College Point Shelter To Open As Women-Only Amid Backlash

COLLEGE POINT, QUEENS — The College Point homeless shelter will open this week as a women's-only facility, officials said Monday.

The 200-bed shelter at 127-03 20th Ave. is scheduled to open Oct. 2, according to a spokesperson for State Sen. John Liu.

Originally slated to house single men and open in September, the shelter has drawn heated objections from College Point residents and elected officials ever since the city's Department of Homeless Services announced the plan in late 2018.

Residents had told the agency that the neighborhood's lack of public transportation made it an inappropriate place for the shelter and voiced concerns for the safety of the roughly 3,000 students who go to school in the area, according to the Queens Chronicle.

But officials framed the shelter's switch from all-male to all-female as a win.

"From the outset, the residents of College Point have been unequivocal that a shelter for 200 single men would be wholly inappropriate for this residential site in close proximity to several schools," State Sen. John Liu said.

"Although the plan is by no means perfect, we are satisfied that a far better outcome has been achieved," he added.

Lauren Anchor, who said she lives a block away from the shelter, pushed back on that rhetoric.

"I do not find having women instead of men as a "win" at all," she said. "It's a lose-lose situation and will slowly destroy our neighborhood and quality of life."

Mayor Bill de Blasio has pledged to build 90 new homeless shelters under his 2017 plan, "Turning the Tide on Homelessness in New York City."

But, like other proposed homeless shelters across the city, the College Point shelter faced fierce neighborhood opposition from the beginning.

City Council Member Paul Vallone, who represents northeast Queens, started a petition to stop the city from putting the shelter in College Point, which he said "has had well beyond its fair share of municipal services dumped on it by the City."

More than 5,000 people signed on to the petition.

Then a group of locals calling themselves the College Point Residents Coalition hired a lawyer and filed suit in May to block the city from opening the shelter, The Real Deal reported.

The shelter's owner, Liberty One Group, is among the city's top private homeless shelter owner, an analysis by The Real Deal found.

Yonkers-based non-profit social services agency Westhab will run the shelter, according to the Department of Homeless Services.