Writer: Remy Waldman
Editor: Kayla Buth
Fall 2023
New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, has urged the courts to suspend the 42-year-old rule requiring the city to provide shelter for anyone who asks. In 1979, lawyer Robert Hayes, filed a class-action lawsuit against the city and state of New York on behalf of the homeless population to encourage emergency care for those in need. In the case Callahan v. Carey, Plaintiff Robert Callahan, a man living among flophouses in lower Manhattan, argued that these individuals not only need shelter but clean and safe conditions with winter approaching. As a result, the city and state signed a “right to shelter” marker for New York in 1981 (Holder & Capps, 2023). This landmark decision has stood for four decades, helping families across the city and bringing the rate of unsheltered homelessness down.
Mayor Adams has recently gone to court to rule over the mandate. Over the past 18 months, more than 145,000 migrants crossed the United States southern border and reached New York. These immigrants have been increasing the homelessness rates in New York City, and thus the need for resources from the city’s legislature. The city requested to suspend the rule because of the influx of migrants, causing them to be unable to carry out the regulations. Along with lawyer Kathy Hochul, New York argues that the mandate could not stand the economic test of time. Adam points out that when the mandate was enacted, the homeless population was a fraction of its current size. Unlike in 1981, the city now spends an average of $383 per night per family to provide for the tens of thousands (Gay, 2023).
This past month, the city requested to have the right to opt out of their responsibilities if they lack the resources and capability to provide proper shelter. Mayor Adams argues that with the ongoing migrant crisis, New York City is facing never-before-seen challenges. In his announcement of the new shelter restrictions, Adams stated “New York City has stepped up
while waiting for the substantial help necessary from federal and state partners to comprehensively address this crisis and support the tens of thousands of asylum seekers in our care” (Alfonseca, 2023). Yet, even when the migrant crisis declines, the housing crisis will continue.
America’s two largest cities, New York City and Los Angeles, have skyrocketed numbers of homeless populations. However, the two differ greatly in their sheltering. Weakening the right to shelter in New York will result in the cardboard boxes and patched tents that have already taken over the streets of Los Angeles. The Adams Administration has requested a cease to shelter single adults and a pause due to the unintended circumstances of today (Balk, 2023). Still committed to keeping people off the streets, Hochul and Adams express the unprecedented scale of the human crisis. The migrant situation in New York has stretched the city’s resources thin. