By Gus Saltonstall
The former Calhoun School building on West 74th Street, between Columbus and Amsterdam avenues, will be a women’s homeless shelter for at least 9 years, according to new information revealed during Tuesday night’s Community Board 7 Health & Human Services Committee meeting.
Representatives from Volunteers of America (VOA), the service provider for the incoming shelter, which is slated to open later this year, confirmed to West Side Rag that its contract with the Department of Homeless Services to oversee the 74th Street shelter is for 9 years.
This means the shelter will remain open at the site for at least that long, and it will stay a women’s shelter for the duration of that time.
While there were details about the contract between the New York City Department of Social Services (DSS) and VOA, information on the contract between the owner of the building, Bayrock Capital, and the city, as well as between Bayrock Capital and VOA, were not made available.
Representatives from VOA did indicate, though, that the contract between the nonprofit and developer, which initially said it would be turning the 160 West 74th Street property into luxury condominiums before pivoting to the shelter, would also be long-term.
The length of the lease was one of many topics that arose during the two-hour discussion between representatives of CB7, DSS, VOA, and members of the public.
Roughly 30 to 40 people, many of whom live near the West 74th Street building, showed up in-person, with the vast majority voicing their displeasure about the incoming homeless shelter.
“If we want to start doing something about the housing issue, we need to start thinking about the long-term plan and not the short term,” said a community member named Deborah, who was the first member of the public to speak — and voiced a repeated refrain that the building should become affordable and middle-income housing, as opposed to a shelter.
The room broke out into applause after she spoke.
The public session followed a presentation from VOA about the programmatic side of the new shelter.
All of the women will come through referrals from the Department of Homeless Service. There will be 146 women with 54 staff members who will provide services such as case management, job development, medical and legal services, mental-health help, and more.
There will be 24-hour security, with a large camera system, and routine rounds made of the perimeter on West 74th Street.
When asked about how many women would live in a room together, the VOA rep said there would be 6 to 9 women to a dorm, but did not specify what constituted a dorm.
Grumblings grew louder throughout the presentation, as a particularly loud doorbell continued to ring without an answer.
Multiple people asked about how much money the city would be paying for each person in the facility, along with the details of the deal between Bayrock Capital and the city, but a representative from DSS was unable to give an exact answer.
She did say, “it is not cheap”.
Many of the concerns also centered around an outdoor socializing and smoking area for the women that will be created behind the West 74th Street building, which shares a courtyard-like area with multiple buildings on West 73rd Street.
The details of the smoking area have not been finalized, and, while it will be enclosed to some degree, it will need to be ventilated, according to the representative from VOA. The area will be closed at night and early in the morning.
The representative from DSS gamely mentioned that the outdoor area had activity in it previously, as there was a playground for students at the Calhoun School, but that point was quickly rebutted by a man who lives in a building on West 73rd Street.
“Children were out there playing. The kids played on swings, they didn’t smoke cigarettes,” he said. “Security, cameras, dorms, it sounds like a prison. It’s a completely different use of the building.”
The representative from the city emphasized that staff would monitor the outdoor area, and that it was important to give the women a “space to step outdoors.”
As the public session transitioned to more members calling in from Zoom, there was a surge of positive responses to the incoming shelter.
“How can the community help?” one woman asked. “What constructive things can we do?”
“I’m delighted the shelter is going to open and I’m looking forward to being a good neighbor,” another person said.
Multiple speakers mentioned that they had lived on different blocks where homeless shelters had opened, and that despite the initial concerns, they had seen positive, and not detrimental effects, take place.
“I’ve never felt unsafe living on a block with a shelter,” one of those people said.
“Part of why we wanted to move to the Upper West Side was because it was so welcoming,” an additional person who spoke in favor of the shelter added.
The conversation ended with many of the members of the public who had come in person congregating at the elevators to discuss their displeasure with the meeting.
“All that talking, and so little said,” one of them said to loud agreement.
You can watch the full meeting — HERE.
Read More:
- City Approves Building-Design Changes to Incoming 74th Street Shelter: What’s Next?
-
UPDATE: 146-Bed Women’s Homeless Shelter Opening Fall of 2024 in Former UWS Private School
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“It’s not cheap.” The understatement of the year. I refer to Monaco in the same terms. Might as well pay the homeless to go live there – it’ll cost us the same.
I really don’t understand the benefit of providing homeless shelters in wealthy areas of the city. Why not provide shelters in areas where people can actually live and find apartments once they get on their feet?
Because there is no such place in the five boroughs or even enclaves anywhere near NYC.
Nonsense….there are plenty of more affordable areas within NYC
Because they know they have a soft liberal base on the UWS that won’t make much of a stink.
