Competing protests agree – ‘No migrant shelter at Creedmoor’
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Elected officials, including City Councilmember Linda Lee, Assemblymembers Ed Braunstein and David Weprin and State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, pushed back against plans to bring a 1,000-bed migrant shelter to Creedmoor inside a local senior center on Thursday, July 27, 2023. Eagle Photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
The area near Creedmoor Psychiatric Center became the site of two rallies on Thursday, as locals and elected officials protested the city’s plan to bring a massive tent shelter for asylum seekers to the long-abandoned campus.
The rallies came a day after the city officially announced plans to build a 1,000-bed shelter for adult male migrants at the site, despite local pushback voiced a week prior. Although neither groups of protesters on Thursday wanted the shelter to be built, their reasons for opposition to the mayor’s plan differed.
One rally was held inside a local senior resource center and organized by Northeast and Central Queens elected officials, who said that they felt Creeedmoor, and its distance from public transportation, is not an adequate site to house migrants.
“Creedmoor is not the place to dump 1,000 people,” said State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky.
Stavisky and others said that they believe the future migrant site will be an “inhumane situation.”
Stavisky spoke alongside Assemblymembers David Weprin and Ed Braunstein, as well as City Councilmember Linda Lee who spearheaded the rally and the previous one last week.
“There are environmental issues, there's transit desert issues, there is no transportation, there's no railway, there's no subway,” said Lee, who has also expressed concern about getting other resources like air conditioning and water to the site, which will be built on a Creedmoor parking lot.
Lee’s sentiments, particularly in regards to the site’s isolation, were echoed by her elected colleagues.
“There's nothing here,” said Braunstein, “There's no services that the asylum seekers who are going to be staying here will have…and quite frankly, I don't think that they're going to even want to be here.”
The elected officials’ rally took place inside a local Services Now For Adult Persons, or SNAP, senior center, which they believe will have a hard time operating with the shelter in place.
“Having the migrants here is one issue, but before they get here, do you realize the displacement that is going to happen on this campus and the disruption of everything that's going on?” said the center’s president, Paola Miceli. “With all of the construction trucks, supply trucks, everything coming in and out all hours of the day and night.”
Micelli says she’s worried the shelter could hinder SNAP’s ability to do its Meals on Wheels program, and its operation as a cooling center during the summer.
“These are critical operational issues that can put SNAP out of business,” she said.
Outside and across Hillside Avenue from the SNAP Center, several dozen locals from community groups as well as the Queens Village Republican Club, hosted their own rally.
“I don’t want illegal immigrants,” said Ira Harris from the Queens Village Republican Club, who expressed worries about crime in the community.
Not far from local lawmakers’ rally against plans to bring a migrant shelter to Creedmoor, a separate rally hosted by a number of civic groups and Republican leaders also protested the plan. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
Harris also said he was frustrated that taxpayers are picking up the tab for the crises, with the city spending around $1.5 billion on the crisis thus far – the Creedmoor site will be funded by the state.
Others were worried about local bus routes filling up, and voiced unfounded concerns about the safety of the seniors and Little League baseball players who often gather near the site of the future shelter.
One community civic leader passed around Lee’s office phone number and told people to “burn down the phone lines” with calls expressing their disagreement with the planned shelter.
“My main concern now, if this is going to happen, what about 24 hour security?” said Glen Oaks Co-Op President Bob Friedrich, who was present at both rallies. “This is a disaster, it's a powder keg, something is going to give.”
Inside, Lee distanced herself from some of the comments being made outside.
“People can have all sorts of views and opinions on how they feel about the asylum seeker crisis, this is not about xenophobia, I’m not going there,” she said.
Both groups agreed, however, that the city needs to do more to get information out about the shelter plans.
“It's ridiculous to me that this is happening without any of the community members, elected officials and leaders being part of the conversation or knowing what is happening,” Lee said.
“We need more transparency, we need more communication about what the details are.”
“Right now we know nothing,” she added. “We know nothing.”
A City Hall spokesperson did not respond to the Eagle’s request for comment on Thursday.
In the past year, around 93,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City.
In that time, the city has opened up 190 shelters and a little more than a dozen Humanitarian Emergency Referral and Response Center, otherwise known as HERRCs.
The Creedmoor site is slated to become the city’s 14th HERRC.
