Sharpton: Invest in NYC's homeless, not new baseball stadiums

By Associated Press, 12/29/01

NEW YORK -- The Rev. Al Sharpton said Saturday that New York should spend millions of dollars on the city's homeless, not a pair of new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets.

"I call on Mayor-elect Bloomberg to build housing for people, not stadiums for recreation," Sharpton told several hundred worshippers at his National Action Network in Harlem.

On Friday, just days before leaving office, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced a tentative $1.6 billion deal to build new retractable roof ballparks in Queens and the Bronx to replace aging Shea and Yankee stadiums. The costs would be split evenly between the city and the teams.

Mayor-elect Michael Bloomberg has reacted cautiously to the Giuliani plan, saying that he first needs to see how the city's economy recovers from the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sharpton blasted Giuliani for placing the needs of wealthy sports teams above the city's rising homeless population. The Coalition for the Homeless reported last month that there are now nearly 30,000 homeless adults and children in New York City shelters -- an all-time high.

But if the stadiums are constructed, Sharpton said, the city should use affirmative action to ensure that minority contractors have a hand in the lucrative work.

"When you get to building stadiums make sure you build them with everyone in town involved," he said.

If the deal moves forward, the Mets could open their new park in 2006, while the Yankees' new stadium would be ready in 2007.

Sharpton's remarks come after a midtown Manhattan church filed a lawsuit to block city police from arresting homeless people that it has permitted to sleep on its steps and sidewalk. A federal judge on Friday extended a temporary order that barred the city from carting away the homeless outside the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.