An Especially Cold Winter Lies Ahead For NYC’s Homeless

Earlier this month, MTA track inspectors came upon the remains of a middle-aged man in a subway tunnel near the Wall Street station. Officials suspected the deceased was a homeless person electrocuted by the third rail while seeking refuge underground. As temperatures drop, more and more New Yorkers are reportedly seeking shelter in the tunnels, illuminating the complex difficulties of contending with homelessness in the cold amid a pandemic.

For individuals facing housing insecurity, autumn’s colder weather, coupled with closures and restrictions on shelters due to COVID-19, amount to even more hurdles amid an already challenging season.

In light of the pandemic, the Bowery Mission, a Christian mission that has served New York City’s housing insecure since the 1870s, has ceased its usual practice of bringing individuals inside for large group gatherings for food and shelter. A dedicated page on its website lists the updated services, many of which have remained in place in a downsized format. Individuals can pick up to-go meals and use the showers as needed. There are still residential programs for those in need, though they aren’t very large; these residents are the only individuals allowed to eat indoors aside from the staff.  

As the weather gets colder, keeping people outside presents more of a problem, says Lina Fernandez, a regular volunteer.

“Already, being homeless is such a difficult situation to be in, and on top of that to deal with COVID and on top of that to deal with the winter, it’s gonna be really hard,” she said.

Fernandez said there were no current plans to allow more people into the Mission’s six locations. “We don’t want to crowd people together in a situation where they’d be more likely to spread COVID, if anyone should have it,” she said.

Beth Pontes, an outreach intern at Trinity Commons, a New York-based organization that helps individuals facing food and housing insecurity, highlighted issues regarding the intersection of homelessness and food insecurity.

At the outbreak’s peak, about 40 percent of the city’s soup kitchens and food pantries were closed, according to a report by Food Bank for New York City. Some 75 percent of food pantries and soup kitchens surveyed reported serving more New Yorkers in April than in the months leading up to COVID-19, with 31 percent reporting that their number of visitors more than doubled. Though these numbers have steadily been declining, concerns have mounted regarding New York City’s ability to support at-risk populations as the city heads toward another surge of coronavirus cases.

Pontes also worries about the impacts autumn will have on at-risk individuals’ autonomy. “When it gets colder, they don’t want people experiencing homelessness in the parks anymore, so what they do is force them into shelters,” she said.

The number of unsheltered individuals sleeping on New York City streets or subways has climbed to a five-year high this year, as the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated street homelessness and ravaged shelters. Mayor de Blasio has pushed for efforts to house some of these individuals in hotels, as well as to create more “safe haven” beds in the city to keep people off the streets. 

Some 9,500 homeless people have been relocated to 63 hotels during the pandemic, but the program remains controversial. One notable relocation– of more than 200 men to the Lucerne on the Upper West Side– sparked outrage among neighbors over street conditions that de Blasio eventually deemed “not acceptable.” (A ruling on whether the city will be able to move them to another hotel in the Financial District is imminent.) Hell’s Kitchen residents also pushed back against hundreds temporarily relocated there. 

Although hotel relocation “seems like it would be something that’s good, it’s actually kind of counterproductive,” Pontes explained. “You’re taking away the autonomy of those people, especially now with COVID.”

“It’s your choice if you want to go to a shelter or not, because you’re a human and you get to make that choice,” Pontes continued. “Now that there’s COVID, a lot of people don’t want to go into shelters,” she explained, elaborating that shelters have become “a really big risk for people” due to the city’s mismanagement. 

From March through August, homeless, sheltered New Yorkers died from COVID-19 at a rate 78 percent higher than the general New York City rate, according to an analysis released by the Coalition for the Homeless. The mortality rate due to COVID-19 for all of New York City increased by 19 percent over the summer; for homeless single adults, who comprise the majority of the population in congregate shelters, it increased by 46 percent during the same period. The lack of controlled, private spaces for homeless people greatly exacerbates the potential for virus transmission. 

Pontes explained that Trinity Commons utilizes harm reduction to consider individuals’ wishes, a practice where one attempts to lessen the harm caused by certain behaviors rather than eliminate the behavior altogether. “You really have to remember that they are the experts on their lives and just try to meet them with resources that can help them in whatever capacity that may be.”

