Thousands of local residents and businesspeople came out on Saturday, March 16 to protest the proposed homeless shelter at 2501 86^th Street during a rally led by Assemblyman William Colton (D—Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach and Dyker Heights) and City Councilmember Susan Zhuang (D-Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, Gravesend, Dyker Heights, Boro Park and Sunset Park).

Protesters holding signs proclaiming “Help the Homeless by Creating Jobs Not Building Shelters,” “Children’s Safety First! No Homeless Shelter,” and “Yes to Affordable Housing! No to Shelters!” overflowed the intersection of 86^th Street and 25^th Avenue before marching along 86^th Street, accompanied by numerous vehicles which carried similar messages.

“This is the largest gathering I think the neighborhood has seen in many, many years,” proclaimed Assemblyman Colton, continuing, “We are here to say in one clear voice to all our government officials – No more homeless shelters! Homeless shelters are not the solution. The solution is permanent affordable housing. The solution is services. Homeless shelters are an obstacle to that. They use millions and billions of dollars that could be used for the real solution.”

Councilmember Zhuang agreed. “We don’t have enough affordable housing in the neighborhood,” she said. “There are not enough high schools in the neighborhood. There are so many things missing in our neighborhood and the only thing you give us is homeless shelters, which are human warehouses built with taxpayer money. We would like to thank everyone for coming out to put an end to this once and for all.”

The developer of the site, 2501 86^th Street, is Tejpal Sandhu of 86^th Street NY LLC, who was the developer behind the shelter originally planned for 2147 Bath Avenue. According to Assemblyman Colton, the Sandhu Group makes a practice of building so-called hotels in unexpected locations then leasing them to the city at a cost of thousands of dollars per resident per month, all coming from taxpayer dollars.

In this case, Sandhu has filed papers with the city’s Department of Buildings to construct a 32-room hotel with a community facility attached; the city notified the prior councilmember for the area that it plans to use the site as a shelter for 150 single men, many of whom struggle with addiction or mental health issues.

Assemblyman Colton and Councilmember Zhuang have been mobilizing and solidifying opposition to the shelter – which they contend is bad for both the neighborhood and the homeless people who would be housed there – for months. Last month, they launched a task force focused on stopping the homeless shelter from opening at the location.

If the city does not backtrack on the homeless shelter plan, Assemblyman Colton warned that the opponents would continue the fight. “We will come back in bigger numbers, and we’re going to start naming names and explaining the reasons why shelters keep getting built even though they don’t work,” he said.