Close the Bedford-Atlantic Homeless Shelter

Letters

2008-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

Mr. Louis let me start by thanking you on a great article and keeping the heat on the Mayor! I can't believe that they're trying to put more homeless people in the armory. The place is horrifying--I live not too far from it and the amount of drug dealing and crime in and around the place is way more than you mentioned! I know guys who exclusively sell drugs to all those homeless cats...As a matter of fact some people travel from other parts of Brooklyn just to sell drugs right on Atlantic Ave...a lot of the men in that place are there to take advantge of the lack of authority there. A childhood friend of mine, who is a career criminal, shared a lot of his experiences with me while he was staying there and said the armory is a launch pad for killers, rapists, and thieves who commit crimes and come back at night for shelter. I'm afraid if Bloomberg gets his way then Crown Heights will be the New East New York of the 80's...My mom is fed up with all the loitering and is tired of calling the cops about weird and shady people in our neighborhood...Please let us know where any protests will be! Thanks.

-Manny

Concessions Made in Plan for Homeless in Brooklyn

2008-08-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, Heather J. Janik, a spokeswoman for the city’s homeless services agency, said an additional intake center would be opened in Manhattan to lessen demand at the proposed Brooklyn site. She said it would open “in tandem” with the new Brooklyn intake center, at the same time that the current central intake center, the Bellevue Men’s Shelter on the East Side, closed down. The site of the new center in Manhattan, which will be open 24 hours, has not been determined.

Bill de Blasio, the city councilman who leads the committee overseeing the homeless services agency, said more was needed, including guarantees from the city about improving the armory. “I think it’s going to take a lot more before folks in the neighborhood are satisfied,” he said.

One of the local organizers, Sandy Taggart, set a higher bar, saying, “We will absolutely not accept an intake center here.”

Read the full article here.
Courtesy of the NY Times

Just the Facts - DHS's Plan Spelled Out

2008-08-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

New York City Department of Homeless Services
Relocation of the intake center for homeless men and the opportunity for additional shelter reduction

The purpose of this document is to detail the plan of the NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to relocate its central intake center for homeless men and to describe the opportunity for further shelter reductions that will be made possible due to the success of DHS’ strategies to return homeless clients to homes in the community.

To further advance DHS’ strategies to accomplish the Mayor’s goals to reduce homelessness, we are planning several new initiatives. The following points describe these initiatives and provide a set of facts related to their implementation.

• The Department of Homeless Services (DHS) intends to relocate its central shelter intake program for men from 400 East 30th Street in Manhattan to the Bedford Atlantic Armory, a site controlled by DHS in Brooklyn. This shift will provide an intake center that is smaller, safer and more service-rich.

• This plan replaces the agency’s previous effort to decentralize and privatize its intake operation. The original decentralized intake plan was formulated under the assumption that chronically street homeless clients would seek shelter if intake were more accessible. In fact, DHS has learned directly from chronically street homeless clients that intake is not a barrier to them entering shelter. These clients have chosen the street over shelter, some for many years, despite many DHS’ efforts to make shelter more accessible.

• DHS ended the decentralized intake plan as a result of completely transforming street outreach services in NYC. The new street outreach program creates direct access to housing and services for chronically street homeless clients in direct response to what these clients have requested. Employing “Housing First” and harm reduction principals, access to housing and services is through outreach workers who facilitate placement into these services. In this sense, DHS has brought the doorways to housing and services directly to the client, rather than requiring the client to seek out the doorway.

• DHS has developed 208 safe haven beds with a goal of 500 by year’s end to serve the most chronically street homeless clients who have chosen not to use shelter. These programs are smaller than shelters, have a richer array of services, and allow a client to accept services at a pace comfortable for the client.

• The evidence that DHS’ new approach to street homelessness is working is overwhelming: Street homelessness in NYC declined overall by 12% in the last year. Over 625 street homeless clients have moved into housing since the new outreach contracts got underway in September 2007. Over 500 clients have been served in the 208 safe haven beds DHS has created and over 70 of these clients have already moved from safe havens into permanent housing. This is even more remarkable given the fact that the average length of street homelessness for safe haven clients is 7.5 years.

• DHS must exit from the 30th Street facility as a result of a redevelopment plan at that site and the Bedford Atlantic facility represents an excellent choice for the relocation. The advantages of Bedford Atlantic include:
Comparable public transportation accessibility to 30th Street (the relatively small number of street homeless clients who choose to enter shelter are typically transported to intake by van by an outreach team)
Large and flexible space configuration
Currently operates as an assessment site for men and therefore the relocation will not disrupt another program use
Already well-known to homeless men

• Simultaneous with the relocation, DHS will redesign the program model for men’s intake from an entry point and client reception location to a program that provides a rich array of services to help prevent homelessness by assisting presenting clients to return quickly to housing resources in the community. The program model will include the following components:
Robust prevention and diversion model at the front door of the shelter system
Provide intensive case management and independent living plans from the moment a client enters the system
Rich array of services on-site, including relocation services, stronger and more collaborative case planning with discharging institutions, access to landlord and family mediation
Complete assessment more quickly for clients who will enter the shelter system

• A significant benefit to the community surrounding Bedford Atlantic is that the capacity of the facility will be reduced substantially: DHS will reduce the bed count from 350 to 230 beds.

• Further capacity reductions will become possible over time. As a result of a declining shelter census due to increases in permanent housing exits, we project that DHS will be able to eliminate the 30th Street shelter by June 2009. (DHS manages 650 shelter beds at 30th Street in addition to the intake program hosted at the facility.) The 600 clients served at the facility will be linked to permanent housing. If a client hasn’t completed his independent living plan by June 2009, he will be referred to another shelter to complete his transition back to the community.

• No clients currently at 30th Street will be referred to the Bedford Atlantic facility (they have already completed intake.)

Homeless Center Roils a Brooklyn Neighborhood

2008-08-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

Mr. Nashak said the city was cutting the number of beds in the armory to 230 from 350 and that the planned facility in Crown Heights would not be the only intake center for men in the city, although he did not specify where any others would be. The plan must be approved by the state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance before it is implemented.

Local politicians and neighborhood residents said the plan would increase crime in the neighborhood, harm the homeless, and decrease the value of the area's historic brownstones.

Read the full article here.
Courtesy of the New York Sun

Homeless Intake Center Plan Provokes Broad Opposition

2008-08-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Community outrage at the city's plan to relocate the the homeless intake center for all five boroughs to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Crown Heights reached fever pitch last night at a special Community Board 8 meeting attended by Deputy Commissioner of the City’s Department of Homeless Services George Nashak and three of his staff members. In his introductory remarks, Nashak emphasized that as part of the plan to bring the intake center to the armory, Crown Heights would be benefiting from a net reduction in beds from 350 to 230. This didn't fly with the crowd...

Read the full article here.
Courtesy of brownstoner.com

Shelter resident describes daily life at Bedford-Atlantic

2008-06-30T13:33:00.001-07:00

Readers will notice that we have begun featuring posts from our friend Nathan's blog over at bedford-atlantic.blogspot.com. Nathan describes himself on his blog as being "about as normal as you. Before I got to where I am today, I had a nice home in a nice city, a nice car, a nice dog and lots of nice friends. How easily it all slipped away. I could well have been your neighbor, your friend, your schoolmate or your relative."

"Tenaciously holding on to [his] dignity," Nathan describes his blog as "a chronicle not only of my life at the worst shelter in New York, but of all of the other tribulations I experience at the hands of other city services as I try to get my life back in order."

Betraying Nathan's natural sense of cynicism and irony that somehow manage to make his situation and the status of the shelter almost humorous in a dark kind of way, the blog is titled "Life at Castle Grayskull" - invoking the gloomy outward appearance of the shelter.

Head over to Nathan's blog to get an inside look at Bedford-Atlantic and the typical life of one of its residents.

Infamous Alumnus of Bedford-Atlantic

2008-06-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

We can add Robert Williams, currently being tried for the 19 hour-long rape and torture of a Columbia University grad student in her Hamilton Heights apartment, to the list of criminals who have passed through the halls of our favorite homeless shelter--apparently living there for as long as a year. We can also add this to our list of reasons why this place has got to go.

Prosecutor Details Rape That Lasted 19 Hours
Courtesy of the NY Times

Cowardly Columbia torture suspect forced to attend trial
Courtesy of the NY Daily News

Update: We got the following note from Dept. of Homeless Services Press Secretary Heather Janik...

Hi Errol,

I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to touch base and let you know that we researched Robert Williams case history and he was not ever a resident at Bedford-Atlantic, as Angel Rendon’s blog suggests.

Thank you, have a good weekend,

Heather Janik
Press Secretary
City of New York
Department of Homeless Services

Momentum

2008-06-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

Budget negotiations that are wrapping up over the next few days have the potential to kill this once and for all!

Read the letter signed by 24 state legislators urging Governor Patterson to kill the plan to relocate the Manhattan central intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory shelter
here.

Courtesy of coalitionforthehomeless.org

Department of Homeless Services still not screening for sex offenders

2008-06-16T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sex offenders are still being housed at shelters for homeless families a year after the problem was first exposed, a new report revealed Sunday.

State Sen. Jeff Klein (D-Bronx) charged that the Department of Homeless Services is still failing to screen applicants to make sure they are not on the Megan's Law registry, allowing serious sex offenders to be assigned to shelters that house children.

"It will take them five minutes to avoid a lifetime of trauma for a child who may be hurt by one of these individuals," said Klein outside the agency's Manhattan office.

Last year, Klein found six level 2 or 3 sex offenders who had registered family shelters as their addresses.

The latest report found five sexual predators giving family shelters as their address, though only two could be verified as still living at the facilities.

DHS officials cited the agency's legal obligation to shelter anyone who applies and policies that make it difficult to separate families who apply together.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
Read the article here

Life at Castle Grayskull - Fans

2008-06-11T13:03:00.000-07:00

It has been blazing hot at Bedford-Atlantic recently, just as it has been everywhere else. The intense heat has been especially pronounced in the dormitories, which are long, narrow rooms with windows only at one end. To exacerbate the heat situation, some of the windows are bolted shut and therefore cannot be opened. As there is (thankfully, as far as I am concerned) no air conditioning in the dormitories, one might reasonably expect there to at least be fans to provide some sort of relief from the heat. There are, however, no fans in the dormitory areas besides those that some enterprising residents have managed to acquire and put into use.

Read the entire post here!

MARCH OVER B'KLYN BRIDGE FOLLOWED BY RALLY @ CITY HALL

2008-06-11T07:47:00.000-07:00

Council Member Letitia James, along with Coalition for the Homeless, Crown Heights Revitalization Movement (CHRM), neighborhood residents & local community groups, advocates for the homeless and public officials participate in march over the Brooklyn Bridge, followed by a rally at City Hall to oppose DHS’ plan to move the men’s homeless intake center in Manhattan to the Bedford Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn

This march and rally, in support of homeless individuals and the community is scheduled to take place on Thursday, June 12th (right before the Stated Council meeting). The marchers will meet at the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge at 12 PM, and enter at Adams and Tillary Streets. The group will then walk along the bridge footpath to City Hall Park. The rally is scheduled to begin at 1:00 PM on the Steps of City Hall.

Please join us to fight this misguided plan that will not benefit the City’s male homeless population (60% reside in Manhattan), and will harm a struggling community.

