Blaz ripped over cave-in on homeless

Elected officials and Upper West Side residents blasted Mayor de Blasio for plans to relocate homeless people from a local hotel where they have been housed during the coronavirus outbreak.

“The mayor should be ashamed of himself,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams thundered at a Wednesday rally outside the Lucerne Hotel on W. 79th St.

“On so many levels, you fail. Step up! Be a leader! Stand tall for all New Yorkers!” he yelled, addressing Hizzoner.

The city announced Tuesday that 300 men would be relocated from the Lucerne to shelters on Sept. 20. Homeless people were also set to be transferred out of an unnamed Queens hotel.

In the spring, fear of coronavirus spread prompted the Department of Homeless Services to move about 10,000 homeless people from shelters to hotels. City officials said from the start that the relocations would be temporary.

But the policy prompted a backlash from residents of nabes including the Upper West Side, where two other hotels near the Lucerne have also been housing homeless people. Saying the new neighbors have caused a spike in quality-of-life problems, a group of locals threatened to sue the city.

Now some other Upper West Siders are saying the mayor caved to NIMBY-ism gone wild.

“It is sad that in our neighborhood, a bastion of great privilege and of liberal family values, that the temporary presence of these homeless individuals who were moved here in the midst of a public health crisis of unprecedented proportions divided our community so intensely and caused some to respond with fear and anger,” said local Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, a Democrat.

Speaking at a Wednesday press conference, de Blasio rejected accusations he is applying a double standard in favor of well-heeled anti-homeless activists on the Upper West Side.

“This gets back to a much more fundamental reality,” he said. “We want to always be focused on what’s healthy and safe for the community and folks that are homeless.”