An extended-running struggle over a proposed males’s shelter in Brooklyn has entered a brand new section below Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with demolition resuming regardless of over two years of protests and native officers urgent the brand new administration to reverse course.
The renewed exercise on the website on 86th Avenue in Bensonhurst has rattled opponents who’ve been protesting the mission for greater than 600 days and had hoped the brand new mayor would rethink probably the most contentious shelter fights inherited from the Adams administration.
As a substitute, Mamdani is shifting forward with the mission, establishing a conflict between native officers who say the positioning ought to grow to be inexpensive housing and homelessness advocates who insist the town can not meet its obligations with out including extra shelter beds.
Protesters, moved throughout the road from the positioning, watch as NYPD officers guard the property whereas building will get underway on the proposed Bensonhurst males’s shelter. Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
The struggle in opposition to the shelter intensified after building resumed on the website Sunday night time, with opponents saying work acquired underway after permitted hours and a 70-year-old girl was injured exterior the property throughout a scuffle.
In a March 31 letter to Mamdani and Division of Buildings Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, native Council Member Susan Zhuang stated neighborhood members reported lively work round 8:30 p.m., heard chainsaws by about 9 p.m., and watched a confrontation spiral into what she referred to as a “deeply disturbing and unacceptable incident.”
A brand new section in an outdated struggle
For native elected officers, the newest confrontation was solely the most recent chapter in a battle that lengthy predates Mamdani’s time at Metropolis Corridor.
Opponents have been monitoring the positioning since building stalled following a July 17, 2024, confrontation between protesters and police that led to the arrests of a number of southern Brooklyn residents, together with Council Member Zhuang, who was charged with assault for biting a police officer in the course of the protest. The costs had been later dropped after she took half in a restorative justice session.
The power, which is deliberate to be operated by Bronx-based VIP Neighborhood Companies, is being developed by 86th Avenue NY LLC, led by The Sandhu Group, and will home as much as 150 single males experiencing homelessness, together with some with psychological well being challenges.
Sandhu bought the positioning at 2501 86th St. in February 2023 for $4.8 million and filed permits to construct a 32-room lodge on the positioning in October of that yr.
Meeting Member William Colton, one of many mission’s most outstanding opponents, has accused builders of constructing a apply of constructing “so-called hotels in unexpected locations then leasing them to the city.” Colton beforehand led protests in opposition to a now-scrapped homeless shelter on Tub Avenue in 2021, which was set to be constructed by the identical Sandhu Group.
After building resumed Sunday, he informed New York News that “we are definitely still fighting. We haven’t given up on it.” He argued that the town’s shelter coverage “is not the answer to the problem of homelessness,” calling for them to be ultimately phased out, and stated everlasting inexpensive housing, vouchers, and supportive housing would do extra to assist folks than new shelters.
December 2024: To make it via the winter, residents guarding the positioning had a make-shift tent, with native companies delivering meals to these on obligation. Picture by Adam Daly 
March 31: NYPD officers guard the positioning as a building truck backs into the property below the watch of protesters throughout the road. Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Colton additionally tried to attract a distinction between opposing the mission and opposing homeless New Yorkers themselves. “Homeless people are people who need help,” he stated. “The government needs to help people, including homeless people.”
Zhuang had already been urging Mamdani to intervene earlier than the weekend conflict. In a March 18 letter, she requested the mayor to again “an affordable housing development” on the website as a substitute of a shelter for single males, arguing that District 43 is closely rent-burdened and falling behind the remainder of the town in new housing building.
“For the last few weeks, I have communicated to your administration that we have an alternative plan for the site, one that the community would be excited about and benefit from – but no one has been willing to work with us,” she wrote.
That letter framed the dispute as a struggle over land use and the sort of mission that ought to go on a chief website in a district Zhuang described as underserved by inexpensive housing, quite than a neighborhood revolt in opposition to homeless New Yorkers — although indicators and rhetoric at protests have at occasions leaned in that route.
One poster, for instance, displayed on a makeshift billboard exterior the development website, warned that the realm would fall into disrepair if the shelter had been constructed, exhibiting photographs of drug use and crime-ridden streets.
To handle native residents’ security issues, the town beforehand stated there can be on-site safety across the clock, with a minimal of seven safety employees per shift and a complete of 74 safety cameras all through the constructing and throughout the shelter grounds. However that assurance did little to alter minds.
Staff tear down a graphic protest signal exterior the proposed Bensonhurst males’s shelter website as building resumes.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
The protest signal sits throughout the road from the shelter website as demonstrators watch from behind police obstacles.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
In her letter, nonetheless, Zhuang informed Mamdani there was “an opportunity to fight the true crisis: affordability,” and stated the positioning may as a substitute home “hundreds of people, including children in need.”
