NEW YORK — New York Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order Friday to repeal “immediately” the rule that a homeless person had to spend 90 days in a shelter to qualify for a voucher that delivered by the city for the rental of a dwelling.
According to the mayor, removing this rule will help more people gain access to permanent housing as soon as possible and without burdening taxpayers.
The flow of immigrants arriving in the city since last year, which already faced a lack of affordable housing, has overwhelmed public shelters, forcing the Adams Administration to resort to renting hotels and other spaces in the metropolitan area. and upstate to locate them.
Adams believes the executive order will help both families and single adults “get the help they need when they need it, with more precision and less paperwork and red tape.”
Last month the City Council (local legislature) approved a package of measures, including lifting the 90-day rule, aimed at helping the homeless to leave shelters, which in turn would free up space for the flow of immigrants, as well as another that considered beneficiaries who have been sued by their owners for unpaid rent.
The projects were approved with the opposition of the mayor, who claimed that putting them into operation would be more expensive because it adds more beneficiaries for the aid vouchers and that would result in increasing the waiting list for that benefit.
His Administration indicated then that options were being evaluated before the action of the Council.
With today’s executive order, Adams takes credit for the measure that benefits the occupants of the shelters (mostly immigrants) and leaves it unclear what his attitude will be about the other decisions of the Council.
He also called on the state legislature to evaluate housing projects that were pending in the session that ended last week.
“We continue to do everything in our power to address this housing crisis, but as we’ve said, we need you, Albany (state government)” for projects it believes should be considered, including allowing for office conversion (to housing) as well as removing the housing limit in Midtown Manhattan, he said.
2023-06-17 02:25:37
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