Letters

I would hope by now that Liberty Gardens is no longer even a possibility for approval by the Town of Southampton.

Full disclosure, I worked as CEO of a nonprofit in the early 1990s. This organization provided full support for mentally ill New Yorkers, including programs and housing for homeless mentally ill residents.

While in that role, I promoted Ralph Fasano to vice president of residential services in recognition of his successful work in developing new housing options for homeless mentally ill New Yorkers.

Mr. Fasano, as some of you may know, heads up Concern Housing, which is the sponsoring organization for Liberty Gardens. I know him as someone who was devoted to providing good housing and services to a very vulnerable population. Given his new role, I suspect he continues to operate in that principled manner.

It was confusing, then, to learn last year that Mr. Fasano’s organization was promoting a 60-unit housing project in Southampton as “affordable housing,” housing that the town desperately needs. In short order, it became clear that the very large project (later scaled back to 50 units to “accommodate” the town) was not the kind of affordable housing or the size project we all support. This housing was for vulnerable populations and not for our local workforce or our volunteer firemen and women or ambulance drivers. And the size of the project was not in keeping with the housing stock in this town.

Supportive housing for homeless mentally ill folks and homeless veterans is a laudable project for any community; we all want to support opportunities for those in our community who are less fortunate. Fasano may in fact be the right person to develop that project. But these 50 units were sold to the residents of this town as affordable housing, and that is simply not what the project is about.

The town was willingly deceived for a long time until the truth finally emerged earlier this year. Funding for this project comes from sources that are committed to housing for veterans and for homeless mentally ill folk. This is not affordable housing of the kind the local community has been discussing for years.

Liberty Gardens is not affordable housing in the context of how we have always described and discussed that housing in Southampton, or any of the eastern townships. The message to Concern Housing and Mr. Fasano should simply be no, we are looking for actual affordable housing in multiple small projects that will have minimal affects on traffic and will have a waste treatment plan that protects our aquifers.

David Glazer

Southampton

Glazer is a candidate for Southampton Town receiver of taxes — Ed.