UWS Shelter For Kids And Families Closing Hastily After 19 Years

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — Residents within a homeless shelter for families with children that has coexisted smoothly on the Upper West Side for nearly 20 years were told last week that the shelter was abruptly closing and that the move out process would begin by Sunday at the latest.

The Ellington Shelter, at West 111th Street near Riverside Drive, serves as a home to roughly 40 families, who will all have to pack up their belongings into boxes and bags in the coming weeks and move to either a different shelter or permanent housing throughout the city.

The Hotel Ellington was converted into a shelter in 2002.

The Department of Homeless Services told Patch that the decision to close the shelter revolves around the agency's mission to phase out the "stop-gap quick fix shelters of the past, such as commercial hotel locations and cluster sites."

"To that end, over the coming weeks, the City is ending the use of the Ellington as a shelter and will be phasing out the site over the coming weeks," a spokesperson from the Department of Homeless Services told Patch. "As part of this course-of-business process, we will work directly and closely with each of the families currently residing at the site on next steps, helping families who are already connected to permanent housing move into that housing this month, and providing alternative shelter placements to the families who have not yet identified permanent housing that meets their needs or are not yet ready to move, including shelter placements closer to their children’s school where possible.”

A DHS spokesperson told Patch that the residents will all be moved out by the end of June.

"The shelter has existed peaceably on our block for 20 years with some children attending local schools," a volunteer at the shelter told the WestSideRag, which was the first publication to report on the shelter's closing. "The lives of at least 50 women, many with children, have just been thrown into chaos. Many residents have no idea where they will go."

While none of the residents will be displaced back onto the streets, many of the families have lived at the Upper West Side shelter for years — and will have to navigate taking care of children in a new neighborhood and home.

"I think this is an inspiring example of a community that has really embraced their neighbors in a homeless shelter. I am full of admiration for the way the families of the children have been welcomed, and supported, become part of the neighborhood — it is something we should celebrate," Levine told Patch. "While I'm relieved it might not be an immediate closure, I think it will be a terrible loss to shut the shelter down at the end of June and lose what is so special about the community relationship."

Manhattan Borough President reaffirmed the DHS' statement that some of the residents of the Ellington Shelter would get a chance at permanent housing through the move.

“I have learned that the women and families at the Ellington will be provided with opportunities for Tier II housing or permanent housing. Local residents have told me it’s a victory," Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer told Patch. "I urge the community and local block association to partner with a nonprofit to make efforts to purchase the Ellington building to make it into permanent affordable senior housing. We are pleased that Ellington residents will be offered this housing, but the DHS must do a better job of working with families so that moves happen in the least-traumatic way possible for children and families. Moving families should never be taken lightly.”

The DHS said that there were no plans to move a new group into the Ellington Shelter and also did not specify where the families and women would now go.