Assemblyman William Colton (D – Gravesend, Bensonhurst, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights) spoke yesterday February 11, at the CB11 meeting regarding the proposed 2147 Bath Avenue homeless shelter and the education budget. He is a member of the Ways and Means Committee and has been advocating for education and fight for the community for many years.

"The Mayor’s plan is to open homeless shelters in neighborhoods like ours throughout the city. There was absolutely no community input on the placement of the shelter at 2147 Bath Avenue and that has enraged me and the community. The City Comptroller's report has identified that the DHS has a systematic tendency to bypass the procedures and avoids community input when opening new shelters. The DHS almost never responds to questions about the site procedures. I was also informed that there are two general types of homeless shelters, congregate and non-congregate. In congregate shelters, individuals share amenities like bathrooms and living space. The DHS failed to provide information about the array of services like will there be case management and job training on-site. Spending millions of dollars on a project that doesn't have a real solution to the problem of helping the homeless is ineffective and unacceptable. I strongly believe that the real solution to the problem is to build more affordable housing for low-income families. I am not against helping homeless people and believe that they need help from our Government, but I am totally against this project and will continue to fight for our community, Colton stated.

“The Congress will be voting on the Stimulus Package next week which will include $50 billion in emergency funds for New York State. From that money, $10 billion dollars will be allocated to use for education and that is good news. We must make sure that these monies will be spent wisely. The New York State owes under CFE $4.5 billion. Under the current State Budget, the foundation aid for education is flat as last year. I strongly believe that as soon as the State receives an emergency stimulus package, they must repay the $4.5 billion toward CFE. That money can be used to reduce class size, recommending and initiating enrichment programs like remedial, gifted and talented, special education, and bilingual needs of the children. I’m alerting all parents that the expected federal billions are an opportunity to start demanding needed aid so that the opportunity will not be lost,” Colton added.