The Freedom House homeless shelter.
Police raided the Freedom House homeless shelter on West 95th street on Friday, rounding up 22 people with outstanding arrest warrants. The raid follows a spike in burglaries and car break-ins in the area, and it comes after months of complaints by local residents about the shelter.
According to DNAinfo and Neighborhood in the Nineties, the raid occurred at around 4 to 6 a.m. on Friday after police discovered that 35 people at the shelter had outstanding warrants (there are 388 people at the shelter, according to Neighborhood in the Nineties). Police have not released information about the arrests, including names of offenders or charges. Police told DNAinfo that only 10 of the people were arrested, while 12 others were released back to DHS. It’s not clear what will happen to the other people who have open warrants or why the police would not arrest them.
Burglaries have spiked in the 24th precinct, rising 93% this year over the same period last year. The area around the shelter has also seen a rash of car break-ins in recent weeks (the photo at right shows a smash-and-grab from two weeks ago). That apparently precipitated the decision to run background checks on shelter residents.
The arrests raise a ton of questions, and we’re still waiting on the answers: why has DHS reassured residents that security is strong at the shelter even as police now say nearly 10% of the residents have arrest warrants (35 residents out of total shelter population of 388)? Is there any screening done of the people who apply to be in the shelter system to see if police have arrest warrants out for them? Why did the city wait two years to check if residents had open warrants?
Locals have expressed concerns several times about the shelter since it opened without public review in the summer of 2012 under an emergency contract. A nearby shooting, a fire, a television tossed out a window and other incidents have put nearby residents on edge. DHS has assured residents that security is a priority, but it’s not clear whether they’re doing any screening. The shelter is located across the street from the PS 75 playground. As Neighborhood in the Nineties wrote:
“DHS claimed they were taking responsibility for what was happening inside the shelter and its impact but told those present that it could not do anything about crimes and quality of life issues outside of the building. When N90s presented DHS with several issues happening inside the shelter such as noise, months of uncollected trash in alleyways, a TV set hurled onto 95th Street and fighting, their answers were evasive.”
We’ll hopefully be getting more information on the arrests in the coming days.
For those of us concerned about the declining quality of life in our neighborhood, this proves that we CAN make a difference. I encourage everyone to report even the smallest of crimes to the police, and to continue voicing your concerns via emails or phone calls to our local politicians. If your building has a coop or condo board, make them aware of these issues as well. The West 90’s deserves better.
Arresting residents MIGHT help,, but it’s really like arresting easily-replaced low-level street-corner drug dealers or sex-workers RATHER than the big-shots: their drug lords and pimps.
In this case, the “pimps/drug lords” are REALLY THE WHITE-COLLAR FACELESS UN-ELECTED IRRESPONSIBLE BUREAUCRATS WHO RUN THE DHS (DEPARTMENT OF HOMELESS SERVICES)and who have absolutely zero respect for the quality of life in the neighborhoods they ruin!
They deserve to be run out of town! It is up to us to see that they are!
Hey, maybe it’s just time to pack up and leave the increasingly filthy, rat and roach infested, crime rampant UWS? The schools are horrible, the streets are disgustingly filthy and there are drugged out crazies wandering up and down the street with their pants falling down at all hours harassing us. A HORRIBLE place to raise children and low quality of life for the rest of us. TIME TO GO, PEOPLE. There is an actual world outside of the UWS if you’re willing to give up your rent controlled hovels surrounded by drug infested projects, shelters and SRO’s.
And yet so many people choose to raise their children on the UWS. Admittedly, some of those people can afford (or choose) to send their children to private or parochial schools. Yes, there are some blocks here that are less savory and there are crazy people both disadvantaged and over-entitled. It’s not perfect, but no place is.
Would you mind leaving first, please? And take your children with you.
Ha ah, that’s funny Bill. We’re actually moving next door to you so our kids can bounce their soccer balls against your door since I get the sense that you absolutely adore children. Wonder how your 100 cats will like that?
Don’t worry, those not arrested were merely illegal aliens, being granted every form of amnesty, just like diplomatic immunity. Welcome to Progressivism 101.
Hear, hear.
It is beyond my comprehension how this situation is allowed to continue in any neighborhood – as public policy and funded by taxpayers.
388 x 3k/mo = $14 MM a year.
