Queens lawmaker looks for answers about Flushing temporary shelter
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City Councilmember Sandra Ung is looking to the city for answers about alternatives to a temporary housing facility set to be built in Flushing. Photo via City Council/Flickr
BY JACOB KAYE
A proposed temporary housing facility in Flushing is again facing questions this week after a Queens councilmember asked the city about alternative housing options at the site.
City Councilmember Sandra Ung, who represents Flushing, Murray Hill, Queensboro Hill and Fresh Meadows, wrote a letter to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development on Monday, asking about programs and other funding options to support the building of affordable housing at 39-03 College Point Blvd.
The site, which is currently vacant, is slated to be home to the neighborhood’s first temporary housing shelter, which would house families on the brink of homelessness and offer them services to find permanent housing.
“I am reaching out to your agency to request information on what type of affordable housing programs and financing options could be utilized at this particular site to realize a viable affordable housing project instead of a transitional housing facility,” Ung wrote in the letter.
The temporary shelter is being spearheaded by two nonprofits – Asian Americans For Equality and the Urban Resources Institute – and the Department of Homeless Services.
In the letter, Ung said she previously spoke with representatives from AAFE and was told that while the city would provide funding to support the creation of the temporary housing facility, it wouldn’t offer enough funds to support the building of affordable housing.
“AAFE conducted an internal review of available city-administered housing programs and financing streams, and found with the options available, there would be a funding gap that makes developing affordable housing unrealistic,” Ung said.
HPD offers a number of support programs to affordable housing developers, including the NYC Acquisition Fund, which offers a loan to public-private affordable housing projects led by minority or women-owned developers or nonprofits, and the Community Land Trust initiative.
An HPD spokesperson declined to comment on which programs might fit for the site but told the Eagle it would soon be providing Ung with a response.
“Collaboration and nonprofit partnerships are cornerstones of our affordable housing work,” said Jeremy House, the HPD spokesperson. “However, HPD is not involved with the planning for this private site.”
AAFE says the 90-unit transitional housing building will be designed to temporarily house families and provide them with services as they work to stabilize their lives and find permanent affordable housing. Only families with at least one child under the age of 21 will be assigned housing in the building, AAFE says. Additionally, priority will be given to families living within Community Board 7’s borders, which covers Bay Terrace, College Point, Beechhurst, Flushing, Malba, Queensborough Hill, Whitestone and Willets Point.
DHS said that, on average, families spend a year living at the temporary site.
The building will be constructed on a vacant lot owned by the nonprofit that previously housed their offices. The land will be sold to the city at market rate prior to the construction of the facility, according to Jennifer Sun, the co-executive director of AAFE.
The fund generated by the sale would go back to AAFE and would be used to pay for a number of costs associated with the site that has been vacant for years, including insurance and maintenance, Sun said.
The project first was discussed in early 2021, when DHS told AAFE about their need for temporary housing.
“It really was in the context of the pandemic and seeing that there were new needs in the neighborhood where there's increasing housing instability, and homelessness that we thought that we would be able to partner with the city and a nonprofit and really kind of develop a new form of housing,” Sun said.
The project, which is expected to cost $440 million over 40 years, has come under heavy criticism from a number of elected officials and Flushing United, a group created in opposition to the facility.
Opponents say the cost is unjustifiably high and that the nonprofits and city haven’t cleared up questions about the facility that some community members have.
“Business owners surrounding the site have raised concerns about the impacts such a project would have on their livelihoods,” Ung wrote. “Much of the community concern around this project centers around a lack of information that is creating confusion and distrust.”
“As an alternative, community leaders have suggested that AAFE instead consider constructing affordable housing at the site,” she continued. “However, AAFE officials have repeatedly stated that the site’s current zoning and the type of housing most needed in Flushing make a conventional affordable housing project at the location infeasible.”
Because of the use of the site and because of the state’s right to shelter laws, the project’s backers don’t need to seek a zoning change. As such, the project isn’t required to go through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
Nonetheless, DHS Administrator Joslyn Carter, Sun and representatives from URI met with members of Community Board 7 in late January, weeks after Flushing United had begun hosting rallys and collecting signatures of community members opposed to the project.
During the meeting, Chuck Apelian, who serves as the vice chair of the board, pressed Carter on the cost of the project.
“It does seem exorbitant, but there would have to be a cost analysis of what it would cost to build a building, have affordable rents against it, operating costs over 30 years, versus nothing coming in and they pay for all the services – I would think it'd be cheaper,” Apelian said.
DHS did not respond to the Eagle request for a breakdown of the projected cost of the project.
Sun told the Eagle that while she believes the price is justifiable – around $16.5 million of the funds would go toward the acquisition of the land and the rest will go toward construction costs and the cost of services provided to the families over the next 40 years – she has not received a breakdown of the cost evaluation from DHS.
“I know that the community has been very interested in understanding the split of the contract value between building costs and the value of the long term contract for providing on site services – we've asked DHS as well,” Sun said. “Because the service contract is a negotiation with our nonprofit service provider URI, they've maintained a position that they're not sharing any numbers because of those active discussions.”
Ung isn’t the first person to raise the prospect of building affordable housing over transitional housing at the site.
“We advocate strongly from a perspective of the business community for long term affordable housing,” Tom Grech, the president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said during the community board meeting. “With hundreds of millions of dollars at stake here, we think that makes the most sense.”
While Ung has yet to take a position on whether or not she’ll support the transitional housing facility, she did issue her support for building affordable housing instead.
“If a rezoning of the property to allow some increase in density would make affordable housing possible, given the community’s desire for that type of project over transitional housing, my office would support a zoning change and help move the proposal through the ULURP process,” Ung wrote.
Much of the information community members still have questions about are hard to answer, Sun said. There isn’t much data on the impact of temporary housing, which DHS is expected to utilize more in the future.
“When the community has asked more specifically about the magnitude of the problem with housing insecurity and homelessness in the Asian immigrant community, we just haven't been able to find the data to really be able to document that,” Sun said.
“That said, we just know from providing housing counseling services, emergency rental assistance, helping families apply for unemployment benefits during the pandemic [that there’s a need],” she added.
