Legal Battle Over Lenox Hill Homeless Shelter Brewing

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A newly formed Upper East Side neighborhood group is pursuing a court order to halt the 200-bed homeless shelter planned for the corner of First Avenue and East 61st Street.

The shelter is slated to open next month.

The new group, known as the East Side Accountability Alliance, is arguing that city officials failed to provide adequate transparency before approving the project, which was publicly announced at a Jan. 21 Community Board 8 meeting.

"It just felt like the community was left out," Todd Stein, a member of Community Board 8, told Patch. Though Stein is a member of the board, he spoke with Patch as an individual.

The new neighborhood group has launched a fundraiser for legal costs, and as of Wednesday evening, the group has raised $11,620, more than half of its $20,000 goal. The group is organized as a not-for-profit corporation, one of its founders told Patch.

Alina Bonsell, a Republican candidate for State Senate on the Upper East Side, told Patch that the group is pursuing a preliminary injunction to slow the shelter’s opening and push for additional safety measures, like drug testing, ID checks and reducing the bed count.

The group also wants to know whether the city agencies met all the legal requirements leading up to the initial announcement that the shelter would be opening.

"We believe we have a very strong case to get a preliminary injunction," Bonsell said. "We just feel that there was no transparency. The way that they're rolling this out is like ninjas in the night."

The East Side Accountability Alliance has not filed any legal action yet, but will be represented by Goetz Platzer, the law firm confirmed.

Howard Rubin, a partner at Goetz Platzer, told Patch that the group would file a special kind of New York State lawsuit called an Article 78 proceeding, which challenges the legality of decisions or actions by government agencies. In this case, the group is targeting the Department of Buildings, as well as the Department of Homeless Services, Rubin said.

When the city determined the location for the shelter, it relied on a form of environmental study called an Environmental Assessment Statement. Rubin said that the shelter needed, instead, a review process like an Environmental Impact Statement, which is more robust.

"The preliminary injunction request would prevent the opening of the shelter until there is an appropriate environmental impact statement done," Rubin told Patch.

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeless Services said that the agency is not going to comment on pending legal action, but asserted that the department had followed all of the standard procedures, including notifying the community back in March 2025.

"This upcoming transitional housing facility will bring critical capacity and dedicated, on-site services to a council district that currently contains a very limited shelter footprint," the spokesperson said. "As such, we look forward to working collaboratively with our experienced not-for-profit provider, Housing Services of New York, and this Upper East Side community to support our vulnerable neighbors as they work to get back on their feet and transition to permanent housing."

The Department of Buildings has not yet responded to Patch's request for comment, but the article will be updated when it does.

What to know about the shelter

At a public hearing about the shelter on Feb. 9, Housing Solutions of New York Chief Program Officer Xellex Rivera said the residents of the new shelter will be women, and roughly 78 percent of them will be employed at any given time. All of them will have case managers and social workers assigned to them. No men or children will be at this site.

The shelter will be classified as a "general population" shelter, meaning that it won't be a shelter for people with drug addiction or mental illness, Rivera said. All of the residents will be referred through the city's Department of Homeless Services, Rivera said.

Because the facility is located within 1,000 feet of a school, it will be subject to additional restrictions. Women on probation or parole for sex offenses will not be permitted to stay at the shelter.

The shelter will be drug and alcohol free, though smoking cigarettes is permitted on the roof, Rivera said.

The shelter will have eight floors. Three floors are dedicated to dormitory-style rooms with 13 to 14 beds and lockers in each room, with bathrooms and showers on each dormitory floor.

There is also a floor for offices, with 46 staff members, and a level for the cafeteria. The women at the shelter will be served three meals a day, as well as snacks, Rivera said.

Elite Investigations CEO Dan Quinn said the building will have two TSA-style checkpoints to enter the shelter, and that six unarmed security officials, as well as a security supervisor, will be on shift at any given time, 24 hours a day.

There are 136 security cameras on site, with continuous monitoring. Some security guards will be stationed at the checkpoints, and others will be stationed at the cafeteria, the roof, and the dormitories, Quinn said.

For questions and tips, email Miranda.Levingston@Patch.com.

Related content:

• New Details On UES Homeless Shelter Revealed At Volatile Public Hearing
• New Homeless Shelter On The Upper East Side Sparks Petition