De Blasio: NYC ready to relocate 8K homeless out of hotels, back into shelters
No rest for the homeless.
The city government wants to move some 8,000 homeless people out of hotels and back into shelters, Mayor de Blasio said Wednesday.
The city placed the individuals in hotels at the height of the pandemic, in order to avoid the spread of COVID at shelters.
The move caused heated debate in neighborhoods including the Upper West Side, where residents were divided over whether to welcome the homeless people into their midst.
The state must authorize the city to move the individuals back into shelters, according to de Blasio. The city asked for that permission last month but hasn’t heard back, he added.
“It is time to move homeless folks who were in hotels for a temporary period of time back to shelters where they can get the support they need,” de Blasio said at a press conference.
Record-low COVID numbers amid the city’s massive vaccinations efforts make the move possible, the mayor added.
“We need the state to make clear they’re giving the authorization,” de Blasio said. “We simply want that to be done formally … We will immediately start the effort.”
Gov. Cuomo lifted most of the last remaining COVID-related restrictions on Tuesday, but the state is still following federal guidance stating masks should be used — even for vaccinated people — in settings including homeless shelters.
The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance indicated Albany is fine with de Blasio’s proposal, as long as masks are used at shelters.
The state “will require no special requirements of homeless shelters other than to require all residents to wear masks,” spokesman Anthony Farmer said in a statement to the Daily News.
The COVID outbreak prompted the city to begin transferring individuals out of shelters and into hotels — many of them emptied out by the pandemic — starting in March 2020.
There were an estimated 17,000 single homeless adults in the city’s system as of that spring. The de Blasio administration rejected calls to move all of them into hotels, citing prohibitive costs and the need for special services for some individuals.
The city plans to move individuals remaining in hotels back into shelters over the summer, according to the Department of Homeless Services.
Darren Irby, 65, said Wednesday he’d received a letter informing him he and other homeless people would soon be moved out of the Spring Hill Suites on W 36th St. in Midtown. He’s been staying there since around the start of the pandemic, he said.
“They are shipping us off. Once the staff are situated and located, we’re next,” Irby told the Daily News.
“It makes me feel crazy,” he added. “My biggest fear is getting sick [in a shelter].
“I’m thinking about going back to the streets, I’m just praying to the almighty above to give me strength, to keep me going on.”
It declined to state the total cost of the hotel policy so far. It’ll cost about $1 million per night, according to an ABC News investigation.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has promised to reimburse the city for the cost of the hotel rentals. DHS declined to state how much FEMA funding the city has received to date, if any.
The city should keep homeless individuals in hotels as long as FEMA keeps paying, said Councilman Stephen Levin (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the Council’s Committee on General Welfare.
The move shouldn’t come until “it’s clear that we’re not getting funded to keep people in de-densification hotels,” he told the Daily News.
The Council recently passed a bill to increase housing subsidies for poor New Yorkers, with the goal of keeping people out of the shelter system.
“I would like the administration to implement that as quickly as possible, so that we take advantage of a softening in the real estate market and the rental market,” he said.
“Congregant shelter should not be the default setting for people,” Levin added.
Since last year, the Upper West Side’s Lucerne Hotel has been a lightning rod for New Yorkers divided over the hotels-for-homeless policy. One group of locals formed to provide support for the men, while another pressured the de Blasio administration to kick them out.
About 80 men homeless men were still at the hotel as of Tuesday, according to lawyer Michael Hiller, who has represented some of them in court. Many of the 200 others who had been staying there have moved on to permanent housing, he said.
He thinks the use of hotels provided a successful model for helping homeless people find permanent housing while avoiding the shelter system.
“Leave it to Mayor de Blasio to take a program that’s working and terminate it,” Hiller said.
Irby sounded a note of desperation as his departure approached.
“I’m thinking about going back to the streets,” he said. “I’m just praying to the almighty above to give me strength, to keep me going on.”
