The feud between Mayor Bill de Blasio and the residents of Crown Heights still wages after his announcement at a town hall meeting in March to open 90 homeless shelters across New York City, but the mayor and at least one elected official now are working towards a resolution, reported The New York Times.
Initially, Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams disapproved of the mayor's plan to place three of the first five shelters in and around Crown Heights calling it an insult, as the neighborhood already was inundated with shelters, group homes and transitional housing. To date, only three of the first five shelters the mayor planned to open have opened as scheduled. The remaining two have stalled in Crown Heights due to a steady outcry and organized pushback from residents.
However, the mayor argued, homeless people should be sheltered in their own neighborhoods, versus being displaced into areas where they are unfamiliar, which makes an already unstable situation even less stable for someone without a home.
More recently, Adams is showing a willingness to work with the mayor, and the mayor is showing a few concessions as well:
The mayor is giving Adams something he wanted: a new director of community partnerships who will be a liaison between Brooklyn shelters and residents. And now Adams is pulling together pastors in Brooklyn to preach in support of the shelters next month.
"It's not about the destruction of your plan,'' Adams said. "It's tweaking your plan."
