City To Be Bombarded With 129 Questions About Uptown Shelter

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — The community board representing Washington Heights and Inwood released an extensive list of questions for the city Department of Homeless Services ahead of Thursday's public hearing to discuss the city's plans to build a 175-bed shelter on Audubon Avenue.

The length of the list alone — a whopping 129 questions that cover a wide variety of topics both general and specific — signifies that Community Board 12 plans to take an increasingly adversarial stance against the city's shelter plan. In a statement attached to the list of questions, the board added: "We deplore the ‘shove it down your throat approach’ that is being forced on us with this current agency plan."

Thursday night's hearing will not be the first time Community Board 12 discusses the shelter plan. During a March meeting board members shared concerns about how the homeless shelter may exacerbate existing issues area residents have with the neighborhood's homeless population. Board members were also worried about the environmental impacts of construction work at the former garage site.

The board also held a "fact finding" meeting with city officials on April 5.

Many of the questions included on CB12's list revolve around whether the board can get the city to abandon or scale down its plans to build a new homeless shelter at the former parking garage located on Audubon Avenue between West 179th and 180th streets. Work is already in progress to convert the site from a garage to a residential facility.

The new shelter will be run by the nonprofit HELP USA, which will offer residents services such as case management, counseling, housing placement and life skills workshops. HELP USA will also conduct 24-hour security at the location, with a minimum of 10 security guards per shift and three guards posted at the shelter's entrance, city officials said. Seventy-three security cameras will be installed on the shelter grounds, officials said. Residents will have a 10 p.m. curfew, but can get an exemption for work.

Representatives from HELP USA said the shelter may open as soon as July during the March meeting with Community Board 12.

There are currently 425 households, made up of 862 people, from the Washington Heights and Inwood neighborhoods in the shelter system but only 409 beds in the area. Of those beds, 120 are located in a commercial hotel that will be phased out through Mayor Bill de Blasio's "Turning the Tide" homelessness initiative, city officials said.

There are three DHS facilities currently operating in Washington Heights and Inwood in addition to the one commercial hotel, according to a department map of where shelters are located throughout the city as of Dec. 31, 2018.

Thursday night's public hearing will be held at the Alianza Dominicana Building on 530 W. 166th St. between St. Nicholas and Audubon avenues. The meeting is expected to begin at 6:30 p.m. and representatives from the city and HELP USA should be attending. Members of the public will be able to sign up to speak during the hearing.