Brighton divided over proposed shelter
BY ROSE ADAMS
A men’s homeless shelter
slated for Brighton Beach has
stirred controversy among locals,
some of whom argue that
the site is contaminated and
that the shelter would overburden
the area.
“The proposed facility
sounds like it could be overwhelming
and out-of-scale
with the surrounding community,
and pose an environmental
health threat to the
homeless population based on
the history of land uses at the
site,” wrote Brighton Beach
activist and former Park Slope
community board leader Craig
Hammerman in an email.
The city’s Department of
Homeless Services and the
non-profi t CORE announced
their plans to open the 170-bed
shelter for single men at 100
Neptune Ave. in late December,
Bklyner fi rst reported.
The facility would be the
fi rst “traditional” shelter serving
single adults to open in the
area encompassing Brighton
Beach, Coney Island, Sea Gate,
and Gravesend, according to
the Department of Homeless
Services. A Coney Island hotel
currently serves as a smaller
shelter for families, and women’s
COURIER L 20 IFE, JANUARY 15-21, 2021
shelter on the west end operated
by Christine Quinn’s
non-profi t, Women in Need,
will open in two months.
The Brighton Beach shelter
would prioritize housing homeless
people in the surrounding
neighborhoods, a spokesman
with the Department of Homeless
Services said.
“This high-quality facility
will be the fi rst traditional
shelter in this Community District,
offering 170 New Yorkers
experiencing homelessness
the opportunity to get back on
their feet safely and closer to
their anchors of life in these
unprecedented times,” said
spokeswoman Neha Sharma.
The proposed shelter comes
as the number of New Yorkers
experiencing homelessness
reaches record heights due to
COVID-19, according to advocates.
Locals have reported
an increase in homelessness
around Coney Island and Brighton
Beach, where unsheltered
people are often seen along
Ocean Parkway and have set up
encampments in Kaiser Park.
Still, local leaders have
pushed back against the
Brighton Beach shelter, primarily
for environmental reasons.
The site could be contaminated
with lead, heavy
metals, and other pollutants
from its days as an auto body
shop, which would potentially
harm the shelter’s residents.
“Any construction activity
runs some level of risk of creating
new exposure pathways
which can be a health threat
to humans and the environment,”
Hammerman wrote in
a Jan. 6 letter to DHS’s commissioner,
Steven Banks.
Local Councilman Chaim
Deutsch and Community Board
13 members urged DHS to conduct
remediation of the site at
a private meeting on Jan. 11,
Deutsch’s spokeswoman Tova
Chatzinoff-Rosenfeld said.
Though plans for remediation
are not yet settled, DHS agreed
to complete an Environmental
Impact Statement that will examine
the shelter’s impacts on
the surrounding community,
and will not move the shelter
forward until the statement’s results
are thoroughly reviewed,
Chatzinoff-Rosenfeld said.
Locals have also raised
questions about CORE, the
non-profi t in charge of the
shelter’s programming, which
has racked up nearly 300 violations
from fi ve shelters across
Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Eagle
reported in 2019.
“Are they going to have
services that are adequate or
better than adequate?” said
Mariya Markh, a City Council
candidate in Sheepshead Bay
who began a petition demanding
answers about the shelter.
A third argument, amplifi
ed by Councilman Deutsch,
alleges that the shelter’s male
residents could threaten the
safety of local children.
“The site is just blocks
away from multiple playgrounds
and schools,” he said
in a tweet. “Opening a homeless
shelter in the midst of a
residential neighborhood is
the wrong move.”
Several locals have rebutted
this reasoning, arguing
that the pushback is prejudice
in disguise.
“I question the motives
of anyone that colors homeless
people as criminals, drug
abusers, and sexual deviants,
or a danger to those around
them instead of questioning
how our society can turn our
backs to those in need,” Sheepshead
Bay local Arthur Borko
told Brooklyn Paper. “Anyone
who’s against this shelter
is only concerned with the
wrong things.”
A new men’s homeless shelter is set to open at 100 Neptune Ave. in Brighton
Beach, sparking controversy. Google Maps
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