What to Know About the Migrant Crisis in New York City

By Hurubie Meko

Sept. 28, 2023

Leer en español

As of late September, more than 118,800 migrants had arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022.

Officials have struggled to respond as people from all over the world have arrived, sometimes by the hundreds each week. Many have sought shelter with the city, which has a legal obligation to give beds to anyone who asks. Last fall, the city’s homeless shelter population hit a record. It has only grown since then.

Mayor Eric Adams has called it a humanitarian crisis that will cost the city about $12 billion over three years. In the fall, he declared a state of emergency. In recent weeks, city officials have said they are running out of room.

The mayor has repeatedly asked the federal government — and has even traveled to Washington — for more funds and for expedited work authorizations for migrants, so they can become self-sufficient. He has said that President Biden has “failed” the city by not doing more.

“While New York City will continue to lead, it’s time the state and federal government step up,” Mr. Adams said at a recent news conference.

As the city struggles to respond to the arrival of over 100,000 new migrants, Mr. Adams has also begun to discourage migrants from seeking refuge in New York City.

Why are large numbers of migrants coming to New York City now?

Many arrivals to New York City last year were Venezuelans who had entered through the southern border. More than seven million refugees and migrants had left Venezuela, a country of 29 million people, as of February, according to Response for Venezuelans, a joint effort between the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It’s the second largest external displacement crisis in the world, according to the U.N. commission.

Economists said that Venezuela’s economic decline has been among the most drastic they have seen, other than in war. The country’s finances have teetered under an authoritarian socialist government. In 2019, the Trump administration also imposed sanctions on Venezuela’s state-owned oil company as a way to cripple the administration of President Nicolás Maduro — a strategy that was briefly eased under Presid

About seven million Venezuelans have left home. While most stay in Latin America, more have set out for the United States in recent months.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

The vast majority of Venezuelans are staying in other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. But many have been making the long and dangerous trip to the United States in recent months. About 100 Venezuelans were apprehended annually at the border between 2015 and 2018. More than 150,000 were apprehended between October 2021 and the end of August 2022.

More recently, a large number of migrants have also been coming from countries in Africa.

After crossing the southern border, thousands have made their way to New York with the help of officials in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott has sent thousands in a campaign to provoke outrage and force the federal government to tighten border security. But Mr. Abbott’s buses account for only a small fraction of the people who have arrived; El Paso, a Democrat-led city, has also sent new arrivals to New York at the migrants’ request, officials there have said, and some people have made their own way.

How is the city responding?

In March, the city announced the creation of a 24-hour center to welcome migrants and a new agency to help coordinate the arrival of asylum seekers, but the city’s response has, at times, been fragmented and reactive as the shelter system has become more strained.

More than 61,400 migrants were staying in city homeless shelters as of September, Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for health and human services, said this week. In total, 115,200 people were staying in homeless shelters across the city, officials said.

The city has proposed using a variety of locations as emergency housing for migrants. It has housed people in hotels, emergency tent shelters on Randall’s Island, school gymnasiums and office buildings and is now looking to new places, like the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital.

Many of the proposals have been met with pushback from residents, and in some cases the city has retreated. At one point, Mr. Adams seriously considered housing migrants on cruise ships. In all, the city had opened more than 210 shelter sites, including 17 humanitarian relief centers, for asylum seekers by September.

As more and more migrants have arrived, Mr. Adams has changed his messaging and his approach to sheltering them.

He has asked a judge to relieve the city of some of its legal obligations under its unique “right to shelter” mandate. He used an executive order to suspend some of the requirements under the mandate this spring, in anticipation of an influx of new migrants.

Image

Volunteer groups and city workers have met new arrivals at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, in an effort to connect them with services and shelter.Credit...Dakota Santiago for The New York Times

The mayor has also instituted a rule requiring single adult migrants to reapply for shelter every 60 days. The move, he said, would allow shelters to open up more space for families with children.

This summer, dozens of men, many from Africa, slept on the sidewalk outside an intake center in Manhattan after officials said the shelters were at capacity.

In recent months, the Adams administration has discouraged migrants from coming, distributing fliers at the southern border telling them that there is “no guarantee” they will receive shelter or services.

“Housing in NYC is very expensive,” the fliers said. “Please consider another city as you make your decision about where to settle in the U.S.”

The city has also helped migrants leave the city for other counties in New York, angering some officials in other parts of the state.

How much is caring for migrants costing the city?

The city has estimated that it would spend about $5 billion this fiscal year to house and feed migrants. And at a news conference, Mr. Adams said the cost would exceed $12 billion over the next three years, if migrants continued to arrive at the same rate.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has said that she would ask the State Legislature to allocate $1 billion in the next budget to help the city. The state has already given $1 billion, she said, and is paying for the new tent shelter on Randall’s Island.

The city’s spending has sometimes come under scrutiny.

