Homeless Shelter Plan For Park Slope-Area Should Be 'Proactive,' Councilman Says

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Across Prospect Park in Crown Heights, the city is waging several battles with people who say their neighborhood is unfairly burdened with homeless shelters. And those residents have particular scorn for Park Slope.

The mayor's home neighborhood, city data shows, is an area that shelters far fewer homeless people than Crown Heights where, so far, one group has successfully sued the city to stop a shelter from opening and another lawsuit is expected soon.

City Councilman Brad Lander, whose district includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, is hoping to avoid similar fights should the Department of Homeless Services decide to bring a shelter to his district, as Mayor Bill de Blasio has said it will.

And he's proposing a proactive approach as a way of avoiding hostility.

"What would it look like to think about that together, and not wait until they have a proposal that we’re responding to?" he told a meeting of Community Board 6 on Wednesday night, "but maybe try to think together about how to do that in the way that’s the most fair and smart and sensible?"

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That would be a far cry from what's happening across the park, where two city councilmembers have openly expressed their disdain for de Blasio's plan to open 90 homeless shelters across the city over the next five years.

Those councilmembers — Laurie Cumbo and Robert Cornegy — say the city should focus on permanent, low-income housing and agree with constituents who say too many shelters are in their area.

According to DHS data, Community District 6 — which runs from Red Hook and the Columbia Waterfront east to Park Slope — shelters 271 people. Community District 9, which includes southern Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, shelters 488 people and Community District 8, which includes north Crown Heights and Bed-Stuy, shelters 1,235 people.

Of the two homeless facilities in district 6, one is a hotel site slated to close under de Blasio's plan. DHS wants to add capacity for about 250 homeless people in the district because of that closing.

Lander told Patch in a phone conversation that he started thinking about the issue after de Blasio told WNYC that his home district will see an "increase in homeless shelter capacity" under his plan.

"I think there’s openness to this from the community board," Lander said.

"We should be proactive and learn more about the homelessness plan and think about whether it’s possible for the community, the community board, the elected officials, people in the neighborhood, to work proactively with them to think about how that would work, rather than wait for them in the more traditional way to come with a location and relatively short notice."

Sayar Lonial, the chairman of Community Board 6, told Patch that he has spoken with DHS about hosting a public meeting to talk about placing a homeless shelter in that district.

"We want to hear from them about what are the good things about shelters that have existed in other communities?" Lonial told Patch. He said he'd like to hear "what's ideal from a DHS perspective and then for us to give feedback and say these are the things that are ideal from our perspective."

Isaac McGinn, a spokesman for DHS, confirmed that those talks are ongoing.

"We look forward to continuing this constructive conversation with the community on how they can help guide this process to best serve our homeless neighbors, with another meeting scheduled to discuss criteria for selecting high-quality shelter sites—and we encourage other communities to similarly join us at the table," he said.

Lander said a public meeting would be "useful" and even suggested a workshop for people in the community to suggest locations themselves, "talking at least about what kinds of locations we’re looking for, what are the criteria that we think would make good locations."

Ultimately, Lander thinks his district will welcome a homeless shelter. He points to the fact that the highest vote-getter in this year's participatory budgeting was a plan to install mobile showers in a Park Slope food kitchen.

"I don’t think there’s exactly a roadmap or a process that’s already fixed out here," Lander told the community meeting. "But I think the same community that voted to welcome those mobile showers could think, 'You know what, this is a problem of course we all wish we didn’t have and we want more to do to solve it, but in the interim let’s be smart.'"

Photo courtesy Brad Lander's office