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New Chinatown Shelter Draws Protest From Community Leaders
By
Chau Lam
Published Dec 18, 2021
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By
Chau Lam
Published Dec 18, 2021
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Residents, business owners and community leaders in Manhattan's Chinatown are urging officials to build affordable housing for seniors instead of siting yet another homeless shelter in a neighborhood they say is already over-burdened.
New York City's Department of Homeless Services plans to turn a former hotel at 91 East Broadway, which sits amid a commercial hub, into a 120-bed safe haven, a form of supportive housing designed to serve homeless individuals.
The plan follows another proposal to build a safe haven on Madison Street and a homeless shelter on Canal Street, according to the city.
Jacky Wong, a member of the Concerned Citizens of East Broadway – a coalition of residents, business owners and community organizations — said the group supports the safe haven on Madison Street, but opposes the East Broadway shelter. He said putting the facility in the middle of a bustling business district places residents, shoppers, and business owners in danger.
“East Broadway and Chinatown have been taken advantage of for far too long, and we hereby demand that NYC’s Department of Homeless Services … immediately halt their discriminatory proposal to build another shelter at 91 East Broadway,” Wong said.
Wong said within three blocks of the proposed safe haven on East Broadway are six public schools, places of worship, and Chinatown associations where seniors gather to socialize.
A spokesman for the Department of Social Services said the agency is responding to the community’s demand for additional services after four homeless men sleeping on a sidewalk in Chinatown were bludgeoned and killed in 2019.
“These are the facilities that were asked for and we promised, which will provide valuable services and shelter for unsheltered folks in the neighborhood,” the spokesman, Ian Martin, said.
Outgoing Councilmember Margaret Chin, whose district includes Chinatown, said the community has needs more urgent than another shelter.
“Our neighborhood is over-saturated with shelters,” Chin said in a letter sent to Mayor Bill DeBlasio earlier this month, "what we desperately need is deeply affordable housing."
The two safe havens in Chinatown aim to provide temporary housing for 169 New Yorkers, who are currently living on the street, in the subway, on the sidewalks, in parks, or in abandoned buildings.
Safe havens have fewer restrictions than traditional shelters, such as no curfews, and appeal to people typically reluctant to seek shelter, according to homeless advocates. These facilities also have onsite services to help homeless individuals find permanent housing.
The proposed safe haven at the former hotel on East Broadway will be staffed with workers who speak three Chinese dialects, according to Thomas Yu, co-executive director of Asian American for Equality. However, the facility is open to all homeless New Yorkers.
Care for the Homeless, which has been hired by the city to run the program at the East Broadway safe haven, plans to operate a health clinic on the ground floor. That facility is proposed to be about 2,600 to 2,700 square feet and will provide services including primary care, dentistry, optometry, podiatry, and behavioral health.
“It will be open to the community – to those folks who are experiencing homelessness and who are unstably housed in addition to the residents of the safe haven,” according to Ron Lawson, chief operating officer for Care for the Homeless.
The DHS said no final decisions have been made regarding the clinic.
Chau Lam
Chau Lam was a reporter at Gothamist.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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