A plan to change who is housed at a Brooklyn shelter has run into organized opposition from the surrounding community. According to News 12, some residents in East Flatbush are pushing back against plans to turn a family shelter into a shelter for single men, arguing that the change was sprung on them and does not belong in their neighborhood.
The opposition spilled into the street this week. Dozens of people gathered outside the Holiday Inn on Kings Highway to protest the planned conversion, turning a hotel that has been serving as a shelter into the focal point of a growing neighborhood dispute over how the site should be used.
The details of the change came from a local elected official. Councilmember Farrah Lewis said the Department of Homeless Services emailed her on Monday to say that the women's and children's shelter at the location would be converted into a shelter for single adult men, a shift that quickly alarmed families living nearby.
Much of the concern centers on where the shelter sits. Residents pointed out that the site is located near daycare centers, schools and parks, and said that placing a single adult men's shelter in the middle of that setting would affect their quality of life and their sense of safety in the area.
For many of those who turned out, the fight is also about trust. Residents said they had been told that they were not going to get another shelter in this part of the neighborhood, and that the planned conversion amounts to a broken promise that has left them feeling they have to fight the decision all over again.
City officials have offered a timeline but little else so far. DHS told Councilmember Lewis that the men's shelter is expected to open at the end of the month, and News 12 said it had reached out to the Department of Social Services and the mayor's office for further comment as the community braces for the change.