DocGo, a medical services firm that once contracted with the city to provide Covid testing and vaccinations, has moved hundreds of migrants outside the city under a no-bid $432 million contract. The contract called for the group to house migrants and to provide them with food and services like case management, transportation and round-the-clock security. But migrants have said they were lied to and that representatives of the company gave them documents that falsely claimed they were eligible to work.

What will happen to the migrants next?

Many migrants have said they are pursuing asylum. But it can take three to four years before a final decision is made in asylum cases, which are often complicated and plagued by delays.

Between March and May of this year, nearly 39,000 new immigration court cases were filed in New York City, compared with about 11,000 in Miami-Dade County, Fla., and about 16,000 in Los Angeles County, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Applicants can apply for temporary employment authorization 150 days after successfully filing an asylum application, but are not eligible to receive a work document until then. (Mr. Adams has asked for President Biden to provide a path to expedited work authorizations for newly arrived migrants, allowing them to work legally.)

The city employs caseworkers to connect with newly arrived asylum seekers and help them enroll their children in school and find immigration lawyers. And in June, Mr. Adams announced the creation of the Asylum Application Help Center to bring together immigration legal service providers and pro bono lawyers and to serve thousands of asylum seekers.

By mid-September, the teams at the help center had helped complete more than 3,800 applications, according to officials.

But even as migrants have applied for asylum in record numbers, advocates and immigration lawyers say that without additional legal support, many — perhaps the majority — will miss their application deadline and fall into a more perilous category of immigrant: the undocumented.

Already, many new arrivals in New York have found jobs in the underground economy and joined the existing pool of undocumented workers, where they remain vulnerable to deportation and exploitation.

Will the flow of migrants continue?

The Biden administration announced in the fall that up to 24,000 Venezuelans would be accepted into the country through a humanitarian parole program. The program, similar to one established for Ukrainians, would require Venezuelans who apply to have someone in the United States able to support them financially for up to two years.

In the days after the program took effect, the number of Venezuelans who entered the country through the U.S.-Mexico border plunged, and some migrants were stranded in Mexico and other countries.

The Biden administration also announced a new asylum policy in an effort to stem illegal crossings this spring. The policy disqualified most people from applying for asylum if they have crossed into the United States without either securing an appointment at an official port of entry or proving that they had sought legal protection in another country along the way.

The policy was struck down by a federal judge in July, but was upheld on appeal while legal challenges to the policy work their way through the courts.

The number of people crossing the border dipped as a result, but in July appeared to be on the rise again.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons, Juan B. Garcia, Jasmine Sheena , Téa Kvetenadze and Jeffery C. Mays contributed reporting.

Basic Facts About Homelessness: New York City

The Coalition for the Homeless provides up-to-date information on New York City’s homeless population. In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression. You can find more information about homelessness at the following page: Facts About Homelessness (main page)

This page provides an overview of homelessness in New York City. Here you can find the key statistics about New York City’s homeless shelter population and a brief description of some of the main factors causing modern homelessness. You can also download a fact sheet about homelessness in New York City.

Learn more about the data here.

Also see: How many total people are homeless in NYC?

The Basic Facts:

• In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

• In June 2023, there were 84,526 homeless people, including 27,530 homeless children, sleeping each night in New York City’s main municipal shelter system. A near-record 25,061 single adults slept in shelters each night in June 2023.

• Over the course of City Fiscal Year 2022, 102,656 different homeless adults and children slept in the New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter system. This includes 29,653 homeless children.

• Families entering shelters predominantly come from a few clustered zip codes in the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. However, homeless families and single adults come from every community district in NYC prior to entering shelters.

• The number of homeless New Yorkers sleeping each night in municipal shelters is now 66 percent higher than it was 10 years ago. The number of homeless single adults is 128 percent higher than it was 10 years ago.

• Research shows that the primary cause of homelessness, particularly among families, is lack of affordable housing. Surveys of homeless families have identified the following major immediate, triggering causes of homelessness: eviction; doubled-up or severely overcrowded housing; domestic violence; job loss; and hazardous housing conditions.

• Research shows that, compared to homeless families, homeless single adults have higher rates of serious mental illness, addiction disorders, and other severe health problems.

• Each night thousands of unsheltered homeless people sleep on New York City streets, in the subway system, and in other public spaces. There is no accurate measurement of New York City’s unsheltered homeless population, and recent City surveys significantly underestimate the number of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers.

• Studies show that the large majority of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers are people living with mental illness or other severe health problems.

• Black and Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness. Approximately 56 percent of heads of household in shelters are Black, 32 percent are Hispanic/Latinx, 7 percent are White, less than 1 percent are Asian-American or Native American, and 4 percent are of unknown race/ethnicity.

• In City Fiscal Year 2022, the average length of stay in the DHS shelter system was 509 days for single adults, 534 days for families with children, and 855 days for adult families. 

