In a proposed class action filed Tuesday in New York federal court, the residents and the Urban Justice Center–Safety Net Project claimed the city has wrongfully seized and destroyed their belongings without due process of law. The sweeps also force them to leave familiar locations that they found to be safe, they said.
The claims target the city, Adams, the New York City Economic Development Corp., the commissioner of the New York Police Department and the heads of the city's departments for homeless services, social services, parks, sanitation and transportation. The suit also named the commissioner of the state's Department of Transportation.
According to the complaint, the sweeps are carried out by the city's Department of Homeless Services, which is managed by the city's Department of Social Services. The sweeps can involve the other defendants "depending on the location of the sweep," the suit said.
The residents said the city conducts "thousands of homeless sweeps" every year, claiming that more than 11,500 took place from October 2021 to June 2024.
"During these sweeps, the city seizes and destroys items that are critical to homeless residents' survival, including warm clothing, medications, bedding, and personal documentation (i.e., identification cards and birth certificates) needed to access public services, secure permanent housing, seek employment, and apply for public benefits," the residents said.
The city doesn't give people without homes enough of a heads-up about the incoming sweeps, the suit said, and there have been "many instances" where homeless people aren't notified at all.
"In cases where the city does provide advance notice of a sweep, the notice does not state the basis for the sweep, offer any avenue for homeless residents to contest the sweep, or sufficiently alert homeless residents to the risk that they may have their personal property seized and destroyed during a sweep," the residents said.
People who have had their property taken in the sweeps aren't able to reclaim their belongings because "sweep teams" toss their property into garbage trucks that destroy the items with compactors, according to the complaint.
"The city purports to conduct sweeps to connect homeless New Yorkers with social services, dismantle physical structures it deems illegal or unsafe, address sanitation conditions, and provide temporary storage for residents' personal belongings," the lawsuit said. "The reality, however, is that displacing homeless people and seizing and destroying their personal belongings does nothing to advance these goals."
The residents said the city's homeless sweeps violated their Fourth and 14th amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution as well as their rights under the social welfare article of the state constitution and several city and state laws.
Siya U. Hegde, counsel for the residents, said Wednesday that the "damaging" impact of city's homeless sweeps "represent an abject failure of New York City governance" and "exacerbate the trend of criminalizing homelessness that has been escalating across the country."
"Since the Supreme Court effectively criminalized homelessness this summer with the Johnson v. Grants Pass
ruling, more than one hundred bills cruelly targeting homeless people have been introduced across the country," Hegde said. "The billionaire-led campaign to arrest, fine, and displace homeless people must be met with increased funding for the proven solution to homelessness: housing paired with voluntary services."However, mayoral spokesperson William Fowler told Law360 on Wednesday that the goal of Adams' policy for homeless encampments is to stop people from sleeping on the streets.
"Rather than walking past an encampment and doing nothing to help those in need, we treat people experiencing homelessness with dignity, offering to connect them to housing, healthcare and to properly store their valuables while temporary structures not meant to be lived in are removed," Fowler said.
"Thanks to this administration's critical investments in outreach staffing and expansion of high-quality, specialized beds, more than 2,000 New Yorkers who were living unsheltered in public places are now in their own permanent homes," Fowler added.
The NYPD and the state's Department of Transportation declined to comment.
The other defendants didn't respond to requests for comment. Counsel information for the defendants wasn't immediately available Wednesday.
The residents and the nonprofit are represented by Natalie Druce and Marika Dias of Urban Justice Center–Safety Net Project, Siya U. Hegde of National Homelessness Law Center and Keegan Stephan and Luna Droubi of Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.
The case is Urban Justice Center Safety Net Project et al. v. The City of New York et al., case number 1:24-cv-08221, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
--Editing by Haylee Pearl.
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