Officials decry conditions at Queens veterans’ shelter

Residents say issues persist at the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence in Long Island City. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach 

By Ryan Schwach

Lawmakers said Wednesday that they remain concerned about conditions inside the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence in Long Island City, several weeks after the city pulled out of a federal program that funded the shelter and a week after two Queens officials were turned away when they tried to enter the building.

Elected officials told the Eagle that residents inside the shelter complained about poor living conditions, security problems, drug use and violence after an announced tour of the shelter on Wednesday.

“A lot of the consistent problems that my colleagues have talked about were still there,” Staten Island Councilmember Frank Morano, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Veterans, told the Eagle outside the shelter.

Morano said he witnessed leaking pipes that had been covered with tarps and crowded barracks that provided little privacy to the veterans living there.

“I don't think it's too much to ask for people that have served our country to have a little bit of dignity and a little bit of privacy,” he said.

The Staten Island Republican also remarked that the cubicle-like rooms residents sleep in were smaller than jail cells.

“I've been to quite a few jail cells, and they're much more spacious,” he said.

The shelter is contracted by the city and the Department of Homeless Services, but is operated by the Institute for Community Living.

Morano toured the shelter alongside Congressmember Nydia Velazquez on Wednesday afternoon, days after local Queens Councilmembers Julie Won and Phil Wong were not allowed into the shelter when they tried to enter unannounced.

The two Queens lawmakers declined to attend the Wednesday tour in person, but representatives from their offices were present. They said they skipped the tour because they believed they would get a more polished look at the building rather than a view of the day-to-day life that veterans there actually live.

“This facility continues to be in deplorable condition despite advocacy from our offices and our predecessors for the last decade,” the two said in a joint statement. “The veterans who live there deserve far better than a staged presentation.”

Morano said the “staged” tour is likely what they got.

“It looks relatively clean, but honestly, I think that the way conditions are today isn't necessarily the way that we should be judging how the conditions are on a regular basis,” he said. “It's not necessarily the best way to judge.”

The elected officials said they were told that the facility’s occupants were instructed to clean up earlier this week ahead of the tour given by Department of Social Services Commissioner Erin Dalton. They were reportedly given upgraded food options as a reward.

The City Council’s Committee on Veterans plans to hold an oversight hearing on the conditions at the shelter on Oct. 21.

“We're going to go through the litany of complaints,” Morano said.

The tours of the shelter came several weeks after Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration pulled the city out of a federal funding program that the shelter, which serves around 200 veterans, benefited from. The city said it left the program after learning that the Trump administration would have required them to discriminate against transgender veterans as a condition of taking the money. The shelter, which also receives city funding, has been propped up by the federal program for two decades.

‘It can be hard’

Residents of the shelter and veterans’ advocacy groups that spoke to the Eagle Wednesday described deplorable conditions inside the LIC facility.

“People do drugs, they're selling drugs,” Vladimir Tereshin, a Russian-born Navy veteran, said. “They got no supervision at all. Especially during nighttime, they're not interfering with this. They don't enforce the DHS’ policies, rules and regulations.”

Tereshin said that there are often fights, and that the police are called multiple times a week. He and other veterans described being served “disgusting food,” which one resident compared to dog kibble.

Queens Congressmember Nydia Velazquez and Staten Island Councilmember Frank Morano toured the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence on Wednesday a week after two local councilmembers were turned away.  Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach

“It's not real food,” Tereshin said. “There is no protein at all.”

There is a kitchen on site, but multiple vets and advocates said it is rented to a cooking class and is not used for the residents of the building.

Alex Taveras, an Army veteran who served in Baghdad, said that he and many of his fellow residents have also had trouble getting federal housing vouchers while living in the shelter, requiring them to stay there longer.

“It can be hard at times,” he said.

Taveras came to the city from Florida to directly seek out the voucher, which was being offered in New York State. He claims that caseworkers let the housing voucher he was given lapse without finding him a better placement, and that he is awaiting another one.

The issues are widespread, advocates said.

“We have residents that told us they haven't eaten in a week,” Michael Matos, the founder of the group Five Borough Veterans, said. “We have residents that told us that they've been victim to sexual assault and sexual abuse. We have residents that told us that they have urination bottles.”

On Tuesday, Mamdani was asked about the federal grant money, and said the rejection of the grant did not hinder services provided at the shelter.

“We need to make sure that veterans continue getting that support that they need on the services component, and that's why we're here,” Department of Veterans’ Services Commissioner Yesenia Mata told the Eagle on Borden Avenue. “We're here to listen.”

DHS did not respond to a request for comment.