This is just another example of misguided ideas run off the rails by the extremists who control this city.
Let the owner convert the building to another use other then SRO – let it be a hotel, or a normal apartment building. They want to force the owners to keep SROs when in reality their time has passed. The Community needs housing, but normal apartments for people who pay their own way. Enough is enough.
How can you even stand living in that neighborhood? I know that block of 95th St. well. It’s overrun with rats and roaches. and decent, hardworking people who have to pay a minimum of $3,000 market rate are leaving in droves with their children (and without)as you can’t walk down the street or take your kids to the playground without being harrassed and exposed to the insane and the criminal. There are other places to live – you don’t need to be terrorized by thugs and filth. The glory days of the UWS are long gone, believe me.
Oh, yeah…What a Shit Hole!
Why do you call yourself West Side Mom if you hate it so much? Your comments aren’t helpful.
I don’t “hate” the Upper West Side as you suggest, but as a third generation UpperWest Sider trying to raise a fourth generation, I’have a strong basis of comparison with regard to it’s decline on many levels as compared with other neighborhoods. I doubt you share my UWS pedigree but either way it’s really not your place to stifle another’s well placed opinion. All you need to do is leave your rent stabilized apt. and walk across the park or downtown to see what life is like in other neighborhoods.
I smell a troll. You do know that many of us on the UWS — even many of us on the same block as the homeless shelter — pay market rent and do not live in rent stabilized apartments, right? WTF is up with the “walk out of your rent stabilized apartments” and see the world stuff. Please, give us a break.
I am concerned that our neighborhood has gone downhill in the last couple of years, and very much think we need to do something about it ASAP. Nonetheless, it is not nearly as bad as you say. If you really do live here and you really do feel that way, then why on earth are you staying? Why don’t you step out of your “rent stabilized apartment” and find a new neighborhood?
My car window has been broken out twice in the last several months on Riverside between 91st and 96th, including last night. I called the police precinct just now and they told me that I could make a report if I wanted to for insurance purposes, but otherwise it wasn’t particularly helpful because these things happen everywhere.
Is this the 1980s again and we are just supposed to accept it as part of life in New York?
No Way! We have seen that things can be different.
People remember that Linda Rosenthal and Gale Brewer sponsored the bill to stop SRO hotels from being….hotels.
The Owners warned them that they would not be creating more SRO units, but rather an open for other agencies to net lease the buildings for court ordered homeless intake.
And that is what happened. This being the liberal west side, there was no political backlash .
I doubt most people fully understand what their elected democrats are not really democrats , but rather anarchists with an extreme social agenda.
Not a Republican here, but something must be done.
Please file the report, both for yourself and for the neighborhood. Not only will you need it for insurance purposes, but it DOES help. The police and the city need to know about crime in the neighborhood, even if they can’t catch that particular perpetrator. A few years back they drastically reduced the number of police at our precinct. Given the recent crime wave, it’s clearly time for them to increase that number, and they’re most likely to give us the appropriate number if people report all the crimes that occur in the neighborhood.
You are right. Thank you. I will file the report. I do think that these incidents are directly related to the shelter on 95th St. I have lived in the neighborhood for a long time and never had an issue like this before this year. I would like to say that when I return to my (not rent regulated!) apartment on the UWS from other parts of the city, I am so happy that this is my neighborhood. I think it is the nicest part of NYC, and has been a great place to raise my family.
Wow, Gomez, you seem a little hostile there. Yes, I’ve been rent stabilized, market rate, and now coop owner. And are you so UWS paranoid that anyone who thinks it’s not perfect is a “troll”? You must be reading The Billy Goats Gruff as that’s the last time I’ve heard anytime referred to as a “troll”. If you really want to change the UWS I again recommend that you stroll around other neighborhoods, then ask why our streets are so filthy. Sorry, but I’m not fond of rats, roaches and filth.
Agreed. Because multiple people filed reports on the elusive package thief in the 70s a few weeks ago, the police finally took notice, started patrolling, and caught the guy.
100% agreed! Everything from aggressive panhandling to garbage on our sidewalks should be reported. As a community we have the right to demand action from our elected officials and police department. Don’t let anyone tell you that your complaint doesn’t matter.
