A former synagogue-turned-migrant-shelter has become a political flashpoint in Queens, where area residents who oppose the shelter are colliding with housing advocates and a local Jewish center’s efforts to do their part in providing housing for NYC asylum seekers.
Mayor Adams put out a call last July for houses of worship to help house the thousands of migrants flowing into New York City. Earlier this month, Rabbinical Seminary of America became the latest to answer, offering up the Maspeth Jewish Center, which it owns.
But the neighborhood dispute — which came to a head last weekend as dozens jeered in dueling protests from behind police barricades on opposite sides of Grand Avenue — shows just how complicated that can get.
The shelter is just the fifth house of worship to shelter migrants under the program — which was supposed to involve 50 faith institutions.
The conflict is a small-scale sign of a national divide over how to handle the migrant crisis, with political tensions climbing ahead of the presidential election. Pushback against migrants and shelters has popped up in all corners of New York City, including in Queens Village, Marine Park, Gowanus and on Staten Island.
The mayor’s program is intended to alleviate some of the city’s strain in handling the tens of thousands of migrants in its care.
The program, a two-year partnership with New York Disaster Interfaith Services aims to support 50 faith-based spaces to offer overnight shelter for up to 19 single adult men each.
This particular shelter is in a small synagogue building practically perched atop the Long Island Expressway. It provides beds for 15 men, and only operates overnight, from 7 p.m. to 7 p.m., providing them breakfast and dinner and basic amenities like showers.
Councilmember Robert Holden has been very vocal in opposing the Grand Ave. shelter.
“We don’t know anything about the men in there,” Holden said in an interview. “We don’t know their backgrounds. But more importantly, we don’t know what the plan is here.”
It’s the second such shelter in the district. Another overnight shelter for asylum seekers housing 15 men at the Ridgewood Presbyterian Church has received comparatively little backlash. In an interview on Thursday, Holden said he didn’t know the Ridgewood Presbyterian Church shelter existed.
“I’m not going to play the woke games and just say, ‘Yeah, we accept all of them,’” Holden said. “No, we don’t. We didn’t participate in this. I don’t like the idea of giving handouts to people from all over the world just because they want to come here for economic reasons.”
HOLDEN
Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News NYC Councilman Robert Holden speaks at a press conference outside the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on August 16, 2022. (Shawn Inglima for New York Daily News)
Gary Giordano, district manager of Queens Community Board 5, said it doesn’t seem that the 15 men sleeping at the shelter posed a safety risk to the surrounding area,
“They can go there, get a meal, hopefully a nice hot meal and get a shower, hopefully be able to do their laundry and then sleep there, I believe on cots and then in the morning, have breakfast,” Giordano said. “They are supposed to leave there by 7 a.m.”
Rabbi Meir Glazer, of the Rabbinical Seminary of America, also known as Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim, deferred comment to City Hall.
The city has opened more than 215 emergency shelters in response to the crisis, and around 64,000 migrants are currently in the city’s care.
“Our response has not only required a whole-of-government effort but also included collaboration with nonprofits, community organizations, volunteers, and the faith community. We are exceptionally grateful to all our partners — most recently the Rabbinical Seminary of America — who have stepped up and offered to help,” an Adams spokesperson said in a statement.
“As Mayor Adams has said, it is not enough to be parishioners, we must also be practitioners, and congregations that participate in our faith bed program are doing just that.”
Raquel Namuche, an organizer with the Ridgewood Tenants Union, led the counter-protest last week. She said the backlash to the shelter was unsurprising given the history of strong opposition to shelters in the district.
For a long time, the district was one of the few in the city without a shelter, although in 2020 a men’s homeless shelter opened after a yearslong fight.
Namuche noted that fliers in opposition to the migrant shelter read: “Not here!” and “Stop the illegal invasion”.
“Just from them using these worlds and talking points, you could just tell it was racially motivated,” she said. “… These are hateful xenophobic bigots.”
Namuche, referencing the city’s right-to-shelter mandate, emphasized that anyone, regardless of national origin, should be provided a bed in the shelter system if they need one.
“It’s about keeping certain people out of this neighborhood,” she said of the shelter opposition.
More than 184,000 migrants have come through New York City since spring 2022, when the influx of migrants from the southern border first started to escalate.
