UWS Shelter Opponents Accused Of "Stalking" Homeless Activist As Lucerne Battle Drags On

 

GOTHAMIST

BY JAKE OFFENHARTZ

A rally outside the Lucerne Hotel October 19th in support of the homeless men living there. STEVE SANCHEZ/PACIFIC PRESS/SHUTTERSTOCK

Ramone Buford had just stepped out of the shower on a recent Friday morning when two heavy-set men dressed as plumbers appeared at his door. They claimed to be investigating a leak coming from his bathroom. Buford, who had moved into the Harlem studio apartment from a homeless shelter just weeks earlier, let them in without a second thought.

Days later, Buford got a call from his lawyer. The men, he would soon learn, were not plumbers but former NYPD detectives, now working as private investigators to confirm his address. They were hired by Randy Mastro, an attorney for an Upper West Side group that has spent the last seven months trying to evict homeless men from an emergency shelter in the neighborhood’s Lucerne Hotel.

A March 12th legal filing submitted by Mastro includes a photo of Buford, standing shirtless inside his own apartment, taken by one of the private eyes without his knowledge. Buford sees their intrusion as part of a pattern of retaliation he‘s faced for his homeless activism.

The 51-year-old transitioned from the Lucerne to a subsidized Harlem apartment in February. Before that, he‘d bounced between the streets and shelters for most of his life.

“I was just getting to know what it’s like to have a good night's sleep,” Buford told Gothamist. “To now become a target of them is horrifying...I’m right back on guard. Every little sound I’m jumping up.”

The incident marks the latest chapter in a fierce battle over the fate of the Lucerne, where more than 100 men are still living, despite ongoing attempts from the city to have them removed. Following outcry — and threats of violence — from some Upper West Side residents, Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed late last year to relocate the men to a Radisson hotel downtown. In January, a state appeals court overruled that decision, allowing the men to remain at the Lucerne while it takes up the case.

Both Mastro and the de Blasio administration have pushed the court to lift the stay, most recently citing the fact that Buford and the two other named petitioners, Larry Thomas and Travis Tramell, have since moved out of the Lucerne and into permanent housing. There are now 123 men living at the shelter, down from a high of 283 when it opened this summer, according to the city.

In his own affidavit, Buford questioned the city’s “sudden interest” in moving Lucerne residents to permanent housing, noting that the three petitioners in the case were among the first to be transitioned. “I would like to think that the City is making these efforts in order to improve our lives," he wrote. "But part of me believes that the City is doing this in order to achieve politically that which it could not achieve in Court."

Isaac McGinn, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeless Services, maintained that the transfer of residents to homes had nothing to do with the ongoing case. He described Mastro’s use of the disguised investigators as an “absolute egregious invasion of this individual’s privacy.”

Attorney Randy Mastro RICHARD DREW/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK

Mastro, meanwhile, pointed Gothamist to a motion filed on Monday, in which he argues that he had no choice but to hire the investigators because Buford’s attorney declined to acknowledge his client had moved out of the Lucerne (the attorney, Michael Hiller, denies this).

“That Mr. Buford now makes the bald and baseless claim that he fears for his physical safety—attributing his fear, in part, to our clients, all law-abiding, peaceful and long-time Upper West Side residents—is nothing short of ludicrous,” the filing states, “especially since Mr. Buford so obviously craves the limelight, dubbing himself the ‘Homeless Hero,’ making regular media and other public appearances, and tweeting [to] his many followers daily.”

The filings were presented by Mastro on behalf of the West Side Community Organization, a nonprofit created by residents opposed to the new homeless shelters in the neighborhood. The group raised $180,000 this past summer.

State Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, who represents the neighborhood, questioned whether the group’s members knew their money could be used to pay for the “stalking” of someone who no longer lives in the neighborhood. “It’s beyond the pale,” she said. “They took advantage of his experience as a homeless person.”

