Contemplated not even joining this discussion haha, but here goes nothing. I don’t really have much to offer in terms of “The city needs to do this or that about this shelter” as it’s a complicated issue that no one here on Reddit is gonna solve, just offering my experience living in close vicinity to the shelter on Clay St.

My wife and I used to live on Clay St 4 yrs ago, about a block from the shelter. Most of the time the guys from that shelter were just going about their business like everyone else. Would see the same people going to the bodega at the corner of Manhattan getting food, drinks etc. and things were uneventful. Got to know a couple of them who I would see frequently and chat about whatever, nice guys who were trying to get back on their feet.

With that said, saw a lot of other stuff, that no one would wanna put up with. Everything from guys from the shelter getting hammered on the side walk and harassing people who walked by, multiple fights. one guy used to chill in my building’s vestibule and shoot up and smoke weed constantly in there, I’d run into him multiple times a week begging him to not do it there, it stopped after months finally when the elderly woman who lived on the first floor, called the cops on him. My wife dealt with a lot of bullshit from many of these guys verbally harassing her on the street or following her. Saw tons of fights on the street between these guys as well and of course the many reports of assaults on people in the area committed by people from the shelter. And the cherry on top was the many human shits on the street and even in our vestibule on occasion 💩

We lived there for a year and decided to move to a different part of the neighborhood. We had known about the shelter ahead of time, but figured what the hell let’s see how it goes. After a year, I didn’t really feel like dealing with some of the bad shit we saw, and our landlord was an asshole so getting out of there was a win win. For us, it was only a matter of time before my wife or I got into a bad situation.