A judge in Manhattan has temporarily blocked New York City from moving its main intake shelter for homeless men from a hulking building near Bellevue Hospital to a smaller facility in the East Village.
The order, issued Wednesday by Justice Sabrina B. Kraus of State Supreme Court, stops the clock while a lawsuit challenging the move, filed by East Village residents, proceeds; it does not cancel the move.
Though the building in the East Village had been serving as a homeless shelter for men with substance abuse problems, neighbors who are fighting the move say an intake shelter would bring a larger and more transient population and would pose a security threat.
The city had announced early last month that it was shutting down the shelter near Bellevue on East 30th Street, which had served for decades as the first stop for people seeking shelter beds, because it was in a “severe state of disrepair.”
It planned to open the new center in the East Village building, on East Third Street, on May 1, and has already moved the residents of that building elsewhere.
But East Village residents sued the city on Monday to block the move, arguing that officials had skipped over necessary public review and notice requirements, relying on emergency executive orders to address a situation that was not an emergency.
At a court hearing on Wednesday morning, a lawyer for the East Village group, Steven A. Engel, argued that the deteriorating conditions at the 850-bed shelter on 30th Street had been an issue for years and that there was no reason to race to shut it in a matter of weeks.
“The question here is, why are you rushing it and putting it into a facility which is demonstrably not suitable for handling this?” he said.
The plaintiffs have argued that the 30th Street shelter often has long lines outside that are sometimes disorderly.
A lawyer for the city, Leia Seereeram, told the judge that the Department of Homeless Services was “taking many measures to accommodate the change and to ensure that intake operations will be performed in an orderly manner.” She added that “D.H.S. does not expect there to be lines out the door” at the new shelter.
The Law Department did not immediately comment Wednesday afternoon on the judge’s order.
One of the plaintiffs, Trisha Goff, who lives near the East Village shelter, applauded the judge’s ruling. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction so that there can be due diligence, as there should have been from the get-go,” she said.
Andy Newman has reported from the New York region for The Times for more than 30 years.
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