The editorial we want to write about the Kingston Motel is one where we congratulate everyone involved in the effort to finally make it a decent place for people to live.

This is not that editorial.

Your Editorial Team last week got a copy of an Oct. 20 letter penned by retired Family of Woodstock director Michael Berg, addressed “to county leaders.” Berg opened by relating a talk with an unnamed county legislator, who told Berg that Family should do “something to address the damage being done to Family’s reputation.” It went on to detail how, from Berg’s perspective, the Kingston Motel was chosen in 2023 as an emergency housing site by Ulster County government and how the county turned down an offer by Family to provide comprehensive services at the motel. It then describes what Family’s hamstrung efforts did accomplish, with the ever-humble Berg writing, “I have to say we were not able to provide as much help as I had hoped. The families [at the motel] largely did not seek us out. While we were told that specific families would be referred to us by [the county Department of Social Services], this largely didn’t happen.”

Look for the letter posted in toto in the slideshow at the top of this editorial. We will note here that Deputy County Executive James Amenta, speaking on behalf of the county, told us last week that he was “incredibly saddened to hear [Berg] has been advised that Family of Woodstock and his tenure need a reputation boost,” and that it is not the position of Metzger’s administration. However, Amenta said, many of Berg’s claims in the letter were “inaccurate or uncontextualized.”

The letter goes on to say that what’s caused the motel to become such a mess was a lack of management and supervision. “There was no one taking charge on a 24-hour basis to calm things before they blew up, or to ensure that families did not sell their rooms to drug dealers, as happened,” he wrote. “The only response became a police or emergency services intervention, and the existing services, without any planning or additional resources, became overwhelmed. While we at Family wished we had accomplished more while we were providing services at the motel, Family should not be blamed for what happened, and continues to happen, there.”

We have been covering the story of the horrible living conditions at the motel since our expose shed light on them last summer. We know it’s a complicated issue which can only be truly solved either by a drop in housing prices so severe that the families at the motel can afford them, or by more and better emergency housing coming online. There have been many statements of concern by county officials, which we believe to be sincere. There was a building inspection by the Town of Ulster late last year which revealed a long list of problems and painted the sad tableau of adults and kids living in the kind of conditions that New York City slumlords inflict on their tenants. We understand that a motel wasn’t designed for 24/7 inhabitation and moving families out of there in bulk would break an already-fragile system.

But the fact remains: The Kingston Motel is still not a place where human beings should be allowed to live. It remains Ulster’s own version of a Brazilian favela, with people crammed into tight spaces right on top of each other with little or no hope of ever getting out. No wonder there’s drugs, violence and chaos there.

Ulster Town Supervisor Jim Quigley has been mad about this for a long time, and while he’s not one who often speaks well of the Metzger administration, we can find no fault in what he told us on Monday: “What I see happening is absolutely nothing. I see no change in the situation.”

Many of us in Kingston and Ulster County believe ourselves to be more compassionate than people elsewhere. While that’s a dictionary definition of a “humblebrag,” there is some truth to this. The mere existence of Family goes a long way to prove that point, as do the widespread and ceaseless efforts the community makes to help the most vulnerable among us. Facing rising costs, both the city and the county want to hold on to their initiatives in this department, even if it means a bigger tax hike than might have been otherwise.

Our community was in no way prepared for what happened in 2020. We all knew for years not enough housing was being built in Kingston but the political will to get that done just didn’t exist pre-pandemic. So when people from downstate started to come in numbers far larger than previously, the housing shortage and hallucinatory real estate prices forced a lot of people out, as they could no longer afford even the cheapest housing Kingston had to offer. Many moved elsewhere either less far or a lot further away. Some ended up at the motel, where they will keep paying the price for the foreseeable future in the cruel currency of suffering and despair for our collective civic failure.

We used to say that we would know when gentrification won in Kingston when Elizabeth Manor and Chiz’s Heart Street weren’t there anymore and their residents, many with severe mental illness and other issues which gave them no other place to go, shooed away from the valuable real estate and the much more fortunate who are buying it. In 2020, Elizabeth Manor was closed following a fire. The same thing happened to Chiz’s a year later. Money talks.

The situation at the motel confronts us all with uncomfortable truths, one of them being that despite all the nice things about our community, this problem has so far proved to be beyond our collective ability to solve it. Yes, we have art and music and food and wonderful people doing amazing things. We have love for our neighbors and a thirst for social justice. But the motel, where casual compassion and performative concern melt away against the hard-as-hell reality of what it’s like to be down and out in Ulster County, casts a shadow over all of that, and all of us. (See also, the parable of the sheep and the goats.)

For what it’s worth, we think the Metzger administration made a serious mistake back in ‘23 when they turned down Berg’s proposal. It wouldn’t have made life there easy-peasy, but we think many more who desperately needed help would’ve gotten it. So when some throw up their hands and say nothing can be done, remember that Michael Berg presented a pretty comprehensive idea of what could be done three years ago.

We also agree with Quigley when he says the Town of Ulster needs more help from the county. Giving this help doesn’t need to be an admission of “Quigley was right,” nor should it be an excuse to not help at all.

As for the rest of us? First, a community acceptance of the fact that no matter how difficult the problems at the motel are, it’s our responsibility to fix it anyway. We’ll close with a reading from the Talmud, the compendium of Jewish thought and teaching. “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it."