By Susan Barnett
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-845459.mp3
Hudson Valley, NY –
The city of Hudson's council has voted to enact a moratorium on the expansion and creation of large scale transitional housing and homeless shelters...but that may have opened to door for talks that have been stalled. HV bureau chief Susan Barnett reports.
The Hudson City Common council voted unanimously on a moratorium, which put the brakes on the County department of social services plan to convert the city's St. Charles Hotel into a transitional housing facility. It's unclear if a moratorium like that is legal...but Alderman Robert Donohue says the city's attorney advised the council that the moratorium was needed.
Charles Williams is a former school...and it's a new proposal from the city, which County Board of Supervisor Art Baer says is a good opening. He says until now, even the Charles Williams option had been met with a cool reception by the city.
Kevin O'Neal is executive director of Housing Resources of Columbia County. He says there's increasing need for transitional housing, and until this crisis came to a head, he's had to place people in motels and the county pays to transport them back and forth to the services they require.
There's another issue here - the county's plan to move the department of social services out of the city of Hudson into a former school six miles away. Mayor Rick Scalera says the county has, to this point, been making decisions with absolutely no input from Hudson.
Right now, the county's paying for motel rooms and transportation even as far away as Greene County - so this isn't an issue that anyone can afford to ignore. But it appears the talks are now open.