New Blog Addresses Christian Avenue Homeless Shelter; Community Meeting Set for Tonight

The debate over the proposed Christian Avenue homeless family shelter continues with a new blog that has popped up on the Internet.

The blog, found at 3villagesonepeople.blogspot.com, was launched at 7 a.m. on Oct. 2 by resident Faiza Akhtar following what she described as a disastrous meeting last Thursday called by Legis. Vivian Viloria-Fisher, D-Setauket.

Akhtar has been an outspoken critic of the shelter as it is proposed, and is leading the charge to find a shelter for homeless families in a location other than 42 Christian Avenue – an historic area of Setauket which abuts Gelinas Junior High School. A private agency has leased the property with the intent of housing up to five homeless families (24 people) in the single-family home.

"It's too close to the school, it's in an historic district, it's in a community that's already struggling, and the biggest thing of all is the environmental impact issues," Akhtar said Wednesday. "It has not been reviewed by anybody in the town."

The blog publishes e-mail correspondence and collects links to news stories related to the shelter. It provides concerned residents with the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of local officials involved in the shelter discussions.

On the blog, Akhtar outlines an approach to fighting the shelter she calls "SAFELY," which stands for Social impact, Alternative solution, Financial impact, Environmental impact, Legal standing, and Youth impact.

"An argument is best resolved when each party is empathetic to the other's point of view and I believe we as a community have every desire to win this current argument," she wrote in a recent blog post.

Another community meeting on the issue has been set for tonight at 7 p.m. at Setauket Elementary. Akhtar said this meeting will focus on "organizing community volunteers to take on certain tasks" in the community's push to relocate the shelter.