally busted last month with 60 glassines of heroin after clumsily dropping them right in front of an NYPD sergeant inside the elevator at the West 110th Street shelter, prosecutors said court papers.

Before her fateful fumble, Cuesta had held free rein at the shelter “for a long time,” law-enforcement and DHS sources told The Post — adding that the situation is similar at shelters across the city.

Security gaps, as well as overworked DHS officers who simply don’t have the time, training or help to conduct thorough investigations, have left some residents wondering if they wouldn’t be better off taking their chances on the street.

Glendale and Ridgewood are getting new homeless shelters

NY Daily News

Central Queens residents who thought they successfully beat back city plans to place a homeless shelter in their area should think again.

Now, they’re getting two.

The move comes despite years of opposition from Maspeth residents who yelled at officials, protested outside a top city official’s home and even voted out their Dem council member in favor of an opponent who ran on the Republican line.

One facility, to be located at 78-16 Cooper Ave. just outside Maspeth, will house 200 single adults. 

The other, at 1616 Summerfield St. in Ridgewood, will be for 132 families with children.

“While the narrative is that communities oppose shelters, the reality is that most communities have accepted the opening of shelters because we’re providing the ability to shelter people from that area,” Social Services Commissioner Steve Banks told the Daily News.

The Cooper Avenue shelter, scheduled to open early next year, replaces a temporary shelter that had been located at a Holiday Inn Express. Like the temporary shelter, the new facility will emphasize getting residents employed. It will be run by Westhab, a Westchester-based non-profit.

The Summerfield Street shelter will open by end of 2020 and is aimed at enabling homeless Queens children to continue to go to their neighborhood schools, Banks said. CORE Services Group, which has worked with the city on other shelters, will run this one.

 
The Department of Social Services promised to establish “community advisory boards” that will work with residents in the area.

QNS 

The Cooper Avenue site will house 200 single individuals who are currently employed or seeking employment and open in early 2020. 

Holden said in an Aug. 23 press release that Westhab, a service provider based in Westchester County, will operate the Glendale shelter. “A significant portion of the men housed at the shelter will be from the now–closed Maspeth Holiday Inn temporary shelter, per DHS,” according to Holden’s office.

The Ridgewood location, located at a former factory at 1616 Summerfield St., will house 132 families with children with a late 2020 opening date.


Priority at both locations will be given to those originally from Community Board 5, most of which is represented by Holden, who are experiencing hardship, DHS said.


“Homeless New Yorkers come from every community across the five boroughs, so we need every community to come together to address homelessness,” a DHS statement read. “With zero shelters in Queens Community District 5, these sites will give individuals and families with children the opportunity to get back on their feet closer to their anchors of life. Working together with neighbors and not-for-profit service provider partners, we’re confident that these New Yorkers will be warmly welcomed—and through collaborative support and compassion, we will make this the best experience it can be for these individuals as they get back on their feet.”


Holden claimed that he and others would rally against the plan to provide services to about 330 in southwestern Queens, which DHS claims has no full service shelters at this point in time.


“I along with other elected have  just been informed by [DHS] that they intend on moving forward with a shelter in Glendale,” Holden said on Twitter. “We’ll be meeting with community leaders/members in the coming days to start planning how we as a community will fight against this irresponsible decision.”


A furious Holden blasted the city on Aug. 23 for not considering his alternate plan to build a school on the site instead of a shelter.


“I am disgusted with the way City Hall does business when it comes to housing the homeless,” said  Holden. “I presented a strong plan to have a new District 75 school built on the Cooper Avenue property and I was told by all involved city agencies that this was an ideal solution. But as soon as DOE Chancellor Richard Carranza got involved, he decided it would be better to continue wasting our tax dollars and let the District 75 special needs students suffer in a century-old building surrounded by heavy truck traffic.”


Holden was a driving force in the protests against homeless shelters in Queens during the 2016 demonstrations in the midst of a homelessness crisis. Since then, he has used that influence, in part, to  successful unseat former Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley in November 2017.


“I tried to fight against this shelter the right way, by negotiating with city agencies and coming up with reasonable proposals, only to have the rug pulled out from under me,” added Holden on Friday. 

“I was told countless times that DHS and SCA loved my plan to build a new school on Cooper Ave, and the Mayor’s approval was all that was needed. But the mayor recently told me he knew nothing about the plan. I’m sick of playing this game with City Hall, so now I will fight back the best way I know how, with my neighbors by my side.”


Among the complaints against shelters in nearly any part of the borough, critics often point to the proximity of facilities to schools or cite the areas lack of accommodations such as transportation or grocery stores.


State Senator Joseph Addabbo also vowed to oppose what he deemed to be “large scale” shelters in favor of smaller facilities he views as more appropriate for the community.


“With my district on the verge of having Mayor De Blasio place a fourth large population of homeless men within its boundaries, most recently proposed for Glendale, I will continue to oppose larger scaled shelters with limited services and inadequate transportation, while advocating for smaller, more community-appropriate sites that would better serve the homeless individuals in need,” Addabbo said. “What about utilizing city-owned sites and properties for cost-efficient modular housing as done in other states? What about developing abandoned zombie homes and providing a better living environment for homeless families, especially the children? I guess after witnessing 5 years of the De Blasio administration’s treatment of the homeless crisis, we may never know the answers.”

