DESPICABLE
City booting disabled fams from shelter, moving in homeless men who upset folks on Upper W. Side
City officials began moving disabled people out of a Midtown shelter Thursday in a game of homeless musical chairs aimed at appeasing Upper West Siders angry that homeless men are housed in a neighborhood luxury hotel.
Legal Aid Society lawyers say residents of the Harmonia Hotel shelter on E. 31st St. got less than two days’ notice to clear out of rooms where some have lived for years.
“My husband and I are in wheelchairs, okay? And I’m on oxygen,” said Glenda Harris, 56, who has lived at the Harmonia since February 2018.
“Last minute, they tell us we have to leave,” Harris exasperatedly told the Daily News.
Harris and her husband, Frank Reichard, were told Wednesday that they’d be moved by the end of the week to a shelter in Canarsie, Brooklyn.
“This is not right,” Harris said.
Harris and Reichard are among 150 families who Legal Aid lawyers say will be moved so the city can clear homeless men from the Lucerne Hotel, a luxury lodging on W. 79th St. at Amsterdam Ave. on the Upper West Side.
A DHS spokesperson said the families in the Harmonia and residents of the Lucerne will get the services they need after they’re moved.
Upper West Siders began complaining in July when homeless single men were moved into the Lucerne, which promotes itself to people visiting Columbia University further uptown and has a pricey French restaurant on its ground floor.
Neighborhood residents started a Facebook group that evolved into a community organization that has hired a lawyer, former Rudy Giuliani aide Randy Mastro, to fight the placement of home
less in the Lucerne and other neighborhood hotels.
Mastro declined to comment when reached by The News.
Mayor de Blasio said Wednesday the moving process wouldn’t start at the Lucerne until Sept. 20 — but lawyers with the Legal Aid Society say the effort to clear out the Harmonia to make way for Lucerne residents is underway.
The Harmonia is a specialized shelter that caters to homeless adult families, an estimated 80% of whom have have physical or mental disabilities, the Legal Aid Society says.
“This program is being broken up to solve the nonproblem at Lucerne,” Legal Aid attorney Josh Goldfein said.
“Why would they break up this very needed, very successful program just for this reason — just to empty this hotel because a bunch of rich white people on the Upper West Side wanted them to?”
Legal Aid said it plans to seek a restraining order against the city over its handling of homeless New Yorkers with disabilities at the Harmonia.
“Mayor Bill de Blasio’s pathetic and shortsighted surrender to Upper West Side NIMBYism has unsurprisingly disrupted the lives of other vulnerable New Yorkers at various shelters around New York City, all in the midst of a public health crisis,” said Judith Goldiner, attorney-incharge of the Civil Law Reform Unit.
“The city continues to fail at its job of ensuring that these families have the proper accommodations, as prescribed by law,” Goldiner said.
Harris, who’s suffered four strokes and six heart attacks in the last few years, takes the D train to Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx every two weeks for medical treatment.
Harris suffers from Antiphospholipid syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that can result in blood clotting.
She says the illness amounts to a death sentence if she catches Covid-19.
Her 45-minute commute to the doctor will take her two hours from Star Bright Family Residence in Canarsie.
The city has provided “absolutely no guarantee that residents will be placed in locations that provide comparable services,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, who represents a district on the Upper East Side.
Krueger said she is “deeply disturbed” that de Blasio is responding to Upper West Siders complaints by moving Harmonia residents, “none of whom deserve to get caught up in this politicized process.”
Harmonia residents say the city has not assessed whether their medical needs would be met in their new homes.
Harris said she’s worried about an elderly neighbor. “She just had hip surgery,” Harris said. “She just came out of the hospital.”
“This is a good place for families, but because of protests at that men’s shelter on the Upper West Side, now you’re gonna bring them here? What’s gonna make it better on this block?” said Maria Lopez, 42, who is on disability.
“They’re treating us like we’re toys. Like we’re chess pieces.”