• In November 2019, DHS estimated that 77 percent of adult families, 68 percent of single adults, and 53 percent of families with children sleeping in shelters had at least one disability. 

Migrants Sleep on the Sidewalk, the Face of a Failing Shelter System….People have come from all over the globe.

They came from Colombia and Chad, from Burundi, Peru,

Venezuela, Madagascar. In New York they had heard there was a

haven for immigrants, a place to live and get back on their feet.

When they arrived, they found out that they had heard wrong.

Two, three, four days later, they were still lined up outside the city’s

migrant intake center at the Roosevelt Hotel, around the corner

from Grand Central Terminal — close to 200 people, nearly all men.

Sleeping on the sidewalk. Heads resting on book bags, trash bags of

belongings by their sides: the visible faces of a system that has

officially broken down.

transcript

‘We’re Left Outside’: Nearly 200 Migrants Wait as N.Y.C.

Struggles to Provide Shelter

A day after Mayor Eric Adams said New York City had run out of shelter space,

migrants tell us how they are spending their days eating and sleeping outside the

Roosevelt Hotel, hoping to get into the city’s intake center.

I just came, like, since three days or four days I’ve been here. As you see, people are

sitting here. We spend the night here, and the day, as well. We are not comfortable.

We wish we can — they can move us to another place, like a safe place. We cannot

spend a whole week here, you know? It’s not safe. It’s dangerous.

A day after Mayor Eric Adams said New York City had run out of shelter space, migrants tell us how they

are spending their days eating and sleeping outside the Roosevelt Hotel, hoping to get into the city’s

intake center.

For over a year, record numbers of asylum seekers have arrived in

New York from across the globe, nearly doubling the city’s homeless

population in one huge spasm: More than 100,000 people now live

in shelters in the city.

Unlike other American cities, especially in the West, where

thousands live in the streets for lack of other options, New York City

is legally required to give anyone shelter who asks for it.

But now the shelters are full. As the migrants have continued to

arrive, the city has built tents, cobbled together a vast portfolio of

hotels and office buildings turned into housing and given migrants

tickets to go elsewhere. It has not been enough. The mayor has

called for state and federal help, saying the city is overwhelmed.

And officials have also, increasingly, pushed back against the city’s

legal obligations to shelter homeless people.

Some migrants who recently arrived in the city have waited for days in front of the Roosevelt Hotel to be

processed. Since last year, the city’s homeless shelter population has surged past 100,000 people.

Mohammadou Sidiya, 20, from Mauritania in West Africa, stood

beside a friend on Tuesday morning. They had traveled for more

than a month to get here.

They came looking for safety, Mr. Sidiya said in Arabic, through a

digital translation. They failed, he added.

Twenty feet away, a cheerful sign taunted them. “Bienvenidos al

arrival center!” it read. “We are currently at capacity.”

New York City’s descent from a place that was managing to keep up,

just barely, with a ceaseless flow of asylum seekers to a place that

had declared defeat was sudden.

Last week, there were still enough beds to allow the city to honor its

legal obligation to offer shelter to every person who wanted it.

Sometime over the weekend, that stopped being the case.

No explanation was offered. Mayor Eric Adams simply said on

Monday, “There is no more room.” He also said, “From this moment

on, it’s downhill.”

Joshua Goldfein, a staff lawyer at the Legal Aid Society, which filed

the litigation that led to the right to shelter more than 40 years ago,

said he believed that the people sleeping outside the Roosevelt were

there in part because the mayor was trying to pressure Washington

to send more aid and trying to discourage more migrants from

coming.

“There are many ways the city could shelter everyone who is on that

sidewalk if that is what they wanted to do,” he said.

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said on Tuesday that the

194 locations the city has opened to shelter asylum seekers are at

capacity.

“Our teams run out of space every single day, and we do our best to

offer placements where we have space available,” he said. He added

that the city is adding two more big humanitarian relief centers in

the coming weeks, including a mega-tent big enough for 1,000

people in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital in Queens.

The city has estimated that the migrants will cost more than $4

billion over two years.

Mr. Levy said that Sunday was the first night that the Roosevelt was

unable to offer all migrants a place to stay indoors, even if on a

chair. He said that on other nights, some had been sent to another

hotel where they could stay on a cot, and that any migrants who

slept on the sidewalk did so by choice. He also noted that migrants

had access to air-conditioned buses.

The Roosevelt Hotel, near Grand Central Terminal, is among nearly 200 facilities the city is using to help

and house new arrivals seeking shelter.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Erick Marcano came from Venezuela and said he had waited for three days outside the Roosevelt Hotel.

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Behind Mr. Sidiya in the line was Erick Marcano, a laborer from

Venezuela. He said he had taken his place on the line on Saturday

and in the ensuing three days had progressed a total of one block,

from the corner of 46th Street to the corner of 45th. He had used

the time to fashion an effective sun hat by jamming a piece of a

cardboard box with a skull-shaped hole cut into it onto the brim of

his baseball cap.

