Some migrant families whose children have medical or mental health conditions are finding relief from having to move out of their shelters and reapply for housing despite the city limiting how long families can shelter in one place.
The reprieve comes after families have worried for months about whether their kids would be uprooted from their schools and bounced between temporary hotels.
City agencies are allowing some newcomers to stay past their departure date if they can’t move out due to a disability, according to health officials, lawyers and immigration groups. Mayor Eric Adams began restricting shelter stays for migrant families with children in January, but migrants experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder or other disabilities are getting their stays extended through so-called reasonable accommodations protected under disability law.
NYC Health and Hospitals and the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development say they’ve received nearly 2,200 of these requests from migrants in their care and have granted a majority of them. Migrants have requested to stay at their shelters as well as wheelchair-accessible rooms, places to store medication and dietary accommodations.
Health and Hospitals received the bulk of the requests, with 700 migrants asking to stay beyond the 60-day shelter limit for families and the 30-day limit implemented last fall for single adults. Health officials said about 60% were approved.
The accommodations are happening as the Adams administration faces increased scrutiny and an investigation by Comptroller Brad Lander over its decisions to force migrant families with children to leave or reapply for shelter every 60 days.
Child service providers are also increasingly concerned about the effect jumping from shelter to shelter — and potentially school to school — could have on migrant kids’ well-being and mental health.
“If [the city] is running a program that requires people to move every 60 days to another hotel…
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