NY homeless housed in luxury hotels amid Covid-19 doing drugs, masturbating in streets, terrified residents say
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Residents in Manhattan's Upper West Side are said to be terrified of the homeless people who have been sheltered in hotels in the area as part of the city's efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic over reports that they included multiple sex offenders. This past July, 139 of the city's hotels that had been closed for months because of the coronavirus agreed to take in homeless people into its rooms as a part of efforts to prevent a breakout in the homeless shelters. The homeless, who were in dorm-style accommodations around the city until then, were moved to these hotels so they could be housed one or two in a room to protect them from Covid-19, the New York Post reported. "In order to defuse that ticking time bomb, we implemented a massive emergency relocation of human beings from those congregate shelters throughout the city, more than 10,000 in about eight weeks," Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Commissioner Steven Banks confirmed.
While the move has succeeded in curbing the spread of the virus amongst the homeless population, it has also angered local residents in the area who have seen them urinating, sleeping, masturbating, and taking drugs in the streets. Dr. Megan Martin, an organizer of a 1,700-member group that is calling for the city to take action against these people and regularly posts pictures of them laying sprawled on the streets and sidewalks, aid the community was "terrified, angry and frightened."
Local parents are said to be particularly concerned with ten registered sex offenders and pedophiles who have been accommodated at the Belleclaire, a luxury hotel. Amongst those men are Luis Martin, 44, who assaulted and raped a woman in 1995, Roland Butler, 62, convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl in 2013, Eddie Daniel, 59, convicted of abusing a 10-year-old in 2011, Jonathan Evans, 29, convicted of abusing a 6-year-old, and Michael Hughes, 55, convicted of possessing child pornography in 2007.
Residents have also reportedly seen fights, been verbally abused and harassed, seen people spitting, and also those who were looking for and using drugs around the Lucerne, another luxury hotel which is currently housing 300 homeless drug and alcohol addicts. The move was made at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a source who also shared that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was covering 75 percent of the cost and the city 25 percent.
A community board member said the city was paying hotels $175 per day, per person, or $350 a day for housing two people in a room. They said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is handling the funds, had not been transparent with the details of the scheme and that locals had been given little to no input or notice.
"You do the math," the board member said. "It's a lot of money," adding, "It feels like the 1970s. Everyone who can move out is moving out."
While the contract to accommodate the homeless in these hotels is set to run through till October, it is expected to be renewed to a further date despite protests and reservations.