Mr. Marcano had crossed the border a few days before that and

received help from an immigrant advocacy group. “They asked us in

Texas where we wanted to go in the U.S. and that they would pay for

the ticket, and we told them we wanted to come here, to New York,”

he said.

Outside the Roosevelt, he said, “they just tell me to have patience

and wait.” Down the block, at the entrance to the hotel, families

with young children flowed in and out. The city has prioritized

providing shelter to them, so that only adults are left outside.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, has chartered some of the

buses that have brought people to New York City, as a way to put

political pressure on Democratic leaders, though the vast majority

of migrants have come in other ways.

On Tuesday, the Legal Aid Society threatened to take the city back to

court. Mr. Goldfein said that Gov. Kathy Hochul also needed to do

more to provide resources and aid to get people housed quickly.

“We are hopeful that the state will step up and meet its obligations

and also that the city will make some changes to what they’re doing

in order to get people off the street,” he said, “but if they don’t, then

we will have to take any appropriate action to protect our clients.”

A 30-year-old migrant from Chad who gave only his first name,

Abdelkerim, said he was surprised to find himself forced to sleep on

the street in New York. “I’d at least think we’d have a place to stay,”

he said.

The migrants have been provided with food while they wait. On

Tuesday, workers with carts went down the line handing out egg sandwiches, bottled water, bananas and popcorn. Just past the end

of the line was Uncle Paul’s pizzeria. The owner, Dino Redzic, said

that he had given out 10 pizzas the night before and was letting the

migrants use his bathroom. “They stay there half an hour and they

wash themselves,” he said.

Mr. Redzic, 50, himself a refugee from the Bosnian war who came

here 30 years ago, said he was disturbed by the scene unfolding

beside his store. “Why is this happening?” he said. “Where are the

churches? Where are the mosques? Where are the people supposed

to take care of them?”

As the afternoon wore on, Ariana Diaz, 34, freshly arrived from

Venezuela via Baja California, took her place at the back of the line.

She had paid for her own plane ticket from the West Coast,

counting on a warmer welcome here.

Where would she stay tonight, Ms. Diaz was asked.

“I don’t even know where I’m standing right now,” she said.

Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

Street homelessness in NYC jumps 17% despite Eric Adams’ efforts to get people off the streets

Despite Mayor Adams’ high-profile efforts to reduce the number of New Yorkers living on the streets, the city is seeing a rise in street homelessness.

The number of people sleeping on the street is up in 2023, according to an annual one-night survey released at the start of the Fourth of July weekend.

The annual Homeless Outreach Population Estimate, or HOPE survey, is conducted by the Social Services Department every year in January. This year, the survey counted 4,042 people sleeping on the city’s streets, in parks, on the subways, on benches and under highway overpasses — about a 17% increase over 2022.

The total is 603 more people than last year’s 3,439 and 1,666 more than in 2021, but closer to the 3,857 people who slept unsheltered in 2020.

The Social Services Department pinned the rise to the influx of migrants to the city and the end of pandemic-related programs like the federally funded use of hotels as homeless shelters, the overnight closure of the subways and the mild weather this past winter.

“Over this past year, our agency has responded to a massive humanitarian crisis while ensuring that we are effectively delivering on our mission to address homelessness in New York City,” Social Services Commissioner Molly Wasow Park said.

“Our shelter census nearly doubled over an incredibly short span and New Yorkers are still recovering from the devastating impact of the pandemic, but thanks to our intensified outreach efforts, bold solutions and vital investments in specialized beds, NYC continues to have one of the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness of any other major U.S. city.”

During 2021 and 2022, no volunteers conducted the outreach. Instead, the count relied on outreach staff and city workers. Community volunteers were brought back for the 2023 count.

Because of the right-to-shelter law, under which the city is legally obligated to provide a bed to anyone who needs one, New York City has a rate of about 95% of homeless people sleeping in shelters or other indoor locations.

Adams has challenged the right-to-shelter law in court, asking a judge to suspend pieces of the decades-old mandate because of the record migrant-driven surge to the city’s homeless shelters.

The new street homelessness numbers are the latest hit to some of the Adams administration’s high-profile initiatives geared toward getting homeless people off the streets and subways.

Last week, a city comptroller audit said Adams’ controversial homeless encampment sweeps “completely failed,” with just three homeless people getting permanent housing. Of 2,308 removed from the streets, just 90 of them stayed in a homeless shelter for more than a day, city Comptroller Brad Lander said in the audit.

Another program, the Subway Safety Plan, deploys outreach workers to trains and buses with the goal of ending the practice of people using the transit system for shelter.

According to the Social Services Department, outreach workers on the subway have connected 5,000 people in the subway system to beds and other services.

