City Abandons Plan To Evict Residents From Midtown Shelter

MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, NY — After weeks of indecision, the city reversed course Friday in its plans to transfer dozens of homeless families from the Harmonia shelter in Midtown to make way for men being evicted from the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side, who will now be moved to a different shelter downtown.

The news came just hours after Harmonia residents pleaded with Mayor Bill de Blasio in a news conference outside the East 31st Street shelter to make a decision about the transfers, saying two weeks without news from the city had left them on edge and taken a toll on their mental health.

"We fought a good fight. We got things done by raising our voices and being heard," said Mike Bonano, who took on a leadership role among shelter residents in recent weeks, using a rented truck to secure food donations and help other families prepare to move out.

"I became a public advocate overnight — it feels good to know I actually helped somebody," he said Friday.

Harmonia residents received letters Friday afternoon from Joslyn Carter, administrator of the city's Department of Homeless Services, telling them, "we have decided that the best decision possible under the circumstances is for you to keep your current placement at the Harmonia which will continue to be a shelter for adult families like yours."

The 17 families who left the Harmonia before transfers were halted will be given the chance to return, according to city councilmember Keith Powers, who represents Midtown.

"The last few weeks have been frustrating and disheartening as we’ve played politics with people’s lives, but today’s announcement is some relief to folks at the Harmonia," Powers told Patch.

GOOD NEWS: The Harmonia residents are staying put and it will remain an adult families shelter.

Thank you to an amazing coalition that fought to support our neighbors at a difficult time.

I’m proud to be a New Yorker. pic.twitter.com/GnXNY4k1Ee
— Keith Powers (@KeithPowersNYC) September 25, 2020

About 150 families at the Harmonia found out abruptly Sept. 10 that they would be evicted. The city put the transfers on pause days later, facing intense criticism and the threat of a lawsuit from the Legal Aid Society, but had been largely silent since then about the fate of those left inside the Harmonia, many of whom have significant health issues.

The Legal Aid Society said Friday that residents at other shelters in Long Island City and Brownsville, Brooklyn, who had also been threatened by the transfers, will be able to stay where they are.

"It is a shame that these families had to suffer such an extraordinarily stressful exercise during a pandemic as a result of Mayor de Blasio’s flippant indecisiveness," Judith Goldiner, attorney-in-charge of the civil law reform unit at Legal Aid, said in a statement.

Lucerne transfers move forward

The city is moving forward, however, with plans to evict nearly 300 men from the Lucerne, a hotel that was converted into a temporary shelter to relieve crowding in congregate shelters during the pandemic. A group of Upper West Side residents mounted a fierce, well-funded campaign to boot the Lucerne residents from the neighborhood, threatening to sue the city if no action was taken.

The Lucerne residents will be moved to a different shelter in Lower Manhattan that will allow them to continue to socially distance and receive health services, a Legal Aid Society spokesperson said. It was not immediately clear when the men would be moved there.

A leader of Upper West Side Open Hearts, a group formed this month in support of the Lucerne residents, condemned the city's decision as "the pinnacle of cowardliness."

"We are beyond devastated that the Mayor is persisting in displacing the men at the Lucerne," Open Hearts co-founder Corinne Low said in a statement.

It was also unclear how Friday's news would affect the 41 employees at the Harmonia, who were told Sept. 10 that they would lose their jobs if the transfers went through, before getting a temporary reprieve when the moves were paused.

Some Harmonia workers have quit their jobs anyway, amid uncertainty about whether their employer, Services for the Underserved, would be able to find new placements for them. Shannon Luchs, a senior case manager at the Harmonia since its inception more than two years ago, said she is also looking for work elsewhere.

"While I do not want to leave Harmonia, I believe I have no other choice but to look for work that brings me security and stability," she said Friday. Even if the city canceled the transfers, Luchs said she worries that the shelter will have lost too many workers to be able to care for residents effectively.

The mayor’s office and DHS did not respond to requests for comment.

Previous coverage from Patch:

• Midtown Shelter Residents Fret Over Food, Water As Transfers Loom
• 'They're Not Garbage': Residents Condemn City's Homeless Shuffle
• Protesters Bring Clash Over Homeless Shuffle To Mayor's Doorstep