Year-End Review

By the end of January, however, the homeless men and women had all disappeared onto another makeshift encampment rather than a shelter.
From triumphs to tragedies, Queens has experienced a lot this past year. No matter what, though, The Queens Courier was there to report on the tears, laughter, rally cries, puffs of smoke and melodies that took place over the past 12 months. Here are a handful of the more memorable stories we relayed to our readers.
  > Jan 22 to 28 issue
Not All Homeless Seek Shelter
Last January, as temperatures dropped and the number of homeless in shelters reached an all-time high, The Queens Courier reported that in Richmond Hill, a small group of homeless individuals spurned aid from the city, choosing to brook the unbearable cold under a stretch of an abandoned, elevated railway that runs along 100th Street. Residents living near Atlantic Avenue contacted the mayors Community Assistance Unit about a homeless group congregating under the concrete support structures of the old Atlantic rail line, which closed down in 1953 and is now owned by the city.
Ray Carrero, a director of operations at CAU, visited the site and found a man named Rob sleeping at the top of a stairwell, adjacent to a brick wall blockading the one-time entrance to the tracks, at the northern corner of Atlantic Avenue and 100th Street. Other local residents also directed Carrero toward an encampment of another five or six homeless individuals on the southern side of Atlantic, atop a hill that rises to within a few feet of the elevated tracks. Carrero gave the group at the Atlantic Avenue encampment two weeks notice before a crew was scheduled to move in and clean up the makeshift homes. He asked the citys Department of Homeless Services to send outreach teams, and he kept visiting the group and encouraging them to accept city shelter.