For individuals refusing shelters, this often takes the form of providing winter clothing, masks, or sanitization products in an effort to “reduce the harm they may have from being outside.”

For many, it comes down to a choice between facing COVID in a shelter or facing the harsh weather outside. 

“I think that’s something that’s really hard for people to navigate,” Pontes concluded. “And it’s unfortunate they have to be in the position to even make that decision.”

NYC To Open Another Homeless Shelter in Rockaway

The Wave has learned that the NYC Department of Homeless Services is going to place a new homeless shelter at 1252 Brunswick – Far Rockaway Cathedral church, to house 72 adult families.

The facility will be run by Black Veterans For Social Justice; our source says “the new building scheduled to open in 2022, with a five-year contract with option to renew.”

Lower Manhattan residents resisting NYC's homeless plan

By: Magee Hickey

LOWER MANHATTAN — Saturday is World Homeless Day.

And on this day, there’s a new battle simmering about moving hundreds of homeless men out of a hotel on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and into one in the Financial District.

“There needs to be at least a town hall,” Jenny, a FiDi resident who didn’t want to give her last name, told PIX11 News. “We as residents were not notified. There needs to be transparency I see both sides."

Neighbors in the financial district say this isn’t a NIMBY — short for "not in my backyard" issue — but rather a “we’re just looking for details” on a city plan to move more than 250 homeless men out of the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West side and into the Radisson on William Street in the Finance District.

“We’re trying to welcome people but we have to figure out a process to work and live together, especially in this difficult time with the pandemic,” Stephanie Tchuente, another FiDi resident, told PIX11 News.

A Facebook group of more than two thousand members called "Downtown NYCers for Safe Streets" has been created.

One of their goals is to raise $1 million to fight the city’s proposed plan.

The Legal Aid Society, working with the Coalition for the Homeless, says that million could be put to better use.

“If people have $1 million to spend on a top quality lawyer to fight a shelter maybe they could use that million dollars for affordable housing that the city has refused to provide,” Joshua Goldfein, a Legal Aid lawyer, told PIX11 News.

The city’s response to this latest community battle simmering: “Opening quality, borough-based shelters in neighborhoods across the city — the staple of our Turning the Tide plan — remains our first priority, which is why we will be converting a commercial hotel location in the Wall Street area to a permanentTurning the Tide shelter—the first of its kind in this Manhattan Community District,” a spokesman for the NYC Department of Homeless Services said in a statement.

Some residents plan to show compassion.

“ If they do end up coming to this neighborhood I’m going to support them and make sure they get the services they need to support them as human beings,” Sonni Mun, another FiDi resident, told PIX11 News.

If all goes as planned, 250 homeless men currently housed at the Lucerne will be moving here to the Radisson on October 19, if not before.

NYC Homeless Saga Exposes City’s Struggle With Race, Inequality

For Megan Martin, the tipping point came when she passed several men slumped over the steps of a Broadway church in the middle of the day.

“They weren’t sleeping, they were in the throes of addiction,” said Martin, who offers her assessment as an anesthesiologist with a master’s in public health. Within days, she helped found the West Side Community Organization, which seeks, its website says, “to advance a restored quality of life for residents, visitors, and the small business community in our neighborhood.” 

It’s not just any neighborhood but Manhattan’s Upper West Side, home to Lincoln Center, “Seinfeld,” the dinosaurs of the Museum of Natural History and enough liberal-minded thinkers to staff a slew of universities. Abstruse disputation is hardly unknown but argument has reached a new level with threats of lawsuits and charges of snobbish bigotry and snowflake naïveté.

How it’s resolved will offer a dress rehearsal for the post-virus future as New York City seeks, amid overlapping crises of illness, joblessness, lifestyle shifts and racial tension, to hold onto its residents and businesses — and attract new ones. If the well-off, left-leaning Upper West Side can’t find a way to accommodate fellow New Yorkers in deep need right now, many are wondering, what does that say about the kind of city its residents really want?

The fight is over the treatment of some 600 homeless people placed in the area. City Hall removed them from group shelters to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and is paying to lodge them in boutique hotels hungry for business in the tourist-challenged year of 2020.

Summer has turned to fall and the city’s viral infection rate has plummeted. Museums are opening, indoor dining is starting. Some semblance of normalcy is returning. Yet the homeless people are still there. And while the city just announced plans to move 200 of the men downtown, the others are staying and more are expected. Many neighbors just want them all to go away. 

