The mayor’s decision to move homeless men and women out of hotels has divided the Upper West Side, angered residents of Long Island City, and now residents of Brooklyn are involved too. 

“We are saying that is not level-headed thinking,” said Councilwoman Inez Barron on Tuesday. "It disrupts families that have been here.”

What You Need To Know

  • Brooklyn officials are now slamming the mayor for his decision to move homeless men out of a hotel on the Upper West Side

  • The city is planning to extend its contract with the Hotel Association of New York

  • That contract allowed the city to move thousands of homeless men and women into hotels during the height of the coronavirus pandemic

  • The mayor's former counsel, who is considering a run for mayor, will visit the Upper West Side on Wednesday

Local officials rallied outside of the Flatlands Family Residence where 85 families could get kicked out—a casualty of the mayor’s reshuffling of shelter residents from hotels on the Upper West Side and Queens to shelters in Midtown and Brooklyn.

The transfers were proposed after residents of the Upper West Side threatened to sue the city over the use of hotels as shelters in their neighborhood.

The mayor has now put the whole plan on pause. He said his team is reviewing the entire shelter system to determine next steps.

“They are looking at the whole picture,” said Mayor de Blasio on Tuesday. "Our whole homeless services system. So I am not going to speak to exact days. But they will be coming back soon with that vision.”

But uncertainty and controversy continue. And it’s making an impact on the newly minted mayoral campaign trail. Potential mayoral candidate Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams slammed the mayor from his borough.

“We add our voice saying these families should be left alone,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. "Any more from here should be to permanent housing.”

The mayor’s former chief lawyer and prospective mayoral candidate Maya Wiley told us she will be visiting the Upper West Side on Wednesday.

“A vocal few shouldn’t be able to tell a whole community, a community whose concerns were met, that these men have to be pushed out,” Wiley said.

Meanwhile, mayoral candidate and City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a former Upper West Side resident, was also blasting the mayor’s handling of the situation.

“The Mayor should be making decisions based on sound housing policy and public health policy, and doing the work to engage communities about the impacts of those decisions. That is not what is happening here and it is shameful,” the comptroller said in a statement.