This decision comes over a year and a half after the city said they were not going to make it a shelter.

(Also, neither Cooper Ave nor Summerfield Street are anywhere near Maspeth.)

Cooper Avenue shelter, take 2

From the Queens Chronicle:

Seven months ago, the Department of Homeless Services told the Chronicle that the longstanding but dormant plan to build a homeless shelter at 78-16 Cooper Ave. in Glendale was dead.

But there's been a dramatic change of plans, according to the office of Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village).

The lawmaker announced Friday that an unnamed social services provider is in negotiations with the DHS to house up to 200 homeless men at the location — a defunct, four-story factory.

"My office had received several reports from area residents over the last few days about activity at the former manufacturing building in Glendale," Holden said. "After sending numerous inquiries to various DHS officials over a 24-hour period, and speaking with Commissioner Steve Banks, these reports have validity and I am extremely concerned."

No deal has been finalized, Holden added, noting that he had provided a "more viable location" for a shelter in the district but "the DHS never responded."

Oh boy. And they were sounding so friendly a few weeks ago.

Pedestrian plazas are homeless havens

From CBS 2:

There are a lot of homeless people on the streets on New York, which has lead some to wonder if the city’s homeless problem is growing.

CBS2 found one homeless hangout right in the middle of bustling Midtown Manhattan. For Thomas Decoteau, the area most known for the hustle and bustle of daily life in the Big Apple is simply known as the quiet zone.

Occupants say they typically get to the space around midnight every night and sleep surrounded by around 25 other homeless people. Decoteau has been sleeping in the Midtown oasis for years, and says outreach workers check on him every night. He’s still there because the city has labeled his street home a temporary pop up location, not an encampment. Only encampments may be forcibly removed.

By the city’s definition, encampments have a visible physical structure that’s difficult to move. Decoteau estimates there are upwards of 100 people staying along the space stretching from 39th to 35th Streets. The Department of Homeless Services refused to discuss the so-called pop up, but insisted last week the homeless situation is under control.

Ozone Park comes out in force against shelter

From PIX11:

On Tuesday night, an incoming homeless shelter, reportedly designed to house more than 100 men, possibly classified as mentally ill, sat high on the meeting’s agenda.

“We are asking this board to put out a strongly worded letter, putting the city on notice, that we the community, we the residents, we the parents, we the constituents, we the homeowners, and we the business owners, do not want this type of shelter where they’re planning on putting it,” Esposito said.

The Administration has already given its “notice” to this neighborhood of plans to bring the shelter.

But Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks did not show up to face his detractors – as he has in the past.

So these residents were basically left to shout into the wind, venting if you will, perhaps, on some level, reluctantly accepting the inevitable.

Behold Banks' B.S.

From AM-NY:

The Department of Homeless Services, which Banks oversees, said the city wasn’t trying to pick on Blissville. In a lengthy statement provided to Newsday, the agency said plans to house about 154 adult families in the Fairfield Inn by Marriott New York/Long Island City at 52-34 Van Dam St. in Blissville was part of the mayor’s “Turning The Tide” proposal. That is an effort to end the city’s 18-year expensive cluster program of using commercial hotel facilities and create transitional housing in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

The placement of homeless housing is done after an analysis at the community board level, covering an area of 100,000 people and not just one finite neighborhood that may be difficult to define with precision, the agency said.

CB2 already houses more homeless than it produces. Hell, all of western Queens does as does the entire borough.

Can we cut the crap now?

Koslowitz ok with jail (and shelter for now)

From the Queens Chronicle:

The city will start housing homeless families instead of single men at the Comfort Inn in Kew Gardens beginning in June, and the hotel will stop being used as an emergency homeless shelter altogether by Feb. 12, 2019.

That’s according to Human Resources Adminstration Commissioner Steve Banks, who made those promises in a Monday letter to Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills).

In return, Koslowitz — who shared the correspondence exclusively with the Chronicle — said she will renew her support for the reactivation of the Queens House of Detention as a jail, should the facilities on Rikers Island close as planned.

The lawmaker exclusively told the Chronicle two weeks ago that she was yanking her support for the QHD proposal, citing a larger-than-planned influx of homeless men the city was housing at the 123-28 82 Ave. hotel just a block away.

“It was a matter of a few weeks that it all transpired, right after it was in your paper,” Koslowitz said Wednesday. “I got the commitment Friday. The commissioner called me on Friday and I told him I wanted it in writing.

Shelter residents show up at Steven Banks' house

A shelter resident with a special needs child showed up at Steven Banks' house to tell her heartbreaking story. Another shelter resident spoke as well.


Sunset Park very loudly expressed their unhappiness with de Blasio and their council person, Carlos Menchaca.


South Jamaica residents spoke out about the proliferation of shelters in their community.


To cap off the event, Curtis Sliwa had the crowd in stitches.