Despite not living in the shelter anymore, Buford said he was deeply invested in the decision of the state appeals court, which is expected to be issued in the coming months. He has continued to attend substance abuse counseling offered by the Lucerne, and has a job through a grant-funded program linked to the shelter. Beyond that, Buford said, he was fighting for the dignity of shelter residents across the city.

“The fact that we’ve prolonged this legal process angers the mayor and angers Randy Mastro,” Buford added. “They look at me like I’m a little old homeless guy who won’t go away.”

Homeless Midtown: What to do about growing disorder on the streets

DAILY NEWS 

As of last week, city officials report just seven active cases of coronavirus among Gotham’s homeless population, an accomplishment likely owing much to the city’s spring relocation of 9,500 single adults living in congregate shelters, where they couldn’t safely socially distance, into double-occupancy hotel rooms.

But the move — which makes more fiscal sense when you add in the fact that the feds are picking up 75% of the tab, and that tourist-starved lodging places are getting business — has had a side effect: residents and business owners report a sharp uptick in individuals abusing drugs, defecating, masturbating and attacking and threatening people on nearby streets.

No resident of a city with thousands of destitute and disturbed people has the right to post a “keep out” sign. But the rapid move and its results demand a stronger response.

First, officials should answer concerns that a few neighborhoods are bearing a disproportionate burden. A city map of the temporary homeless hotels shows Midtown and the UWS currently have 23 such hotels, the largest share by far.

To be sure, the majority of NYC’s hotel rooms are there, and many other neighborhoods have more than their share of other shelters. But analysis shouldn’t end there. The city must detail how many residents have been placed in each neighborhood, and where vacant hotel rooms exist.

Enforcement is imperative.

Quality of life offenses remain against the law, for good reason. If the NYPD is in hands-off mode for fear of a video going viral, the police commissioner has to disabuse his cops of their hesitancy — or the city must find other enforcers that will.

New York Is Removing Over 400 Children From 2 Homeless Shelters

The Auburn Family Residence has been cited for over 400 violations. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

N.Y. TIMES

In the face of New York’s mounting homeless crisis, Mayor Bill de Blasio will announce on Friday that his administration is removing hundreds of children from two city-owned homeless shelters that inspectors have repeatedly cited for deplorable conditions over the last decade, officials said.

The city has begun transferring over 400 children and their families out of the Auburn Family Residence in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and from the Catherine Street shelter in Lower Manhattan, while vowing to improve services for the swelling population of 22,000 homeless children, Mr. de Blasio and other officials said in interviews this week.

The administration is trying to find either subsidized permanent housing or suitable temporary shelter for the families and will be converting the Auburn and Catherine Street facilities into adult family shelters, the officials said.

 

For nearly three decades, thousands of children passed through Auburn and Catherine Street, living with cockroaches, spoiled food, violence and insufficient heat, even as inspectors warned that the shelters were unfit for children.

State and city inspectors have cited Auburn for over 400 violations — many of them repeated — for a range of hazards, including vermin, mold, lead exposure, an inoperable fire safety system, insufficient child care and the presence of sexual predators, among them, a caseworker.

“We just weren’t going to allow this to happen on our watch,” the mayor said.

 

The Catherine Street shelter in Lower Manhattan. Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

 

 

The conditions at Auburn, which were detailed in a recent series in The New York Times, prompted the City Council to schedule hearings next week on family shelters. Records and interviews show that similar lapses have dogged Catherine Street, which, like Auburn, is an aging residence with communal bathrooms that children share with strangers. Families live in rooms without kitchens or running water, preventing them from cooking their own meals or washing baby bottles.

Since 2006, the state agency responsible for overseeing homeless shelters has routinely ordered the city to remove all infants and toddlers from Catherine Street, citing at least 150 violations in that time.

That agency, the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, could have sanctioned Auburn and Catherine Street by withholding state funding, but chose not to because that “would have meant defunding services that help tens of thousands of New Yorkers in need at a time when New York City had the highest number of homeless residents in its history,” the office’s commissioner, Kristin M. Proud, said in an email.

