| 223 | Steven Lowell | Resident of 285 St.Marks for 10 years, I moved here when the belief the Stapleton Seaport would be built, and I would be close to Manhattan, and start a new and improved St.George.
I can't believe someone would actually approve having this facility in the center of 4 surrounding schools, one of them a K-5.
Living here, I know that people come from Manhattan and check out the neighborhood, and they get Yankee Stadium, St.George Theatre, some great restaurants, and a whole bunch of people that look like the walking dead. We already have section 8's in our neighborhood, and when these people dont work, they wander around near the ferry and interact with the students.
This facility will be the final blow that kills this neighborhood. People are trying to improve St George for the betterment of the Staten Island economy, yet no reasonable person wants to stay and invest in this neighborhood for very long because of the current condition of having to deal with unemployed section 8's wandering around. We have enough problems in this neighborhood trying to run a business and attracting new customers. Don't let them kill us by putting this facility on Fort Place. There are families trying to make a better life for themselves with their children, and the patients will pose a very serious threat to everyone's safety and lifestyle.
If you think I am exaggerating, take a walk through Stuyvesant Place, St.Marks Pl, and do the commute a student or resident does in the morning...and ask yourself....Does this neighborhood, which is trying so hard to stay attractive to new people from Manhattan and also its own residents, really need anymore trouble than it already obviously has, and will this facility kill St George's potential for being a thriving community of culture and new business?
Disgusted,
Steven Lowell
life-long SI Resident, 10 years in St George. |
| 234 | Juraj Lukac | Let me translate to you the quote which defines St. George in the book: Tourist Guide – New York, written by Martin Dunford and Jack Holland in 2002.
“The town of St. George, decumbent to the terminal – and so, having a huge potential – is surprisingly unused territory. In this area, which should benefit from its proximate location to Manhattan, there are plenty of empty store windows and the crowds of people, who should be walking during the day through the downhill street enjoying the magnificent views from island, are simply missing.”
As a Staten Islander, I was hurt by this description. Nevertheless, I realized that this statement, even though negative was also very candid and accurate.
My concern about the improvement of our neighborhood escalated when I became aware of the transaction that occurred between the Sisters of St. Paul and Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Center. The Sisters of Saint Paul sold the convent, located where Fort Place and Sherman Avenue meet, to the hospital which plans to renovate it as a halfway house.
There are different perspectives of my concern, which I would like to share with you. I would also like to ask you to make the strongest efforts and use all possible legal resources to prevent this plan from becoming reality.
First of all, as psychiatrist, I had my fair share of experience with halfway houses and their common inhabitants. Many clients of these facilities, I am refraining from using the phrase “most of them,” carry the AXIS I psychiatric diagnosis substance abuse or substance dependence. Some patients even have a dual diagnosis, which means substance abuse with an additional psychiatric diagnosis. As a part of their road to recovery from various addictions, these patients have high incidents of relapse and of opposition to treatment plans. Housing for such large amount of recovering patients as proposed in our residential community could dramatically impair the neighborhood as a whole, especially when considering the three other mental help services located in St. George at this time. This also brings a question to mind. Who will be responsible for any misconduct and relapses of the people in this facility?
I work at Elmhurst Hospital located in the Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens. Just across the street from the hospital, there is a conveniently located halfway house. Its location is so convenient for the sole reason that it is just across the street from the Elmhurst hospital, which contains a solid psychiatric department. The psychiatric department itself contains numerous units including a substance abuse clinic with methadone program, an outpatient clinic and nine inpatient units with 170 beds available for patients. Such an extensive psychiatric program guarantees fast and adequate treatment for all the patients of the halfway house.
