{"id":246894,"date":"2026-05-28T21:07:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/246894\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T21:07:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T21:07:36","slug":"manhattan-judge-appears-skeptical-of-city-arguments-for-moving-homeless-intake-to-the-east-village-without-public-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/246894\/","title":{"rendered":"Manhattan judge appears skeptical of city arguments for moving homeless intake to the East Village without public review"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Manhattan judge Thursday questioned city attorneys on the Mamdani administration\u2019s plans to move\u00a0a homeless intake center to the East Village<\/a>, appearing skeptical of city arguments that it had the authority to do so without public review processes, a group of residents\u00a0suing<\/a> to block the center alleges the city improperly bypassed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Supreme Court Judge Sabrina Kaus declined to rule on May 28 regarding whether the intake center may open, she has already given a temporary victory to V.O.I.C.E, the unincorporated group of East Villagers opposing the plan over \u201cneighborhood safety concerns,\u201d and allegations the city \u201crushed\u201d the plan without properly informing them. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Kaus issued a temporary order<\/a> prohibiting the city from changing the 8 East 3rd St. site, which currently operates as a men\u2019s homeless shelter, into an intake center on its planned date of May 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The city says it\u2019s necessary to move homeless intake services to the East Village and out of their current location at the dilapidated Bellevue shelter in midtown as it repairs safety issues in that building. It\u2019s well within its right to do that without triggering public review processes, the city argued, because city agencies have broad authority to rearrange shelter services and the site would still be used for the same general purpose \u2013 to serve homeless men \u2013 meaning there wouldn\u2019t be a significant change in use.<\/p>\n

Kaus appeared to see value in arguments from V.O.I.C.E., represented by ex-Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 former First Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, that the switch from a shelter to an intake center could be subject to review processes, suggesting that the fact that the city plans to increase security at the site after changing it into an intake center seemed to demonstrate there would be a significant change that would trigger reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re increasing security just for the heck of it, not because there\u2019s increased danger?\u201d Kaus asked. \u201cYou\u2019re putting more security because of the change in what\u2019s happening now and what will happen will increase danger.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople experiencing homelessness are not an inherent danger to neighborhoods,\u201d city attorney Leia Seereeram said. \u201cThat is the basis of [V.O.I.C.E.\u2019s] argument and we reject that premise,\u201d adding that the reason the city was adding security was because there were \u201cmore unknowns\u201d around a transient intake population.<\/p>\n

\u201cCounsel. I mean, come on,\u201d Kaus responded. \u201cYou\u2019re acknowledging an increased security risk and you\u2019re planning for it \u2026 If it\u2019s gonna be the same as it is right now, why would you need that change?\u201d<\/p>\n

Questioning the East Village homeless intake center construction<\/p>\n

Seereeram said the change in security did not warrant public review, emphasizing that the same homeless population would be served and that the site had been an intake center in the 1980s. To necessitate public review, the change would have to be a city capital project, which she said it isn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While Mastro argued that, according to resident photos, the city was carrying out over $1 million worth of construction and appeared to be doing a \u201cgut demolition\u201d on the building made it a capital project, Seereeram said that the construction didn\u2019t touch any structural parts of the building and were simply renovations to make required accessibility improvements, so it wasn\u2019t meaningfully changing the building\u2019s use or function, nor was it a capital project.<\/p>\n

She added that if the city were to be subject to public review processes for every accessibility improvement it made to city buildings, the city would \u201cgrind to a halt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

City Hall did not respond to a request for comment. A Mamdani spokesperson previously said it will continue running intake services out of Bellevue until it\u2019s able to move into this East Village location.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society said it was \u201cconcerned,\u201d about this, as Bellevue has significant safety issues, indicated by the city\u2019s need to repair it. Staff attorney Josh Goldfein told amNewYork it was \u201cfrustrating\u201d that the judge declined to rule on the case today and leave the issue unresolved.<\/p>\n

The Legal Aid Society has previously called<\/a> Kaus\u2019s handling of the case out of the ordinary, saying that judges usually don\u2019t take cases against homeless shelters so seriously, as there is little, if any, legal basis for the arguments groups opposing them are making, calling the judge\u2019s decision to even temporarily halt the shelter\u2019s opening strange.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, in the long history of NIMBY cases opposing shelters opening, judges have seen that the neighbors don\u2019t have any good faith basis to block the opening of the shelter, and they nip it in the bud,\u201d Goldfein said. \u201cFor whatever reason, this judge saw something that made her think it was okay to delay the opening of the new intake site for a period of weeks, despite the fact that the city expressed to her their concern that someone is going to get hurt if they continue to have to use the existing intake office.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaus Thursday said she believed the case was different from other NIMBY cases she\u2019d seen because she thought the East Village community was \u201copen to living with unhoused,\u201d citing their argument that they didn\u2019t oppose the site\u2019s current homeless shelter, but felt this specific change would have a greater impact on their lives because it would bring in a more transient population and that they were not properly informed about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a \u2018not in our backyard\u2019 kind of case \u2026 this is not that,\u201d Kaus said. What this was, she said, was a case where a change was happening without enough information sharing, due process or addressing of community concerns.<\/p>\n

When asked about the judge\u2019s remarks, Goldfein told amNewYork he felt that wasn\u2019t an accurate characteristic, adding that people saying they just needed more information is \u201cexactly the same as any other NIMBY case.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kaus made no indication on when she intends to rule on the case. She said she\u2019d make herself available to both sides if they wanted to attempt to seek a compromise settlement prior to her ruling.<\/p>\n

The next court date is set for June 4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Manhattan judge Thursday questioned city attorneys on the Mamdani administration\u2019s plans to move\u00a0a homeless intake center to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[7624,20995,2710,75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-246894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-east-village","tag-homeless","tag-law","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}