8 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARCH 22, 2018 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
LIC residents decry plan to use third
hotel in Blissville as a homeless shelter
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com
@AngelaMatua
Residents of Blissville, a small sub-section
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of Long Island City, gathered in
a room at St. Raphael’s Church on
Th ursday, March 15, to express their
outrage at the city’s plan to use yet
another hotel in the area to provide shelter
to homeless families.
Representatives from the Department
of Homeless Services (DHS) attended
the meeting to outline the agency’s plan
for the Fairfi eld Inn, which will become
one of several “high-quality shelters” the
city plans to open as part of the mayor’s
Turning the Tide plan.
A small neighborhood sandwiched
between Newtown Creek and the
Calvary Cemetery, Blissville has a population
of less than 500. With the addition
of this new shelter, the number of homeless
people will outnumber residents.
Th e City View Inn, located at 33-17
Greenpoint Ave., began admitting homeless
families last July and the city recently
moved the families out to begin housing
100 homeless men in the hotel, with
no notifi cation to community residents.
At the meeting, Joslyn Carter, administrator
of DHS, admitted the agency
was “wrong” about how it handled the
transfer.
Th e nearby Best Western Hotel at
38-05 Hunters Point Ave. also houses
about 150 homeless families.
According to DHS, Th e Fairfi eld Inn
will provide housing for 154 adult families
or a little over 300 people. Some
families are adult couples while others
are single parents with children who are
19 and older, said Jackie Bray, the deputy
commissioner of the Department of
Homeless Services.
Home/Life will be the nonprofi t service
provider at this specifi c location and
services will include administration, case
management, housing placement assistance,
job placement and health/mental
health services, though not all the services
will be provided on site.
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, who
attended the meeting, slammed Mayor
Bill de Blasio and DHS Commissioner
Steve Banks for what he called a “desperation
attempt” to solve the homeless crisis
in the city.
“I have lots of compassion and empathy
for those who are homeless in our
community as I believe so do you,” he
told the crowd. “Homeless individuals in
our city deserve shelter and they deserve
services. With this shelter, our district
will house more than four times the
number of homeless individuals we produce.
When will it end?”
In his plan, the mayor said he was
taking a borough-based approach to
homelessness and that every community
would have to do their fair share. He
also announced that commercial hotels
would be phased out of use as shelters by
2022. According to Bray, there are currently
about 9,000 people from Queens
in the shelter system.
“What happens in 2021?” Van Bramer
asked. “Th e mayor leaves offi ce. So, who
is accountable if 2022 comes around and
all of you look at those hotels and they’re
still being used as shelters?”
Residents outlined a number of concerns
including security and the lack of
services that the mostly industrial community
could provide for homeless families
looking to fi nd jobs and housing.
Ronald Komito, who has owned
Penske Truck Rental in the area for more
than 40 years, said that since the Citi
View Inn began housing homeless men,
he has smelled pot in his trucks.
“What are you going to do to protect
us from the people coming out of these
shelters smoking drugs, drinking and
carrying on?” he said.
Bray said there will be 10 guards and
one supervisor on the site 24/7, 365 days
of the year and that they will work with
the precinct to “make sure that behavior
ends” if they are determined to be shelter
clients. Th ere will also be 95 cameras
installed inside and outside of the
facility.
“If the precinct determines that there
is behavior by any of our clients, we can
transfer those clients,” she said. “We
have ways to make sure that behavior
ends. Th ere is a legal right to shelter in
this city. Th ere is no legal right to that
specifi c shelter.”
Bantry Bay Publick House at 33-01
Greenpoint Ave., is located three doors
away from the City View Inn, three
blocks from the Fairfi eld Inn and about
an 8-minute walk from the Best Western.
Erika Clooney, the co-owner of the
restaurant, said the shelters will hurt
business.
“My business at night, we really rely on
a lot of tourism,” she said. “You’ve taken
now two of the hotels away from me and
now the third. You said that you guys do
not come in and take over a community.
How is placing 300 new people into our
community when we only have 450 not
a takeover?”
Clooney also said she inspected the
Fairfi eld Inn and did not see adequate
dining space, laundromat facilities and
minimal room for services.
“We need to help homeless people.
We need to help them get back on their
feet,” she said. “Th ere’s two computers
in that lobby. Where are they going to
look for jobs?”
Bray said the service provider will
bring meals into the shelter and will retrofi
t the hotel to add additional laundry
equipment and offi ces as needed. Other
services like mental health and drug
counseling will be provided off -site and
Home/Life will provide a driver to transport
clients to appointments.
“We have very strict regulations about
how much square footage is required to
operate high-quality safe shelter,” she
said. “Th e site meets those regulations.”
David Martin, whose family has lived
in Blissville for more than 100 years, said
the DHS representatives were not providing
adequate answers to their questions.
“What were talking about here is not
Community Board 2,” he said. “We’re
talking about Blissville this is four, fi ve,
six square blocks for 475 people. Th e
infrastructure in our neighborhood cannot
survive this and it’s not right for the
homeless people as well. So it’s actually
not ‘not in my backyard.’ Th is is our
backyard, our front yard, our driveway
and our living room.”
Brent O’Leary, who lives on Hunters
Point Avenue and whose father grew up
on 40th Street in Blissville, said the community
is caring and wants to help the
homeless problem but that “It’s a citywide
problem, not a Blissville problem.”
“When the fi rst shelter came everybody
didn’t have a problem,” he said. “I
know of a local business here who gave
kids free things to eat to help them get
acclimated to the school. We were very
upset when they got dragged out in the
middle of the night and pushed out like
they were strangers. But it’s not helping
the homeless by putting them here;
it’s really hiding the homeless and that’s
not what we’re about.”
Th e shelter at the Fairfi eld Inn is scheduled
to open in late winter and according
to DHS, the average length of stay for
adult families in shelter is approximately
a year and a half.
Photo by Angela Matua/ THE COURIER
Blissville residents attended a meeting last week to voice their concerns about a new homeless
shelter opening in the area.
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