A 33-year-old man was stabbed to death inside a homeless shelter in Washington Heights, and a fellow resident is now facing a murder charge, police said. The stabbing happened Sunday at the Project Renewal Fort Washington Men's Shelter on West 168th Street near Fort Washington Avenue, according to police.
Police said the victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest during an argument, as first reported by the New York Daily News. Medics rushed him to Harlem Hospital, where he later died, cops said. His name had not been released as of Monday.
Javed Tyghter, 29, was taken into custody at the scene and charged with murder, police said. Police sources said the victim and Tyghter were both living at the shelter. Tyghter's arraignment was pending Monday in Manhattan Criminal Court.
Inside the Fort Washington Shelter
The Fort Washington Men's Shelter provides 200 beds for homeless adult men diagnosed with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders, according to Project Renewal. The facility houses an Article 28 licensed medical clinic offering primary care and mental health counseling, as well as what the nonprofit describes as New York City's only shelter-based dental clinic.
The shelter sits inside the Fort Washington Avenue Armory, a landmark building constructed in 1911 that it shares with the Armory Foundation's track and field facility, per Untapped New York's history of the site. A dedicated entrance on 168th Street separates the shelter from the athletic center. During the 1980s housing crisis, the drill hall reportedly held upwards of 1,800 homeless individuals before the site was downsized in the mid-1990s to its current 200-bed, mental-health-focused model, according to City Limits.
A Nonprofit With a Prior Fatal Incident
Project Renewal, which traces its roots to the 1967 Manhattan Bowery Project, serves more than 10,000 New Yorkers annually across 11 emergency shelters and took in nearly $104 million in government grants during fiscal year 2025, Hoodline previously reported. The organization's contract with the city's Department of Homeless Services to run the Fort Washington site runs through June 30, 2026, per a Department of Social Services procurement filing.
This is not the first time violence inside a Project Renewal facility has turned fatal. In December 2022, a 27-year-old resident was stabbed to death in a hallway at an all-women's shelter the nonprofit operates on East 45th Street, CBS New York reported at the time, with residents there citing ongoing hallway security concerns after the killing.
Past Safety Debates at the Washington Heights Site
The Fort Washington shelter itself has drawn scrutiny before. Following two separate homicides involving residents there in the mid-2000s, Manhattan Community Board 12 held public hearings to review shelter safety protocols and debate the facility's impact on the surrounding neighborhood, according to City Limits.
Under New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance rules updated in January 2025, certified emergency shelters are required to report serious incidents — including unnatural deaths and violent assaults — to state regulators within one business day. If convicted, Tyghter would face second-degree murder charges under New York Penal Law § 125.25, a Class A-I felony carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison, according to the Marwaha Law Group.
Project Renewal operates other shelters that have drawn recent scrutiny of their own. Hoodline previously reported on Upper West Side Shelter Sparks Safety Complaints near a playground at the nonprofit's site on West 59th Street, and on a lawsuit that temporarily halted the organization's proposed conversion of an East Village building into a citywide men's intake shelter.
