FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com THE COURIER SUN • FEBRUARY 16, 2017 3 This Ozone Park hotel housing homeless BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@qns.com @robbpoz Homeless families have been living at a Comfort Inn in Ozone Park for nearly five months, but the city apparently didn’t tell anyone in the community about it until this week. According to a source familiar with the situation, 50 homeless families now reside at the Comfort Inn hotel located at 137-30 Redding St., about a block west of Cross Bay Boulevard; they first arrived at the hotel in October of 2016. Area representatives, however, said on Tuesday that city officials never notified them about it until very recently; a source said the lawmakers got the news on Monday, Feb. 13. In a joint statement, Councilman Eric Ulrich, state Senator Joe Addabbo and Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato blasted the de Blasio administration for failing to communicate with them and the community about the shelter situation. “Mayor de Blasio’s failed policy of housing homeless families in hotels is simply unacceptable,” they stated. “These types of shelters are not cost effective and do not offer any real services that actually help homeless families get back on their feet.” Donna Daly, general manager at the Ozone Park Comfort Inn, told The Courier that the city first rented 10 rooms at the hotel back in October, but didn’t begin using all of them immediately. Since then, the city now has homeless residents living in 22 rooms; three rooms are being used by Children’s Community Services (CCS), the nonprofit group managing the residents’ stay at the hotel. Most of the homeless families residing at the Comfort Inn are women with children, Daly said, and are treated as regular hotel guests. On top of daily housekeeping, they receive consultation from a CCS case manager as well as three square meals a day. The Ozone Park Comfort Inn is the latest in a number of hotels across Queens that have doubled as homeless shelters in recent years, efforts that sparked a backlash in the communities where the hotels are located. In several instances, local officials weren’t notified until after the homeless guests arrived. Homeless families began arriving at the Ozone Park Comfort Inn around the same time that the city began moving homeless men into a Holiday Inn Express in Maspeth after weeks of fighting with community residents over a plan to convert the entire hotel into a homeless shelter for adults. Photo via PropertyShark/Christopher Bride Opened in 2009, the Comfort Inn has a total of 75 rooms with a maximum guest capacity of 144 persons, according to the hotel’s most recent certificate of occupancy issued by the Department of Buildings in 2010. Superior Redding Holding LLC is listed as the hotel’s owner and operator on the Better Business Bureau‘s website. As of press time, The Courier had not received a response from city’s Department of Homeless Services to questions about the shelter. Along with concern about the homeless families at the Comfort Inn, a source familiar with the situation told The Courier that local residents have reported quality-of-life problems near the hotel from public urination to lewd acts. However, at this point, those reports have yet to be substantiated. Daly denied the accusations, stating that the hotel guests aren’t bothering anyone in the community — and that the hotel would tolerate any unruly guests on campus. “You wouldn’t know they were here if you lived right next door to the hotel,” she said. “We will work closely with the 106th Precinct to protect the quality of life for all those who live in the vicinity of the hotel,” Ulrich, Addabbo and Pheffer Amato said in their joint statement. The Comfort Inn on Redding Street in Ozone Park, as shown in this 2011 photo. Q52 limited extended in Rockaways Photo via YouTube A Q52 bus stops on Cross Bay Boulevard in Howard Beach. BY ROBERT POZARYCKI rpozarycki@qns.com @robbpoz One of two limited bus lines traveling along Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards through the heart of southwestern Queens is about to be changed. The Q52 will run a mile further in the Rockaway Peninsula, according to the MTA, extending to the intersection of Beach 54th Street and Beach Channel Drive in Edgemere. The line, which runs as far north as the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst, currently terminates in the Arverne section of the Rockaways. The extension takes effect in March. The MTA says the line extension “will provide improved connectivity for the dense residential areas of Arverne and Edgemere,” where new residential construction has taken place in recent years. “By extending the Q52, we are offering thousands of additional customers a one-seat ride and a more seamless connection to northern and central Queens,” said MTA New York City Transit Acting President Darryl Irick. The change effects at least 5,600 riders who use the Q52 every day; it’s expected to cost $510,000 annually, and those funds have already been included in the MTA’s annual operating budget. The Q52 line, along with the Q53 limited bus line that runs from Woodside to Rockaway Beach, are on schedule to be transformed into Select Bus Service (SBS) lines later this year, according to the MTA. The controversial project includes the construction of dedicated bus lanes and center-median bus stops along Woodhaven and Cross Bay boulevards; 60-foot-long articulated buses will also be used to accommodate more passengers on the often-crowded limited lines. Both the Q52 and Q53 serve riders in Elmhurst, Middle Village, Rego Park, Glendale, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Howard Beach and Broad Channel.
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