Emergency action cannot erase a 40-year community promise. Build the senior housing now.

 
Background: The 40-Year Vision
For more than four decades, our community has advocated, organized, and rallied for affordable senior housing at the former Greenpoint Hospital site.

The site has long held a 200-bed shelter. We supported the plan to renovation the old Nurses’ Residence into a restored replacement shelter so the Main Hospital building could finally be converted into senior and family housing.

That was the promise made to the community, and it was the approved plan for the site.

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From Senior Housing to Shelter Expansion

• Now, just as renovations were about to begin, the City is pulling that housing out from under us.
• By Emergency Executive Order, the City is doubling the shelter capacity on this block to 400 beds.
• Instead of permanent homes for our seniors, the Main Hospital building is being turned into a high-turnover assessment center for an additional 200 men entering the shelter system.

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The Facts

• No public review:
  This rushed plan bypasses the community engagement, oversight, and approval process that shaped the 2021 redevelopment plan.
• No clear timeline:
  The City has provided no firm end date for this “temporary” use, even though temporary emergency shelter authorizations can last for years. In practice, this could indefinitely halt the planned senior housing.
• No answers on safety and operations:
  This high-volume assessment model is a major departure from the approved senior-housing plan and raises serious, unstudied concerns about pedestrian flow, neighborhood safety, and impacts on nearby residents, park, and local preschool.

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Our Demand: Honor the Promise

• We oppose the City’s decision to repurpose the Main Hospital building instead of building the senior housing our community was promised and urgently needs.
• East Williamsburg has waited decades for this. Seniors, families, neighbors, and local advocates fought to see this site become housing and community benefit, not another last-minute emergency workaround.
• We urge the Mayor’s Office to vacate the Main Hospital building, restore the approved senior-housing plan, and build the senior housing now.

For more information:

Support Senior Housing in East Williamsburg | Fact Sheet (PDF)