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Zoning board approves veterans' housing, small brewery for South Boston
By adamg on Wed, 07/13/2011 - 1:39pm
The Zoning Board of Appeals yesterday approved plans to convert the old C-6 police station on D Street into apartments for veterans.
Coupled with a planned extension to the building, the new project will provide 23 apartments - 11 studios, 10 2-bedroom units and 2 apartments with one bedroom apiece.
Two residents said the project would bring Level 3 sex offenders into a neighborhood already saturated with subsidized housing.
Separately, the board approved Trillium Brewery's plans to turn space at 369 Congress St. in Fort Point into a brewery turning out 1,000 barrels of craft beer each year.
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Comments
Huh?
Veterans = Sex Offenders?
The "saturated with subsidized housing" I can understand. The D Street projects are right down (and across) the street. But what rationale, if any, was given with the other part of the statement? Odd.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Peeing.
The most common level 3 offense by far is open and gross lewdness.
When opening a residence that uses certain types of subsidies reserved for people with disabilities, part of the screening is around criminal records. Generally, a decent number of people who've struggled with addiction and other mental health issues have convictions on their record for peeing or for having ripped-open pants. The NIMBYs don't realize or care that this is usually what a level 3 offense is, and they focus on this as a way of asserting that they don't want people recovering from mental health issues in their neighborhood.
Eeka, are you sure about
Eeka, are you sure about that?
It is my understanding that public urination isn't prosecutable as open and gross, as long as you make an effort to hide yourself. The same for ripped pants. Undoubtedly, someone with mental health issues may fall through the cracks and still get convicted, but I would hope that would be outside the norm.
I also don't believe that open & gross alone makes you a level 3 sex offender. If it does, then the system isn't being used properly. I know it probably isn't statistically significant, but I randomly checked 20 level 3 sex offenders, and they all had much worse offenses.
In the population though
Right, if you or I pee in public or have ripped pants, we're at most going to get told to knock that off.
In the population of people who present as being a bit off as soon as you encounter them (for instance, folks who frequently get referred to as "some homeless guy" despite not being homeless), if they're peeing or stumbling around with their nads showing they get the cops called, they say something confusing to the cops or they get paranoid and flip out on the cop, then they're hauled in for open and gross.
So, right, most level 3 sex offenders did something other than peeing. But having had jobs where I looked at the criminal records of people with psych disabilities to determine whether they were appropriate for different types of housing, I found statistically significant numbers of people who were classified as sex offenders for having peed in public, or walked around with ripped pants, etc. People who, when I was evaluating them at this particular point in their recovery, didn't have any offender traits or present any danger to anyone whatsoever.
And the label being used here is "veteran," but veterans without disabilities usually don't live in any special type of housing, so I'm guessing that we have a similar population of people here.
Level 1 is the least serious, I think
Whereas Level 3 is the worst. As far as peeing in public, the cops could have a field day downtown on a typical Friday night if they wanted to arrest everyone who does it.
And what's wrong with NIMBY in this case?
And is it morally wrong or uncharitable to say that we don't want to have as our neighbors people who pee in the street?
Yes.
I didn't say people who currently pee in the street. People who have active substance and/or other major psych issues usually aren't being referred for community-based housing. I said that a lot of people who are in recovery from psychiatric and/or substance issues have a past history of having presented as disheveled and having been hauled in for peeing or for wandering around muttering stuff with pants that were ripped or falling off.
I'm perfectly happy to have people live near me who are in recovery. Statistically speaking, we all do have such people as neighbors, and most of them are contributing just like anyone else and aren't bothering anyone.
I am just reading this thread
I am just reading this thread now and I know it's been a while, but I just had to.
The public ignorance around levels and registering is disturbing because it creates threads like this, where no one knows what they are talking about. Levels have NOTHING to do with the actual crime. Offenders are leveled based on the presumption whether or not they will re-offend. Registering on the other hand, is based on the crime and past related crimes. And, if they are not required to register, then they are not given a level.
2-3 blocks back
Is also all zoned as industrial too.
My guess is the idiotic comment came from the idiots who though it be a good idea to move into "luxury condo's" built right on the Broadway T stop.
Apparently they never bother to take a look around at the lack of a neighborhood below C street.
South Boston
traditionally has above average units of subsidized housing ie: projects, elderly housing, halfway houses etc. Veteran's housing is not something the Yuppies, who have been buying overpriced condos in the area,are going to welcome. These are the same people who have been accusing Southie residents of being NIMBYs for years.
Breweries are ok though.
Projects
I recently moved half a mile, and was just thinking while walking down a side street late last night what a huge difference a few blocks further from the housing projects makes, for safety and ambiance.
I don't know why anyone would want a housing project in their neighborhood. I'm sure many of the project residents are perfectly fine people, who simply don't have the means to live elsewhere right now. But projects also attract the some of the worst people, and the project becomes the worst element of the neighborhood. Why would anyone want to live near that.
"Homeless Veterans"
uhh...we gave these people guns, sent them overseas to represent our country and it turns out they couldn't figure out how to stay off the streets??
Sounds like trolling
Ever heard of PTSD? Or other effects of the horrors of war, which can really mess things up in the head or turn one to substance abuse?
Seriously Offensive
...
Would you like to walk into the local VFW hall and say that?
Didn't think so.
Does the VFW back up....
... the newest batch of soldiers, sailors and marines? Or is their focus still primarily on veterans of long-ago conflicts? (My recollection is that they weren't too interested in Viet Nam war vets, at least for quite a long while).
In any event so-called South Boston Yuppie's comment is one of the least "classy" ever on U Hub.