Without input from the community, the City is converting The Mave into a 72-room SRO for homeless men, women and children.

The Mave was a small boutique hotel, designed to accommodate busy tourists who required nothing but a place to sleep.  The rooms are tiny, there are no common spaces, no kitchen facilities,  and security is inadequate.  For this the City, with our tax dollars, is paying hotel rates of approximately $5000/month.  With no place to gather, The Mave’s new residents are frequently outside the hotel, around the corner, across the street and in Madison Square Park.  These men have been seen urinating in public, and there have already been many police actions.

Over the years this neighborhood has changed and grown into a thriving residential community. It is no longer a predominantly commercial area that can sensibly house a disproportionate number of shelters and SROs. The once sketchy Madison Square Park is now a clean, beautiful and safe place attracting local residents, office workers and tourists alike. Those of us who live here are committed to keeping the area clean and safe. We understand that the Department of Homeless is struggling with great demand for housing, but this neighborhood is already providing more than our fair share.   

Within a two-block radius we currently have the following:

The Latham Hotel, 4 East 28th Street -- 228-room SRO housing women and children 

The Prince George, 14 East 28th Street -- 416-units,  formerly a welfare hotel, now  managed by Breaking Ground as low-income, transitional housing. 

Bowery Residents Committee, 127 West 25th Street -- 328-bed men’s shelter, and the site of repeated police action

La Semana Hotel, 25 West 24th Street – proposed 48-bed shelter. 

 Clarion Hotel, 429 Park Avenue South (between 29th and 30th Streets) -- 60-room SRO.