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De Blasio Backs Away From Decision To Oust Homeless Residents From UWS Hotel
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Sep 15, 2020
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Kate Hinds / WNYC
By
Gwynne Hogan
Published Sep 15, 2020
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Mayor Bill de Blasio is backing away from his abrupt decision last week to shut down an Upper West Side hotel housing homeless men and a second hotel for women in Long Island City.
The mayor’s plan to close the hotels followed a weeks-long pressure campaign from a group of Upper West Side residents who wanted the shelter gone, and would have forced around 900 New Yorkers experiencing homelessness to move to different locations around the city. Opponents of de Blasio’s decision called it “domino displacement.”
Last week de Blasio defended his choice, which reportedly went against the guidance of his social services commissioner, but after several days of protests and the threat of multiple lawsuits, the mayor said on Tuesday he was once again deferring to the discretion of Human Resources Administration/Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks and city attorney Jim Johnson.
“They’re looking at their whole picture, our whole homeless services systems, because we do want to get, of course, back to that original policy of not being in hotels, being in shelters, where people can get a whole lot more support,” de Blasio said. “But they’re going to look at the whole picture then decide the next steps, so I’m not going to speak to exact days, but they’ll be coming back soon with that vision.”
The city is currently using 139 commercial hotels across the city to house New Yorkers experiencing homelessness, including 63 that it started using during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak to give more space to roughly 10,000 people who had been in crowded group shelters.
Critics of the mayor’s choice to suddenly close two of those hotels saw it as a knee-jerk reaction to a vocal group of politically connected Upper West Siders.
“It has to be more than you get a call from one lawyer and then make these changes that have this devastating ripple effect across the city,” said Councilmember Helen Rosenthal, who represents the Upper West Side. She and other community members had raised $270,000 to work with the local nonprofit Goddard Riverside to provide meals and additional services to residents of the Lucerne in an effort to address some of the quality of life complaints Upper West Side residents had. “Fundamentally what is the city's homeless policy now?”
The scaffolding outside the hotel is decorated with stars that say things like "Exile UWS Racists and NIMBYS"
Kate Hinds / WNYC
Rudy Giuliani’s former Chief of Staff, Attorney Randy Mastro, who had threatened to sue the city on behalf of a group of Upper West Siders who opposed the Lucerne Hotel, said Monday that his clients were still demanding the shelter to close by the end of the month. A spokesman for the group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Seventeen families were moved out of the Harmonia Hotel Thursday to make way for residents of the Lucerne. But the planned reshuffling was halted that day, following reporting in the Daily News that residents with disabilities were being hastily moved to other locations.
After four days of silence, Issac McGinn, a spokesman for the Department of Homeless Services, confirmed Monday that they would not be moving anyone else “at this time,” though he didn’t say the plan was officially canceled.
All the back and forth has been exhausting for residents of the Lucerne caught in limbo.
“I think they’re biding their time,” said a 51-year-old shelter resident who declined to give his name. “It seems like we’re gonna be moved in just a matter of a week or two.”
He added the way the mayor had tried to shut down the Lucerne “literally compromised and jeopardized the mental, physical, spiritual well-being” of the around 900 shelter residents who were told they would have to move.
“What type of thought process went into this decision?” he wondered. “There is a way to reverse it, the mayor has a power to do that.”
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de Blasio
Upper West Side
homeless
Gwynne Hogan
Gwynne Hogan is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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