Who: Council Member Letitia James, Coalition for the Homeless, Crown Heights Revitalization Movement, advocates for the homeless, advocates for the community, and public officials

What: March over the Brooklyn Bridge in opposition of DHS’ (Department of Homeless Services) plan to close the men’s homeless intake center in Manhattan, immediately followed by a Rally on Steps of City Hall to demand that the City abandon plans to move the men’s homeless intake center to Brooklyn’s Bedford Atlantic Armory, located in an already overburdened community

When: Thursday, June 12th - march begins at 12 PM, and press conference/rally is at 1 PM

Where: Marchers will meet at the entrance of Brooklyn Bridge around noon (Tillary and Adams Streets) – Rally attendees will gather on the Steps of City Hall

Contact: Amyre Loomis at (718) 260-9191

Life at Castle Grayskull - Protest March

2008-06-10T13:08:00.000-07:00

Besides the fact that Bedford-Atlantic is not particularly well run, the shelter is a long way (about nine miles) from midtown Manhattan. A homeless person is not likely to be able to afford a limo or a taxi to the shelter. In fact, he may not even have money for carfare. Instead, he must walk the entire distance while carrying what may amount to all of his possessions with him. This is no mean feat. My suitcase of belongings (before the suitcase got stolen from under my bed) weighed around fifty pounds. If I were to have to move today, I would have to carry those fifty pounds of possessions in plastic bags with no handles or wheels to help me along. If the weather were as hot as it is today, or if it were pouring down rain or freezing cold and snowy, the idea of covering such a distance becomes even more daunting. In such a case, a homeless person facing such a trek might have to decide between sleeping rough on the street or abandoning some or all of his belongings in order to be able to seeks shelter.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Hot Sinks

2008-06-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

After several days of tepid showers, I was unable to stand beneath the water in the showers this morning. The steaming hot water burnt to the touch, so I was forced to first hold a wash cloth under the water, wait for it to cool down and then finally apply it to my body. My search for the "goldilocks shower" continues. After I finished my shower, I proceeded to the sink area to brush my teeth. Today, once again, I experienced one of the oddest things about life at Bedford-Atlantic. For whatever reason, very often both of the taps on every sink produce hot water. I am not talking about warm tap water, but hot water just as scalding as that which I found in the shower. The only way, it seems, to get any cool water is to be the first person to use a particular sink in the morning and to get whatever cool water is still in the pipes.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Eternal "Assessment"

2008-06-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

Bedford-Atlantic is what is called an "assessment" shelter. What that means is that people entering the shelter system are sent to the shelter so that their needs can be assessed. Once the assessment process is complete, they are supposed to be transferred to "permanent" shelters that are supposed to be equipped to address any special needs that the client might have. For example, there are shelters that house people who have jobs and other shelters for folks who have substance abuse problems or mental health issues. The assessment process is quite simple. The client is required to have a TB test, can opt to have an HIV test, must have a cursory physical examination (vital statistics, urinalysis and a blood draw), and must have a cursory psychiatric evaluation (ten minutes answering questions posed by a psychiatrist who takes clients at their word).

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Drug Free Zone? (Part 3)

2008-06-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

It is very common at Bedford-Atlantic for men to walk around from dormitory to dormitory trying to sell a variety of goods to the other residents. Normally, the range of merchandise on offer ranges from cigarettes to clothes and shoes. Occasionally, somebody also has DVDs (almost exclusively of the XXX variety) or cheap consumer electronics for sale. With the exception of the cigarettes, these goods are usually offered at a steep discount to the market value, making one wonder where or how the seller obtained the merchandise.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - An Unpleasant Nocturnal Interruption (Part 2)

2008-06-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

It was hot last night. Unlike many people, hot weather does not bother me. In fact, I quite enjoy it. I find sleeping on a hot, humid night to be quite enjoyable. Therefore, when I went to bed last night, I was looking forward to several hours of fitful slumber, even as others were griping about the oppressive heat and the lack of fans in the dormitories (there is actually one small wall fan in my dormitory, but it was not turned on and nobody could find a switch for it). Unfortunately, however, my peaceful slumber was cut rudely short by what can only be described by shocking behavior by the man occupying the bed across from mine.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Appropriate Attire

2008-06-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning, my t-shirt was damp from last night's heat, so I decided to take it off. I took out a fresh t-shirt but decided not to put it on until after I had a shower as my body was sweaty. I gathered my shower things together and headed downstairs. As I entered the main floor to go to the back of the building where the showers are, I received my first shout of the day: "Sir," a policewoman bellowed in such a manner as to make the honorific sound like a curse. "You're gonna have to go back upstairs and put a shirt on. You can't go around like that!"

Read the full post here!

Sex Offender: Rodney Singletary

2008-06-05T14:40:00.000-07:00

Name: Singletary, Rodney
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'11"
Weight 170
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 09/29/1965

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Non-NYS Felony Sex Offense
Date: 12/22/1994
Victim: Female, 28 years
Sentence: 10 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Attempted Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Attempted Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Life at Castle Grayskull - My New Case Worker

2008-06-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

Now that the powers that be at Bedford Atlantic have shipped out half of the shelter's residents to parts unknown and closed down two floors of the shelter, apparently to prepare for their "intake" role, there have been some changes. One of the most significant, for those of us seeking services, is that they have changed the assignment of case workers. Previously, case workers were assigned based upon one's bed number. Now, the assignment is based upon the first letter of one's surname. Mind you, the shelter staff did not bother to actually tell anybody about this change. They simply posted the new regime in various places around the shelter. For those of us in the shelter who are motivated (a small minority) and literate (it would be interesting to find out how many of the residents here are literate), this is not too much of a problem. For others, however, this could present difficulties. In fact, I have already seen one unfortunate resident being upbraided by his former caseworker: "I'm not your case worker anymore. Look at the list! It goes by last name now. Go look at the list!"

Read the full post here!

TWO HUNDRED RALLY AT BEDFORD-ATLANTIC ARMORY SHELTER

2008-06-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn, Jun 3, 2008—A crowd of two hundred Central Brooklyn residents, members of
community-based organizations, and elected officials gathered near the steps of the Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter to protest a disastrous plan, recently announced by the Bloomberg administration, to close the existing central intake center for all homeless men in New York City. Under this plan, the current Manhattan site would be leased to private developers to build a luxury hotel and conference center, and the intake center for all homeless men from all five boroughs would be relocated to a dangerous and difficult to reach armory in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

Sunday’s rally was organized by the Crown Heights Revitalization Movement (CHRM). Sandy Taggart, one of CHRM’s co-founders, said of Sunday’s rally, “This is just the beginning. This community cares for people, and the community’s opposition to the City’s plan is tremendous because it is bad for everyone—the homeless men currently living at the shelter, all homeless men in New York City, and the people who live and work in Central Brooklyn.” CHRM is joined in the fight by neighborhood residents and businesses, many local community groups (Crow Hill Community Association, Crown Heights Unites Coalition, Crown Heights North Association, Central Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition), advocates for the homeless (Coalition for the Homeless, the Legal Aid Society, Homeless Services United), and many of Brooklyn’s elected officials.

Speakers at Sunday’s rally, in unanimous opposition to the City’s plan, included Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz; NYS Senators Velmanentte Montgomery and Eric Adams; NYS Assemblymen Hakeem Jeffries and Karim Camara; NY City Council Members Letitia James, Albert Vann, and Bill deBlasio; Democratic District Leader Jesse Hamilton; Nizjoni Granville, Chair of the
Housing Committee for Community Board 8; Patrick Markee, Senior Policy Analyst for the
Coalition for the Homeless; Nathan Ashford, a resident of the Bedford-Atlantic Shelter; New York Daily News Columnist Errol Louis; and Takhara Robinson of the Central Brooklyn Anti-Violence Coalition.

Citing poor management of the Brooklyn shelter, the harm to all homeless men Citywide and the degradation of the quality of life in the already oversaturated residential communities of Central Brooklyn that are home to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, the speakers demanded that Mayor Bloomberg and the City’s Department of Homeless Services keep the intake center in Manhattan, the borough with the largest number of street homeless men. According to Borough President Markowitz, the planned move of the intake center would be bad for both Brooklyn and Manhattan. Mr. Markowitz emphatically stated at the rally, "Manhattan residents agree with us because their fear is that if they move the intake center to here, more of those that need services will choose not to come to Brooklyn and will stay on the streets of Manhattan."

Common themes of the rally’s speakers were better services for homeless men, respect for Central Brooklyn, and fair share for all communities. "It's not a question of not in my backyard at all, media. We have done our fair share," said Councilmember Letitia James. NYS Senator Velmanette Montgomery was quick to point out the City’s abysmal management of the current shelter at the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, "We have had this ongoing battle to try to clean up this facility for many years, and we have still not gotten the city to pay attention, so rather than working with us to help bring the necessary support to the men in this facility they are now going to dump another number of homeless men in this place that is not fit for the men who live here already." Speaking of the disrespect for the Brooklyn communities that are home to the Armory, Councilmember de Blasio commented that it would "have been nice if the City of New York had come to you and said, 'What should we do here? How can we improve the community?' But that's never the way the City of New York starts the discussion," said de Blasio. "It never goes to people who've been the backbone of the community and says, 'What's the right thing to do?'"

The communities neighboring the Armory Shelter are culturally rich, diverse communities. These are old-fashioned friendly neighborhoods of churches, community organizations, and beautifully tended gardens. These are communities of hard-working families who take pride in their neighborhood and who are ready to lend a helping hand. They are also thriving and growing economically. But these communities are oversaturated with social service beds and are now stretched to the limit. According to official City and State data, Community Board 8, which is home to the Armory, has more residential social service beds per acre than any other Brooklyn neighborhood—more than six times the median.

Courtesy of www.revitalizecrownheights.org
June, 3, 2006, Tuesday

Life at Castle Grayskull - Prettying up Bedford-Atlantic

2008-06-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

On Saturday evening, I knew something was up. The floors inside the shelter were shiny and clean! In fact, the cleaners had been so thorough that they had moved the lockers in the dormitories away from the walls and had cleaned behind them! This was just the second time in three months that I had witnessed such a thorough cleaning of the unfortunate place that I currently call home.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Yet Another Stigma?

2008-06-03T09:49:00.000-07:00

The evening after the rally, I was walking in one dormitory and overheard a couple of residents talking about the rally. One of them said: "Sure, there's prob'ly some sex offenders in here. But that don't mean we's all sex offenders. Now folks gonna think any nigga comin' outta here might be one." This is not particularly elegantly put, but it is highly relevant. Those of us shelter residents that are trying to put our lives straight already know what it is like to be bunched together with the uncouth and unwashed folks who until recently loitered outside the shelter and gave all of us a bad name. We know what it is like to be discriminated against and looked down on just because we are down on our luck. Please do not make things worse by buying into the paranoia and fear and assuming that anybody that emerges from Bedford-Atlantic is a sexual predator on the prowl.

Read the full post here!

Rally against relocation of homeless intake center to Crown Heights

2008-05-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

Data recently compiled from the City's own agencies reveals that the central Brooklyn neighborhood where the Bedford-Atlantic Shelter is located (Community Board 8), although small geographically, houses more residential social service beds per acre than any other Brooklyn community. At 112 bed per 100 acres—more than five times the average—the situation has become a crisis demanding immediate attention. The data used for this analysis is the City's own, and includes beds from both State (Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities), Office of Mental Health, Office of ASIS) and City (DHS) agencies, as well as those contracted through non-profit organizations. This data does not include the many ¾ houses in the community as the information was not available at the time of assessment.

Expected to participate are Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Member Letitia James, NYS Assemblymen Karim Camara and Hakeem Jeffries, and NYS Senator Eric Adams.

