Community boards do not run anything. They cannot hire a caseworker, set a shelter budget or write a city law. What they can do is put a neighborhood’s patience on the record, and on Oct. 27 Manhattan Community Board 3 set out to do that at some length.
The board covers the Lower East Side, Chinatown and the East Village. It met at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 27, at Public School 20, 166 Essex Street, under Board Chair Arnette Scott and District Manager Susan Stetzer. Its October agenda and committee vote sheet runs to dozens of pages. Most of it is the usual mix of liquor licenses, sidewalk cafes and bylaws. Three items stand out, and the first is the one most likely to travel beyond Essex Street.
A resolution about results, not intentions
The Health, Seniors and Human Services Committee, chaired by Mae Lee, approved a resolution titled “Position on street homelessness crisis.” It went before the full board on Oct. 27. It is unusual for its tone: it is less a protest than a performance review.
The resolution starts with numbers the city itself publishes. It notes that the 2026 HOPE count, the city’s annual street survey, was “the highest count in the history of the count.” It then cites a March report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. According to that report, placements of people into permanent or transitional housing rose more than 400 percent from fiscal 2017, reaching 10,841 in fiscal 2025. Over the same years, the population in low-barrier shelters grew from an average of about 2,100 a month in fiscal 2022 to just over 3,000 a month in the first quarter of fiscal 2026.
The board draws the obvious conclusion: referrals are up, and so is the number of people on the street. “These indicators show that despite increased referrals to various kinds of housing, the number of unhoused has increased,” the resolution reads.
The resolution then lists what the board sees as gaps in the data and in the system:
- The public data does not distinguish permanent from transitional placements, and it does not record how long people stay after they are placed.
- The Department of Homeless Services “does not formally track why people refuse shelter.”
- There are too few single or double rooms, safe-haven and stabilization beds, and beds in the neighborhoods where people want to remain.
- Task forces and “hubs” at places like Washington Square Park, Penn Station and 125th Street vary widely. Some focus on individual planning; others are, in the board’s words, “harassing and over-engaging (enforcement-focused) until people move to other areas.”
- Outreach efforts are duplicated across providers, each with its own system, creating “silos of efforts and inefficiencies.”
The resolution also records what DHS told the board at its September budget consultation. Coordination is handled at City Hall through “top 50” frequent-utilizer lists. Capacity limits make it hard to staff full task forces at every hot spot. The agency’s staff vacancy rate is 17 percent. DHS also announced a forthcoming citywide homelessness plan with “a strong focus on unsheltered homelessness.” The board’s complaint is that it has heard nothing since: no timeline and no plan for engaging community boards.
The resolution asks DHS to “review current practices and results” and to propose a plan and timeline that would remove barriers to shelter, “including those who are resistant to services.” It also asks for outreach “conducted in a humane manner that will lead to housing.” It is a measured document that avoids both of the easy positions. It does not call for sweeps, and it does not pretend the status quo is working. It simply asks the agency to show its work.
Truck side guards
The Transportation committee sent the board a resolution to phase out exemptions to the city’s truck side-guard rules. Side guards are the panels that keep a pedestrian or cyclist from being pulled under a truck’s wheels in a side-impact crash. The city required them on its own fleet under Local Law 56 of 2015, and Local Law 108 of 2021 extended the rule to many city-contracted vehicles. Under Administrative Code Section 16-526 and Business Integrity Commission rules, trade-waste haulers over 10,000 pounds have had to carry them since January 1, 2023. The commission still grants waivers where installation is judged impractical.
The resolution cites a September 18 crash at East 14th Street and First Avenue in which a large commercial truck fatally struck a 15-year-old girl and seriously injured another teenager. It calls on the City Council and the commission to review every current waiver, revoke those no longer needed and set a deadline for ending design-based exemptions.
Bathrooms, with conditions
The agenda also called for the board to “enthusiastically” support the city’s one-year modular restroom pilot. Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office announced it on September 16: 17 units across the five boroughs for $4 million, procured by the Economic Development Corporation from Throne Labs and managed by the Department of Transportation. Two of the units are in the district, at Cooper Square and on the south side of Delancey Street at Suffolk Street.
The support comes with a list of conditions:
- Access without a phone or tap card.
- A review of whether the 10-minute limit works for older adults and people with disabilities.
- Signs in several Chinese dialects as well as English and Spanish.
- Local hiring.
- A report back to the board once there is usage data.
A $9.93 million pool
The Parks committee, chaired by Trever Holland, backs Option 1 of three city plans for the Tompkins Square Park mini-pool, basketball courts and adult fitness area. The budget is about $9.93 million: $6.1 million from the state’s NY SWIMS program and $3.83 million from the city. Option 1 is a full reconstruction lasting an estimated 18 months. It would roughly double the pool’s capacity, from 33 swimmers to about 66. The resolution acknowledges the cost of that choice, since the pool, courts and fitness area would all close during construction, and it attaches design requests.
Who was on the agenda
The agenda lists reports from representatives of the mayor, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Comptroller Mark Levine, Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Rep. Dan Goldman. Also listed are Assembly Members Grace Lee, Deborah Glick and Keith Powers, State Sen. Brian Kavanagh, and Council Members Christopher Marte and Harvey Epstein.
Each speaker in the public session got two minutes. The homelessness resolution was the real test. Not every board member, and not every neighbor, will agree on how the city should balance compassion with order on Avenue A. But the board has framed the question in a way that is hard to dismiss: whether the system is working, judged by its own numbers. City Hall should be able to answer it.
This account is based on Community Board 3’s published October 2026 agenda and committee vote sheet. The full board voted on the resolutions on Oct. 27; its final vote sheet had not been posted as of Tuesday, Nov. 3, and the full board may have amended them.
Featured image: Council Member Christopher Marte at the Loisaida Festival, 2025. Photo by DutchTreat via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
.jpg){kind=link}
Leave a Reply