“For the people of the Upper West Side, the situation remains one of trauma and concern,” asserted Randy Mastro, a lawyer and former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani hired by Martin’s well-funded community organization, in an interview. He wasn’t referring to the loss of 24,000 New Yorkers to the virus, but to the ongoing presence of homeless people in their midst.

After Mastro threatened legal action, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he’d send them to another shelter. But he put that on hold when it was learned they would displace others, including a number with disabilities. The city now says a third shelter near Wall Street has been found for some of them. But other moves are still being planned and debated.

For the homeless themselves, it hasn’t been easy.

“People definitely look at me funny,” said Roberto Mangual, one of the men sheltered in the neighborhood. “I think the community needs to understand that attacking us doesn’t make sense. We don’t have a choice of where to stay.”

A backdrop to much of the anxiety is the fear that the neighborhood, which is today largely white and wealthy, might slip back to the ’70s and ’80s, when crime was soaring and the streets were dangerous. What will happen, members of Mastro’s group ask, if the residents who fled to their weekend homes in the Hamptons and rural retreats upstate during the darkest days of the pandemic don’t come back? Some of the loudest voices online have been from those still away who are leery of returning to a city that feels less tidy and safe than the one they left.

“As the school year started, we saw a lot of families that didn’t return,” noted Rabbi Yosie Levine of The Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue. “I can’t say whether it’s forever but this issue has gotten a lot of people’s attention. They’re waiting to see whether people feel safe walking down the street.”

In fact, while murder and shootings are up from a year ago on the Upper West Side and across the city, crime across the board is down, continuing a dramatic drop from previous decades. Homelessness remains steady. 

Of course, the past months have been dominated not only by the viral pandemic but by inequality and race. The vast majority of the city’s homeless residents are nonwhite, and some who live on the Upper West Side suspect a whiff of racism in Martin’s group and are more disturbed by that than by the homelessness.

“We want to send the message that they are welcome here,” said Heather Gunn-Rivera, who owns a local business and helped found a counterpoint organization, the Upper West Side Open Hearts Initiative. It set up tables outside the Lucerne Hotel, where more than 200 men have been housed, and offers them free clothes, books, metro passes and voter registration. When word came last Friday evening about the plan to move the men downtown from the Lucerne, Gunn-Rivera’s group said it was devastated and called the mayor cowardly for yielding to pressure. It said the bonds the group had built with the Lucerne men had been powerful and shouldn’t be disturbed.

Gunn-Rivera says the fight is part of a larger challenge: building affordable housing, unpacking privilege, and “aligning ourselves with those in need.”

To which Rabbi Levine said — in this season of Jewish holy days in a neighborhood with two dozen synagogues — the wisdom of the ancient sage Hillel applies: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I?” 

Clyde Haberman, a former New York Times metro columnist and Upper West Sider who’s noticed an uptick in barefoot, unbathed men walking by his apartment, said he saw no risk and put the dilemma in more modern terms: “Where do you draw the line between compassion and annoyance?”

As with many controversies, both sides lament how the debate has hardened and devolved so quickly into contemptuous name-calling while digging in their heels..

There were concerns ranging from mask wearing to assault. A liquor store across the street said men tried to steal wine. There was a drug bust, and some of those arrested were from the Lucerne.

They’ve been removed, along with a couple dozen others. Security guards have been hired for the streets, police presence has increased and social-service providers are now based at the hotel.

All of which should’ve eliminated this as a topic of controversy, says Helen Rosenthal, the city council member for the neighborhood. After the men arrived at the Lucerne, her inbox exploded. So did neighborhood calls to 311, the city’s hotline. Rosenthal vowed right away that her area would take in no more homeless.

Now, she said in a phone interview, the situation is under control and she no longer stands by that vow. After the city announced the move of the Lucerne men, she condemned it as caving to pressure. It’s time, she says, to stop focusing on minor threats from 600 people living in nearby hotels and ask larger questions. 

As she put it, “We’re in a pandemic of crisis proportions but we’re not even close to what it was like in the 1970s. You do have George Floyd and the question of whether White people are willing to engage in what Black people have suffered for hundreds of years. Now we’re also trying to figure out what’s safe. For those of us who love New York and want to see it come back, we have some big choices to make. The fight over the Lucerne simply exposed them.”

