Despite pleas from leaders in White Plains, plans to move a controversial county homeless shelter to Hawthorne have been dropped.

Homeless individuals, who don?t want mental health or substance abuse treatment, currently stay overnight at an office building in White Plains. Westchester County Executive Andy Spano wanted to build a new drop-in shelter on the impound lot at county police headquarters in Hawthorne.However, Mount Pleasant residents and leaders vehemently opposed the plan in their hamlet of Hawthorne, saying it would violate a prior agreement that shelters cannot be built within two miles of each other. A homeless shelter housing up to 149 people opened at the county?s Grasslands complex in Mount Pleasant at the end of 2005.

Spano says he will not break that agreement and pledges not to put the shelter anywhere within the town of Mount Pleasant.

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