Mayor Eric Adams is moving ahead with legal efforts to suspend New York City’s landmark right to shelter rules, as an influx of migrants continues to strain the city’s shelter system.
On the eve of the mayor’s trip to Latin America, city lawyers formally filed a legal application that will kickstart a months-long court battle with homeless advocates and could suspend hallmark protections for homeless New Yorkers that have been in place for decades.
In a revised application filed late Tuesday in state Supreme Court, lawyers for the city called the city’s right to shelter obligation “outmoded and cumbersome” and said that it “has unnecessarily deprived policymakers of much needed flexibility.”
But rather than exempting newly arrived migrants from the right to shelter as some expected, the newest court filing would apply to all homeless single adults, if granted by a judge.
The filing comes after months of negotiations with the state and the Legal Aid Society — which represents homeless New Yorkers — and marks a new phase in the legal conflict.
“The City’s shameful revised application would go far beyond limiting its obligation to provide some form of emergency shelter to asylum seekers and other new arrivals,” said Redmond Haskins, a spokesperson for Legal Aid and the Coalition for the Homeless, in a prepared statement Tuesday night.
Established in 1981, the so-called Callahan consent decree requires the city to provide shelter to any single man in need of it. Successive lawsuits established the right to shelter for single women and later, families.
Specifically, the city is seeking relief from providing shelter to single adults under two conditions: when there is a state of emergency and when the demand for shelter is at least 50% higher than during non-emergency periods.
In a statement, Adams said the city’s right to shelter obligation “was never intended to apply to the extraordinary circumstances our city faces today.”
The city is now…
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