City Limits

Ahead of the HOPE Count, the city stepped up these number of sweeps, according to records obtained by the Safety Net Project, a group that is part of the Urban Justice Center. A DHS spokesperson said city officials “address conditions as they occur.”

City Limits

This week, after a year-long delay, a commission to make recommendations on reinvestment in communities impacted by Rikers Island will convene for its first meeting. The work of this commission is essential and long overdue.

CURBED

For the past year, Peter Malvan has been working with Midnight Run, the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project, and other groups to help the city’s unhoused. This has been especially challenging during COVID, with people fearing that the crowded conditions in the shelters would spread infection. “I’m disabled, but I like to keep busy,” he says. “I used to go to offices for in-person meetings. When virtual meetings happened, that got interesting because my phone doesn’t always work. I didn’t get paid, but I worked.”

New York Times

From March 1 to Dec. 12, the city performed 1,077 cleanups, compared with 543 during the same period in 2019. The statistic was released by the city in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Urban Justice Center, a nonprofit whose Safety Net Project helps homeless people.

AM NY

A lawsuit against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority alleges that rules adopted by the agency to clear stations and trains of homeless men and women are discriminatory, namely by restricting people from remaining in stations for over an hour at a time. Urban Justice Center (Safety Net Project) and Picture the Homeless file the Article 78 petition in New York County Supreme Court on Thursday and the MTA is not backing down

New York Times

 But the rules exempt so many activities from the one-hour limit — including public speaking, campaigning, leafleting, artistic performances and collecting money for religious or political causes — as to make it “clearly apparent” that their real purpose is to exclude homeless people from the subways, the suit says. The lawsuit was filed by the Urban Justice Center’s Safety Net Project on behalf of Picture the Homeless and a homeless man named Barry Simon.

Gothamist

"The rules are not about 'safeguarding public health' and ensuring that essential workers are 'able to maintain social distancing,' but rather are about permanently excluding homeless persons from the subway system," the lawsuit states.The complaint was filed by the Safety Net Project of the Urban Justice Center, Picture the Homeless, and Barry Simon, a disabled homeless shelter resident who has been ejected from subway stations because of the new rules.

Courthouse News

In September, the transit authority made those rules permanent — a move that advocacy groups Picture the Homeless and Urban Justice Center say effectively bans homeless people from the city’s subway system.