Downtown New Yorkers Outraged at Secretive Move of Over 240 Male Residents from the Lucerne Hotel to Radisson Hotel on Wall Street
For Immediate Release: September 29, 2020
Downtown New York City residents are outraged after becoming aware on the last weekend of September that the City has put in motion a secret initiative to permanently designate the Radisson Hotel on Wall Street into a homeless shelter for over 240 men as a “solution” for the unfolding crisis occurring on the Upper West Side as a direct result of the failed experiment of the Lucerne Hotel.
Reports suggest that the transition process will begin October 5th, only 10 days after the initial news broke. The Office of the Mayor released a 128 page plan on February 28, 2017 titled, Turn the Tide on Homelessness, in which part of it reads as quoted below:
“We will implement protocols to notify community leaders at least 30 days in advance and invite community input when a new shelter is proposed in their neighborhood. The City is committing to meaningful community engagement, a clear shelter opening notification framework for every shelter, and a more equitable distribution of shelters citywide over time.”
Not only has the 30-day notification period been held at a complete disregard, but any amount of community input has been comprehensively neglected by downtown Manhattan elected district representatives who continue to prioritize interests of others that inherently contradict the interests of the constituents they are directly charged to advocate for.
With over a dozen schools within short distance from the Radisson, moving in over 240 men that have wreaked havoc in other parts of our borough is a blatant insult to the families and children of this neighborhood. Prioritizing optics over safety for young children is a new low for the Office of the Mayor.
Neighbors quickly organized during the last weekend of September, amassing over 1,600 concerned residents on social media within a matter of days. The group, “Downtown New Yorkers”, continue to incessantly reach out to representatives, local businesses, residential buildings, and other bodies of interest to fight this completely inappropriate “plan”.
Downtown New Yorkers have great compassion for the homeless community and vehemently oppose any and all anti-homeless rhetoric. Hosts to many already established homeless hotels and shelters, neighbors are compassionate to the unique needs of this community. However, a permanent or temporary transplant of the hundreds of men who have wreaked havoc in the failed experiment of the Lucerne Hotel to this neighborhood WILL NOT be tolerated.
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