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Upper West Siders Hire Ex-Giuliani Aide And Threaten Lawsuit To Remove Homeless New Yorkers
By
Caroline Lewis
and
Sydney Pereira
Published Aug 27, 2020
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Caroline Lewis / Gothamist
By
Caroline Lewis
and
Sydney Pereira
Published Aug 27, 2020
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A group of Upper West Siders has raised more than $100,000 and is threatening to sue the city if Mayor Bill de Blasio does not move homeless New Yorkers out of neighborhood hotels that are being used as temporary shelters during the pandemic.
The Legal Aid Society, on the other hand, is threatening to sue the city if it transfers people back into crowded, dorm-style shelters before it is safe to do so.
Some 10,000 New Yorkers were moved from congregate shelters into hotels during the pandemic in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Over the past couple of weeks, the city has sent mixed messages on its timeline for moving them back.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that since the “health situation has continued to improve,” the city would “immediately” start the process of moving people out of the hotels. Upper West Siders who want their new neighbors out as soon as possible have seized on this language and urged de Blasio to set a date for the move.
But a city official with the Department of Social Services emphasized in a community board meeting with Upper West Side residents on Monday that there was no set date to move people out and that any decision to do so would be based on data, taking into account the possibility of a resurgence of COVID-19 in the fall.
Over the past few weeks, a vocal contingent of Upper West Siders went from posting on Facebook about the homeless people who had been moved into the neighborhood, to forming a nonprofit called the West Side Community Organization, raising more than $100,000 on GoFundMe, and hiring lawyer Randy Mastro to represent them.
Mastro, who previously served as chief of staff for former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has taken on a range of high-profile cases.
He sent a letter to de Blasio Wednesday with an ultimatum: “We need to hear from you by no later than this Friday, August 28, as to the date certain by which the City will be moving this vulnerable population out of these three UWS SRO hotels. Otherwise, we will have to go to court to compel the City to do so and thereby remedy this intolerable situation.”
The city did not respond to a request for comment on this legal threat specifically. Regarding the use of hotels as shelters, in general, the Department of Homeless Services said in a statement, “From the outset of the pandemic, our strategic use of commercial hotels has been about health, safety, and stopping the spread of the virus—and our data shows these actions have saved lives.”
Mastro said the group could file what’s known as an Article 78 proceeding in court to challenge the DHS’ decision to move people from congregate shelters to hotels on the grounds that it was arbitrary and capricious or irrational.
“The city made a precipitous decision to put hundreds of individuals from a vulnerable population in close proximity in a residential neighborhood without any proper screening and security,” Mastro told Gothamist in an interview Thursday. “The city made this move literally without any consultation and communication with the community and local elected officials.”
Mastro echoed Upper West Siders’ claims that the neighborhood has gone downhill in recent weeks. “This is a tragic situation of the city’s own making,” he said.
Mastro told Gothamist that part of the group’s objection to the use of hotels on the Upper West Side is that they don’t have the same social services provided in traditional shelters. However, at a community board meeting Monday, Project Renewal and Help USA, the nonprofits that run the shelters that were relocated to the Upper West Side hotels the Lucerne and Hotel Belleclaire, respectively, said they did have robust staffing, security and programming.
Project Renewal says it has 50 staff members at the Lucerne dedicated to operations and social services and details a range of services provided there on its website. They include daily wellness checks, case management, mental health and substance use counseling, housing and benefits coordination, recreational activities and vocational services.
“Normally, it takes two years or more to create a shelter. We had about two weeks notice for each hotel we opened,” said Eric Rosenbaum, president and CEO of Project Renewal, at the community board meeting. “Of course, it hasn’t been perfect because this was a public health emergency.”
In a press release sent out Thursday in response to the West Side Community Organization’s legal threat, the Legal Aid Society said that if the de Blasio administration “caves to the racist NIMBYism from some residents of the Upper West Side,” the group will “immediately file litigation seeking a temporary restraining order on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless and the nearly 18,000 single adults who sleep in Department of Homeless Services shelters each night.”
"It's clearly not the time for people to go back to living in congregate settings,” Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney for Legal Aid, told Gothamist.
Overcrowded congregate shelters, which have open-plan rooms with beds placed just three feet apart, posed a particular threat during the height of the pandemic.
New York State is required to provide all adults shelter under a landmark 1979 court ruling establishing the "right to shelter," which, Goldfein points out, also requires that the shelter must be safe.
Some individual Upper West Siders and community groups are making it clear that they reject the claims that hotel shelter residents have made the neighborhood less safe or desirable. On a website, UWS Strong, they posted an open letter to de Blasio and other elected officials saying they are “deeply disturbed by a rise in inflammatory, dehumanizing rhetoric.”
“All individuals who share our neighborhood—whether permanently or temporarily—deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of their living situation, race, medical condition, or economic means,” the letter said.
Tagged
COVID-19
pandemic
Upper West Side
homelessness crisis
Caroline Lewis
Caroline Lewis is on the health care beat for WNYC and Gothamist. She has covered COVID, a nurses' strike, the overdose crisis and New York’s marijuana legalization effort, and spent a year investigating patients' medical bills. She always wants to hear about how everyday New Yorkers experience the health system. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Sydney Pereira
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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