Craig Evans, spokesman for the Salvation Army’s New…
By Dustin Brown
Salvation Army officials have downplayed concerns by state Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan (D-Ridgewood) and a community advisory board about the management of their veterans’ shelter in Long Island City.
Craig Evans, spokesman for the Salvation Army’s New York region, called the complaints “fairly routine” and not reflective of any major problems at the shelter.
“This is probably as well a run homeless facility as you would find,” he said.
The Borden Avenue Veterans Residence at 21-10 Borden Ave. in Long Island City provides shelter, food and counseling services to more than 400 homeless veterans of the U.S. Armed Services.
Although the shelter began as a cooperative effort between the community and the Salvation Army, Nolan said there has been little dialogue in recent years.
“We’ve been concerned with problems at the shelter on a growing basis for a long time,” she said.
In a Feb. 22 letter to Martin Osterreich, commissioner of the city Department of Homeless Services, Nolan cited a series of shelter residents’ grievances, including sanitary problems, low-quality and small amounts of food, drug use on the site and the sudden removal of the shelter’s director.
“I fear that the residence is revictimizing these men and not providing the necessary services to help the men move to a better life,” Nolan wrote in the letter.
Osterreich wrote back March 28, saying that visits to the shelter showed it to be in compliance with city regulations.
“I thought it was a solid response from the commissioner,” Nolan said. “It was sensitive and it expressed concern.”
Osterreich assured Nolan that sanitary conditions were “generally very good” at the shelter and food was found “to be adequate in quantity, quality and nutritional content.” A plumbing project and a renovation of the shelter’s kitchen had been completed, he wrote.
The shelter opened 12 years ago when Community Board 2 agreed to accept a homeless shelter in the community on the condition that its residents would be limited to veterans.
But at a CB 2 meeting March 1, board member Ronald Casey presented an informal report by the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence Advisory Committee expressing heightened concern over drug use in the shelter’s bathrooms and possible drug dealing on site.
The advisory committee is made up of community members, chosen in part by CB 2, who evaluate the operation of the shelter and offer non-binding recommendations to the Salvation Army.
Residents of the shelter interviewed at random last week agreed that drug use was a perennial problem, especially in the bathrooms.
“You can walk in the bathroom at nighttime and bam — there’s someone in the stall getting high,” said Wayne Cole, a veteran who lives at the shelter.
Al Peck, SA homeless services director, said drugs have always posed a problem at the shelter and the policy has been to call the police when residents are caught using drugs.
“Based on our statistics for the past 12 years, we’ve had about the same amount of people in the shelter with drug problems,” Peck said. “One of the reasons we exist is to help people with their drug problems.”
Peck said the Salvation Army is upgrading the shelter’s computer system, which records how often shelter guards patrol the building, to prove they visit the bathrooms and other areas of the building every 15 minutes at night.
Members of the advisory committee asked for comments from the shelter’s residents at a series of open forums at the end of January. Some 80 veterans rattled off a laundry list of complaints against the shelter, which the committee compiled and shared with the Salvation Army.
The committee only considers about a third of the complaints to be legitimate, Casey said, because residents often complain about rules dictated by the city. For instance, although residents dislike not being allowed to remain in the sleeping area between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., such rules are based on city regulations intended to put the residents back on their feet.
“You can’t just use the shelter as your permanent residence,” Casey said. “It was set up to be a part of your life when you need help, but it was only to be a stage in your life cycle.”
Reach reporter Dustin Brown by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 154.
