The immigration crisis is straining New York City’s shelter system. In an effort to alleviate some pressure, Mayor Eric Adams announced a 60-day limit for migrant families to stay in shelters.
The new rules require asylum-seekers who reach the shelter time limit to leave their current shelter and reapply for admittance. This move comes as the city grapples with over 126,000 asylum-seekers in the past year.
Advocating for help
“The unhoused population has exploded with the addition of the new arrivals,” Juan De La Cruz, director of the Coalition for the Homeless, NYC, said. “For example, here at St Bartholomew’s Church, where we start serving, we’re seeing on average, anywhere from 250 to 275 people, more or less regularly. Once the new arrivals started coming, our numbers got up over 400 people.”
In recent weeks, the city has been receiving an astonishing 600 new arrivals daily. To address this unprecedented challenge, the city has taken significant steps, including opening 61 new shelter sites and allocating over $1 billion.
The Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan, closed for three years, then reopened to house an expected surge of asylum-seekers, mirroring the conversion of other New York City hotels into emergency shelters.
At a breaking point
“New York City is full,” Mayor Eric Adams said. “We are past our breaking point. New York’s compassion may be limitless, but our resources are not. Our patterns at the state and federal levels know this. We continue to face impossible decisions about allocating our resources, and that means a lose-lose for our most vulnerable New Yorkers, as well as those seeking asylum.”
Preliminary results indicate that the new policy is having the desired effect. City officials revealed that less than half of the migrants required to reapply for housing following the 60-day limit have returned to the city’s shelter system.
Measures taken
However, these measures, especially those focused on families with children, may test the city’s legal obligations regarding shelter.
Mayor Adams is actively seeking to suspend a unique legal agreement that mandates the city to provide emergency housing to single adults.
“All of these strategies share the same goal,” Anne Williams-Isom, deputy mayor of Health and Human Services, NYC, said. “Helping people connect to work, move out of shelters, and establish their own lives as quickly as possible.”
Mayor Adams has said that many asylum-seekers set out for New York in the belief they would receive jobs and rooms in “five-star hotels” upon arrival, led astray by misinformation spread by smugglers and on social media.
As we continue to respond to this ongoing humanitarian crisis and manage this unprecedented surge, we must continue to implement new strategies to relieve the pressure on our shelter system.
Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom.
Additionally, the city announced that a 1,300-acre facility will soon open to accommodate around 500 more families with children seeking asylum.
