CB8: Homeless Shelter Coming to 1st Avenue This Spring, Some Locals Object

A new men’s homeless shelter is slated to open this spring on 1st Avenue and 61st St., Community Board 8 announced last week, which will house up to 200 people. A few thousand people have since signed a petition with the goal of stopping it.

“I don’t want anybody to get crazy, but there is going to be a new homeless shelter on the Upper East Side,” CB8 Board Chair Valerie Mason said at a board meeting.

The facility—which will sit above a Goodwill store at 1114 First Ave.—will be operated by Housing Solutions of New York, which also runs another shelter at 419 East 91st Street.

As first reported by the blog East Side Feed, the shelter will reportedly offer on site services including: counseling (individual and group), case management, housing placement assistance, employment assistance, and independent living and life skills classes.

Linked off-site services will include substance abuse treatment referrals, GED instruction, conflict mediation, and “supplementary health and mental health services.”

It will also include an 11 p.m. curfew for residents. Furthemore, the shelter will reportedly have 80 security cameras, a full-time security staff, and SARA (Sexual Assault Reform Act) restrictions—which means that residents on the sex offender registry will not be permitted to stay there, as it’s within 1,000 ft. of a school.

There will also reportedly be a 24-hour phone line for the shelter that will be accepting community feedback. It’ll be the first such shelter in City Council District 5, which is represented by Council Speaker Julie Menin.

A number of people who oppose opening the shelter have signed a Change.org petition circulated by a local business owner, which has garnered roughly 3,276 signatures as of press time. It’s addressed to Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), the entire New York City Council, and Community Board 8.

“This proposal has advanced without adequate notice, transparency, or meaningful engagement with the business community that sustains this area economically and employs hundreds of New Yorkers,” the petition, spearheaded by a certain Mark Yosef, reads. “The City’s failure to consult affected stakeholders prior to moving forward represents a serious breakdown in process and accountability.”

Yosef’s petition goes on to demand that the city government halt the opening of the shelter, “hold a mandatory public forum,” and “publicly release a comprehensive impact study.”

Yosef owns Rodney’s Comedy Club, which is located a few doors down from where the shelter would be placed on 1st Ave.

Community Board 8, for their part, has already indicated that the Department of Homeless Services will be presenting more info on the shelter—which would open in March at the earliest—at a meeting in February.

“We’re working with the NYPD, we’re working with Councilmember Menin’s office,” CB8 Chair Mason said, at the meeting announcing the shelter.

“So I don’t want you to be surprised, and I don’t want you not to know that we’re going to have this upcoming meeting, because I’m sure that people are going to start asking a lot of questions,” she added. “We’re on top of it.”