Homeless Shelter
FOR 200 SINGLE ADULT MEN IN SOHO
The NYC Department of Social Services has announced plans to house 200 single homeless men in a building at 349 Canal Street/ 10 Wooster Street.
This is a four-story building currently operating as a parking garage. It would be the second largest such facility in Manhattan.
The building conversion will be undertaken by Liberty One, a for-profit developer, and the site will be operated by Westhab, a homeless services provider based in Westchester County. According to WestHab these 200 single homeless men would sleep up to 20 to a room with communal hygiene facilities, limited to no personal privacy, limited on-site medical and other wellness services, and no outdoor recreational space.
This shelter will not take in street homeless people from the SoHo/Tribeca/Chinatown neighborhood: the largest group of clients will be people recently released from state prisons, from Bellevue and possibly from other agency facilities.
The City is pursuing this shelter ‘as of right’ meaning that it is not subject to public review.
The City is still building unsuitable shelters
New York City continues to expand the system of congregate shelters containing up to 20 people in a single dormitory-style room lacking privacy and hygiene.
Many homeless people and organizations supporting the unsheltered are opposed to further expansion of these facilities, notably on the grounds of poor safety, dignity and agency for the inhabitants.
The Coalition for the Homeless in April 2021 released a report entitled View from the Street which highlights the need for such rights for New York’s unsheltered population.
Information on homeless shelter planned for 349 Canal Street /10 Wooster Street
Manhattan Community Board “CB2” hearings on the SoHo Shelter
Manhattan Community Board 2 Human Services Committee asked the Department of Homeless Services and WestHab for answers in two public meetings in March and May this year.
Here are links to the two videos of these meetings followed by a link to the public materials.
CB2 MAY 2021 MEETING
CB2 MARCH 2021 MEETING
The Department of Buildings rejected the first set of plans submitted to convert the site to a shelter.
The developer Liberty One that is converting the site and delivering it to the non-profit shelter operator WestHab will have to cure the issues cited in the report and resubmit. The DOB filing that was disapproved on 6/17/21 can be found here. Currently, there is a stop work order in effect at the site.
Below is a short excerpt from this report, which directly interviewed street homeless people in New York City earlier this year:
On not using the shelters:
In rendering their judgments, street survey respondents drew upon a good deal of direct experience and widely circulating impressions of life in the public shelters: Routine mayhem, poor security, danger of harm and/or theft figured highly.
Some reviews included:
“No discipline, security don’t do nothing, food sucks, feel like I’m in prison, no love.”
“I’m a human being; I don’t want to be treated like an ASPCA mutt.”
“K2 stench all day and mental health [problems].”
“You treated like garbage and staff don’t care about you.”
“Didn’t like being talked to in a demeaning way.”
“I was attacked . . . never going back.”
Coalition for the Homeless
In another Coalition for the Homeless report ‘State of the Homeless 2021’ the organization took aim at what it called the City and State political failures in homelessness policy particularly during the covid-19 pandemic and called, among other things, for a much greater focus on supportive housing over congregate shelters.
Coalition for the Homeless report ’State of the Homeless 2020’
Institutional Forces drive many homeless to New York City, especially from the prison system
Governor and Mayor to Blame as New York Enters Fifth Decade of Homelessness Crisis
SOURCE: Coalition for the Homeless report ’State of the Homeless 2020