Courtesy of phndc.org (Read the full article here)

Life at Castle Grayskull - Folding the Mattress

2008-05-29T10:18:00.000-07:00

I can still remember my first night at Bedford-Atlantic. After an entire day of waiting, I finally discovered around 10:30 pm that I was being assigned a bed. I was one of the lucky ones. Those who arrived too late to get a top spot on the waiting list were herded out to buses to be transported to Bellevue for the night. After getting my bed assignment, I then proceeded to housekeeping to get linen. Then I proceeded to my assigned dormitory. I was quite exhausted, so after making my bed, I got into it and quickly fell asleep.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Police Raids

2008-05-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Police raids occasionally occur at Bedford-Atlantic. This is not in the slightest bit surprising, considering that there are a high number of drug users and dealers on the premises as well as a high number of parolees who are required to stay in the shelter by their parole officers. For the police, picking up somebody in the shelter is about as challenging as stealing candy from a baby. This is because anybody who is in the New York shelter system has provided digital fingerprints and mug shots as well as their vital statistics. All the police have to do is show up at the shelter with the information sheets of those they wish to apprehend and the shelter staff give them the bed number the person is assigned to.

Read the full post here!

Life at Castle Grayskull - Drug Free Zone? (Part 2)

2008-05-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

The guy sitting on his bed does not look like the stereotypical druggie. Then again, they never do. What, after all, is a "stereotypical druggie"? He is a pot-bellied white male with a goatee. As he does whatever it is that he is doing, he is visited by two of his mates. One is a diminutive, stick figure of a man. The other is Bedford-Atlantic's answer to Dolph Lundgren. At around 6 feet 4, he is an imposing character. His cheeks are sunken, his jaw prominent and sharp. His eyes are dark and piercing. Typical attire for him includes baggy jeans, a pullover sweater with a weight-lifting belt worn over it, a du-rag and a baseball cap placed over it at a bizarre angle (two-thirds to the rear seems a popular angle). This is not somebody any sane person wants to mess around with.

Read the full post here!

Shut down this nightmare

2008-05-29T07:44:00.000-07:00

According to New York State's online registry, there are 27 Level 3 sex offenders living at the city-run Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, or directly across the street at a second homeless facility run by a nonprofit using funds from the Department of Homeless Services.

A Level 3 designation is reserved for New York's most violent rapists and pedophiles, men who have done vile, unspeakable things to women and children. They are among the hundreds living at the twin shelters who end up wandering the streets of Crown Heights because they are ordered out of the shelter each morning with nothing constructive to do.

That is how DHS currently puts families at risk every day, just as they have for more than 25 years since the armory was converted into one of the worst-run shelters in the city...

Young and old, black and Jewish, rich and poor will all be on hand for a rally against the plan at 12:30 p.m. this Sunday right near the scene of the crime, the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Aves. Rally details are at revitalizecrownheights.org.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
Read the full article here

Update: The figure provided describing 27 Level 3 sex offenders living at the Bedford-Atlantic Armory falls short of the actual reality. In addition to the 27 at Bedford Atlantic, another 14 can be found just around the corner at 1140 Pacific Street in the Peter G. Young Residence Shelter, another homeless shelter operated by the New York City Department of Homeless Services. That makes a total of 41 Level 3 sex offenders housed on the same street by the DHS in a Brooklyn neighborhood that has just about had enough.

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Life at Castle Grayskull - Getting One's Mail

2008-05-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, I do not get too much mail sent to me at Bedford-Atlantic, because the mailroom clerk is one of the most unpleasant people in the shelter. So far, I have had to go through the mail procedure only three times. In two of those cases, I was shouted at and treated rudely, despite trying my hardest to follow the correct procedure.

The mailroom clerk is an older woman who seems to be holding on just long enough to qualify for her pension and head off to a cantankerous retirement. When she does, good riddance. There is already enough ill will in the shelter without her.

Read the full post here!

Seeking Solutions for People Adrift - People Respond

2008-05-25T12:49:00.000-07:00

Genata Carrol of the East Village says:

"As a clinician who has worked with homeless people for 15 years, I am concerned about city plans to move the main intake center from Manhattan. Removing the center from the borough that has the largest number of homeless individuals is a counterintuitive choice and may endanger those who will not have the wherewithal on a freezing night to get to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn.

Chronically homeless people are not unlike homing pigeons, returning to the shelter that they know. Many of these individuals are mentally ill, confused and unable to navigate the administrative hurdles that the Department of Homeless Services has put in place to receive shelter.

While I support the proclaimed change in direction that the city has begun, sending outreach teams to find the homeless and help them to safe havens with fewer barriers to entry, in practice, I have not encountered any such change, and neither have my patients."

Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the rest of the letters (here)

Crown Heights Group Still Doesn't Want Homeless Center

2008-05-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

Crown Heights residents continue to fight the mayor's plan to move the intake center for homeless men from Manhattan to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory. Crown Heights Revitalization Movement (CHRM, pronounced "charm") organizer Rachel Pratt said in an email about their planned June 1 rally, "At this point, we believe that we will be joined by Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Member Letitia James, NYS Assemblymen Karim Camara and Hakeem Jeffries, and NYS Senator Eric Adams"... In private, local residents told us they're already overwhelmed by the crowds of homeless men who regularly congregate on the sidewalks surrounding the shelter, especially in the early mornings when the building is evacuated for cleaning. "I'm not exactly sending my kids out to play on the street," said one. The community district has six times the average residential social services beds at 116 per 100 acres, the highest in the borough.

Courtesy of brownstoner.com (Read the full article here)

Sex Offender: Victor Horrach

2008-05-21T13:13:00.000-07:00

Name: Horrach, Victor
Description
Race: Other
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 240
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-arm
DOB: 07/07/1960

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 07/16/2002
Victim: Female, 6 years
Sentence: 4 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Other

Sex Offender: Donald Lucas

2008-05-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

Name: Lucas, Donald
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'05"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 08/16/1950

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 03/21/1994
Victim: Male, 15 years
Sentence: 30 months to 5 years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Other

FROM BELLEVUE TO BKLYN: HOMELESS CENTER TO MOVE

2008-05-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

"This is a case of Brooklyn being dumped on," said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who opposes the plan because he thinks it's unfair to the community. Representatives from the area argue that by diverting the flow of homeless men to the Armory, the city could also be shifting more crime and congestion to the surrounding neighborhood.

It was only four years ago that the city, in its sweeping Uniting for Solutions Beyond Shelter action plan, actually pledged to increase the number of intake centers by decentralizing the intake process and creating three smaller facilities in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The 2004 plan said that the Manhattan intake center was flawed because "the large number of people that receive services there, the perception of the site as unsafe, and its inaccessibility to men living on the streets in other boroughs discourages some homeless men from seeking shelter."

However, since the implementation of a new homeless outreach plan in the fall of 2007, the city's priorities have changed. Hess says that DHS' ability to get the homeless into housing directly from the street (600 homeless people have moved off the street through the outreach program since last fall) makes the old notion of an intake center—whether one or three—outmoded. The goal is now to de-emphasize the intake center and reduce the number of shelter beds across the city, while promoting permanent housing for the homeless. Hess says the city has cut 1,200 shelter beds over the past two years, and aims to cut 600 more by next year.

Courtesy of citylimits.org (Read the full article here)

Doors Close, Doors Open, and the Homeless Trudge On

2008-05-18T12:29:00.000-07:00

According to Robert Hess, the Homeless Services commissioner, the chronically homeless prefer the smaller havens. “They voted against the shelter system — that’s why they’re on the street,” he said. “They’ve had the opportunity to come into the shelter system each and every night, and they said, ‘No, the best place for me is on the streets.’ That’s a pretty strong statement.”

Mr. Markee commended the outreach teams, but said he did not believe that they could replace a central intake center, a “front door” to the homeless services system, where people know they can go when they need help. Nearly 3,000 men new to the municipal shelter system walked into Bellevue this year, he said. The center serves about 40 people a day, according to a spokeswoman for the city’s homeless services. That figure rises significantly in colder weather.

Courtesy of the NY Times
(Read the full article here)

Tour of Homeless Shelter Does Not Solve Problem

2008-05-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

The Coalition for the Homeless, which opposes moving the men’s intake center to Bedford-Atlantic, says outreach teams and safe havens all have their place but cannot do enough on their own, and argues that a central intake center – in Manhattan, the borough with the most street homeless – is essential to make sure the homeless can find their way into shelter whenever they want it, especially on cold nights when their lives are in danger.

Courtesy of the NY Times (Read the full article here)

LET ME SLEEP OVER SHELTER. Despite Howls, commish still mulls homeless move to B'klyn

2008-05-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

AFTER A HINT of retreat Tuesday, the city's homeless commissioner said yesterday that relocating the homeless men's intake center from Manhattan's East Side to Crown Heights, Brooklyn, remains "the preferred" option.

Commissioner Rob Hess of the Department of Homeless Services had been verbally pummeled at a City Council budget hearing Tuesday on the planned shift from the former Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital on the East Side to the Bed-ford-Atlantic Armory's men's shelter.

Homeless men are processed through the Bellevue facility, which has a peak capacity of about 600 beds, and if there's no room there they are transferred to other shelter facilities around the city.

Freeing up the site on First Avenue, between E. 29th and E. 30th Sts., will allow the city to develop it into a hotel and conference center compatible with surrounding medical facilities.

But Brooklyn officials fiercely oppose the move. Councilman Lewis Fidler (D-Brooklyn) called the shift of the in-take facility from the city's wealthiest community into Central Brooklyn "incredibly offensive."

"It is not going to happen," Fidler told Hess during the budget hearing Tuesday.

The development plan would require the approval of the Council, which has the last word on zoning matters.

"This homeless center, we will fight you on it tooth and nail," added Councilwoman Letitia James (D-Brooklyn, who represents the affected area of Crown Heights. "It's dead on arrival."

Hess was urged urged to rethink the move by Councilman Bill deBlasio (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the Committee on General Welfare.

"I will sleep on this," Hess replied with some hesitation. I will tell you that-I'll sleep on it."

Yesterday, after Hess paid an early-morning visit to the Crown Heights homeless center, he commented, "We're go-ing to respectfully give those concerns every consideration. Having said that, Bed-Atlantic still looks like the preferred site."
Critics contend the shelter in the hulking armory at the corner of Bedford and Atlantic Aves. is unsafe and that homeless men often wander the neighborhood.

Hess said the planned shift would actually decrease the bed capacity of the armory from 350 to 330, while also making major improvements and adding staff and security personnel.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
May 15, 2008 Thursday Pg.26

Sex Offender: Ishakeen Stephens

2008-05-12T20:03:00.000-07:00

Name: Stephens, Ishakeen
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'11"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 11/15/1980

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Criminal Sexual Act-2nd Degree
Date: 10/18/2004
Victim: Male, 14 years
Sentence: 6 months, Local Jail

Offense Description: Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: No force used

DON'T DUMP HOMELESS ON B'KLYN: MARTY

2008-05-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

Marty Markowitz says:

"Brooklyn is being dumped on!"

Read the full NY Daily News article here.

Sex Offender: David Roachford

2008-05-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Name: Roachford, David
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'01"
Weight 195
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 03/02/1967

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Attempted Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 02/09/1995
Victim: female, 8 years
Sentence: 21 months to 42 months, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Misguided Homeless Intake Plan: Historical Background and Present Crisis

2008-05-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Since modern homelessness began in the late 1970s, the City of New York has always maintained an intake center for homeless men in Manhattan – first on East 3rd Street and the Bowery, and since 1984 at the Bellevue men's shelter on East 30th Street and First Avenue.

