I know West Harlem the way most people never want to know a neighborhood. From the ground up. Literally. I was homeless starting at age ten. I spent years sleeping on park benches, in the streets, and in shelters. I raised my son inside the family shelter system, learning to survive in a city that too often treats its most vulnerable people as problems to be warehoused rather than humans to be housed. Harlem was always where I found myself, and where I eventually found my footing.

Today I am a commissioner on the New York City Charter Revision Commission. Last year, my work on the previous Charter Revision Commission helped strengthen the city’s ability to increase housing production. I helped get the City of Yes for Housing initiative approved by the City Council and I am currently working to build housing for those in need. Rather than spend time talking about the problems, I am using my lived experience to provide solutions. In Harlem, a community that has seen a proliferation of shelters over housing, I want to help provide a better answer to the housing and homelessness crisis.

That is why I am urging the City Council to vote yes on Hill Top Apartments.

The project at 1727 Amsterdam Avenue, between 145th and 146th Streets, would bring approximately 200 permanently affordable, rent-stabilized apartments to a site currently owned by NYC Health + Hospitals. Of those, 120 would be supportive housing units with on-site services, case management, and 24/7 staffing. The remaining 80 would go through HPD’s Housing Connect lottery, with a preference for Community Board 9 residents. This nine-story building will give every single tenant a lease and a key to their own front door. This is not another shelter. This is permanent housing for the people who need it most.

I have heard the opposition and I understand the frustration. Harlem has been carrying more than its share of the city’s shelter burden for years. The community is oversaturated with shelters. But shelters do not end homelessness. They manage it. And if we keep blocking permanent housing like this, shelters will continue to expand their footprint in Harlem. Every time we say no to housing, we are saying yes to more shelters.

Earlier this winter, more than 20 people were found dead on our streets in the freezing cold. Tonight, there are 85,000 people sleeping in New York City’s shelter system. Thirty-one thousand of them are children. Every time a project like this fails, those numbers do not stay flat. They grow. Our community has lost nearly 11,000 Black residents over the last decade, pushed out by the cost of living while the shelter beds multiply. Permanent, affordable housing is not driving people out of Harlem. It is the only thing that will keep them here.

The Bowery Residents’ Committee has been doing this work for 50 years. They are not coming into Harlem to warehouse people. They are coming to build real homes with kitchens and bathrooms and services that help tenants stay housed. They have committed to connecting CB9 residents to jobs in the building. The Emma L. Bowen Community Service Center, a vital resource in this neighborhood, will have its own dedicated space and a long-term lease in the new building. It is not being pushed out. It is being protected. This project has the support of Borough President Mark Levine, Council Member Shaun Abreu, State Senator Cordell Cleare, and Assembly Member Al Taylor. It has received $10 million from the state and over a million more from the City Council and the borough president. That kind of support and financial commitment doesn’t show up for projects that are not good for the community.

The people who will live at Hill Top Apartments are real people. They are patients going in and out of NYC Health + Hospitals who need a stable home. They are seniors on fixed incomes and working families. And some of them are people who were homeless like I was. They just need a door they can close, a kitchen they can cook in, and a lease with their name on it. Those people don’t have the luxury to wait for another debate. They need a dignified place to call home now.

If you believe they deserve one, choose housing over shelters. The City Council votes soon.

Vote yes on Hill Top Apartments.

Shams DaBaron, known as Da Homeless Hero and Da Housing Hero, is a commissioner on the New York City Charter Revision Commission, and the founder of LionFox Development