DE BLASIO'S FORMER HEALTH COMMISSIONERS AND HUNDREDS OF PHYSICIANS: TRANSFERS ARE A DEATH SENTENCE

NEW YORK, NY (08/05/2021) (readMedia)-- Dr. Mary Bassett, Mayor de Blasio's health commissioner from 2014-2018, is adding her voice to demands that the city stop the transfers of homeless New Yorkers from temporary hotel shelters to dangerous, overcrowded congregate shelters. She joins Dr. Oxiris Barbot (de Blasio's health commissioner from 2018-2020), NYSNA, Doctors Council SEIU, and 457 healthcare workers and organizations in a letter criticizing the mayor and Health Commissioner Chokshi for allowing the transfers to move forward and spur another deadly COVID outbreak.

The transfers violate CDC guidelines, which recommend masking indoors across the five boroughs. Yesterday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said the new federal eviction moratorium "is the right thing to do to keep people in their homes and out of congregate settings where COVID-19 spreads." Meanwhile, the city is moving people from the hotels where they have been kept safer from the spread of COVID into the very congregate shelters the CDC Director noted as dangerous. This danger is no longer hypothetical.

On August 3, per DHS, 17 individuals in the shelter system had positive COVID-19 cases. This number is sure to grow exponentially, as social distancing is virtually impossible in congregate shelters. People sleep 30-50 to a room in beds 3 feet apart, and as of July 1, DHS had only vaccinated 21.5% of those in the shelter system. The city is planning to move 8,000 New Yorkers into crowded congregate settings while the Delta variant, which is much more contagious than the previous COVID strains that originally spurred the moves to hotels, surges across the city. This move doesn't only endanger shelter residents - shelter staff is also now at an increased risk.

Bassett, Barbot, NYSNA, Doctors Council SEIU, New York Doctors Coalition, and more write:

"Repopulating shelters now constitutes an unwarranted return to an inadequate, overburdened system that directly threatens the health of thousands of New Yorkers and, indirectly, that of the entire city. The dangers of this decision were recognized in a recent federal ruling, which stated that the city must investigate reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities prior to relocation. This requirement is a bare minimum. If we are to continue to protect the health of the most vulnerable among us and prevent another resurgence of the virus, we must not move forward with the plan to relocate individuals into congregate shelter and, indeed, must reverse the relocations that have already taken place"

The full text of the letter is attached.

Yesterday, healthcare workers including Dr. Oni Blackstock, who signed the letter, gathered in the Bronx together with NYSNA and two doctors' unions to tell the city to stop the transfers.

"Transferring people from the safety of hotel rooms to congregate shelters in the middle of a pandemic is in effect a death sentence. It's putting those who are among the most vulnerable at the greatest risk for getting COVID19," said Dr. Oni Blackstock, founder and executive director of Health Justice and member of New York Doctors Coalition.

"Doctors Council SEIU represents frontline doctors, including those who work in the New York City Health + Hospitals system - the largest public hospital system in the U.S. Our members- the doctors- saw firsthand what went on during the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many patients died or were very ill. Too many patients came from black and brown communities. The City transferring homeless New Yorkers from temporary hotel shelters back to overcrowded congregate shelters is counter to public health. COVID-19 cases are up, the numbers are only rising, and there is a rising threat from the Delta variant.

We need to be treating homelessness like the public health issue it is, and moving toward a model that prioritizes preventing evictions and providing subsidized housing for those who need it," said Frank Proscia, M.D., President, Doctors Council SEIU

"What this movement to congregate shelter says is the city cares more about serving the needs of developers, cares more about creating a false sense of normalcy - a normal that, depending who you were, was never adequate - than it does about the actual lives of New Yorkers, primarily poor, black and brown New Yorkers," said Dr. Marc Shi of New York Doctors Coalition.

"Safe, decent housing is essential to someone's well-being. As doctors in NYC's public health system, we care for patients every day who come in with issues stemming from a lack of shelter or unsafe living environments. With yet another surge fueled by the Delta variant, we must ensure that all of the city's residents, especially our most vulnerable, have the ability to take the necessary precautions against Covid. Unsafe, crowded housing is dangerous and puts us all at risk. As a community, we cannot be safe until all of us are." Dr Oluyemi Omotoso, Committee of Interns and Residents SEIU, National Secretary Treasurer