This area is only recently wealthy, the west 70’s around Columbus and Amsterdam were considered middle to low income for decades, it was also a thriving neighborhood with primarily Puerto Rican families before the area gentrified in recent years. Lots of SRO’s for years, don’t get it twisted.
Are you kidding? The UWS has been expensive and desirable since the late 1980s. You don’t know the history of this area.
Who cares what it was considered decades ago? Now it is a very wealthy neighborhood.
True. Turn this building into condos and the property taxes alone could fund a building twice the size in a less expensive area.
Stunning how this can just be a done deal without any community involvement or process
Much more money in it for Bayrock Capital, as a shelter. Financially, it makes more sense instead of luxury condos
There are a couple of troublesome aspects to all of these meetings. 1. Anyone can show up as part of the “community” and speak without having any real connection via living or working in the area. This leads to activists gaslighting the proceedings. Zoom makes this even easier. Speakers should have to prove their relationship to the neighborhood. 2. The Community Boards have no real authority.
I believe that before Calhoun bought the building it was a Phoenix House.
Phoenix House was next door to Calhoun. It was converted into a luxury apartment building. Many of the residents of that building are voicing the loudest objections to providing housing women who were formerly victims of domestic violence.
I did not hear voices riding up when individuals converted former rent stabilized apartment buildings to single family homes.
This sudden “interest” in “affordable housing” is just a way of softening the message. It is just a slogan.
Who is this organization VOA? How are they involved in this? They are a “non-profit” organization? Something tells me someone is making a lot of money on this deal and it’s not the taxpayers funding it or the shelter residents!
Not sure, but they made for a great album by the Jefferson Airplane way-back-when. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volunteers_(Jefferson_Airplane_album)
It reminds me of the same kind of people who are trying to turn our schools into a business with the charter school shenaningans.
Charter schools are the best thing that ever happened to the public school systems. We need more of them.
Kindness? Caring? Consideration for those less fortunate? We complain about the homelessness issue and say “Someone should do something about this!” When “someone” does, we complain that saving other people’s lives might inconvenience us.
You can’t turn your life around when you have no home, no stability, no address, and no support. The alternative is for them to stay on the street in misery, subject to weather, crime, assault, and scorn.
We’ve all made mistakes, been in peril, had lows, but almost all of us have had a support system in place to catch us. Family, friends, connections, second chances, the benefit of the doubt, the generosity of others. Maybe just a parent who helped with rent and food while you got on your feet. If that’s the case for you, consider how fortunate you were and realize that many others, who often started with much greater odds against them, have never had that support. Our government is trying to provide that for these women. Is your discomfort and fear of inconvenience worth their continued suffering?
It’s not about caring, its about placement and practicallity. It’s also about people potentially making money in these situations. I think we all care and want the shelters, but its about location.
The problem is that money is finite, and you could house four times as many people for the same amount of money in Staten Island where my in-laws live. So if it is a choice between helping 50 people or 200, why are we choosing to help 50?
Exactly!! Why are there no shelters in Staten Island??? Has anyone received an honest answer to that question? I suspect it is not about anything other than politics.
There are many long term , older UWS residents who are now priced out of their apartments. THis would have been a wonderful opportunity to provide affordable housing for them.
There are so many properties available outside this area for use for shelter that would cost less.This deal was done without imput from the community and, suspiciously, within such a short time frame.
Not that we have any say…..
Please name one older resident who has been priced out of their apartment.
The vast majority of older people in the neighborhood have been here for years. They either own their apartments or their apartments are rent regulated. Nobody is being displaced.
That said, this homeless shelter is a disaster for the neighborhood. With the illegal migrants housed here and the proliferation of homeless shelters the UWS is rapidly reverting to the bad old days.
Check out the article in today’s WSR about 600 Columbus.
There are many brownstones which are not rent stabilized and who are raising rents according to market value. This is happening to some of my neighbors.
Again, this is a very challenging situation and housing (and many other services) need to be provided. That said, it could be done for much less money in other areas of the city. There are other areas in the state that would be excellent but t many communities have stopped this from
happening.
There was another article posted today on WSR about people being priced out of the building at 89th and Columbus. I’m sure many of them would love to stay in the neighborhood.
It is very sad to me that my tax dollars are being wasted like this. I am all for helping people, but I want it to be done in a cost-effective way and there are limits to our generosity.
It is sad to me that our neighborhood has so many virtue-signaling people who take pleasure in shaming those who want just a little bit of common sense to be used. I am really sick of the guilt trips. The world is not a binary place where you are either a bleeding heart or an evil NIMBY Trumper. Many of us support a middle ground.
