Image capture April 2023 © 2024 Google

The city has sited another “Safe Haven” shelter for Downtown, this time right next to the Peck Slip School at the Hampton Inn at 320 Pearl and Peck Slip. The shelter, which would open this fall, will have 106 beds for a population that is currently living on the streets. These are “low barrier” shelters, meaning there are very few requirements for living there, that target people who are the most resistant to shelter life and often have the most mental health needs. The shelter will provide health and mental health services from staff who work one-on-one with clients.

This shelter will be run by Breaking Ground, a 30-year-old non profit that first converted the Times Square Hotel as a shelter. They currently run more than two dozen permanent residents and transitional shelter in the city.

Community Board 1 was only notified on June 14 by the Department of Social Services, and the Quality of Life Committee addressed the proposal last night. They noted that this is not a smart siting, since it is literally attached to an elementary school. “Siting something like a family shelter would have been a no brainer,” board chair Tammy Meltzer said. “We know there is a huge need to serve homeless. But what our ask is, we have resources and abilities to be very supportive…it is concerning to us that only Safe Havens that are being rolled into the neighborhood.”

Plus it is pretty crummy that the city would suggest that they will engage the community in July, when the PTA is not operating, when parents are not at the school, and when a principal is currently retiring.

Image capture April 2023 © 2024 Google

The resolution will be on tonight’s full board meeting agenda, 6p at 1 Centre Street, 19th Floor, or online here. https://live.mcb1.nyc

The letter from DSS said that city will prioritize placements of clients who come from the “nearby community”: “Clients experiencing unsheltered homelessness are often deeply connected to the communities in which they spend time, despite lack of a fixed address. They will accept placements in their neighborhood but are not prepared to relocate. Therefore, in order to not only meet client needs, but also to address specific community concerns about unsheltered homelessness, it is critical that we site these low-barrier beds across the City and particularly in areas which have traditionally had concentrations of unsheltered clients.”

The letter also said this is a “first-of-its-kind resource” in CB1, but in fact it is not. Here’s the summary of shelters in Fidi:

• 105 Washington: The city is building out another Safe Haven shelter with 84 beds at Washington and XXXX. That is also scheduled to open late summer or early fall.
• 41-43 Beekman: The city is also developing a long-term shelter for 170 single men at 41-43 Beekman, a five-story residential building between William and Gold.
• 52 William: The Radisson hotel is a sanctuary site for migrant families with children under 18.
• 99 Washington: The Holiday Inn Financial District at Rector, with 492 rooms, is one of 13 humanitarian shelters run by NYC Health + Hospitals. The Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) just issued a new license for that use that runs through April 30, 2025. (In 2022, that hotel was facing foreclosure.)

The Real Deal reported last year, in reference to the Holiday Inn, that landlords can get $190 per day per room as sanctuary sites.

Also, I clarified this point with the city in April: DSS-DHS policy does not require that shelter residents leave the premises during the day. Residents are only required to vacate their rooms for a short period of time during the day to allow for regular cleaning and maintenance; they can remain in the recreational spaces/cafeteria/common spaces of the building. Were I involved in this process, I would make sure these shelters have adequate common areas for residents, beyond their rooms.

And since these stats should play a role here, hotel occupancy for Lower Manhattan — as measured by the Downtown Alliance in its quarterly real estate reports — is at 74 percent for the first quarter of 2024, down from 85 percent for the last quarter of 2023. That doesn’t seem all that drastic to me. For comparison, the first quarter of 2019 was 73 percent, and leading up to the pandemic, the average occupancy rate was around 85 percent.