April 19, 2021

Dear Citizens Union and CU Foundation Board of Directors,

Since July, the Westside Community Organization, or “WestCo,” has been engaged in a relentless PR and legal battle targeting homeless New Yorkers. It has employed tactics ranging from the merely heartless to the devastatingly cruel to the deeply unethical in its efforts to drive them from their shelter on the Upper West Side, amid a raging pandemic. Throughout this campaign, WestCo has been represented by Randy Mastro, a partner at the New York law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. WestCo’s goals and tactics are incompatible with the civic values of Citizens Union, of which Mr. Mastro is board chair. We call upon this and other organizations that aim to promote social welfare to cut ties with Mr. Mastro.

Most recently, Mr. Mastro filed papers in court admitting to sending two former NYPD detectives, now private investigators, to the new apartment of homeless advocate and former Lucerne resident Shams DaBaron. The papers contained a photograph of him in a state of undress, clearly unaware he was being surveilled. On March 23rd, Gothamist reported that the investigators had posed as plumbers and lied to Mr. DaBaron to obtain access to his apartment under false pretenses.

We are outraged and sickened by this reckless disregard for Mr. DaBaron’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual safety. A person’s home, especially the new home of someone who has never had the privilege of secure housing, is supposed to be a safe and inviolable place. This incident has shattered Mr. DaBaron’s hard-won sense of privacy, safety, and dignity. Moreover, sending two former police officers to the home of a Black man marshals a long history of police brutality and state-sanctioned violence against Black Americans, in addition to presenting a very real danger. The intimidation of Mr. DaBaron puts all homeless and formerly homeless persons on notice that if they dare to challenge white supremacist city policy or neighborhood organizations, they may be similarly targeted. 

This is only the latest example of the sinister tactics that have been deployed to try to restrict Black and brown homeless people from being able to reside on the Upper West Side. As reported in legal papers filed by Mr. Mastro, an affiliate of WestCo gave Lucerne residents uber rides, burner phones, and meals in order to secure affidavits stating they wished to leave the Lucerne. Two shelter residents additionally swore in affidavits that in addition to these inducements, they were offered cash payments. This is on top of the bullying, dehumanizing, and violent language that had been applied to shelter residents by the facebook group that spawned WestCo, and the lobbying of Mayor de Blasio that led to the announcement that the Lucerne residents in particular would be moved, while 138 other hotel shelters remained in place.

Mr. Mastro is currently the Board Chair of Citizens Union and Citizen Union Foundation, which also publishes the Gotham Gazette. Citizens Union, as part of its stated mission, aims to “foster transparency, accountability, accessibility, honesty and the highest ethical standards” in New York City and State government. Additionally, their “job is to ensure that New Yorkers get a ‘fair shake.’” Mr. Mastro’s behavior, as exhibited above, on behalf of his client, would seem at odds with CU’s mission and reason for being. CU points out on their website that “Rooting out corruption and ensuring wealthy and powerful interests do not use backdoor channels, special access, and other nefarious means to influence our government has long been a key Citizens Union priority.” 

The behavior and actions of WestCo since the Summer of 2020 are perfect examples of what CU is otherwise fighting against. WestCo’s members aim to use their wealth and privilege to remove primarily Black and brown homeless people from the Upper West Side, and retained the services of Mr. Mastro to do so. For CU to continue to have Mr. Mastro serve as board chair is a direct contradiction to its stated values. How can Citizens Union maintain its moral authority on matters of ethics, particularly in its function as an anti-corruption watchdog for public officials, with such a clear conflict at its heart? It can’t. We respectfully call on Citizens Union to remove Mr. Mastro, so that it can continue to further its mission, uncompromised.

Sincerely,

Housing Justice 4 All

Housing Rights Initiative

Human.NYC

Neighbors Together

Open New York

Tenants PAC

UWS Open Hearts Initiative

VOCAL-NY