78-16 Cooper Avenue will be the site of a 200-bed homeless shelter for single men. (Councilman Robert Holden)
Sept. 6, 2019 By Allie Griffin
A public hearing to discuss the proposed Glendale homeless shelter will take place in Middle Village next month, according to Queens Community Board 5.
The hearing is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. inside the auditorium at Christ the King Regional High School in Middle Village.
The meeting follows the Department of Homeless Services announcement last month that a shelter would be opening at 78-16 Cooper Ave. in Glendale next year.
The announcement came after years of protest from community members and elected officials who long feared that that the Cooper Avenue site would one day be a shelter. Many want to see the property turned into a school.
The shelter is expected to open in early 2020 and will serve 200 single men experiencing homelessness who are currently employed or actively seeking employment, according to DHS.
A similar facility will be opening in Ridgewood in late 2020, DHS also announced at the time.
Next month’s meeting is likely to be heated, given past shelter protests. The community board is asking attendees to remain “calm, respectful and thoughtful.”
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12 Comments
There is a not for profit syndicate run by Boro-Park/Park Slope former Councilwoman Susan Alter and her husband friends of the mayor, major contributors to Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer where several shelters are located in LIC. Show up in mass, protest because your quiet community will see an influx of parolees from the upstate prison system in your neighborhood your property values will go down, expect an Uptick in crime in Glendale for sure.
It’s a shame that buildings are being put up with apartments renting for $3,000-$4,000 a month. The mayor should use money to build more low income properties. Stop spending our tax payers money on more shelters and having to pay to staff it. I work very hard for what I have and this is just going to bring up the crime rate in our working class neighborhood.
How do u open a shelter on land contaminated with Benzine and other chemicals.
the same way they opened a shelter on Van Dam Street in LIC and in Greenpoint adjacent to a Superfund site contaminated with hazardous substances and pollutants. NYC and DHS doesn’t care!
Sad that a neighborhood with this many k – 8 schools in walking distance is forced to have 200 homeless men living near by. Good job mayor. Glendale is gone.
According to our mayor he wants to keep the homeless as close as possible to their own neighborhoods. Ask DHS for the facts. For example, check the stats at the Homeless Shelter on Van Dam Street in Long Island City, the North Star Shelter. 95% of the residents are not from the community or for that matter even from the Borough of Queens. Why open more shelters in Queens if NYC cannot fill the current Queens’ shelters with homeless from our own borough?
A lot of homeless people aren’t from New York or the USA. Funny that DeBlasio hasn’t put any homeless shelters in Park Slope, where he owns two houses, which he rents out while living free in Gracie Mansion.
There is high levels of benzine and radon in the ground . How can that be a shelter?? I guess a new precinct is in order seeing buses coming into atlas park and the wooplus apps are going to bring big trouble.
BS meeting to discuss a project that has already been rubber stamped by big bird and the city.
Enough already with these shelters. The ones on Queens Blvd have seen assaults, infant deaths and residents caught vandalizing private property. Many of my friends relatives and neighbors couldn’t afford to live here in the city and moved to places they could afford. Some returned years later. It wasn’t the end of the world. They didn’t look for the tax payer to pay their way.
Please don’t open a shelter. Is not safe for our children. Open a school or a home for the veterans. You can also open a recreational program for children and teenagers. A home for people with disabilities. You have better choices to help our community .
We must vote against this. Nothing good can come of these shelters and jails being added to these middle-class residential communities. Secondly, placing people who cannot afford housing in areas where cost of living costs are higher than other possible options and cost of commuting is greater is not logical from a practical pov and logistics pov. This is simply poor planning. Just because a space is available doesn’t mean it should be filled. You have to fill with something that will improve the area and quality of life. This is the reason we all go to work, pay taxes, volunteer in the community and help each other. To improve. This is not improving. This is appeasing.