Q&A
Questions on shelter distribution and closure plans
2:20:15
·
3 min
Council Member Julie Won inquires about the distribution of shelters across NYC and plans for closures, expressing concerns about the concentration of shelters in high-poverty, predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods. Commissioner Molly Wasow Park responds by explaining the challenges faced during the rapid increase in shelter census and the use of hotels as temporary solutions.
- Park acknowledges the unequal distribution of hotels and commits to reducing the hotel footprint
- The commissioner emphasizes the goal of equal distribution of shelters across the city
- Park explains that the recently published list of closures primarily included non-DHS sites
Julie Won
2:20:15
Thank you so much, chair Brewer.
2:20:16
I wanted to follow-up on, council member Silvina Brooks Powers and council member Susan Zhuang's questions about the new closures that you've recently announced about shelters.
2:20:29
It's really clear from what we've what you've spoken about that you want to have equal distribution and equity for where the shelters are built.
2:20:38
Yet when we look at a map of where the shelters are, it's 38 shelters in my district, a high density of population of shelters in Southeast Queens and Selvina Brooks Powers' district, speaker Adrian Adams' district, council member Salamanca's district in the Bronx, and council member Althea, Althea Stevens.
2:20:56
It's clear that when you look at it on a map, they are saturated and concentrated in the highest levels of poverty in black and brown neighborhoods.
2:21:04
Can you help me understand what the phases will be for closing down these shelters and what order?
2:21:09
Because the ones that you listed were not for equal distribution or relocation or transfer transferring or anything like that.
Molly Wasow Park
2:21:18
Sure.
2:21:18
Thank you.
2:21:19
Before I get to your question, I I just sorry.
2:21:22
I would like to make one more correction on the record.
2:21:24
We have 12 providers on caps.
2:21:26
The 6 that I mentioned are those that are on enhanced review.
2:21:28
So I did wanna correct the record.
2:21:32
So we are absolutely committed, to equal distribution of of shelters across the city.
2:21:41
As as I've discussed a number of times, we've had very rapid increase of the shelter census, in a very short period of time, which really dramatically increased our utilization of hotels.
2:21:54
Hotels were frankly the only real estate that we could open in the time period that they, you know, in some cases, in the the peak of the asylum census that we were opening, you know, 3 or 4 sites a week.
2:22:07
It was incredibly challenging for for DHS and I understand for communities as well, is what we needed to do to be able to meet our our legal obligations with the number of people coming into shelter so quickly.
2:22:21
Hotels are are not distributed equally, and we we had to go with the real estate that was available to us.
2:22:29
Hotels are absolutely not the right thing to be using for shelter, because they are unequally distributed, because they are expensive, because they are not good for clients.
2:22:40
So we are highly committed to reducing our our hotel footprint.
2:22:47
The pace that we are gonna be able to do that is gonna depend on the reduction of the shelter census and our ability to open, you know, well designed fully, you know, more standard contracted shelters.
2:22:59
That's something that we're working on aggressively, and we are committed to making sure that we have shelters located across the city.
2:23:07
The list of closures that was published, I believe last week was none of those were DHS sites, maybe 1, but, none of the I that was not primarily a list of DHS sites.
2:23:20
Something that we are working closely with our colleagues, at the mayor's office of asylum seeker operations and others, as as DHS takes over the the role of retakes over the role as primary sheltering agency for the city.
2:23:34
I'm not in a place where I can talk about specific close down plans right now, but certainly, we will be looking at distribution of sites going forward.