Taxpayer-funded program will pay families to house their relatives

From the Daily News:

The city is offering to pay friends and family members of homeless shelter residents to take in their less fortunate loved ones for up to a year as part of a new program timed to the holidays.

The “Home for the Holidays” program launched this week, and is being offered to 5,000 families who have been living in shelters for at least 90 days.

The host family will get a taxpayer-funded $500 gift card for their hospitality, and extra money toward their rent.

Depending on the size of the family they take in, the host families will receive $1,200, $1,500 and $1,800 a month for up to a year.

The homeless family will also get a $500 gift card to help them settle in.

Department of Homeless Service Commissioner Steven Banks said that the program aligns with the administration’s belief that everyone has to pitch in to address the homelessness crisis, which has led to a record number of people living in the shelter system.

I suppose the timing of this announcement has nothing to do with this:

Homeless number explosion means dumping on a lot of neighborhoods

The ridiculous numbers of hotels being used as homeless shelters and the total mishandling of the homeless situation by both the de Blasio administration and the providers that get paid millions to not provide services has now become a citywide concern. Check these articles out:

Pols discuss homeless, immmigration at Bayside Hills Civic meeting

Electeds debunk rumors that new buildings in Astoria complex would house homeless

Easy Access to Heroin On Manhattan Ave. Tempts Shelter Residents: Director

Luxe hotel near celebrity homes sued for housing homeless

Coney Island A “Dumping Ground For Homeless Shelters” Locals Complain In Protest to Proposed Shelter

And finally, 2 editorials:

Can DHS be trusted?

De Blasio’s homeless ‘strategy’ isn’t a strategy at all

What it's like to live in de Blasio's homeless hotels

From PIX11:

For much of this year, PIX11 has been focusing on Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Steven Banks' increasing reliance on commercial hotels, but on Wednesday, we spoke to a homeless mother who has the experience to talk about the subject – she's already been in three this year.

Things were so bad in some of those hotels, the DHS transferred her to a hotel in the Belmont section of the Bronx, where the conditions we found are not much better.

Aventura Lopez has been languishing in the New York City homeless hotel shelter system. She has stayed in three so far since January of this year.

Based on what she told PIX11, her situation has gone from bad to worse. In her words, "miserable."

Lopez credits the Department of Homeless Services led by embattled Commissioner Banks for her misfortune. She blames them for putting her and her two daughters into a shelter on Crotona Avenue with no heat.

These chilly conditions are an example of what many homeless shelter residents say they've been living with for months. In other words, simply taking homeless families off the streets in order to fulfill their legal obligation to house them but providing questionable or in some cases absolutely zero social services to get out of the shelter system and back on their feet.

Lopez said she's been contacted "zero" times by the city to help her find a job.

"Not at all," Lopez said. "The case work is there but as far as helping, no. No housing specialist, nothing."

The comptroller released a report detailing the poor conditions in these shelters.

Crowley actually knew about Maspeth shelter plan in MAY, said nothing

From QNS:

City Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks informed City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley about the proposed homeless shelter in Maspeth more than two months before it was officially announced, according to a source with the Department of Social Services (DSS).

The source told QNS on Thursday that Banks and Crowley exchanged phone calls “several times before the Aug. 3 community meeting” at the Maspeth library, where city officials announced plans to convert the Holiday Inn Express on 55th Road into a homeless shelter for up to 220 adults. Earlier this month, the city ultimately halted that plan and instead rented hotel rooms to indefinitely house 30 homeless men.

The earliest Crowley knew about the shelter plan, according to the DSS source, was in May at an initial meeting between Crowley and Banks. They had met on May 19 at Crowley’s legislative office in Manhattan and “subsequently had a number of additional, detailed in-person and telephone conversations” about the proposal. QNS has requested from DSS any recordings taken of those conversations.

“At the May 19 meeting, Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks informed Council Member Crowley that there were plans by a nonprofit service provider to convert the Holiday Inn in Maspeth from a commercial hotel into a homeless shelter for adult families, and that there was an urgent need for additional shelter capacity immediately,” the source said.

Thank you for clarifying, QNS!

Elizabeth Crowley knew about Maspeth shelter in JUNE, told no one

Questioning @NYCHRA Commissioner Banks at BP @MelindaKatz's Borough Board meeting on homelessness in Queens. pic.twitter.com/e8yrExVVWu

— Jimmy Van Bramer (@JimmyVanBramer) October 19, 2016

Something a bit earth-shattering - at least if you live in Maspeth - happened last night at Borough Hall. As you are likely aware, DHS Commissioner Steven Banks gave a presentation to the Borough Board. He also took questions from the board members. Elizabeth Crowley got into it with him. He then responded by stating, "When I met with you in private in June and explained to you what our plan would be, I never said any of the things that you said." You can hear the exchange yourself by downloading the file from here. The exchange begins at 0:56:06.

So, despite what Crowley, Addabbo and Markey would like everyone to believe, this was known about long before that secret Maspeth Library meeting where she acted surprised and outraged in front of members of the community board and the community at large. And why would she meet with Banks privately, if not to make a deal?