FiDi Group Sues City To Halt Lucerne Homeless Residents Transfer

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A group of Lower Manhattan residents and businesses is suing the city in an attempt to prevent the transfer of roughly 235 homeless men to their neighborhood from a temporary shelter at The Lucerne hotel on the Upper West Side.

"The residents of Lower Manhattan fully support these homeless individuals and we recognize the homeless crisis facing our city," Christopher Brown, the co-founder of Downtown New Yorkers Inc., said in a news release. "However, the City has reacted recklessly and erratically by repeatedly uprooting these individuals based on political pressure."

"Even the social service provider believes that the homeless men are better served by remaining on the Upper West Side, where they have access to extensive social programs — including a successful jobs program — that are not available in Lower Manhattan," Brown said.

The lawsuit comes after a Facebook group called Downtown NYCers for Safe Streets (Lower Manhattan) quickly gained popularity after the city announced it would move The Lucerne residents to the Radisson Hotel at 52 William St.

Members of the Facebook group subsequently created the nonprofit Downtown New Yorkers Inc., and they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire a law firm that would sue the city to stop the move.

"Given the lack of planning, community engagement and the arbitrary nature of the decision, the transfer of 235 homeless men to 52 William would greatly impact the quality of life in this neighborhood, which has already begun to deteriorate with the opening of the Hilton as a temporary shelter," Brown wrote in an affidavit for the lawsuit.

It is not the first time that legal action is involved with the lives of the homeless men staying at The Lucerne.

Mayor Bill de Blasio had announced that the residents would move out of The Lucerne in September after a lawyer representing an Upper West Side residents group threatened to sue the city unless the homeless residents were moved out.

The men at The Lucerne were not initially heading downtown.

Instead, the city said they would be moved to the Harmonia Shelter in Midtown. However, that plan was scrapped after outrage over the displacement of people already living at the Harmonia.

A few days later, the Radisson Hotel was announced as the new destination.

Downtown New Yorkers Inc. filed the lawsuit with the New York State Supreme Court to stop the move.

The mayor's office did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Read More:

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• 'We Do Not Have A Definitive Timeline': DHS Talks UWS Shelters
• Legal Org Calls UWS Residents 'Racist' In Handling Of Shelters
• City Will Move Homeless From The Lucerne
• Local Pols Rip Mayor's Decision To Move Homeless Out Of Lucerne
• Removal Of Homeless Residents From UWS Hotel Temporarily Halted
• Lucerne Residents On The Move Again, This Time Downtown
• Lucerne Residents Face New Fight As Downtown Group Opposes Move