Thirty Maspeth residents met members of the deBlasio administration this morning in front of the Maspeth library to express concern over plans for the city to take over the 115-room Holiday Inn Express off Maurice Avenue off the Eastbound Service Road of the LIE for use as a homeless facility for adults.
Last week the mayor’s office first came out with the idea and planned to meet with local representatives at the library Wednesday, August 3rd for what they considered to be ‘input’ on the idea.
“They have all these ideas about what we can ‘take’ but they don’t understand our resolve as a neighborhood force,” said Michael LoCascio, member of Community board 5 in Queens before the meeting.
Michael, along with dozens of Maspeth residents, lined up in front of the library to voice concerns over the plan to use the hotel rooms for more than 200 homeless. Senator Addabbo, Councilwoman Crowley and Assemblywoman Markey were expected to attend the meeting to voice concern as well.
The six-floor hotel at 59-40 55 Road, built in 2012, has 115 rooms including suites has a list price of $189 per room and includes a free breakfast. Although some guests have rated the service and stay as average at best the hotel rates a 2.5 stars on the more popular travel sites.
Word of the plan swiftly spread among Maspeth civic leaders Tuesday and they quickly galvanized a group to hear it for themselves. Maspeth leaders said they plan to have a meeting somewhere near the facility next week. Stay tuned to this blog for the time and date.
De Blasio has been doing this all throughout the city. BDe Blasio doesn’t care what the community thinks. He will invoke an emergency which sidesteps a great deal of procedure and the community. The elected officials will give political speeches about stopping it. If they really care about stopping the shelter they can file against de Blasio in court when the time comes.
This will be detrimental to our neighborhood. This hotel, in question, is right beside a playground which the young children, in this still relatively safe neighborhood, play in. This will make the neighborhood an unsafe area as well as bring down the value of our homes. Please reconsider your location.
I recommend that Maspeth residents make a petition and gain signatures in protest to this idea. This is a hotel in a residential neighborhood, not a living facility that homeless people actually require. Who is profiting from this?
Please sign and share the petition.
Hey debono head stop ruining our communities. Why don’t you out then in your backyard. Now we really know who you are for
This proposed homeless shelter is 800ft from the only public park in the area and just 1000ft from two public shoools!
Housing so many homeless people in one place is not a good idea to begin with. Plus the location is far away from public transportation. The end eresult will be the homeless residents will loiter the surrounding area, namely the park where kids play and clsoe to the nearby schools where 100\’s of K-12 students have to share the streets with these people. Some of them are surely dangerous individuals and child molestors.
Why are armed guards needed for the shelter? Simply because when you house together so many people with special needs violence is to be expected.
The mayor cares not for hard-working class citizens of Maspeth. This is a highly irresponsible decision. One has to question the mayor\’s motives. Why did the city buy a failing Holiday Inn? Are bribes invloved? One has to wonder. An investigative journalist need to examine all the contracts involved.
Regardless, the citizens of Maspeth should not tolerate this, if the mayor wants to house these people he should do it in his OWN neighborhood. Queens residents have had enough of the mayor dumping his unwanted to hard working citizens of Queens.
Mayor di Blasio, destroy your own neighborhood, not ours!
Bad location for the shelter bad business for city….
This hotel is located in the area without any public transportation.
There is a big chance that city will create a prison rather than shelter. In addition, if city is planning to pay $60 per room per day that means roughly $1,800.00 a month. For this amount of money you can rent whole 2-3 bedroom apartment in Maspeth.
Last year, I was told by a neighbor that an Elmhurst resident saw a group of people w. suitcases standing at corner Grand Ave. & 84 ST. Thinking they needed directions, resident offered to help. Was told they were from Pan Am shelter, weren’t allowed to stay there during the day & had nowhere to go. At least they were near subway if they wanted to look for work.
So how does making the shelter residents walk the streets aimlessly all day, with all their belongings, help them?