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An update on the shelter for the Seaport
Image capture April 2023 © 2024 Google
The city is planning a 106-bed Safe Haven shelter for 320 Pearl, in the former Hampton Inn hotel at 320 Pearl next to the Peck Slip School, which will open this fall. The announcement came in June, and so far, the city’s Department of Social Services has not made a presentation to Community Board 1, but this is part of the city’s Equitable Shelter Siting approach: “We are committed to ensuring that every community has critical safety net resources to help our neighbors in need,” a spokesman from the DSS said.
The shelter is designed for adult men and women who are currently living on the streets. The distinction here with Safe Haven shelters is they are “low barrier” shelters — meaning they make fewer demands of the residents, such as sobriety requirements and curfews, and they offer more privacy and one-on-one attention from on-site services and staff.
“We have seen an increase in the number of New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness in this area,” the spokesman for DSS noted, “so it is essential that this community has adequate resources to support this population.”
Here are some more details on the shelter, from the DSS:
- 106 beds
- Operated by Breaking Ground
- Will prioritize placements from the area
- No one with on parole or probation for a sex offense will be permitted to reside in this facility*
- There will be a minimum of 6 security staff on-site per shift, including at the entrance to control access
- 60 security cameras will be installed throughout the building to monitor compliance with house regulations both in and around the facility and acting as a deterrent for inappropriate or illegal activities
* NYS law (the Sexual Assault Reform Act, or SARA) bars individuals convicted of certain sex offense from residing within 1,000 feet of a school or other facility caring for children when they are on probation or under parole supervision. DSS ensures compliance with SARA restrictions and check the State DOCCS and DCJS databases to screen for known sex offender status from Level 1-3. NB: A reader asked me to note that by default, a convicted sex offender can live there, just not be on parole or probation.
DSS will establish a Community Advisory Board, which will hold regular meetings, though I am not sure when — the time it seems would be now.
The siting next to a school seems like a bad choice, but DSS said it is not uncommon: “Breaking Ground has ample experience operating such facilities without incident. They will work closely with school leadership and security to maintain open lines of communication and ensure smooth/safe operations.”
Image capture April 2023 © 2024 Google
32 Comments
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Shame on the elected officials. We need to stop voting them in. This is just wrong. This area has plenty of shelters
Problem is, noone ever shows up to vote for local elections, so if this shelter is a problem for the “neighborhood”, you’ve got noone to blame but those that didn’t show up to vote on the local level. Voting participation numbers are ridiculous for the downtown neighborhoods. Yet everyone continues to complain.
I agree 100 percent. Than we all pay the price
This is 100% the mayor and his cronies… You know Slate Development is very tight with him and deep pockets…The CM Marte and AM Lee are fighting City Hall …but large RE $$ rules…I mean Metropolitan College is honoring Slate at th3ir Fundraiser in October…it’s not for the $$$
CM is not very effective and his stance on these shelters in several downtown neighborhoods is very welcoming. There were other better choices for local council, but noone shows up to vote so we have CM and Lee.
I have to say it, they are sneaking in shelter and migrant shelters all over the city and other boroughs! destroying neighborhoods!! people afraid to walk around and they are afraid for their kids. This will destroy property value and safety. Shame on the Dems in office
Yes it’s those darn sneaky Dems. Shame on them.
all our politicians here in NY are Democrats. that’s who is the blame.
Great they will just set loose 106 men in our neighborhood. This city is the worst.
I agree, a total nightmare.
I can understand why homeless families who are in the school are not assigned to live near the school. There would be a huge stigma associated with that. All the students would be aware eventually of their situation. That would lead the students to victimization and bullying in the schools. I don’t know if that’s the reason but it sounds like a darn good reason for me to avoid that.
Currently when I walk down the street or leave my building there’s a pretty decent chance within one block I’m going to see at least one homeless person if not multiple. These are folks who are living on the street. Any one of us can become unhoused quickly and many people who are unhoused have only been unhoused because of something in the immediate past within the year that has led them to be in that situation (eg, unemployment). The assumption that unhoused people are criminals and deviants is simply not true. Regardless I would much rather that these folks who are human beings have a place to sleep at night, access to resources easily, and not be on the street.
