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On Monday night, South Bronx residents voiced their robust opposition—typically shouting down members of the Adams administration—relating to town’s plan to open a brand new 2,200-bed migrant shelter in a vacant warehouse at East 141st Road and Bruckner Boulevard. The town confirmed that the shelter, set to open in February, is a executed deal.
Residents and metropolis officers got here to an deadlock in the course of the assembly of Neighborhood Board 1’s subcommittee on supportive and public housing, which was held in collaboration with the fortieth Precinct Neighborhood Council. Dozens of involved residents attended and lined up in opposition to the wall to deal with the group, becoming a member of with elected officers together with Rep. Ritchie Torres who’ve already publicly opposed the shelter for example of utilizing the South Bronx as a “dumping ground.”
Committee chair Daniel Barber known as for respectful dialogue however mentioned the deliberate shelter “wasn’t properly presented to the community.” The board, not town, known as the assembly and introduced all events to the desk, he mentioned.
“Who decides what goes where and who gets what?” Barber requested. “We outright say no.”
However the deal is already executed, in accordance with Deputy Mayor and Chief of Workers Camille Joseph Varlack, who informed the upset crowd that Garner Property Administration was already contracted to handle the positioning and plans to open in late February.
Varlack apologized for the dearth of advance discover to residents. “Clearly, communication could’ve been better before this shelter was sited.”
Council Member and Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala addressed issues concerning the deliberate new migrant shelter at East 141st Road and Bruckner Boulevard at a Neighborhood Board committee assembly on Jan. 27, 2025.Picture Emily Swanson
Council Member Diana Ayala — who additionally confronted powerful questions from constituents about her preliminary suggestion of the vacant warehouse early within the migrant disaster — mentioned because the contract was in place, there was little anybody might do to cease it.
Ayala mentioned ideally, the administration ought to attain out to the group first, however in actuality, “The mayor doesn’t need our permission to put a shelter anywhere,” she mentioned. “By the time we all found out, this contract was already signed.”
Ayala emphasised that the shelter is momentary and that it can’t change into everlasting as a result of the Division of Homeless Providers (DHS) is prohibited from working a facility of that dimension. As soon as the positioning is not wanted, it would shut down, mentioned Ayala.
However Borough President Vanessa Gibson expressed doubts that the shelter will solely be used for a short while. Gibson mentioned she requested town to create 2,200 manufacturing jobs on the warehouse, which has sat vacant since for years, fairly than open the shelter.
“City administration owes us more than this meeting tonight,” she mentioned.
‘A very tight ship’
Metropolis officers provided new details about the deliberate shelter meant to ease issues about public security.
Whereas board member Dalourny Nemorin mentioned that almost all migrants don’t commit crimes and {that a} new shelter in any neighborhood would possible meet opposition, she and others expressed concern about safety given the big variety of occupants on the new location, amid residents’ current fears about group security.
Rudy Guiliani from the Housing Restoration Operations Workplace (no relation to the previous mayor) mentioned the shelter will probably be run by an skilled administration firm with 24/7 cameras and safety guards, metallic detectors, a devoted NYPD submit, onsite help providers and a curfew of 11 p.m. to six a.m. for residents. He additionally mentioned the workplace is working to get Bronx-based organizations as subcontractors for providers in an effort to combine the shelter into the group.
“We try our hardest to run a very tight ship,” Guiliani mentioned.
However shelters have come beneath scrutiny for allegedly bringing crime to a neighborhood.
As an illustration, Council Member Rafael Salamanca Jr. mentioned that the Hunts Level shelter generally known as The Residing Room, which he mentioned has fewer than 300 beds, has accounted for practically 9,000 calls to 911 between 2022 and 2024.
Salamanca Jr. known as the brand new shelter “irresponsible” and mentioned it would “take police officers off our streets.” He has often protested shelters within the space, saying that the South Bronx’s is oversaturated.
