On Sunday, September 13, Upper West Siders and others marched from The Lucerne Hotel to Gracie Mansion to protest Mayor de Blasio for his recent decision to relocate Lucerne Hotel residents to the Harmonia shelter on 31st Street. This has so far resulted in the displacement on 17 families, but according the The Legal Aid Society, the displacement has been put on a pause. The Legal Aid Society states that 80% of the Harmonia’s residents are disabled.
UPDATE: A Temporary Pause on Lucerne Hotel Relocations
In response to the city’s decision to relocate these groups, The Legal Aid Society has made it clear that they are preparing a lawsuit.
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The Sunday protest lasted several hours and participants stated they would not leave until their demands were met, with some also calling for Mayor de Blasio’s resignation.
For 2 hours now @UWSOpenHearts and Michael, a Harmonia shelter resident, have been trying to deliver a letter to @NYCMayor outside Gracie Mansion. Andrew from the Mayor’s office receives a verbal message from Corinne of Open Hearts. pic.twitter.com/rRRxdOMOqt
— NYC Protest Updates 2020 (@protest_nyc) September 14, 2020
At .@UWSOpenHearts rally at Gracie Mansion. Protestors will be delivering a Transfer Notice to @NYCMayor that he will need to relocate from GM to a shelter tonight. pic.twitter.com/DDFwPalxeO
— Ben Wetzler (@bd_wetz) September 13, 2020
Mayor’s head of community affairs agrees to meet with Harmonia and Lucerne residents before the @LegalAidNYC action is resolved!!!! @HelenRosenthal made this happen! pic.twitter.com/W3rWEILD7V
— UWS Open Hearts Initiative (@UWSOpenHearts) September 14, 2020
After Sunday’s rally, the following press release was published by UWS Open Hearts:
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=”16″] After the rally at 86th and East End, the group of shelter residents, supportive community members, activists, and elected officials marched directly to the entrance of Gracie Mansion to deliver their message to the Mayor. Councilmember Helen Rosenthal together with Harmonia and Lucerne residents, UWS Open Hearts Initiative, and Councilmember Ben Kallos demanded that Mayor de Blasio’s office hold meetings with residents and staff of Project Renewal at the Lucerne and residents and staff of The Harmonia before Legal Aid’s negotiations with DHS over transfers are resolved.After waiting at Gracie Mansion for over THREE hours, Councilmember Rosenthal received commitment that Marco A. Carrión, commissioner of Community Affairs, would personally meet with residents and staff at both shelters before any more transfers take place, so the Mayor can hear directly from residents how traumatic, disruptive, and counter-productive these transfers will be.
After receiving this commitment, Harmonia shelter resident Mike Bonano personally delivered our “notice of transfer” to de Blasio’s staff. “We are asking for the Mayor to meet with the shelter homeless people who he is displacing, prior to making his final decision,” said City Councilmember Helen Rosenthal.
The ripple effect of his decision, prior to meeting with those who don’t know where they are sleeping tonight, is unconscionable. “What I want is safety and a roof over my head, and not to be pushed around from shelter to shelter. This is our third time being displaced, we’re tired of being treated like garbage,” said Mike Bonani, resident at Harmonia Shelter. “To the Mayor, my hope is that you read into what is being said today and begin to really think about the humanity of those you serve whether rich or poor,” said Da Homeless Hero, a resident at the Lucerne.
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Attorney Randy Mastro, who represents the West Side Community Organization, put out the following statement:
“We understand and expect that the City will honor its commitment to move folks out of the Lucerne and into state-accredited shelters with proper services on-site by the end of this month. As the Mayor has explained, SRO hotels should only be temporary housing, and what’s happening on the Upper West Side is ‘not acceptable,’ so this move will be a win-win for this neighborhood and this vulnerable population.”
Click here for earlier coverage
Can we find one more thing to protest this year?
Let’s give it a break for a while.
Yes protesters like Helen Rosenthal who was incompetent to handle the homeless situation and this episode on the UWS. She cared nothing about the rising homelessness in her community prior to the pandemic or the shuttered stores and businesses and now she has become an activist for the homeless offering to have the Lucerne homeless people stay using her elected office position for her own agenda.