For the past decade, the men’s intake center at the Bellevue shelter has been the only intake point for the municipal shelter system – it is, literally, the “front door” to the shelter system for homeless single men seeking shelter.

In FY 2007 nearly 22,000 different homeless single adults sought shelter, including 7,164 homeless single men who were new to the shelter system. Currently nearly 7,000 homeless single adults sleep each night in the municipal shelter system, including more than 5,000 homeless single men.

On March 31, 2008, the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced plans to convert the Bellevue men's shelter into a luxury hotel and conference center; the City is currently seeking bids from developers. On April 25th, the Bloomberg administration told news reporters and some Brooklyn elected officials that it plans to move the men’s intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic armory, a 350-bed shelter located in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, as soon as September of this year.

City officials told news reporters that there was no longer a need for a Manhattan intake center, and that street homeless people in Manhattan would be assisted by outreach teams or could call 311, the City’s general service line. City officials also claimed that the current residents of the Bellevue shelter – around 600 men per night in April – would be relocated to housing, but offered no details about this plan.

Download the memo fact-checking the City's new intake plan!

Courtesy of Coalition for the Homeless (Read the full article here)

Markowitz Eyeing Citywide Run, But Still Brooklyn-centric

2008-05-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here's Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz accusing the Bloomberg administration of "dumping" on his borough by proposing to move a homeless men's intake center to an armory in Crown Heights from the East Side of Manhattan to make way for a new hotel.

Markowitz said Brooklyn residents - particularly members of the "community of color" - are being "held hostage" in this case to the "development goals of Manhattan," adding: "It isn't fair. It's not fair to anyone, not the homeless clients or the residents of Brooklyn...or Manhattan residents, either!"

He also railed against the administration for failing to give him a heads up about this proposal, which Markowitz said was "shows ultimate disrespect."

Courtesy of the NY Daily News (Read the full article here)

Crown Heights must not pay for Bloomberg's failures

2008-05-08T09:29:00.000-07:00

By Errol Louis

Just when my Crown Heights, Brooklyn, neighborhood was making progress - getting more cops on the beat, convincing prosecutors to shut down crackhouses, rounding up money and volunteers to plant flowers and trees on the avenues, creating a historic district and house tour - the Bloomberg administration has announced a plan that could set us back a decade.

The Department of Homeless Services wants to relocate the city's 600-bed central intake center from midtown Manhattan to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in my neighborhood. That's a foolish and unfair idea for a lot of reasons, most of which will be laid out today at a 1 p.m. City Hall press conference led by City Councilwoman Letitia James (Working Families Party-Crown Heights) and advocates for the homeless.

The midtown intake center DHS wants to close is housed at Bellevue Hospital, a site that advocates for the homeless say makes a lot of sense: Manhattan, particularly midtown, is where many street people end up, and Bellevue's health and psychiatric services make treatment convenient.

Assessing the needs of homeless where they already are, right next to a hospital, should be a no-brainer, right? Not for the Bloomberg administration.

"We don't need the big, centralized intake centers of the past," DHS Commissioner Rob Hess told me yesterday. Of the men currently living in the 30th St. shelter, says Hess, "the vast majority will be moved to permanent housing."

And the remainder are scheduled to be shipped to Crown Heights. Specifically, to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, which has long had a reputation as the most violent and worst-run homeless shelter in New York.

For more than two decades, the shelter's block has been a no-go zone for women, children and most anybody else. During the day, dozens of men hang around in front of "no loitering" signs, urinating against the building and trying to flag down passing cars for day labor.

It has the look and feel of a prison yard - and in some ways, that's just what it is.

"At the notorious Bedford-Atlantic shelter in Brooklyn, known to its residents as Castle Gray Skull, 15% of the 350 homeless men are paroled convicts," my colleague Brian Kates reported in 2004. Kates researched police records and found that shelter residents were responsible for 2% of the violent crime in the 77th Precinct, which has about 100,000 residents.

Hess knows his agency's facility is a disaster, acknowledging that it "has not had the greatest reputation over time." The answer, he says, will be to shrink the facility from 350 beds to 230 in what will be "a smaller, safer, more services-rich environment."

Sounds great. But I don't believe it for a minute.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News (Read the full article here)

City to close homeless shelter

2008-04-26T13:41:00.000-07:00

Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst for the Coalition for the Homeless, says:

"Any attempt to move the intake center to the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn or another site far from midtown Manhattan, where most street homelessness is concentrated, will lead to more homeless people sleeping on our streets"

Read the full NY Daily News article here.

Sex Offender: Maurice Seymore

2008-04-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

Name: Seymore, Maurice
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'01"
Weight 170
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-right arm
DOB: 02/25/1965

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 3rd Degree
Date: 04/02/2004
Victim: Female, 22 years
Sentence: 2 to 4 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Hit with hand/fist/club, Immediately and physically overpowered

Sex Offender: Jimmy Fuertes

2008-04-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Name: Fuertes, Jimmy
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 140
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Hazel
Special Characteristics: Scar-forehead, Tattoo-left arm, right arm, chest, left hand
DOB: 01/09/1969

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree-Forcible Compulsion
Date: 09/27/1999
Victim: Female, 29 years; Female, 19 years
Sentence: 10 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: Knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)
Force used: Stabbed, Hit with hand/fist/club, Immediately and physically overpowered, Threat, Coercion

Sex Offender: Jerald Rodd

2008-04-15T19:42:00.000-07:00

Name: Rodd, Jerald
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'10"
Weight 215
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 08/25/1971

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 03/30/1989
Victim: Female, age unknown
Sentence: 27 months to 7 years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Firearm (type unknown or not stated)
Force used: Detail unknown

Sex Offender: Curtis Lauderdale

2008-04-14T19:03:00.000-07:00

Name: Lauderdale, Curtis
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 180
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-face
DOB: 08/03/1972

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse-2nd Degree
Date: 01/30/2003
Victim: Female, age unknown
Sentence: 1 day to 3 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger - Person in position of Authority
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered, Coercion

Sex Offender: Dallas Phinsee

2008-04-10T12:25:00.000-07:00

Name: Phinsee, Dallas
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'00"
Weight 235
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-forehead
DOB: 02/28/1963

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 02/08/1999
Victim: Female, 31 years
Sentence: 1 Day to 7 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered

Sex Offender: Howard Martin

2008-04-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

Name: Martin, Howard
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'01"
Weight 213
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Special Characteristics: Scar-cheek, head
DOB: 10/24/1970

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 2nd Degree
Date: 03/3/2000
Victim: Female, 11 years
Sentence: 3 to 6 year(s), State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Sex Offender: Robert Molina

2008-04-09T10:12:00.000-07:00

Name: Molina, Robert
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'09"
Weight 218
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-forehead, Tattoo: right arm
DOB: 06/01/1983

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 04/24/200
Victim: Female, 12 Years
Sentence: 1 day to 2 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Coercion

Sex Offender: Theodore Osborne

2008-04-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Name: Osborne, Theodore
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'10"
Weight 130
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-right hand
DOB: 07/16/1955

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 1st Degree; Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 04/25/1988
Victim: Male, 15 years
Sentence: 60 months to 15 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Threat

Sex Offender: John Sanchez

2008-03-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

Name: Sanchez, John
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 170
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-left arm, Tattoo-right arm
DOB: 03/14/1957

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree; Sodomy, 1st Degree
Date: 11/15/1989
Victim: Female, 20 years
Sentence: 4 to 12 years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)
Force used: Threat

Sex Offender: Gregory Gill

2008-03-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Name: Gill, Gregory
Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Non Hispanic
Height: 6'00''
Weight 169
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Marks: Tattoos-right arm, neck
DOB: Dec 11, 1981

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree
Date: Oct 14, 2005
Victim: Female, 15 years
Sentence: 5 Years, State Prison

Offense Description:
Actual Sexual Contact; Actual Kidnapping/Unlawful Imprisonment
Relationship to victim: Stranger
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Threat

Sex Offender: Valentin Vivir

2008-03-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Name: Vivir, Valentin

Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 6'00"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 04/02/1968

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 04/02/2004
Victim: Female, 10 years
Sentence: 5 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered

Sex Offender: John McCray

2008-03-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Name: McCray, John
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'08"
Weight 211
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 08/18/1986

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Incest: Engage In Sexual Intercourse Or Conduct With A Related Person
Date: 12/5/2003
Victim: Female, 11 years
Sentence: 16 months to 4 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Hit with hand/fist/club

Sex Offender: Napoleon Jackson

2008-03-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Name: Jackson, Napoleon
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 6'01"
Weight 235
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 05/04/1953

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 06/19/1970
Victim: Female, age unknown
Sentence: 1 to 25 year(s), State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Threat

Sex Offender: Carlton Reed

2008-03-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

Name: Reed, Carlton
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 6'03"
Weight 220
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-eyebrow right eye, forehead
DOB: 03/17/1958

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 1st Degree; Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 07/15/1980
Victim: Female, 22 years
Sentence: 7-21 Years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual, More Than Once Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Anthony Lewis

2008-02-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

Name: Lewis, Anthony
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight: 140
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-right eyebrow/eye area
DOB: 11/12/1956

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 09/16/1980
Victim: Female, 23 years
Sentence: 9-18 years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Blunt object (e.g., club, hammer, billy, blackjack, sandbag, chuka stick, etc.)
Force used: Threat

Sex Offender: Eugene Frazier

2008-02-20T17:54:00.000-08:00

Name: Frazier, Eugene
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'08"
Weight 155
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-left arm, chest
DOB: 12/30/1964

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 2nd Degree
Date: 11/28/2001
Victim: Female, 15 years
Sentence: 2 to 4 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Philip Marshall

2008-02-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

Name: Marshall, Philip
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'09"
Weight 175
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-left arm
DOB: 02/08/1953

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Attempted Sodomy, 1st Degree; Attempted Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 05/12/1986
Victim: Female, 65 years; Female 31 years
Sentence: 6 to 12 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Attempted, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Angel Gonzalez

2008-01-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

Name: Gonzalez, Angel
Description
Race: Other
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'03"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 04/02/1958

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Course Of Sexual Conduct Against A Child- 2nd Degree
Date: 06/10/2005
Victim: Female, 10 years
Sentence: 1 to 3 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Sex Offender: Angel Rios

2008-01-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

Name: Rios, Angel
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'04"
Weight 135
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 12/19/1946

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree; Sodomy, 1st Degree
Date: 08/12/1988
Victim: Female, 7 years; Female, 5 years
Sentence: 5 to 15 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered, Threat, Coercion

Sex Offender: Darryl Garcia

2008-01-04T12:56:00.000-08:00

Name: Garcia, Darryl
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'10"
Weight 187
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-right upper arm, chest
DOB: 10/14/1975

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Promoting A Sexual Performance By A Child Less Than 16 Years of Age
Date: 11/19/2001
Victim: Female, 13 years
Sentence: 5 years, probation

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Promoting/Possessing Sexual Performance by a Child
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Juan Negron

2007-12-17T10:19:00.000-08:00

Name: Negron, Juan
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'02"
Weight 140
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 11/17/1961

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Forcible Touching: Forcibly Touch Other Person's Sexual/Intimate Parts
Date: 10/18/2007
Victim: n/a
Sentence: Probation: 6 years; Incarceration: 60 days, local jail

Offense Description: n/a

Sex Offender: Don Deliotte

2007-12-10T17:48:00.000-08:00

Name: Deliotte, Donald
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'08"
Weight 190
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 05/17/1963

