A homeless shelter provider is eyeing a Norwood property that rests across from PS/MS 20 as his next shelter, sources told the Norwood News.

But the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS), which offers multi-million dollar contracts to nonprofit shelter providers, hasn’t drafted a contract, according to the agency.

News of the proposed site, currently Sam’s Floor Covering at 3041 Webster Ave. near Mosholu Parkway North, caused widespread panic among stakeholders who have demanded that specialized housing be kept to a minimum along the Webster Avenue corridor.

The proposal conflicts with and appears to undermine long-term plans to transform Webster Avenue into a bustling corridor complete with storefronts. The plan was inspired by the 2011 rezoning of 80 blocks of Webster Avenue between East Gun Hill and Fordham roads. Today, that plan has somewhat born fruit, with construction of new affordable housing with a mandated first floor storefront under way along the Norwood portion of Webster Avenue. A shelter on Norwood’s portion of Webster Avenue could weaken the neighborhood’s position as an affordable housing destination, residents argue.

Supportive housing, which offers services to a specific population, has also sprouted in Norwood. Those sites are exempt from building any storefront, holding back the potential for a vibrant commercial strip while drawing rancor from local Community Board 7. The latest site by Concerned for Independent Living opened in late spring.

Property
The property is currently Sam’s Floor Covering, a successful family-owned business for decades. The store’s owner told the Norwood News there’s only ongoing talk about the building’s future, though he declined to elaborate.

But sources say interest is coming from Eduardo Laguerre, CEO for Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural Affairs (NAICA), a Bronx-based social services nonprofit group and developers of homeless shelters. The 42-year group did not return calls to request comment.

NAICA is no stranger to controversy.

The group set up housing for homeless men at the troubled Van Corltandt Motel in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. One of the attendants was accused of two robberies early this year. They were later replaced with homeless women and children, though still drawing ire.

Several years ago, Laguerre was caught submitting a phony petition to the Office of the Bronx Borough President, telling the office that residents of Borinquen Courts preferred his group assume management duties at the building.

NAICA owns at least four shelters in the Bronx, records show. A review of NAICA’s shelters shows it has a total of 23 violations, less egregious compared to other Bronx shelters.

Close to School
Compounding the proposal is the location of Sam’s Floor Covering, across the street from PS/MS 20, a kindergarten through eighth grade school. Its proximity immediately troubled some parents picking up their children at the school on Oct. 11.

“It might not be a good idea right across the street from the school. Any other place in the neighborhood, but not right across the street,” said Jeannie Ahearn, a mother of a student attending the school.

Norwood does indeed have a cluster site shelter, a practice of housing homeless inside apartment buildings, on the opposite side of the neighborhood at 15-19 West Mosholu Parkway North.

While Cecil Ramirez, a father of three, characterized the proposal as making “no sense for the kids,” Ousmane Diallo, a grandfather, worried how students are “going to feel if they see” homeless people near the school.

Adelaide Morales, a grandmother picking her child up at the school, wondered how parents would be notified if changes were under way. “They need to hold a meeting before it goes up,” Morales said. “Because my son will probably have a lot of concerns about it. They should be notified and let the parents know what’s going to happen.”

But community notification of a shelter’s arrival isn’t a requirement for DHS, which operates as a shadowy agency, often shuttling the homeless to a shelter overnight. The practice roils Councilman Andrew Cohen, whose district covers Norwood and Riverdale. “They sneak a shelter into a neighborhood in the middle of the night with no community notice or community involvement. We are left totally in the dark, and that is simply unacceptable,” Cohen said in a statement. “Sadly, this is the way DHS seems to be operating these days.”

Shelter contracts can prove lucrative for nonprofit developers, who receive millions of dollars to operate a shelter. Shelter costs depend on the shelter’s arrangement, with developers receiving daily remunerations of upwards of $100 per bed for family shelters or $78 per bed for adult-only shelters. Most shelters can be built “as-of-right,” requiring no approvals from the local community board that overlaps with the shelter.

Barbara Stronczer, a Community Board 7 member and president of the Bedford Mosholu Community Association, said to build the shelter is “unfair to residents and the developers who are building according to the specifications of the rezoning plan.”

Stronczer warned “Bedford Park and Norwood residents would not sit back and allow a shelter to open opposite their neighborhood school.”

But getting much sympathy from Mayor Bill de Blasio, still working on finding homes for the whopping 64,000 homeless still on the streets, will be tough. At a recent news conference reacting to community opposition of a shelter in Maspeth, Queens, Mayor de Blasio said the responsibility to house the homeless is “everyone’s problem.”

“And I told them that I welcome their pickets as many times as they want because I will happily stare them down,” de Blasio said. “We are going to put a roof over people’s heads.”

admin

Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.