In the fall, a resident at Catherine Street took five children and two caseworkers hostage, barricading them in a room on the second floor, according to police records. In August 2012, a group of teenage boys took “over the building,” threatening children in bathrooms and assaulting others on the street, according to state records.

 

In a somewhat surreal twist, the city is exploring a plan to convert part of Auburn’s ground floor — the site of a cafeteria notorious for its mice and rancid food — into a “culinary arts” training program for adult residents. In the meantime, the city has added six more microwaves to the cafeteria, where people used to wait in lines to heat food that was sometimes served cold.

Both Auburn and Catherine Street were converted into family shelters in 1985 and, in the intervening decades, have remained a thorn in the side of homeless advocates.

“Until today, no mayor was willing to say no children should be treated this way, and that’s a historic breakthrough,” said Steven Banks, the attorney in chief at the Legal Aid Society, which has battled the city in court over shelter conditions.

Yet only a small fraction of the city’s homeless children live at Auburn and Catherine Street. Its temporary housing system includes 151 family facilities of varying quality, and it remains to be seen whether the administration will address complaints about conditions at other shelters.

 

 

Advocates for the homeless have pressed Mr. de Blasio to reinstate several policies that ended under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. From 1990 until 2005, the city placed more than 53,000 homeless families in permanent housing by giving them priority referrals to federal subsidy programs, according to an analysis of city data by Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless. 

 

The Bloomberg administration canceled that policy and in its place created a short-term rent subsidy program that ended in 2011 when the state withdrew its portion of the funding. By the time Mr. Bloomberg left office at the end of last year, the homeless population had peaked at more than 52,000 — the highest number on record since the Great Depression.

 

“There are major American cities that have the same population as we have people in shelter,” Mr. de Blasio said. “We have to look this in the face. This is literally an unacceptable dynamic, and we have to reverse it.”

In interviews, Mr. de Blasio, his deputy mayor for health and human services, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, and the newly appointed homeless services commissioner, Gilbert Taylor, laid out the broad outlines of a still-evolving plan to address homelessness.

 

A homeless man sleeps on stairs in Grand Central Station, on Christmas Eve in New York. Photograph: Carlo Allegri/Reuters

 

The de Blasio administration is also exploring a plan to enhance anti-eviction legal services for families, and an “aftercare” support program intended to prevent newly housed families from becoming homeless again.

The city is less likely to depend on federal housing programs as a solution because of the dwindling supply, Mr. de Blasio said. “It will be a tool we use as needed, but I think the central thrust has to be getting at the root causes,” he said. “Greater supply of affordable housing. Pushing up wages and benefits. More preventative efforts.”

 

The family’s room is the scene of debilitating chaos: stacks of dirty laundry, shoes stuffed under a mattress, bicycles and coats piled high.

 

To the left of the door, beneath a decrepit sink where Baby Lele is bathed, the wall has rotted through, leaving a long, dark gap where mice congregate.

 

The subject of the series in The Times, Dasani Coates, 12, spent three years at Auburn, sharing one room with her parents and seven siblings before the family was transferred to a shelter in Harlem, where they have remained since October. The Department of Homeless Services is trying to place the family in one of the city’s few supportive housing programs, which provide affordable apartments with on-site services for vulnerable families.

BLOOMBERG OVERREACHES. NOTHING NEW

NY TIMES

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has long relished his reputation as a fearless urban innovator, treating New York City as his laboratory for groundbreaking experiments in public health and social engineering.

But as he has sought to banish cars from swaths of Times Square, require energy-efficient taxis and restrict the size of sugary drinks, he has tested something else: the limits of his mayoral authority, which he has used repeatedly to bypass legislative oversight and public scrutiny.

As Mr. Bloomberg’s third term draws to a close, his assertion of sweeping mayoral power has suffered a series of high-profile setbacks, miring several of his marquee initiatives in litigation and raising questions about the wisdom of his administration’s peremptory approach.