By

Ethan Bronner

Bloomberg

Confusion, anger as more NYC homeless are shuffled around city.

NEW YORK - People living inside of the Flatlands Family Residence, a shelter in Brooklyn are blasting New York City’s policies as it continues to struggle to figure out how to handle its homelessness problem. 

“The system is falling and it’s crumbling, this is anarchy,” said Ishmael Harris, who lives at the shelter.

Harris and his five-year-old son were told Saturday that they needed to move out of the shelter, without any prior notice. Harris and his one are just one of roughly 83 families who are being suddenly moved.

Stephen Levin, the chair of the City Council Committee on General Welfare, says that the city plans to relocate those families to accommodate women who were temporarily living at the Long Island City Plaza Hotel in Queens.

“And, so those are families that will have to get moved a week before school starts in this chaotic time, and for no real reason,” Levin said.

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Levin calls the move part of a “domino effect,” stemming from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to pull hundreds of homeless men out of the Upper West Side’s Lucerne Hotel, where they had been temporarily living due to COVID-19.

Some city officials say they believe de Blasio is attempting to appease well-to-do residents in the neighborhood, who are concerned about an increase in crime and “quality of life” issues.

“These are human beings and they should not be getting tossed around from community to community,” said City Councilmember Ben Kallos.

Mayor de Blasio’s office and the Department of Homeless Services did not return a request for comment, however, the Legal Aid Society says it will not rest until the city builds a culture of transparency with its shelter residents. 

The Legal Aid Society has also threatened to sue the city unless mayor de Blasio meets their demands, including meeting with every family individually to determine their needs, help them relocate, and give them enough notice to leave.

One Nurse On Caring For NYC’s Homeless Residents During COVID-19

Back in June, the Coalition for the Homeless released a report that revealed those experiencing homelessness in New York City are 61% more likely to die from COVID-19 than the average resident. They reported that in June 2020 there were 58,736 homeless people, a number that includes 19,626 homeless children, sleeping each night in the New York City municipal shelter system — and people of color are disproportionately affected, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. Homeless New Yorkers are one of the most vulnerable communities that've been hit by the pandemic.

As medical director for Primary Care at the Center for Urban Community Service, Emily Gerteis provides essential resources and healthcare for homeless and unsheltered New Yorkers every day. Right now, her work includes treating patients in need of medical attention at shelters and in supportive housing programs. She agreed to take a few minutes out of her day to answer a few of our questions.

Emily Gerteis: "My wife has taken to making breakfast for me since my favorite coffee shop closed due to the pandemic. Back in April, we were both sick with COVID-like illness, and I probably gave it to her! Despite that, I’m feeling thankful to have a partner to quarantine with, to take care of each other.

"As soon as I walk into my office, clients start knocking. My office is in a big supportive housing building, so I have a clinic in an apartment building. The clients that I work with all got their housing because they have a history of homelessness, mental illness, substance use history, HIV/AIDS, or a combination of the above. 

"I’m used to being busy at the clinic but things are more hectic now since essential staffing means we don’t have any medical assistants. Also, clients are generally more anxious and really starved for connection. People have taken to knocking just to check in and say hello. When they knock, they’re asking about me, how I’m doing. It really brightens my day.

"I'll have a few walk-ins in the morning. I’ve been impressed at how people are taking the initiative to take care of themselves during this time, even though they have a lot to deal with.

"Social workers will drop off a bunch of patient medications and pillboxes in the afternoon. They normally help clients with their medications, but due to coronavirus, they’ve had to cut back on the amount of support they can give clients face-to-face, for everyone’s safety. Without reminders, it’s hard for some patients to manage their medications for chronic conditions like diabetes. But we’re doing the best we can."

"The average day before all of this had a lot more unstructured, in-person colleague office time. Now, with the way people are social distancing in the office and all of my staff working in different clinics throughout the week, none of us really overlap. We don't get together for any meetings anymore. I haven't seen some of my colleagues in six months. Obviously we see each other on Zoom, but that's very different from how things used to be. I think, especially in medicine, the need for a curbside consult or to run things by each other is how we work. It's part of our workflow, it's how we practice medicine, and to not have that time has been a big change for us.

"We're seeing about the same amount of patients, but the focus is a little bit different. Recently we've gotten back to the typical primary care focus of vaccinations, routine screenings, and things like that. 