“What we do know is that far too many New Yorkers must resort to sleeping on the streets and in transit facilities because they do not have access to better options,” Dave Giffen, executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless, said in a statement. “If Mayor Adams truly wants to help homeless New Yorkers, he would create more affordable housing, work with the governor to expand access to voluntary psychiatric care, and offer greater access to safe shelters with private rooms in order to tackle this crisis head-on.”

Homeless people resort to sleeping unsheltered for a number of reasons, including violence and unrest in shelters. Paths out of the shelter system are also difficult, with a long, delayed process ahead of anyone looking to obtain a housing voucher or affordable housing.

Josephine Stratman, New York Daily News

Wed, July 5, 2023 at 6:14 PM EDT·3 min read

NYC’s affordable housing lottery a ‘mythic’ option for many homeless residents as wait times jump

New York City’s homeless shelter population is swelling, but one method for moving people into permanent housing is taking longer than ever to complete.

The median timeline for shelter residents moving into city-financed apartments reserved for them has nearly doubled since 2020, according to city data.

Last year, it took about seven months for someone to move into those apartments after the approval process, the annual mayor’s management report shows. But in the 2020 fiscal year, it took less than four months. That timeline is considered to be a "critical indicator" of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development's performance.

More New Yorkers did manage to move from shelters to HPD-financed housing last year compared to 2021, with that number again trending up between July and October 2022. The agency said that was due to more completed apartments opening up last year.

The longer wait times come as the city’s shelter population exceeds 80,000 people a night, many of them recently arrived migrants, and as Mayor Eric Adams seeks ways to move people out more quickly to free up space in the beleaguered system.

HPD spokesperson William Fowler said the agency is evaluating how to streamline the move-in process, and noted that more than 1,200 households have moved from shelters to HPD-financed apartments since January, a figure that is on pace to surpass last year’s total.

“The data shows clearly that we’re helping a record number of homeless New Yorkers move out of shelter and into permanent housing and we’re currently on track to exceed last year’s placements,” said Fowler.

But that’s little comfort to New Yorkers in shelters still struggling to navigate the bureaucratic lottery process, relying on the mail or cheap cell phones to send in applications, submit required paperwork and stay up to speed.

Brooklyn native Darren Whitney, 62, wonders if the affordable housing lottery offers a false hope for getting out of a shelter system where he’s lived for the past six years.

Whitney has applied for a spot in more than a dozen buildings through the lottery in recent months, according to records he showed Gothamist. He entered the shelter system in 2017 after his release from state prison and has undergone multiple hip replacement surgeries while trying to secure permanent housing from a group shelter on Wards Island, which has limited access to the rest of the city.

Last month, Whitney, who earns less than $10,000 a year but has a rental assistance voucher from the city, learned he was picked to proceed to the final stage of the selection process for a brand new seven-story building in East Flatbush. It was the first time he received anything more than a denial and he said he started feeling optimistic.

But Whitney didn’t submit the necessary documents in time, resulting in an administrative rejection.

“I thought I had this,” Whitney said. “This whole premise was leading up to this. That … if you get lucky, they'll call you. You have all your documentation, you have it.”

Whitney said he asked his case manager at the Wards Island homeless shelter to upload various forms of identification, a birth certificate, an income statement and other documents required by the building developer. But the case manager did not send the forms before the deadline, or during a 10-day extension, Whitney said.

Whitney appealed the rejection, explaining in a message to HPD that he lacked the “tech literacy” to upload the documents from his glitchy cellphone.

“There's no way that this should happen,” he said. “But it’s gone. Let’s face the facts.”

According to Whitney, his case manager did not send the required paperwork in time.

Photo by David Brand

The building owner did not respond to an email, but an HPD official said the site still has some available apartments.

HELP-USA, which operates the shelter, declined to comment on the specifics of Whitney’s experience, citing client privacy, but said it currently has three housing specialists and a housing director on staff at his shelter.

“We are proud of the work we do every day to help people find and maintain housing,” said Stephen Mott, HELP-USA's chief strategy officer. “This search can be a difficult process, especially in a city as unaffordable as New York.”

But the problems go much deeper than the interactions between individual shelter staffers and residents, said Catherine Trapani, head of the agency Homeless Services United.

The housing lottery process is plagued by short supply, too much paperwork and too few staff members at city agencies and nonprofit providers, Trapani said.

Back in 2019, the city enacted a new law requiring developers to set aside 15% of units in new apartment buildings for people leaving homeless shelters. But four years later, securing one of those units can be like “finding a needle in a haystack” — especially for people living in shelters, she said.

“It’s one of those things that’s almost mythic,” Trapani said. “The process to attain them is not easy.”

Since 2014, New Yorkers have submitted tens of millions of lottery applications. Roughly 30,000 people have moved into units over that span, according to city data first reported by City Limits. Last fiscal year, 2,175 households moved from shelters to units listed on the affordable housing lottery, according to the mayor’s management report.

It’s the highest number yet recorded, but still a drop in the bucket, Trapani said. She said making sure applications are submitted correctly and then speeding up the move-in process were two important ways to reduce the city’s burgeoning shelter population.

