The mayor of New York City has overturned portions of the 40-year-old “Right to Shelter” law that guarantees a bed to anyone who needs it, as the city braces for an expected influx of migrants when Title 42 am will be canceled on Thursday.
Eric Adams and his team are looking for solutions as 61,000 migrants arrived in the city last year.
Thursday’s lifting of pandemic-era border control policies is likely to result in even more arrivals, and New York is struggling to accommodate the newcomers. On Monday, city officials were asked to come up with a list of possible shelters: Proposals included the Flatiron Building, tents in Central Park and hangars at JFK Airport.
Adams announced Wednesday that he had signed Executive Order 402, which repealed portions of the 1981 Right to Shelter Act.
New York Mayor Eric Adams plans to sign an executive order relaxing the requirements of the Right to Shelter Act, Gothamist reported Wednesday
Eric Adams meets with groups of migrants at a shelter in Brooklyn
Migrants are seen at an emergency shelter in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City
On February 1, migrants are seen sleeping on the streets of New York City
Migrants gather between primary and secondary border fences on Wednesday as the United States prepares to lift COVID-19-era Title 42 restrictions, which are due to end this week
Migrants reach over the border fence and try to charge their phones while stuck between primary and secondary border fences
Under the new rules, New York City no longer has to provide migrant families with their own room and can send them to shared accommodation
The law, the city explained, is not an administrative directive or a law created by a bill; It’s the result of years of litigation in three separate cases, which ended with the city agreeing to provide housing.
Joshua Goldfein, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society, condemned Adams’ order
In the first case, in 1979, plaintiffs argued that Article 17 of the New York State Consolidated Laws, which covers welfare, required the government to provide adequate housing.
For single, unaccommodated people, the city is required to provide at least “communal accommodation,” furnished in the style of 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 Giuliani in 1999 tried to tinker with it, and Michael Bloomberg unsuccessfully went to court in 2005 to overturn the court order denying the right to lodging underpins.
In September, Adams said the verdict needed “reevaluation.”
Joshua Goldfein, an attorney for the Legal Aid Society, told Gothamist an attorney for the Department of Homeless Services informed him Wednesday afternoon that Adams intended to sign an executive order.
Goldfein said the order would allow families to be housed in communal accommodation when there was no other option.
The order would also lift the time restrictions.
Currently, the city is required to provide accommodations until 4 a.m. for families arriving by 10 p.m.
A bus carrying migrants from Texas arrives at the Port Authority bus station in New York on May 3
The iconic Flatiron Building in Manhattan is one of the possible shelters for migrants. The owner quickly explained that this was not possible as the building was currently being renovated and gutted
“We’re preparing for turbulent times,” Ron DeSantis said on Wednesday. “When you have a president who has turned a blind eye to the border”
News of Adam’s plan came as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a tough immigration law in his state.
The law provides $12 million for DeSantis’ migrant resettlement initiative, which drew 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 would highlight the migrant issue.
The Democrats accused him of turning vulnerable asylum seekers into political pawns and trying to score political points with the Republican base.
The governors of Texas and Arizona have sent buses with migrants from their states to New York.
Adams, in turn, provided buses earlier this year to take migrants to the border with Canada and to upstate counties — Rockland and Orange. However, many reportedly returned, blaming the freezing cold weather.