Rush To Close Major Manhattan Shelter Leaves A Death In Its Wake

NEW YORK — A man died by suicide after he was abruptly moved out of a shelter as part of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to turn the facility into an intake center for homeless people requesting beds, according to the man’s family and two others familiar with the case.

Steven Rosa was found dead in early April in a Brooklyn hotel room, where he was placed by the New York City Department of Social Services in its rush to convert two lower Manhattan shelters into intake centers for adult men and families amid concerns that the current intake facility was no longer safe to occupy.

Rosa’s death underscores the high stakes of policy decisions about New York City’s homeless population, which reached record levels in recent years with the arrival of tens of thousands of migrants seeking asylum. There are now more than 100,000 people in the city shelter system, according to Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy organization that tracks the data.

The opening of the new intake sites, which was scheduled for May 1, is already in legal limbo after a group of local residents filed a lawsuit alleging the city violated several review and public notice requirements. A judge put the opening on hold while the case continues. Now Rosa’s death highlights troubling gaps in the city’s weeks-long process to relocate hundreds of shelter residents, his family said.

“They really, really dropped the ball, and I’m sure my son’s not the only one,” Steven’s mother, Anna Rosa, said in an interview.

Neha Sharma, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, which oversees homeless services, said Rosa’s death is a “heartbreaking tragedy” and noted the agency serves an “exceptionally high-risk population.”

“While we cannot comment on the specifics due to client confidentiality, we can confirm that DSS followed standard protocols and relied on the guidance of program staff, who work closely with clients, to make informed decisions about placements,” Sharma said in a statement. “We continue to build on our efforts to assess potential risk factors — which might not be evident based on self-reported information and case history available to the agency — while strengthening connections to healthcare for all clients.”

The front door to the city’s sprawling shelter system has long been on East 30th Street in Manhattan near Bellevue Hospital. Single adult men and families without young children head to the so-called Bellevue shelter to request a bed, sometimes staying there for days or weeks, while intake sites in Brooklyn and the Bronx enroll adult women and families with kids.

Mamdani announced last month that the city would close the 30th Street intake shelter, citing a state of “severe disrepair.” Intake would move to a pair of buildings on the Bowery and East Third Street in the East Village that house two shelters and several health programs run by the nonprofit Project Renewal.

First, the city had to move hundreds of adults out of the 30th Street facility and the two Project Renewal buildings in the East Village, which house a 175-bed men’s shelter for people dealing with substance use and a 108-bed shelter called Kenton Hall. The Department of Social Services can transfer shelter residents at its discretion but is supposed to provide 48 hours’ notice, except in an emergency, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

Rosa was living in Kenton Hall, which is designated as a behavioral health shelter for people with histories of mental illness and addiction, according to one of the two people familiar with his case, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. That classification means the shelter must offer on-site behavioral health services.

Rosa’s relatives said he gave them the impression he had no choice but to move to the hotel in Brownsville, Brooklyn, further distancing him from his family in Staten Island. Staff at the Kenton Hall shelter told him to pack his things and drove him to the hotel the next day, seemingly falling short of the 48-hour standard, his brother Adam Rosa told POLITICO.

The crowded Manhattan shelter hadn’t been perfect, but Adam Rosa said his brother seemed to benefit from being around people as he dealt with symptoms of depression, and he was receiving medication from one of the shelter’s health care workers. Once Rosa was moved to Brooklyn, he spent the next couple weeks alone in his hotel room, and his mental health quickly deteriorated out of view, according to Adam Rosa.

“If they never moved him to this last place, he’d be alive right now, 100 percent,” he said.

Lutheran Social Services of New York, which runs the hotel-turned-shelter where Rosa was moved, did not respond to a request for comment about Rosa’s case and what services are available on-site.

Conversations about closing the Bellevue intake center and shelter on 30th Street have been happening for decades through multiple mayoral administrations, but never came to fruition — though not from lack of trying.

Mamdani’s administration brought a new sense of urgency to the longstanding issue within the first weeks of his term. Officials were spooked by a Jan. 23 report by a city consultant, which found “imminent structural concerns” due to “continuous and accelerating deterioration” of the nearly 100-year-old building. The necessary repairs were so extensive that the city would have to fully decommission the facility to make them happen, according to the report, which the city shared with POLITICO.

But the report notes the Department of Social Services had already initiated efforts to vacate the 30th Street shelter; advocates told The New Yorker they were notified in December. Mamdani publicly announced the building’s imminent closure — and revealed the new East Village intake sites — several weeks later, on March 5.

“We cannot accept a system that treats people without dignity or stability,” Mamdani said in a statement at the time.

Advocates with extensive experience working with homeless New Yorkers warned the Mamdani administration that the relocations posed serious health risks if not done in a careful and coordinated way, since many of those affected are in treatment for severe mental illnesses, substance use disorders or both. Any abrupt changes can disrupt the fragile recovery process.

“The whole thing is moving too quickly for anyone’s comfort,” Dave Geffen, executive director of Coalition for the Homeless, said in an interview. “Nobody quite understands why it’s on this timeline.”

State officials — including from the Office of Addiction Services and Supports — echoed those concerns as they pushed back on the city’s intake transition plan, which initially involved taking over the Kenton Hall shelter on the Bowery and Project Renewal’s entire Third Street building. The Third Street building is home to two state-regulated addiction treatment programs and a primary care clinic run by Project Renewal, in addition to a 175-bed shelter.

OASAS Commissioner Chinazo Cunningham said during a call about the transition with city and state officials that she anticipated shelter residents would die as a result of the upheaval, according to two people familiar with the conversation, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

OASAS spokesperson Evan Frost said the office first learned about Mamdani’s plans from the media. After state and city officials met to discuss the transition, Mamdani’s administration committed to keeping Project Renewal’s treatment programs and primary care clinic where they are, the spokesperson added, while still taking over the building’s 175-bed shelter.

The majority of shelter residents were placed at other Project Renewal sites, while the rest were moved to other suitable shelters with wraparound services, according to the Department of Social Services.

“We are ensuring the residents who have been relocated to one of our other sites continue getting the support they need and that people who access services at the clinics that remain at 3rd Street continue to get quality care, uninterrupted," Project Renewal CEO Eric Rosenbaum said in a statement.

Project Renewal declined to comment on Rosa’s case, citing a federal law protecting personal health care information.