Ongoing efforts to open a homeless shelter in a Brooklyn neighborhood hit a snag Sunday night as police were dispatched against hundreds who turned out to physically block construction vehicles.
(Video Credit: ABC7NY)
For years, locals in the south Brooklyn neighborhood of Bensonhurst have voiced their opposition to a planned 150-bed homeless shelter at 86th Street and 25th Avenue. Once the scene of an alleged biting of an NYPD deputy chief, Sunday featured clashes with police as locals endeavored to block vehicle access ahead of a rumored Monday ground-breaking.
“We’re here to protest this homeless shelter, which is going to bring danger to the neighborhood,” protester Kevin Zhang told the New York Post. “We’ll stay here all night and come back tomorrow night and the night after that and keep coming back until the mayor shuts down construction of this shelter.”
“This is a major thoroughfare that mothers and children and elderly people take every day,” he contended. “The subway is right here. Homeless shelters that house dangerous people need to be in isolated areas, not in the middle of major transportation hubs.”
As was previously reported, District 43 councilwoman Susan Zhuang (D) allegedly bit NYPD Deputy Chief Frank DiGiacomo during a July 2024 protest of the shelter. Charges against Zhuang were later dropped.
Dem NYC councilwoman allegedly sunk her teeth into cop during homeless shelter protest https://t.co/LZZBjzhX0o
— BPR (@BIZPACReview) July 18, 2024
More recent — and civil — efforts to block the project have come via proposed legislation. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, New York state Sen. Steve Chan (R) and Assemblyman Lester Chang (R) have introduced bills to block shelters from being opened within 500 feet of transit facilities as well as schools and churches. The lawmakers also sought to bar homeless shelters from being opened if they are not operated by “houses of worship.”
Contending that the project would be illegal to advance at the current state, Chan told the Eagle, “There is no contract with anybody. The Board of Standards and Appeals challenge that I wrote says that the permit should not have been issued, in accordance with the Department of Buildings’ rules and guidelines.”
He remained “confident that the building permit can be revoked” in the days before construction vehicles began to arrive.
Meanwhile, as one person was said to have been arrested Sunday night into Monday morning, protester Alex Lin put the onus of responsibility for the shelter on Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), telling the Post, “Mamdani thinks he can put homeless shelters in any neighborhood he wants because he wants the homeless to feel like they are home, because maybe being around families will rehabilitate them.”
“He could put shelters anywhere in the city, but he chooses to put them right in the middle of our neighborhood,” said Lin. “He doesn’t care about the danger that they pose to us. Look at all the cops that showed up tonight. Will the cops show up when some homeless drug addict lays his hands on a child?”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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