The city can move homeless residents of the Upper West Side’s Lucerne Hotel to another location in the Financial District, a judge ruled Wednesday as she tossed a suit to block the controversial relocation, new court papers show.
After blowback from Upper West Side residents, the city sought to transfer the roughly 200 homeless men from the Lucerne to a downtown Radisson Inn — but instead met resistance there from a group of FiDi residents calling themselves Downtown New Yorkers Inc who sued the city last month to block the relocation.
Three homeless men living at the Lucerne who opposed their forced move intervened in the case and successfully put the relocation on pause while the case played out in court.
But after lengthy hearings last week, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Debra James found, in her decision from Wednesday, that she doesn’t have jurisdiction to block the city’s plans to move the men.
James said the homeless men could fight their relocation after they are moved if the shelter is lacking through the appropriate channel of an administrative hearing. But that she didn’t find they would suffer irreparable harm if they are moved now.
James also found that Downtown New Yorkers don’t have legal standing to challenge the relocation.
Randy Mastro lawyer for WestCo — a group of Upper West Side residents in support of the relocation who were barred from the case — said the decision is “a ‘win-win’ for all concerned, and now, [the move] should go forward without any further delay.”
City Hall, the city Law Department, lawyers for Downtown New Yorkers and lawyers for the homeless men fighting the move all did not immediately return requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Nolan Hicks
