'Workshop to repair people': New York mayoral candidate wants to send homeless people to labor camp
'11.10.2021'
Olga Derkach
Republican candidate for New York mayor Curtis Sliva has proposed a new solution to the city's age-old homelessness problem: reopen a major upstate labor camp that opened under Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia in the 1930s and closed more than a decade ago. The edition told in more detail New York Post.
“There is so much empty space,” Plum said. "They will be able to breathe fresh air, they will be provided with good food, clothes, and this will give them a chance to get back on the right path."
Guardian Angels boss wants to relaunch Camp LaGuardia, a 258-bed, 104-acre (1000 ha) complex built from a former women's prison in Chester, New York.
“It would provide rehabilitation for alcohol problems, you could be self-sufficient and you could learn the craft,” Sliva said, adding that the residency would be on a voluntary basis.
The complex was the brainchild of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who launched it in 1934 to combat the overcrowding of homeless people in the city. LaGuardia called his camp "the repair shop for people."
For decades, the homeless in New York City traveled to and from camp on regular buses. Those hanging around were encouraged to look for work nearby or at a local poultry establishment.
A German immigrant named Paul Brynn has been raising chickens and goats here for 30 years. Adam Kropevnitsky, a Pole who did not speak English, wandered around the house for seven years before the city managed to find an interpreter and ask what he needed. The former asbestos handler said he just wanted to return to Poland and be with his family. The nonprofit Volunteers of America bought him a one-way ticket.
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By 2007, the property was sold to Orange County for $ 8,5 million and closed. Although development plans were released, Camp LaGuardia languished like a ghostly, grassy ruin.
But not everyone remembers this camp with the same love as Plum.
“The homeless didn't like it because they had connections in the city. The camp was 90 miles (144 km) away, ”said Meribeth Siman, a former plant manager. - Many of them did not want to be there. Some people liked being in the village, but it was inconvenient. "
As drug addiction and mental illness became more prevalent among the urban homeless population, Chester residents also began to worry about the camp and demanded that it be closed. In 2002, a resident of Camp LaGuardia hit local resident Jane Sselta in the face with a serrated bottle while riding her bicycle.
In 1996, 12 residents were arrested for distributing crack cocaine. In the same year, local police arrested more than 98 detainees on charges of assault and shoplifting.
Edward Diana, a former Orange County governor who helped acquire the camp, said emphatically that the days of urban disasters being carried over to his community are over.
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“The jurisdiction in which the problem has arisen should solve the problem within its own jurisdiction, and not transfer its problems to other jurisdictions,” he said.
If it weren't for Camp LaGuardia, Plum suggested that the more economically depressed neighborhoods in downtown New York might be open to a deal that would drive taxes to the local economy. He offered to repurpose the abandoned Mountain MacGregor Correctional Facility in Moreau, New York, or possibly Plattsburgh.
Pliva added that the project will have a lot of money once it closes Thrive, an infamous clinic for the mentally ill. It is now valued at a billion dollars.