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 2nd Degree:Person 18 Yrs Old or More Has Intercourse With Person<15 Yrs
Date: 12/13/2000
Victim: Female, 15 years
Sentence: 42 months to 7 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered

Sex Offender: Julian Lopez

2007-12-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

Name: Lopez, Julian
Description
Race: White
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'10"
Weight 170
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-left arm, right arm, forehead; Tattoo-right arm
DOB: 05/19/1967

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Attempted Course Of Sexual Conduct Against A Child-1st Degree
Date: 03/24/2000
Victim: Female, 7 years
Sentence: 1 day to 42 months, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Intercourse, Actual, MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Sex Offender: Avery Pettigrew

2007-11-29T19:24:00.000-08:00

Name: Pettigrew, Avery
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'04"
Weight 150
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Tattoo-left arm, right arm
DOB: 02/01/1981

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 1st Degree
Date: 10/16/2003
Victim: Female, 16 years
Sentence: 5 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: Firearm (type unknown or not stated)
Force used: Choked, Threat

Sex Offender: Tyree Horne

2007-11-29T13:02:00.000-08:00

Name: Horne, Tyree
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'01"
Weight 170
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 10/30/1983

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 1st Degree
Date: 06/16/1999
Victim: Male, 13 years
Sentence: 2-6 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual, Attempted Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Luis Cruz-Escalera

2007-11-28T11:50:00.000-08:00

Name: Cruz-Escalera, Luis
Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter
Description
Race: Other
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 150
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Marks: Scar-Eyebrow, left eye area, Tattoo-Right arm, right hand, left hand
DOB: 01/4/1982

Conviction
Crime: Aggravated Sexual Abuse-2nd Degree
Date: 12/14/1998
Victim: Female, Adult
Sentence: 42 Months, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: Hit with hand/fist/club

Sex Offender: Jomell Sandelin

2007-10-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Name: Sandelin, Jomell
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'06"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 05/02/1978

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree: Sexual Contact With Individual Less Than 11 Years Old
Date: 07/26/2007
Victim: Female, 8 years
Sentence: Probation: 10 years; Incarceration: 6 Months, local jail

Offense Description: MoreThanOnce Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Sex Offender: Timothy Jackson

2007-09-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

Name: Jackson, Timothy
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'06"
Weight 160
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 02/28/1960

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 1st Degree
Date: 06/15/1994
Victim: Female, age unknown
Sentence: 4 to 12 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)
Force used: Detail unknown

Sex Offender: Carl Johnson

2007-09-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Name: Johnson, Carl
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'07"
Weight 260
Hair: Gray
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 11/11/1944

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 2nd Degree
Date: 09/10/2002
Victim: Male, 5 years; Female, 13 years
Sentence: 20 months to 5 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger - Person in position of Authority
Weapon used: No weapon used
Force used: No force used

Sex Offender: Jose Rosado

2007-07-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

Name: Rosado, Jose
Description
Race: Unknown
Ethnicity: Hispanic
Height: 5'10"
Weight 185
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-abdomen
DOB: 03/26/1984

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Rape-1st Degree
Date: 06/10/2005
Victim: Female, age unknown
Sentence: 7 to 21 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Revolver, derringer, or single-shot pistol, antique firearm
Force used: Threat, Other

Sex Offender: Cyrus Russell

2007-06-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

Name: Russell, Cyrus
Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'00''
Weight 180
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Deaf-left ear, Tattoo-neck, left arm
DOB: 01/26/1982

Conviction
Crime: Rape, 2nd Degree
Date: 02/18/04
Victim: Female, 13 years
Sentence: 2-4 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger - Person in position of Authority
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Sex Offender: Devion Bolds

2007-06-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Name: Bolds, Devion
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'04"
Weight 220
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 09/14/1982

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sodomy, 1st Degree
Date: 12/13/2000
Victim: Male, age unknown; Female, 14 years
Sentence: 7 years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse, Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Stranger
Weapon used: Firearm (type unknown or not stated)
Force used: Immediately and physically overpowered, Threat

HE POURS FLUID IN TOKEN BOOTH, FLEES

2005-11-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

A would-be copycat poured flammable liquid into a subway token booth in Brooklyn early today, threatening to light it unless he got money, police said. The man fled empty-handed, without igniting the fluid.

The terrified token booth clerk was treated at the scene for a headache and trauma after inhaling fumes during the 12:46 a.m. ordeal on the Franklin Ave. shuttle at Park Place, officials said.

A suspect found seven blocks away at a homeless shelter at Bedford and Atlantic Aves. was taken in for question-ing, police said. It was not believed that he was a suspect in Sunday's fiery attack at another Brooklyn token booth.

Meanwhile, cops last night pressed the hunt for the men suspected of firebombing token clerk Harry Kaufman, who remained in extremely critical condition at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Doctors have been unable to even attempt surgery or skin grafts because his grip on life is so tenuous, said hospital spokeswoman Kathy Robinson.

Kaufman, 50, who inhaled flames in the explosion that destroyed his token booth, is on a respirator but his badly seared lungs are unable to absorb much oxygen. Doctors fear he may develop pneumonia.

His wife, Stella, kept vigil at the hospital.

Police were seeking three men in the torching at the Kingston-Throop Ave. station in Bedford-Stuyvesant about 1:45 a.m. Sunday. They have identified one of the attackers, and have established nicknames for the other two.

A $ 41,000 reward has been posted for help solving the case.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
November 29, 1995, Wednesday

NYPD TIX BLITZ HITS HATED HOMELESS SITE

2003-09-19T13:48:00.000-07:00

The NYPD has taken its "ticket blitz" to the homeless.

Residents of one of the city's most notorious homeless shelters received 228 summonses in a 28-day blitz by the 77th and 79th precincts, The Post has learned.

Cops say the quality-of-life summonses will restore order around Brooklyn's Bedford-Atlantic shelter, but the men who call the shelter home say cops are hitting them with fines on specious charges such as trespassing and loitering.

"We're just out here trying to get work and they give us tickets," said Anthony Diaz, 35, who was hit for "trespass-ing" outside the shelter, although he lives there.

Ernest Smith, 39, got a summons on each of three straight days this month. One was for disorderly conduct and an-other for impeding pedestrian traffic. The third was illegible.

Many of the summonses are dismissed when the men appear in court, but some carry $75 fines.

Police said the clampdown comes in response to complaints from residents who live near the shelter, located in an old armory at Bedford and Atlantic avenues.

"It's our primary quality-of-life location and it's an area that we have to give daily attention to," said Deputy Inspec-tor James O'Connell, commanding officer of the 77th Precinct.

GIMME SHELTER

* 350-bed men's shelter run by city Department of Homeless Services.

* DHS peace officers are stationed within the shelter for security.

* Designed by Isaac G. Perry chief architect of the State Capital in Albany, the
Romanesque structure was origi-nally built for the 23rd Regiment and was one of 29 armories built in New York and Brooklyn between 1880 and 1913.

* Construction began in 1889 and was completed in 1902.

Courtesy of the NY Post
November 19, 2003

MONEY'S RACING IN FOR ARMORY SPORTS

2002-08-13T10:44:00.000-07:00

When it rains, it pours for the Park Slope Armory.

This spring, Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council pledged $500,000 toward a plan by the nonprofit group Take the Field to turn the long-underused armory into a year-round community sports center.

And last month, Borough President Marty Markowitz set aside $50,000 from his budget to study ways to reuse large parts of the former National Guard home that have sat vacant for years. Markowitz earmarked an additional $500,000 for the armory in next year's capital budget.

Advocates of Take the Field's sportsplex plan cheered the funding for the fledgling project. But supporters ques-tioned why Markowitz decided to fund a new study rather than support a plan already backed by the mayor and Council.
Bloomberg set aside $250,000 for the project in this year's budget. Councilman Bill de Blasio (D-Park Slope) put up the other $250,000.
"We're trying to move ahead into construction as quickly as possible," said Richard Kahan, president of Take the Field, co-founded by Giants co-owner Robert Tisch to renovate school athletic fields across the city.
The castlelike 14th Regiment Armory, on Eighth Ave., between 14th and 15th Sts., houses a homeless shelter and 14 veterans organizations.
Those uses would not be disturbed under the group's plan, which seeks to convert its century-old drill floor into an indoor track with four sports courts. The center would be available for school kids during the day and for community members at night and on the weekends.
Happy for help
"We're more than happy to have the assistance of the borough president's office," said Tyquana Henderson of de Blasio's office. "But we don't want to have money going all over the place. We all want to be together in the end."
Kahan said the project needs about $10 million for its first phase. The group, which also aims to overhaul the Bed-ford-Atlantic Armory in Bedford-Stuyvesant, is working to secure additional funding from private sources and the state.
Officials from Markowitz's office said yesterday they have been impressed by Take the Field's proposal - but they said questions still need to be addressed, such as the project's feasibility and who would oversee the center's programs and upkeep.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
August 13, 2002, Tuesday

A Bold New Rebuilding Plan Grows in Brooklyn

2002-08-05T12:04:00.000-07:00

Brooklyn’s notorious Bedford-Atlantic armory — reputed to be the city’s most dangerous homeless shelter — will soon be transformed into a recreational facility, according to one of New York City’s best-known real estate developers.

Richard Kahan, the president and co-founder of Take the Field, a public-private venture that rebuilds athletic facilities at public schools throughout city, has drawn up plans for the armory renovation.

Mr. Kahan told a gathering of about 50 residents in Crown Heights that his organization plans to raise $14 million in public and private funds that will be used to transform the five-story armory building from a 350-bed shelter to a mixed-use facility that will continue to house homeless people but primarily serve as a base for local students and sports leagues. The project, he said, would be part of a new program, the Armory Initiative, to be operated by Take the Field.

Once funding has been secured and detailed architectural plans have been drawn, “we think we can build this in 9 to 12 months,” said Mr. Kahan, who was chairman of the Battery Park City Authority and the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The project, he said, is an extension of his organization’s mission to bring the benefits of sports to city schoolchildren. “This isn’t just an issue of where the kids will play,” he said. “This is an issue about what kinds of lives these kids are going to have.”

Courtesy of the New York Sun (Read the full article here)

STATE TARGETS SHADY GUARDS

2002-06-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

As the Statue of Liberty guard scandal spreads, the state has moved to fine or revoke the licenses of 21 security compa-nies that allegedly employed ex-cons, grifters and thugs at facilities throughout New York.

At the heart of the scandal is International Services Inc., a California-based security company exposed by the Daily News for hiring ex-cons to guard the Statue of Liberty and Camp Smith, a National Guard facility in Westchester County.

But in the past few days, the state also has charged 20 other companies with employing unregistered or unqualified guards at airlines, shipping and trucking companies, transit facilities, banks and a number of city and state agencies.

The action was triggered by state controller's office audits that found more than 440 guards employed illegally throughout the state.

The investigation is continuing, and more companies may be cited, state officials said.