Molly Schaeffer, director of asylum seeker operations, mentioned the brand new web site remains to be wanted regardless of town’s current bulletins of shelter closures all through town and a migrant inhabitants in regular decline over the previous eight months.
Schaeffer mentioned the brand new shelter was a “right-sizing exercise” as town consolidates and closes tent services just like the one at Randall’s Island.
“Nothing about this [location] is ideal” however the tents are even worse, added Varlack. “No one wants that.”
Picture Emily Swanson
Moreover, Schaeffer introduced a pie chart displaying that solely 6% of town’s migrant shelters are within the Bronx, in comparison with 37% in Manhattan, 35% in Queens and 21% in Brooklyn.
Although the group expressed skepticism on the calculation, “No one community has been spared from this all-city response,” Schaeffer mentioned.
Residents converse out
The assembly was largely civil, however South Bronx residents pulled no punches in expressing their unequivocal opposition to the shelter and frustration on the lack of communication from town.
Individuals lined up in opposition to the wall to deal with the group, and several other residents mentioned they already felt unsafe of their neighborhoods and that the shelter does nothing to assuage these issues.
Involved residents lined as much as tackle the group and ask questions concerning the new shelter.Picture Emily Swanson
Mike Younger, who mentioned he’s a father, husband and director of the Padre Plaza Neighborhood Backyard, requested if the migrants coming to the brand new shelter have been screened.
“Do we know who the rapists are? Do we know who the child molesters are?” he requested. “When my daughter walks down the street, do I have to follow with a baseball bat?”
One other resident agreed the South Bronx already looks like a “very different climate” when it comes to security. “You can’t walk around without having a brass knuckle.”
One girl mentioned she had labored as an artist within the Port Morris neighborhood for 9 years and by no means fearful a lot about her security. However with the brand new shelter, “I am now terrified,” she mentioned.
“Will there be a person escorting me to the subway? If not, I can’t be here,” she mentioned, asking for the precise date of the shelter’s opening so she will be able to go away her present area.
Varlack emphasised that the federal authorities, not town, handles immigration and any potential vetting course of. Schaeffer mentioned many of the migrants coming to the brand new shelter are eligible to work, which can give them a goal in the neighborhood.
This info did little to calm residents, lots of whom appear to have left the assembly unhappy.
The Bronx Occasions spoke with a resident who declined to present her identify however mentioned she labored with youngsters within the South Bronx. To her, the assembly was fruitless.
“You’re just telling us what we don’t want to hear,” she mentioned. “‘Too late, suck it up.’ We’re worried about this.”
The resident mentioned she already worries consistently concerning the youngsters in her care. “We just lost a boy going to school. What’s next?” she mentioned, referring to 14-year-old Caleb Rijos, who was randomly stabbed to loss of life on East 138th Road on Jan. 10.
Pedro Suarez, director of the Third Avenue Enterprise Enchancment District, informed the group that though the brand new shelter isn’t in his catchment space, it would nonetheless influence the encompassing group.
He advisable allocating funds to help the realm, saying the choice to web site the shelter within the South Bronx “has to come with commitments.” And the curfew might not be sufficient to cease crime, mentioned Suarez.
“It’s what happens when people are going to school and work, not just 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.,” he mentioned. “This community’s very much on a precipice right now.”
Gabriel DeJesus, president of the fortieth Precinct Neighborhood Council, informed the Bronx Occasions that the assembly was “not productive at all.”
In a press release on social media after the assembly, the precinct council mentioned the plan overburdens a group already inundated with drug exercise, violence and “emotionally disturbed persons.”
The precinct council proposes in that assertion “smaller, decentralized shelters with comprehensive support services” together with workforce growth alternatives. Above all, the assertion mentioned, “Transparency in the planning and implementation of such projects is not optional — it is a must.”
Because the plan drives ahead, Barber echoed the necessity for open communication and known as on residents to prepare and proceed opposing it, even when the ink is already dried.
“Let this be a lesson learned to the Adams administration and every administration — it’s the voice of the people that counts.”
