Fed judge’s ruling throws city’s
homeless relocation policy for a loop
BY ARIEL PACHECO
A federal judge halted on July 13 the
City’s plan to move 8,000 homeless
residents out of hotels and back
into shelters, ruling that the city offi cials
were not putting adequate consideration
into the health of those being moved.
The lawsuit comes from the Legal Aid
Society, which has been advocating for
the City to fi nd permanent housing for the
homeless. It’s the latest in what has been an
ongoing back-and-forth between the City
and advocates for the homeless.
“Today’s decision affi rms that the City
rushed the moves of homeless New Yorkers
from safe placements in hotels back
to crowded shelters without meeting its
obligations, endangering the lives of New
York’s most vulnerable residents,” said
the Legal Aid Society’s Josh Goldfein and
Jenner & Block Partner Dawn Smalls in a
joint statement.
The ruling from Judge Gregory Howard
Woods of the Federal District Court in
Manhattan came on the same day thatsix
protestors organized from the advocacy
group Vocal-NY were arrested and then
One homeless individual says “Homelessness is not a crime.”
subsequently released after demonstrating
in the lobby of the Department of Homeless
Services (DHS) building.
“Sending us back into shelters or the
streets is inhumane and ignores the evidence
that says COVID-19 is still a threat,”
said Miriam Ocana, a member of Vocal-NY
in a statement. “We disrupted business as
usual at 4 World Trade Center to send a
message to Mayor de Blasio and the DHS:
FILE PHOTO/DEAN MOSES
Forget the hotel transfers and help us access
the safe, affordable housing every New
Yorker deserves.”
The protestors were demanding permanent
housing and the increase in street
sweeps and harassment of homeless New
Yorkers. There are also concerns that
placing the homeless back into the shelters
with the surge of COVID-19 cases due to
the Delta variant would be putting them
in danger.
Of the six protestors arrested, three
were organizers and three were homeless
union members. They criticized mayor de
Blasio for insisting that people should be
transferred back to crowded and dangerous
shelters.
“It was totally unexpected with the
arrests at the end. There was no warning
and no time for people to actually leave,”
said Paulette Soltani, the political director
at Vocal-NY.
The protests and subsequent arrests are
refl ective of what has become a contentious
issue between advocates of homeless
individuals and the City. New York’s
homeless crisis is well-documented and one
that frustrated advocates. However, Mayor
de Blasio has stressed that the placement
of the homeless into hotels was always
intended to be temporary.
Vocal-NY argues that the passage of
Intro. 146 earlier this year and using new
Section 8 vouchers have made it possible
for the City to provide housing — and in
turn, avoid putting the homeless at risk of
contracting COVID-19 in shelters.
A spokesman for the city’s Department
of Homeless Services told The New York
Times that offi cials would make “minor
adjustments to our process” and resume
the moves next week.
Amid criticism from MTA members, de Blasio
pledges ‘aggressive’ Fair Fares outreach
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Mayor Bill de Blasio pledged on
Tuesday an “aggressive” effort
to advertise the city’s half-priced
transit fare program for low-income New
Yorkers known as Fair Fares, following
criticism from state transit bigwigs and advocates
that City Hall wasn’t doing enough to
make needy commuters aware of the benefi t.
“We’ve put a lot of money in the budget
to start it up again and promote it,” de
Blasio said in response to a question by
amNewYork Metro at his July 20 briefi ng.
“I defi nitely want an aggressive outreach
effort.”
The mayor and the City Council quietly
restored funding for the two-year-old program
to $53 million in this year’s city budget,
half of pre-pandemic levels when $106
million was earmarked for the initiative,
and de Blasio reiterated his administration’s
approach Tuesday that offi cials would
boost funding if demand grows.
“If it becomes more and more popular,
we’ll make adjustments to keep ensuring
that it can grow,” he said. “I think it’s
something that really helps people, but
Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Corey Johnson celebrate Fair
Fares’ addition to the city budget in 2018.
you know, we also need to see people
coming back to the subways in the kind
of numbers we use to know to really get to
the full impact.”
The program launched in 2019 and
enables any New Yorker aged 18-64 living
at or below the federal poverty line to get a
50% discount for fares on subways, buses,
and Access-a-Ride.
NYC MAYORAL PHOTOGRAPHY UNIT
The city buys MetroCards from the
state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority
and then sells them to eligible New
Yorkers through the Department of Social
Services at half price.
De Blasio and the City Council agreed to
slash Fair Fares funding at the outset of the
pandemic in April 2020 by $65.5 million
down to $40.5 million, due to cratering
revenues and a drop in demand as people
avoided public transit en masse for fear of
catching COVID-19.
Despite that cut, enrollment doubled in
the fi rst half of 2020 following an advertising
blitz in January, form 101,094 that
month to 202,045 by July, topping out
235,474 by December. But the fi gure has
stagnated around 230,000 for the fi rst half
of 2021, despite riders returning to public
transit during that time.
About 700,000 New Yorkers match
the current requirements to be eligible for
the program, according to research by the
Community Service Society, a nonprofi t
that advocates for low-income New Yorkers,
and MTA board members said the city
dropped the ball on getting people signed
up.
“The current administration has not
been aggressive and active in promoting
Fair Fares,” said MTA fi nance committee
chairperson Larry Schwartz, a longtime
ally of Governor Cuomo, on Monday.
David Jones, a mayoral appointee to the
MTA board also called on de Blasio to do
more for the discount fares program and
said offi cials could double enrollment.
“I think the relative lack, in this case of
the city, in advertising this program has
impeded Fair Fares,” said David Jones.
“It can reach another quarter of a million
easily if we really push it.”
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