NYC mayor to move 13,000 homeless out of Manhattan hotels after residents’ complaints

Thousands of homeless in New York who had been given rooms at vacant hotels during the coronavirus outbreak are to be moved following complaints from residents.

Bill de Blasio, the city’s mayor, launched a program which saw the government pay 139 empty hotels to house some 13,000 homeless for $175 (£132) per person per night, to avoid Covid-19 outbreaks in overcrowded homeless shelters.

However, local residents of Manhattan’s Chelsea and the Upper West Side neighbourhoods say the decision has made streets more dangerous, complaining that intoxicated men are congregating on the street without masks, using drugs in public and getting into violent disputes. 

Others have reported incidents of assault and public exposure.

“We see people inebriated, there are registered sex offenders,” Alison Morpurgo, a member of the group Upper West Siders for Safer Streets, told NBC New York. “Sometimes I go running in the morning and I’ll see needles on the ground,” said the mother-of-three.

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