NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New York City's plan to move thousands of homeless people from hotels to shelters has been put on hold by a federal judge.
The homeless have been staying in hotels during the pandemic and about 3,000 have already been moved out.
The Legal Aid Society on Friday filed a lawsuit against the de Blasio administration, arguing the decision to move homeless New Yorkers out of hotels and back into shelters happened too quickly.
The judge sided with the Legal Aid Society on Tuesday, saying the city did not have an adequate plan to move the homeless to shelters and ordered a pause on transfers for as many as 14 days.
The ruling means the city cannot transfer people who might qualify for reasonable accommodations without giving them at least seven days' notice and meeting with them to determine whether they qualify.
"Well, I think the city rushed it. They just were not prepared or equipped do the things that they are required to do," said Dawn Smalls, who served as co-counsel with the Legal Aid Society on the motion. "We asked for a halt to the process until the city could fix the process."
At a hotel on Fifth Avenue at West 32nd Street in Midtown, homeless women held a protest against the transfers.
"I think it's too soon with the new delta variant going on right now which is more deadly than the other virus. I really think they're pushing the gun a little bit and moving us way too soon," said a temporary resident who did not want to give her name. "We're just going to be right back in the same predicament again and here we go again. Round and round and round and round we go. We need more time."
The court order has left many of the women without their clothing and other belongings after they were loaded onto buses and taken away in anticipation of a move that never happened.
"Actually they took our clothes out Thursday because we were supposed to move Friday," the resident said.
The mayor said the hotels were always a temporary solution.
"We said in the midst of the worst of the pandemic that we had to take immediate and emergency action to protect homeless folks and move them out of shelter settings to hotels for their health and safety, but now the situation has changed," de Blasio said last month.
The plan to move the homeless comes as the city tries to get its economy moving by luring visitors back.
City Hall has not commented on the ruling.
