Preliminary plans for the new Queen’s Galley design included 10 housing units proposed to be for students — a point on which Reeder said she is flexible — however Reeder said that she is now as unsure of the King’s Inn site as she is of any other location at this point. “I spent an hour looking over maps with [City Planner] Sue Cahill, none of which were of the King’s Inn,” said Reeder. “I said that it would be a great place to put this, but it would be ‘politically toxic.’”
Resistance to low-income housing
Earlier this summer, a subsidized-housing project proposed by the motel’s neighbors UPAC/Bardavon, in conjunction with the not-for-profit Safe Harbors organization, which did a similar project at Newburgh’s Ritz Theater, was shot down out of hand by most of the mayoral candidates as being not what the neighborhood needed.
Along similar lines, last year Reeder and Rural Ulster Preservation Corporation (RUPCO) announced that they had struck a partnership in which Reeder would lease space within the commercial Kirkland Hotel for a high-end dining restaurant and an upstairs café to serve as a restaurant industry training facility to be staffed by welfare recipients in search of job retraining, and referred by Family of Woodstock caseworkers. Reeder said that the Kirkland is not ideal for hosting the soup kitchen, however, and re-iterated that she is currently focused on the Queen’s Galley.
“We have talked with [Reeder] for the past year about putting the restaurant at the Kirkland, which we remain supportive of,” said RUPCO Executive Director Kevin O’Connor. “Apparently it is tough putting the funding together for a training restaurant and now it appears the Queens Galley may need to relocate its core operations of the soup kitchen and housing. We’d be happy to come to a meeting to discuss various funding sources for supportive housing, if asked by [Reeder] or her board of directors. In fact, the Ulster County Housing Consortium’s Continuum of Care may be eligible to apply for five or six units of funding for supportive housing for the homeless by the end of this month. I’m certain there are others in the community willing to roll up their sleeves as well.”
There is nothing sober about the residents of the Washington Manor, period. They curse at the top of their lungs, throw cigarette butts with no regard of where they land, and terrorize the residents of that part of Main Street. We cannot even keep anything on our porches without the items being stolen within hours. I would love to see this place move to midtown where the animals belong.
John,
There is everything sober about the residents at Washington Manor. The house has a non negotiable drug and alcohol policy that is strictly enforced.
The residents are not animals. Neither are the guests of Queens Galley. Many are mentally ill. All need a meal. Many need much more.
This is not the first time that you have erroneously stated negative things about the galley or residents at Washington Manor. You have been invited to come and see for yourself to meet exactly who lives there and you have always declined that invitation. They are ALL adults, mostly seniors living at or below the poverty line. Some are retired disabled veterans that made this very country a safer place for YOU to be and preserved your right to speak so harshly without validity about innocent people.
There are 45 residents there now. Not a single one of them on parole or probation, not a single one of them having had a run in with the law for the time that they have lived there.
If you hear or see something why are you not calling the police? Or why are you not calling the office at Washington Manor? (The number by the way is 338-3468).
If you see/hear something and choose not to do anything to fix the problem you are as guilty of making the city a less comfortable place to live than the people doing the very things you stated.
I would rather have the poor disabled veteran as my neighbor any day of the week than live near someone who does nothing to fix a problem but just makes a wound fester and relishes spreading the disease of hatred. At least when that veteran had the chance to make the world a better place he wasn’t a coward, he was a hero. And,now that he is elderly and poor and has chosen to live at Washington Manor he must deal with a scourge like you. He sacrificed his life and safety for YOUR liberty and how do you treat him? By saying he is an animal.
Shame on you for your bigotry. Shame on you for bringing down the city in which I live. Shame on you for nuturing hate, intolerance, ignorance and apathy. Shame on you for spreading antagonistic lies that in the end cause harm to innocent people.
In a way I feel that I must thank God that you wrote what you did. It reminds me to be ever so grateful to be helping the very people that helped to protect your right be be nescient, iniquitous and morally repulsive. For them to have protected you it is obvious that they are the ones that are ethically superior.
I am ashamed to call you neighbor.
John, I regret that you’ve been subject to rude, coarse behavior. I agree no one should throw their cigarette butts anywhere (I smoke & I too am offended by the practice.)
I take exception to your suggestion that they should “move to midtown where the animals belong.” First, the individuals you have issue with are human beings – their behavior doesn’t change that. Your choice of words are as rude and coarse as the behavior you condemn. Second, you have insulted all the residents of midtown. I chose to live in midtown over 20 years ago. I admit there are challenges here not found in all neighborhoods. I know that there are many decent, caring people, working hard to provide for themselves and their families living here in midtown. I know that attitudes like yours, shared by others have painted all of us with the same brush and have added to the issues we face.
Rude and coarse behavior is not exclusive to those at Washington Manor or midtown. Theft is not exclusive to any single group.
The Queen’s Galley provides a service needed in these unstable economic times. The Galley should be in midtown, because that is where the need is greater.
John and Amiee your both right I was involved with the QG for a number of years and yes John they can be rude, crude, and disrespectful. when you mix families with children with ex-cons and people who are out of work, with people on drugs or who have mental problems, remember a lot of these people live on the streets, some have just been released from prison, some are sex offenders and some are teen-age runaways with nowhere else to go for a meal.
No it is not good to mix all these different groups together and expect them all to get along with each other, now mix them with home owners in a family neighborhood or on a busy Midtown city center with bussinesses with pedestrian traffic right next to the only draw to Midtown the performing arts center, we now have a receipe for disaster.
On the other hand if we just close all the soup kitchens, the people in need will walk our streets, begging and panhandeling from downtown to uptown through all of our neighborhood streets, uncontained, causing havoc all over our city.
Thus crime will surely climb robbery, theft, break ins, stealing, child abandonment, because people have to eat-so what is the right decision?.
Should all social services be based in Midtown? and hasn’t Midtown homeowners and bussinesses already paid their fair share? and why should’t some of these services be placed in other areas of Kingston?.
The REAL answer is nobody wants this on their block on their street or in their neighborhood, everyone wants it somewhere else but not where they live.
But the other side of the coin is when you go into the QG and you see a 4-year old boy or girl sitting eating a meal are they considered an animal John?, aren’t they innocent? is it their fault their parents lost their jobs or are mentally ill or have fallin on hard times and the fact is that they probably won’t get a meal anywhere else doesn’t that child deserve the right not to starve after all we Americans pay for, and feed people all over the world, so how about right here at home in our own neighborhoods?.
Now ask yourself how many of us want that 4 yr old on our concious?. see John that’s what seperates US from ALL the other animals… compassion.
It may help Diane Reeder to know that a church on Elmendorf and Tremper has recently had to close it’s doors and will soon be up for sale.
As sad as this maybe it may have a silver lining for the Queens Galley it has a fully furnished kitchen in the basement with stove, oven, tables, silverware, dishwasher and is quite large with many rooms.
It is in Midtown but not right on a busy City street in the center of town and it is easy to get to on the bus or on foot and it is already off the City tax rolls, I am not sure but it also use to own two homes on either side of it for rooming students for Diane’s vision of creating a restaurant training center and it’s already built and ready to move into-just a thought!.
Sometimes god works in strange ways, but as the saying goes when he closes a door he opens a window!!.