City Would Spend $75M On Crown Heights Homeless Shelters, Contracts Show

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, MANHATTAN — The city would pay $75 million over the next five years to run two controversial homeless shelters in Crown Heights, according to contracts submitted to the city.

At a contract hearing at 4 World Trade Center Thursday, several neighborhood groups and elected officials told the city they are against the mayor's plan for one of those shelters, scheduled to open this month on the corner of Crown Street and Rogers Avenue.

The city would pay $43 million to Samaritan Village over five years to run that shelter, which would hold 132 families with children. That works out as about $180 per night per family. The average cost per unit per night across the shelter system is $150, according to the Department of Homeless Services.

Dion Ashman, a long time Crown Heights resident who lives near the shelter site, says it would be "a direct violation" of the city's so-called "Fair Share" criteria, which governs where city facilities can be placed, with an emphasis on sharing them throughout neighborhoods.

"My issue is very simple," Ashman said at the contract hearing. "Crown Heights right now has over 2,300 beds for the homeless. Over in Bed-Stuy, there’s 1,500. Park Slope is 331."

(According to DHS data, Community District 6 — which includes Park Slope — shelters 271 people. Community District 9, which includes southern Crown Heights, shelters 488 people and Community District 8, which includes north Crown Heights, shelters 1,235 people.)

Michael Liburd, another Crown Heights resident, read from a letter signed by a group of elected officials that was sent to Mayor Bill de Blasio asking that the shelter "be relocated elsewhere and re-purposed into a permanent, low income rental exclusively for families from the homeless community."

The letter, which you can read in full at the bottom of this article, was signed by City Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo, State Senator Jesse Hamilton, Assemblywoman Diana Richardson and Assemblyman Walter Mosley.

The second shelter, in north Crown Heights on Bergen Street, would cost $32 million over five years to operate. That shelter was supposed to open in March but has been temporarily blocked by a judge as she considers a lawsuit by residents who say their neighborhood is unlawfully oversaturated by shelters.

Another group of residents are considering a lawsuit of their own against the shelter on Rogers Avenue.

SEE ALSO:

• Crown Heights Neighbors 'Betrayed' By Electeds Who Didn't Tell Them About Homeless Shelter
• At Crown Heights Shelter Meeting, Cheering, Swearing And Booing Over Rogers Ave. Proposal
• Park Slope Area To Get More Homeless Shelters, De Blasio Says
• Bergen St. Homeless Shelter Site Part Of $20M Fraud Scheme, Lawsuit Says
• Crown Heights Homeless Shelter To Remain Closed As City, Residents Negotiate

See the letter sent by a group of Crown Heights neighbors — and signed by their elected officials — below. Cumbo, the city councilwoman, and Hamilton, the state senator, also wrote individual letters to de Blasio.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the amount of the city contract to operate the homeless shelter on Bergen Street. It is $32 million over five years. Not $23 million.

Images via Marc Torrence, Patch Staff