8 The Courier sun • SEPTEMBER 22, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com Woodhaven residents riled up over quality-of-life matters By Domenick Rafter editorial@qns.com/@QNS Woodhaven residents expressed frustration over a host of quality-of-life issues during the Sept. 17 Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association (WRBA) meeting at Emanuel Church of Christ. The discussion was sparked by an update on a planned transient homeless services facility planned for 100-02 Atlantic Ave. on the Ozone Park/Woodhaven border. While not a typical homeless shelter, the center would serve walk-in homeless people who need a meal, a shower or a place to sleep for a short time. All of the neighborhood’s elected officials at the meeting, including state Senator Joseph Addabbo, spoke out against the shelter. “Some are good and some are bad,” Addabbo said, adding that “warehousing” of the homeless was a terrible idea, one where only those who own the sites of the shelters benefit. “The ones who make out here are property owners,” Addabbo added. The senator placed some of the blame on the ongoing rift between Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo; he noted that the governor allocated additional resources toward fighting homelessness in the city, but little progress has been made toward solving the homelessness crisis. “Why not talk to the governor and work out a plan for this issue?” he said, referencing de Blasio. “Oh, that’s right, the mayor and the governor don’t get along.” Councilman Eric Ulrich made a plea to residents to humanize those who are in need of a facility like the one slated for Atlantic Avenue. “A lot of these homeless individuals are people who fell on hard times,” he said, adding that the city should seek permanent housing for homeless people, not hotel rooms. With residents concerned that the facility will attract panhandlers or worse, the discussion quickly turned into a critique of the cops. Several residents expressed concern about the attentiveness of the 102nd Precinct in responding to complaints, including illegally parked cars and noise. “They never come, they never come,” one resident said at the meeting. Another resident noted that when there’s a loud house party in her community, she calls 311 and then later sees the issue “resolved” on the city’s 311 website while music is still blaring outside her window. “I want to know, what do they consider resolved?” she asked. WRBA President Martin Colberg said he often speaks with the commanding officer of the precinct, Deputy Inspector Deodat Urprasad and the precinct’s community affairs officers regularly and has been blunt about Woodhaven’s concerns. “I’ve told them, ‘If you have officers in your precinct who don’t want to serve this community, they can go to another precinct,’” Colberg said. Assemblyman Mike Miller told residents to contact him directly if they feel they are not getting an effective response from the police and he will contact the precinct himself. Photo by Domenick Rafter Woodhaven Residents’ Block Association President Martin Colberg speaks during the Sept. 17 meeting at Emanuel Church of Christ in Woodhaven. Ozone Park community airs grievances over proposed homeless shelter By Domenick Rafter editorial@qns.com/@QNS Residents living near a proposed “drop-in” homeless services center in Ozone Park got a chance to speak on the issue at the Sept. 13 Community Board 9 (CB 9) meeting. Though most residents said they opposed the center, planned for the former Dallis Brothers Coffee facility at 100-32 Atlantic Ave., the tone was much more subdued than recent opposition to shelter proposals in Maspeth, Glendale and Jamaica. Some attendees were even open to welcoming the center to Ozone Park. The facility would be operated by CAMBA, a nonprofit that offers short-term services to the homeless. The center would be open for meals and showers, and serve as a short-stay residence for homeless persons. Simcha Waisman, vice president of the Richmond Hill Block Association, said the neighborhood (which borders Ozone Park) would fight the shelter plan. He worried that the shelter would quickly be forgotten once it’s established. “The city will put that shelter there, and then the city will walk away from it and forget about it,” he said. “We say no.” One of the major issues with the drop-in center was that it would be only a few hundred feet from the High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture (HSCTEA), which elected officials said would be illegal. It would also be close to several other schools, including P.S. 306 in Woodhaven, P.S. 273 in Richmond Hill and St. Mary Gate Of Heaven Catholic Academy and P.S. 65, both several blocks south in Ozone Park. “It is not the 1,000 feet required by law for a shelter to be from a school,” Councilman Ruben Wills said, describing the facility as a “mini-shelter.” Paul Capocasale, a Woodhaven resident and past member of the PTA at HSCTEA, said the distance from the proposed center to the school would be less than 200 feet. Several residents who spoke also worried about the type of people who would coming to the center and whether they could expect mentally ill people or those addicted to drugs to be roaming the neighborhood streets while utilizing the services at the facility. City officials and CAMBRA have told several civic leaders that they cannot guarantee that sex offenders or anyone dangerous would not reside at the shelter. But Maria Estrada, a resident of Richmond Hill, said she would be fine with the center opening near her house. She explained that she had experience dealing with the homeless and felt that if the center was needed, then it should be opened. “I do believe homelessness can happen to anyone,” Estrada said. “They’re people and they need help.” Despite opposing the center for various reason, Wills asked residents to not to go down the path of disparaging the homeless. The proposed center sparked a debate over how the city should deal with its ongoing homeless crisis. CB 9 member Joel Kuszai posed the question to Assemblyman Mike Miller, who also opposed the shelter. “We should be investing in supportive housing,” Miller said, explaining that the city should be looking for permanent homes and apartments for homeless, allowing them to blend into communities, rather than “warehousing” them in hotels and centers. Miller added that the state has allocated $2 billion toward supportive housing. Dr. Stephen Sofer, a CB 9 member, agreed: “The shelter model we have currently is wrong and we need to change it.” Photo: Google Maps
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