“When the prevalence of COVID was really high in the city, we were foregoing all of that and we were talking about ways to keep them safe, we were talking about their fears. A lot of folks with mental illness are already really isolated. So to then not have senior lunch, for example, or not have their AA meetings available was a big, big shift. They've become a lot more isolated. A lot of our medical appointments were focused on mental health wellness, substance abuse, disorders, people who are struggling with the isolation. 

"Housing, in this pandemic, is healthcare. A hotel room instead of a shelter bed, that’s healthcare right now. Giving people access to that is saving lives."

Emily Gerteis

What's it like working with such a vulnerable population during the pandemic?

“Now has been a time where we see folks who have really struggled with adhering to their medication. Without that extra support of really robust social work, a lot of folks have dropped off of being on top of their medications and being on top of their illnesses. I've seen it take a toll on people, where their conditions are getting worse. 

“Diabetes is a good example. People who were really controlled in their diabetes before have been really struggling to manage it in the pandemic. And again, these are the folks who for years and years and years were living on the street with a mental illness, with a substance abuse disorder. They're already kind of on the edge of not keeping it together. It takes a lot of years to feel like they really own what's going on with them and to take that ownership over their own health, when for so many years they weren't engaged with it or were sidelined by the system and didn't get the care that they needed."

"We found a client deceased last month. The social worker had called me up to his apartment. Because they can’t touch clients, it’s up to me to assess his heart rate and identify him as pulseless. I’ve known him for 6 1/2 years. He was almost 70 and most likely died of coronavirus. Being someone that grew up in mental health institutions, hospitals were like prison to him. So on Friday, when we asked him to go to the emergency room for being short of breath, he refused. And on Monday when we checked on him, he was dead. It’s so intensely sad. I’m heartbroken. But I remember that ultimately, it’s up to him to do what he wants to do with his life.

"I had a client who missed his appointment on Monday. I worry about him because one of the ways he manages his mental illness is to work. Since he’s been laid off, it’s been harder for him to cope. He says he’s okay, but I wonder how much he’s not sharing with me."

What are some things you wished people knew about the homeless and working with them right now?

"Homeless people are just as afraid as we all are of this disease. Housing, in this pandemic, is healthcare. A hotel room instead of a shelter bed, that's healthcare right now. Giving people access to that is saving lives. Whatever was going on with us before the pandemic, whether it was depression or anxiety, they're all exacerbated right now. The same with homeless folks. Think about that as you envision what it's like to be homeless during a pandemic. We are very privileged to have our homes to quarantine in, although we are sick of it.

"Our patients are survivors. A lot of us, when we see homeless people on the street, we see their weaknesses. We don't see the strengths and the survivor mentality that they have and how they've been able to survive for so long. I feel privileged in my role that I can follow someone from not doing well on the street, to the shelter, to their apartment, to this real path of wellness. That's really gratifying for me. And I think if folks can envision that journey, it can really help the person that's on the street."

What's been a rewarding part about your experience during the pandemic?

"A client came in earlier this week, telling me that he burned his beard while smoking a cigarette and he can’t get a haircut right now. So I cut his beard for him. He says I did a pretty good job. I’m glad because his surgical mask fits a lot better now. Plus, I like doing stuff like that. Something concrete, you can see the results right away. Satisfying. It’s not all the time that we get to see that in this kind of work. It’s usually slow progress in primary care, especially this kind of primary care. We are used to a lot of setbacks before we see any progress.

“This job is particularly suited to a whole person wellness program, which is why we have psychiatrists and social work and medical and nursing all wrapped up together at CUCS. One person needs all of those things if they've gone through what our folks have gone through. On one side of the coin, I really get to know my patients. I really get to understand their struggles and I get to develop care plans around what their goals are. In that way, we get to really work on the person as a whole instead of being like, ‘Yeah, just take this medicine and follow up in three months.’

“The other side is that I get close to my patients. So when someone dies I'm there to support the staff in that and pronounce someone dead. That's part of my job, and it's a really hard part of my job, especially when you get to know patients in the way that we do. The joys come with the sadness as well.

"Those little moments when you see progress and development in someone, that's a joy. To be able to get people who are really psychotic to wear a mask and understand why they're safe. That's a joy. It's those little moments when you see progress and when you have a win. Clinically, those are the things that are a big deal."

