Keep homeless shelter open

Last week’s brutal murder of the director of a homeless shelter not far from Riverdale and Kingsbridge was an immense tragedy for the victim, her family and the rest of the city. Those who knew her described Ana Charle of the Project Renewal Shelter on Bronx Boulevard as a dedicated champion of the homeless.

Elected officials said they had joined her in demanding extra security at the site in the months prior to her death, though the requests apparently fell on deaf ears at the city’s Department of Homeless Services. DHS told The Press of longstanding security measures like a metal detector at the entrance, but those were obviously inadequate at a shelter that reportedly generated 1,000 911 calls over the years.

Councilman Andrew Cohen, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, state Sen. Jeff Klein, Rep. Eliot Engel and other Bronx and Yonkers officials are right to criticize DHS for its failure to protect Ms. Charle, other staffers, residents and the rest of the community. But their recent demands to simply close the shelter are wrong.

While an emotional reaction to the tragedy is understandable, we expect more of our elected officials. Now is the time to re-examine safety procedures at the Project Renewal Shelter and similar sites throughout the city. There also needs to be soul searching about how we treat homeless people, both with and without criminal records, in general. Closing the shelter would shut off this necessary debate.

Worse, closing the site could actually exacerbate the situation in Wakefield and surrounding neighborhoods. If dozens of homeless people in the habit of coming to the Project Renewal Shelter abruptly find the door slammed in their faces, how are they going to react? When reporters at a press conference last week asked the politicians what they would do for the shelter’s residents, the elected officials did not have any concrete answers.