Dennis Slattery/New York Daily News
Tensions are brewing over 1870 Pelham Parkway South, a five-story complex known as the Pelham Grand, which residents believe will be a homeless shelter, but developer insists it’ll be providing housing for vets.
A Harlem-based organization hopes to house indigent veterans in a Pelham Bay building that recently served as a shelter for displaced mental patients, and leery neighbors insist the plan is a hoax.
“This is a scam,” said Egidio Sementilli, a Pelham Bay resident. “They won’t say it, but the bottom line is that this will be a homeless shelter.”
Residents have long feared this was where things were headed at 1870 Pelham Parkway South, a five-story complex known as the Pelham Grand.
The would-be developer, Ismail Shamsid-Deen, insists his plan is above board.
“We are not going to do anything without first going through the community” said Shamsid-Deen, the president of the non-profit Developmental Outreach Inc. “This is about those who live there and those who could live there.”
The longtime service provider told community board members last week that his group was committed to obtaining community consent for the still-unfunded project.
It is unclear how Developmental Outreach would work with the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing program to put veterans into the Pelham Grand.
Since 2006, the building has been used as a senior residence and a failed high-end luxury apartment complex. In January, it became a temporary home to 62 mentally ill adults who were displaced from the Rockaways by Superstorm Sandy.
Neighbors complained that the group overseeing the residents, Services for the UnderServed, did not notify the community of the relocation.
State law did not require such notification, but the group made good on its promise to vacate the building within nine months, and returned to the Rockaways last month.
That hasn’t prevented neighbors from worrying that the site is about to be turned into a run-of-the-mill homeless shelter.
But Shamsid-Deen said he isn’t trying to pull a bait-and-switch.
“We’re talking about permanent housing for veterans,” Shamsid-Deen said.
dslattery@nydailynews.com
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