Locals will get a chance to weigh in on how to handle Sunset Park’s ballooning homeless population at Community Board 7’s first meeting of its ad hoc Committee on Homeless Issues on Jan. 5.
Sunset Park only has one official homeless shelter — a controversial home for men on 49th Street between Second and Third avenues — but the city’s Department of Homeless Services is renting hundreds of rooms there on a month-to-month basis in at least five new area inns without alerting residents and may turn them into permanent shelters for up to nine years under a new plan proposed by the DeBlasio administration.
Sunset Park residents comprise less than two percent of the city’s population, but the 209 suites that the city has booked in Sunset Park account for 10 percent of all the hotel rooms the city uses for homeless, city data shows. And developers aim to build at least six new inns in parts of Sunset Park and Green-Wood Heights that residents believe will be added to the area’s list of makeshift shelters.
At the upcoming meeting, the committee will discuss its structure and how best to focus its efforts. Reps from the city’s Department of Homeless Services and the Human Resources Administration will be present to answer questions.
Committee on Homeless Issues at Community Board 7 [4201 Fourth Ave. between 42nd and 43rd streets, (718) 854–0003] Jan. 5 at 6:30 pm.
