By: Ilana Siyance

In June, New York City began the process of moving about 8,500 homeless people out of hotels and back into the traditional congregate shelter system. Throughout the pandemic, the hotels which were left vacant were used as emergency temporary housing for the homeless, so as to curb the spread of the Coronavirus in the crowded shelters. Some 60 privately owned hotels were paid by the city to provide more privacy and protection for the city’s homeless population.

Now, as New York has begun its recovery, and the Covid-19 social distancing restrictions have been lifted across the state, the city said its time to allow hotels to once again be filled with travelers and tourists. Jump starting the hospitality industry will be an integral part of the city’s recovery. “It is time to move homeless folks who were in hotels for a temporary period of time back to shelters where they can get the support they need,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, on June 3, a state appeals court ruled the city could move the homeless out of the Lucerne Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The luxury hotel became the subject of a yearlong court battle with locals complaining that hosting roughly 200 homeless men caused a spike in drug use, violence and harassment complaints throughout the neighborhood. Homeless advocates, however, insisted the men housed at the Lucerne shouldn’t be forced to move out until permanent housing is secured for them. The moves back into temporary shelters began on June 22, and have been ongoing. The relocation effort is slated to be complete by the end of July.

For many of the homeless hotel residents, however, the move is unwelcome. They “really feel like they’re going backwards because they’ve been living in a hotel, and they were hoping their next move would be into permanent housing,” said Corinne Low, co-founder of UWS Open Hearts. “There’s mental illness; there’s drug addiction; there’s everything going on in there [that] now I have to deal with,” one homeless man from California who was living at the Lucerne, told a reporters during his June 28 move back to a shelter. He added he felt like he was going back to “prison”.

“Shelter settings are where we can provide people the most support on their way to a better life, and we just have to accept that if we’re moving forward in every other way and putting Covid behind us,” said Mayor de Blasio, adding that everyone knew moving to hotels was a temporary measure.