Poughkeepsie residents fight to keep adult shelter out of neighborhood

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Some Poughkeepsie residents and business owners are fighting the Dutchess County government's plans to build a shelter on the edge of downtown that would serve 100 adults. But those opponents might be too late, since plans are underway and a sudden change could delay the project by years and cost the government millions of dollars more. "We just want it to be fair," Suprina Troche, who has been organizing against the shelter. Troche and hundreds others who signed a petition, said the county's plans for the new adult shelter on Oakley Street would increase drug activity in the area, negatively affect downtown businesses and scare local families. She wants the county to overhaul its shelter plans and social services system. "We believe in 'scatter site,' which means every single municipality in Dutchess County would take 5% to 7% of their population and house that many people," Troche said, "because that is absorbable." The shelter would replajce a temporary facility made of pods on Hamilton Street. The county has been using the pods as a shelter since the beginning of the pandemic. A shelter north of the city in the Town of Poughkeepsie did not have enough space to operate as a large shelter during social distancing requirements, forcing the county to resort to the pod option. "It hurts a lot" to hear opposition to the shelter from neighbors, Marsha Thomas said. Thomas, 62, said she recently became homeless for the first time in her life. She said it feels like people who oppose the shelter oppose her. "The most basic human need is to be sheltered, that and food," Thomas said tearfully. "For them to deny that, it's like denying Jesus Christ comfort. Where are the samaritans at in Poughkeepsie?" Poughkeepsie Mayor Yvonne Flowers testified before the Dutchess County Legislature earlier this month, explaining how local police and social workers have been trying to break up the homeless scene on Main Street. In an interview at her office Wednesday, Flowers said this particular neighborhood north of Main Street does not deserve the harmful effects she believes would come along with a shelter on Oakley Street. The neighborhood has a mix of residential and industrial buildings and a nearby park that families frequent. "The Fifth Ward has always been challenged for decades," Flowers said. "Why would you put something else there that's going to cause more burden for that particular area." Flowers has lobbied County Executive Sue Serino to instead consider a site north of the city in the Town of Poughkeepsie, where the county's shelter used to be. Serino said in a recent statement that a site change might not be possible. The county received a state grant worth $13 million toward the Oakley Street project, and Serino said she was advised by state officials that making a switch could jeopardize the grant money. At this month's meeting of the county Legislature, lawmakers voted to postpone its vote to approve the project until Aug. 12 at the earliest. "