Gothamist
A non-profit newsroom, powered by WNYC.
Gothamist
Listen Live
News
Mental health services are coming to NYC’s family shelters, but staffing concerns loom
By
Karen Yi
Published Sep 26, 2023
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
Never miss a story
Email address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .
Photo by D Dipasupil/WireImage
By
Karen Yi
Published Sep 26, 2023
Share
FacebookTwitterRedditEmail
We rely on your support to make local news available to all
Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2026. Donate today
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Homeless families needing mental health services won’t have to go far to get the help they need, thanks to legislation that recently took effect.
Starting in this month, city shelters have to identify and hire mental health professionals to work on site at the 30 largest family shelters in New York City in time for the July implementation deadline, with the remaining shelters offering services by 2025.
The requirement, which was signed into law in March, is now rolling out as new migrants arriving in the city push the shelter population to record highs. City officials say more than 60,000 new arrivals are in its care though the new law applies only to shelters overseen by the Department of Homeless Services, not the ancillary emergency shelters recently opened to accommodate migrants.
A DHS spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a request for comment on how they’re implementing the law but some shelters are already worried about what that could look like, including whether there’s sufficient privacy for in-person or telehealth services and whether the large caseloads will lead to mental health providers burning out.
“I worry about the stress on that mental health provider and the ability to really provide adequate services to so many very needy people,” said Dr. Alan Shapiro, senior medical director of the Bronx Health Collective, a community health center affiliated with Montefiore Medical Center. “These are folks that have lost everything and are in the shelter system. They have higher needs than the general population,” Shapiro added.
Less than 4% of DHS shelters for families with children have on-site mental health services, according to bill sponsor and Manhattan Councilmember Erik Bottcher. That’s nine of the city’s 247 family shelters.
The measure requires shelters to hire at least one licensed clinical social worker, psychiatric nurse practitioner, psychiatrist, or psychologist for every 50 families. Their jobs are to diagnose mental illnesses, provide referrals to emergency psychiatric care and manage their medications, according to the bill language.
“We think of preventive health care, physical health care as a requirement, as something people have to have. But then mental health is like a word you whisper. You don't say it out loud because it's embarrassing,” said Christine Quinn, CEO of Win, which houses about 12% of the city’s homeless families with children. “Having a city law that requires this takes big steps towards changing that.”
Nearly 13,000 families were in shelter on any given day in the last fiscal year, city data shows.
Lisa Pineda, a licensed clinical social worker and mental health clinical director of Terra Firma, which provides medical and mental health services as well as legal help to newly arrived immigrants, said privacy was also a concern.
“Providing telehealth in shelters is pretty challenging because the wifi is usually pretty poor. It doesn't necessarily mean someone has a device,” she said. “The privacy is not great; if I'm seeing a kid, the only place that they may have is like the bathroom.”
Compounding the challenges is also a national shortage of psychiatrists, which could make hiring difficult, and shelter providers said they aren’t equipped to hire, retain clinical workers that require malpractice insurance.
Quinn, who was a key advocate for the measure, said if the ratio of health providers to clients is too high the city could amend the rule. She said she pushed for this law after she noticed the mental health providers her organization refers residents to were often booked for months.
“We had one client who was suffering from suicidal ideations and it was three and a half months before they could get an intake appointment,” she said.
Quinn noted that the need for mental health counseling is great: About 80% of the mothers she serves in Win are survivors of domestic violence and many families carry guilt about having their children end up in shelter.
Shapiro, who co-founded Terra Firma, said while he believes in investing in more mental health services, new migrant arrivals aren’t coming with immediate mental health needs.
“What's most immediate in these families’ minds are the social services that they need. How can they make a living? How can they get legal work authorization? How do they get out of the shelter system? How do they get food for their children? How do they get health care for themselves and their children?” he said.
Family shelters are already required to provide social workers to conduct behavioral health assessments and screen children for developmental needs. The city’s management report, however, shows there’s been a shortage of social workers. And with the rise in shelter population, 58% of families received the behavioral health screening last fiscal year, compared to 72% the year prior.
Data from the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health shows about 1,300 families were screened for behavioral or mental health needs between July-September of last year, the most recently available data, with about 5% referred to treatment.
Tagged
new york city
housing
Asylum Seekers
Health and Science
Karen Yi
Karen Yi covers homelessness and poverty. She joined the WNYC and Gothamist newsroom in 2020. Before that, Karen covered Newark for the Star-Ledger and spent almost a decade working for newspapers in New Jersey and Florida. She grew up in Miami and has a dog named Cashew. Got a tip? Email [email protected] or Signal 917-589-1460.
Read more
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
MORE news
Intoxication not a 'license' to rape: Hochul pushes to tighten law amid Cornell scandal
The state Assembly has consistently declined to advance the measures.
By
Walter Wuthmann
Published Oct 2, 2026 at 12:03 p.m. ET
NYC Parks police told a yoga teacher to leash her dog. It got ugly.
Jurors ruled against Sabrina Toner, finding that the officers did not use excessive force.
By
Samantha Max
News
NYC Parks police told a yoga teacher to leash her dog. It got ugly.
Jurors ruled against Sabrina Toner, finding that the officers did not use excessive force.
By
Samantha Max
Early Addition: There's finally stuff inside the Times Square tower where the ball drops
By
James Ramsay
NYC subway dragging death highlights an old school MTA failsafe
By
Ramsey Khalifeh
'We were the victim': Brooklyn shelter's new CEO speaks after corruption scandal
By
Ryan Kost
Never miss a story
Catch up on the most important headlines with a roundup of essential NYC stories, delivered to your inbox daily.
Sign upEmail address
By submitting your information, you're agreeing to receive communications from New York Public Radio in accordance with our Terms .