NEW YORK CITY, July 21—In July 2020, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) got involved in a struggle on the Upper West Side of New York City when 280 homeless men were moved to the Lucerne Hotel from a congregate homeless shelter so that they could physically distance during the Covid-19 pandemic. The vast majority of the workers were Black, and a wealthy, racist community organization hired a high-price lawyer, a friend of both Small Fascist Rudolph Giuliani and Big Fascist Bill de Blasio (See Glossary on Page 6), to have the workers evicted from the hotel.
An antiracist community organization, Open Hearts UWS, was formed to defend the men and fight the racist eviction. It is through Open Hearts that PLP met Andre, a Black worker who became a leader in this fight. After a lot of pizza and conversation, inviting him to Zoom meetings and getting to know each other better, Andre marched with us on May Day and said he wanted to join PLP. He recently participated in a Summer Project study group on homelessness and displacement. Below is a brief interview with Andre.
CHALLENGE: Where were you a year ago?
Andre: I’d like to go back a little further. I got out of prison in 2017 and lived with my lady in Harlem. For a while I was working as a dishwasher in the tourist industry. I lost my job in March, when everything shut down due to Covid. In April, I attended the funeral of one cousin, and a few days later, another cousin died of Covid. In June, I found myself back in the shelter system, and on July 3, 2020, my lady died of a stroke, yet another painful funeral. In a matter of weeks, I was transferred from a shelter in Brooklyn to the Lower East Side, to 51st St. and finally to the Lucerne.
CHALLENGE: What were your thoughts about the racist backlash on the Upper West Side when you and the men were housed in the Lucerne? How did you feel about getting involved in the struggle? Were you a political person?
Andre: I really wasn’t aware of the racists. My lady had just died, and I was working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard making face shields and masks for front-line workers. In one of the shelters, I came in contact with the Coalition for the Homeless and got involved with them, going out once a week and feeding homeless people on the streets. I also had my first interview for an apartment. The Coalition for the Homeless had a media person who arranged for me to have a letter in the Daily News about the need for housing, not shelters. I never thought of being an activist. It wasn’t in the plan. I was just thinking about the rotten conditions in the shelters and trying to survive on $200/month in food stamps and $54 cash every two weeks. I always tried to keep up with current events, even when I was locked up. Everyone in prison is trying to keep up.
CHALLENGE: How did you get involved in the legal case to stop the evictions from Lucerne? How did you come to discover the billion-dollar “homeless industry” in NYC? [see CHALLENGE, Crush Racist Parasites That Live Off the Homeless]
Andre: One of the homeless shelter providers I worked for was Ready, Willing and Able, run by the Doe Fund. [There are many shelter providers with similar operations that have replaced city sanitation workers-CHALLENGE.] We sweep up sidewalks and streets in different business districts around the city for minimum wage. Then the Doe Fund withholds 25 percent of that for rent! I knew there was a lot of exploitation going on here and spoke with my friend in PLP about it. The CEO of the Doe Fund and his wife made $350,000 salaries and their kids each made about $150,000, getting us to work for minimum wage and replacing City workers.
I got active in the Lucerne legal fight after we held our first march on Gracie Mansion [the Mayor’s home]. I met another leader from our shelter and some of our supporters in Open Hearts. After a court hearing, the judge ruled that he could not hear the case unless there were residents of the hotel bringing the case against the City, so three of us decided to sign on as the lead plaintiffs.
CHALLENGE: How did you decide to march on May Day? What did you think of it?
Andre: I believe if you want something different, you have to do something different! We had just come through the summer of Justice for George Floyd and a lot of talk about revolution. I keep an open mind and look for different experiences. I learned a little about communism in prison, which we all called “Pen State,” a play on words for State Penitentiary. There are a lot of talented and smart people locked up. For a while, I was a facilitator for the Nation of Islam, and I read a lot in jail. I read about the Soledad Brothers. Some people get radicalized in jail.
I was most impressed by the unity expressed at May Day–Black, Latin and white, young and old, there was a real spirit of unity! After that, I decided to join.
Join PLP
As we go to press, Andre now has his own apartment, and the Lucerne is closed. More than 200 workers at the Lucerne were given permanent housing during this struggle and about 60 were recently moved back into a congregate shelter, before the Legal Aid Society temporarily stopped the City from moving 6,000 hotel residents back to shelters.
As a result of the City’s rush to crowd people back into shelters, Andre and many others have lost their jobs. There are many workers, working 40 hours, living in homeless shelters in NYC. About 90 percent of the families in shelters are Black, including thousands of public-school students and many City University of New York community college students. Andre is helping us to open the door to many more of them finding a home in PLP.