6:30 PM on 18 February found me sitting in a foldout chair in the Sunset Park Community Board Office. It was a ridiculously cold evening, and quorum in the neighbourhood is astonishingly high. There were at least eighteen people in the small room, not counting my group-mates, but we were about three short from making the meeting official. Public comment was still made – Sunset Park has a very active community and multiple meetings at any given time, and elected officials or their offices made appearances – and the Housing and Education Committees delivered reports.
Housing Committee Chair Marcela Mitaynes addressed the board on the housing crisis in the neighbourhood. Sunset Park has a family shelter, but it only has six units available. According to recent statistics, 47 of the families who went through the Bronx Intake Centre in 2014 were from Sunset Park; it is unlikely they will return to their neighbourhood. Many families don’t even make it to the shelters; it is estimated that 35% of the community live in severely overcrowded conditions, making Sunset Park the neighbourhood with the highest overcrowding. Families illegally double-up in housing – either as a way to make a bit of extra money by partitioning their homes and renting out rooms, or just as a way to keep friends and family out of the system. Because the neighbourhood has such large immigrant populations, the board believes that it’s possible that they are unaware of their resources.
Some solutions are being considered to this problem: affordable housing could be built over the Sunset Park library, hotels could be used as shelters – and in some cases, already are – or Brooklyn could get an intake centre in the Bedford Avenue Armoury. Building a shelter in Sunset Park would certainly alleviate the issue as well, although Chairwoman Mitaynes acknowledged that there is a stigma surrounding shelters. The argument for the shelter would include the fact that it could be used as a community residential resource.
One of the members of the Education Committee presented on a positive development for the neighbourhood: the NYC Department of Education approved the construction of a new, 676-seat primary/intermediate school in Sunset Park on 3rd Avenue between 59th and 60th St, which is projected to open in 2019. There is a severe deficit of educational facilities in Sunset Park; by 2019, it’s projected that schools will be enrolled at up to 156% of their capacity. The new school would lighten that burden a little.
There are, however, stipulations: first, the committee is still in negotiations with the landowners. Second, due to the overcrowding in schools, a larger building might be a better project to pursue. Third, 3rd Avenue is infamously dangerous, and child safety is a huge concern in the building of this project. The board would like to pursue aid from the Department of Transportation and School Construction Authority to resolve this matter. Accepting the project was meant to have been voted upon at this meeting, but due to the lack of quorum, it was deferred. A resolution is due to the NYC School Construction Authority by 19 March.
