New York City plans to open a 150-capacity men's homeless shelter at 86th Street and 25th Avenue in Brooklyn by late 2027. Hundreds of residents turned out Sunday to block construction trucks. They have been protesting since 2023.

But blocking a shelter doesn't make homelessness disappear. It just ensures that the men who would have lived there stay on the street — invisible to one neighborhood, a crisis everywhere else.

New York has nearly 140,000 people experiencing homelessness. Every blocked shelter is a door slammed in someone's face. The men who would live at 86th Street are not abstractions. They are New Yorkers — people who need a bed, a roof, and a path back to stability.

We are calling on Mayor Mamdani to stand firm, break ground on the Brooklyn shelter, and send a clear message: in this city, we do not solve homelessness by banishing the homeless.