East Village residents who voted for New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani by a 40-point margin are now suing to stop a building in their neighborhood from becoming a temporary homeless shelter.
The lawsuit, filed with the New York City Supreme Court on Monday, shows hesitation even among Mamdani supporters about the cost of implementing some of his plans.
News of the lawsuit has prompted conservative mockery online, with figures like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, noting the irony of Mamdani’s supporters turning on the fruits of his administration.
“Oops,” Sen. Ted Cruz said in a post to X.
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“No one is more ‘not in my backyard’ than white progressives. This community voted for Mamdani in a landslide but don’t want to live with the consequences,” Michael Henry, a former New York attorney general candidate, wrote on social media.
“Not shocked,” Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said in a post of his own.
Election District 45, the area that includes East Village, voted for Mamdani in a 70.1% victory over independent candidate Andrew Cuomo, who garnered just 26.0% of the vote.
Even so, 10 residents joined the Village Organization for the Integrity of Community Engagement (VOICE) in their suit against the city after Mamdani announced plans earlier this year to turn a building at 8 East 3rd Street into a citywide intake shelter to house homeless adult men.
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The filing argues the city fast-tracked the process without proper environmental and legal safeguards.
“It challenges the city’s hastily made and legally invalid decision to locate a new citywide homeless adult male intake center at 8 East 3rd Street without following any of the legal requirements that must precede such a significant and consequential decision,” the filing reads.
To circumvent them, the complaint notes that Mamdani relied on an emergency declaration from 2022 — a power originally issued to handle an influx of asylum-seekers.
Mamdani announced the temporary housing project at 8 East 3rd Street as a way to accommodate the closure of Bellevue Shelter, a separate homeless intake site that the mayor’s office said had deteriorated too far for use.
“The Department of Social Services (DSS) and Department of Homeless Services (DHS) will immediately implement an operational plan to vacate 30th Street and relocate the critical functions to other sites. There are approximately 250 individuals in the shelter and the DSS is working to relocate these individuals by mid-March,” Mamdani’s office said in a press release.
The mayor’s office also detailed that a second accommodation site would be opened at 333 Bowery St., beginning on May 1, to house families without minor children.
The New York Supreme Court has not yet responded to requests for emergency relief that would pause the city’s plans.
