The federal injunction request argues that disabled veterans face additional hardship because Borden Avenue sits in an isolated industrial section of Queens with limited transportation access to the Manhattan VA Medical Center. Pena instead proposes preserving portions of the 400 E. 30th Street “Bellevue” shelter as a medically integrated transitional housing center for veterans, particularly women veterans currently excluded from the city’s only GPD program.
The lawsuit also highlights what Pena describes as a missed opportunity by city agencies and veterans oversight bodies. With migrant shelter usage declining, numerous hotel properties once used for emergency housing now sit vacant. Pena proposes converting those hotels into decentralized veteran housing facilities modeled after successful Tunnel to Towers Veterans Villages programs operating in other cities.
On other proposal identifies the vacant Stewart Hotel in Midtown Manhattan as a potential national flagship for veteran transitional housing because of its proximity to VA hospitals, public transportation, and community services.
The filing further criticizes the 2025 New York City Veterans Advisory Board report for failing to meaningfully address homeless veterans, unsafe shelter conditions, or the exclusion of women veterans from transitional housing despite repeated complaints raised by advocates and residents.
Pena argues that the city already possesses the infrastructure needed to create safer and more dignified housing for veterans. The question, he says, is whether city agencies are willing to prioritize veterans in the same way resources were mobilized for other shelter populations.
“The failure to act is not due to a lack of resources,” Pena wrote in a previous housing proposal. “It is a lack of prioritization.”