Helen Rosenthal you are such a phony as you have millions in wealth. Since you care so much donate your millions in wealth along with your salary to the homeless causes. Yet better just resign so we can use your salary to take care of the UWS community.
Such a phony.
Definitely a major phony hypocrite
Helen Rosenthal has flipped on this faster than a fish out of water. A true politician who bends with the prevailing political wind.
And wastes a lot of resources and funds paid for by tax payers. What a mistake to have her be the representative of our great community of the UWS and dragging us into this mess. Helen Rosenthal, why don’t you do something about the homeless on the UWS and the encampments for the rest of your term rather thing just the Lucerne which was supposed to be. temporary housing anyway as this is not the best thing longer term ?
Why don’t you get up and clean up the streets of the UWS like your community has resorted to do in person? You should show us how you care by removing the trash from the streets. Your constituents are doing it. Why don’t you donate your wealth to the community since you have taken so much and have done nothing but sit in your office (or not) during your term. What a phony opportunist.
I hope some real people run next time around so we can have competent and honest representation not people who parade or pretend to support people in need while all they do is just talk and position us against each other. Bring the citizens of a community together. I really really hope some competent and honest people run this time around.
I blame Helen Rosenthal & DeBlasio for this fiasco. If they had acted with transparency, gone through the proper channels, & included community input initially, none of this would have happened. This situation has escalated due to their overall ineptness. I feel bad that these residents of the Lucerne & the Harmonia have to suffer due to our city’s broken system & bad elected officials. They never get the proper care that they do so very much need. All in all, a sad situation.
Agree. 100% this. This is pathetic. It’s the 3rd neighborhood from which these shelter residents have been evicted and for good reason. Impeach Helen Rosenthal.
Don’t fret, folks, everything’s going as planned as per comrade De Blasio’s utopian vision for NYC — to make it one big violent ghetto. Keep voting Democrat and you’ll get more of the same.
The whole country to follow. T.R.L.
Myth: “Elected officials had advance notice of the moving of homeless residents into hotels but never told their constituents.”
Fact: Despite their claims to the contrary, DHS was not communicative or transparent about the plan. Elected officials had, at most, a week, possibly two of advance notice. This would not have given them nearly enough time to communicate with and get feedback from their respective communities, so even if this notice was received, it would have been moot with respect to what occurred.
Myth: “The residents of hotels are getting very little or no social services. They are simply being left on their own.”
Fact: All three service providers – Project Renewal (Lucerne), CUCS (Belnord), and Help USA (Belleclaire) – provide, and have provided since Day 1, a full spectrum of services to all residents, including wellness checks and Covid tests, no-contact meals, on-site case managers to handle their needs, on-site medical personnel, and other services. And any services not available on-site are provided off-site, with referrals, including for residents with mental illness or substance abuse issues.
Myth: “There are sex offenders in the hotels.”
Fact: There were originally 15 sex offenders, at all three levels (1, 2 and 3), at the Beleclaire, but none at the other two hotels. All of the Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders were moved out shortly after they moved in. Two additional facts: sex offenders are not all “sexual predators,” and none of the ones at the Belleclaire are such. Second, the UWS has had over 50 sex offenders – including Level 2 and Level 3 offenders – living in the area for years, getting into elevators in your building, shopping with you at your local stores, living near schoolyards. Yet there has never been a single incident involving any of them.
Myth: “The hotel residents are creating havoc with respect to quality of life issues and street conditions, including urinating and defecating in public, masturbating in public, smoking pot and drinking alcohol, and using drugs and drug dealing.”
Fact: This is perhaps the most consistently repeated myth of all. Coincidentally at the same time that the “hotel homeless” were moved in, the MTA shut down the subway, forcing all of the homeless who lived there to the surface, and doubling the number of street homeless. So it is impossible to prove what percentage of the “conditions” noted above are related to the “hotel homeless” and what percentage are related to the street homeless. The conflation of these two populations i the single biggest error that many are making. (Indeed, despite his claims, even the mayor could not possibly have determined how much of the “unacceptable” conditions he saw were related to the hotel homeless.) There are, however, some things we can determine. For example, the hotel homeless have no cause to urinate or defecate on the street because they have a bathroom within a block or two of where they may be. The street homeless, on the other hand, have cause to engage in these things because all of the bathrooms they used to use – libraries, public bathrooms, bookstores, Starbucks – are closed due to the pandemic. The hotel homeless would also be no cause for public lewdness since most of them have private rooms (though some are doubled up). Again, the street homeless are much more likely to be the ones engaging in this behavior. As for drinking alcohol and smoking pot, many “regular” UWS residents do those things as well, so it is unfair to “target” the homeless for these behaviors.