The halfway house in Elmhurst is located on Baxter Avenue, which is a very busy area containing mostly neighborhood retail and other business. It is very unlike the solely residential area of Fort Place. This halfway house is capable of housing only thirty-six residents. Thirty-six is the maximum in Elmhurst, which might I add is a much larger community than that of St. George. It is also the only facility providing housing for mentally ill people in the Elmhurst area. In any case of emergency or patient relapse, based on severity of the incident each patient may be referred to the psychiatric emergency room of Elmhurst Hospital, which as I mentioned is just across the street. Unlike in Elmhurst, where a hospital is located in near proximity, in St. George there is not a single medical facility in the neighborhood capable of providing any form of acute care for relapsing patients and thus adequate protection cannot be guaranteed to the St. George neighborhood and its citizens.
In our community not only do we not have the protection of a hospital that is able to care for the halfway house residents, we already have three facilities providing services for clients with history of mental disorders and substance abuse in much smaller neighborhood than Elmhurst.
My concern for security and protection further increased after I called the local St. George police precinct about six months ago. About a block from my house some people were playing earsplitting music at one o’clock in the morning. The response I received upon calling the precinct was that I should call 911, because the precinct has only one single police car on patrol during the night hours. When I called 911, I was told that this problem is not a 911 problem and that I should call 411. After I made couple more phone calls, constantly being redirected from 911 to 411 to the local police precinct, my neighbor stopped playing the music at around two o’clock.. If they are not able to protect community from misbehaving individuals right now, how will they ever be able to protect the community when sixty more people, with high likelihood of being problematic are placed into the community?
Part of activities offered by some halfway houses is providing group psychotherapy sessions, such as alcoholic anonymous meetings, for its residents as well as other non-residential recovering persons with history of substance abuse. If this halfway house offers such program, this may increase the number of former patients in our small neighborhood, which once again, is not able to provide any type of acute medical care for relapsing individuals. Accumulation of these clients in a residential area like St. George which is already overwhelmed by providing services in three different facilities, is highly inappropriate. I am exceptionally concerned about the safety of the proposed facility, especially due to its closeness to an elementary school, P.S.16 and two high schools, Ralph McKee Vocational High School and Curtis High School. The facility might be unwarrantable regarding safety of the entire community and appropriate development of minor. There is always going to be jeopardy that a relapsing patient may attempt to use drugs and distribute them to the entire community, including the minors. Minors, especially teenagers, are very impressionable in experimenting with drugs and thus are the most vulnerable population of the neighborhood. Any inability to resist temptation on the teenagers’ part may lead to adverse consequences on their further development.
Next, I would like to say some facts about the screening process which was mentioned in the Staten Island Advance article published on March 24, 2008 titled “Pol considering lawsuit to stop plan for former Staten Island convent.” There is not a single screening test or process which in actuality is anywhere close to being 100% accurate. This is true for laboratory test, which are mechanically done and read by a machine, which provides results that are not loaded with subjective interpretations of reality. Can you imaging the accuracy of the screening process in a halfway house, where the objective result provided by an “automated, machine providing true results” is distorted minimally by two subjects, making it no longer objective. By this I mean the first person distorting the results is the interviewer, who can never be truly objective because of personal counter transference, and the second person to distort the results is the interviewee with intentionally or unintentionally subjectively distorted past psychiatric history and past history of substance abuse.
I am just wondering how poor is the judgment of the person, who can claim the percent accuracy of this subjectively distorted screening process, and so state that this process prevents any dangerous people from entering our community. This means that there is no subjective or objective screening test that can provide the assurance of accuracy that assemblyman Mr. Matthew Titone so desires.
Writing this letter, I strongly believe that we, together, want to change that definition from the Tourist Guide – New York, so that in the future editions we can expect something along the lines of a safe, family oriented neighborhood and a place for recreation of both New Yorkers and tourists alike. You, Senator Savino, as the elected representative, can succor in preventing the St. George community from descending by using your power to prevent the transformation of the convent to a halfway house. By doing so, you can protect the St. George community, which already provides services for the mentally ill, to be overwhelmed by the addition of another such facility. Instead of providing poor service in four facilities, it should be a primary concern that services of the highest possible quality are provided in the three already existing facilities. In this way, with your help, St. George can continue to experience its “renaissance” in becoming a safe, beautiful and thriving community. |