Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday that he plans to move some migrant families with children to homeless shelters, a move that would be an apparent violation of the city’s right-to-housing laws.
During an interview on PIX11, Adams said the move would be necessary because many asylum seekers continue to enter the city’s care.
“In the end we are going to have to transfer women and children to shelters,” said the mayor. “Some migrants may have to move to these outside tents.”
The city’s right to foster law – which Adams is fighting in court – prohibits the city from placing families with children in foster care.
Christine Quinn, a former mayoral spokeswoman who now runs Win, the city’s largest provider of housing for homeless women and children, said mass shelters are “unsafe and inappropriate” for families with children.
“Think of a gymnasium full of cots, a bunkhouse-type room full of cots, where we house people after a hurricane,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t really work as well for single, homeless people, because there’s often a higher level of crime – and not as much room for therapeutic or holistic intervention – in those spaces.”
Quinn noted that homeless families are often housed in units with private bathrooms, kitchens and beds. She said Adams’ proposed change would appear to violate city law.
Adams’ comments came a day after he ordered all city agencies to cut spending by 5% starting in November.
He said the effort is aimed at offsetting the cost of the migrant crisis, which officials said would cost the city $12 billion by 2025.
Last week, the mayor said the immigration crisis “will destroy New York City.”
Officials said more than 111,500 people were in the city’s homeless shelter system, more than 59,400 of whom are asylum seekers, as of Aug. 27. The city estimates that more than 10,000 new people enter the shelter system each month.
“We’re saying you can come from anywhere in the world, come to New York and we will feed you, house you and clothe you for as long as you want, forever,” Adams said during his Sunday television appearance. “That’s not realistic. It’s not sustainable. And that’s what we’re seeing now. It needs to be reexamined.”
2023-09-11 10:16:00
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