Ultimately, the “hotel homeless” may not all be angels, and some are culpable here, but they are not responsible for very much of the changed conditions. Most of that can be attributed to the increase in street homeless.
Myth: It has become dangerous out there, and I fear for my children.”
Fact: Crime is down on the UWS. The few arrests of hotel residents have been for crimes against property; there has not been a single crime against persons, as confirmed by the 20th Precinct. There are few if any “aggressive” panhandlers – and they are all street homeless. (Residents of the hotels are prohibited from panhandling as part of their Good Neighbor Policies; and many have already been moved to other locations for violating those policies.) So from a fact-based standpoint, there is nothing to fear. And for every concerned parent, there is a parent who does not have such concern, either for themselves or their children. Thus, any “fear” is based on a complete lack of evidence to support it.
Myth: The residents of the hotels are left with nothing to do during the day, which is why they are hanging out and creating problems.
Fact: Many of the homeless work. Others are training for jobs. Still others are going to treatment appointments, as well as appointments to get IDs and benefits. Some are attending a resume-writing workshop. And Goddard-Riverside recently raised $250,000 to specifically provide daytime activities for the hotel residents, which is now in jeopardy due to the mayor’s plan to move them out of the hotels. As for those who are not doing any of those things, they are citizens of NY and residents of the UWS, and have as much right to hang out, or do nothing at all, as you or I do.
Of course, many here will simply ignore this, because they NEED a scapegoat.
Sorry, Ian. Completely disagree with you. I own a business on Broadway and as bad as it was before the pandemic with the homeless issue and the state of the streets, it got worse when the 3 hotels were used as shelters because I walk home from the 90s to the 70s and was never threatened as much and hassled as much until the hotels went in. It wasn’t when the subways were shut down, it was when the HOTELS went in. I walk down Amsterdam and Broadway every single day and it DID change when the hotels went in.
Plus, there may be TONS of social services available but no one is enforcing the shelter “clients’ have to go to them. Unless you can confirm differently, the shelter clients can leave at 6am and go anywhere they like and then come back by 10pm. This is why there are so many people having issues in the W. 70s and 80s now, including myself. I have tried desperately to ignore it, look up and not focus on the garbage, people coming up to me, doing things in corners, etc but I get stopped or have to walk quickly away. WHAT GOOD ARE PROGRAMS IF THEY DON’T HAVE TO GO TO THEM?
I am tired of you lecturing everyone who just want a clean neighborhood again with people that are working hard. If we are going to have so many shelters then the laws should be changed to enforce counseling and controlling the situation. We are open and compassionate but there is no common sense going on and “hoping” shelter clients will “try to get their help” is not working.
While some crimes are down – people being threatened coming out ATM’s or walking away from aggressive panhandling. I have also had to clean up my front door several times of people’s excrement- from urinating and defecating overnight in front of our store door because we have a small alcove.
Yes, there was a presence of this before the pandemic so even more we should not have more hotels adding to the problem UNTIL THE OFFICIALS AND PROGRAM MANAGERS ENFORCE the rules and control the situation.
Unless you want endless empty stores (because we are tired of this Hell our streets have become) and a hard working population to keep leaving, spare me the lectures. And Helen Rosenthal and Linda Rosenthal both told me to my face that they were concerned for our neighborhood before the pandemic but now they are following their own egos and careers once again.
Small business owner:
“Sorry, Ian. Completely disagree with you. I own a business on Broadway and as bad as it was before the pandemic with the homeless issue and the state of the streets, it got worse when the 3 hotels were used as shelters because I walk home from the 90s to the 70s and was never threatened as much and hassled as much until the hotels went in. It wasn’t when the subways were shut down, it was when the HOTELS went in. I walk down Amsterdam and Broadway every single day and it DID change when the hotels went in.”
Since the MTA closed the subways AT THE SAME TIME that the homeless were being moved into the hotels, you simply cannot say that with even a minimal degree of certainty.