Close to 20 Percent of NYC Hotels are Housing the Homeless

By Courtney Gross New York City
PUBLISHED 6:33 PM ET Jun. 25, 2020 PUBLISHED 6:33 PM EDT Jun. 25, 2020 UPDATED 10:26 PM ET Jun. 25, 2020

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James Shields wants to get his life back together. 

“It feels like I have my own spot again,” Shields told NY1 earlier this month. "I had my own apartment for like 10 years. Now I am just maintaining and just living my life and hope I can get out of here, be a better person for myself and my daughter."

For now, Shields is staying at a hotel in Manhattan. He has a job at a sushi restaurant. 

He holds the hope of a new apartment, a new life that is much stronger.

“I do think when I get enough money to save up and move out,” Shields said, pausing to wipe tears from his eyes. "I think I will be a better person after I get out of here."

His 15-year-old daughter is in the city’s homeless shelter system. And, even though it may not look like it, Shields is, too. 

His hotel has been temporarily converted to a homeless shelter — a step the city took to stop the spread of Coronavirus. 

Since the virus swept through the city in March, the de Blasio administration has been sending thousands of homeless people from large, crowded shelters to hotels where they can practice social distancing in their own rooms. 

There are about 700 hotels in New York City. One hundred and thirty-nine of them are occupied by homeless people. That means almost 20 percent of the city’s hotels are operating at least, in part, as homeless shelters. Sixty-three of those hotels took in homeless people from the city over the last three months because of COVID-19. It’s unclear when they will leave.

Step inside The Palace on the Bowery and you might see why. Beds are just feet apart. This is the shelter Shields slept in until earlier this month. 

“It was kind of scary to think,' Do I have it?'” he asked. "'Am I going to catch it from someone in there?'”

When COVID-19 hit the five boroughs, it quickly spread in the shelter system. Since March, at least 96 homeless New Yorkers have died from the virus. There are more than 17,000 single homeless adults in the city’s shelter system, and 13,000 are now living in hotels. 

The city’s homeless czar says this is not a permanent policy change.

“The consensus of the city before COVID was commercial hotels were not an appropriate way to shelter people,” said Steven Banks, the head of the city’s Department of Social Services. "We are using this only as a temporary bridge to get back where public health can be appropriately protected in a congregate setting.”

The hotel-turned-shelter is run by the Bowery Residents’ Committee. 

“We’re doing them about one or two a week,” said Muzzy Rosenblatt, CEO and President of the Bowery Residents’ Committee. "It’s a huge undertaking to coordinate and stage and move. It’s not just moving residents and staff, but commuters and files, and records and supplies. It’s everything you need. It’s moving a little community."

Even though the number of moves the city and shelter providers have done over the last three months is massive, the city will not still not disclose a list of the hotels they are using to protect residents’ privacy. We found many hotels on our own. There are at least 30 in Manhattan.

Just go to 36th street. On one side is the SpringHill Suites. You can get a room for $139 on booking.com. It’s full of men from Pamoja House in Brooklyn.

Outside on a recent morning, one described the rooms like this: “Nice queen size bed, flat screen TV. We got cable. It’s better than being over there in the shelter.”

Directly across the street is a DoubleTree. This hotel is full of men from a shelter in the Bronx. 

Head across town to 35th Street. The Kixby is a luxury, boutique hotel with 195 rooms and suites. It’s booked until September because it’s a shelter.

"It’s keeping some cash flow going for the hotels, but we were there. We stepped up when the city had a need," Vijay Dandapani, the leader of the city’s Hotel Association, said. "Why this happened? They are in shelters in a congregate settings that is arguably, or most definitely, not good for them from a pandemic standpoint. So here they are in individual rooms, you are reasonably well-protected from the virus.”

In April, the association landed a $78 million initial contract to find hotels for the homeless. At the time, coronavirus raged across the city. The city’s hotels saw no sign their business would return anytime soon. 

So the booking started.  

Multiple shelter residents living in hotels told NY1 they were told to expect to stay in these new locations for about six months. Banks told us there is no move-out date. 

“We are going to be governed by public health concerns, and at the point at which it is safe to resume operations of congregate shelters and stop using commercial hotels, we will do that,” Banks said. 

Its contract with the hotel association goes through October. The city is expecting the final cost of that contract to grow. Officials could not say by how much. Negotiations are ongoing.

