As I write this article, dozens of community residents have been gathering at the corner of 86th Street and 25th Avenue in Brooklyn for the 226th consecutive day. Since mid-July last year, they have been protesting against the city government’s plan to build a homeless shelter at that location.
This is not just a “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) issue. These determined protesters want to see a policy of empathy that can both protect the community and help the homeless. Their demands are not for the construction of homeless shelters, but for the provision of permanent affordable housing and basic support services to help those in need get back on their feet.
This is the right approach. However, the city government has repeatedly refused and paid a huge price for it. New York City spends nearly $8 billion annually on homeless shelters, yet the number of homeless people continues to rise, proving that this policy is not working.
The cost is not just economic, but also social. The city government’s continued construction of homeless shelters – shelters that neither the homeless want nor local residents are willing to accept – benefits some developers and top officials of homeless shelter management organizations, while ignoring the voices of the voters.
Placing the homeless in temporary shelters only perpetuates their suffering. On the contrary, building permanent affordable housing and providing appropriate services can truly improve their lives and reduce the number of homeless people. In fact, many homeless people prefer to sleep on the streets rather than enter shelters because these shelters often have poor conditions and even pose safety risks.
According to a report released by the city’s Department of Investigation last year, these shelters are just a source of money for greedy developers and management organizations, with some top executives earning salaries of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ironically, by continuously building shelters, the city government is actually exacerbating the worsening of the homeless problem.
Take, for example, the shelter planned to be built by the city at 2501 86th Street, which will accommodate 150 single men, many of whom suffer from substance abuse or mental health issues. This project will allow developers and operating organizations to make a profit at the expense of taxpayers’ money, without truly helping the homeless and potentially endangering community safety.
The funds originally allocated for developing this unwanted shelter could be entirely invested in building permanent housing. For instance, the city could use part of the budget to refurbish the numerous vacant apartments within the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), turning them into affordable housing and providing appropriate social services to help the homeless rebuild their lives. This kind of solution can truly address the problem, instead of allowing the homeless crisis to continue deteriorating.
Now, the city government must face reality, abandon this shelter plan that has not been discussed with the community and that no one really needs. Instead of wasting billions of dollars annually on homeless shelters citywide, it’s more responsible to immediately start developing what all New Yorkers truly need – affordable permanent housing.
(The viewpoints expressed in the above article are those of the author and do not represent the position of this publication.)