“Plus, there may be TONS of social services available but no one is enforcing the shelter “clients’ have to go to them. Unless you can confirm differently, the shelter clients can leave at 6am and go anywhere they like and then come back by 10pm.”
I CAN confirm differently. when hotel residents are given referrals to offsite services, they are required to prove that they went or they can be removed from the program.
“I am tired of you lecturing everyone who just want a clean neighborhood again with people that are working hard. If we are going to have so many shelters then the laws should be changed to enforce counseling and controlling the situation. We are open and compassionate but there is no common sense going on and “hoping” shelter clients will “try to get their help” is not working.”
What you call “lecturing” I call providing accurate information in an atmosphere in which that is a rare commodity. And sadly, even accurate information is ignored or pooh-poohed by all too many people, who want or NEED a scapegoat. I am not saying, and have never said, that the men at the hotels are angels, or that SOME of them (which I believe is a very small percentage) are not causing SOME of the issues we are seeing. My two points have been: (i) because the subway homeless were forced to the surface – thus DOUBLING the number of street homeless – AT THE SAME TIME that the homeless were being moved into the hotels, it is unfair and mean-spirited to be blaming the hotel residents for everything (which is what many people ARE doing), and (ii) people are acting on inaccurate information, and even disinformation, often ignoring the accurate information that is provided, and they are also (in many cases) describing conditions that existed 10-14 days ago, but no longer exist (certainly not to the degree they did earlier on).
“While some crimes are down – people being threatened coming out ATM’s or walking away from aggressive panhandling. I have also had to clean up my front door several times of people’s excrement- from urinating and defecating overnight in front of our store door because we have a small alcove.”
And this is what I mean about blame. Why on God’ earth would the hotel residents need to urinate or defecate on the street or anywhere else when they have perfectly good bathrooms one block from where they may be hanging out? However, the street homeless have been denied all the bathrooms they used to use – libraries, book stores, public bathrooms, Starbucks – since the pandemic began. So this is an example of where it is a near-certainty that the hotel residents are being blamed unfairly.
“Yes, there was a presence of this before the pandemic so even more we should not have more hotels adding to the problem UNTIL THE OFFICIALS AND PROGRAM MANAGERS ENFORCE the rules and control the situation.”
To that I say, Amen. Thankfully, at least right now, there are no plans to open further temporary facilities in the City,.
“Unless you want endless empty stores (because we are tired of this Hell our streets have become) and a hard working population to keep leaving, spare me the lectures.”
With respect, you know darned well that the empty storefront problem LONG precedes Covid, much less the moving of the homeless into the hotels.
“And Helen Rosenthal and Linda Rosenthal both told me to my face that they were concerned for our neighborhood before the pandemic but now they are following their own egos and careers once again.”
You seem to believe that things are mutually exclusive. I can believe that we need to maintain a livable neighborhood, and ALSO believe that placing the homeless in the hotels temporarily in order to save lives is an important and good thing – even if that plan was badly implemented. I can believe that we need to address conditions being caused by homelessness, but also believe that the hotel residents are being unfairly targeted, maligned and scapegoated. I can believe that conditions need to be addressed, but also believe we can do it with compassion and tolerance, and not threatening to sue if they are not removed.
Ian, respectfully, the subways closed for the first week of May, WAY BEFORE the hotels were filled in our neighborhood. And restaurants and libraries should never have been used as bathrooms for the years before COVID. My point is our UWS homeless situation was way out of control before COVID so they should not have put more serious problematic people in this neighborhood when there are other areas that have room. And yes, there were other areas in the 5 boroughs.
If you know more firm information, I’m all ears but having someone check in at a program but then can be out all day doesn’t sound like it’s working. Do they need to spend a certain amount of time getting help and showing their progress? I’m seriously wondering.
And I know it’s not the hotel clients defecating in front of my store but it’s been happening and it’s an issue because we are over saturated at this point with problematic individuals and can’t deal with more struggles. There is no effective management happening and until then, there needs to be a a halt to adding more people with severe issues.
