Judge Puts on Hold Mamdani’s Rush To Open Homeless Intake Shelter in Manhattan’s East Village

Efforts by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration to relocate a nearly century-old homeless intake center from Bellevue Hospital to a new location in the East Village – both within Manhattan – were paused on Wednesday by a state Supreme Court justice, presenting one of the first substantial legal challenges the Democratic Socialist has faced in his young mayoral tenure.The Mamdani administration announced in March it would close the Bellevue intake facility on East 30th Street, an 850-bed facility in Kips Bay, by the end of this month due to its “severe state of disrepair.” The city would therefore convert an existing men’s shelter and drug treatment center operated by Project Rescue at 8 East Third Street into a citywide men’s intake center.A group of East Village residents filed an Article 78 petition on Monday, arguing that the city relied on Mr. Mamdani’s emergency executive orders to sidestep required public review for its “unlawful” move, which had been scheduled for May 1. On Wednesday, Justice Sabrina B. Kraus issued a temporary restraining order on the move, directing the city to show cause at a future hearing.In a statement to the New York Times, a spokeswoman for Mr. Mamdani defended the move as being “critical to ensuring that every New Yorker in need has access to safe, dignified shelter without delay.”However, in their lawsuit, the group of East Village residents, calling themselves the Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement, or V.O.I.C.E, argued that the city finalized its decision without advance notice to the community or conducting legally mandated reviews and analyses like the Uniform Land Use Review. The group also said it did not learn of the city’s plan to open the new intake facility on East 3rd Street until March 31.The Mamdani administration eventually held a Q&A session with East Village residents, in which officials failed to provide answers to “basic questions” regarding budget, population size, or consideration of alternatives, the group alleges in its lawsuit.“The question here is, why are you rushing it and putting it into a facility which is demonstrably not suitable for handling this?” an attorney for V.O.I.C.E., Steven A. Engel, said during a court hearing Wednesday.A V.O.I.C.E. member and East Village resident, Trisha Goff, told amNY that creating a new intake facility in her neighborhood, which is “already shouldering more than its fair share” of social service centers like the Bowery Mission and the BRC Project Rescue facility, could present a public safety issue. “Now there’s time for due process, to listen to the community, and to find a far better solution to this challenging problem,” Ms. Goff said in a statement.Mr. Engel argued in court that the Bellevue center’s unsafe conditions had been known for years. Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s administration abandoned plans to redevelop the site into a hotel and conference center, while Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proposed converting it into an assisted-living facility. Mr. Mamdani’s office, despite issuing an emergency order, said there was “no immediate danger” at the Bellevue location and their decision to vacate it “is a proactive measure driven by safety and expert engineering guidance.”Judge Kraus scheduled the next hearing for May 7.

Judge Puts on Hold Mamdani’s Rush To Open Homeless Intake Shelter in Manhattan’s East Village

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