“Our lives were here, all of our close friends, everything we had done for years and years,” said former New York City resident and veteran Ramond Curtis. “We absolutely would have stayed if we could have invested in our home in some way, even if it was a co-op, even if it was affordable rent options.”
“The enforcement mechanism has truly always been the courts,” said Good Cause sponsor State Sen. Julia Salazar, as anticipation mounts for litigation that will hash out the reach of the new tenant protection law.
While shelter staff are the primary schedulers of appointments at the city’s Asylum Application Help Center, a network of community-based organizations and legal providers can refer cases too. Yet city guidelines obtained by City Limits stipulate the groups can only refer migrants who are “within 4 weeks of their one-year filing deadline” for asylum.
As of Aug. 18, the city had issued 60-day deadlines to 12,689 families with children, including 18,348 children under 18, officials said. Critics say frequent shelter moves are disruptive to kids’ ability to learn.
“While it becomes more dangerous to live outside without reprieve from the heat, the city has doubled down on penalizing the homeless instead of focusing on housing initiatives.”
As the mayor’s citywide zoning reform plan undergoes public review, City Limits is keeping tabs on responses. So far, more than half of the city’s community boards have voted unfavorably, though four out of five borough presidents have come out (largely) in favor.
Last year, marshals served more than 13,000 evictions, up from 5,000 in 2022, and just 268 in 2021, when the pandemic eviction moratorium was still in place. Over the past five years, six of the city’s 28 marshals were cited for errors during evictions.
According to City Hall, since rolling out new stricter re-sheltering rules for adult migrants without children in May, it’s assessed over 2,600 shelter extension cases at the Reticketing Center, issuing over 850 approvals and over 1,780 denials.
NYC Health + Hospitals says it’s found permanent homes for more than 1,200 of its patients and their families, both through supportive housing placements and in affordable apartments on its own land. The marker comes as the mayor directs all city agencies to examine their property holdings for places to build new housing.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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Support local, investigative journalism that has informed and empowered New Yorkers for 45 years.
