City moving in to address Bay Ridge homeless issue, Gentile says

Advocates visit Leif Ericson Park encampment

September 22, 2016 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Leif Ericson Park in Bay Ridge has been the focus of attention in recent weeks from advocates for the homeless. Eagle photo by Paula Katinas

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The de Blasio Administration is taking steps to address a homeless problem in Bay Ridge, according to Councilmember Vincent Gentile, who said an advocacy group that works with the Department of Homeless Services has visited Leif Ericson Park to help people living in encampments find places to live.

“The homeless encampment will be cleaned up in Leif Ericson Park,” Gentile told Community Board 10 at a meeting in Bay Ridge on Sept. 19.

Gentile told the board that advocates from the non-profit group Breaking Ground were scheduled to pay another visit to Leif Ericson Park on Sept. 20 to assess the homeless situation and assist homeless people.

Leif Ericson Park is located between 65th and 67th streets and stretches from Third Avenue to Fort Hamilton Parkway. At several secluded locations within the sprawling park, homeless people have set up encampments, according to Bay Ridge residents, who have expressed their concerns to Board 10 and to local elected officials.

Breaking Ground, which sponsors supportive housing for homeless people, operates more than 3,500 housing units in New York City and other places, according to the organization’s website, www.breakingground.org.

The nonprofit group is also contracted by the Dept. of Homeless Services to provide round-the-clock homeless outreach efforts in all of Brooklyn and Queens and in parts of Manhattan.

Bob Capano, a former Bay Ridge resident who attended the Board 10 meeting, said local officials reported that there has been a 269 percent increase in calls to 311 about homelessness in the Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights areas.

Capano, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the city needs to take action, and fast. Capano, a Republican, said he is considering running for City Council.

“The reports at the community board meeting were not a surprise and only confirm what so many have been saying; a homeless crisis has returned to our city. We see it on our streets with the homeless encampments, on our sidewalk benches, in our parks, and on our subways. Mayor de Blasio and his administration need to go back to the drawing board and come up with a comprehensive approach to address this crisis that has returned under his watch, especially as the winter months approach,” he told the Brooklyn Eagle.

While the numbers of homeless people in Bay Ridge are low compared to the rest of the city, the numbers are on the rise, Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann told the Eagle earlier this year.

But the calls coming into Board 10’s office about homelessness are not complaints, Beckmann said. “People are concerned and they want help for the homeless,” she said.

The homeless tend to gravitate to local parks, Beckmann said. In addition to Leif Ericson Park, they have been spotted sleeping on benches in Steadman Square on Third Avenue and 67th Street, in Fort Hamilton Memorial Park on Fifth Avenue and 94th Street and in Tom McDonald Triangle on Sixth Avenue and 83rd Street.