AP:

A state judge has ruled that the Legal Aid Society must be notified whenever the city moves to boot homeless people from its shelters.

State Supreme Court Justice Stanley Sklar in Manhattan said a 1981 consent decree requires the city to notify Legal Aid when it intends to evict a homeless person for failing to comply with rules that an appeals court permitted in 2003.

"While the city has taken many commendable steps to try to ensure that no one who is entitled to shelter is wrongly deprived of it, human error is inevitable and the risk of harm is too great to ignore this population, which contains many vulnerable individuals," the judge wrote in a decision made public Tuesday….

"Temporary housing assistance will not be denied or discontinued for failure of the individual ... to comply with the requirements of this subdivision when such failure is due to the physical or mental impairment of the individual," the judge wrote in quoting the consent decree.