Last Remaining Lucerne Residents Will Leave Shelter Next Week

Upper West Side NY

25 June, 2021

9:47 AM

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UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The remaining residents at the temporary shelter at The Lucerne on the Upper West Side will return to congregate shelters next week, according to Council Member Helen Rosenthal. The move comes in the aftermath of the city announcing it will no longer be using private hotels as COVID-19 emergency temporary homeless shelters. "In our area, the remaining shelter residents at the Lucerne will return to their congregate shelter next week; and residents of the Belnord will return to their shelter in early July," Rosenthal said in an emailed newsletter on Thursday. The Belnord Hotel didn't get nearly as much publicity as The Lucerne, but it has had roughly 100 shelter residents since the beginning of summer 2020. The Upper West Side City Council representative also wrote that she would keep the community posted about the closure of the remaining emergency shelters in District 6. The most notable of these is the Belleclaire Hotel, which at its height had the most temporary residents experiencing homelessness of any of the UWS hotels. The departure follows a court decision on June 3 that denied an appeal aimed to keep the men in the Upper West Side hotel. The petition by three former residents of The Lucerne, a former hotel, was ruled "moot" because they had all moved out of the Upper West Side shelter and secured permanent housing during the court case that has lasted months. 283 men experiencing homelessness first moved into The Lucerne at the end of July 2020. At the time, it meant there were nearly 700 newly placed shelter residents within 10 blocks of each other on the Upper West Side. The community backlash was immediate as local politicians also vented their frustration that they were not given more heads-up from the city. In September 2020, the city announced it would be moving The Lucerne residents out of the UWS hotel and into a permanent shelter in the Financial District. The city's announcement of its plan to close The Lucerne shelter came after an Upper West Siders For Safer Streets Facebook group grew to over 15,000 members, and consistently shared images and complaints about people experiencing homelessness living in the neighborhood. Members from the Facebook group eventually started their own nonprofit, the West Side Community Organization. It went on to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire attorney Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor in the Rudy Giuliani administration. Mastro threatened to sue the city over its choice to keep shelter residents at the Upper West Side hotels, and a few days later, Bill de Blasio announced he would be moving the residents out of the neighborhood. The court process that started in September 2020, didn't come to an end until the June 3 final decision. Read More: Lucerne Shelter On The UWS To Shut Down After Court RulingUWS Hotel To Become Temporary Homeless Shelter For 283 PeopleRemove Sex Offenders From UWS Hotel, Council Member DemandsUWS Pol Changes Stance On Sex Offenders In Neighborhood HotelDueling Hotel Homeless Shelter Petitions Divide Upper West SideUWS Community Board To Host Virtual Forum On Homeless SheltersUWS Pol Gives Update On Hotels Getting Used As Homeless Shelters'We Do Not Have A Definitive Timeline': DHS Talks UWS SheltersLegal Org Calls UWS Residents 'Racist' In Handling Of SheltersCity Will Move Homeless From The LucerneLocal Pols Rip Mayor's Decision To Move Homeless Out Of LucerneRemoval Of Homeless Residents From UWS Hotel Temporarily HaltedLucerne Residents On The Move Again, This Time Downtown