New York City plans to suspend “right to shelter” as migrant influx continues

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — The city of New York is challenging a unique legal arrangement that requires it to provide emergency housing to anyone who requests it, as the city’s housing system is disrupted by the large influx of international migrants since arrived last year is overloaded.

The city filed a request with a court late Tuesday to allow the requirement to be suspended if a state of emergency occurs and the number of single adults in shelters increases rapidly.

The filing came as Mayor Eric Adams embarked on a four-day tour of Latin America that began Wednesday in Mexico. There, he said he would discourage people from coming to New York by telling them that the city’s shelter system was at capacity and its resources were overwhelmed.

The city has sought for months to suspend the so-called right to shelter amid the influx of migrants, arguing that the requirement was never intended to apply to a humanitarian crisis like the recent influx.

New York City has had a shelter-in-place requirement for more than four decades, following a 1981 legal agreement requiring the city to provide temporary housing to every homeless person. No other major city in America has such a requirement.

“Given that more than 122,700 asylum seekers have passed through our reception system since spring 2022 and the three-year cost is expected to exceed $12 billion, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” said Adams, a Democrat, in a statement statement. “New York City cannot continue to do this alone.”

Adams announced the shelter-in-place commitment at the start of the crisis as an expression of the city’s empathy toward asylum seekers. In the months since, his rhetoric has intensified as the city has spent more than $1 billion leasing hotel space, building large emergency shelters and providing government services to migrants who arrive without shelter or work.

“This problem will destroy New York City,” Adams said last month.

The mayor also recently tightened New York’s shelter rules, limiting adult migrants to just 30 days in city facilities due to overcrowding.

Josh Goldfein, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said the city’s application, if successful, would be disastrous for the city.

“What is the alternative? If we don’t have the right to shelter, if we turn people away from the shelter system, if people are now living on the streets, in the subway, in parks, is that the outcome they want?” he said. “We haven’t seen that in decades. I don’t think any New Yorker wants to see that. I don’t think that’s what the city council wants to see, but that’s what will be the result if they get their way here.”