Housing Works Lays Off 196 Staffers Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

NEW YORK CITY — A historic New York nonprofit born out of one horrific pandemic has incurred mass layoffs in the face of another.

Housing Works — a nonprofit that helps homeless New Yorkers diagnosed with HIV/AIDS — laid off last week nearly 200 staff members in its 15 bookstores, cafes and thrift shops in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, state records show.

The Department of Labor notice, dated April 30, shows 196 workers lost their jobs because of "unforeseeable business circumstances prompted by COVID-19."

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Housing Works, Inc., headquartered in downtown Brooklyn, has been providing assistance to homeless New Yorkers and those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS since its launch in 1990. By 2019, it had opened 35 locations across the city.

Housing Works shut down it shops last month when Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued his statewide stay-at-home order in March, but that didn't stop CEO Charles King from offering assistance to the city.

The nonprofit began working this month with the Department of Social Services to run two COVID-19 shelters for New Yorkers without homes, according to the New York Post.

"They are the new outcasts,” King, 65, told the Post. “This resonated deeply with me because back in the 1980s you had AIDS organizations that were not dealing with the homeless and homeless shelters that were not taking anyone with AIDS.”

More than 100 of Housing Works' employees last year took umbrage with the nonprofit and walked out of work last October to protest what they described as years of overwork and underpayment.

The group also accused King of actively trying to hinder unionizing efforts by refusing to sign a neutrality agreement.

The Department of Labor notice shows the nonprofit's employees laid off were not members of a union.

The layoffs come as New York faces an economic crisis, detailed in a new analysis from the city Comptroller's office. The disturbing report, released Tuesday, estimates 900,000 city dwellers will be without a job by the end of June.

"We're facing the deepest recession since the Great Depression," Comptroller Scott Stringer said. "Marked by historic and rapid job losses."

Employees from the following locations lost their jobs:

Brooklyn:

• Brooklyn Heights Thrift Shop at 150 Montague St.
• Park Slope Thrift Shop, 266 Fifth Ave.
• Closing: South Slope Thrift Shop at 424 Seventh Ave.

Manhattan:

• Housing Works Bookstore and Café Bar at 126 Crosby St.
• Soho Thrift Shop at 130 Crosby St.
• Upper East Side Thrift Shop at 1200 Lexington Ave.
• Yorkville Thrift Shop at 1730 Second Ave.
• Second Avenue and East 64th Street Thrift Shop at 1222 Second Ave.
• Columbus and West 74th Street Thrift Shop at 306 Columbus Ave.
• Chelsea Thrift Shop at 143 W. 17th St.
• West Village Thrift Shop, at 245 W. 10th St.
• Gramercy Thrift Shop at 157 East 23rd St.
• Broadway and 96th Thrift Shop at 2569 Broadway
• Closing: Hell’s Kitchen Thrift Shop at 732 9th Ave.

Queens:

• Closing: Forest Hills Thrift Shop, 71-54 Austin St.

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