{"id":367263,"date":"2026-10-07T22:14:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367263\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:14:49","slug":"councilmembers-refuse-sanitized-tour-of-embattled-queens-veterans-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/367263\/","title":{"rendered":"Councilmembers refuse ‘sanitized’ tour of embattled Queens veterans shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"

As controversy\u00a0swirls around a Queens veterans<\/a> shelter where critics claim former servicemen are housed under atrocious conditions, two local City Council members on Wednesday defiantly refused to join a scheduled tour of the facility, calling it a \u201cstaged presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not attend today\u2019s scheduled tour of the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence<\/a>,\u201d Councilmembers Phil Wong and Julie Won said in a joint statement. \u201cThis facility continues to be in deplorable condition despite advocacy from our offices and our predecessors for the last decade. The veterans who live there deserve far better than a staged presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city says elected officials are free to tour the facility, but the City Charter requires authorization first.<\/p>\n

\u201cOversight doesn\u2019t look like this,\u201d the two councilmembers protested. \u201cIt is unacceptable that the Institute for Community Living continues to conceal the conditions veterans endure every day instead of fixing these issues. The City Charter charges councilmembers with overseeing and investigating city agencies and city-funded operations. That authority requires no permission from, or advance notice to, the Mayor\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York City Council member Phil Wong speaks during a press conference outside One Police Plaza Tuesday, April 21, 2026 in Manhattan, New York. (Barry Williams\/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Located in Long Island City, the 243-bed veterans residence has recently come under intense scrutiny after the Mamdani administration recently rejected more than $1 million in federal funding for it<\/a>, due to the Trump administration\u2019s conditioning the money on the shelter not housing transgender male vets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The funding flap<\/a>, in turn, cast renewed attention on the oft-criticized, 40-year-old shelter, with residents reporting<\/a> tarps set up due to the leaky roof, meager meals of rice and beans, drug activity and subpar security.<\/p>\n

Last Thursday, Wong and Won were denied entry to the facility, which is run by the Institute for Community Living, after showing up unannounced. On Monday, Erin Dalton, the commissioner of the city\u2019s Department of Social Services, toured the shelter, and the two councilmembers confronted her outside<\/a> about the place\u2019s conditions.<\/p>\n

Shelter residents reportedly told Wong and Won that city and ICL workers were inside frantically fixing it up in preparation for Wednesday\u2019s scheduled visit. The politicians later entered the facility on their own and observed what they called unacceptable conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince Friday, the Institute for Community Living has cleaned and prepared the facility for today\u2019s visit,\u201d Wong and Won said Wednesday. \u201cOn Monday, ahead of DSS Commissioner Erin Dalton\u2019s visit, the provider directed residents to help clean, while also setting out food for the commissioner, prompting one veteran to tell us: \u2018We don\u2019t even get that.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not take part in a tour designed to hide serious failures,\u201d they said. \u201cWe will continue to expose the conditions at Borden Avenue and demand the treatment, dignity and services our homeless veterans deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Julie<\/p>\n

Gerardo Romo \/ NYC Council Media Unit<\/p>\n

City Council Member Julie Won. (Gerardo Romo \/ NYC Council Media Unit)<\/p>\n

Two elected officials did tour the facility on Wednesday: Rep. Nydia Velazquez and Councilman Frank Morano, chairperson of the Council\u2019s Veterans Committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the problems that my colleagues have talked about were still there,\u201d Morano said afterward. \u201cThere are still leaking pipes and there are still tarps that are covering the leaking pipes. It looks relatively clean. But, honestly, I think that the way conditions are today isn\u2019t necessarily the way we should be judging how the conditions are on a regular basis. An announced visit, where you have two city commissioners\u2026it\u2019s not necessarily the best way to judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Rep.Rep. Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y., is pictured on Sept. 20, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jacquelyn Martin)<\/p>\n

Velazquez said that \u201caccountability and transparency\u201d are critical for the shelter moving forward.<\/p>\n

Morano added that the veterans \u201cdeserve the dignity\u201d of at least having shower curtains added in the barracks-style open showers, another complaint residents have brought up. He said his committee will hold a hearing on the shelter on Oct. 21.<\/p>\n

\"CouncilmanCouncilman Frank Morano is pictured during a New York City Council Committees on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation and Finance hearing at City Hall. (John McCarten \/ NYC Council Media Unit)<\/p>\n

Daniel Kurzany, Wong\u2019s chief of staff, was outside the building during the tour. He said that when he was chief of staff of former Councilman Robert Holden, who chaired the Veterans Committee, it was never a problem to tour the facility unannounced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that it was going to be a sanitized tour,\u201d Kurzany scoffed, \u201ca dog-and-pony show.\u201d<\/p>\n

A DSS spokesperson said the city rejected the Veterans Administration\u2019s grant for the Borden Ave. shelter because the amount had been lowered, plus would have required discrimination against transgender vets. The City Charter does not allow unauthorized inspection of shelters, she added. Repairs to the shelter\u2019s roof are underway after being delayed by last month\u2019s nor\u2019easter, she added, with $6 million allocated for its more permanent repair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As controversy\u00a0swirls around a Queens veterans shelter where critics claim former servicemen are housed under atrocious conditions, two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[135865,56488,9442,82108,9,24,63,8430,122,124,123,135866,135864,135863],"class_list":["post-367263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-borden-avenue-veterans-residence","tag-department-of-social-services","tag-julie-won","tag-living-conditions","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-phil-wong","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-unauthorized-inspection","tag-veterans-administration","tag-veterans-shelter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}