NEW YORK – Plans to move homeless residents staying in an Upper West Side hotel to another location have been put on hold for now.
Residents of a shelter, who have been housed in a New York City hotel due to the pandemic, were expected to be transferred to another hotel on Monday. This while residents of the area against the measure take the fight to court.
Initially, more than 200 men living in the Lucerne hotel had been told they would have to move to another shelter in the Financial District on Monday. However, the plan was stopped, at least for now, due to a court order. At least two ongoing lawsuits may get in the way of the plan to relocate homeless residents.
Local leaders and homeless advocates gathered in front of the Lucerne Hotel Monday morning to speak out against moving homeless people who have been placed in the Upper West Side neighborhood since July.
“I tell our Upper West Side neighbors that as New Yorkers we have a shared responsibility to welcome the homeless into our communities,” said advocate Melissa Sanchez during the meeting.
Advocates for UWS Open Hearts have been fighting in recent months against the relocation of shelter residents, citing health concerns amid COVID-19 and depriving residents, many of whom are men of color facing problems of mental health and substance abuse, many needed services and a supportive community. The New York Post reported Sunday that three Lucerne residents filed a lawsuit to stop the scheme, citing possible “massive psychological damage.”
Our sister network, NBC 4, reached out to the city for comment and more details.
A resident of the shelter, who identified himself only as Emmanuel, told NBC 4 on Monday that he personally believes the Upper West Side is a good area and that he hasn’t seen much trouble. But he says some residents want to move to a larger space.
“A lot of people are working. I’m working. I’m doing construction. I don’t really see why we should move, but if we do, I don’t see any problem either,” Emmanuel said.
The city’s Department of Homeless Services had previously halted plans to relocate the residents, but last month confirmed that they will move them to another building in the financial district that will become the first traditional shelter in this area. The plan received immediate criticism from a group of neighbors, and last week Downtown New Yorkers Inc. filed a lawsuit against the city to prevent more than 200 shelter residents from moving into the Radisson Hotel at 52 William Street.
“When they tell us to move like this, something psychological happens to us because we have no control over the decisions that are made on our behalf,” said a Lucerne resident during Monday’s protest in front of the hotel on the Upper West Side. “And in this case, the fact that we go to a place where there is another group that says they don’t want us there, even before we get there, is in itself traumatizing.”
During his press conference on the coronavirus on Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed the matter saying that “by opening a facility that will be a shelter, a real shelter, with full services, we will be able to accommodate the people coming out of Lucerne and ourselves we can accommodate others as well. We are going to use the fact that we have a new and better facility to help the homeless. And then overall as we continue to move forward with the coronavirus and we have more space in our shelter system in general, we are going to look to move out of the hotels that we pay for by the day and into the shelters. That has always been the vision. “
The complaints from the inner city neighborhood group are the same as those from another UWS neighborhood group who wanted homeless people to move out of the exclusive neighborhood. Christopher Brown, the group’s petitioner’s chief operating officer, said in the affidavit that he has observed “an increase in the number of homeless adult men gathering in or around the open-air plaza located outside my building” and has watched men use drugs in public from another hotel in the neighborhood turned into a temporary haven for the summer.
“Given the lack of planning, community involvement, and the arbitrary nature of the decision, I am concerned for my safety and that of my neighbors, given my experiences with the homeless population after the initial transfer of adult men to the Hilton at 6 Water, and in light of the widely reported hardship the Upper West Side community had when these men initially moved into the Lucerne Hotel, “Brown said.
It is not the first time the city has faced a lawsuit by the residents of the shelters. In August, an Upper West Siders group threatened to sue the city if it did not remove the residents of the Renewal shelter from Lucerne. Soon after, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his decision to relocate the shelter, and homeless advocates like UWS Open Hearts say the mayor giving in to the wealthy NIMBY has emboldened others like the downtown group.
Corrinne Low of UWS Open Hearts has said that De Blasio’s decision to displace residents of the shelter is a form of segregation and that it will slow the path to justice and racial equality.
“Neighborhoods are resources – neighborhoods are jobs, they are community support, they are networks, they are engines of economic opportunity. And when you exclude a group of people from neighborhoods to keep for you and the people who look like you, it makes sure resources stay in the hands of the powerful, “Low said last month in reaction to the move.
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