The city has a commitment from FEMA to pay 75 percent of the costs of the hotel rooms. But the extra services, the moves, the staff, that’s all costing taxpayers. 

For now, Shields feels safer, like his life is heading in the right direction. At least in the near future, he has some hope. 

"Are you hopeful now?” we asked him last week.

“I am very hopeful and very grateful now,” Shields said. "They did open my eyes up to a lot of new things."

New York City sees at least 76 homeless people die of coronavirus

At least 76 homeless people have died of coronavirus in New York City so far, the social services agency head said on Monday.

That’s up from the 40 homeless deaths caused by COVID-19 around the same time last month. Fifty-two of the 76 deaths were living in single adult shelters that tend to be large and dorm-like.

Social Services Commissioner Steve Banks said 31 agency staffers have also died of coronavirus, in addition to an unknown number of workers at outside providers contracted by the city who have perished.

City homeless shelters have seen 961 confirmed coronavirus cases as of May 15, according to testimony Banks gave at a remote Council hearing Monday.

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Of those, 658 were in single adults residing in 98 different shelters and 152 were at assessment sites, either caught in people at the front door or those who connected to care before getting any ongoing shelter placement.

The city has moved thousands of homeless people from crowded shelters to commercial hotels to curb the spread of coronavirus and allow those who may be infected to isolate.

Nine thousand of the 17,000 single adults living in city shelters now reside in commercial hotel rooms, including 3,500 who were staying in them before the pandemic. To house the homeless, the city is now paying $129 a night per room.

The city aims to relocate a thousand people a week from congregate shelters to hotel rooms until widespread testing is available as part of Mayor de Blasio’s plan to contain the virus.

NYC homeless shelter in revolt over unsanitary coronavirus conditions

Residents at a city homeless shelter on Randall’s Island are in revolt over what they say are unsanitary living conditions creating a hotbed for COVID-19.

Former resident Alfonzo Forney, 41, who claims several men at the Clarke Thomas shelter have come down with the virus, is circulating a petition signed by dozens who live in the shelter demanding new management.

On March 28, the petition reads, “the resident in bed 1055 … was taken out by ambulance, exhibiting various symptoms of COVID-19.” It goes on to accuse safety director [John] Bradley of allowing three people to stay in the same bed before it was decontaminated.

Roy Coleman, 69, another resident who was diagnosed with coronavirus at Harlem Hospital this week, was sent back to the shelter after his condition was known and spent the night there before being discharged, he told The Post. Coleman said he was eventually given a Metrocard by the shelter and told to make his way to a Marriott in Long Island City — a hotel providing temporary housing to homeless New Yorkers with coronavirus.

“You don’t send a person like that who is COVID-19 positive on the bus or a train,” Forney said.

A Department of Homeless Services police officer at Clarke Thomas told the Post that neither the city nor shelter has provided them with any personal protective equipment and that soap and hand sanitizer were nonexistent in the facility (outside staff offices).

“The PPE I have now, was supplied by another officer,” the cop said.

A rep for Clake Thomas disputed allegations from Forney and others saying an internal investigation “found those claims to be without merit.”

By Jon Levine

NY Post

April 11, 2020 

How Shelter Chaos Drives Many Homeless to Live on Streets and in Subways

The night Jeffrey Wolford came in off the frigid sidewalk seeking warmth in Manhattan’s 30th Street Men’s Shelter last winter, it was too late to get a bed.

He was assigned a plastic chair, alongside 20 other men already dozing in the city’s biggest shelter, a major intake center for homeless people.

Just as he was nodding off, he looked down and saw a man rifling through his backpack, trying to steal his phone.

The two were wrestling on the floor when a shelter supervisor intervened. Wolford says he explained the attempted phone theft. But the supervisor told the thief to take a seat — and ordered Wolford back out into the cold.

Disgusted, he grabbed his belongings and ventured back out into the pre-dawn Arctic chill.

“Sleeping in the streets is preferable to that,” said Wolford, 33.

City Hall’s last official count in January found more than 3,500 homeless people on sidewalks or in the subways on a night when the temperature plummeted to 28 degrees.

Mayor Bill de Blasio Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Last week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to train 18,000 city workers to call 311 when they see a homeless person to get more folks into city shelters, which house about 60,000 New Yorkers.

