Mary Silva (left) has mixed feelings about having more shelters in the Bronx. (Photo by Edwin Martínez via El Diario)
On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that 90 new shelters will be built in the next five years to tackle the homelessness crisis, which has more than 62,000 New Yorkers living in public shelters. Although the plan is widely seen as a good start, the mayor’s intention to erect the new sites in the same communities from which most of these New Yorkers are displaced has caused discontent, particularly in neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn where 68 percent of all homeless people in the city come from.
Mary Silva, who lives near a shelter located on 151st Street in the Bronx, said that she agrees with the plan to eliminate more than 360 cluster apartment buildings to create new shelters with better conditions, but asked the mayor not to concentrate them all in that borough.
“Of course we need to accommodate that many people. Right now, there is not enough room for them. But this is where all of them are. You can’t get on a bus or the subway anymore, and they need to be relocated to the entire city, not just here,” said Silva, adding that homeless people should not be stigmatized.
“In this world, we all have to respect each other because we are all the same. However, instead of more shelters, the mayor should be giving everyone housing, to lodge the people who are freezing in the streets,” said the grandmother.
Wendy Ferrera, who has a young daughter and has been homeless on a number of occasions, did not only criticize the city’s handling of the issue of homeless families but was also against building more shelters.
“They always have me and my daughter running from here to there, and they never solve the problem. The city is not doing enough. And it’s not just us; it’s all the families who are crammed here. It’s time for them to give us our own home, not just shelters,” she said.
Dominican-born Yokasta Montiel lives in Belmont, where the first of the 90 shelters to be built is opening, admitted that she has mixed feelings about having shelters in her neighborhood.
“I know those people need help because we don’t know what it’s like to live on the street, but I’m worried that, with more places like that around here and more homeless people, this may become more dangerous and the children may end up exposed to more things, because many of [the homeless] are not healthy people,” she said.
Bronx Council member Vanessa Gibson shares the community’s concern and, although she said that she does not believe that building new shelters is the solution to the homelessness problem, she said that, if that is the plan, then the de Blasio administration needs to make a more appropriate distribution and avoid saturating boroughs like hers.
“We are waiting for a plan detailing where these sites will be located, but it needs to be a plan that favors equality and not just for one area. Dozens and dozens of people arrive in the Bronx every day looking for shelters, and it is a problem affecting the entire city, not only one specific borough,” said the chair of the New York City Council Committee on Public Safety.
Rafael Espinal, a council member in Brooklyn, a borough that houses 30 percent of the city’s homeless people, agreed with these concerns, saying that, while he favors homeless people staying in their communities, he also opposes cramming shelters into neighborhoods that are already overloaded, such as his East New York area.
“While we must take concrete measures to help and care for homeless people, we also need to be mindful to avoid concentrating shelters in specific communities,” said Espinal. “In the next few months, our communities and the administration must start an honest conversation about where to locate and how to pay for these shelters in order to preserve quality of life and also allow for the development of each one of our neighborhoods.”
In light of the concerns expressed by elected officials and residents of the Bronx and Brooklyn, Isaac McGinn, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Homeless Services, explained that the plan to build more shelters in certain neighborhoods is an immediate response to the problem of homelessness, but he added that there will be more distribution later on.
“In order to satisfy the short-term, immediate, capacity needs, shelters may be located in communities where a significant number of [homeless people] already exist. However, in time, we will be implementing a more equitable system based on the borough system to better serve all New Yorkers,” said the government official.
Figures
62,000 New Yorkers live in shelters
38 percent of all homeless people come from the Bronx
30 percent come from Brooklyn
16 percent come from Manhattan
14 percent come from Queens
2 percent come from Staten Island
90 new shelters will be built in the city
30 currently existing shelters will be expanded
360 cluster buildings and hotels for the homeless will close
58 percent of all homeless people are African American
31 percent are Latinos
7 percent are white
1 percent are Asian
Where will the first 4 new shelters be located?
480 East 185th St., Belmont, The Bronx (for LGTBQ adults ages 21 to 30)
265 Rogers St., Crown Heights, Brooklyn (for families with children)
1173 Bergen St., Crown Heights, Brooklyn (for single men over 50 and unemployed)
174 Prospect Place, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn (for adult women)