For thousands of migrant families living in New York City’s emergency shelter system, this could be a cold and bleak New Year. In the middle of winter, they have been told they have to leave their accommodation, but there are no guarantees that they will have a bed elsewhere.
The countdown is on for people like Karina Obando, a 38-year-old Ecuadorian mother who has until January 5 to leave the old hotel where she is staying with her two young children.
Where he will live now is anyone’s guess. After that date she can reapply to the municipal shelter system, but relocation may not be immediate and she could end up in one of the huge tent shelters far from her 11-year-old son’s school. .
“Let’s sleep on the train or on the street”
“He told my son ‘Take advantage. Enjoy the hotel because right now we have a roof over our heads,'” Obando said in Spanish outside Row NYC, an imposing 1,300-room hotel that the city has turned into a shelter for migrants in the heart of of the theater district. “Because they are going to take us out of here and we are going to sleep on the train or on the street.”
A handful of U.S. cities grappling with the influx of homeless migrants have imposed their own limits on shelter stays, citing a variety of reasons, including high cost, lack of space and a desire to put pressure on beneficiaries. to find their own accommodation or leave the city.
Chicago imposed a 60-day limit last month and will begin evicting people in early January. In Massachusetts, Democratic Governor Maura Healey has limited the number of migrant families in emergency shelters to 7,500.
Denver had limited the maximum stay for these families to 37 days, but paused the measure this month due to the arrival of winter. Adults alone cannot spend more than 14 days online.
Extensions for 3,500 families
In New York, the first families are expected to meet the 60-day deadline shortly after Christmas, but the mayor’s office indicated they will receive extensions until early January. About 3,500 families have been notified so far.
Unlike other large cities, New York has had a “right to shelter” for decades, which requires local authorities to offer emergency shelter to anyone who requests it.
But authorities have warned migrants that there are no guarantees they will be able to stay in the same hotel, or even in the same neighborhood.
Adult migrants without children have a shorter maximum stay: 30 days.
Those who are evicted but still want help are told to go to a so-called “resettlement center” that opened in late October in a former Catholic school in Manhattan’s East Village.
They refuse to leave the city
Dozens of men and women, many with their suitcases and other belongings in tow, line up every morning despite the cold to ask to renew their stay. They are offered a free, one-way ticket to anywhere in the world. The majority reject it.
Some find another accommodation for 30 days, but many leave empty-handed and must return to the line the next day to try their luck.
“I’m afraid of dying sleeping on the street,” said Bárbara Coromoto Monzón Peña, a 22-year-old Venezuelan on her second consecutive day in line.
Obando said his oldest son, 19, has not been able to find a rental since he and his ex-wife used up their 30 days at Row NYC.
“As a mother, it hurts me,” she said, bursting into tears. “He sleeps on the train, in the street, in the cold. She is suffering a lot and now it is our turn. “They had told me that this country was different, but for me it has been hell.”
Adams has insisted that the city is doing more for migrant families than almost anywhere else. New York is on track to spend billions of dollars opening shelters, paying for hotel rooms and meals, and helping asylum seekers overcome bureaucratic barriers.
The councilor has repeated that municipal resources are being exhausted, with more than 67,200 migrants in his care, with many more joining every week.
There is no more space in New York
“We are doing everything we can to treat families as humanely as possible,” said Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman for Adams. “We have used every corner of New York City possible and we are simply staying without good options.
The municipal government intends to prevent families from having to sleep on the street, the spokesperson said, adding that there will be an orderly process for them to request another 60-day stay.
Migrant advocates say the end result will be to continue uprooting vulnerable families during the coldest months of the year and disrupting schooling for new students who have just arrived at the centers.
“Taking families with children out in the middle of winter, right after the holidays, is just cruel,” said Liza Schwartzwald, director of the New York Immigrant Coalition.
Adams stressed that migrant children will not be forced to change centers when they move. But some could face long journeys if they are relocated to new shelters far from their schools.
“We have no escape plan”
Migrant parents maintain that two months is not enough time to find employment, place children in kindergartens or schools and save enough for a rent.
Obando, who arrived in the United States three months ago, said that beyond some sporadic work as a cleaner, she has not been able to find regular employment because she has no one who can care for her 3-year-old daughter and her husband is still detained in the border in Arizona.
“It’s not that Ecuadorians are coming to take away their jobs or that we are lazy,” he said. “We’re good workers. More time is all we ask for.”
For Ana Vásquez, a 22-year-old Venezuelan who is eight months pregnant, the situation is even more urgent.
Her baby is due at the end of December, but she has until January 8 to leave Row NYC, where she spent the last four months with her sister and two young nieces.
“They’re going to leave me on the street,” Vásquez lamented on a cold morning outside the hotel this month. “We have no escape plan. The situation is difficult, even more so with the baby.”
2023-12-16 16:49:00
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