"Are You Serious?
Judge Finds City in Contempt for Failing to House People With AIDS
By Jen Flynn

On May 17, Judge Emily Goodman found the Giuliani administration in contempt of court for failing to provide emergency housing for five homeless people with AIDS. The city must pay a $250 fine for each night any of the five is left homeless.

The five were among 17 clients of the city’s Division of AIDS Services and Income Support (DASIS) who sued the city for failing to live up to a court order Judge Goodman issued in Hanna v. Turner, the 1999 case that guaranteed same-day emergency housing placements for homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS.

The city did not dispute that it had failed to place the five clients. Judge Goodman held off judgment on the other 12 affidavits.

Representing the 17, Armen Merjian, senior staff attorney at Housing Works, told the court how DASIS left them and many of their peers homeless. He explained to Judge Goodman how the city repeatedly sent people to the wrong address or to hotels where they weren’t registered or that turned them away and to shelters, like the NYC Rescue Mission, which is a clear violation of Local Law 49.

The city’s lawyer, Assistant Corporation Counsel Georgia Pestana, began by stating that Judge Goodman’s previous decision under Hanna v. Turner was ambiguous because it stated that the city must "provide" homeless people living with AIDS emergency housing placements. Merjian tried to say that the city must "ensure" them emergency housing placements.

Judge Goodman, looking straight at Pestana, asked, "Are you serious?" Pestana went on to say that she looked up both words in the dictionary.

The proceeding was quick, but DASIS clients still have to wait for the judge’s order to come out in writing and to see whether or not the city appeals it.

Local Law 49 requires the city to provide emergency housing to homeless people with AIDS. The Hanna v. Turner decision came after AIDS activists and people with AIDS sued to ensure that the city wouldn’t try sneaky back-door tactics to try to avoid their legal responsibility to keep homeless people with AIDS from sleeping on the streets. AIDS activists then held a nightly vigil for nine months in front of the Amsterdam Welfare Center in Manhattan, the largest welfare center that is supposed to find emergency housing for homeless people living with AIDS.

Last month, Merjian filed to have the city held in contempt under Hanna v. Turner, on behalf of 17 clients identified by the DASIS Human Rights Watch at both the Amsterdam Center and the Bergen Center in Brooklyn. Their affidavits, supported by those of City Councilmember Christine Quinn, her staff member Emmaia Gelman, and DASIS watchers Bob Kohler and Jennifer Flynn (with background investigation from dedicated DASIS watcher Jackie Vimo), all stated that DASIS has systematically failed to comply with Local Law 49 and provide emergency housing placements to all New Yorkers living with AIDS who arrive at one of DASIS’ 10 "income maintenance centers." The affidavits state that the city violated the law by announcing in the welfare center that people "should leave, there’d be no housing tonight," sending people to the wrong address for hotels, or sending them to hotels where they are not registered or the city hasn’t paid the bill.

In April, the media picked up the city’s practice of sending homeless people living with AIDS to high-priced luxury hotels such as the Sofitel. However, the real story is that most people with AIDS don’t get sent to any emergency housing placements at all. The real story is not that the city has paid high hotel bills for a few lucky clients who spent a few hours in a king-size bed and a nice room, but that its constant refusal to provide emergency housing placements has never been an issue of lack of funding.

In fact, on May 8, during a City Council hearing on the Human Resources Administration’s budget, HRA officials testified that the emergency-housing crisis "has never been a issue of lack of funding." (Two years ago, Giuliani took over $60 million in federal funds intended to build housing for the homeless and used it to pay the salaries of city workers.) At the budget hearing, HRA Commissioner Jason Turner also announced that DASIS will have $9.7 million left over in city tax-levy funds--money that that could have been used to create new housing for homeless people living with AIDS, but now can not be rolled over into the next budget year.

Jeri Flynn is the direct or of the New York City AIDS Housing Network