YOU ALL voted for a Democrat mayor. This is what you get. It is much worse since Bloomberg left. Joe Lhota would not put up with it. West Side Mom may be exaggerating, but beware — the UWS is getting worse, as the police are not acting against mentally ill and homeless with criminal records. This is a fact backed up by statistics.
I love how all the people keep saying that there is a “crime wave” here. It’s actually safer. The only significant increase is burglary. In almost all other categories, especially the kind you need to worry about when walking around (robbery, assault), our precinct has been in a decline year after year.
I agree there seems to be more crazy people roaming around yelling things, but I also believe in facts, and they point out that the neighborhood is safer than ever.
Upper West Side Mom – please feel free to leave. I can send you a link of available apartments anywhere else on earth if you want to save you time.
Here’s a link:
https://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs024pct.pdf
Have a good day imposter from Queens! And thanks for the troll feeding frenzy..I really enjoyed it. Bet you’ll be venting your rage at the police in today’s article on ticketing cyclists. Hope you don’t get run over by one on Columbus as I hear they’re targeting trolls…as in ugly, small men. All this comaraderie has inspired me to stay put after all all, so see you at the island at 96th St. subway where I suspect you’ll be drooling venom and knocking over mothers with strollers on your way to your little job. Over and out!
And here’s a link to the 24th Precinct stats which demonstrate your utterly miserable command of the facts. https://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_statistics/cs024pct.pdf. Rape is up 300% – yes, that’s correct 300% – over a 2 year period and 33% over the past year. Is rape a “crime you don’t have to worry about?” You must at least have a mother. And robbery and burglary are up 66% and 40% respectively over the past 28 days. It’s mind boggling that you find this acceptable, unless you never leave your apt.
So,your solution to the increasing problem is to tell people that are actually knowledgeable to leave? I’m a 3rd generation UWSider whose grandparents arrived here to escape the Nazis and worked long and hard to build the UWS into what it was until just a short time ago. My family has already lived through the dark days of the UWS. And where are you from – New Jersey or NY burbs? And you’ve likely lived her about ten minutes? You should move back using your list as a resource. I hear Alaska is nice.
Wow. There was one more rape this year than last year (4 rather than 3). 1!!! This to you is significant problem to justify your rants?
And why would you only go to the last 28 days for robbery and assault (actually you are wrong about assault, as it went DOWN 40%). Are your rants referring only to the last 28 days??
So again, there is no “increasing problem.”
I lived in the neighborhood for 12 years. Grew up in Astoria Queens. I feel safer now than I ever did in the last 12 years, and the statistics that you ignore PROVE that!!
I’m glad you are so proud to have lived in the UWS your whole life, but no one cares. Just leave already.
Gee, Dad, glad that one extra rape wasn’t your daughter. Once again, you’re wrong on the stats; I’m right. You’re from Queens; I’m from UWS. You’re using lots of caps (indicating a true insane rant;); I’m not. I’ve got a well informed and experienced point of view; You’ve strung together a series of “insane rants” that are hostile and make zero sense and you’re a newcomer. Maybe take that negative energy and go clean the trash off your sidewalk or pick up the syringes from the playground. I bet you’ll be moving back to Queens when the rent gets too high for you here or when your kids get mugged at 96th St. Good riddance!
I should have realized . . .
To quote from G Gomez:
“No point feeding the troll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)“
I can’t believe I am even responding to you but the rape report statistics that you are looking at are the year-to-date numbers, and the numbers are so small that even adding one leads to a 100% increase. So 2 years ago there was one report by this time, last year there were 3, and this year there have been 4. If you look at the full year statistics in the table below you will see that the numbers have been going down.
Hardly worth my time, but what if that one additional woman raped was you, Susan? Would that change your thoughts on the statistic? Yes, you’re correct that the numbers are small, but they’ve been rising over the years, and it’s only May. I just don’t get the attitude on these postings that it’s OK if crime is rising on UWS thanks in part to an increasing population of criminals and unfortunate people with severe mental illness being housed in our neighborhoods. Even if it doesn’t rise to the level of a “crime wave” it took my parents and gparents years of fighting to make the UWS what it (was), so it’s someone else’s turn. Yes, UWS is otherwise lovely and many, many people are the best in NY, but it’s really sad to see the decline in the 90’s and north, despite the huge increase in property values.
Well said, Paul RL.