If someone is a threat living in that building then them being on the street makes them much much more more of a threat because they are more desperate, have less oversight, and nothing much to lose.
I don’t love the idea of course. But I will feel safer with folks housed and taken care of to some extent than the current situation. I hope that the building will house neighborhood unhoused folks rather than open the area up to another 100 additional unhoused folks, which would not be ideal for any neighborhood.
With the shelter on Washington St, they will be bringing in homeless from other neighborhoods to ours, not just the ones who are already living on the streets here (mentioned in a previous update to CB1 on YouTube).
@Tribeca Citizen, was there an update on the Washington St shelter? They had a call with CB1 on July 17: https://tribecacitizen.com/2024/07/09/community-board-1-agendas-for-july-5/
Stacey,
The City uses apartment-like residences and hotels to provide shelter for homeless NYC families. The kids can go to whatever local school they choose/has room or they can attend their old school in their old neighborhood (if so, they can go via school bus).
The City is mostly housing migrant families in hotels. The school situation is more complicated as many don’t speak English.
School assignments are not about whether kids might get bullied.
Sadly, bullying occurs in all sorts of situations and circumstances.
It’s amazing DSS is able to provide comments (although untrue) regarding the shelter, but unable to respond to the community and community board. Breaking Ground may have experience running shelters in close proximety to schools, however, not one of them is actually connected to a school. They also must’ve forgoten to mention the smoking sections. This “update” is a sad joke.
I imagine it will also impact on the M15 bus.
During Covid, when some hotels were being used for homeless men, there was a noticeable number of emotionally disturbed people using the M15.
Traditionally buses have offered a safer environment compared to the subway.
This is no longer the case when there are emotionally disturbed people on the bus.
I am surprised, this looks like a PR piece for DSS and Breaking Ground. Where’s the info or concerns of the neighbors or what the local electeds have already said…this is an unsuitable location for a safe haven. Even the son of one of the founders of Breaking Ground spoke at a public meeting and said it was a bad location for the type of shelter…and there is 0 proof given to the public they ever operated a shelter connected to a school. I want to see what the electeds and community have to say …
I completely agree. This is a bad location for a low barrier homeless shelter. This is not a case of “not in my backyard”; this is a case of “not a low barrier male-only homeless shelter that includes sex offenders (albeit not those on parole) directly connected to an elementary school”. The neighborhood has in many instances noted that they would be very happy with a family homeless shelter.
The tone of the article is not encouraging. We should (as a neighborhood) be adamantly against such crony activities from politicians. It is indeed well known that Adams and Slate are close buddies.
New York State law does NOT prohibit sex offenders from residing in a shelter attached to a school. It only applies if he sex offenders are still on parole or probation. If neither applies, the sex offenders may reside there. Tribeca Citizen should update this Dept of Homeless service press release to reflect accurate information.
Fair. The post says that but I just updated.
i am generally fine with homeless shelters, as everyone has a right to housing. what i don’t understand is why things like this are able to happen so quickly (which is good) but regular buildings/build outs/residential conversions take forever. to say nothing of the fact that tons of storefronts down here are empty because landlords are afraid to lose money
emilygrace, do you have a school age child at this school? Do you live in the neighborhood? It isn’t good!!! Its dangerous for all!
Purely as an FYI, here is the go fund me page that parents of the elementary school has created. The funds are for attorney fees. The hope is the attorney helps us with an article 78 filing, that a judge will review it, agree that a male-only low barrier homeless shelter should not be directly next to an elementary school, and stop the opening. There is limited time as once the shelter opens, it will be next to impossible to close it.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/protect-peck-slip-school-oppose-unsafe-shelter
Article 78: A Writ of Prohibition seeks to force or compel a government agency or official to refrain from doing something it should not do. For example, one might file an Article 78 in the form of a Writ of Prohibition to prohibit an agency, or even a court or judge, from acting outside the scope of their authority.
