78-16 Cooper Avenue will be the site of a 200-bed homeless shelter for single men. (Councilman Robert Holden)
Oct. 25, 2019 By Allie Griffin
Residents are organizing a protest against the City’s plan to open a shelter in Glendale.
The Glendale-Middle Village Coalition is holding a protest at the proposed shelter site at 78-16 Cooper Ave. on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 10 a.m.
Members of the Coalition claim that the shelter–which will serve 200 single men and open early next year–will pose a danger to the surrounding community and nearby schools. Many say that it will be populated by those who were recently incarcerated.
“I don’t even know how they want to call it a homeless shelter,” coalition organizer Kathy Masi told Ridgewood Post. “I think it’s just a stopover for Rikers Island now, with the timing. It’s a halfway house. It’s not a homeless shelter.”
The coalition is also planning to soon file a suit against the City to block the homeless shelter in what is known as an Article 78 proceeding used to overturn state or local policies. The group argues that the City’s study of the site that determined that a shelter should go there was flawed.
“Right now we’re just sorting through all the information and [the filing] should be pretty soon,” Masi said.
The Department of Homeless Services, however, said last week that it has explored all options and the site makes sense. It also noted that there are currently no shelters in Community Board 5, which covers Ridgewood, Middle Village, Maspeth and Glendale.
Masi is expecting a good turn out. Earlier this month hundreds turned out for a town hall event to express outrage about the proposed shelter.
“I hope we have a good turn out, I hope a thousand people show up,” Masi said. “I really do. It’s a terrible thing what they’re doing.”
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5 Comments
Seems the mayor is trying to destroy every last good neighborhood in the boro.
Glendale won a battle but lost a war . We should have accepted the families . Who do we have to thank CM Holden and his former group the JPCA. Plenty of old footage on You Tube . When his group was protesting this a few years ago. Actually it was star studded with former politicians .
Also this land will never see a school . Why did one of the Council members stage a fall in Bay Ridge ,Brooklyn . That was in the NYDN and the the Commissioner of the DOE said PS 9 will get another 15 million in renovations.
It is all out there on the computer people. Look it up.
The question is while Glendale protests against it. Who will show up to protest for it . BLM, Nation of Islam, RTU?
The DHS said plans are going forward on Cooper.
This shelter will have the very same issues as the old Pan American Motor Inn on Queens Blvd. in Elmhurst. This building always has people smoking pot around it. A few years back this very shelter was the scene of a protest where its new upstanding residents came off buses holding signs telling protesters and onlookers to go back to China. A few months later this very shelter was the scene of a fight between a cab driver and a fare where the cab driver physically put a child out on the street, this made the news. What didn’t make the news was the fare, a woman, wanted to square her fare from Washington Heights with a sexual favor but wanted the child to remain in the car (being a concerned parent) the cab driver didn’t. On this strip of Queens Blvd. there are numerous shelters, the Crown Motel (where a prostitute murdered a John with fentanyl) The Mets Motel ( where cops found and arrested 2 stick up creeps hiding out while serving a different warrant),The Quality Inn (which saw an infant death and in 2018 an assault of an employee of an auto shop next to the shelter by a resident of the shelter), The Days in (where an infant was found dead July 2018) Close these crime riddled shelters and certainly don’t let this shelter open in residential Glendale.
Masi is a part of CB# 5 . She was well aware of this shelter since 2013. She should step down from the board . Never have I seen board members and council members playing both sides . Sad in a way she protests in front of houses of worship and yet her tirade of hate continues.
I thought community board members had to be neutral and explore. every fact. CB# 5 and politicians have kept we the people in the dark for way to long.
We r not against the homeless. Just 200 at that site that is a high traffic area
Enter and exit as hundreds of cars pass as well as students parents and shoppers pass directly in front of entrance to Shelter.
We understand 200 working men must leave their rooms daily. No job! Just walking our streets being possible pedifiles in this concentrated area does not make sense in my opinion.