The Legal Aid Society and Jenner & Block LLP today filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless and single adult New Yorkers who are experiencing homelessness, as reported by THE CITY.

The lawsuit is against the City of New York, the Department of Social Services (DSS), and the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) for failing to take appropriate action to temporarily provide safe shelter for single adults that is free of significant health risks from aerosol transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Despite an abundance of vacant hotel rooms — to the point where some hotels are in danger of permanently closing — and federal funding explicitly available for this exact purpose, the City has taken only half-measures to protect single adult homeless individuals in a timely, measured, and effective manner. The lawsuit seeks to require that the City offer a single-occupancy hotel room to each single adult homeless New Yorker for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other forms of relief.

“We gave a lot of opportunities to try to resolve. We’re facing right now a potential resurgence of the virus and everyone is being asked to do what they can in order to appropriately social distance. We’re asking for the city to allow homeless adults to isolate in the same way that they ask others,” said Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project.