Posted Thursday, October 6, 2016 11:28 am

The dozens of homeless men whom the city had promised to relocate from the Van Cortlandt Motel by late September are now gone – only to have been replaced by homeless parents with children, in a reshuffle that prompted an outcry from local residents, politicians and community activists.

Community Board 8 voted unanimously on Sept. 29 to approve a resolution demanding the resignation of city officials it blamed for a “material misrepresentations of facts” – the head of New York’s Department of Homeless Services, Steven Banks, and his deputy Matthew Borden. Several speakers at the meeting accused the officials of having “lied.” The resolution also called for an investigation and for an end to the motel’s use as a homeless shelter.

City officials denied having lied and argued that the arrival of homeless families was prompted by the city’s attempt to find temporary housing for an influx of homeless New Yorkers this summer.

But local residents said they were worried about the safety of their own children amid the homeless neighbors. Concerns voiced at the board meeting included fears that some members of the 30 or so families staying at the motel may suffer from alcohol addiction or mental health problems and that homeless children may contribute to overcrowding at local schools. City officials said none of the children from the motel attend local schools but are carried by bus to study at other locations.

The Van Cortlandt Motel has long been known as a place for assignations and suspected drug use, and linked to violent crimes and theft. It also sits next door to a home for people with mental health problems, the Riverdale Manor, and is just across Broadway from Van Cortlandt Park.

But the main focus of the outrage at the board meeting was the city’s apparent failure to notify the community about placing homeless families at the motel – a charge of surreptitiousness that officials tried to refute, but with little apparent success.

“You snuck them in,” said Charles Moerdler, the chairman of the board’s land use committee.

Mr. Borden, the assistant commissioner, said he had phoned the community board’s district manager Patricia Manning to tell her about the planned reshuffle at the motel. But the claim met with a sharp rebuke.

“Excuse me, you spoke to me about the men moving out of the motel,” Ms. Manning said.

Mr. Borden also argued that his previous promise that homeless residents would be relocated from the motel was “not an attempt to mislead the board at that time,” but that the situation spiraled out of his control.

“This summer, as we’ve seen a peak of folks entering the DHS system, we had to go into more hotels,” he said.

Daniel Tietz, a chief special services officer at the city’s Human Resources Administration, said moving homeless families into the motel was a measure of “last resort.”

Board leaders were not convinced.

“The issue isn’t whether you had to place them somewhere. The issue really isn’t even whether you had to place them there,” Mr. Moerdler said. “The issue is you made a representation to the board – and you lied.”

“You said right then and there you were working on this protocol and you were going give us prior notice – and you didn’t,” he charged. “So why on earth is there any reason to believe you?”

Board chairman Daniel Padernacht added: “You broke your promise and you didn’t come to us.”

Local politicians – Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Councilman Andrew Cohen and state Sen. Jeff Klein – all spoke at the board meeting to sharply denounce the city’s handling of the matter.

“We were mislead – and I don’t like to be misled,” Mr. Dinowitz said.

The exact number of current homeless residents at the motel remained unclear. Mr. Tietz said there were 30 families, but told The Press he was not sure how many people they comprised. The size of each family is likely to range between two and five people, Mr. Padernacht added.

In an interview with The Press, Mr. Moerdler charged that the stealthiness around the move of homeless families into the motel presented the latest example of the city’s disregard for Riverdalians’ wishes and concerns.

“This community has twice already been snubbed by the mayor,” he said. The two past examples were Mayor Bill de Blasio’s introduction of much-disputed housing measures officially known as Zoning for Quality and Affordability, or ZQA, and Mandatory Inclusionary Housing, or MIH – both measures that Riverdale has voted against.

“This is the third time,” Mr. Moerdler said. “And as I understand, three strikes – and you are out.”

Mr. Tietz of the Human Resources Administration argued that the city had kept its promises – after a fashion.

“We don’t have homeless men there now,” he told the board meeting. “We agreed to remove them – and we did.”