Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney with The Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, and Dave Giffen, the Executive Director of the Coalition for the Homeless, penned an op-ed in today’s New York Daily News which calls for a “well-reasoned and coherent approach” to sheltering homeless New Yorkers safely during the COVID-19 crisis.

“Since providing enough affordable housing to meet the scale of need will take time, the city should provide every person who is currently unsheltered, living in a congregate shelter or living in a double-occupancy hotel room with a private, single-occupancy hotel room to allow for appropriate physical distancing,” they write in part. “Prematurely returning people to congregate settings threatens to undo the progress that has been made in controlling the virus’ spread, and will endanger lives.”

“The mayor’s ad hoc and ill-considered move to empty the Lucerne Hotel in response to a threatened lawsuit from an Upper West Side community group created a cascade of unnecessary problems throughout the shelter system that negatively impacted the health and wellbeing of hundreds of homeless New Yorkers,” the authors conclude. “We must adopt a more rational and compassionate approach to avoid the stress and chaos of the past month.”

Read the full piece here.