One problem is supply. Production slowed amid inflation and rising interest rates, and most newly created homeless set-aside units are in supportive housing sites reserved for people with mental illness or other special needs. HPD data shows developers started 2,275 units reserved for homeless New Yorkers last fiscal year — down from 2,849 the previous year. New construction in the first four months of the current fiscal year trailed last year’s pace.

Competition for apartments priced for the lowest-income New Yorkers is also extremely tight, reporting by City Limits and the news site The City shows. The City’s analysis of more than 18 million lottery applications found that units priced for “extremely low-income” New Yorkers received an average of 650 submissions, compared to 123 for middle-income apartments

And staffing problems across city agencies and nonprofit providers are only making things harder, Trapani said.

“You look at the staff shortages, low rates of pay, high caseloads. it’s not really a wonder that people can’t get through,” the lottery process she said.

But for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness who do manage to beat the odds, the affordable housing lottery is a lifeline.

Karim Walker, an outreach organizer with the homeless rights group Safety Net Project, was approved in August 2020 for a one-bedroom apartment in East New York that he applied for two years earlier. It took about five months before he was finally able to move in.

Walker said he has thrived since then. He said his health is improving and he has been losing weight by preparing his own meals in his kitchen.

“I don’t have to sign in and out of my apartment. I have my own space,” he said. “I wish everyone could benefit from something like this.”

This story has been updated to correct that 1,200 households have moved from shelters to HPD-financed apartments since January, and 2,175 households moved from shelters into affordable housing units last

Ditching decades-long barrier for homeless families could save NYC millions: Study

Some homeless New York families are required to spend months in a shelter before they become eligible for a voucher for more permanent housing. And removing the decades-long requirement could save the city millions as it currently faces economic uncertainty, according to a new study out Monday.

“There is no good reason for it: it costs money, it causes more trauma and it reduces the amount of time people have to look for housing,” said Christine Quinn, president and CEO of Win, which provides shelter and supportive services for homeless families with children and authored the study.

Homeless families with children must spend three months in a homeless shelter before they can access a CityFHEPS housing voucher, in what is known as the city’s 90-Day Rule. It’s been a source of frustration for some politicians and homeless advocates who say that shelters require more money to upkeep – and prolongs a psychologically challenging period for young children.

The push to end the requirement is being compounded by the city’s ongoing economic uncertainty. Mayor Eric Adams already called for steep budget cuts across various agencies in anticipation of the ongoing influx of migrants into the city now that a pandemic-era measure that previously quelled these numbers is now expired. Advocates are now calling for the adoption of legislation – backed by half of the City Council – that would end this rule.

Ditching the 90-day-rule could save the city “tens of millions of dollars,” according to Quinn.

“Three months out of a little child’s life is a great deal of time,” Quinn said. “So beyond just the inhumanity of it, it costs the city money. Putting someone in permanent housing – with a voucher – is significantly cheaper than it is to pay for someone in a shelter, and even cheaper than the most expensive welfare hotel option.”

Housing a singular family of three in a traditional shelter costs the city $188 per night – and the number climbs to $383 if it's an emergency hotel shelter, according to the analysis from Win. In contrast, the city would spend $72 a night if it gave that same family a housing voucher – and it would open up space in shelters for the other tens of thousands of homeless New Yorkers.

“If we intend to solve the bottlenecks within our shelter system, then we must take a look at all the policies in place that are contributing to that bottleneck, including the 90-day rule,” Councilmember Diana Ayala, who represents parts of Manhattan, including El Barrio and East Harlem, and is the bill’s primary sponsor, said in a press release.

The mayor’s office said it will be reviewing the report.

“This administration has implemented a wide range of reforms to cut the red tape and significantly strengthen and expand access to CityFHEPS, the only city-funded rental assistance in the country. We also continue to make investments in social services and support for shelter clients, providing dedicated case management and equipping them with the tools that will truly help stabilize their lives and position them for long-term housing stability," a City Hall spokesperson told Gothamist on Sunday. "The scope of this work is reflected in the declining rate of clients who are placed in subsidized housing and return to shelter year-on-year. "

This story has been updated with a comment from the mayor's office.

By

Giulia Heyward

Published May 14, 2023

Modified May 14, 2023

NYC turns to Oklahoma for help managing a homeless shelter for migrants

New York City officials are tapping an Oklahoma-based group to manage an emergency homeless shelter for asylum-seekers on the Upper West Side, a decision that’s baffling the city councilmember who represents the neighborhood.

The Department of Social Services – which oversees the city’s largest shelter system – selected Cherokee Nation Management and Consulting to operate the shelter on 88th Street near Riverside Drive, said Councilmember Gale Brewer.

