Public hearing on the $42 million 5-year contract that the Dept of Homeless Services is proposing for Samaritan Village to operate a homeless shelter at the former Pam Am Hotel. Many came to testify including Senator Stavisky that the shelter is an unfit facility for suitable living, the secretive process, lacking transparency and utter diregard of the community boards and the residents, as well as missapropriation of funds, malfeasance and illegality of the process itself. Warehousing homeless families in prison-like cubicles at nearly $4000/mo. is a missappropriation of funds that could be better spent by finding these families a real apartment until they can back on their feet. The only ones benefiting from this exploding homeless crisis are the landlords and operators. Opening secret shelters under the guise of an emergency and then making them permanent at exhorbitant taxpayer expense is a travesty of justice and outright discrimination against a hard working immigrant community.
Posted on: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 17:13:06 +0000