New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing a lawsuit from a group of Manhattan residents over his plan to relocate a significant portion of the city’s homeless population to the East Village. This neighborhood notably supported him with a 42-point voting margin.
On April 19, seven residents from the East Village initiated legal action in the New York County Supreme Court. Their aim is to prevent Mamdani from transferring the city’s primary homeless intake center from Kips Bay to their community.
The city has decided to shut down a 250-bed facility in Kips Bay, situated near Bellevue Hospital, due to its declining conditions.
By May 1, the services provided to homeless individuals at this location were scheduled to be relocated to 8 East 3rd Street. This site, run by Project Renewal, is a transitional residential housing facility with 175 beds.
The building was poised to become the central temporary shelter for homeless adult men, where they typically stay for brief periods of 24 to 48 hours.
Among the petitioners is Niki Donohue, who has volunteered at the Bellevue Men’s Shelter approximately a dozen times. She expressed concerns about the summer months when men who are “distressed, unstable, and suffering from mental illness and addiction” frequently line up in search of shelter.
The lawsuit argued that what goes on at the Bellevue facility will now plague the East Village.
‘It is well established that intake facilities experience heightened risks of crime, drug use, loitering, public indecency, and other safety concerns,’ the suit said.
A group of East Village residents sued New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to stop his plan to make a shelter in their neighborhood the main intake center for homeless adult men
The plaintiffs worry that there will be large lines of homeless men in their neighborhood if Mamdani’s plan is allowed to go through (Pictured: Homeless migrants wait in line to receive food and clothing in Tompkins Square Park, which is in the East Village, on January 20, 2024)
Ramon Rivera, who was a resident of the Bellevue facility, went on a deadly stabbing spree in December 2024, killing three people, according to prosecutors.
Conservative politicians were quick to point out that people in the East Village should have expected policies like this when they voted for Mamdani.
‘No one is more ‘not in my backyard’ than white progressives. This community voted for Mamdani in a landslide but don’t want to live with the consequences,’ said Michael Henry, a former New York attorney general candidate.
‘Not shocked,’ Senator Rick Scott of Florida wrote on social media.
The East Village group argued that the city did not provide adequate notice for residents, while also circumventing the public review process by improperly relying on a 2022 emergency executive order meant to deal with the influx of asylum seekers.
Steven A. Engel, the lawyer for the East Village residents, said in court on Wednesday that the Kips Bay facility has been deteriorating for years and does not constitute an emergency.
‘The question here is, why are you rushing it and putting it into a facility which is demonstrably not suitable for handling this?’ Engel said, according to The New York Times.
Following arguments from the plaintiffs and the defendants, Justice Sabrina B. Kraus temporarily blocked the city from implementing its plan while the lawsuit proceeds.
Mamdani announced the closure of the Bellevue Men’s Facility (pictured) early last month. The 250-bed facility is in a state of disrepair and the city planned to move its residents to 8 East 3rd Street, a 175-bed transitional residential housing facility in the East Village
Ramon Rivera, who was a resident of the Bellevue facility, went on a deadly stabbing spree in December 2024, killing three people, according to prosecutors
‘This is an important start, and we appreciate the judge’s fast action on this crucially important matter,’ Trisha Goff, a longtime neighborhood resident who was part of the lawsuit, told the Gothamist.
‘But it is only the beginning. There’s much more work to be done. Now there’s time for due process, to listen to the community, and to find a far better solution to this challenging problem.’
A City Hall spokesperson told PIX11 that the conditions at the Bellevue shelter have been ‘unacceptable for years’.
‘Leaving people in a space that is falling apart is a failure of our responsibility to care for our fellow New Yorkers,’ the spokesperson said. ‘We look forward to addressing the immediate need to relocate shelter intake with the Court on May 7.’
The city had also announced that a second shelter would be opened on May 1 at 333 Bowery Street for homeless families without minor children.
Justice Kraus did not specifically address the fate of that shelter in her order.