State investigators said they found no wrongdoing on the part of government officials in the guard debacle. But, they conceded, unscrupulous security companies, which pay many of their guards only a few dollars above minimum wage, are encouraged to cut corners by the state's policy of hiring the lowest bidder. Cutting corners International, for example, had millions of dollars in low-bid government contracts, including a single $1 million deal to provide guards at nine state sites, four of which demanded top security clearances.
"When a company cuts corners, it may find it can't pay for screening or training," said Mark Peters, chief of the At-torney General's Public Integrity unit. "It hires unqualified personnel and may ship them off to facilities that assume they are dealing with honest vendors and getting qualified guards."
Last week, the attorney general filed a lawsuit against International seeking punitive damages and restitution of millions the company allegedly bilked from state and city agencies.
Lax state laws compound the security guard crisis.
Guards in New York have long been required to be fingerprinted and to pass a criminal background check. But in 1994, bowing to industry pressure, the state softened the law to limit screening to crimes committed in New York. Out-of-state criminals, those convicted in federal jurisdictions and illegal aliens easily skirt detection.
Among them was the ex-con at the Statue of Liberty, who managed to get a New York state guard license despite an armed robbery conviction in North Carolina.
The law also exempts certain New York State convictions. The rap sheets of guards at Camp Smith included con-victions for drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident - but they still had valid guard licenses, though at lev-els lower than required.
Indeed, state regulations are so lax that guards can be hired - and put to work - even before required background checks have been completed, officials said.
New York Secretary of State Randy Daniels submitted legislation in Albany on Thursday to close loopholes in the law. The bill would forbid companies from hiring guards before they have been screened. It would reinstate the re-quirement of a federal fingerprint check and increase fines for using unregistered guards to as much as $10,000 per vio-lation.
In the past, guard companies resisted federal checks because they took too long. But current technology can provide results in 14 days and improvements are soon expected to provide a full screening within as little as two days, said De-partment of State spokesman Eamon Moynihan.
At city homeless shelters, 208 of 450 International guards hired under a $12 million contract were unregistered and working illegally, according to the attorney general's office.
Guards at one shelter beat and robbed a resident, according to the attorney general's complaint. A guard at another allegedly assaulted his supervisor.
Police brass have complained repeatedly of problems with International guards at Brooklyn's notorious Bedford-Atlantic Men's Shelter. The Department of Homeless Services has penalized the company about $150,000 for a variety of contract violations and used its own unarmed police force to bolster weak security. Lack of enforcement A company memo indicated that International "was never in compliance with the contract and never had any intention of being so," according to court papers.
But no action was taken to terminate International's contract until Friday, when the Department of Homeless Ser-vices announced the company was being replaced at the seven shelters it was hired to guard.
In a June 21 letter to the agency, the company asked to get out of its contract because "an act of war . . . perpetrated on Sept. 11, 2001, has made it impossible to prosecute the work required."
In the letter, International's vice president, Bunce Pierce, made no mention of the contract violations and offered no explanation of how the terror attacks affected shelter guards. But he did complain that the department "is severely be-hind" in payment and asked to be "paid in full by June 30."
A department spokesman said the issue was under review.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
June 30, 2002, Sunday

ARMORY EYED AS REC CENTER

2002-05-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

A nonprofit group headed by Giants co-owner Robert Tisch, which specializes in developing athletic facilities around the city, is eying the long-derelict Park Slope Armory for its next project.

Take the Field, which already has refurbished 18 sports fields around the city since it was founded 18 months ago, is considering the crumbling, castlelike structure on Eighth Ave., between 14th and 15th Sts., as well as similar sites, for a makeover as a year-round community recreation center.

"This is a great opportunity because we happen to have these buildings available," said Richard Kahan, president of Take the Field and the former head of the state Urban Development Corp.

Right now the 14th Regiment Armory is only partially used - for several offices and as a homeless shelter for up to 70 women.

Building such facilities from scratch could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but renovating each armory can be done for less than $15 million, he said.

Plans call for turning the armory's century-old drill floor into an indoor track, complete with four different sports courts the size of four full-sized gyms. It would be open for use by local schools during the day and by neighborhood people in the mornings and evenings.

Take the Field has only just started meeting with community groups on the project.
And it is still working to raise the necessary funding from public and private groups for the plan.
But already, many who live in the area say the project could be a tremendous boon for the chronically underused structure.
'Wonderful idea'
"I think it's a wonderful idea," said Robert Lucas, assistant director of the Park Slope Women's Shelter, which cur-rently uses the building.
"From what I've heard, it sounds like nothing but a positive thing to me," he said. "And it would certainly be a good utilization of the space."
Take the Field also is drafting plans to overhaul three other similar structures across the city - the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Bedford-Stuyvesant and one each in Queens and the Bronx. But officials said the Park Slope project is best poised to go first.
Kahan said his group is hoping to raise mostly public money for the project, in contrast to its field renovation pro-gram, which relies more on private money.
"We're going to try to be very aggressive about it," he said, adding that Take the Field intends to work with officials at the federal, state and city levels to fund the project.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
May 6, 2002, Monday

IN A FIRST, COPS WILL PATROL HOMELESS SHELTER

2002-02-03T11:08:00.000-08:00

For the first time, uniformed cops will be posted in a city homeless shelter to reduce crime.

Beginning this week, two officers will be posted from 4 p.m. to midnight at the Bedford-Atlantic armory shelter, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Daily News yesterday.

The 350-bed men's shelter in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, was chosen, Kelly said, because "based on anecdotal information, that place has a reputation as a bad spot."

Within days of taking office, Mayor Bloomberg said he wanted to make the shelters safer for the homeless, some of whom would rather stay on the streets, even in frigid weather, than risk assault or robbery in a city-run dwelling.
About 29,000 people are being housed in shelters throughout the city.
Kelly directed his borough commanders to survey all the city shelters last month. "This is the one they recom-mended putting someone in," Kelly said.
Kelly visited Bedford-Atlantic last month. "There were people who had just come out of jail. I saw someone there with a Rikers uniform on," he said. "If people feel unsafe in the shelters, it exacerbates the homeless problem on the street."
He said that statistics show crime is down in the shelters, but "the issue with shelters is underreporting of crime. You can look at the statistics and see they're down, but still feel unsafe."
Kelly, speaking by telephone en route to the Waldorf-Astoria, site of the World Economic Forum, did not have shelter crime statistics at hand.
"We will try these things. They are not absolutely etched in stone. We will see what the impact is," Kelly said, add-ing that it is possible cops could be assigned to other shelters in the future.
He also said that police will increase training for the peace officers and security guards who regularly work in the shelters. There is no plan for the NYPD to formally take over the security personnel, as it has with school safety offi-cers.
The Bedford-Atlantic armory has been one of the most notorious shelters since the mid-1980s, when it housed 1,000 men during the homeless crisis.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
February 3, 2002, Sunday

In Making Crowded Homeless Shelters Safer, Some View the Issue With a Sense of Security

2002-01-10T07:26:00.000-08:00

On Monday, outside the Bedford-Atlantic shelter, Peter Engler, 23, said that current security personnel were overwhelmed. ''You can bring drugs in here, you can bring weapons in here, anything you want,'' Mr. Engler said. ''No one does anything. The N.Y.P.D., that's what I'd like to see in here.''

Dawn Witter, 45, who has stayed several times at Brooklyn Women's Shelter since 1989, said that while she has seen improvements over the years, she is still frightened. ''You got to have friends, you got to be careful,'' Ms. Witter said. ''You don't know where these people are coming from. Sometimes people come in from prison and they walk around bullying people. You have to watch your back.''

Steven Banks, the Legal Aid lawyer for the Coalition for the Homeless, said that emergency cots provided by the city during winter months leave the homeless especially vulnerable, without lockers to secure their possessions. Mr. Banks said he would meet with city officials today to discuss winter accommodations. He planned to request the statistics for tracking crime in shelters.

Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the full article here

NY: Bloomberg Touts Quality of Life Crackdown

2002-01-09T11:10:00.000-08:00

The New York Post (1/9) reports, "Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday unveiled 'Op-eration Clean Sweep' -- the NYPD's quality-of-life crackdown that aims at wiping out public urination, prostitution and squeegee men." Bloomberg also "said his top cop had spent Monday night touring some city homeless shelters to assess their safety." And the mayor "said he had personally met with officials from the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, where homeless people are permitted by a court ruling last week to sleep on the steps." Bloomberg, who has said he's "trying to work out an arrangement with church officials to keep the homeless off the steps, credited Kelly with being the first top cop to target quality-of-life crimes."

Long Island Newsday (1/9) reports, "Hundreds of so-called quality of life offenders were arrested or ticketed over the weekend, and officials said Tuesday that more action is on the way." The "arrests and summonses, issued in 50 'tar-geted areas' that include Hell's Kitchen and Long Island City, are the focus of Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's first major initiative: a crackdown on the kind of low-level offenses that became a hallmark of the Giuliani administration." But in "signs that this initiative may be kinder and gentler than in the past, police officials said some offenders were issued desk-appearance tickets, instead of being forced to go through the booking system, and Kelly said he made a surprise visit to the Bedford-Atlantic Men's Shelter in Brooklyn Monday night to check on safety conditions there."

Courtesy of the Bulletin's Frontrunner
January 9, 2002, Wednesday

MAYOR EYES PUTTING COP IN EACH SHELTER

2002-01-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday he'll put a cop in every city shelter, if necessary, to keep homeless New Yorkers safe.

Bloomberg's comment came as the city braced for its first winter storm of this season, and also followed his vow last week to improve shelters - even as he promised to aggressively move the homeless off the streets.

The new mayor tackled the homelessness issue during a busy day in which he attended the inaugurations of Man-hattan Borough President Virginia Fields and Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro and a post-inauguration reception for Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion.
"I want to make sure that there are beds for anybody that needs them and that those beds are safe," Bloomberg said yesterday in a radio interview on WABC-AM. "The police commissioner is checking into that, and if we have to we'll post a police officer at each shelter."
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly is conducting a safety study of city shelters. Sources said last week that he plans to institute a crime-tracking system for the shelters modeled on the NYPD's Compstat program, which helped drive down crime on city streets.
"Commissioner Kelly has ordered his borough commanders to embark on a survey of security at all city-run shel-ters to determine what can be done to make those shelters safer," said NYPD spokesman Michael O'Looney. "That may include better alarms, better locks, and it may include placing police officers in some shelters."
Many homeless people refuse to stay in city shelters, saying they are unsafe and dirty.
"This is like one of the worst neighborhoods with a roof on top," said a 25-year-old man named Maldi, who stays at the Bellevue Hospital shelter. "It's like being on the streets with a roof." More than one aspect Mary Brosnahan Sulli-van, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said Bloomberg has good intentions, but more needs to be done.
"Physical safety is one aspect of this problem," she said. "Posting a single officer at the doorway of the Bedford At-lantic armory [in Brooklyn] is welcome but not enough. It's filthy, dangerous and chaotic. What a single beat cop can do at the front door is limited."
The city's Department of Homeless Services said it has increased its security budget by 50% in the past three years. Private security officers and better-trained peace officers are used at shelters.
At the Sony Plaza Public Arcade on Madison Ave., homeless people seeking shelter from the winter weather yes-terday had mixed reactions to the possibility of police at shelters.
George Mellos, 60, said he has been homeless since 1989 and swore off shelters after being robbed at the Fort Washington shelter eight years ago.
"I don't know if the cops will do anything, I don't know if they won't do anything," he said. "But that's the reason we don't go to the shelters. They have security guards but they don't do anything."

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
January 7, 2002

City Lines Up More Shelter For Homeless

2000-09-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

Police sweeps of homeless people from more visible places in Manhattan have tended to disperse some of those living on the street to other boroughs, advocates for the homeless say. And police crackdowns on ''quality of life offenses'' such as drinking in public, trespassing, obstructing the sidewalk and panhandling -- like the one recently announced by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani -- also tend to send homeless people out of sight, to the jail on Rikers Island among other places.

