The Legal Aid Society condemned the Wall Street NIMBY group “Downtown New Yorkers Inc.” for its plan to raise nearly $1 million to fuel a racist campaign against homeless New Yorkers whom the City might move from the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side to a permanent facility in the Financial District, as reported in Patch.

Legal Aid has long opposed the City’s cruel decision to move the men of the Lucerne Hotel in response to empty threats from NIMBY groups, accurately predicting that it would embolden other such groups.

“Nothing sounds more Trumpian than a group of Wall Streeters crowdfunding $1 million to wage a war on some of our City’s most vulnerable,” said Judith Goldiner, Attorney-in-Charge of the Civil Law Reform Unit at The Legal Aid Society. “New Yorkers roundly denounced this playbook when it was trotted out by Upper West Side NIMBYs, and residents of lower Manhattan should have zero tolerance for brazen racism such as this.”

“‘Downtown New Yorkers Inc.’ could actually make a meaningful contribution to its community by donating that money to fund affordable housing construction,” she continued. ​