Adi Talwar
City Limits’ series on family homelessness in New York City is supported by Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York and The Family Homelessness Coalition. City Limits is responsible for all editorial decisions.
The public will likely learn in October if challenges to rent stabilization—from landlords and trade groups including the Community Housing Improvement Program and Rent Stabilization Association—will proceed before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nonprofit legal service providers often file group lawsuits that assist tenants fighting landlord harassment across an entire building. But a new solicitation appears to impose limits on this preferred strategy for winning repairs and rent reductions.
Landing a secure shelter placement is far more complicated than simply walking through the doors of an intake center, particularly for families, according to a new review by Comptroller Brad Lander.
“If you get cash assistance, you are caught up in really significant delays, in a way that you would not be if you were only receiving SNAP,” said Katie Kelleher of the Legal Aid Society, a lead attorney on a federal lawsuit compelling the city to improve its processing times.
The city is seeking permission to issue the time-limit notices to adult asylum seekers who are being housed in Department of Homeless Services facilities, saying that doing so will open up room for families with children, who currently make up the majority of asylum seekers in DHS’ care.
Following a closed-door conference Friday, the Legal Aid Society urged the state to step up its efforts to protect the right to shelter in New York City, where tens of thousands of migrants have arrived since last year.
“The Hope Center for College Community and Justice’s 2019 CUNY #RealCollege Survey found that 55 percent of students worry about where they will live, and 14 percent, or about 34,000 students, are unhoused.”
An inaugural city report groups together shelter headcounts from five municipal systems, revealing a truer—and larger—picture of the homelessness crisis than the often-cited Department of Homeless Services count.
In the coming days, the city will start notifying asylum seekers staying in its Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers of the new time limit, starting with single adults who’ve been in the city’s care “for a significant amount of time,” Adams said.
Steve Banks, who served as social services commissioner under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, is returning to a familiar posture—opposing City Hall in litigation over the city’s unique shelter rights for the homeless, which Mayor Eric Adams has sought to weaken in recent months.
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