An analysis of the city's computerized shelter records in recent years shows that about 25,000 people use the city's single-adult shelters in a given year; about half of these leave after a week and do not come back. Another third return periodically for stays of about 80 days, while a minority are the long-termers who dominate the public image of the homeless.

A study issued this week by the Bronx borough president, Fernando Ferrer, who is running for mayor next year, estimates that the so-called street-bound homeless number more than 10,000 people citywide. The study recommended a more coordinated approach among city agencies that deal with the homeless, including the police.

In another pending lawsuit with a potential impact on the homeless shelter system, a state judge ruled last summer that continuing mental health care must be arranged for mentally ill inmates before they are released from Rikers Island and other jails. That order has been stayed pending a city appeal, but a settlement is under negotiation. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said it could include referring such inmates to specialized shelters, instead of dropping them in Queens Plaza at night, as is done now.

Advocates had mixed feelings on the city's addition of temporary beds.

''It's certainly a welcome change to have the focus be getting a roof over people's heads, but it's unfortunate that the city continues to view single-adult homelessness as something that can be dealt with mainly with emergency shelter beds instead of permanent housing and additional mental health services,'' said Steven Banks, the Legal Aid Society lawyer who represents the Coalition for the Homeless. ''The bottom line is, a shelter is not a home.''

Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the full article here

Sex Offender: Caesar Kilpatrick

2000-03-09T18:21:00.000-08:00

Name: Kilpatrick, Ceasar
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Unknown
Height: 5'11"
Weight 215
Hair: Black
Eyes: Black
Special Characteristics: none
DOB: 03/30/1957

Residence: Peter G. Young Residence Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 2nd Degree
Date: 03/09/2000
Victim: Female, 11 years
Sentence: Probation-3 years

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Contact
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Unknown

Police Arrest 125 in Nighttime Raids on Homeless Shelters

2000-01-20T09:48:00.000-08:00

Officials of the the Department of Homeless Services said the arrests were intended to make the shelters safer. ''Removing individuals with outstanding warrants from the shelters is one strategy D.H.S. utilizes to ensure all homeless individuals have a safe environment where they can temporarily reside and receive services,'' the department's statement said...

Some advocates for homeless people criticized the sweep, saying it could discourage other homeless people from seeking shelter during the coldest nights of the year.

Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the full article here

Sex Offender: Austin Evans

1999-12-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

Name: Evans, Austin
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 6'02"
Weight 180
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Special Characteristics: Scar-left arm
DOB: 06/09/1967

Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 12/9/1999
Victim: Female, 23 years
Sentence: 5 Years, State Prison

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse, Actual Deviate Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Non-Stranger-Friend
Weapon used: Knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)
Force used: Hit with hand/fist/club; Threat

Sex Offender: Herman Brown

1998-09-24T11:26:00.000-07:00

Name: Brown, Herman
Residence: Bedford-Atlantic Armory Shelter
Description
Race: Black
Ethnicity: Not Hispanic
Height: 5'08"
Weight: 175
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Marks: Scar-Abdomen
DOB: 12/22/1923
Alias(es): Daddy Brown

Conviction
Crime: Sexual Abuse, 1st Degree
Date: 12/3/1992
Victim: Female, Age unknown
Sentence: 3-6 Years, State Prison, Consecutive

Offense Description:
Actual Sexual Contact; Actual Kidnapping/Unlawful Imprisonment
Relationship to victim: Stranger
Weapon used: Unknown
Force used: Threat

Offense Description: Actual Sexual Intercourse
Relationship to victim: Unknown
Weapon used: Firearm (type unknown or not stated); Knife/cutting instrument (e.g., ax, ice pick, screwdriver, switchblade, Kung Fu stars, cane sword, etc.)
Force used: Detail unknown

KINGSBORO SHELTER PUT ON HOLD

1996-11-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

A Brooklyn judge yesterday issued a temporary restraining order against the city's plan to open a homeless mens' shelter on the campus of Kingboro Psychiatric Center in East Flatbush.
The order issued by Supreme Court Justice Judge Gerald Held, effective until Dec. 5., temporarily prevents city from using two vacant buildings on the state-run Kingsboro site to house some 400 to 600 homeless men, beginning in January.

Held's ruling came on the same day as a group of central Brooklyn residents and politicians took to the steps of City Hall in a steady downpour to vigorously protest the plan and warn of possible legal action of their own.

They charged that in planning the shelter, the Giuliani administration and the
Department of Homeless Services plotted to circumvent the Universal Land Use Review Process (ULURP), while threatening damaging the quality of life in the communities surrounding the Kingsboro campus.

"It is our intent to make sure the city observes the ULURP process and ceases violating the city's fair share formula which protects communities like ours from oversaturation (with social service facilities such as shelters)," said Assem-blyman Nick Perry (D-East Flatbush), who was flanked by Rep. Major Owens (D-Brooklyn) and Councilman Enoch Williams (D-East Flatbush).
Owens called it "a plot by the Mayor and Governor" to force the closing first of Kingsboro Psychiatric and eventu-ally the neighboring Kings County Hospital center complex, including the State Universitry of New York Health Center at Brooklyn, formerly Downstate Medical Center.
"The mayor and the governor won't get their way," Owens vowed.
The issue has been an emotional hotbed for the community.
"Look at what happened at Bedford and Atlantic," said East Flatbush resident Ella Harris, referring to the moving of homeless men into an armory at that location. "It's a ghost town. We don't want it (another shelter). We worked too hard, sacrificed too much for our property and our homes."
Department of Homeless Services officials said the City was unable to comment on the issue because of the pend-ing litigation.
According to Assemblyman Perry's office, city Corporation Counsel attorneys have applied for a stay of the re-straining order. City lawyers and attorneys for opponents of the proposed shelter are slated to meet in Appellate Court today.

Courtesy of the NY Daily News
November 27, 1996

Homeless Not Out in Cold, City Hopes

1996-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

The snow and brutally cold weather may have kept many people indoors yesterday, and the city says it hopes the same is true for homeless men and women who don't always enjoy warm surroundings.

The Department of Homeless Services offers 39 adult shelters, nine family shelters and four assessment centers throughout the city. No one will be turned away, said Susan Wiviott, a deputy chief with the agency.

The New York City Police Department has officially declared a cold emergency, which allows police or outreach workers to pick up someone they see at risk in the cold. In addition, the Outreach Program at Homeless Services also has teams working with the Police Homeless Outreach Unit to bring the homeless to a shelter. Police said yesterday that there has not been a weather-related death since temperatures dropped to arctic levels.

Although Wiviott said that the shelters were at 97 percent capacity Friday night - the last evening figures were available - she expects more people at the shelters in coming days.

Temperatures yesterday were at a near record low, with no sign of a change, according to the National Weather Service. Temperatures may reach the high 20s later in the week, but wind chill factors will make it feel like 5 below zero outside, the weather service said.

At the Jamaica shelter on 168th Street, some beds were still available yesterday afternoon, according to an em-ployee there.

The Kingsbridge Assessment Center in the Bronx was full, as was the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn, em-ployees there said.

But if a shelter is full, the city will provide transportation to another shelter and transportation back the following morning, they said.

Courtesy of Newsday
February 5, 1996, Monday

For Some, Shelters Mean Chaos and Home

1992-07-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

For the last decade, to constant criticism from advocates for the homeless, the city has crowded thousands of men into vast armory shelters that became symbols of its inability to offer a meaningful alternative to the streets. Several weeks ago, faced with a lawsuit that advocates said could have shut the two largest -- Fort Washington and Bedford Atlantic in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn -- the Dinkins administration began drastically reducing their populations, a move that it calls a significant step toward upgrading its programs for the homeless.

Courtesy of the NY Times
Read the full article here

For Homeless, a Revolving Door;

1990-12-30T11:39:00.000-08:00

The snow swirled around an old woman wrapped in a thick gray blanket sprawled on the sidewalk near the United Nations. The silver rings on her hand and the studs on her embroidered denim shirt shimmered in the cold night air.

A psychiatrist, a psychologist and a social worker from Project Help, the city's program to hospitalize the mentally ill homeless, approached her. "Are you warm enough?" the psychiatrist, Vladmir Milstein, asked gently. "Are you get-ting enough to eat?"

"Leave me alone!" shrieked the woman, waving her arms and shaking a lit cigarette in her hand. "I'm not deaf, dumb or blind! I don't need your help! I can take care of myself!"

The team moved on. The woman was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, but she wasn't ill enough to admit to Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric ward. She wasn't hurting anyone. She wasn't close to freezing. In clinical language, she was "adaptive," and "not a threat to herself or others" - not eligible, therefore, for admission to the city's overburdened psychiatric wards.

Three years after former Mayor Edward I. Koch launched Project Help with the hope of getting the mentally ill homeless off the streets, experts say their plight is as bad as ever. The Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 40,000 people, about one-quarter of whom are mentally ill, live on the streets, in subways, parks and abandoned buildings. "It's getting worse," said Mary Brosnahan, director of the coalition.

Many of the people served by Project Help, program officials say, are in a revolving door, treated for an acute ill-ness, then released to inadequate housing, then onto the streets again until they are picked up once more. Sometimes, the Project Help team monitors them for weeks or months on the street, helpless to take them to the hospital until their con-dition becomes dire.

The problem, said Sam Tsemberis, a clinical psychologist and director of Project Help, is not an excess of civil lib-erties but a shortage of housing.

"The problem is not that you can't bring them in," Tsemberis said as his team began its rounds at Grand Central Terminal on Thursday night. "The problem is there are basically no services when you bring them in.
"It's not because of deinstitutionalization," he said. "That's a complete myth. Deinstitutionalization began in 1955. In 1965 you didn't have homeless people; in 1975 you didn't have homeless people. Homelessness was created in 1980 when Ronald Reagan cut public housing programs."
The woman who now sleeps on the heating vent outside the United Nations once worked as a post office clerk and a machine operator, her state hospital records show. She had a history of mental problems, and her children were placed in foster care in the mid-1970s. But she managed to live on her own in a room in Manhattan until 1981 when she was forced out, apparently by a fire. Her records show she was unable to pay the rent at another room that she managed to find.
Since then, she's been hospitalized several times at Bellevue and at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens. Last year, she was picked up by Project Help, admitted to Bellevue, transferred to Creedmoor, and discharged to Seaview Manor, a group home in Queens that a state watchdog group has attacked for unsanitary conditions. Within a few days, she ran away from Seaview Manor, and has been living on the streets since. She still receives about $ 400 a month in federal disability insurance.
"What does she want?" said Denise Francois, an intensive case manager at Creedmoor who released details of the woman's history on the condition that she not be identified. "Her freedom. Not to be told what to do."
Francois and Tsemberis believe the woman could get by on her own in an apartment, despite her mental problems, if she only had the money. It would take about $ 400 a month alone to pay for a hotel room in the city.
At Grand Central Terminal, a crackling message came over the walkie-talkie that Sgt. Michael Euell, head of the Transit Authority's homeless outreach team, held in his hand: an intoxicated man was being ejected from the subway at Penn Station for urinating on the platform.
It was 10 p.m. Thursday, snowing hard, and below freezing. In years past, the Transit Authority would have al-lowed the drunk to sleep it off on the subway; no one was ejected when the temperature dropped below 32 degrees.
But this year, TA police are rigorously enforcing rules against begging, urinating or lying down on subway plat-forms or in cars. And, for the first time, TA police are ejecting violators, even when the temperature drops below freez-ing.
Euell drove to Penn Station to supervise the transfer of the man to the shelter. Three police officers escorted him to a Transit Authority bus waiting outside, and he was driven to the Bedford-Atlantic Shelter, a city shelter for 1,000 men in Brooklyn.
Despite the threat of eviction, few accept the offer of rides to the shelter. Lt. John Romero, director of the TA po-lice's homeless outreach team, says less than one-third of the homeless contacted each night by social workers from the Human Resources Admininstration and police officers agree to get on the buses.
Romero says the homeless are reluctant to accept the rules of the shelters, the curfews, the early wake-up calls, the restrictions on use of drugs and alcohol. Advocates say many fear violence in the shelters, and, while acknowledging that security has improved in the past six months, claim that serious assaults and petty thefts are still commonplace.
For commuters, the new regulations mean the trains and stations will be cleaner, fewer seats will be taken up by people stretched out sleeping, and fewer panhandlers will wander up and down the cars. But Tsemberis worries what will happen to the homeless who move into spots that are more dangerous than the stations and trains: tunnels, aban-doned buildings and the nooks and crannies of the stations.
"The stakes are higher this year," said Tsemberis as he continued his rounds at Grand Central. "All the transporta-tion terminals have taken really serious steps to enforce passive laws - no loitering, no urinating, no sitting down. A lot of the people we used to see in the terminals are on the streets now, or hidden."
Milstein, the psychiatrist, told Tsemberis they'd found their first patient of the evening. "He looks awful," Milstein said. "He has feces all over him. He's covered with urine. He's barefoot."
The man was willing to go to Bellevue, Milstein said; even if he had not been, he was ill enough to be committed involuntarily. The man, shuffling slowly, dressed in a thin, tattered jacket, was accompanied to a van waiting outside and driven to Bellevue.
"The sad thing is, two months from now, he's going to be back on the streets," Milstein said.

