KINGSTON – A proposal that would have made available public spaces for survival of homeless people failed in the Ulster County Legislature Monday night when lawmakers deadlocked at 11-11.
Democratic Majority Leader Abe Uchitelle supported the proposal.
“I think we are already doing this in many ways in fits and spurts when we have an issue like Elizabeth Manor (in Kingston) where we want to develop affordable housing or emergency housing, transitional housing, and we hit obstacles, we start looking at other properties that the county owns,” he said. “This is something we are already doing. This would merely make it a policy that we have to consider it. This is something we already do on a case-by-case basis and this basically says this is something we are going to continue doing.”
Legislator Joe Maloney said it sounds like “a tent city in county parking lot, which is a failure.” He said the proposal was well-intentioned but with no idea of what it meant.
When the resolution failed, residents in attendance at the meeting booed.
