“It is time for the governor and the legislature to step up to the plate and start acting like a partner to Mayor Eric Adams instead of a spectator. In fact, in recent years the state has been reducing its support for the city’s shelter system by not keeping up with its financial obligation.”
A bill introduced in the City Council this week would create a 15-member commission that includes people who have experienced homelessness to study current shelter locations, identify new sites and figure out how to pay for them. “Homeless New Yorkers come from every neighborhood in New York City and accordingly we need to equitably site shelters,” the bill’s sponsor said.
More than 5,200 New York City families moved from homeless shelters to permanent housing during the 2022 fiscal year, down significantly from the year prior. A new report says the city could accelerate move-outs with a few policy tweaks that streamline access to rental assistance.
The new, formalized procedure essentially codifies what has become a de facto sweeps policy under Mayor Eric Adams, and replaces a 2020 directive that removed the NYPD from most street homeless outreach and clean-ups in the wake of an uprising for police accountability and reform spurred by the murder of George Floyd.
Dirty bath water and a slew of apartment rejections test the faith of three single moms trying to get out of the city’s homeless shelter system. After 14 months, Johanna Garcia finally found an apartment for her and her children—but the journey wasn’t easy, and the average length of stay in shelter for families like hers is only getting longer, new data shows.
A six-month cap on stays and a lack of permanent housing options have combined to drive more than 1,550 families out of domestic violence shelters and directly into the Department of Homeless Services system over the past two years, records show.
The city estimates that around 7,600 asylum seekers have arrived via buses from the border in recent months. Many don’t know where to find food, clothing, and other services that are available, so City Limits has prepared this resource guide to help them navigate the city after talking to dozens of them.
Strained for shelter space, the Adams administration confirmed it was exploring the possibility of using camp facilities “should they become necessary,” to house asylum seekers arriving from the Southern border. The city has relied on commercial hotels and other stopgap facilities to quickly add shelter capacity for decades, but camps would be a new sort of accommodation for families.
At a Council hearing short on details, officials from Mayor Eric Adams’ administration pinned the shelter population rise on newly arriving immigrants from the Southern Border.
The declaration will allow the city to open a new intake facility specifically for asylum-seekers and immigrants who have made their way to city shelters. It will also allow the Department of Homeless Services to issue contracts to nonprofits to open additional shelters, most likely in hotels, while bypassing public review and the usual competitive bidding process.
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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