Doctors + Nurses Unions Join Shams DaBaron, Activists, + Electeds: Stop the Deadly Transfers Amid Delta Surge!

BRONX, NY (08/04/2021) (readMedia)-- Rep. Ritchie Torres, PA Jumaane Williams, Dr. Oni Blackstock, NYSNA, New York Doctors Council SEIU, and more gathered today in the Bronx to demand the city recognize the urgent health threat from the Delta Variant and immediately cease redensification of congregate shelters. The city is currently in the process of emptying hotels used to keep homeless New Yorkers safe to return to full, pre-pandemic density in congregate shelters, despite a new COVID wave that is already upon us. This will cost lives - it is a public health crisis.

The Delta variant is surging through the city with Covid cases up 433% since the end of June, both the Mayor and Governor are strongly urging people to wear masks indoors, and the city is instating a vaccine mandate for indoor activities. Congregate shelters with 30-50 people in one room, beds 3 feet apart, low vaccination rates, and no ability to mask are a recipe for disaster, declared the gathered healthcare workers and public health experts.

Watch the presser here: Part 1 and Part 2

Covid-19 made clear the health inequities in communities of color. Especially in the Bronx, ground zero for the pandemic, we saw the worst health statistics in the city among its majority Black and brown population. The transfers are a racial justice crisis on top of a public health crisis.

"Last year when I lived in a congregate shelter, I got COVID and nearly died. I don't want that to happen to anybody else - but it will if the mayor continues with these transfers back to those congregate death traps. Last week, the city bought a new homeless shelter for $25 million. Instead of investing in safe places for homeless New Yorkers to live, the mayor is investing in warehousing homeless New Yorkers, 90% of whom are Black and brown, as if they are animals. It's inhumane. We don't need more shelters and we don't need the ones we already have, where there are no services on site. They weren't safe before COVID, and they're even worse now. We need to stop the transfers and work toward ending homelessness for good by building housing," said Shams DaBaron aka "Da Homeless Hero," formerly homeless activist and finalist for the David Prize for his advocacy on behalf of homeless New Yorkers.

Nine congregate shelter residents are already in isolation after being exposed to COVID. It is critical that the Mayor and Governor listen to public health professionals and frontline workers by acting to keep that number from growing into another deadly COVID outbreak.

Healthcare workers, legislators, and activists demanded:

• Stop the transfers: In congregate shelters, people sleep up to 50 to a room in beds three feet apart. Social distancing is impossible, and the city has only vaccinated 21.5% of adult shelter residents. These urgent concerns were expressed in two recent letters to Mayor de Blasio: one by Democratic Manhattan Borough President Nominee and Council Health Committee Chairman, Mark Levine, and another by a group of physicians including former NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot and Dr. Oni Blackstock.
• Get shelter residents housing: There is a safe alternative to shelter redensification--moving those currently in hotels into permanent housing. The city must USE the recent implementation of Intro 146 to redouble efforts to find shelter residents permanent housing, and Gov. Cuomo must sign the state FHEPS bill to also raise state vouchers to cover the fair market rate.
• FEMA must continue funding hotel shelters: There has been recent discussion of discontinuing funding, but given the looming Delta threat, FEMA must assure all municipalities that funding for COVID isolation will continue amid the public health crisis.

This press conference follows a letter to Mayor de Blasio coordinated by New York Doctors Coalition and signed by the mayor's own former health commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot, in addition to Dr. Oni Blackstock, NYSNA, New York Doctors Council, and more. They write:

"As health care and public health professionals, we urge the city to indefinitely halt all its plans to move individuals back into congregate shelters. We have seen firsthand how the COVID-19 pandemic has decimated the health and wellbeing of people experiencing homelessness. Therefore, we are alarmed by the decision to move almost 8,000 individuals from hotels to shelters, a decision that threatens the health of the city at large.

People with unstable housing are at increased risk for severe COVID-19, as they are older and have high rates of chronic disease. Throughout the pandemic, individuals experiencing homelessness faced particularly high risk for COVID-19 infection and mortality. One analysis by the Coalition for the Homeless found that through February 2021 the mortality rate for New Yorkers living in congregate shelter was 49% higher than the mortality rate for the general New York population. This increase was largely attributed to the rampant spread of COVID-19 in shelters, settings where congregate living made social distancing and quarantine impossible."

"As the Delta variant grips our City, we must ensure that vulnerable populations like homeless individuals are offered help and not put in harm's way. Transferring homeless New Yorkers to congregate shelters, where the virus can easily spread, can increase the number of positive COVID-19 cases and potentially be a death sentence. We must use all governmental tools to ensure that homeless New Yorkers can stay in hotel shelters during this public health emergency and find long-term solutions to place them in stable housing. I am pushing federal legislation, the Ending Homelessness Act, that would make Section 8 vouchers a universal entitlement and combat our country's homelessness crisis," said Rep. Ritchie Torres.

"Homelessness is a public health issue, and New York must treat it as such. In the midst of the rising threat from the Delta variant, it is incredibly irresponsible and dangerous to transfer homeless New Yorkers from hotel shelters back to overcrowded congregate shelters. These shelters are breeding grounds for COVID, and will lead to the deaths of one of our most vulnerable populations. The Mayor and Governor must stop these dangerous transfers, and implement policies that eradicate our housing crisis once and for all," said NYS Sen. Alessandra Biaggi.

"It's been almost two months since the state legislature passed the state FHEPS bill, but the governor has yet to sign it. During this deadly pandemic that has hit our Black and brown communities the hardest, the Governor continues to prioritize wealthy real estate interests instead of prioritizing the creation of a pathway to housing for the thousands of hotel shelter residents who are facing moves to overcrowded congregate shelters. The Governor must sign the state FHEPS bill now," said NYS Sen. Gustavo Rivera, Chair of the State Senate Health Committee.

"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 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.

"I am wondering whether it is current public health guidance that individuals should regularly be crowded in doors with groups of 30-50 of mixed vaccination status, unmasked. How can the governor and mayor with their right hand advise people to mask indoors and avoid crowds, and then with their left hand force people to sleep in a congregate setting where distancing and masking are impossible? Is it that some lives are more important than others?" said Corinne Low, co-founder of UWS Open Hearts, and economist at The Wharton School

"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 CIR National Secretary Treasurer