Camp LaGuardia Finally Closing

[trauma74 111]

This dump of a place has been in existance way too long. NYC has been shipping their "unwanted" people here for years. These "residents" of "The Camp" aka Campees have raised the crime rate in Chester over 300%. Public Intoxication, Indecent Exposure, Shoplifting, Harassment, Assault, killing of nearby resident's animals all top the list of crimes committed on a daily basis by the residents of "The Camp". I am so happy to finally see that they are shutting this place down. IT IS ABOUT TIME!!!!!

By Brendan Scott

and Raja Abdulrahim

Times Herald-Record

November 17, 2006

Chester — It's the news this town's been waiting to hear for years.

Camp La Guardia, the sprawling complex that gives shelter to as many as 1,001 of New York City's homeless men and provided decades of frustration and anxiety to its suburban neighbors, will close by July.

New York's Department of Homeless Services announced the move yesterday morning, ending a protracted period of negotiations between the city and the communities that have hosted the camp since the Depression.

"I am on cloud nine," said vocal shelter critic Michele Murphy.

Orange County Executive Ed Diana held his own news conference in the afternoon to announce county plans to buy the 258-acre property for $8.5 million. Plans for the land include work force and senior housing, a central senior dining kitchen and storage for the county's new voting machines.

Diana plans to bring the proposed purchase before the Legislature within the next 30 days.

The future isn't as upbeat for the 240 employees who work at the shelter. Volunteers of America, which operates the shelter, plans to hold a local job fair. Department of Homeless Services employees will most likely be offered jobs at the department's other locations in the city.

"The camp," as the shelter has long been known to locals, was once viewed as a harmless haven for convalescing old men. It was a place where, longtime residents remember, they went to talk to shelter residents or buy the produce grown on the camp's surrounding fields.

But the camp had changed by the mid-1980s, as the crack epidemic and efforts to deinstitutionalize the state's mental health system sent a new, less predictable generation of homeless onto the city's streets.

Located 45 miles from 42nd Street, Camp La Guardia became the city's single biggest shelter for homeless adults. At full capacity, the facility was nearly a third of the size of the adjacent Village of Chester.

Relations between the city and local communities began to fray as encounters between locals and camp residents, who would walk daily to Chester's stores, grew ominous.

Increased complaints of lewdness, harassment and public drunkenness prompted crackdowns by local police. Calls for greater oversight at the camp intensified in 1994, after a resident strangled a pet rabbit in front of a Greycourt Road woman.

Five years later, the city relented and agreed to a host of rigorous guidelines intended to keep the most dangerous residents out of the shelter.

Then, in 2002, a camp resident with a criminal past slashed a Warwick woman across the face with a broken soda bottle as she tried to bicycle past him on the Heritage Trail.

Tensions exploded anew. Local leaders pressed for an independent monitor to oversee the camp. Local residents demanded it be closed altogether.

But the city, which was coping with a sudden jump in homeless in the Big Apple, had little incentive to cooperate. Now that homeless rates have declined, the city has decided to close the facility and end its antagonistic relationship with its neighbors to the north.

"The closing of Camp La Guardia is a milestone that tells us our plans are working," New York City Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said yesterday.

Women's prison to public nuisance

1918: New York City opens its Greycourt Farm Colony, a women's prison, on a 258-acre farm that straddles the Chester-Blooming Grove border.

1934: The city turns the prison into a homeless shelter for single, adult men, naming it "Camp La Guardia" the next year.

1958: The camp's farm reports a 184,572-pound potato harvest, which goes to feed other homeless people in the city's system.

1980s: Complaints about camp residents increase in the wake of the crack epidemic and the deinstitutionalization of the mental health system.

1985: Blooming Grove activist Susan McCabe founds Committee for Safe Neighborhoods to oppose the camp.

1994: Community outrage over a camp resident who strangled a pet rabbit renews calls for greater shelter oversight.

1999: Contemplating a statewide run for U.S. Senate, then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani agrees to a host of strict guidelines intended to keep the most dangerous residents out.

2002: Local officials call for new action on the camp after a camp resident attacks a Warwick woman who was riding a bicycle on the Heritage Trail.

September 2006: The city agrees to bar all parolees from the camp.

November 2006: The city announces that it will close the 1,001-bed shelter by July 2007.

Brendan Scott

[orangEMT246 6]

It's about time!! I always hated going there with Mobile Life and Chester VAC. It also made for a very interesting time walking on the Herritage Trail in that area.

[Guest alsfirefighter]

OK. And what does the city plan on doing with the residents that are thre now? What is that plan? And what is the plan if some of them jump ship and take up 'haven' somewhere else in the area/communities?

[Remember585 815]

They're all moving to Peekskill Tommy!

[grumpyff 1,159]

I hear that all 'residents' will be moved to Ward's Island.

[hudson144 150]

the VA in montrose will be opening up their new shelter soon,i hope that the VA keeps their word that it will be supervised and kept under a close eye. i makes me wonder though why they would hire an additional 10-15 police officers??? I am concerned what the real plan realy is. lets not turn montrose into a chester...

[Guest alsfirefighter]

You know the deal at that place just as well as I do Hudson. At least they will be mostly on campus and not the old days when the system would stack them in boarding houses with dangerous conditions.

[hudson144 150]

not true tommy-they are going to be allowed out, not the psych ward. i hope it all works out and does not cause a local problem, help the vets and run a tight ship!!!