ALBANY - Overcrowding at the Albany Helping Hands homeless shelter may endanger the health of people staying there and affect the wider community as well, two medical officials told the City Council on Wednesday.

The private shelter at 619 Ninth Ave. S.E. is designed for 67 overnight guests but has had as many as 120 staying there, and is building a new dormitory with beds for 34 women and 16 sick beds.

Wednesday night the shelter held 111 - 40 women and 71 men - said the Rev. Les Bailey, its director. The shelter has stopped turning its dining area into a dorm at night, which the city said violated the fire code, and instead has people sleeping in shifts in its existing dorm, which has room for 66.

"This scheme does not address the health issues of overcrowding and in fact creates new risks," Dr. William J. Origer, medical director of Samaritan Health Services and Albany General Hospital, wrote in a letter to the council Wednesday.

"We believe there are serious issues related to the entire community - not just for the residents of Helping Hands - if the shelter board and its management are allowed to continue to push the limits of what is reasonable and prudent."

He added that the only way to minimize health risks was to observe health and occupancy standards.

Judith Hamilton, a family nurse practitioner and coordinator of Samaritan's free InReach clinic for the poor, appeared before the council with the same message. She said that in years of working with the homeless, she had never seen a shelter that didn't limit the number of people allowed in.

"Capacity is the issue and our concern is for their health," Hamilton said.

WHAT CAN HAPPEN

According to Samaritan Health Services, the health risks of crowding at the homeless shelter in Albany include spreading tuberculosis, influenza, common cold and other viruses, norovirus and contagious diarrhea, "common GI flu," hepatitis A and giardia, as well as scabies, impetigo and staph infections.