New York City officials reached an agreement on Friday to modify the city’s unique right to shelter rules by capping stays for newly arrived migrant adults, following a monthslong court fight over measures meant to guarantee a bed to anyone in need.
The settlement with the nonprofit Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless — court-appointed monitors of the shelter system — establishes minimum requirements for homeless adult migrants seeking shelter, including a 30-day shelter stay, or 60 days for adults under 23; and access to bathrooms, food and other essentials.
The agreement also allows the city to deny shelter to adults who have exceeded those time limits and don’t take enough steps to find alternate housing or meet other exceptions.
The limits on stays do not apply to families with children and will remain in effect as long as the city is under its current state of emergency related to the rise in migrants who need services.
As tens of thousands of recently arrived migrants entered the city’s shelter system, Mayor Eric Adams attempted to condition shelter availability on capacity limits set by his administration. The Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless opposed that move in court last May.
“We never asked to get rid of the right to shelter,” Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said at a press briefing announcing the settlement. “We never said that the right to shelter wasn’t important. What we said was that we needed some modification so that we could have some flexibility to be able to manage.”
The city’s right-to-shelter rules date back to a 1981 consent decree guaranteeing a bed for any adult experiencing homelessness. Later rulings extended this right to families with children and established minimum shelter conditions. No other city in the country has such rules, which are credited with reducing street homelessness.
Joshua Goldfein, an attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the settlement preserves the right to shelter. “It ensures…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply