Crown Heights Homeless Shelter's Opening Blocked Again By Judge

BROOKLYN, NY — A planned homeless shelter in Crown Heights will remain closed for at least another nine days after a Brooklyn judge on Wednesday extended a temporary restraining order blocking it from opening.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Katherine A. Levine said the city and the shelter's would-be operator have been "engaging in fruitful negotiations" with a group of neighborhood residents and block associations who filed a lawsuit saying that the area is unfairly overcrowded with shelters and the site shouldn't open.

Levine asked for more information about how the city selected 1173 Bergen St. as the location for the shelter, which would host 104 senior homeless men, and what other sites had been considered.

Jacqueline McMickens, the attorney representing the community members, said the groups will be back before the judge on April 28. She added that Levine has forbidden either party from publicly discussing the negotiations.

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The shelter had a target open date of March 22. Judge Paul Wooten temporarily blocked that opening after the residents sued, and Levine issued her initial restraining order a week later at the end of March.

At issue during Wednesday's hearing — whether Levine thinks the city made a "meaningful" effort to consider shelter sites in less saturated neighborhoods under the city's "Fair Share" rules that govern where city facilities are placed.

"The judge is taking the Fair Share analysis very seriously and trying to figure out what a ‘meaningful’ analysis is," Jennifer Catto, one of the neighbors who is suing the city, told Patch after the hearing. "Does she have the authority to determine what is meaningful? We believe she does."

An emailed statement from Department of Homeless Services spokesman Isaac McGinn said: "We remain committed to opening this site so that over 100 seniors can be sheltered closer to the community they called home and to working with community members to address concerns so that our clients receive a warm welcome.

"New York City is under court order to provide shelter for all homeless individuals in need and we remain confident that the courts will recognize, as they have for decades, our vital need for these high-quality beds—in a facility with comprehensive social and support services, rather than hotels, which are less effective for homeless New Yorkers and communities alike."

The city's attorneys admitted in court that Community District 8, which includes north Crown Heights and part of Bed-Stuy, has a higher concentration of shelters than all but two other districts in Brooklyn. They also revealed that seven proposals for new shelters in Brooklyn have been accepted since January of 2015, including the Bergen Street site.

They did not say, though, what other communities were considered for those shelters — or where those other six shelters are.

"For all I know, the seven you accepted came from Ocean Hill, Brownsville and Crown Heights," Levine said sharply.

CORE Services, which would operate the shelter, also revealed that it struck a deal in April 2015 with CSN Partners, the building owner, to run a homeless shelter at the site. The city said it didn't receive a proposal for the site until this January and approved it "around a month later."

Neither side brought up a $20 million fraud lawsuit filed against CSN last week that names the site of the proposed shelter.

Following more than an hour of court proceedings, Levine ordered a short break, then came back to the bench and told the city: "In order to feel comfortable in your analysis, I think I would need more."

She then called the attorneys into a back room for private negotiations. After they emerged from those negotiations, Levine announced the stay would be extended.

The shelter at Bergen Street is part of a plan by Mayor Bill de Blasio to open 90 homeless shelters and close hotel and "cluster" sites across the city. Five locations have been announced, which include two in the Bronx and three within a one-mile radius in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights.

One of those three, a shelter for women in Prospect Heights, has been open for nearly a month with little fanfare or pushback from that community.

The other of the three is on Rogers Avenue in the southern part of Crown Heights in Community District 9. Members of that community have responded with fury at what they also see is over-saturation, along with a lack of notice from their elected officials.

Some of them were in the courthouse Wednesday, monitoring the fate of their neighbors to the North. The Rogers Avenue shelter is not scheduled to open until May, so those residents have time to consider whether they will file a lawsuit of their own.

This is a developing story and will be updated.