Photo Courtesy of Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
The mayor is “shaming those who do not agree with his policies,” Sen. Addabbo said this week.
By Michael V. Cusenza
Mayor Bill de Blasio this past week continued to contribute to the heated debate over his homeless policies and shelter siting in Queens, blasting opponents of a proposal to convert a Maspeth hotel into a Department of Homeless Services facility as unwilling to sacrifice and help their own City solve a critical social issue.
“If people in Maspeth think they cannot have responsibility for a problem that is their problem, I will happily stare them down,” de Blasio said last Thursday in a question-and-answer session with reporters, according to Time Warner Cable News NY1. “We will put a roof over people’s heads.”
Hizzoner’s direct response came hours after borough elected officials gathered at City Hall “to condemn” de Blasio’s response to the homeless crisis and treatment of borough residents “who are fed up with inappropriate shelters,” according to a press advisory issued by State Sen. Joe Addabbo, Jr. (D-Howard Beach).
On Friday, Addabbo ripped the de Blasio camp for posting two brief “propaganda videos” on social media platforms that depict the Maspeth shelter protesters as anti-family and anti-homeless.
“I am appalled once again by Mayor de Blasio’s inaccurate propaganda videos regarding his inappropriate homeless shelter policies. If our mayor spent half as much time working toward a viable solution to the homeless crisis as he does retaining a film crew to record legal, peaceful protests and turn them into one-sided propaganda, we would be helping homeless individuals so much better.
“The city wants people to believe that Maspeth residents and others who protest shelters coming to their neighborhoods do not have compassion for those less fortunate than them and do not want to help those in need, but the truth is in fact the exact opposite,” Addabbo continued. “The vast majority of these protestors understand what myself and several other elected officials already know to be true – that warehousing homeless people into hotel rooms is not helping these individuals. I join others who believe that the current policy of dictating that people should live in rooms without kitchens for years, under prison-like conditions with guards, curfews and metal detectors, rather than placing them in more appropriate long-term housing, is a failed policy.
“If Mayor de Blasio truly wanted to help the homeless, he would have worked in cooperation with other electeds, such as asking our Governor for assistance, instead of shutting us out and shaming those who do not agree with his policies,” the senator concluded. “It didn’t have to be this way, and this frustrated anger that I have never seen before could have been avoided.”
