FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM JANUARY 2, 2020 • 2020 PREVIEW • THE QUEENS COURIER 23
2020 preview
The biggest stories to watch for in southwest Queens
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
All eyes in southwest Queens during
2020 will be on the city and how it moves
forward with its plans for a homeless
shelter in Glendale and how far City
Councilman Robert Holden and his constituents
are willing to go to stop the proposal
in its tracks.
Th e city’s Department of Homeless
Services will submit its fi ve-year $61.8
million contract with the service provider
Westhab to the city Comptroller’s offi ce for
a standard review to build a shelter for 200
homeless men in a former factory at 78-16
Cooper Avenue.
Th e communities of southwest Queens
fi rst rose up against the proposal back
when it was fi rst proposed in 2013 and
Holden has said he was lied to by the DHS
when they told him more than a year ago
they were no longer considering the site
as a homeless shelter. Holden spent the
past year in talks with several city agencies
including the School Construction
Authority in the hopes of building a new
school for students with special needs at
the site and to fi nd an alternative location
in his district for the shelter.
DHS revisited their plan for a homeless
shelter on the site and once again the communities
mobilized. In April the Glendale
Middle Village Coalition fi lled two buses
with protesters and traveled to Jericho,
Long Island to rally outside the home
and synagogue of factory owner Michael
Wilner.
Mike Papa, a lead organizer for the rally,
addressed the protestors’ source of fear,
that the shelter would house “200 single
males” who were “coming right out of
Rikers Island” and would include “sexual
off enders.”
Th e rhetoric worsened in October at a
Community Board 5 meeting in October
where a woman declared “I hope somebody’s
gonna burn that place down,” to
cheers from the overcrowded auditorium
at Christ the King High School.
Raquel Namuche, an organizer with the
Ridgewood Tenants Union appealed to the
crowd to push for more aff ordable housing.
She was shouted down so vociferously
that her mother moved in to protect her
from the crowd.
In early November, hundreds of protesters
fi lled both sides of Cooper Avenue
at the underpass between 74th and 79th
Streets holding signs saying “Stop shelter
industrialists” and Guardian Angels founder
and conservative talk show host Curtis
Sliwa charged that Mayor Bill de Blasio
was acting out of contempt and disdain
for the residents of Maspeth, Glendale and
Middle Villages. Sliwa had joined several
of the rallies that opposed the city’s plan to
convert the Maspeth Holiday Inn Express
into a shelter for homeless men in 2016,
in a series of events that propelled Holden
to an upset of then-City Councilwoman
Elizabeth Crowley in 2017.
Th e following week, Holden and his
constituents attended a public hearing the
city held over the proposal. Addressing
representatives from the DHS and the
mayor’s offi ce, Holden argued that the
File photos
project should not go forward because of
its proximity to schools and nearby sports
complexes and what he claimed to be procedural
missteps in its rollout.
He continued to claim that he had made
proposals for alternative locations for
shelters that DHS Commissioner Steven
Banks liked, even though the agency confi
rmed to QNS that it found all of his proposals
unviable. Holden fi nished by saying
that he called for a city investigation into
the contract procurement and asked that
the project be delayed until that investigation
is complete.
Dotty Wenzel, a Glendale resident since
1978, described her neighborhood as a
secluded little community as part of her
argument that the shelter would turn the
fabric of the community into a “nightmare.”
Wenzel’s testimony served as a reminder
that Glendale’s secluded quality is not an
accident, but a result of zoning and direct
action from residents.
For nearly a decade before the shelter
project was fi rst proposed, residents have
been fi ghting against big buildings and
large infl uxes of new residents. Th e disruption
of this idea of Glendale as a neighborhood,
a characteristic that residents have
defended for years, has scared them.
“I literally have nightmares once a week
crying in my sleep because of what’s going
to happen in my neighborhood,” Diana
Shanley testifi ed.
DHS will consider their arguments before
making their fi nal decision. Paul Romain,
the Human Resources Administration’s
Chief Contracting Offi cer who listened
to the arguments, said that he couldn’t
say what the next step of the process will
involve.
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