Homeless fams put on notice
Schoolchildren and their parents will be moved from a Brooklyn shelter by the end of the month after complaints from wealthy residents who didn’t want the homeless in the neighborhood, residents told the Daily News on Monday.
Staff at Flatlands Family Residence gathered tenants for a group meeting Saturday and told them the city was planning to relocate them by the end of the month, several residents who were present told The News.
“They knocked on everyone’s door and said to come out to the courtyard. They told us that the shelter would be closing down at the end of the month,” said Infinite Allah, 53, who moved into the shelter with his 5-year-old daughter two weeks ago.
“A lot of people were upset.”
At a press conference Monday, the mayor dodged the Flatlands issue first reported by The News. He said Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Steven Banks and Corporation Counsel Jim Johnson were “reviewing the situation.”
A Homeless Services spokesman later confirmed nobody would im
mediately be removed from Flatlands, citing the mayor’s remarks.
The safety of the next shelter is a big concern for many parents at Flatlands Family Residence, which is located in a large gated courtyard, beside a playground and basketball court.
“She’s secure, I can close my eyes and sit on a bench and let her play, I don’t have to worry about if she’s missing. They’re going to take that away from us,” said Allah.
The mayor said hotels, such as The Lucerne and LIC Plaza, which both housed homeless people to curb the spread of COVID-19, were never intended as a permanent accommodation. He denied caving to rich residents in both neighborhoods who lobbied to have the homeless people removed.
Randy Mastro, a politically connected lawyer hired by Upper West Side residents to make their case to move homeless from the neighborhood, described the situation as a “win-win.”
“We understand and expect that the city will honor its commitment to move folks out of the Lucerne and into state-accredited shelters with proper services on-site by the end of this month,” he said in a statement.
“As the mayor has explained, SRO hotels should only be temporary housing, and what’s happening on the Upper West Side is ‘not acceptable,’ so this move will be a win-win for this neighborhood and this vulnerable population.”
While the hotels may not have been a longterm solution, Crystal, 53, and her teenage son and daughter thought Flatlands Family Residents was.
After living there for three years, they don’t know where they’ll be living in October.
“If they tell you on a Wednesday that you’re moving Thursday, did they disinfect it or are there new mattresses? You don’t know, it’s just the unknown,” Crystal said, declining to provide her last name.