Services

Passersby glimpse the turrets of the Bedford-Atlantic Armory long before its hulking stone and brick façade comes into view. But for Crown Heights residents, the daily sight of crowds of bedraggled men leaving the armory to linger on the streets has long overshadowed the building’s impressive architecture.

 

The Armory has served as a refuge for homeless men since 1982, when neighborhoods in all five boroughs lost a battle to keep out large shelters. And now, to the community’s dismay, city officials plan to convert the armory into the city’s intake center, where all homeless men must be processed into the municipal service system before they can seek shelter in any of the five boroughs.  

 

Every day at 8 a.m., the 350-bed shelter is emptied of the men who stay there each night. Officers of the New York City Department of Homeless Services said the square city block occupied by the shelter is kept clear of loiterers during the day with the constant threat of ticketing. But many local residents say the men use the surrounding blocks to sell drugs and to panhandle. 

 

Community groups and elected officials were furious in April when they learned that the armory was selected as the new site of the city’s Homeless Men’s Intake Center, replacing the intake center now located at Bellevue Hospital Center in Manhattan. They have protested at community board meetings and at raucous rallies.

 

Neighborhood leaders said Crown Heights has seen a slow but steady revitalization in recent years, and has welcomed residents in search of cheaper rents from more prosperous neighborhoods to the west, Prospect Heights and Park Slope. But they said a homeless intake center would be a setback for the community.

 

“There’s been a lot of change and it’s getting nice, quiet,” said Abdul Ali, 31, who has run a deli two blocks from the armory for five years. He said he has had confrontations with some men from the shelter. “It’s not just about if this hurts my business. It hurts the neighborhood.” 

 

The current intake center, located at the Bellevue Hospital Center on First Avenue between East 29th and 30th Streets in Manhattan, will be demolished in June 2009 to make way for a luxury hotel and conference center. The intake center processed more than 2,400 homeless men each month, an average of 80 per day, this year, according to government records.  

 

In moving the intake center to Brooklyn, Mayor Bloomberg is departing from his 2004 plan to decentralize the intake process by opening centers throughout the five boroughs. In the current plan outlined by the Department of Homeless Services, the number of beds in the Bedford-Atlantic Armory would be reduced to 230 from 360, a change that department officials said will lower the number of homeless men in the area.

 

Last month, the city also agreed to open an additional intake center in Manhattan, though no concrete plans have been released.  After two weeks of repeated calls and emails, the Department of Homeless Services said it would not comment on the move at this time.

 

“Just because they take away some beds, it won’t matter. Having this constant inflow of people, it will be bedlam,” argued Sandy Targett, a local activist.

 

The Crown Heights Revitalization Movement, a civic group of local residents, has rallied popular support against the intake center. Activists immediately took to the streets in April when they heard about the plan. On June 3, an estimated 200 residents, joined by local community leaders and elected officials, rallied on the steps of the Bedford-Atlantic Armory to protest the move. The group says it has 2,200 letters from citizens protesting the move.

 

Targett, who lives on Prospect Place about six blocks from the armory, said she surveyed her neighbors to gauge their feelings about the planned intake center. “Everyone was completely dismayed,” says Targett, who is a member of the Crown Heights group. “I hadn't realized that such a vast majority would be opposed to it.”

 

Neighborhood advocates say the community already serves a disproportionate share of the homeless population. According to data compiled by the city, Community Board 8, which comprises Prospect Heights and a section of Crown Heights, has five times the number of social service beds, which can include foster home beds and other services, as other Brooklyn neighborhoods.  

 

“If they still try to put an intake center here, even if there is one in Manhattan, we can’t have that,” Targett said. “We can’t handle it. I can’t describe how wonderful this neighborhood is, and how overburdened it is.”  

 

Homeless advocates also are opposed to the plan, calling the move of the intake center from Manhattan to Brooklyn counterproductive. Peter Markee, a senior policy analyst for the Coalition for the Homeless, points out in a policy paper that 58 percent of street homelessness occurs in Manhattan, while only 16 percent occurs in Brooklyn. His group argues that homeless men in need of immediate help will not receive the aid they need if the Bellevue shelter, which holds 600 beds, is shut down.  

 

Residents of Manhattan are equally concerned that closing the shelter will leave more homeless men on the streets in their borough. Both Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer spoke out against the plan at a rally on June 25 at City Hall.  

 

For men who have spent time in the Bedford-Atlantic Armory, the experience leaves something to be desired. Leo Kingsley, 56, has been in and out of the shelter for three years. “It’s not good, not a good place at all. But you have to go in when it gets cold,” he says.  

 

He is also wary of the plan to move the intake shelter.  

 

“The community, they want us out,” he said. “And with more people, it will be worse. With all these new people it will be craziness.”