Yes, the vacant store have been a problem on the UWS, so why add to it? The small businesses here now do not need to call the police every week, like I am, because there is constantly someone causing us issues with hanging out in front of our store scaring people away. Yes – it is happening – yes, all up and down Broadway. I know because we talk about it and are frustrated and tired. Do we need added problems? Helen Rosenthal fully knows the issues store owners were already having with homeless/mentally ill individuals so it is not right of her to be fighting to keep the excessive individuals the UWS has. She lied to our faces.
The UWS situation has been carrying on before COVID and better leadership and officials need to be elected to manage our neighborhood and city – not add to the problems, which is what has happened the last 2 months.
Small Business Owner:
“Ian, respectfully, the subways closed for the first week of May, WAY BEFORE the hotels were filled in our neighborhood.”
Try again. The subways closed on May 6. The homeless began moving into the Belleclaire on May 5th. The Belnord and Lucerne followed a few weeks later.
“And restaurants and libraries should never have been used as bathrooms for the years before COVID.”
When did I mention restaurants? I said libraries, bookstores, public bathroom and Starbucks. I see no reason they should not allow the homeless to use their bathrooms.
“My point is our UWS homeless situation was way out of control before COVID so they should not have put more serious problematic people in this neighborhood when there are other areas that have room. And yes, there were other areas in the 5 boroughs.”
The “pain” WAS spread around the five boroughs. The only available appropriate places that allowed the kind of social distancing they were looking for were hotels – which were coincidentally empty due to lack of tourists. There were 139 hotels available in the five boroughs, with 62 in Manhattan. And the UWS actually got off pretty well: Midtown got the brunt, Hk/Chelsea got 8, Tribeca got a few. The UWS got only four. So no, there were not other “areas” or options available.
“If you know more firm information, I’m all ears but having someone check in at a program but then can be out all day doesn’t sound like it’s working. Do they need to spend a certain amount of time getting help and showing their progress? I’m seriously wondering.”
Yes. that is what service providers do. A client is not permitted to remain in the program if they are not following up and “doing the work.”
“And I know it’s not the hotel clients defecating in front of my store but it’s been happening and it’s an issue because we are over saturated at this point with problematic individuals and can’t deal with more struggles.”
the UWs has always been able to deal with “struggles” – in a tolerant and compassionate way. Were you here when we really did have crack vials and needles all over the place, prostitutes on every corner of B’way b/w 81st and 92nd, regular gang violence and shootings all along Amst and Col, even b/w 72nd and 86th Streets, and truly problematic and dangerous SRO hotels? Guess what? The UWS handled all of that with aplomb, and even built two new homeless shelters during that time. Sorry, but I can hardly get exercised about some extra homeless people and a few aggressive panhandlers when I have seen, been through and been involved in the solutions for all that level of conditions.
“There is no effective management happening and until then, there needs to be a a halt to adding more people with severe issues.”
Using the word “management” tells me we are back to the hotel residents. Unless I am missing something. If the former, there is actually very good management, though even very good management cannot “control” 200+ residents 24/7/365. If the latter, there has never been good management of the street homeless or general homeless situation, so, yes, we desperately need that.
“Yes, the vacant store have been a problem on the UWS, so why add to it? The small businesses here now do not need to call the police every week, like I am, because there is constantly someone causing us issues with hanging out in front of our store scaring people away. Yes – it is happening – yes, all up and down Broadway. I know because we talk about it and are frustrated and tired. Do we need added problems?”
Again, you know very well that if stores are closing, 85% of it predates Covid and the homeless, and another 10% or more is due to the economic downturn caused by the virus. The homeless themselves are only a very tiny fraction of the problem.
“Helen Rosenthal fully knows the issues store owners were already having with homeless/mentally ill individuals so it is not right of her to be fighting to keep the excessive individuals the UWS has. She lied to our faces.”
No, she believes, as I do, that problems can be fixed, and the homeless can remain, and that the two are not mutually exclusive. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “Only a sith deals in absolutes.” LOL.
“The UWS situation has been carrying on before COVID and better leadership and officials need to be elected to manage our neighborhood and city – not add to the problems, which is what has happened the last 2 months.”
Again, I don’t see these as mutually exclusive. And while I have no love for our hap[less, flip-flopping, incompetent mayor, thankfully he is term-limited, so he will be gone soon. We all have a vote, and we certainly should use it the best way possible, electing people we believe will be better than the last batch. But don’t fool yourself: homeless has only grown and grown over the past four decades, and it will not only continue to grow, but with the expiration of the various eviction moratoria in late 2020 and early 2021, we are going to see a new wave of poverty and homelessness the likes of which we have not seen in quite some time.
