Protest Outside of Justin Brannan’s Office 1/6/24
At noon yesterday, a large group of #BayRidge residents gathered outside Councilman Brannan’s office.
Their signs show that Brannan had lost the trust of many people in the community because he failed to communicate with them.
While you may have found out about the homeless shelter being planned for Bay Ridge in November from Community Board 10’s one-minute announcement (see here), many people are just finding out this about the shelter from January 3rd’s protest. (See here)
I did not find a flyer for this protest. The planners gave neighbors a heads up about the shelter by sharing information on a sign in Arabic (see below).
Google Translate: It has been announced that a homeless shelter in Bay Ridge will be here, consisting of seven floors. It will be built to accommodate more than one hundred homeless people, which will be a disaster for the area. There are four schools for children nearby. On January 6th, there is a protest outside Justin Brannan’s office at 12:00 pm.
I doubt that Councilman Brannan has provided any information about the homeless shelter in Arabic or Cantonese/Mandarin, since we haven’t seen any information about the shelter from Brannan in print.
Have you seen any translated information from Councilman Brannan or Community Board 10 about the shelter on social media?
Residents looking for information about the shelter will find the Brooklyn Reporter’s article on December 18th. (Here) The article does not say anything about this being for veterans. Why didn’t Councilman Brannan share information with Jamie DeJesus?
For years, Councilman Brannan has not been interested in housing the homeless. Homeless men and women have been riding the R train into Bay Ridge and politicians are not interested in helping them. Gounardes and Brannan just campaign and take photos at the subway. *Other NYC Councilmembers put $4.5 million toward housing (See here)
Picture is blurry because it’s from video (here)
In 2021, RadioFree Bay Ridge revealed that 120 Bay Ridge residents lived in shelters. How do they know? People who applied for shelter, used 11209 on the form. Councilman Brannan refuses to put any of the budget for this district into housing, even after Radiofree Bay Ridge revealed that information. (More info) When Brannan did not set the money aside for affordable housing, all of the people needing help, didn’t receive it!
Justin Brannan knew that there was a protest outside of his office on Saturday. If he were a leader, Brannan would have shown up at the office and invited them in. Yes, Brannan’s office is closed on Saturday. When Brannan ran for election the first time, he said he was going to have evening and weekend hours (but he doesn’t).
Sign from video
Instead, the councilman went to social media and wrote the following:
An elected politician should never be play social media games like this!
It’s great that the American flag flew overhead to remind everyone (including Councilman Brannan) that people have the right to protest against a homeless shelter and a politician, who failed to communicate with the entire community.
People don’t want to protest on the weekend. They are doing it to stand up for our community! Thank you to our neighbors for protesting!
It’s shocking for people in our community to see all of these robberies, crashes and developers winning. How did the developer get (this far) without any community input? Brannan said he didn’t know about the homeless shelter! There was paperwork with NYC since May.
This isn’t the first time Justin Brannan blindsided his community about homeless housing in Bay Ridge. In November 2022, Councilman Brannan failed to inform the community about the homeless apartments at Shore Hill Housing at 9000 Shore Road and 91st Street.
At the CB 10 meeting in November 2022, we all heard Jonathan Rose’s developers tell the residents, who live next to Shore Hill Apartments, that 30% of housing in Shore Hill Apartments would be for homeless seniors.
Jonathan Rose receives funding or a tax break for including this type of housing in the plans (I’m not sure which one because neither Councilman Brannan or Community Board 10 told Bay Ridge). Then notes from that meeting are (here).
There is no way that Justin Brannan didn’t know that information. It should have been shared before the meeting. Brannan didn’t even have the respect to apologize to the community for failing to communicate that information!
After CB 10’s meeting at Shore Hill, Councilman Brannan didn’t share the Ulurp for Shore Hill with the whole community (Info here) In September, CB 10 said Shore Hill lost the parking spots. I noted some strange things: (See here)
Hugs,
marlene
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