Today in NIMBYism

With Trump still talking about dumping undocumented immigrants on left-leaning voting districts as a classic example of the central Republican governing doctrine of fuck liberals, I am awaiting two responses. The first is that people in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Miami, New York, etc., will talk a big game about welcoming these people to their cities and doing what they can to help them. Then, their citizens will accept absolutely nothing that will actually help these people. Not homeless shelters, not affordable housing, certainly nothing as hideous a 4-story building that might cast a shadow 3 hours a day. I thought about that again today when I read this story on Park Slope residents freaking out about a homeless shelter:

More than 200 people have signed a petition protesting the city’s plan to open homeless shelters at two neighboring Park Slope developments, hoping to rally enough community opposition to persuade the city to call off the shelter plan before finalizing its agreement with the properties’ owner.

“The whole idea is to be able to rally enough people to say we are not okay with this decision and that we should reconsider it,” said Shruti Kapoor, who published the petition on Change.org Sunday on behalf of residents in her Fourth Avenue condominium, who have banded together as the Fourth Avenue Committee.

The city announced its plan earlier this month to open shelters in the fall at neighboring properties being built at 535 and 555 Fourth Ave., which would feature a combined 253 units, and offer childcare services, along with programs designed to help New Yorkers — predominantly women and children — find permanent housing.

At a public meeting hosted by Park Slope Councilman Brad Lander on May 1, the legislator told locals that the city had exceeded its commitment to provide 30-days notice of shelter openings by several months.

But many locals said they were caught off guard by the shelter announcement, and the audience repeatedly booed presenters, including Jackie Bray, first deputy commissioner at the Department of Homeless Services, and former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who heads up the non-profit organization that will operate the shelters, called Win.

The petition states locals have serious concerns about the density of the proposed shelters, although Lander noted earlier this month that the two buildings — originally intended as market-rate rentals — would have attracted the same amount of people under their original use, only wealthier.

And the proposed Fourth Avenue shelters are not the largest in Brooklyn, according to a spokeswoman for the Department of Social Services, who noted that Win operates two neighboring shelters that serve a combined 412 families elsewhere in the borough.

Property values could be at stake after all! I mean, sure, I’m all for progressive policies and helping people unless it has absolutely any impact on me at all, real or just the potential of it.

This is of course the same basic poison that explains LGM commenters freaking out about being told that their choices about little Bobby and Sally are part of a structural racism that explains much about why the nation has made effectively no progress on racial inequality.