Adams Weakens Right-to-Shelter Rules, Anticipating Migrant Surge
Republican governors of border states have been sending buses of asylum seekers to New York and other Democrat-led cities since last spring, but the city’s decision came as a federal pandemic-era rule that allowed the government to eject thousands of migrants, known as Title 42, is set to expire Thursday night. City officials have said they expect as many as 1,000 people a day to come after the rule is lifted.
Already people have been crossing into the United States from Mexico in anticipation of the change.
New York City has opened eight humanitarian relief centers as city officials have moved to help more than 61,000 migrants who have arrived over the last year.
New York is the only major city in the country that provides “right to shelter,” the result of a legal agreement that requires the city to provide a bed to anyone who needs one under certain conditions.
“We all hope that they never have to take any actions that would be in violation of these rules that they’re suspending,” said Joshua Goldfein, a staff lawyer for the Legal Aid Society, which represents the nonprofit that is the court-appointed monitor for the shelter system, the Coalition for the Homeless.
Under the nightly-deadline rule, homeless families with children who arrive at a shelter-system office by 10 p.m. must be given beds in a shelter the same night. Last July, as the number of migrants was accelerating, some families spent the night in chairs at the main office in the Bronx; it was the first time the nightly deadline had been violated since at least 2014.
Source: The New York Times