Zhuang additionally careworn to the mayor the confrontation had heightened fears within the largely immigrant neighborhood due to what she described as threats tied to the mission.
She informed New York News that there have been studies that people linked to the positioning had threatened involved residents with legislation enforcement motion, “including implications that ICE could be involved.” She added that neighborhood members informed her rumors had unfold that if protests continued, immigration authorities might be referred to as.
The Sandhu Group didn’t reply to requests for remark on the time of publication.
The Sunday night time confrontation
Native opposition has centered on what critics say has been a scarcity of session between the town and the neighborhood.
Again in November 2023, native officers had been notified by DSS that building would start inside 30 days, however Colton and Zhuang have lengthy maintained that having no say within the metropolis’s choice to put a shelter in the course of a bustling thoroughfare doesn’t quantity to significant outreach. Now, with the brand new administration, they are saying their pleas for open dialogue have gone unanswered.
So as to add to their frustration, building crews appeared on the website after sunset on Sunday.
Dr. Larry He, a district chief working with Colton and Zhuang, recalled that he arrived round 8:30 p.m. and initially noticed police, building employees and a comparatively small variety of residents. He stated he was informed no work can be achieved, however then heard turbines and chainsaws and noticed exercise inside. As extra folks arrived, because of the whistles protesters had been blowing, the scene grew to become extra tense.
He described what adopted in cautious phrases. “It was very chaotic,” he stated when requested precisely how the battle unfolded. “I could not remember, actually,” he added. “I can’t fabricate things I don’t remember.”
What He did say clearly was that each he and the girl had been knocked down. In Zhuang’s March 31 letter, she wrote that He and the 70-year-old girl “were pushed to the ground” within the “ensuing chaos.” The letter stated Zhuang referred to as emergency providers, that the ambulance arrived about 20 minutes later, and that He accompanied the girl to Coney Island Hospital, the place he remained along with her till about 4:30 a.m. as a result of she didn’t communicate English.
A 70-year-old girl is seen in a hospital mattress after she was injured throughout a confrontation exterior the proposed Bensonhurst males’s shelter website Sunday night time. Picture courtesy of Susan Zhuang
For Zhuang and her allies, the incident grew to become proof that Metropolis Corridor was pushing forward with out sufficient regard for the neighborhood’s issues. Within the March 31 letter, she wrote that the girl’s harm was “a dangerous and entirely preventable situation created by unlawful activity” and referred to as the night time’s occasions “the real, human consequences of reckless and unlawful conduct.”
Metropolis Corridor says the district should do its half
Although the Adams administration paused building amid each day protests, Mamdani’s Metropolis Corridor reply has been blunt and largely in keeping with the Adams-era pushback in opposition to opposition: the mission is shifting forward as a result of the town wants shelter beds, and this district has none.
“Homelessness exists in every part of our city, and in order to effectively address this citywide crisis, we must tackle it across the five boroughs,” a Metropolis Corridor spokesperson stated in an announcement. “This forthcoming facility will be the first shelter site in this community district and will provide homeless individuals with a wide array of services and supports to help them get back on their feet and build their lives in the city. As part of our equitable siting approach, we are committed to ensuring that every community has adequate safety net resources.”
What is going on in Bensonhurst can also be tied to a a lot larger shift at Metropolis Corridor. In February, Mamdani’s administration introduced a plan to close down the town’s final remaining emergency migrant shelter and transfer folks again into the usual DHS system, partly by opening proposed shelters that had been delayed below Adams and redistributing capability throughout the system.
The backlash can also be not confined to southern Brooklyn. On Staten Island, native officers and residents have additionally mounted opposition to a brand new all-male shelter superior below Mamdani. Public data cited within the New York Submit tie that mission to the Sandhu Group as nicely.
Protesters bang drums, wave American flags and maintain indicators as employees proceed on the website below NYPD watch.Picture by Lloyd Mitchell 
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Town constitution requires providers and amenities, corresponding to shelters and libraries, to be equitably distributed throughout the 5 boroughs, although audits have proven that some neighborhoods have a excessive focus of shelters, whereas others, together with Neighborhood District 11, have had only a few or none.
An audit by the Comptroller’s Workplace in 2023 discovered that 40% of DSS shelters had been situated in neighborhood districts that already had a excessive focus of shelter beds relative to the district’s inhabitants. The evaluation additionally confirmed shelters had been constantly overconcentrated in sure communities of colour, such because the South Bronx and East Brooklyn.
That argument discovered assist from homelessness advocates like Dave Giffen, govt director of the Coalition for the Homeless, who stated the town is assembly a authorized obligation by shifting forward with the mission.
