Manhattan’s Homeless in Brooklyn?
Residents, politicians, and clergy joined together today to voice their opposition against plans to move the men’s homeless intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory. They gathered on the steps of Saint Gregory, The Great Roman Catholic Church in the heart of the Crown Heights neighborhood in Brooklyn.
Sandy Taggart, founder of CHRM, spoke with Assemblyman Karim Camara, Assemblyman Hakeen Jeffries, Father Caleb Buchannan, and State Senator Eric Adams.
The current homeless men’s intake center is located near Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, the borough with the highest number of homeless people. The building’s current lease will expire at the end of the year. Development into luxury condos is expected. The city has proposed that the center be moved to the shelter at the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn.
The community is concerned about increased crime. Already the Bedford-Atlantic Armory has attracted violence and fear among its neighbors. People complained about trespassers, drug use and excessive loitering from the men in the homeless shelter. They want to see more counseling and job training programs in addition to the shelters. “If your not taking care of 200 residents now, how can you take care of 400 or 600,” said Crown Heights resident Melina Bernardine.
The proposal was highly secretive according to Assemblyman Karim Camara.
Crown Heights community members gathered in opposition to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory intake center.
The community was only made aware of the problem after Sandy Taggart; co-founder of CHRM (Crown Heights Revitalization Movement) was sent a two-paragraph blog post on the proposal. CHRM, which began as a grass roots movement to beautify the neighborhood, instead worked on increasing community awareness and including political leadership in their opposition.
“If it weren’t for the Internet this thing would have happened and none of us would have known about it”, said Taggart.
The proposed location is inconvenient and far away from the majority of the city’s homeless. “A lot of homeless people instead of coming to Brooklyn will end up in trains and on streets, “said Camara.
For more background information view video of last months meeting with the Department of Homeless Services from Gowanus Lounge.
Read what Gothamist and Brownstoner had to say here.
September 19th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Nice work Geneva. Gentrification is clearly at work here. What the powers that be don’t realize is that getting rid of the poor is more than ripping out all of Manhattan’s public benches or putting locked gates around its parks.
September 19th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
I used to live a building down from the Armory men’s shelter. (there’s also another one across the street) Yeah, it sucks all around to live near a homeless shelter but I have to say, crime wasn’t an issue–quality of life issues were, i.e. the smell of pee (wakes u up no matter the hour). But actual crime wasn’t a problem… I think because there was a regular police presence and these men just struck me as too down and out to do anything. Even re: sex harassment, it rarely came from homeless men but from regular dudes who lived in the nabe.
Problem is, “Are city nabes fairly sharing the burden of homeless shelters, meth clinics, etc in their districts?” And that answer is no. Don’t know the exact numbers of shelters, clinics, etc in certain BK nabes but, they’re high.