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

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