The women staying at New York’s “women’s” shelters have learned that reporting the male perverts staying with them leads nowhere.

On July 30th at 5:40 AM, a resident of Women In Need’s Manhattan location at 341 W 51st St claims she was taking a shower when a man staying there opened the stall door on her. The man, who calls himself Cheryl, refused to close the door all the way, and the resident saw him peeking at her through the crack. She then asked him to close the door, and he slammed it shut.

Despite receiving advice to report this incident, the resident admitted she did not expect to be taken seriously. When she tried to report past incidents, she said she was labeled “crazy” and told that the other person was the real “victim.”

Facial recognition tools estimate “Cheryl” to be in his late fifties/early sixties, but did not reveal a criminal history.

Another woman, Jennifer Timper, slept in the same room as Cheryl for a few days ending August 4th.

“I feel uncomfortable undressing with a man in the room,” said Timper. “Especially after another woman said he was spying on her.”

Timper also pointed out that Women In Need employs men, who can enter the rooms at any time. This has contributed to the lack of privacy.

Women In Need is not the only women’s homeless shelter in the city where women in need have to dodge perverted men. Eris Montano, who was staying in HELP Women’s Shelter at 104-152 Williams Ave in Brooklyn as of May 15, 2026, shared a room with nine women. He posted a video of himself receiving a referral to a lactation specialist.

Justin “Justine” Randall-Pizzarro, who attacked a woman in Rikers’ Rose M. Singer Center and broke her hand, was stated by his lawyer to be staying in an unidentified women’s shelter in Queens or Brooklyn after he failed to show up in court.

New York’s leadership would rather let women in places they can’t escape, like homeless shelters and prisons, get abused by these men indefinitely. They’d rather throw vulnerable women under the bus than admit the self-ID policies they supported created a loophole for predatory men.

ROAR Women NYC advocates for single-sex prisons and homeless shelters. Despite knowing that the scope of the problem is much larger, finding women willing to speak up about the abuse they faced has been challenging.

While the professional women in ROAR could lose their job, friends, or family members for speaking out against letting men into women’s spaces because they say they feel like women, homeless and incarcerated women have it even worse. Not only are they accused of bigotry or lying when they speak up, they could be assaulted.