1605 Mermaid Ave. – Homeless Shelter in Coney Island. Why Didn’t Justin Brannan Tell Brooklyn?
An eight-story homeless shelter is being planned for 1605 Mermaid Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Residents were blind-sighted by the announcement, which came from an article online, rather than an elected leader.
After Yimby wrote about the homeless shelter, Councilman Justin Brannan shared the article on social media. It sounded like he just heard about this homeless shelter, like the rest of Brooklyn, right?
NYC politicians receive a letter from NYC telling them about the shelter. You can request that letter by filing a FOIL request here:
https://www.nyc.gov/site/doi/contact/foil.page
Justin Brannan talks a good game about affordable housing, but the reality is Councilman Brannan put zero dollars towards housing in Bay Ridge since he has been in office. He could have put some money towards housing to help people in his community!
Strange things about this shelter location:
1) The homeless shelter will be next to a liquor store.
2) Residents shared that Mermaid Avenue and West 16th Street has a history of being where drug dealing, violence and murders have happened for decades so it is an awful location for a shelter.
3) There is a woman’s shelter on Neptune Avenue. Why are they oversaturating a neighborhood that is struggling? When that shelter was planned, Mark Treyger was Councilman and he told the community. (See story below)
4) There is a drug halfway house on Stillwell between Mermaid and Neptune.
5) Parents are upset about the proximity of this location to schools.
6) The article didn’t say what type of shelter this was. Is it a 160 bed shelter for families? I’ve never seen an article leave out the type of shelter.
Gunnveet Sandhu is listed as the owner/developer. He’s the owner of other homeless shelters in NYC. Another Sandhu is opening the homeless shelter on 86th Street and 25th Avenue in Brooklyn.
Community Board 13 wrote this letter to the Commissioner of Social Services. Justin Brannan was cc’ed:
When Justin Brannan failed didn’t tell Coney Island about the homeless shelter, why didn’t Kayla Santosusso, who is running for NYC Council? Or Chris McCreight, who is a Democratic District Leader for the area?
Hugs,
marlene
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