FiDi Residents File Emergency Appeal To Stop Lucerne Transfer

STORY UPDATE

An appellate court heard appeals from Downtown New Yorkers Inc. and multiple residents of The Lucerne hotel on Thursday, making a case for the 235 men to stay on the Upper West Side and not move to the Radisson Hotel in the Financial District.

After hearing testimonies, the judge decided to convene a five-judge panel to make the final decision, which is expected by Dec. 14.

Additionally, the judge granted a temporary order to keep the men at The Lucerne hotel until the decision is made.

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — A group of residents from the Financial District have filed an emergency motion to stop the city from moving homeless men currently housed at The Lucerne hotel on the Upper West Side to the Radisson Hotel in Lower Manhattan.

Downtown New Yorkers, Inc filed the motion.

The emergency motion comes a week after a judge from New York's highest court dropped a restraining order that halted an earlier plan to move the residents out of The Lucerne, and also denied a petition by the group of Financial Districts residents to stop the move to the Radisson.

The Radisson Hotel is in the process of getting turned into a permanent shelter.

"Downtown New Yorkers has strong grounds to appeal the Supreme Court's Order dismissing its original petition for lack of standing," the Lower Manhattan group wrote in a news release. "The group maintains that the court erred by fundamentally barring the courthouse door as if this was ordinary procurement with which they were not involved, when the real issue was the City trying to solve its political and bureaucratic problems by hiding behind emergency powers that are only available to deal with actual COVID-19 responses."

Downtown New Yorkers gave an assortment of reasons why the men currently getting housed at The Lucerne shouldn't get moved to the Financial District hotel.

The group says that the move is "motivated by political expediency rather than by public health policy," and mentions the city's initial attempt to move the Lucerne residents to the Harmonia Hotel after a group of Upper West Siders hired a high-profile lawyer who threatened to sue the city.

Additionally, the emergency suit brings up that the Radisson hotel is within 300 feet of four schools, the destabilizing nature of making men suffering substance abuse issues move for a third time, and the accounts of current Lucerne residents stating they want to stay on the Upper West Side.

However, a smaller group of Lucerne residents also testified that they wanted to leave the Upper West Side hotel during the most recent trial.

"The City has behaved horribly from the very start of this situation, playing with people's lives for political expediency and lying to Community Board 1 by claiming there is not a permanent shelter in the district when there is," said Downtown New Yorkers member Theresa Vitug. "We will continue to fight this issue and we demand that the Department of Homeless Services engages with the community in good faith."

The emergency motion has been filed to the Appellate Division, First Department of the New York State Supreme Court.