Respectfully again, I am sure we can go back and forth for days. I’ll end my thoughts here – the Lucerne went in on July 27th – way after the subway shutdown and never should have been added after the other hotels took in hundreds. And we all know there are hotels by the airports that could have contained and helped the struggling drug addicted and mentally ill.
A Starbucks and a bookstore is a BUSINESS and should NOT be a bathroom for the homeless. How dare you even say that? I have invested so much of my life savings to build a business, like the bookstores have, so we do not need anyone to abuse our heard earned business as a PUBLIC TOILET. Would you like to clean that up all day?
Because you lived through the “tough” times of needles and crime you should be MORE sensitive to having it come back – which it is and why so many people are concerned.
When you own a business and have invested your life savings to only have the dismal pathetic conditions we are experiencing due to the mismanagement of the city and neighborhood, I’ll ask how you are feeling. Until then, residents who live here deserve to have a say in the excess of problematic individuals who I do pray get help. I wouldn’t live on the UWS if I didn’t care – I do – but I have common sense and can recognize lunacy – which is what we are experiencing. Over and out.
SBO:
“Respectfully again, I am sure we can go back and forth for days. I’ll end my thoughts here – the Lucerne went in on July 27th – way after the subway shutdown and never should have been added after the other hotels took in hundreds. And we all know there are hotels by the airports that could have contained and helped the struggling drug addicted and mentally ill.”
Even if you were right that thee are hotels near the airports that could have been used, those hotels would not have afforded them the ability to access off-site services, since they would have had to travel for hours each way.
“A Starbucks and a bookstore is a BUSINESS and should NOT be a bathroom for the homeless. How dare you even say that?”
Maybe you should say to yourself: how dare I tell other business what they should and should not do with their bathrooms! if a book store or Starbucks allows it, how is that your business? In fact, Starbucks is legally REQUIRED to allow it, as the result of a lawsuit against them.
“I have invested so much of my life savings to build a business, like the bookstores have, so we do not need anyone to abuse our heard earned business as a PUBLIC TOILET. Would you like to clean that up all day?”
As noted, what you do with YOUR bathroom is your business, but you do not have the right to be outraged just because others do not follow suit.
“Because you lived through the “tough” times of needles and crime you should be MORE sensitive to having it come back – which it is and why so many people are concerned.”
Really? While I am sensitive (despite how it may seem), when you’ve been through war, you are not going to be afraid of a fistfight.
“When you own a business and have invested your life savings to only have the dismal pathetic conditions we are experiencing due to the mismanagement of the city and neighborhood, I’ll ask how you are feeling. Until then, residents who live here deserve to have a say in the excess of problematic individuals who I do pray get help. I wouldn’t live on the UWS if I didn’t care – I do – but I have common sense and can recognize lunacy – which is what we are experiencing. Over and out.”
I agree with most of this. Certainly, management of the City as a whole has been lacking, or openly incompetent. What bothers me is that the wrong people are being blamed. It is really very simple: once the homeless were moved into the hotels, there were two possible “approaches”: one is to be tolerant and compassionate, and find ways to work on the problems while still welcoming them as neighbors. The other is to do what the NIMBYs did and raise money, hire a high-powered attorney, and threaten to sue the City if the homeless were not removed toot suite – health consequences be damned.
You are so absolutely right. It’s hard to believe that people who really live in this neighborhood can feel otherwise. Would they take them into their homes and shelter them?? They should stop preaching
Leave Harmonia residence where they are . Move Lucerne residents to state and city approved shelter(s) Providing support, proper treatment and social distancing.
King:
That would be a good idea. However, what part of “ALL the shelters are all full” are you not getting? There IS no place to move them to, which is why the City is now playing a game of whack-a-mole, moving the homeless around like chattel from one shelter to another, emptying each one in turn, causing instability and fear among the most vulnerable population in NYC.
But I’m sure you don’t want YOUR tax money to pay for more shelters, do you?
We encourage homelessness by providing comfort for them. We create crime by letting criminals out. We let our compassion destroy our community.