ST. LOUIS — A new civil rights lawsuit filed in federal court accuses St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones of threatening to cut funding for unhoused services if a nonprofit vendor didn't terminate the employment of one of her vocal critics.
Yitzchak 'Yitzy' Simon says Mayor Jones targeted his job after he protested the city's eviction of a homeless encampment along the riverfront in March.
"The mayor retaliated against me standing up for unhoused people," Simon told 5 On Your Side in an interview.
Video taken outside the steps of City Hall in early March shows Simon standing among a few dozen other demonstrators as they chanted, 'No housing, no peace.' He held a sign that read "Housing = downtown safety."
A letter dated March 30, 2023, notified Simon that his employment had been terminated due to "gross misconduct" that "resulted in the threat of St. Patrick Center losing funding and created a conflict with our funders and supporters."
Weeks prior, the city had just inked a contract with the St. Patrick Center, a Catholic charity, to launch a low-barrier safe haven to expand bed capacity for unhoused people.
"Right before I was terminated, they actually successfully finally opened a safe haven, which took the entirety of my employment to get that opened," Simon said.
Simon claims when the city came to sweep unhoused citizens off the riverfront, he encountered some city workers with the Homeless Services Division who tried to steer unhoused people into addiction treatment beds before he felt they were ready to get sober. Citing that disagreement, he says he offered them alternative shelter at the low-barrier facility at the St. Patrick Center instead.
"To them, that seemed like I was sabotaging services," he recalled.
In a 39-page court filing, Simon's lawyer Steven Hoffmann claims the mayor personally placed a phone call to Simon's boss and threatened to cut off their funding if he wasn't fired.
According to the lawsuit, Department of Human Services Director Yusef Scoggin "made it clear that the City wanted to entirely control the process of the eviction, including determining where people who were being evicted would go, even though Coordinated Street Outreach Workers from St. Patrick Center regularly helped persons experiencing homelessness determine whether there was a shelter where they could go."
The complaint alleges Mayor Jones placed a call to St. Patrick Center CEO Anthony D’Agostino on the afternoon of March 24.
The lawsuit claims D'Agostino called Simon and asked, “Are you still there? Because the Mayor herself just called me. She said she wants you out of there.”
"It's kind of ruthless," Hoffmann said. "Especially to target, you know, no offense... Mr. Simon, is sort of a low-level employee of what's essentially a Catholic charity."
Simon's lawsuit says, "despite her promises to the contrary, the policies and actions of the Jones Administration towards persons experiencing homelessness were more harsh and more severe than those of her predecessors." The lawsuit says Jones could continue to use "heavy-handed" tactics with critics if this goes unchallenged.
Jones' office sidestepped the retaliation accusations in the lawsuit, but repeated her claims that bed capacity and housing conditions are slowly improving across the city.
"While we cannot comment on pending litigation, the City under Mayor Jones’ leadership opened at least 100 more year-round shelter beds than pre-COVID years, kept beds open 24/7 with wraparound services, and worked with partners to stand up St. Louis’ first low-barrier safe haven," spokesman Nick Dunne said in an emailed statement.
"As she said in her State of the City address this year, Mayor Jones remains committed to doing better by our unhoused neighbors and hopes to leverage successful programs like Magdala Foundation’s tiny homes project to get more people on a path to permanent housing," Dunne wrote.
According to a review of shelter records in the 'GetHelp' referral system, the city's available beds are at near capacity. Just 13 out of the city's 575 total beds are currently open and available for use. Domestic violence shelters provide roughly another 55 beds, which brings the city's total capacity to 630 total year-round beds, up from the 500 beds which were available when Jones took office.
The lawsuit makes another claim that the mayor threatened to "blacklist," isolate, and obstruct Board of Aldermen President Megan Green's legislative agenda if she interfered with the city's eviction plans.
"Because of this threat from Mayor Jones, Board President Megan Green—who has often been an advocate for persons experiencing homelessness—remained silent about the upcoming eviction," the lawsuit alleges.
"Unfortunately, I cannot comment due to the pending litigation," Green said. "I can say that the Board of Aldermen will be introducing 'Unhoused Bill of Rights' legislation this fall, which will include, among other things, policies around evicting encampments."
Read the lawsuit below.