(DNAINFO) Shan’t Shahrigian | May 30, 2017 — The de Blasio administration announced Friday that it has closed nearly a quarter of the problem-plagued “cluster housing” units for the homeless, months after two girls were burned to death by a faulty radiator in an apartment rented under the program.
Deputy Mayor Herminia Palacio and Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks said the administration has stopped using 842 of the 3,658 units the city was renting at the peak of the cluster housing program — relocating about 3,000 homeless New Yorkers to shelters or hotels.
“They can be provided with high-quality services in shelters… or in permanent housing,” Banks said of the people leaving cluster housing. “That’s a much better outcome for children and families than they’ve experienced in the 17 years of this program.”
The announcement came after months of activists’ opposition to the mayor’s plan to open 90 permanent homeless shelters citywide.
So far, his administration has seen five new shelters go up, two of them in The Bronx. The Bronx has had the heaviest use of cluster units — 2,877 in 236 buildings at the peak.
But the problem of using cluster apartments came into stark relief in December, when girls ages 1 and 2 died after a faulty radiator in their cluster-site home in Hunts Point blasted steam all over their bodies.
“It’s better to have a shelter operated by a mission-driven nonprofit with on-site social services, with on-site security, than to have a cluster site that is run by a slumlord and that leads to the death of little children,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, who recently welcomed The Bronx’s two new homeless shelters in his district. “So I’m proud to defend this plan.”