The Dirty Low Down On Project Renewal

Since our lawsuit is several hundred pages, we decided to provide excerpts from the lawsuit.  However, if you would like to review the entire lawsuit just click on this link.

Summary: In this section of our lawsuit we discuss Respondent Project Renewal, a half a million-dollar non-profit organization that has a history of not complying with their contracts. In this case, Project Renewal already stated that they were going to violate the contract by not providing on-site services or other services they are getting paid for.

Project Renewal $500,000,000 Contract

1. Respondent Project Renewal, hereinafter Renewal, is a non-profit organization whose board of directors are drawn from Corporate America and now boasts a $500,000,000 contract they have secured from the City to operate shelters. Their upper management draws salaries from a quarter of a million dollars to half a million dollars, showing how lucrative the shelter business is. Petitioners allege that they shovel the homeless around amongst their shelters to suggest success when in fact they have a very low-level success rate. (See affirm. Boyd paragraph 18)

Project Renewal Does Not Plan on Providing Services To Shelter Men – Despite Being Paid for 33 Employees Services

1. Respondent Renewal believes that homeless men, hereinafter service users, from the general population are simply men who cannot find a place to live and thus do not need psychological or emotional support services. Additionally, the other support services they intend to provide such as apartment hunting, do not need to be on site. It is their intention to not provide a single on-site service despite Respondent City paying for such services. (Ibid paragraph 17)
2. All throughout the EAS and in the Fair Share Analysis, comments were being made about Project Renewals employees that were going to be providing services to the 130 men.
   • Comments within Respondent DHS’ EAS
     A staff of 33 will provide support services including residential services, case management, counseling, permanent housing planning, referrals to medical and mental health services, and referrals from employment services. (See Respondent Exhibit B EAS, Section 1.0 Project Overview, pg. 1-1)

• • Comments from Respondent DHS’ Fair Share
    The shelter will be led by 1 Shelter Director. The rest of the team will consist of 1 Assistant Shelter Director, 1 Administrative Assistant, 1 Clinical Director/Social services Supervisor, 1 Clinical Coordinator, 5 Case Managers, 2 Housing Specialists, 1 Recreation Specialist, 4 Shift Supervisors, 1 Operations Coordinator, 10 Residential Aids, 1 Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, 0.5 FTE Licensed Practical Nurse, 2 Cooks and 0.6 FTE Food Service Provides. (See Respondent Exhibit C, Fair Share Analysis pg. 8 paragraph 2)

• • Project Renewal’s Comments during CB9’s Town Hall Painted Different Picture
    At CB9’s Town Hall, Project Renewal told the community that they would not be providing some of these services (psychological and emotional services) at all and in other cases the services will be conducted off-site. With no assurances that these men will travel off site to get them. In other words, Project Renewal will be obtaining money for services they are not providing, which may in fact be a violation of their contract with the city (See Boyd Affirm paragraph 17)

• • Comments from Project Renewal Representative Jamie., at 26:08 (See https://www.youtube.com/live/IOlTNw_jdAA?t=12s)

“We have several FQC’s embedded in our other shelter sites. And if they need psychiatric supports, we will make sure that they get connected to them.” (Ibid, emphasis added)

• • • Thus, Petitioners are alleging that Project Renewal is in fact, getting paid for services they are not going to provide and are simply listing service providers on these forms to get paid. These accusations come in light of the fact that the City Budget has substantially increased to several billions of dollars regarding the shelter system where widespread corruption and abuse is now being reported as the homeless population soars to new heights.

This image is taken from a New York Post article showing fighting that is occurring outside a newly opened all women’s shelter run by Project Renewal.

Project Renewal Accusations of Mismanagement of New Shelter 

The review of this contract is crucial to Petitioners’ case in assessing exactly what types of on-site and off-site services will be employed.

A recent New York Post article published on August 13, 2026, reported that Respondent Project Renewal is violating their contract on a newly opened Mentally Ill and Chemically Addicted, hereinafter MICA, shelter for 200 women’s shelter in the Upper West Side in Manhattan. It reported that Project Renewal was not providing obligatory on-site services for a new 200-bed MICA shelter for women that opened in May, with all kinds of unsavory actions by their clients being reported.

“A $500 million Upper West Side women’s shelter that was supposed to come with an on-site health clinic has instead brought drug use, public nudity and daily mayhem to a block with a popular playground, furious neighbors said.”

https://nypost.com/2026/08/13/us-news/nyc-womens-shelter-brings-cat-fights-junkies-to-neighborhood-near-playground/

“But locals say the facility opened without the promised clinic — leaving residents without needed care and families scared to use Gertrude Ederle Playground next door.”

“They’re getting half a billion dollars to do this, and clearly they’re not providing the services they’re supposed to,” she said.

The fear that Project Renewal will do the same in our community is thus well-founded, considering what the history of both their Flatbush Shelters and the newest one in the Upper East Side demonstrate:
Once these shelters are opened in a community, there is no adequate mechanism to ensure the service provider’s compliance with the contract. All community stakeholders hear from Respondent Project Renewal is lip service about addressing the needs of their clients, even as they fail to provide the very services that would meet the needs of their clients.

The irony here is that even before the shelter was to be opened, Respondent Project Renewal was already declaring that some of their on-site services were not going to happen. Thus, it is clear that they are very comfortable with not adhering to their contract, and even declaring it to the community, before they begin their services. A contract that Petitioners and the public have been deprived of examining and is now being stated to be evidence of the official position of a City agency.

Demand for Investigation of Former NYC Deputy Commissioner,
Now Chief Officer of Project Renewal: Doreen Thomann-Howe

• The article included accusations of conflict of interest and corruption with a request for an investigation that may account for these intentional violations of Project Renewal’s contracts, which has to do with the former New York City Deputy Commissioner of Family Services, Doreen Thomann-Howe – who is now the chief operating officer of Project Renewal.
  • “A neighborhood group had asked for an investigation into the $500 million contract with Project Renewal making claims of the Former DHS Deputy Commissioner of Family services is now Project Renewal’ https://nypost.com/2023/07/16/group-of-nyc-residents-demands…

• While Project Renewal is hiding in the woodwork, failing to appear in court and face the community or to produce the contract and attest to exactly what type of services they will be providing on site and off site, Petitioners are seeing that once a shelter is in place, there is no accountability. All Petitioners and the public can expect is lip service about meeting the needs of clients, as they make millions of dollars off of the suffering of the homeless.