How Have Upper West Side Residents Responded to their New Unhoused Neighbors?
“ I am a 59-year-old Black man currently living at the Lucerne Hotel on West 79th St. on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I’ve been moved around several times since the pandemic started, and now I’ve heard we’ll soon be moved yet again because some neighbors of the hotel don’t want us here.
My experience during the pandemic has been marked by instability.”
-Larry Thomas
In an attempt to minimize the risk of rapid COVID-19 transmission throughout New York City’s notoriously overcrowded shelters, Mayor Bill De Blasio put forth a program aimed at temporarily housing unhoused residents in hotels across the city. Launching back in April, the program has relocated roughly 9,500 unhoused residents into 63 hotels — 4 of which are located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan (NYTimes, 2020).
The Hotel Belleclaire on West 77th and Broadway, The Lucerne Hotel on West 79th and Amsterdam, The Belnord Hotel on West 87th between Amsterdam and Broadway, and The Park West Hotel on Central Park West between 106th and 107th Streets, are now home to many of the City’s formally unhoused residents (West Side Rag, 2020). Most notably, The Lucerne hotel houses 283 formally unhoused men, invoking contentious debates amongst longterm residents of the Upper West Side.
Within the last 10-years, 0.79% of total 311 complaints throughout New York City have involved homelessness. However, in the Upper West Side this percentage reaches a staggering 4.3% , meaning that 4.3% of the neighborhoods 311 complaints reference homelessness— more than 5x that of the citywide average. This is not to say that the Upper West Side experiences more homelessness than other neighborhoods in New York City, but rather that the residents of this particular neighborhood are much more adverse to the presence of unhoused residents in their community.
Although a seemingly consistent trend in the neighborhood within the last 10-years, the recent influx of unhoused residents as a result of COVID-19 has contributed to heightened antagonism from longterm residents. This growing hostility can be seen when parsing through the City’s 311 call complaint database.
Analyzing the City’s 311 database, conclusions can be drawn regarding the increased frequency of complaints involving unhoused residents. In 2018, a 9-month period between January, 22nd and September, 22nd, showed 1,573 total complaints referencing “homelessness”. Similarly, the same 9-month period in 2019 showed 1,564 total complaints. However, this same period in 2020 — spanning both pre- and post-COVID-19 program implementations — shows an alarming 2,450 complaints. The timeframe of these complaints are visualized in the graphics below.
It is clear that the Upper West Side has been hostile towards unhoused residents within the last 10-years and that this tendency has only grown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As community groups organize and threaten City officials to relocate unhoused residents away from the Upper West Side, the fear of instability plague men like Larry Thomas.
“Returning from prison has been a challenge. Being judged and scorned by the neighbors of the Lucerne, and being moved again to appease them, is one additional stress. It has felt like anything can happen under these circumstances, and I could be accused of something I did not do.” says Thomas.
“I am afraid that when people make sweeping assumptions about homeless people, these kinds of accusations will increase. This could have serious consequences for people like me who are on parole and just trying to stay out of trouble.” (NyDailyNews, 2020). The current influx of 311 complaints could contribute to the serious consequences Thomas writes on. It is crucial that as community residents we take precautions to keep the City’s unhoused residents safe and taken care of during these extraordinary times.
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*This article was written for the course Urban Informatics with Professor Boyeong Hong at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
