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NYC councilmembers press Adams’ officials on shelter stay limits for migrants
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Nov 19, 2024
Modified Nov 21, 2024
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Arya Sundaram / Gothamist
By
Arya Sundaram
Published Nov 19, 2024
Modified Nov 21, 2024
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Members of the New York City Council who have long been critical of Mayor Eric Adams’ shelter stay limits for migrants pushed back against the policy during a Monday oversight hearing.
Councilmembers, migrants and advocates criticized the limits as inhumane and ineffective in helping migrants exit the shelter system. The concerns they cited included that children were missing school, they were having difficulty receiving important mail such as for immigration cases, migrants were sleeping in the streets, and that there was a lack of promised “case management” services to help families relocate.
However, a City Council bill to ban shelter limits has languished in the Committee on General Welfare — which co-hosted Monday's meeting — since the spring. No votes have been taken on the measure.
“Eviction after 60 days is not a trauma-informed policy,” said Council Member Alexa Aviles, chair of the Immigration Committee. “It’s important for human dignity to acknowledge that.”
Molly Schaeffer, director of the Office of Asylum-Seeker Operations, said the limits were implemented last year as a stopgap policy to ensure that housing would be given to the neediest people: the newest arriving migrants. That was as thousands of migrants arrived in the city each week and sought housing in a shelter system with no room for them.
“Before this policy was enacted, our numbers every week just kept going up and up and up,” Schaeffer testified. “We couldn't open sites fast enough to deal with the more than sometimes 4,000 people that came a week.”
Administration officials also credited the stay limits with helping to shrink the number of migrants in shelters. The city shelter population has dropped for 19 straight weeks, the Adams administration announced on Monday. The decline also comes as Texas appears to have stopped busing migrants to New York City.
The hearing follows the administration's announcement of a new policy on Monday that would stop the cycle of migrant families being forced to exit city shelters every 60 days.
After receiving two successive 60-day eviction notices, families with children in kindergarten through sixth grade can remain in the same shelter. The goal is to make it easier for migrant children to attend the same schools.
The Adams administration will also create a centralized mail room for migrant shelter residents to access important government letters, such as work permits and asylum hearings.
As administration officials began to testify, about a dozen protesters interrupted the hearing, chanting, “End shelter evictions now!”
Protesters clad in black-and-red shirts unfurled banners from the balcony of the City Council's chambers that read “Let All New Yorkers Stay,” “Housing Justice Now,” and “End Shelter Evictions.” Security guards quickly snatched their signs and escorted them out.
The protest was organized by the group Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), and included members of JFREJ, the Climate Organizing Hub, Planet Over Profit, and Sunrise Movement NYC, according to Sophie Ellman-Golan, with JFREJ.
Fewer new migrants have been arriving and seeking shelter in New York City. Since last November, the number of asylum-seekers in city shelters has dropped by 20.4%, according to the City Council’s report for the hearing.
More than 220,000 migrants, mostly asylum-seekers, have funneled through the city’s shelter system since spring 2022. About 57,000 migrants are currently living in city shelters, where they make up about half of the total shelter population.
Nearly half of the migrants living in city shelters have been spared from the city's eviction policy. But under a change in state policy in September, those roughly 30,000 parents and children living in Department of Homeless Services shelters could start receiving eviction notices as well.
Neha Sharma, a DHS spokesperson, said no families in agency shelters had yet received eviction notices.
Administration officials touted their efforts to improve case management services to help relocate.
According to Ted Long, senior vice president of Ambulatory Care and Population Health at the city hospital system, 99% of all migrant shelter residents have met one-on-one with their case managers. More than 70% of all eligible migrant adults in city shelters have applied for work permits, Long added.
Some migrant mothers testifying before the City Council hearing said that they hadn’t met with their own social worker or case worker.
Iris Rodriguez, executive deputy commissioner of shelter operations for DHS, said her agency hadn’t seen a "significant increase" in the number of migrants living on the streets. That’s despite reports of migrants living in parks, on the street and outside the sprawling tent mega-shelter on Randall’s Island.
Schaeffer said there were 7,600 students in special emergency shelters — called Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers — who had been “impacted” by 60-day eviction notices.
Of those children, 42% stayed in the same school and shelter. About a third, 31%, had moved shelters and schools. Another 15% left the city's public school system altogether.
Schaeffer said she didn’t immediately have the number of children who moved to shelters in other boroughs.
This article was updated with additional information about the protesters at the oversight hearing.
Tagged
new york city
Race And Justice Unit
Politics
Asylum Seekers
Arya Sundaram
Arya is a reporter covering race and justice. Got a tip? Email: [email protected] or reach Arya on Signal at 512-650-8767.
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