Crown Heights residents rallied on Monday to stop the opening of a homeless shelter in the community.
The shelter, at 169 Empire Blvd., comes after the city closed the largest men's shelter at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital in April. The planned shelter, located near a senior center and an elementary school, will be operated by the nonprofit Project Renewal and is set to open this month. It will have 140 beds for single, adult men.
Residents in the community, such as Toni Kinlock, believe that Crown Heights and Flatbush have become oversaturated with shelters, which has lowered the value of homeownership and created unsafe communities for locals.
“We have 19 shelters, tell me why,” Kinlock said.
Crown Heights resident Alicia Boyd said she filed a lawsuit to block the opening of the shelter until the public is provided with a comprehensive operational plan,
a community safety plan, environmental review findings, and an explanation of how the proposed site complies with the city's Fair Share practices, which pushes the city for even distribution of public services, both beneficial and least desirable.
A similar lawsuit was filed by Manhattan residents in the East Village to block a shelter from going up there, but Boyd said she was denied a pause.
“The East Village, they got their temporary restraining order, of course. That’s a white neighborhood,” Boyd said. “They had the same exact conditions as us.”
Speaking to about 70 area residents, Boyd said she arrived at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on Monday at around 9:00am, but she was not seen until about 5:00pm. She was not allowed to argue the case in front of the judge, and instead, the judge came back with a decision not to sign the restraining order, according to Boyd.
Boyd vowed to to keep up the fight.
“We’re going to appeal the decision of the lower court. We’re going to the second department, and we are going to go strong,” she said.
While Kinolck has sympathy for the homeless, she explained that the opening of the shelter at the current Ramada Inn will not help the community, or those seeking a safe haven.
“They [homeless individuals] get stipends, but do they get the assistance to help them get out of this temporary housing to affordable housing? Because then you wouldn’t have so much homeless,” Kinlock said.
With such small rooms and no services, community members fear that the homeless men entering the shelter will worsen living conditions in the community. She feared that nearby Prospect Park will be filled with homeless men.
“And then you’re not going to feel safe running in the park,” Kinlock said.
Valerie Fleming, president of the Crown Street Block Association, told the crowd: “This cannot be the dumping ground for another, yet another, yet another shelter.”
With a tearful senior listening nearby, Fleming said the homeless will ruin the community that seniors have spent years building.
“Our seniors have built this community. We have sacrificed. We have worked two jobs to have homes in this neighborhood,” she said. “Crown Heights is not for sale, our community is not disposable."
