The people of Maspeth are joining together to save their community against potential homeless shelter.
MASPETH, Queens-In a normally quiet and calm middle class neighborhood, the people of Maspeth have been red in the face for over a month in a fight against a city plan converting the Holiday Inn Express at 59-40 55th Road into a homeless shelter.
Maspeth is known to be a good place to raise a family. There are several beautiful parks, schools ranging from elementary to high school, and low crime rate.
“Twenty-three years ago, I was looking for a house in an affordable neighborhood with good schools where I could raise my three children,” says Rose Celentano. “Maspeth was that neighborhood.”
Celentano and other residents now fear their “family-orientated community” will be affected if the Holiday Inn is turned into a homeless shelter.
Maspeth residents pride themselves in their beautiful neighborhood. Unlike many nearby neighborhoods, Maspeth does not have alternate side parking, meaning, residents must clean up after themselves. When one walks down the streets of Maspeth, front yards are clean tailored and the sound of children’s laughter echoes for blocks. One always feels safe. With new plans to convert a nearby hotel into a homeless shelter, residents fear the aspects they love about their community will fade away fast.
What these residents want people to know, though, is that they’re not against the homeless- they are against the location of this particular shelter. The Holiday Inn is located in “Industrial Maspeth,” meaning it is in an isolated part of town. There is no public transportation, nowhere close one can find a job, and there aren’t even kitchens inside these hotel rooms. In other words, it isn’t an ideal place to house the homeless.
Maryann Lattanzio has called Maspeth her home for nearly 30 years. She has been involved in this fight to preserve Maspeth, as she sees it, from day one.
Lattanzio often wears a white T-shirt with bold black letters spelling out “NO HOMELESS SHELTER” across it while she runs errands. She attended the community board meetings and has stood outside of P.S. 229 handing out flyers urging residents to speak out against the shelter. Lattanzio has joined arm in arm with her passionate neighbors who have been protesting outside the Holiday Inn on 55th Road for the past month. Barricades enclose them but their voices echoes for blocks.
Maspeth residents have done their research, and can list off the changes homeless shelters have brought into other neighborhoods. There are two hotels that have been converted into shelters nearby in Elmhurst: the Metro Motel and the Pan American. The local streets have become littered with needles and drug baggies.
The biggest concern with the Holiday Inn’s proposed conversion are the location and the fact that those living in the hotel will have to be out from 7 am to 7 pm.
“The Holiday Inn is supposed to be for adults only,” Lattanzio says “They are not allowed in the hotel during the day- that means they are sleeping on our park benches- like Maurice Park, only a block away. There is a high amount of mentally ill people who tend to self-medicate with drugs. In the Pam Am homeless shelter, I was told that there are dirty needles on the floor. Do we want our parks where our children play infected with dirty needles? This is not fair to the children and families in our neighborhood.”
Lattanzio, along with many Maspeth residents, fear the Holiday Inn shelter will impact their neighborhood the way the two shelters impacted Elmhurst. They also believe that converting hotels into homeless shelters is not a solution.
“DeBlasio is not giving the homeless any opportunity to get out of their situation by placing them in Industrial Maspeth,” says resident Joe Gudonis.
Gudonis goes on to say that this housing situation is just a “Band-Aid,” covering up a more serious problem: affordable housing. Placing homeless people in hotel rooms is a short term solution to decrease the number of those living on the streets. Lattanzio believes something more needs to be done.
“The Holiday Inn is not a good option because these people need homes, not hotel rooms. There are no kitchens to cook in and it is the law that homeless shelters must have kitchens. I feel sorry for the homeless people and a hotel is not fair for them. They need low cost housing- Section 8. There are so many Section 8 housing units that are empty. I was told the city would be paying $2,000 per room- you can get an apartment in Maspeth for $1,300 per month- that is a saving of $700. We have no objections to a homeless family in an apartment in Maspeth. Put families in homes- not hotels”
According to PIX 11, there has been recent talk that the owner of the Holiday Inn, Harshad Patel, has called off his plans to convert his hotel into a shelter. Lattanzio believes residents are responsible for this.
“The owner of the hotel agreed to back out because of our protest,” Lattanzio says, “The people of Maspeth have fought hard to save their community- but the fight is not over yet.”