While recognizing the critical need for affordable housing, for shelter services and for mental health and/or substance abuse services, it is understandable that people have concerns about a shelter especially as another is slated for Beekman Street. (BTW a relative is homeless in another city so I am familiar with “all sides”)
It might be one thing if the City took responsibility and was willing to address the various problems and issues that will arise – but sadly, the City does not even care to try…..
The City has shown that it cannot even manage relatively basic things like trash everywhere, rats.
The City does not care if people can’t sleep at night because of music and noise from “open restaurants”.
The City does not care if Grandpa cannot safely cross the street due to Citibikers going through red lights.
The City doesn’t care if you have reservations about an adult shelter opening up nearby.
The City does not care about residents being able to have some minimal daily life. (The City only cares about real estate developers, bike lobby, restaurant lobby, tourists, new migrants)
Today I took two buses after leaving work to do some errands. There was a homeless woman on the first – she had multiple bags, took up several seats and was talking to herself. No one wanted to be by her. The bus was crowded and so even more squished because of this.
Leaving the second bus, as it turned out, there was a homeless man lying on the sidewalk – and those of us exiting had to step over him. (He hangs out at that bus stop)
Sadly, this is not new news
Born and raised in NYC – but my family is done…. just trying to figure out how to leave…
@Lisa. Thank you for spelling out all the thoughts I have everyday when I leave my home. I want to know if the city has any plans regarding the Africans peddlers in the area? They have occupied Broadway/Canal streets since the beginning of Covid and don’t appear to be leaving. They are on the streets day and night, assuming there is a shelter near by where they sleep? I noticed Canal Street has turned into a night market sometime ago.They must have worked out a deal with the city to vacate the block between Lispenard and Walker on Broadway but have since spread out to other streets.
And of course the perennial Chinese peddlers clogging every intersection accosting tourists is a permanent phenomenon.
All this lawlessness has become the status quo, the city really owes us an explanation.
Wondering if anyone knows?
Regarding the Beekman Street shelter site – how is it that the building was vacant?
Did the landlord hold apartments empty in order to sell?
Presumably the residents there had to find new housing….
Is NYC basically “encouraging” landlords to get rid of regular residential in order to benefit from a shelter deal?
“Robbing Peter to pay Paul”?
It is substantially more profitable to be a shelter these days than condos or rentals. The property here sold for roughly 26M and their 5yr contract as a shelter is for over 40M.
well, yeah. That’s exactly what they are doing.
This is a nightmare to our neighborhood. I’m so afraid coming home & also walking my dog. To put it next to a primary school is disastrous & certainly not safe. To have 1 on Beekman St. Is just not fair to the residents around here paying all sorts of money to live in an originally safe area. We don’t even have cops walking our streets anymore to keep home semblance of order. We need Curtis Sliwa to help fight for us.
I understand that the Peck Slip School already has homeless children in their classes (which is a good thing). I don’t understand why the Adams administration will not place families rather than low barrier singles in this location. Then we hear from the Mayor that we are racist for making a common sense and more safe compromise.
https://pix11.com/news/local-news/adams-slams-protests-over-nyc-homeless-shelters-this-is-not-the-deep-south/
A shelter right next to a children’s school?!
Let’s take an example of the shelter that was opened up at the Radisson hotel on the corner of Pine and William.
Now when you walk down Pine Street, you have to watch these homeless and migrants standing on the corner smoking, eating throwing their garbage on the corner and just loitering. Duane Reede a few feet up, had to close their store because they were continually being shoplifted.
Let me remind myself I pay $10,000 a month to have this up the block.
Now, some genius New York politician came up with a shelter next to a children’s school . This is an absolute joke, and I have zero sympathy.
Change. Increased populations. Sadly very long ago – gone are the decades we enjoyed living on Peck Slip in its unique tranquility. It was a true Oasis.
How is it that NYC can’t properly fund so many essential services and ignores serious concerns of residents- yet is now planning to waste millions on completely unneeded alterations to Park Avenue
https://abc7ny.com/post/putting-park-back-park-avenue-proposed-redesign-midtown-manhattan/15235354/