Courtesy of Newsday
December 30, 1990, Sunday

At Men's Shelter in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a Room for 532

1986-09-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

It was noon at the shelter for homeless men in the Bedford Avenue Armory in Brooklyn. Near the metal detectors at the front door, a young security guard was ousting a man in a too-small camel's-hair coat for the third time.
Men were lined up for lunch in the armory's cavernous main hallway, but no one except Alfonso Howell appeared to notice the incident.

Visitor Refused to Speak

Mr. Howell, who has lived in the shelter for eight months, hectored the shelter's staff for not helping. The man was sick, maybe a mental patient, he shouted.

''They don't want a bunch of derelicts like us around,'' he said.
The man at the door had refused to speak or to sign the register; that meant he could not come in. But eventually someone noticed a plastic band on his wrist, and he was taken to the third floor, where the Bedford-Stuyvesant Commu-nity Mental Health Center has an office.

While the man hunched over a desk, sleeping, a psychiatric social worker read his wristband, made a call and learned the man suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He had walked away from a nursing home three days before.

The short-lived drama was barely a beat in the rhythms of a day for the 800 men who take shelter at the armory, at Bedford and Atlantic Avenues in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section, formerly the home of a National Guard unit. It is one of 19 city shelters that house more than 9,000 men and women; the city plans to build 20 more shelters with an addi-tional 7,000 beds.

The men call the shelter ''the Atlantic.'' And staying there, many of them say, is much like being in the ocean: being basically alone, pushed and pulled by unrelenting currents.

Others liken the shelter to a prison, one where the staff calls them clients rather than inmates. ''Rikers, just outside the walls,'' says one who stays there, 34-year-old Robert White.

If their lives before coming to the armory could be said to be marginal, there is little change inside, as the men try to live in the margins of the shelter's rhythms and routines.

''A person could get too comfortable in here, or lazy,'' says one man in the line waiting for lunch. ''I've been here for four months and I always try to do some hustling out in the streets every day just to feel right and alive, even if it's just going over to the cheese lines.''

Meals are prepared at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Queens Village and trucked to the shelters. This day the food was on time, so shortly after noon the security guards allowed the men in line to trickle down to the basement cafe-teria in groups of five or six. Lunch was two slabs of liverwurst, hash brown potatoes, four slices of bread, a piece of fruit and milk.

The veterans of shelter life carried their own salt and pepper; no seasonings arrive with the meals. They also carried wax paper to wrap leftovers.

Searched for Plastic Utensils
''It might not be worth a damn now, but tonight after 10 o'clock somebody will pay 50 cents for this,'' said one man as he wrapped a sandwich.

As lunch ended around 1:30, the men left the cafeteria. Staff members patted them down in a search for the plastic utensils. Most went out into the streets. Others went to the second-floor offices of the shelter's social services staff for assistance, played cards or pool at tables lining the open hallways, or watched television.

The sleeping areas are off limits until 5 P.M. They include the drill floor, the size of a football field, where 532 beds are arranged in long rows. There are seven other sleeping areas. To many of the residents, life in the shelter is dominated by rules. The men must stand in line for breakfast even when they have an early job appointment, they must wait in line to get an authorization from a social worker to get carfare to go to the job, then they must wait on another line for the carfare.

Often they must bring a signed letter that they are working in order to get a bed reserved for them without signing up early in the afternoon.

The rules ''drain people so that they just give up,'' said Phillip, the chairman of a shelter clients advisory committee that was formed a month ago. The 12 Caseworkers Can't Handle All Needs The committee was suggested by the shel-ter's director, Frank Gonzalez, when the city set a new curfew for shelters: 10 P.M., instead of midnight.

''There was almost a riot,'' he said, and so he urged the men to pick a committee to present their grievances.

Phillip, who is 30 years old and has been in the shelter for a month, said he had sought the help of men who had experience in other institutions. The committee's president and vice president, for example, have both spent time in prison.
Mr. Gonzalez said he agreed with complaints from the men that the shelter does not provide enough assistance. With a staff of 12 caseworkers, he said, he cannot provide all the help he would like to men who need medical referrals, drug and alcohol detoxification, jobs and apartments.

That night was chicken night, and so by 5 P.M. men returned to line up for the shelter's most popular meal. It is also the time when the ''bed rosters'' are put out to be signed to reserve a bed for a night and an area is set up for transients arriving for the first time.

There are two lines at this hour. One is for the nearly 200 men who are in the shelter's Work Employment Program. For $12.50 a week, they work 20 hours cleaning up the shelter, cleaning parks, senior-citizen centers or subway stations. The men call it ''slave labor,'' but they are the first allowed downstairs for dinner at 6.
Some 750 men signed in and were served dinner. The seats refilled as quickly as they were emptied. There were ar-guments and shouting over little things that seemed to involve large things like ''respect,'' ''manhood'' and ''rights.''

''You have to have a strong head in a place like this,'' said Keith Irving, the advisory council president. ''You see things and you don't. You deal with it or you leave it alone.''

After dinner and another pat-down, men streamed in and out of the shelter. Some left and returned apparently in-toxicated or high on drugs. There are plenty of liquor stores nearby and, according to shelter's staff and the men, there are crack houses within a block.

A disheveled man in a brown coat staggered and weaved up to the sign-in table three times, sent back each time into subfreezing weather because of the bottle of wine he tried to bring in. Finally the bottle was empty and he was al-lowed to stumble up the steps to his bed. Ten-Cent Cigarettes From the 'Loosie-Men'

On the upper floors, the card games and chess games had resumed and the television room was packed with more than 60 men. The ''loosie-men'' and other entrepreneurs were circulating.

The loosie-men sell loose cigarettes, 10 cents apiece. One carried his goods in a leather briefcase that also con-tained a notebook for listing those who got things on credit. Each has his own territory in the shelter and sticks to it.

''My territory is the drill floor,'' said the loosie-man with the briefcase. He also carried a knapsack and two plastic grocery bags. ''And tonight I have danishes that will go for a quarter apiece.''

In the third-floor recreation room, 27-year-old James Rawle, a resident, was intently painting a portrait from a pho-tograph that he said was a ''commission'' from one of the security guards. It was to be an anniversary gift for his wife.

''I'm charging him $60 and the materials alone cost me $20, but these guards don't make that much money,'' he said, shrugging off the small profit.

At the sign-up tables on each floor, the bed rosters were filling up. By 7:30 P.M., 410 men had signed up to reserve their beds. By 9:30, only 41 of the 800 beds were unclaimed. Not a Place To Be Self-Righteous The admission of drug use or alcoholism among the men was notable not only for its frequency but for how quickly it was proffered.

''You see, this is sort of the bottom,'' theorized Arthur Brown, a psychiatric social worker, ''so it's O.K. to reveal it. Given the notion that no one here can afford to be very self-righteous and saintly about what they do, why not?''

At 10 P.M., when the doors were closed, there were only 11 empty beds and two men left outside pleading through the closed doors to get in. Another man sat in the area for transients.

In expectation of a big demand - it was the first freezing night in the city - 25 additional beds had been set up. But by midnight, when the lights went out, a van had brought only four additional men to the Atlantic and there were seven beds still empty.

At 6 A.M. the shelter staff walked about the vast floor of the armory shouting for the men to wake up.

Two hours later some had left, but 530 remained, lining up for a breakfast of eggs, cold cereal, bread and milk. The truck from Creedmoor arrived on time and so breakfast was at 8 A.M. as scheduled.

The clothes room was due to open and the work stipends would be handed out. Bill Brown, a muscular weight lifter who runs the Work Employment Program, was filling out the stipend authorizations, giving extra work to those men who pleaded to make up the hours they had missed.

Robert White worked the door of the clothes room, letting in two men at a time, playing the role of salesman for the five-minute ''shopping sprees'' while keeping an eye out for the foreman of a construction crew who owed him money for work he had done in the shelter ''off the books.''

Alfonso Howell waited for a friend to ''go out and take care of some business - street business.'' The television room was as crowded as the night before and some of the same solitary figures from the day before stood motionless in the hallways and stairwells. A Dispute Over Pay, Then a 'Shopping Spree'

At 10 A.M. a suprise locker inspection was announced, partly because of complaints of thefts. Staff members had large metal cutters with which to cut the locks of residents who were not there. There was an uproar, a discussion and it was decided that the search would be only of the lockers of those present. Just enough time had passed for anything stolen to be moved, one administrator observed.

Back in the clothes room, two aides checked the men's clothing authorization slips, on which a caseworker had specified just what they were entitled to receive from the room of donated, used clothes. For some it was just the regular ''care package'' containing a set of new underwear, two pairs of socks, toothbrush, toothpaste, disposable razor, deodor-ant and a woven belt.

Mr. Gonzalez had returned from a meeting with H.R.A. officials in charge of the shelter program as the men were lining up for lunch and was optimistic about getting the new caseworkers he needed.

Mr. White had told him of the problem he had getting paid by the foreman, and Mr. Gonzalez was perturbed about the incident.

The foreman came into his office. The foreman said it was not his fault, that the money had been promised by ''an unreliable subcontractor'' he had hired and that he had warned Mr. White that he might not get paid. Mr. Gonzalez stared at him, asked him why he would use ''unreliable subcontractors'' and then reminded him that as shelter director he had to vouch for the completion of the work before all of the money was paid to the company. The foreman promised that Mr. White would get the money by early the following week.

''We have to deal with all sorts of things,'' said Mr. Gonzalez, after the foreman left. ''Guys depressed and into sub-stance abuse, loss of families, guys with no sense of where they fit in, and guys like Robert who trust the system and then this happens and they go back to mistrusting everything.''

Outside the office, Robert White said he was pleased and returned to his duties in the clothes room, and to take his own five-minute ''shopping spree'' for some slacks and a coat.

''Hey, it ain't Saks, but what do you expect?'' he said.

Courtesy of the NY Times
November 19, 1986, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition