Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren is releasing some more details about a proposal made to house immigrant children in the city.
She says she met with her senior staff on Monday to talk about an inquiry made to house up to 172 of the children at the former Blossom South nursing home on Monroe Avenue. The mayor says she and other officials are in the process of gathering more information before any decisions are made.
Warren says the city will engage in discussions with City Council, neighborhood groups and others before drafting any formal proposal.
The President of the Upper Monroe Neighborhood Association, Chris Stevens tells WXXI News that her group has been looking for feedback from people in the area, and so far, there are a lot of questions from those responding about what this kind of facility would entail.
“We’d want to be sure that it’s an appropriate setting, would benefit the children, we also want to be sure that it’s not going to detract from the children already here in our community we have all kinds of need, ” Stevens said.
Mayor Warren says that “As a community we have a moral obligation to show compassion to these young people. If the decision is made to open up our community, it is imperative we ensure that the environment is a safe one for them, where they can receive not only the legal support, but the spiritual and emotional support that they will need in order to make the transition back home or to another place of safety."
Recently concerns were raised in the towns of Greece and Sweden when there were reports that the federal government might have been interested in trying to place shelters in those communities. In both cases, officials later said there are no longer proposals to do that.
