Major questions remain as to how New York City will implement key terms of a new court settlement allowing the Adams administration to limit shelter stays for most migrant adults, as it has been doing for months but without legal cover.
Significantly, the settlement requires the city by April 8 to eliminate a waitlist for migrants seeking shelter beds, after Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly said the city’s out of shelter space.
And while the agreement says the city will grant extensions to migrants facing extenuating circumstances, what qualifies as such is hardly clear.
Moreover, while the city has trumpeted its efforts to connect migrants with caseworkers to help them exit the shelter system, housing and migrant advocates have repeatedly criticized those efforts as insufficient, and hampered by language barriers and the sheer number of migrants needing help.
Nonetheless, the city is on the hook for executing the settlement. It ends months of negotiations between Legal Aid attorneys and the administration, which has sought flexibility to modify the city’s unique right-to-shelter rules, in the face of an emergency. The city has struggled to accommodate an influx that has seen over 180,000 migrants come to New York City since April 2022.
“We’re going to be monitoring it very carefully,” said Josh Goldfein, staff attorney for Legal Aid, one of the court-appointed monitors in the lawsuit. He added: “We’re going to be intervening” in cases of concern.
Here’s what to watch in the aftermath of the long-awaited settlement.
How will the city eliminate its shelter waiting list for migrants?
About 1,900 single adult migrants are currently on the city’s shelter waitlist — that is, they were forced to leave city shelters under the city’s current 30- and 60-day stay limits, and have reapplied for another place to stay, according to City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak.
The number on the waitlist varies from day to day, at times fluctuating as high as some 3,000…
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