I am a Jericho mom with a son in high school. When I first heard about the “homeless shelter” being put in Jericho, I decided to get informed before I rushed to judgement. I participated in a Zoom call and found out that Jericho Family Support Center is a solution to take homeless families out of unsafe rundown motel homeless shelters in Jericho and put them in a clean, safe stable environment where they can get services that can ultimately end their homelessness. It seemed odd to me that the meeting concluded with outrage that this was happening in our community. Then the hateful signs emerged throughout our peaceful neighborhood that read “WE WANT TRANSPARENCY, Say NO to a homeless shelter…”

That week I contacted representatives from the School District, the County, the State, and Newsday and compiled all the information I could. I contacted CHI and spoke with the Director at length about his intentions and successes.

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On Aug 19th the "Concerned Jericho Parents" were holding a peaceful rally so I printed out all the information I compiled and headed down to the Oyster Bay Town Hall to share the information I had gathered. I was sure that if they had all the information, it would relieve their concerns but was not prepared for what I encountered.

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I watched in horror as Sivan Komatsu, a 2017 Jericho high school graduate, was surrounded by this crowd and being screamed at as she tried to respond to their taunts and fear stoking questions. She stood fearlessly but my maternal instinct kicked in and I stood by her side to show that she was not alone. I tried to reason with the crowd to get hold of some civility, but this seemed to enrage them even more. Men aggressively jumped behind us, thrusting their fists in the air, and screamed at the top of their lungs “NO ILLEGAL SHELTER!”, The crowd echoed back louder, “NO ILLEGAL SHELTER!”. As the booming chants vibrated my body, I felt something that I have never experienced in all my years on this planet. I was fearful for my personal safety. I was not in a dark alley in some inner city after midnight. It was broad daylight in front of my Town Hall in the suburban Town of Oyster Bay and the people causing such fear were my neighbors. All I could think to do was chant "We choose kindness!"  I was quickly drowned out.

 

I decided to take a step back and observe to grasp a deeper understanding and came to some key realizations.

• These screams were not about a zoning code violation. They were an attempt to silence the voice of compassion, the voice of reason.

• What I was actually witnessing was the ugly manifestation of fear. It is only fear that could cause such rage filled and hateful display. It was fear that had reduced my adult neighbors to screaming bullies attempting to intimidate me and a student of Jericho…a daughter of Jericho parents.  

• The moment I understood what  I was dealing with, my fear dissolved and I began building this site.

 

I created this site:

• to give people facts so they can release their fears and let compassion flow freely to allow these families to get the help they need to put their lives back together.

• for the people who want to support the Jericho Family Support Center but don't know how to help

• for people to realize they can't just sit back and let these "Concerned Jericho Parents" stop these families from getting help they need

• for people who don't want the "Concerned Jericho Parents" to get in the way of CHI cleaning up our community by shutting down the 3 disgusting motels in the process 

• for people who don't like the way the our community is being represented as heartless angry elitists 

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