?All are welcome? is written in chalk on the pavement at Hotel Belleclaire on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. | Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images

The mayor shouldn?t let the tabloids bully him out of a good idea. Since March, New York City?s Department of Homeless Services has achieved something extraordinary: relocating 10,000 individuals from congregate shelters to hotel rooms as part of a highly effective initiative to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the homeless community. The city?s effort has been unmatched by other U.S. cities that attempted similar interventions; Los Angeles County, for example, where just over 48,000 people live unsheltered, currently has only 3,737 individuals living in hotel rooms, with nearly 15,000 hotel rooms occupied statewide. But now, bowing to political pressure, led by the tabloids and nimby Facebook groups, Mayor Bill de Blasio seems to be losing his nerve. Emboldened by decreasing viral transmission rates, he?s declared that he is considering moving people out of hotels and back into shelters.
Now is exactly the wrong moment to wind the program down. Tourists aren?t coming back anytime soon to fill those rooms, but with the job market stalled and the statewide eviction moratorium about to end, homelessness is almost certainly about to spike. Instead, a large coalition of advocacy groups known as #HomelessCantStayHome has asked him to expand the program by making 30,000 hotel rooms available immediately, leading the way for o...