In today's paper, Casey Tolan reports that two new homeless shelters on 95th Street are generating intense controversy:
Several residents said that they had landed in the shelters after losing their jobs or their apartments—some of them due to cuts in the social safety net—and that they hoped to leave soon.
But to local politicians and some Upper West Side residents, the new shelters are an undue burden on a neighborhood already home to many similar facilities, especially as the shelters are located just down the block from an elementary school.
The shelters, which will allow 200 homeless families to stop sleeping on the street every night, were unanimously opposed by Community Board 7. “This is not a ‘not in my backyard’ argument,” said CB7 Chair Mark Diller. “We’re doing our fair share, but we’re not doing somebody else’s fair share as well.”