The shelter, which has a capacity of 125 rooms, is one of 100 sanctuary shelters that have been opened since last April by Mayor Eric Adams’ administration to house tens of thousands of asylum-seekers arriving from southern states after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

But the decision to select an organization that hasn’t worked in the five boroughs to run a shelter where newcomers rely heavily on staff to help with myriad issues poses some serious concerns, Brewer said.

“It makes no sense on any level to have an out-of-town – never been a provider in New York City – selected to do this job,” Brewer said.

“Where can I get English as a second language class? Where's the library?” she added. “Local people know that.”

Neil Nowlin, a spokesperson for Cherokee Nation Management and Consulting, declined to comment.

The consulting group is part of Cherokee Federal, a group of contracting companies owned by the Cherokee Nation, the largest indigenous tribe in the U.S. According to company brochures shared with local officials by DSS, Cherokee Federal has responded to humanitarian crises at the U.S.-Mexico border and around the world, including in Afghanistan.

The organization also touts that it was selected by the federal government to run an emergency intake center for unaccompanied minors in 2021 outside of Los Angeles.

Neha Sharma, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services, did not say how much the city is paying Cherokee Nation Management and Consulting to operate the shelter or comment on why DSS is turning to an out-of-state provider to run its shelter.

“We are leaving no stone unturned as part of our emergency response, which includes working to identify new providers, including those with extensive national experience responding to humanitarian crises of this nature,” Neha said in a statement.

The arrival of asylum-seekers comes as the city’s shelter system is swelling and the municipal workforce faces a staffing shortage.

Currently, there are more homeless families and individuals living in city shelters than at any time since the system was created in 1981, according to the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless. The arrival of thousands of migrants is further straining the already burdened system.

As of Tuesday, there are 73,770 homeless families and individuals in the main shelters, according to the city’s daily census count. Thousands more people live on the city’s streets, in the subways and in specialized shelters.

While more than a dozen existing providers expanded their operations to meet the growing need, demand is outstripping supply, said Catherine Trapani, executive director of the advocacy group Homeless Services United, a coalition of 50 nonprofit agencies serving homeless and at-risk adults and families in New York City.

“Many current providers are in a poor financial position to expand and have been unable to do so due to late contract payments, low salaries that lead to chronic understaffing, which makes opening new programs irresponsible,” Trapani said. “Others have been able to stretch and are opening new facilities. Still, even with uptake from the current crop of providers, demand is so high that the agency has had to recruit new providers.”

The Upper West Side shelter has been set aside to house families with adult children, Brewer said. The eight-story building once housed students at the New York Institute of Technology. Each floor has a kitchen and a coin-operated laundry room, according to the college’s website. Most rooms also have a private bathroom.

The shelter is currently operated by the National Guard and the staff at the city’s Department of Homeless Services, according to email correspondence sent by DSS to Brewer’s office and other city officials. The email was shared with Gothamist.

“Cherokee is not fully at the location as of yet,” according to one email sent Monday. “They are still ramping up.”

Chau Lam reports on homeless and poverty for WNYC and Gothamist. Send tips to CLam@nypublicradio.org

NYC residents shoulder larger cost of homeless family shelter funding, report finds

New York City residents are paying a larger share of the hundreds of millions of dollars to house homeless people over the last decade, according to an analysis by a nonpartisan budget watchdog group.

Ever since Albany lawmakers shifted the financial burden onto the city, New York City taxpayers are picking up more than 76% of the costs of providing shelter to homeless families, up from 31% a decade ago, the analysis by the city’s Independent Budget Office found.

During the 2013 fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to to June 30, it cost the city $490.6 million to provide emergency shelter for homeless families in the five boroughs. New York City picked up $151.2 million or nearly 31% of the costs, and the remainder were covered by state and federal funds.

Fast forward a decade later, the city picked up more than 76% of the costs, or $754.8 million of $987.5 million, to house homeless families in the last fiscal year.

The report comes as the city is expected to spend an estimated $4 billion in this fiscal year to meet the needs of thousands of asylum seekers arriving in New York City since last spring after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Even before the current influx of asylum seekers, for years the city has shouldered a growing share of shelter costs compared with the state and federal governments,” according to the report.

Mayor Eric Adams has pleaded with the federal and state officials for help, but little money has shown up so far.

“While our city may be the face of the asylum seeker crisis, it is not a crisis we can solve on our own,” Adams said in the recently released The Road Forward: A Blueprint to Address New York City's Response to the Asylum Seeker Crisis. “A comprehensive response from all levels of government – especially from our state and federal partners – is needed.”

In her executive budget, Gov. Kathy Hochul proposed reimbursing the city 29% of the costs associated with shelter and other services to all asylum seekers, but the governor limited the spending to $1 billion over two years.

Unlike other places, New York City is legally required to provide shelter to homeless individuals and families.

The city’s Department of Homeless Services, which oversees two separate shelter systems, one for individuals and one for families, relies on a mix of money from the federal, state, and city funds.