UWSM, I will take a step gingerly in your corner and say that I think we are are for the most part in agreement that the neighborhood (at least the West ’90’s / Lower 100’s are in decline. But why come out firing and telling everyone to move instead of fighting to make things better? Yes, there are many other places to live but why not support those who wish to make a stand and take action to improve things instead of giving up and moving?
Yep, Susan. No point feeding the troll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
You crack me up Gomez and I bet you absolutely suit the original meaning of a troll before adapted by the online community. Thanks for the laugh!
Citywide shootings are +10% from this time last year. Ohhhh, just wait till the weather warms up. The natives are restless.
There are some selective memories here. The contract with the company that runs the shelter on 95th was a no-bid contract agreed to under the Bloomberg administration. This no-bid contract went to a company that had been cited problems by city auditors with their existing contracts for other shelters. When John Liu, the City Comptroller at the time was lobbied by Neighborhood in the Nineties and other UWS residents, he would not sign the contract. The Bloomberg administration then proceeded to sue as they wanted this contract to be signed. Stop blaming this problem with the shelters on electing democrats.
Although I’m a Bloomberg fan, I have to agree with you, ELJ. This latest disaster happened under his watch. However it must be noted that our traditionally liberal local pols (i.e. Gale Brewer, Linda Rosenthal and their predecessors) helped create a culture that allowed UWS to become a dumping ground for the City’s problems. That said, no community, liberal or conservative, should have to settle for a lousy quality of life due to bad policies. Enough is enough!
Agreed, Paul RL, this is ridiculous. What can we do to help get Freedom House out of the UWS? Will there be a meeting or some kind of organized plan?
Nothing that I know of, but the organization Neighborhood In The Nineties (n90s.org) is de facto representing the West ’90’s with a lawsuit against the City, which helped facilitate a planned reduction in the FH population. Continued pressure MUST be put on our elected officials – CM Helen Rosenthal (who supports a closure), Comptroller Scott Stringer, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, Borough Prez Gale Brewer, and even the ‘Mayor himself. If you have a Coop or Condo Board, get them involved to petition them as well.
G. Gomez, who is in the comment string here, can probably add some thoughts as to other options.
Agree the deal was done under Bloomberg.
The law baring SROs from running as transient hotels (nightly stays) was created by L. Rosenthal and Brewer.
That is fact.
At the very least, those woman should address this problem they created.
You beat me to the punch, Webot!
I think we need to define the UWS. Is it Upper Upper or Lower Upper or Middle Upper? The area covers a lot of ground. No one is moving out in droves in the areas with nannies. The West 90s near Broadway has always been spotty. Location is everything.
Well, “spotty” maybe. But as someone who’s lived on W. 95th for 8 years — For the first six years, I felt very safe here. I never experienced anything creepy on the street, my apartment was very quiet, and as far as I know, there were no thefts in our building. In the last two years, that’s been changing — and very much for the worse.
I know that 20-25 years ago, this area was quite bad, but it had improved dramatically by the time I got here. Unfortunately, it’s moving backwards, and will most likely continue to do so if those of us who live here don’t do something to stop the slide.
I am getting rather tired of paying high taxes to support things such as Freedom House. Time to shut this type of thing down in my opinion.
The area around the 72nd street subway doesn’t look much different than 96th lately. There seem to be more homeless recently at 72nd. In spite of the plethora of affordable housing, the “east” west side in the 90s isn’t experiencing what broadway and west is as a result of the shelter. With Whole Foods and a bunch of other new retail, it is aniceplace to walk these days. Agreed though that Freedom House needs to just go with nothing replacing it.
What can we do to help get Freedom House out?
Keep hammering the local elected officials with emails, and support N90’s if you can.
Of course Bruce Bernstein can’t even twist the logic to defend the awful truth of the shelters.
His silence is deafening.
Keep up the fight my good neighbors.
the people responsible for this are the polititions the rulers of nyc. these people have no choice in life, the illegals took whatever union jobs are left and the rest were outsourced. they are left to live in government detention camps because thats what shelters are. this country was sold to others a long time ago. no housing no jobs what do you expect
shelters are dangerous places for women no one has said anything about that especially for older women that are not on drugs and not committing crimes no one will ever change that either these older women will die horrible deaths..so….. you know what…its the fucking your getting for the fucking you got. what comes around goes around. do have a nice day. love steph