THE GET OUTTA MANHATTAN PROJECT
HOMELESS IN UPPER W. SIDE HOTEL SENT TO DYSFUNCTIONAL DIGS IN QUEENS
Out of sight, out of mind — and out of control.
Mayor de Blasio’s bid to move homeless people out of pandemic hotel rooms on the Upper West Side has become a fiasco, with dozens of adults being transferred to a new hotel with no refrigerators or a working elevator, residents and advocates said Monday. “I feel like I’m in prison,” said Alvin Murray, 58.
The diabetic man said he was transferred from the Hotel Belleclaire on the Upper West Side to the Sweet Home Suites in Queens. The new hotel lacked a refrigerator to store his meds or food suitable for his diet.
“The food doesn’t meet my standards, but I have to tolerate what it is,” he said.
The services might seem to be little more than creature comforts to some, but they are a lifeline to around 150 homeless residents, like Murray, with medical conditions and other issues. While de Blasio has vowed to transfer most homeless people living in hotels to barracks-style congregate shelters, some are simply being sent to different hotels due to their need for special accommodations.
Supporters of the city’s homeless told the Daily News the process of moving that group of vulnerable people from Upper West
Side hotels was being rushed to appease Manhattan’s squeakiest wheels in the well-heeled neighborhood.
“People are being moved from hotels that are in wealthier communities that are mostly white communities. There’s no good reason to move them. Certainly, that suggests the mayor is responding to the pressure of well-connected, mostly white residents who are unhappy seeing mostly Black and Brown shelter residents in their neighborhood,” said Josh Goldfein, a Legal Aid Society lawyer.
Lawyers for the city told a Manhattan judge Friday that they were forced to relocate the homeless residents with medical needs to two Queens hotels because contracts with the city expired at the end of July.
“The hotels that they are being moved to are, for the most part, or we think, we believe, comparable to the hotels that they are being moved from,” city attorney
Sharon Sprayregen told a judge, according to a Manhattan Federal Court transcript.
But Eliu Osorio, 42, said the city fell well short of that promise. He and many of his homeless neighbors said the Sweet Home Suites in Long Island City was unprepared for their arrival.
“The floor was dirty when I moved in,” said Osorio, who became homeless during the pandemic and currently works as a truck driver. “It wasn’t properly cleaned. And we got lockers, but they were still in boxes. They weren’t available to use.”
Some wheelchair-using homeless people were stuck in the lobby of the hotel for extended periods due to the broken elevator. Victims of domestic violence sought urgent transfers because the hotel is being used to house homeless men and women.
A 61-year-old Belleclaire resident who would only give his name as Bo darkly joked the Queens hotel’s view of a large cemetery across the highway was “trying to get us closer.”
“They dumped us here,” Bo said. “The people didn’t like us [on the Upper West Side]. That’s the real reason.”
Another transfer from the Belleclaire, Curtis Parks, 64, complained residents were given a cot “like a jail bed.”
“It’s not our fault that we’re all sick and high-risk,” he said. “We didn’t ask for this.”
Another resident who only wanted to be identified as Robert said he was at the Belleclaire for 14 months before he was moved Sunday, complaining the notice was short, inaccurate and improper.
“The night before, you give us a letter saying where we’re gonna go and it’s not the place we’re going,” Robert charged. “In the letter, it says ‘See attached 48 hours’ notice.’ Not even 24-hour notice, and we’re here.”
In the early days of the pandemic, de Blasio ordered many homeless people be taken out of homeless shelters and placed in hotels around the city. The shelters, with their crowded conditions, were seen as possible breeding grounds for the disease, and residents were moved temporarily to the relative safety of the hotels. But locals, particularly in the Upper West Side, complained the new arrivals caused a quality-of-life nightmare.
A representative for the city’s Department of Homeless Services did not immediately reply to a request for comment.