“The problem here is not (that) we don’t have a place to get someone that’s safe and where we can get them mental health services and substance misuse services, we have that,” he said. “It’s getting people to come in.”

But as winter approaches, homeless people living on the streets, in interview after interview, told THE CITY they’d rather take their chances on trains or sidewalks.

Dangers Loom All Over

The myriad dangers facing them are underscored by a recent spate of killings of homeless people. That includes the Oct. 5 beating deaths of four men sleeping on the streets of Chinatown — allegedly by a man twice arrested for committing crimes inside city shelters.

On Nov. 5, a homeless man allegedly fatally stabbed another homeless man outside an East Elmhurst, Queens, shelter. Four days later, a similar killing took place inside an Upper West Side shelter.

A memorial for Chuen Kwok, one of four homeless men murdered while sleeping on the street in Chinatown last month. Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

Amid this violent landscape, THE CITY zeroed in on the shelter where Wolford says he was accosted and is often cited by homeless people as a place to avoid: the 30th Street Men’s Shelter in Kips Bay.

Our review of nearly 3,000 pages of internal records of dangerous and criminal activity inside 30th Street in 2017 and 2018 found:

• Serious incidents — such as assaults, death threats and possession of significant quantities of drugs — won’t necessarily get someone arrested or even kicked out.

• Violations of shelter rules often go without punishment.

• Repeat offenders have no trouble bedding down for the night in a shelter, even after multiple incidents in various city-run facilities. That was the case with the man accused of the Chinatown killings.

Reports Paint Grim Picture

The internal reports depict life inside 30th Street as teetering on the brink of anarchy at times: A client openly smokes crack in bed. Another runs from room to room, flicking light switches.

One resident whacks another in the head with a lock stuffed inside a sock. A handgun is hidden in a construction barrier just outside the building’s entrance.

Brass knuckles, stun guns, a hammer — all found inside lockers. An entire section of the shelter is known for “high drug activity.”

In April 2016, one 30th Street resident fatally slit the throat of another. In 2017 and 2018, the NYPD launched several drug sweeps to shut down rampant dealing.

Bellevue Hospital Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

At times, when residents commit violence against each other or staff — even against City Department of Homeless Services police — and there’s an arrest. But sometimes, there is no arrest.

Often that’s because the client is deemed to be mentally ill and is shipped off as an “EDP” — police-speak for “emotionally disturbed person” — to nearby Bellevue or Beth Israel hospital.

The reports obtained by THE CITY offer numerous examples of incidents that ended with an EDP designation — but without an arrest or summons.

In one instance, a shelter client who tried to push his way into an elevator past a security guard refused an order to stop — then kicked and bit a DHS police officer. Another client threw hot coffee on a staffer, burning the worker’s ankle.

Extended Shelter Stays

The 30th Street Shelter sits inside an intimidating 19th century red-brick fortress next to Bellevue Hospital. The huge shelter holds 851 beds and houses only single men.

As one of several intake facilities around the city, it serves as the gateway to the shelter system for tens of thousands of homeless men each year. Residents are supposed to stay temporarily until they can be sent to shelters around the city.

The 30th Street Men’s Shelter Photo: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY

But the number of single men seeking shelter has risen recently, to more than 16,200 one night last week, while the quantity of available beds has not kept up. So 30th Street residents often spend months there before the Department of Homeless Services is able to find them a spot elsewhere.

As of last month, more than half the shelter residents had been living in a bureaucratic purgatory at 30th Street for an average of nearly 10 months.

‘The Worst Reputation’

“The 30th Street Men’s Shelter has the worst reputation of any men’s shelter in the city,” said Josh Dean, director of Human NYC, a non-profit homeless support group. “The quality varies from shelter to shelter, but the intake and assessment shelters are the shelters that are notoriously dangerous. And those are the shelters that are discouraging people from entering the system.”

Giselle Routhiere, policy director at the Coalition for the Homeless, a nonprofit that has long labored to reform the city’s shelter system, agreed that 30th Street — in part because of its size — has long been considered the most dangerous shelter in the system.

She called the mayor’s assertion the system is safe “total bulls–t.”

“All of the problems that happen throughout the system are extreme at places like 30th Street. You can understand the reticence of people to go to places like that,” she said. “The idea that intake shelters are more chaotic is true.”