However, the governor and state lawmakers decide what share of the federal and state funds goes to municipalities through cost-sharing formulas. Over the last decade, the state reduced its contribution and changed the cost-sharing formula, leaving New York City residents paying for a bigger chunk, according to the Independent Budget Office.

In the shelter system for individuals, the city bears most of the costs with a tiny sum coming from the federal government and some from the state. As of Sunday, there were 70,941 homeless people living in the city’s largest shelter system managed by the Department of Social Services, according to the city’s daily count. Thousands more homeless individuals live shelters managed by other city.

By

Chau Lam

Published Mar 13, 2023

Modified Mar 14, 2023

Migrant crisis sparked ‘unprecedented’ burden on NYC shelters: City Hall

The Big Apple’s migrant crisis sparked an “unprecedented” increase in the number of people living in taxpayer-funded homeless shelters, according to a City Hall report released Tuesday.

The daily average shelter population surged 20.8% — to 54,838 — during the first four months of fiscal 2023, which began July 1, the Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report for February said.

That’s up from an average of 45,381 during the same time in fiscal 2022, with the report saying the spike was “driven by an unprecedented increase in entrants, primarily related to the influx of asylum seekers from the southern United States border.”

The increase — which followed two successive years of declines — was even greater when combined with the final months of fiscal 2022 when the flood of migrants to the city began.

Those figures showed that the number of families with children who entered the shelter system spiked 41.8% while the number of single adults more than doubled, by 104.7%, according to the report.

“This rapid increase in entries resulted in growth of 26.9% in the families with children census and of 9.5% the single adult census, despite increases in exits to permanent housing over that same period,” the report said.

But the number of families receiving welfare benefits actually declined from 78.8% to 67.6% during July through October, compared to the same period a year ago.

“Partly this is a result of families remaining in conditional eligibility status for longer periods, contributing to a delay in the public assistance application process, as well as to the unprecedented increase in entries of asylum seekers,” the report said.

The rate of “serious and violent incidents” among shelter residents also dropped in all three categories of shelters: single adults, adult families and families with children.

“The decline of serious incidents within the families with children system was attributable to the decrease in COVID-19-related incidents, including quarantining of both staff and clients,” the report said.

“Within the single adult shelter system, the decrease in serious incidents was in large part due to a decrease in facility-related incidents — including heating, water and electrical failures that last more than four hours.”

The time period covered by the report includes the suicide of a despondent migrant mom from Colombia who hanged herself from a shower rod with an electrical cord inside a Queens homeless shelter on Sept. 18.

Mayor Eric Adams has said that the city will likely spend as much as $2 billion to provide shelter and other services to the migrant population, and he’s repeatedly called on President Biden’s administration to cough up at least $1 billion.

On Tuesday, Adams spoke privately with Biden following the president’s appearance in New York City, and they agreed to set a date to discuss the matter further, a source told The Post.

Earlier this month, Adams also made an “emergency mutual aid request” for Gov. Kathy Hochul to immediately provide housing for an initial 500 migrants, saying the city was “at our breaking point.”

As of Sunday, the estimated migrant population was 43,200, with 28,200 living in 86 emergency shelters and processing centers, according to City Hall.

Hochul — who’s set to unveil her proposed budget for fiscal 2023-2024 on Wednesday — has yet to publicly respond beyond saying that she’s been helping Adams “for many months and will continue to give him support.”

report By Bernadette Hogan and Bruce Golding January 31, 2023

NYC homelessness hits record number Again

NEW YORK - New York City’s homeless problem does not appear to be getting any better.

According to the Coalition for the Homeless, the numbers have actually hit an all-time high. They claim the average number of people sleeping in a shelter every night climbed to nearly 66,000 in October. 

Back in February, Mayor Eric Adams launched his subway safety plan and has repeatedly touted its success. 

But data obtained by the New York Daily News through a Freedom of Information Law request shows that around 70% of homeless individuals who have been moved into shelters have left within a week of being admitted.

The data covers two separate homeless outreach efforts, which City Hall calls the Subway Safety Plan and the End of the Line initiative. It shows that from February to August, nearly 2,300 homeless individuals were moved off the subways and into shelters. But out of those people, only 30% actually stayed longer than a week.

Many homeless individuals have said they do not feel safe in shelters, and many facilities also have strict rules, like curfews.

The news also comes amid the mayor's controversial new policy to start forcing homeless people who are determined to be suffering a "mental health crisis" off the streets and out of the subway system. They will be taken to a hospital for evaluation even if they refuse to go on their own.

The policy faced tough criticism. It directs police officers and street outreach workers to transport someone to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation if they appear to be unable to meet their own basic needs.

But mental health professionals are condemning the plan, arguing it takes away a person's basic human rights. Advocates say "housing" is the best solution for homelessness.

Mayor Adams says officers will get additional training and real-time support from mental health professionals. He framed the policy as a way to help people who need it.

12/18.2022