May 23, 2016 By Michael Florio
The Landing homeless shelter, currently home to 165 families, has transitioned about 30 into permanent housing since it opened almost a year ago near LaGuardia Airport.
Camba, the organization that runs the shelter at 94-00 Ditmars Blvd., visited Community Board 3 last week to give an update on the residents and programs at the Landing.
Camba Senior Program Manager Elizabeth Abdur-Raheem said that 27 families have moved from the Landing into permanent housing since the shelter – formerly the location of the Clarion Hotel – opened last August.
“We moved two families just this week,” she said.
These numbers are far shy of Camba’s ultimate goal to help transition three families to permanent housing per week, or 36 families each quarter. Abdur-Raheem said that it takes time for a shelter to approach those numbers.
“That is a very hefty goal,” she said. “It is possible, but it is something we are always working on.”
To reach this goal, the organization identifies 50 families that have a likelihood of moving and works with them, according to Abdur-Raheem.
The shelter also has programs set up to help residents with employment, such as helping create resumes, employer matching and setting up interviews. Roughly 28 percent of the adults living in the shelter are employed. Abdur-Raheem said that number isn’t higher because many non-working young mothers caring for young children live at the shelter.
The shelter currently houses 165 families. In total that is about 400 people, 110 of whom are children under the age of two, according to Abdur-Raheem. Forty percent of the parents living at the Landing are 25-years-old or younger.
The shelter has about 65 school-age children, with about half of them attending schools in Queens and fewer in zoned schools around the shelter, according to Abdur-Raheem.
The local schools with the most children from the shelter are P.S. 127, P.S. 329 and I.S. 141.
“There is no school that has more than 10 of our children in it,” Abdur-Raheem said.
At full capacity the Landing can hold 169 families, but several rooms are currently undergoing renovations. Each room includes a bunk bed and one to two cribs. The shelter is in the process of installing a kitchen with two burners and a sink in each room.
