New York City Relocating Homeless Individuals Currently Housed In Commercial Hotels Due To Pandemic
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- New York City will begin to relocate some of the homeless individuals currently housed in commercial hotels due to the coronavirus pandemic.
In July, hundreds of homeless adults were moved into the Lucerne and other hotels on the Upper West Side, but neighbors complained of an increase in crime and quality-of-life issues.
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The city says its plan to use hotels to battle COVID-19 was temporary.
It will now move adults housed in the Lucerne and a Queens hotel to shelters by the end of September.
The Legal Aid Society blasted the city's decision to upend the lives of some of New York's most vulnerable in the middle of a public health crisis.
The West Side Community Organization also released a statement, reading in part, "We appreciate that the City—at our urging—will be immediately taking concrete steps to address the chaos that reached a crisis point over the past several weeks when the City relocated hundreds of homeless individuals into the Lucerne Hotel, many of whom suffered from mental illness, addiction and other serious problems."
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