“The city has a legal obligation to provide a sufficient number of shelter beds for anyone in New York City who’s homeless,” he stated, referring to the town’s right-to-shelter legislation.
“Every neighborhood in New York City contributes to the homelessness crisis, and every neighborhood in New York City needs to be part of the solution,” he added.
Based on metropolis figures, greater than 84,000 folks slept in metropolis shelters on the night time of March 31, together with greater than 18,000 single grownup males or boys.
From his expertise, Giffen stated opposition to new shelters tends to observe a well-recognized sample: the residents who present up most forcefully at public conferences are sometimes those most hostile to the mission, whereas extra supportive neighbors keep quieter. In his view, that early backlash is continuously pushed by worry and by the dehumanization of homeless folks. However he stated these battles usually lose steam as soon as a shelter opens.
He was unsparing in his criticism of Colton’s proposals to section out shelters altogether. “It’s the most ridiculous proposition I’ve ever heard,” Giffen stated, arguing that and not using a functioning shelter system, New York would wind up relegating much more folks to sleeping exterior.
Giffen did, nonetheless, agree that the town “needs to do a much better job of monitoring the operators” within the shelter system and stated there may be “a real variation in the quality of shelters out there.” One of the best ones, he stated, are “smaller, well-staffed, with a well-trained staff” and assist folks transition rapidly into everlasting housing.
He additionally stated outreach issues, even when he doubts it might dissolve hardened opposition like that surrounding the 86th Avenue shelter. “Who would ever say that the mayor shouldn’t be out there engaging with New Yorkers on topics that are important to them?” he stated. However, he added, “the shelters need to go in” as a result of the town has “a moral as well as legal obligation to ensure that nobody is left to sleep unsheltered on the streets.”
With regards to Mamdani’s strategy to homelessness general, Giffen didn’t provide the mayor an unqualified endorsement.
Requested in regards to the mayor’s broader response to homelessness, he stated “it still remains to be seen,” and argued that Mamdani had already backed away from two main guarantees — increasing CityFHEPS and ending encampment sweeps. He additionally stated the mayor’s affordability agenda thus far seems too targeted on middle- and working-class New Yorkers and “doesn’t seem to be adequately inclusive of lower-income New Yorkers and homeless New Yorkers.”
“It’s time for him to be clear about what his approach is going to be to mass homelessness in New York City,” Giffen stated.
Even on shelters, the place Giffen stated Mamdani is shifting in the fitting route, he referred to as the mayor’s emergency order to deliver the system again into compliance solely “a good first step,” saying the shelter system nonetheless suffers from insufficient staffing, poor service for folks with psychiatric and cognitive disabilities, and different longstanding failures.
The paperwork and compliance struggle
Picture by Lloyd Mitchell
Because the political struggle has escalated, so has the battle over permits, inspections, and company oversight.
In a separate March 31 letter to DOB Commissioner Tigani, Zhuang demanded a stop-work order and raised a collection of issues about grievance dealing with, asbestos filings, demolition stipulations, and allow renewals. She alleged “potential fraud, environmental violations, administrative irregularities, and significant public safety risks” tied to the positioning.
DOB and DEP, nonetheless, pushed again on a lot of that account.
In an announcement, DOB stated the positioning “continues to be in compliance” and that inspectors responding to neighborhood complaints this week “observed no unsafe or illegal conditions during our field visits.” The company additionally stated Zhuang’s declare that greater than 100 complaints had been closed with out motion “isn’t true,” explaining that duplicate 311 complaints are sometimes grouped and investigated via a single inspection. DOB additional said that the required demolition documentation had been submitted and that the demolition allow, renewed on Nov. 14, 2025, adopted the conventional renewal course of and included the relevant charges.
DEP, in flip, stated a September 2025 ACP-5 asbestos survey was revised after inspectors discovered supplies that may comprise asbestos had been omitted of the unique report. The company additionally stated the mission didn’t require a separate stormwater allow or willpower of non-jurisdiction on the location, although “an application was submitted, certified, and approved for a site connection.”
Meeting Member Colton says the struggle will proceed. Colton stated opponents plan to maintain preventing via press conferences, media occasions, and demonstrations, whereas making an attempt to show what they are saying they’ve realized in regards to the developer till, in his phrases, “will probably be a humiliation to assist that mission.
However for the locals who’ve remained on the website on daily basis, like Donald Cheung, the sight of NYPD officers guarding the property whereas building will get underway has introduced a mixture of exhaustion and resolve.
“We feel we have lost,” he stated on Tuesday, “but we try to hope, we pray, and we will try to do whatever is necessary.”
