Questions Swirl over New Plans for the Old Calhoun School that Will Now House Homeless Women

The city and its non-profit partner sought to reassure residents of W. 74th street that the women’s shelter they are planning for the old Calhoun School will be a “good neighbor” that would actually improve security on the block and be no more disruptive than any other residence, like the luxury apartments residents had been expecting.

The officials offered these assurances to a meeting of Community Board’s 7’s social services committee, which also heard from residents concerned that the shelter would disrupt the block and from others who felt it was a civic obligation to help the 146 women who would use it.

Noelle Withers, the Acting President & CEO of the non-profit that will operate the shelter, Volunteers of America, said the group had signed an agreement with the city to run the shelter for nine years. She said the group, which was founded in New York more than 100 years ago, had developed productive relationships between neighborhoods and other shelters it runs, including four on the Upper West Side.

She noted that there are more than 92,000 men, women and families living in city shelters, double a decade ago, in part because of the influx of migrants. “Even as the city places record numbers of people into permanent housing, the placements have not been able to outpace the number of people coming into the shelter system,” Withers said.

The ultimate answer is permanent housing, she added. “However, with the numbers this high and rising there is still a need for temporary shelter beds while the permanent supportive housing and affordable housing development catches up with demand.”

This was in part a response to residents who have said they are concerned about the shelter but would be okay with converting the school to affordable housing.

The city noted this shelter was for existing populations of single women, not migrants.

One voice missing from the meeting was that of the owner and developer of the site, Bayrock Capital, which bought the building at 160 west 74th street from Calhoun last summer for $14 million. At the time that Cushman & Wakefield brokered the deal, it was announced that the building would be converted to luxury apartments.

But late last year the plan changed.

“There was a clear bait and switch about this process,” said a neighbor, Elliot Shildkrout. “When we first heard about it it was going to be converted into regular housing and into condominiums. Then, all of a sudden it became a shelter, shocking the neighborhood and we didn’t have a chance to get organized. Which is really a problem about how we think about this.”

Neither Withers nor the city official present, Marricka Scott-McFadden, of the Department of Social Services, shed any light on this, each saying their principle relationship was with the other, not the developer. Scott-McFadden did say that concerns about construction could be addressed to the city and Withers said the lease to use the building would be at least as long as the agreement to run a shelter there, nine years.

Withers said the shelter would have around the clock security, with at least two and sometimes four licensed security guards along with the regular staff. There will also be surveillance cameras inside and out.

“We do think that both the building and the block, the local community, will benefit from some of the other security mechanism that we will have in place,” Withers said.

“We take the safety of our residents, our staff and our neighbors very seriously and will do everything in our power to make sure everyone is safe both inside the building and outside the building,” she said. “People who experienced or are experiencing homelessness are far more likely to have been the victims of violent crimes than to have bene the perpetrators of violent crimes, especially when we are talking about women.”

She said residents would not be allowed to congregate in front of the building. But that only stirred concern when she described the lounge being planned for the back of the building, in an area that had been a play yard for the school kids.

“There’s going to be a ton of noise and it’s going to disrupt what is a very congenial, beautiful part of the upper west side,” Shildkrout complained.

“That’s something we are trying to work through with the builder now,” Withers replied.

“We are talking through options to make it more soundproof... We want to have a space where the women can congregate outside, that’s not in front of the building.”

The plan, she said, is a facility that “will bring in as much noise as any other residential building.”

Many of the exchanges involved passionate, but polite, exchanges about priorities and obligations.

“I live on 74th Street,” said Eric Ludlow, “I’ve heard a lot of stuff tonight. But what I haven’t heard is how is this going to benefit my neighborhood? It sounds like, yea, the milk of human kindness runs in our veins. But can you enumerate or quantify how this is going to actual benefit the neighborhood? I’m just hearing how this will benefit these needy people.”

“That’s an interesting question,” Scott-McFadden replied. “I moved into a new neighborhood, and I don’t think anyone ever asked me what I was bringing to the table. The goal from our perspective is to seamlessly blend into the community and become neighbors. If you come from that Mr. Rogers generation, like I did, you just hope to be good neighbors.”

Withers said they expected to open the shelter this fall or winter.