Clergy gather at York to oppose group homes

Southeast Queens has too many group homes and
facilities within its boundaries, area clergy told
state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last week.
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By Courtney Dentch - Times-Ledger - January 16, 2003

Queens, NY - Citing examples such as the Carlton House homeless
shelter that opened in a shuttered hotel near Kennedy Airport,
the religious leaders, including many from southeast Queens,
asked Spitzer to protect the area from the facilities.

Spitzer met with about 50 members of the clergy at York College
last Thursday in his annual meeting to address community issues
in Queens. Meetings in other boroughs were also scheduled for
this week.

“This is our opportunity at the start of a new term to hear from
you about areas of concern you’ve heard from members of your
church that we may not be focusing on,” said Spitzer, who was
re-elected to a second term in November.

Several religious leaders spoke of problems with group homes,
including crimes, vagrancy, and a general strain on local
resources. Community Board 12, which covers part of southeast
Queens from downtown Jamaica to Kennedy Airport, takes in 12
homeless shelters housing more than 950 families.

“We continue to get our overshare of group homes,” said Dr.
Gloria Black, a deaconess for Amity Baptist Church, and a member
of CB 12. “It creates all kinds of problems. We cannot get to the
right agency to get to a solution.”

A group home can cause deterioration in a community, said
Roderick Ceasar, bishop of the Bethel Gospel Tabernacle Church in
Jamaica.

“It destroys the values of the neighborhoods people are working
to maintain,” he said.

While little can be done to remove a facility once it is in a
neighborhood, Spitzer said his office would look into the city’s
process of placing a home and ask it to consider the number of
group residences already in place in a community.

“You’ve got to be fair,” Spitzer said. “You can’t take all these
facilities and put them all in one area. There needs to be equity
in terms of how can it be done.”

A similar problem arises with recycling or waste transfer plants
in southeast Queens, said Pastor Delroy Murdock of St. Paul’s
United Methodist Church in Jamaica. The area is home to at least
nine stations, he said.

“This is smack in the middle of housing areas,” Murdock said.
It’s 150 feet from a park that’s used by children.”

Calling this an environmental justice concern, Spitzer again said
he would have his office investigate the city’s decisions on
local zoning laws relating to the plants.

“You have less desirable neighbors concentrated in one area,” he
said. “It’s not fair and it’s not right. This is a very real
problem.”

Lois Menyweather, one of Spitzer’s local representatives, also
said some southeast Queens politicians are planning a town hall
meeting to address siting issues involving both group homes and
recycling stations.

Aside from group housing and recycling facilities that seem to
overrun the southeast Queens area, clergy members also raised
questions about emergency room wait times, insurance company
practices and predatory lending.

Spitzer closed the meeting with a promise to return to the area in
about a year to see if the problems had been addressed, he said.

“I’m going to come back and you’ll be able to hold me accountable,” he said.

Courtney Dentch by e-mail at TimesLedger@... or at 229-0300, Ext. 138.
©Times-Ledger 2003
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