Legal Aid Society Demands City Offer Solo Rooms For NY Homeless

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Legal Aid Society and Jenner & Block LLP filed a lawsuit late Thursday night on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless demanding that the city provides a single-occupancy hotel room to every adult homeless New Yorker for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic.

The lawsuit was officially filed against New York City, the Department of Social Services, and the Department of Homeless Services for "failing to take appropriate action" to provide safe shelter free of health risks for homeless New Yorkers.

"It is cruel and unacceptable to place the health and lives of thousands of homeless individuals at needless risk when the City has the resources and space to appropriately house our clients in single-occupancy hotel rooms for the remainder of the pandemic," Legal Aid Society said in a news release.

The age-adjusted mortality rate for single adults in homeless shelters since the pandemic began is 409 per 100,000 people, according to Legal Aid. That figure is 80 percent higher than the rate for the city's general population.

The suit mentions the stories of numerous homeless individuals who have attempted to remain healthy in the homeless services system over the past eight months.

One of those stories is about Morleen Fisher, who is currently housed in a congregate shelter in downtown Manhattan where she shares a sleeping area with roughly 10 people and a bathroom with 20. Fisher has been diagnosed with diabetes, PTSD, and bipolar disorder.

She is employed part-time as an in-home aide to an elderly couple on the Upper East Side, and is "extremely concerned" about contracting coronavirus and transmitting it to the couple she works for, according to the suit.

Upon asking for a private room and bathroom, such as a hotel room, shelter staff denied her by saying, "DHS does not put crazy people in hotels," according to the suit.

The Department of Homeless Services has not immediately responded to Patch's request for comment.

The Upper West Side has become a major player in the conversation around the use of hotels with single-room availability as temporary homeless shelters. Over the summer, close to 700 people experiencing homelessness were placed at The Belnord, Hotel Belleclaire, and The Lucerne on the Upper West Side.

The placement created a fission within the Upper Manhattan community.

Currently, the reality of the 283 homeless men being housed at The Lucerne remains fluid after a judge on Monday sided with three hotel residents and temporarily blocked an effort by Mayor Bill de Blasio to move the men to another location in the Financial District.