Yesterday, the city began enforcing updates to its longtime right to shelter settlement, giving most adult migrants only 30 days in shelter before they are required to set off on their own.
In practice, this is unlikely to be a huge change; City Hall’s prior decision to require shelter reapplication every 30 days for single adults was functionally a 30-day cap, with migrants in lines thousands of people long. What this will do is formalize that approach, and while that may be painful for the people who will be shown the door, there aren’t many alternatives here. The city simply cannot indefinitely house tens of thousands of people until they receive work authorization and secure housing, several months after arrival.
In comparison to every other municipality, our system offers the most support, not only in the form of the shelter itself but the legal services, case management and other assistance. While our acute housing shortage makes finding affordable housing difficult even for native-born New Yorkers with jobs, let alone recent arrivals with little or no income, this is also the city with the most robust web of community organizations and support systems to help newcomers find their way.
The agreement, signed off on by the Legal Aid Society, takes pains to ensure that the most vulnerable people aren’t just kicked to the curb. Case-by-case determinations of extenuating circumstances — which can range from proof that a migrant has found alternative housing and just needs a little more time for a transition to the fact that they are recovering or will be recovering from some serious medical condition or procedure — will result in extensions, and adults under 23 get 60 days.
All of this is subject to reporting requirements, and we’re confident that Legal Aid and other observers, including the City Council and the press, will be paying attention to ensure that these exemptions are actually being granted. The administration should do whatever possible to ensure that these transitions are as smooth as they can be, continue commitments to meet the needs of the housing market and keep folks from ending up on streets and subways.
We’ve spent more than two years trying to solve a pretty much unsolvable problem because we’ve been left to do it on our own. We reiterate that the federal government has all but abdicated its responsibilities and Gov. Hochul has steered clear of pushing other localities to help shoulder the load.
That doesn’t mean the solution is to violate our domestic and international obligations to shut down humanitarian migration through the border, which some will have you believe is the only way forward. We are a massive country, by land and headcount. If you tally up all the asylum seekers who’ve entered the country in the past several years, they might come within striking distance of one percent of the population. Our birth rates are declining and we have a tight labor market, a growth in domestic manufacturing and a strong economy.
It’s not hard to put two and two together, yet instead of utilizing the resource that is immigration — a resource which has powered the United States’ growth into the world’s economic and cultural superpower — the federal government has gone hands off, to its own political detriment. It’s not too late to fix that.
