The city has agreed to briefly suspend moving homeless people from Midtown hotels to regular shelters while they assess the process, an spokesperson for the city Law Department said.
The Department of Homeless Services agreed at a court hearing Friday not to relocate any of the homeless individuals Monday — and subsequently agreed on Monday not move any of the homeless people Tuesday.
The self-imposed suspension is the latest move in a legal battle between the New York Legal Aid Society and DHS over the relocation of homeless individuals who were placed in the hotels amid the coronavirus pandemic.
When the city began removing people from the hotels in early July, Legal Aid filed a motion, accusing the city of violating their own guidelines and moving people out before they could be properly screened.
The city temporarily halted the transfers, then restarted them last week.
In Friday’s court hearing, the city committed to a number of measures, ” to ensure clients’ reasonable accommodation needs would be met,” including moving a majority of the homeless individuals to similarly-equipped rooms as they were currently being housed in, said Nick Paolucci, a Law Department spokesperson.