Planned First Ave. Homeless Shelter Now to House Women

A homeless shelter slated to open on First Avenue this spring will now serve women instead of men, according to City Council Speaker Julie Menin.

By Feb. 9, Community Board 8 hosted a meeting dedicated solely to fielding a range of community opinions on the planned facility, which got quite heated at points. CB8 Chair Valerie Mason was the first person to announce the planned opening of the shelter, back in late January.

“From the beginning, my priority has been to ensure our district meets its obligation to address homelessness in a way that genuinely serves those in need,” Menin told the press in a statement last week.

“Women experiencing housing insecurity face distinct safety and stability challenges, and this site is well-positioned to provide them with secure housing and comprehensive support,” she added.

The shelter will be the first to arrive in Menin’s Upper East Side district, and will include 24/7 security and the legal prohibition of any residents who are registered sex offenders, as it will be located within 1,000 ft. of a nearby school.

Some residents expressed opposition to the shelter upon the initial news of its planned opening. A nearby business owner circulated a petition, when the shelter was still slated to host men, calling for a halt of its opening; it has gathered roughly 5,000 signatures as of press time.

During the Feb. 9 CB8 meeting, Mason kicked off the proceedings by clarifying that her job was simply to solicit community feedback, and that she had very limited dispositive power over the fate of the shelter.

“I would love to tell you otherwise, but we’re only [an] advisory [body],” Mason said. “I’ve gotten a lot of correspondence over the past two weeks, telling me what to do. I appreciate that. I could always use a little bit more direction.”

“We have communicated many of the questions that have been raised since I announced the shelter,” she added.

Mason noted that under a city charter mandate known as “Fair Share Equity,” every neighborhood in the city must provide a degree of social services, a clear reference to the programs being offered by the shelter.

“We’re not being asked to do anything that any other community is not being asked to do,” she said. Mason told attendees that she’d received “positive responses” to the shelter from certain neighborhood associations, setting up a contrast with the petition opposing it.

Shortly thereafter, emotions ran a bit hot. At one point, Mason told attendees that the shelter would not be a halfway house (as some believe), encouraging them to prioritize “constructive” conversation.

Then, an attendee who appeared frustrated with the shelter’s opening shouted something unintelligible at Mason. “Don’t trip on your way out,” she shot back.

During a public comment period, one local woman—who lives on E. 62nd St. and York Ave.—expressed her personal belief that the women who end up staying at the shelter will be “endangering” children. She said she feared that these women could theoretically end up acquiring household tools from a nearby Home Depot, which could ostensibly be used to harm others.

Others had a starkly different perspective. Alexis Keller, who lives on E. 78th St., said that she favors the opening of the shelter. “I didn’t expect it to be such a controversial opinion,” she said. “There’s been a lot of bad behavior in the room tonight...I don’t see a lot of good neighbors in the room tonight.”

Keller ended her brief remarks by expressing sorrow over the death of a homeless person on the streets of the neighborhood recently, who she did not name. It may have been a reference to a man who died during last month’s brutal winter storm, after being found unconscious on First Ave.