Brooklyn hotel converted into supportive housing

Challenging times call for creative solutions.

To wit: a 30-story former Jehovah’s Witness hotel in Brooklyn has been converted to one of the nation’s largest supportive housing developments, according to the New York Times.

The building at 90 Sands Street in Dumbo — which has 490 units, along with a gym, computer lab and bike room — will have 385 formerly homeless tenants who will pay no more than 30 percent of their income in rent, and another 105 rent-restricted tenants who will pay between $540 and $2,130 per month for studio and one-bedroom apartments. There are also on-site mental health and support services.

The developer, Breaking Ground, purchased the building from RFR Realty for $170 million in 2018.

The need for affordable housing in the city and nationwide has been well documented. In New York City, there are about 68,000 unhoused people, according to one 2021 survey, though advocates say that could be a significant undercount, the outlet reported.

Mayor Eric Adams said another 25,000 hotel rooms could be converted into affordable or rent-free units. However, significant obstacles, including zoning restrictions and union opposition, have prevented any conversions other than the one in Dumbo from taking place since the start of the pandemic, the Times reported.

Adams recently announced a plan to help spur residential building as well as remove zoning restrictions to allow for more supportive housing.

On Thursday, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced a housing and land use agenda that includes affordable housing goals for each community district.

Converting hotel units to provide shelter to unhoused people isn’t unique to New York City.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, plans were recently unveiled to convert hotels and motels into housing for at least 1,000 unhoused and lower income people, the Albuquerque Journal reported.
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In Hartford, Connecticut, a former Days Inn was recently converted into a men’s shelter for more than 50 residents, according to the Hartford Courant.

So far there are about 160 residents who have moved into 90 Sands in Brooklyn.

“This is why I’m alive,” resident George Karatzidis, who became homeless in 2009, told the Times. “It’s like I’m reborn.”

— Ted Glanzer