New York City’s mayor plans to override parts of the 40-year-old “Right to Shelter” law that guarantees a bed for anyone in need as the city braces for an expected influx of migrants when title 42 will be lifted on Thursday .
Eric Adams and his team are looking for solutions, with 61,000 migrants arriving in the city in the past year.
The lifting of pandemic-era border control policies on Thursday is likely to see even more arrivals, and New York is struggling to accommodate the new arrivals. On Monday, city department heads were asked to provide a list of possible shelters: Among the suggestions were the Flatiron Building, tents in Central Park and hangars at JFK Airport.
On Wednesday, a homeless advocacy group said it had been told the “Right to Shelter” law, which took effect in 1981, would be partially overturned by executive order.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams plans to sign an executive order to relax the requirements of the “Right to Shelter” law, Gothamist reported Wednesday.
Migrants gather between primary and secondary border fences on Wednesday as the United States prepares to lift COVID-19 era Title 42 restrictions to end this week
Migrants reach from the border fence to try to charge their phones while trapped between primary and secondary border fences
The right, The city explained, is not an administrative policy or a law created by a bill; it’s the result of years of litigation, in three separate cases, that ended with the city’s agreement to provide shelter.
In the first case, in 1979, plaintiffs argued that Section 17 of the New York State Consolidated Laws, which deals with Social Security, requires the government to provide adequate lodging.
For single unhoused residents, the city is required at a minimum to provide “joined” accommodations, which are arranged in dormitories. For families, the city must provide a room with cooking facilities and a bathroom.
Adams, like many of his predecessors, has expressed frustration with the law: David Dinkins in 1990 and Rudy Giuilani in 1999 tried to tinker with it, and Michael Bloomberg unsuccessfully went to court in 2005 to overturn the injunction that gave rise to revoke the right to shelter.
In September, Adams said the ruling “needs to be reassessed.”
Joshua Goldfein, a lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, explained Gothamist he had been told by a Department of Homeless Services attorney Wednesday afternoon that Adams intended to sign an executive order.
Goldfein said the order would allow families to be housed in community shelters if there was no other option.
The order would also lift time restrictions.
Currently, the city must accommodate families arriving at 10 p.m. at 4 a.m.
A bus carrying the Texas migrants arrives at the Port Authority bus station in New York on May 3
The iconic Flatiron Building in Manhattan is one of the possible refuges for migrants. The owner quickly said that this was not possible, because the building is being renovated and gutted
“We’re bracing for some turbulent times,” Ron DeSantis said Wednesday. “If you have a president who turns a blind eye to the border”
News of Adams’ plan came when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a strict immigration law in his state.
The law provides $12 million for DeSantis’ relocation initiative, which gained national attention last year when the governor and his state paid to fly 50 mostly Venezuelan immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
He said he was highlighting the migrant issue.
Democrats accused him of making political pawns out of vulnerable asylum seekers and trying to score political points with the Republican base.
The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent buses of migrants from their states to New York.
Adams, in turn, has provided buses to take migrants to the Canadian border and into Rockland and Orange provinces.