PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Lenny Williams, President of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 32, on Veterans' Homelessness and Borden Avenue Shelter
2:36:49
·
5 min
Lenny Williams, President of Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 32, testified about issues with the Borden Avenue Veterans Shelter and the treatment of homeless veterans. He shared a personal experience of being denied access to deliver Thanksgiving meals to veterans at the shelter, highlighting the need for better treatment and respect for homeless veterans.
- Criticized the management of Borden Avenue Veterans Shelter, part of Independent Community Living (ICL)
- Called for veterans to be treated as a special category within the homeless population
- Suggested that veterans should be given priority for opportunities, such as legal marijuana stores, similar to the street vendor issue
Lenny Williams
2:36:49
Okay.
2:36:49
Good good afternoon, everybody.
2:36:51
And, thanks for letting me, share.
2:36:55
I appreciate, 126, talking about, hang on.
2:37:02
Talking about, you know, the homeless homeless, veterans and also the, Timothy who, talking about boarded avenue.
2:37:12
Talking about I I wanna talk about Borden Avenue and the homeless, the homeless veterans homeless population.
2:37:19
I'll start with my name is Lenny Williams.
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I'm the current president of Vietnam Veterans of America chapter 32 at Councilman Holden, I'm in your district, and I we work together very well.
2:37:32
And I thank you for, all you do.
2:37:35
Alright.
2:37:35
So anyway, I'm gonna start off on I bought an ambulance located in Long Island City, New York as a veteran's resident slash shelter.
2:37:43
From what what I know, Borden Avenue Veterans resident shelter is part of independent community living, the ICL, traditional services of the city of New York, which I believe consists of 8 shelters, 6 to 8 shelters, of the for homeless.
2:38:00
But, Boardman Avenue was the only veteran shelter out of all, out of that, 8 shelters.
2:38:07
Why veterans are part of the New York City homeless?
2:38:11
I could somewhat understand that.
2:38:13
But I believe there should be a special, part, like what do you call it, room for people that would represent veterans as a whole and, you know, homeless veterans.
2:38:26
And we talked about homeless veterans a lot today.
2:38:30
What happened was I'll talk about Borden Avenue, whereas that gentleman said, I think his name was Timothy, mentioned about the the kitchen and so on and so forth.
2:38:39
Me, personally, I have a personal experience with the Borden Avenue.
2:38:43
And, on Thanksgiving Day of November 8th, November 28th, myself, the charitable organization, brothers Brothers Helping Incorporated, where they brought 210 ready to eat meals, to Borden Avenue at 11 o'clock.
2:39:01
They had they had they've done it 3 or 4 times prior to that in the last couple of years, and they always had access to to the shelter.
2:39:10
This time around, his name is Andy Yolandis.
2:39:13
He, he was scheduled he made arrangements a couple of weeks before boarding Avenue, and, they gave him the okay to show up on on Thanksgiving Day.
2:39:24
I'll say Thanksgiving Day, which was on Thursday that day at 11 o'clock.
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I met I met Andy prior to that at another function, and he invited me to help him out to distribute to distribute food.
2:39:38
Excuse me.
2:39:39
And, so I met him there at 11.
2:39:42
I says, okay.
2:39:42
I met him there at 11 o'clock, and he was standing outside in the rain.
2:39:46
It was a ugly morning.
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I said, if if people can remember that.
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And I said, what's going on?
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And he said, we we were denied access.
Robert Holden
2:39:52
Thank you.
2:39:53
Your time has expired.
Lenny Williams
2:39:55
I turned around and I said, you know, why?
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So I went in there, and they just refused access to Borden Avenue.
2:40:04
They said, if you want to drop off these 210 meals in a little vestibule off to the side of Borden Avenue and just leave it there or take it with you.
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Of course, we don't have a choice.
2:40:15
This is Thanksgiving Day.
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We want they wanted to provide for the veterans.
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So we we I helped them bring the meals into this, little little room off their side at 11 o'clock in the morning, and god only knows what what happened to them.
2:40:28
I immediately called, councilman Holden's office, and I also called, Jason Lau Loughbrand is the, senior, intergovernmental, spokesperson for, the veterans.
2:40:41
Both both councilman Holden and also James Lowgrant says, listen.
2:40:45
We'll make a couple of phone calls.
2:40:47
It was too late.
2:40:47
It was Thanksgiving Day.
2:40:50
These veterans, they, you know, they they they didn't get they didn't get the meals that well, maybe later on, it had to be cold.
2:40:56
Anyway, later on that day, I'm sitting at home, and I I'm looking at the TV, and I see, mayor Adams serving all these homeless people, you know, on for Thanksgiving meals.
2:41:08
And I said, Jesus, this is ridiculous.
2:41:10
Like, we're veterans, you know, veterans in board in the middle.
2:41:13
United States veterans.
2:41:14
Like we said, we we've served our country.
2:41:16
We did our time.
2:41:18
And here, you can't we can't even get in there to live to deliver meals Okay.
Robert Holden
2:41:21
And, Lenny, could you wrap it up?
2:41:25
Yeah.
2:41:25
Just wrap it up because we we're way way over time.
Lenny Williams
2:41:30
Everybody else had 10 minutes.
Robert Holden
2:41:31
But No.
2:41:32
No.
2:41:32
No.
2:41:32
No.
2:41:32
No.
Lenny Williams
2:41:33
Oh, yeah.
2:41:33
Okay.
2:41:34
But Borden okay.
2:41:35
So let me just say okay.
2:41:37
I'm just saying that's amazing.
2:41:39
Anyway, the homeless people, something has to be done with Borden Avenue.
2:41:42
You heard this from Timothy and from other people.
2:41:45
It's where, so we we have to be we have to be respected and categorized, in a special way.
2:41:55
Again, with the vendors, the food vendors, these people are talking about the street vendors.
2:41:59
You know, why not?
2:42:00
What are all these all these marijuana stores are going up, illegal marijuana stores.
2:42:04
If they
Robert Holden
2:42:04
Alright.
2:42:05
Alright, Lenny.
Lenny Williams
2:42:06
Veterans get there.
Robert Holden
2:42:07
Lenny Lenny, we gotta move on.
