Anger Over Planned Shelter, Next to School, for Most Troubled Homeless

Left: "We're beyond the point of just sending letters," said Eric Yu, a Southbridge Towers resident and member of Communty Board 1. He suggested that it may be time to stage a protest. Right: The planned shelter at 320 Pearl Street, at left, abuts the Peck Slip School located at the corner of Pearl Street and Peck Slip. Photos: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Opponents of a planned “low barrier” shelter for single adults at 320 Pearl Street crowded into the Southbridge Towers community room last week to voice anger and frustration over the siting of the 106-bed Safe Haven facility next to an elementary school. Such least restrictive shelters are meant to appeal to, and to treat, homeless people with severe mental health and substance abuse problems.

The two elected officials at the July 30 meeting, Assemblywoman Grace Lee and City Councilman Christopher Marte, said they had yet to receive a response from the mayor’s office on why the building, a former Hampton Inn that abuts the Peck Slip School, was picked as a Safe Haven rather than another type of shelter. Along with Community Board 1, they received notice of the planned shelter on June 13, shortly before the end of the school year.

“They’re not telling us why they’re choosing this over a women’s shelter, why they’re choosing this over a family shelter,” Marte told the crowd, many of whom were residents of Southbridge Towers, a complex located across Pearl Street from the proposed facility.

“We can understand the value this [shelter] would be for a migrant family or for a women’s shelter, someone that wants to get back up on their feet and work in the neighborhood,” Marte added. “So why are we taking that away from them but also putting additional concerns and pressure in our community when there hasn’t even been a process in place to have a conversation and a dialogue?”

Marte’s remarks echoed a June Community Board 1 resolution that called on the city’s Department of Homeless Services and Department of Social Services (DSS) to convert 320 Pearl Street to a family shelter, noting that the Peck Slip School already has an enrollment of about 75 migrant children and could support additional students from the adjacent building.

“I don’t think anyone in our school, none of the teachers or principals or administrative staff, want this,” said Peggy Bilse, a Peck Slip School parent and PTA executive board member who spoke to the meeting via Zoom. But, she said, they’ve been advised by the DOE not to take a stand. Bilse said she has been frustrated by responses from DOE officials who, she said, tell her that if the shelter is approved, they will keep the kids safe. “I don’t think that’s an acceptable answer because I feel like keeping them safe is not placing a shelter there.”

In a phone interview, Kelly McGuire, the School District 2 superintendent, said that despite parents’ belief that the DOE has some say in the type of shelter that goes into the 320 Pearl Street building, that decision “is all about the Department of Social Services.” 

“We’re just making sure that parents are connected to people who might be in a better position to hear their concerns,” he said, noting that there is too little information about the site to say how the school might adjust once it is occupied.

“The school right now uses three different entrances for arrival and dismissal and we always have adults at all three of those doors the school uses, and that little blocked-off play space [on Peck Slip] right in front of the school is police supervised,” he said. “It’s hard to know whether there’s anything that we think would interfere until we know the actual plan of things, but details are very scarce.”

The DOE’s central office did not respond to questions about the planned shelter. 

The mayor’s office and the city’s Department of Social Services also did not respond to questions about this specific choice of location for the Safe Haven shelter, the lack of consultation with Community Board 1 and school parents, or any planned safety measures. The mayor’s office referred questions to a DSS spokesperson who said in an email that “it is not uncommon for shelter/Safe Havens to be located in close proximity to schools, and Breaking Ground [the shelter operator] 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.”

“This area has been impacted by an increased incidence of unsheltered homelessness, and facilities like this have been instrumental in our efforts to help move vulnerable New Yorkers off the streets and subways and into shelter and permanent housing,” the spokesperson wrote. 

To enthusiastic applause, Eric Yu, a Southbridge Towers resident and CB1 member, said he and others are prepared to march against the shelter. “It’s not just sending emails. We’ve got to show them we’re serious,” he said. “We’re excited about that because [otherwise] they’re just going to ignore us.”

But following a massive protest last month against a Safe Haven shelter planned for Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Adams amplified his criticism of communities that oppose those facilities. “Everyone is against single Black men. Everyone,” he said. “They tell me, Eric, bring children and families, bring single women, bring this, bring that. But don’t bring single Black men into our community.” He added, “Jim Crow-ism can’t exist in our city.”  

“This is not a not-in-my-backyard issue,” Biles said. “This [shelter] should not be next to an elementary school serving 400 kids ages 3 to 11. So we need to maintain that this is a separate issue from every other shelter issue, and Mayor Adams needs to be aware that this is not a race issue.”

Marte warned that a demonstration against the city’s shelter plan could backfire. “Protests are fine, many of you always see me at protests, but this administration, when it comes to shelters, pulls out the race card,” he said. “And this community is going to look bad, whether it’s in the Post or the Daily News.”

“So if we’re going to do something,” he added. “Let’s do something unified. Let’s do something smart.”

In a July 30 letter to Adams, Marte called for the shelter to be “paused and relocated until the community can be engaged in a good faith manner to productively discuss this site and its use.”

The lack of engagement with the community, he wrote, “has destroyed whatever trust the administration and the Department of Social Services could have had with the thousands of residents in the neighborhood.”

Slate Property Group bought the former Hampton Inn building last December for a reported $24.125 million and is renting it to the shelter operator, Breaking Ground. The organization has a five-year, $42.5 million contract to run the shelter, according to city records. Breaking Ground says on its website that at a Safe Haven “there are no curfews and more privacy. A client can miss a night at the Safe Haven without losing his or her bed, as they would at a traditional shelter.”