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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 Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard. The town confirmed that the shelter, set to open in February, is a performed deal.
Residents and metropolis officers got here to an deadlock throughout 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 towards the wall to handle the group, becoming a member of with elected officers together with Rep. Ritchie Torres who’ve already publicly opposed the shelter for instance of utilizing the South Bronx as a “dumping ground.”
Committee chair Daniel Barber referred to as for respectful dialogue however mentioned the deliberate shelter “wasn’t properly presented to the community.” The board, not town, referred to 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 performed, based on Deputy Mayor and Chief of Employees 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 shortage of advance discover to residents. “Clearly, communication could’ve been better before this shelter was sited.”
Council Member and Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala addressed considerations concerning the deliberate new migrant shelter at East 141st Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard at a Neighborhood Board committee assembly on Jan. 27, 2025.Picture Emily Swanson
Council Member Diana Ayala — who additionally confronted robust questions from constituents about her preliminary advice of the vacant warehouse early within the migrant disaster — mentioned for the reason that contract was in place, there was little anybody may 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 short-term and that it can not turn out to be everlasting as a result of the Division of Homeless Companies (DHS) is prohibited from working a facility of that measurement. As soon as the positioning is not wanted, it should 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, somewhat than open the shelter.
“City administration owes us more than this meeting tonight,” she mentioned.
‘A very tight ship’
Metropolis officers supplied new details about the deliberate shelter meant to ease considerations about public security.
Whereas board member Dalourny Nemorin mentioned that the majority migrants don’t commit crimes and {that a} new shelter in any neighborhood would seemingly meet opposition, she and others expressed concern about safety given the big variety of occupants on the new location, amid residents’ present fears about group security.
Rudy Guiliani from the Housing Restoration Operations Workplace (no relation to the previous mayor) mentioned the shelter can be run by an skilled administration firm with 24/7 cameras and safety guards, steel detectors, a devoted NYPD publish, 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 example, 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 almost 9,000 calls to 911 between 2022 and 2024.
Salamanca Jr. referred to as the brand new shelter “irresponsible” and mentioned it should “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 website continues 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 offered 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 gang expressed skepticism on the calculation, “No one community has been spared from this all-city response,” Schaeffer mentioned.
Residents communicate 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 towards the wall to handle the group, and several other residents mentioned they already felt unsafe of their neighborhoods and that the shelter does nothing to assuage these considerations.
Involved residents lined as much as handle the gang 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 seems 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 depart her present area.
Varlack emphasised that the federal authorities, not town, handles immigration and any potential vetting course of. Schaeffer mentioned a lot 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 Instances spoke with a resident who declined to offer her title however mentioned she labored with kids 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 continually concerning the kids 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 dying on East 138th Avenue on Jan. 10.
Pedro Suarez, director of the Third Avenue Enterprise Enchancment District, informed the gang that though the brand new shelter just isn’t in his catchment space, it should nonetheless impression the encircling group.
He really useful allocating funds to help the world, saying the choice to website 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 Instances 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 improvement 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 referred to as on residents to arrange 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.”
