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BY SANDI LUSK
Mayor DeBlasio inherited a homelessness
crisis from Mayor Bloomberg,
who by his misguided policies caused
the homeless population to increase
exponentially during his terms.
Mayor Bloomberg’s way to “clean up”
this mess was to warehouse the homeless
in shelters. So, when Mayor De-
Blasio took over, he recognized this
huge problem and paid lip service to it.
How did he attempt to deal with it? By
getting a bigger rug and bigger broom
to sweep even more people under the
rug so to speak. In other words, bigger
and more expensive warehouses for
the homeless. Every board has to take
at least two shelters supposedly. Manhattan
and Brooklyn have a number
of them, so does Queens. Staten Island
has only one. And, as can be expected,
the Bronx has the most with no end in
sight.
By now you have all heard of the
200-bed single mans’ homeless shelter
slated for Blondell Avenue 1 block in
from Westchester Square. The population
will include men with drug and alcohol
issues and mental and emotional
issues. This will be approximately two
blocks away from the Blondell Commons
low income housing also slated
for Blondell Avenue. This is in addition
to the family shelter and the Covenant
House transitional 75-bed shelter both
on St Peters Avenue and the approximately
200-bed men’s homeless shelter
run by the state on the Bronx State
campus. Couple this with the Montefi
ore mental health center on Glebe
Avenue and the District 75 schools
on Tratman Avenue, not to mention
others. We also must not forget the
thousands of high school kids going
through from Lehman High School
each day and the proposed affordable
housing project the Friends Cemetery
adjacent to St. Peter’s Churchyard. As
is abundantly clear, this small area of
Westchester Square-Zerega has shouldered
more than it’s ‘Fair Share’ of the
social services burden for the Northeast
Bronx. In fact, the burden is outrageous.
So here we are again. Last week
there was a town hall meeting that
was called by Councilmember Mark
Gjonaj and members and executives
and managers from community boards
10 and 11, as technically this new shelter
would be on the CB 11 side of the
street (like it’s in another world) but
one block in from Westchester Square.
DHS didn’t even bother to show up. People
expressed the usual frustrations
with the city and our dwindling quality
of life, which have all been heard
many times before and ignored by the
city. But there is something especially
signifi cant and destructive about the
placement at this site. It will be the
death knell for Westchester Square.
Approximately a decade ago
Westchester Square was becoming
simply another victim of urban
blight and neglect. At that time some
of the organizations involved with the
Square decided to do what we could to
stabilize the area and improve it. I will
not go into details here, as I have been
writing about this for years. The result
was a fully renovated playground
and Owen Dolen Plaza, a new school
built (P.S./M.S. 194), the creation of
the Westchester Square Business Improvement
District, and Bronx Council
on the Arts moving their headquarters
in. The Huntington Library was
opened up more to the community
with city plans to build a new library
center next to it in the coming years.
The Owen Dolen recreation center is
under renovation so it can better serve
the community, and there have been
regular events held in the Square by
the WSBID.
Merchants came into the Square
and welcome investment money followed.
There have been problems
along the way, of course, the Square
has never been a panacea. Lately, however
the vagrancy and homeless issues
have been increasing, crime has
been increasing, again causing security
concerns. Let me be clear on this;
Westchester Square has for a long time
been on the razor’s edge. Amazingly,
despite being a de facto social service
campus, the area remained basically
balanced. It took a lot of positive work
and investment to try to counteract
the negative.
The addition of this men’s shelter to
what is already in the area will mean
almost 400 homeless men with issues
only a few blocks from the Square in
addition to everything else. That is
too much for any community to bear.
The Square cannot recover from this
onslaught and the balance will be irrevocably
changed with more crime,
more vagrancy, more disruption, and
the Square will once more become neglected
and abandoned to its fate, putting
surrounding neighborhoods at
risk as well.
At the town hall meeting I realized
just how tired I was of having to fi ght
and lose the same battles over and over
again for the past 30 years. We know
we cannot win this one either. We are
doomed to watch our work of a decade
unravel and the area once again sink
to its knees under the weight of social
service programs to the cost of
the community. And let one person
say ‘NIMBY.’ You can have part of my
backyard, but you have taken all of it.
Is there nothing left then but for us to
leave?
I’m sorry I have no hopeful words
to offer. The city cannot or will not
try to deal with the homeless crisis it
has encouraged and created by stupid
short-sighted policies going back a decade
and more. This is a ‘crisis’ is always
the answer. It was a crisis ten
years ago and it will be a crisis tomorrow
and it will continue to be a crisis
as long as the City refuses to deal
with it, dooming communities and the
homeless alike to meaningless band
aid measures that can only perpetuate
the problem for decades to come.
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