Dozens of kids can be found in the Gertrude Ederle Playground on most nice days but some parents are worried the care free fun will come to an end, when a new neighbor opens its doors.

“It is a playground that is beloved by everybody that live nearby and people who come from far away to enjoy,” Rachel Nazarian said.

The City and Project Renewal, a nonprofit organization that serves the homeless, plan to open a 200 bed temporary shelter for homeless women. It will include support services for those struggling with mental illness and addiction.

What You Need To Know

  • The facility would house 200 single women some of whom are struggling with mental health and addiction

  • The parents at the rally say they were completely left out of the decision making process

  • Parents say they would support a more long term solution like permanent housing or supportive housing

“To bring an influx of mentally ill chemically addicted people to an extraordinarily residential neighborhood is not safe,” Heather Groeger said.

The two story commercial structure is right next door to the playground on West 59 Street between Amsterdam and West End Avenue. Rachel Nazarian has children between the ages of two and seven.

“The problem to me is one there has been a huge lack of transparency about what they are trying to do on this site this is not going to just be a shelter this is going to be an open suboxone clinic for drug addicted people,” Nazarian said.

Project Renewal says in part: “We are excited to work with Hudson Companies [the developer] to construct this modern, purpose-built women’s shelter, with robust health and social services to help.”

In a statement, the city responded: “We rely on exceptional not-for-profit provider-partners like Project Renewal to provide quality care and robust wraparound supports in safe and trauma-informed settings for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness.

This facility comes as city officials struggle with an overwhelmed shelter system. Roughly half of the more 90,000 people in the city’s shelter system are newly arrived migrants.

Some parents at the rally say they understand the city’s plight and want those who need help to get it, but wish the facility was geared toward permanent housing.

“We absolutely support a more manageable, more manageable in size, location for affordable housing, for supportive housing, job training true health care facility to help women not something that will just warehouse and perpetuate the system,” Groeger said.

A petition protesting the plan has received close to 2,000 signatures.

The city did not directly answer our questions about neighborhood concerns over the mental health and addiction treatment component of this facility.

No word on when construction will wrap up and the facility will open