Worries About Behavior Of Park Slope Shelter Residents Bring Neighbors To Community Meeting

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — A perceived uptick in unruly behavior from residents of a women's homeless shelter in Park Slope saw dozens of neighbors from Park Slope, Windsor Terrace and Sunset Park pack into a meeting Wednesday.

They were joined by officers from the local NYPD precincts, elected officials and representatives from CAMBA, the nonprofit organization that operates the shelter. CAMBA officials said there haven't been any major changes at the shelter but asked neighbors to call them if they see unacceptable behavior from its residents.

"The residents of the shelter have been very good neighbors" since it opened more than 20 years ago, said Barbara Barran, a long-time 16th Street resident who led the meeting.

"But lately something has changed, and that's the reason that we wanted to have all of you come. What we've noticed is lately the residents of the home are sitting on our stoops, they’re smoking marijuana, they’re using the street as their bathroom, they’re asking for money, they're harassing the business people on Prospect Park West."

CAMBA took over operations at the homeless shelter — inside the armory on Eighth Avenue between 15th and 14th streets — in 1996 and has run it ever since. The shelter held 70 beds for women until 2013, when that number expanded to 100.

Valerie Barton-Richardson, a CAMBA executive vice president, said the organization wants to listen to community concerns.

"Park Slope has been a wonderful community for us to be a part of," Barton-Richardson said. "We are good neighbors. And it’s important to us to listen to our neighbors."

Barton-Richardson and Claire Hardin-Keefe, a CAMBA senior vice president, said nothing had changed at the shelter that would have caused an uptick in disturbing incidents. (And there is no data or evidence to show that there has been one.)

But members of the community told stories of witnessing it first hand.

"I’ve never seen, ever, any member of the community verbally abuse the women of the shelter, mistreat them, do anything harmful toward them," one woman in the audience said. "But I have repeatedly seen, weekly, the women from the shelter verbally harassing, cursing, saying things I can’t repeat to my 12-year-old child."

The CAMBA representatives said that anything concerning should be reported to them immediately.

"We honestly want to know, we want to be responsive," Hardin-Keefe said. "We really want to know what you see in the community in as real a time as possible. Plug the number you got tonight into your cell phone."

(Residents can either call Shelter Director Talisha Easterling at 347-598-1470 or Director of Security and Operations Nicole Lovell at 718-369-7226.)

If a resident is committing a crime, though, people should call the local police precinct, Hardin-Keefe said.

CAMBA has patrols that monitor shelter residents' behavior in and around the facility. Barton-Richardson said those patrols take place on 14th and 15th streets between Seventh and Eighth avenues.

But she said that area has expanded in recent weeks to include 16th Street up to Prospect Park West.

Aqueelah Winston, an associate commissioner at DHS, asked people to remember that some of the homeless residents are "in crisis."

"As a system, we’re seeing a prevalence of mental illness, there’s an opioid epidemic throughout New York City but also throughout the United States," she said. "And a lot of the clients who are in our system suffer from mental illness and they have a history of trauma."

Winston added: "It's really important that when you see these individuals engaging in these behaviors, they’re in crisis. They’re suffering from mental illness and a lot of time they don’t have insight into their mental illness. They don’t understand their behavior."

The shelter's community advisory board meets every third Tuesday of the month at 1402 Eight Ave., where residents can get updated about what's happening and share their feedback.

"This is probably one of the most supportive communities that we have," Winston said. "We have to know about these issues. There’s no such thing as too many complaints."

Photos by Marc Torrence, Patch