September 10, 2020 Att: Mayor Bill de Blasio City Hall New York, NY 10007

CC: Speaker Corey Johnson Council Member Helen Rosenthal HRA Commissioner Steven Banks Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal Public Advocate Jumaane Williams State Senator Brad Hoylman State Senator Elizabeth Krueger

Dear Mayor Bill de Blasio,

On August 28th we sent your office a letter that has now been signed by over 960 UWS residents, available at uwsstrong.org, expressing the support of our community for the temporary hotel homeless shelters in our neighborhood. We are devastated to learn that despite the tireless work of the 50+ Project Renewal staff who have created a functioning, full-service shelter at the Lucerne Hotel and the widespread support of community members who have partnered with Project Renewal to bring increased services and needed donations to shelter residents you are choosing to instead listen to a few privileged voices who have hired a high-priced attorney to displace these individuals.

Contrary to your misinformed assertions that getting out of hotels will improve services, the services that Project Renewal will offer in the location they are being moved to will be identical to those they were offering in The Lucerne. There is no “win- win,” only a victory for the rich over the impoverished. Furthermore, in order to move the men in the Lucerne into a shelter where isolation is possible, the city will need to move adult families--many with serious disabilities--out of the Harmonia shelter on 31st Street. At the same time, to accommodate the women from the LIC shelter, families with children will need to be moved from a family shelter in Brooklyn, right before the start of school. How is it fair for these families to be displaced and separated from their care providers to solve the problems some Upper West Side residents have with visible poverty in their neighborhood?

Now is not the time to treat the people who depend on the city for shelter as chess pieces that can be moved around a map to accommodate the misinformed, dehumanizing, and divisive rhetoric of some Upper West Side residents. Making policy decisions to cater to that biased and misinformed

constituency puts homeless individuals in danger and sets a dangerous precedent for other neighborhoods who want to push city wide problems into other neighborhoods. The Upper West Side is now being viewed as a model for wealthy, privileged, and prejudiced groups in other neighborhoods to follow. Your actions embolden those who have long resisted affordable housing to think that if they have enough money to hire the best lawyer, their neighborhood, too, gets to say “not in my backyard.”

We call upon the Mayor to reconsider this rushed and destructive decision, and instead stand up for the vulnerable residents of shelters and the communities that have welcomed them, not those spewing misinformation and hatred.

Sincerely,

Corinne Low Co-founder, UWS Open Hearts Initiative

Heather Gunn-Rivera Co-founder, UWS Open Hearts Initiative