The state court ruling on Monday that struck down the mayor’s proposed limits on large sugary drinks pointedly rebuked him for overstepping his powers, finding that he had improperly circumvented the City Council, which had played no role in approving the regulations. The soda rule, Justice Milton A. Tingling declared, would “not only violate the separation of powers doctrine; it would eviscerate it.”

Adverse rulings have become a recurring impediment for a mayor accustomed to getting his way. Courts or administrative regulators have blocked the Bloomberg administration from mandating fuel emissions standards in New York City’s taxicabs, expanding street-hail car service beyond Manhattan, and changing eligibility requirements for homeless people seeking shelter.

In each case, the mayor’s ambitious social policies became stymied over questions of procedure and authority.

 

Aides to the mayor, a former corporate executive who has not answered to a boss in decades, acknowledge that he has taken an expansive view of mayoral power. But they point out that many of his signature accomplishments, like a ban on smoking in restaurants, mandatory sentences for those who carry illegal guns and energy-efficiency rules for building owners, were approved by the City Council.

Mr. Bloomberg“had an aggressive approach, and it’s led to 11 years of enormous accomplishments for the city and enactment of groundbreaking policies that have been replicated across the country.”

Mr. Bloomberg’s heavy use of executive power to turn big ideas into city policy has won him plenty of fans. They applaud him for finding clever ways to cut red tape and to skirt a fractious City Council, which, at any time, may impede or block his will. And some of his unilateral actions have held up and become popular: a ban on the use of all but tiny amounts of artificial trans fats in restaurant cooking, and a sanitary grading system for the city’s restaurants.

 

Even those who have challenged his exercise of authority concede that the alternative can be political paralysis.

“We all appreciate his attempts at doing good things,” said Richard D. Emery, a prominent civil rights and election lawyer who has been involved in lawsuits against Mr. Bloomberg’s office.

Mr. Emery’s clients successfully sued the Bloomberg administration to block its plan for a virtually all-hybrid fleet of taxis. A judge ruled that only the federal government had the power to regulate fuel and emissions standards. The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court. “The motif here is Bloomberg trying to take over authority where other governmental entities have authority,” Mr. Emery said.

 

A case in point was Mr. Bloomberg’s attempt to extend street-hail service by livery cabs, to solve the problem of scarce taxis in northern Manhattan and in other boroughs. After meeting resistance to the proposal in the City Council, the mayor’s office turned instead to the State Legislature, persuading state lawmakers that taxi policy was within their jurisdiction.

 

The courts disagreed, ruling last summer that the city had overreached. “This court,” wrote Justice Arthur F. Engoron of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, “has trouble seeing how the provision of taxi service in New York City is a matter that can be wrenched from the hands of city government, where it has resided for some 75 years, and handed over to the state.”

Mr. Bloomberg has never entirely warmed to the political logrolling and elbow-greasing that typically accompany city policy-making. Instead, he has unleashed a flurry of administrative orders and “pilot” programs” that require little or no comment from the City Council or residents.

 

Dozens of administration projects, like transforming the city streetscape with pedestrian plazas and bike lanes, have begun as pilots, which generally require no public hearings or Council committee hearings, even as they expand into de facto citywide policy.

 

...no less a Bloomberg ally than Christine C. Quinn, the speaker of the City Council, has battled the mayor over his power, suing him to block a policy requiring homeless adults to prove that they had no alternative to city shelters. The mayor’s office, she said in an interview, “overplayed their authority.”

 

And James S. Oddo, a Republican councilman from Staten Island, who has agreed with the mayor on many high-profile issues, put his dismay in bigger terms.

“I think this administration, from early on, believed that theirs was a moment in time, and they were going to push their agenda, and not be slowed in any way by what they perceived as the traditional obstacles — including, as we look back, elected officials, parents and all the other usual entities that created the pressure points in government,” Mr. Oddo said.

“Listen — an elected official who is beholden to those pressure points is terrible,” he said. “But an elected official who has no sensitivity to those pressure points can be equally as bad.”