QUEENS — The city has taken over a number of rooms at a hotel near the AirTrain station in Jamaica to house homeless people — the latest lodging in Queens to be used to shelter the city's booming homeless population.
The move comes on the heels of a resolution passed in December by a local community board, asking the city not to open more homeless shelters in the area, which already has the largest number of shelters in the borough.
The Pan Am Hotel was quietly converted into shelter housing and several other hotels in the borough have been converted as well.
It was unclear how many rooms have been booked by the city, and for how long, at the former Quality Inn hotel, at 94th Avenue and 143rd Street, two blocks away from the JFK AirTrain station.
“DHS has always used temporary spaces for families as they await eligibility determinations to come into shelter," a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeless Services said in an email. "This is a short term measure and ensures that no family is without shelter as the temperatures drop.”
DHS said that the number of people living in the city's shelter system has risen dramatically in recent months, reaching nearly 59,000 residents as of last Friday. That's about 20,000 more than a decade ago, according to city records.
Last year, the hotel was listed for sale by CPEX, a real estate firm, but on Friday a representative for the company said they were no longer marketing that property.
The hotel has also recently changed its name to “Retreat Inn.”
A person who answered the phone at the hotel on Tuesday said that the facility is currently under renovation and is not accepting guests.
A person who picked up the phone on Friday morning denied that the building is being used to house homeless people and said that it’s a regular hotel. The price for a standard room ranges from $100 to $110 plus tax, she said.
One of the homeless residents, who did not want his name to be used, told DNAinfo last Thursday that he has lived at the hotel for about two weeks and was transferred to Jamaica from a shelter on Randalls Island.
Yvonne Reddick, district manager for Community Board 12, said Friday that she was not aware of the arrangement at the hotel.
"When you put [homeless people] in this district, we want to know about it," she said.
The board recently passed a resolution requesting a moratorium on building or expanding homeless shelters in the area.
Ten out of 22 homeless shelters in Queens are located within CB 12, which includes Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans and Springfield Gardens, according to the city’s Department of Homeless Services.
“Southeast Queens remains committed to contributing our fair share of resources to the city, but once again it appears that we are being disproportionally impacted," said local Councilman I. Daneek Miller.
"We are marginalized and disregarded when we are not informed in advance of who is moving into our neighborhoods and why they are here," Miller noted.
In November, the city booked 100 rooms at the Radisson Hotel in Jamaica for a “government group,” but then filled the rooms with homeless people instead.
Several other hotels in various portions of Queens were turned into homeless shelters last year.
