NEW YORK NONPROFIT MEDIA
By Dan Rosenblum
It has been two months since the New York Civil Liberties Union and Picture the Homeless formally accused the NYPD of routinely ushering homeless New Yorkers from city streets, in violation of a 2013 law meant to prevent housing-based discrimination. But the advocates are still awaiting a response from police.
In a complaint to the city Human Rights Commission, detailed during a May press conference in Foley Square that was attended by roughly two dozen advocates and homeless people, the civil liberties group urged HRC to investigate police orders to disperse homeless people.
The organizations say police are violating the Community Safety Act, which the City Council passed three years ago over a veto by then-Mayor Bloomberg. The law forbids police from using housing status such as homelessness or being a public housing tenant when making law enforcement decisions.
The HRC has been occupied with moving its offices to another location in Lower Manhattan and didn’t serve the NYPD until June 28, giving it until Aug. 2 to respond, an NYCLU spokesman said earlier this month.
“Citywide, we’re definitely hearing that the NYPD is still engaged in widespread illegal use of ‘move-along’ orders to homeless people who aren’t breaking any laws,” a spokesman for Picture the Homeless told New York Nonprofit Media this week.
“Nothing has changed,” James Doctor, the group’s civil rights campaign leader, said in an email. “We still get these bogus ‘move along’ orders every day, officers telling us to go to Point A and then another officer coming to tell us to go to Point B. That’s definitely true here in Harlem, but I’m also hearing it from friends all over the city. If anything, it’s gotten worse. They don’t like that we’re fighting back.”
The group is planning an upcoming action to highlight the delay.