NYC’s 60-Day Shelter Policy Not Adequately Communicated to Pregnant Women, Reveals New Study

NEW YORK – New York City’s policy of limiting migrant families’ stays in shelters to 60 days has been suddenly implemented over the past six months, with problems such as the city’s failure to notify pregnant women that they could be free, as revealed by a new study carried out by the municipal manager.

The city began evacuating migrant families in early January to relieve the pressure on its overstretched shelter system. However, women in the last trimester of pregnancy were exempt after it was discovered that a 26-year-old girl who was almost nine months pregnant was among those abducted.

According to the report released this week by Governor Brad Lander, that policy was never put in writing or adequately communicated to agencies, shelter providers or the women themselves.

“A written policy was never implemented. Employees and contractors did not receive that information. The notice you get when they give you 60 days’ notice is not telling you, if you’re pregnant, you’re exempt,” Lander said Thursday at a news conference.

The city’s policy allows families to reapply for foster beds, although it does not guarantee another bed.

Concerned that children were ending up in the corners of the city, far from their schools, city officials then said they would try to keep families in or near the areas where their children live. hand

But Lander’s investigation says that educators and families reported to his office that they did not receive this attention. She says at least three families from an elementary school in Brooklyn left foster care not because they were ready, but because they were offered places in other areas.

Lander urged Mayor Eric Adams to postpone the 60-day rule until the end of the school semester.

The report does not systematically document the housing, health or educational outcomes of migrants who leave a reception centre. Lander said the city didn’t do that either, and only tracked whether migrants were living in the reception system or not.

In response to Lander’s report, the mayor’s office contends that 60-day eviction notices — along with 30-day notices for single adult immigrants — are one of the few tools it has to remove immigrants. – out of shelters.

“Nearly half of the families whose 60-day notices have expired, and more than 65% of all immigrants who have passed through our centers, have left our foster care system, without one a migrant family with children forced to sleep on the street,” Kayla Mamelak, spokeswoman for the City Council, said in a statement.

According to the report, less than one in five children were removed from their school after their family’s eviction notice expired.

New York is one of the few cities in the United States that is required by law to provide housing to everyone who asks for it, thanks to a court case that goes back decades. . On the other hand, schools in the United States are legally required to enroll underage immigrant students, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.

Mamelak reiterated the city’s position that the Biden administration must fill gaps in funding for refugee resettlement programs. These federal programs benefit almost none of the 65,000 migrants in New York’s shelter system, many of whom are asylum seekers or have temporary legal status, but not refugees.

“A national humanitarian crisis requires a national solution,” said Mamelak.

Migrant rights advocates say they have to help hundreds of parents negotiate on their own with shelter managers to let them stay in their neighborhood.

Moving families from one shelter to another is a daily problem for New York Councilwoman Gale Brewer and her Manhattan staff, who have handled dozens of cases reported by schools and other community members.

“They call us saying something like, ‘They’re on their way to Queens,’ and we panic,” Brewer said.

Some of the schools in your area benefit from migrant students because they don’t have enough students enrolled, and homeless students bring in extra money. Schools are usually suitable for students because they have a mix of languages.

Staff, school staff and parent volunteers hurriedly collected papers for the children. To help families stay in their current shelter or be moved to one nearby, Brewer says city officials have stuck to an informal agreement — a system she like a modern “underground railway”.