What Would You Do If Your Hotel Was Also Serving as a Homeless Shelter?
New York City booked 100 rooms at the Radisson JFK .. and didn’t tell the hotel that the rooms were for the homeless.
The hotel is furious and says they won’t rent rooms to the Departmnet of Homeless Services again at any price.
Pierre Merhej, the general manager of the Radisson Hotel on 145th Street in Jamaica, said a representative from the city called his hotel’s sales office last month and said the city would need dozens of rooms at the 385-room hotel for a “government group” in November, he said.
“When you say they have a government group, as hotel people we like government groups,” Merhej said, adding that November is usually a slow month for the hotel, which is a few blocks from John F. Kennedy Airport.
…“It really doesn’t have an impact on our regular guests,” he said.
The hotel apparently allowed DHS to cater outside food and drink, something large groups are frequently forbidden to do. The homeless have since moved out of the hotel.
The piece observes that the hotel is right next to what used to be a homeless shelter, so…
I’m very much not a connoisseur of homeless shelters, but the Radisson JFK has always struck me as likely around the upper range of what most homeless shelters are like. Which is really just saying it’s about average for a hotel near JFK airport.
So here’s the thing:
- Would it bother you to stay in a hotel where the largest in-house group are homeless?
- Don’t they have a right to stay on property if the going rate is being paid for their accommodations?
How do you come down, as a guest?
(HT: Alan H.)
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