I don’t like the idea of a shelter in the same neighborhood as high paying residents families with children considered to be
an upscale neighborhood
Another area like a Tiny House Village
outside of the city could be created at a
dramatically lower expense point.
I am shocked this idea has not been developed. It’s SO logical. A village of this type is up and running in Montana. Why
not NYC?
Really disappointed by the NIMBY energy both in the comment section and clearly at the public forum. I am sure many of the people voicing their outrage are the same who complain about people who are street homeless in the neighborhood. For unhoused people, stable shelter is the first step towards stability. Having shelter means a higher likelihood of being able to obtain employment, better mental and physical health outcomes, access to social work and case management services, and so much more. To want to deny people the right to shelter simply because you don’t want them in your neighborhood disgusts me. Do better, UWS.
There’s no right to shelter in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. Put them in an actually affordable neighborhood or borough.
The Upper West Side has more than its fair share of facilities for the homeless, addicts, migrants etc.
These “public hearings” are a sham, a nod to “community involvement.” Community means big fat ZERO. People are still in denial after years and years and years of their voice being a meaningless formality to the mighty “homeless services” conglomerate.
Interestingly the City is planning a men’s shelter in a small building on Beekman Street – and also happens to be across the street from a school.
Also of note – the building was emptied of tenants and then available for this purpose.
So people lost housing in order to transform the building into a shelter….
https://tribecacitizen.com/2023/11/30/city-plans-homeless-shelter-for-beekman-and-william/
You all can make the same point about not wanting a space to be designated as a shelter without bringing class into the matter, it dampens your point and makes you look pompous. The truth is there are shelters in every neighborhood in the city, poor and wealthy alike, and each neighborhood is battling the same issue. This same conversation is happening in Harlem neighborhood committee meetings; the neighborhood complains about loss of affordable housing and a proliferation of too many shelters in close proximity.
You’re never going to be rid of people in need and New York is the biggest and most public transit connected city in the country. Figure out how you’re going to live with each other instead of wishing the others would just go away.
I’m with you, Will.
Thank you.
The thing that bothers me is budgetary. An experienced investor spent a huge sum to buy a fairly large school building in a very expensive neighborhood. Typically we would expect them to get their investment return by creating housing .
Yet they concluded they could make more by renting to a city -funded nonprofit as a homeless shelter.
It means the city is paying more for homeless services per square foot than someone can make building even high-end housing. This is clearly not sustainable.
Fabulous detective 🕵🏻♀️ work! The pearl clutching by the chalk crusaders over the lack of humanity on the “NIMBY” UWS is a tell of their involvement and investment in the nonprofit complex that has grown exponentially around homelessness (which despite their supposed stated goals above doesn’t seem to lead to any meaningful change or successful outcomes-just growth). In fact – there is no accountability, transparency or metric for their performance. Nor does it seem that they have any fiscal or behavioral controls in place. Let’s see how the women are “helped” here and what element/culture they bring to the block.
Put naïveté aside and having lived near a MICA shelter, we endured a constant stream of drug addled people passing out or OD’ing on the streets, in stores or at the shelter (ambulances were a constant sound). Drug dealers, prostitutes, open sex, poop & peeing in the streets, petty crime, battery at outdoor eating areas, local business crimes, shoplifting and consistent hassles with neighbors created an environment such that they required guards posted at the building and at all of the street corners around them. Does this sound like no big deal? It was AWFUL & that is the reality. Please don’t suggest otherwise because we see you and know why you advocate otherwise;( it didn’t take long for those chalk lovers to become a full fledged nonprofit- and become pals with the likes of Gail who help fund their projects. WE SEE YOU!
According to the 2/10 West Side Spirit – the operators of proposed shelter boast 65 security cameras; 4 security guards; 1 supervisor of security because the shelter will be housing “some” with mental health challenges.
I am a resident of this well maintained block by caring and committed residents.
We get a lot of tourists (and tour groups) paying homage to Levain Bakery as well as proudly hosting street closures to provide parking for events for the civil servants and families at the Beacon Theater.
We and the adjoining blocks are to be burdened without choice or input by 150 transients requiring the degree of 24 hour surveillance noted above.
Given the limitation posed by Landmark status we all agree that affordable housing is a more practical and respectful option for this site.
Is this population going to be followed by security as they leave the premises?
Thank you
How absolutely hypocritical! When the men’s shelter opened on West 83rd Street, dozens of commenters said, “We don’t mind if it is a shelter; just not for men. Woman would be fine.” I read that over and over and over. Yet now that a shelter is being opened for women, it is no longer fine. What a bunch of mean-spirited, discompassionate hypocrites!
Please turn it into market rate apartments.