Homeless out as controversial shelter adds affordable housing

Half of single-occupancy units in UWS buildings to be offered to low-income residents

A homeless city-dweller and 330 West 95th Street
A homeless city-dweller and 330 West 95th Street

The city is vacating roughly 200 homeless New Yorkers from a two-building emergency shelter on the Upper West Side, freeing up at least 100 affordable housing units slated for low-income residents, according to a report.

The city has agreed with the Department of Homeless Services to cut in half the 400-person capacity of the Freedom House at 316 And 330 West 95th Street, WestSideRag reported. The Facility Is Located Between West End Avenue and Riverside Drive.

The single room-occupancy units, which can bed 200 adult families, are managed by a nonprofit called Aguila, according to previous reports. The buildings were once two hotels that DHS compensated to house the homeless, although it isn’t clear whether that is still the arrangement.

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The buildings’ previous owners were once the plaintiffs of a lawsuit that gave rise to a law against renting to short-term tenants without a hotel license, as previously reported.

The structures are also home to 71 rent-regulated tenants that were already living there when Freedom House opened in 2012, according to DNAinfo. Residents of the neighborhood have long disapproved of the shelter, whose occupants are often the source of complaints about noise and vandalism , the article said. [DNAinfo] and [WestSideRag] Angela Hunt

(Photo of vagrant from Shutterstock