A group of advocates for the homeless and residents of a Loomis Street encampment have filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Rochester regarding the planned clearing of the tent city.
The complaint, lodged by attorney Jeffrey Nieznanski of Legal Assistance of Western New York, claims the city is violating the Constitutional rights of the people living at the Loomis Street encampment. It specifically invokes the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments, which respectively protect against unlawful search and seizure, and forbid the state from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
“Defendants, acting in concert and under color of law, violated Plaintiffs’ right to be free from state-created dangers…by their actions to force the residents of the camp to leave even though there is nowhere else for them to go, thus creating an unsafe situation for the residents that will result in damage to the residents that is completely foreseeable, and which evidences a deliberate indifference to the welfare of the residents,” the complaint reads.
Among the plaintiffs are Loomis Street resident Monique Acoff and outreach groups Recovery All Ways and the New York Recovery Alliance.
A city spokesperson said officials will hold a news conference Friday to discuss their handling of homeless issues and that the city will “litigate” the Loomis Street lawsuit.
While the Loomis Street encampment has not been cleared, some residents have left due to concern that it will be razed, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the city to refrain from clearing the camp and award damages to any residents whose rights the court finds were violated.
The Loomis Street encampment developed on a city-owned lot without the permission of officials. Advocates have said that many, if not all, of the homeless residents are actively using heroin.
The city razed an encampment on the Loomis Street lot in summer 2021. At that time, Rochester Police Department officers suggested alternatives to the residents, which the complaint argues were not adequate.
“The ‘services’ offered to the residents on this occasion were illusory,” the complaint reads. “Residents were referred to the House of Mercy, which is currently closed. They were referred to the Open Door Mission, which has no available beds. RPD officers said they could go to other agencies which do not provide housing, Helio Healthcare and Delphi Rise.”
CITY detailed conditions at the Loomis Street encampment and officials’ plans to clear it out in a September article. That month, the Rochester City Council approved $250,000 for street outreach at the city-sanctioned Peace Village encampment in northeast Rochester, just outside of downtown.
Advocates conducting outreach at Loomis Street have been concerned that, should the camp be cleared, conditions for its residents would only worsen. They’ve argued that many would relocate to abandoned buildings. Outreach to those locations is significantly more dangerous, and residents are harder to track, they said.
“The closure of the encampment would thus force residents into unsafe living environments such as abandoned buildings,” the complaint reads. “The residents would be at a higher risk of being the victim of assault, and other crimes, and the stress would exacerbate the residents’ many health issues, including their substance abuse disorder.”
Gino Fanelli is a CITY staff writer.