Photo by Jim.henderson via Wikimedia Commons
On Friday morning, advocates for the homeless staged a ‘sleep-out’ outside of Gracie Mansion to protest Mayor de Blasio’s recent decision to relocate homeless individuals from hotels back to shelters.
“We’re sending the message that, you know, he’s there in his beautiful, tax-payer funded mansion – meanwhile, he’s sentencing homeless New Yorkers to death by sending them to congregate living spaces which are not safe in the middle of a pandemic, certainly not while Delta surges,” Corrine Low of Upper West Side Open Hearts told CBS New York.
After many false alarms, courts ruled in June to relocate about 8,000 homeless people from temporary hotel sites back to shelters; however, this relocation was put on pause after a motion was filed by the Legal Aid Society.
The motion led the judge presiding over the case to rule that any homeless individual who is disabled must be properly assessed before being transferred back into a shelter, and that the “city must provide written notice to shelter residents at least a week before scheduled moves out of hotels.”
However, the City is set to resume the transfer of these individuals next week.
