Nearly two dozen groups, including religious leaders and the city’s biggest union, committed on Thursday to signing an amicus brief opposing Mayor Eric Adams’ request to suspend the city’s right-to-shelter rules for homeless single adults amid the ongoing migrant crisis.
The effort follows the mayor’s latest application to a state court to suspend the right to shelter as the city struggles to house more than 63,000 migrants who have entered the shelter system over the past year.
The coalition, known as New York Shelter for All in Need Equally, or NY SANE, was organized by Christine Quinn, who heads WIN, a homeless shelter provider for women and families. The new coalition sets up a battle between Adams and a list of well-established interest groups that have historically advocated for working-class New Yorkers and immigrants.
They include 1199 SEIU, the politically powerful health care union; the New York Immigration Coalition and two influential anti-poverty policy groups: the Community Service Society of New York and the Robin Hood Foundation.
“I think the mayor thought he was going to sneak this by,” Quinn said during a press conference in front of St. Bartholomew’s Church in Midtown. “That he was going to repeal the right to shelter, he was going to throw new arrivals out on the street, like they weren’t human beings, and nobody was gonna notice.”
She and others were planning to send letters of protest to both Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is supporting the city’s attempt to revise the right to shelter.
Quinn, a former Democratic City Council speaker who ran for mayor in 2013, has increasingly clashed with Adams over his homeless and housing policies, spurring speculation that she may be interested in challenging him in a primary or pursuing another elected office.
When Gothamist asked Quinn about the matter on Thursday, she reiterated that she was not planning to run against Adams.
New York City is the only city that provides such a broad…
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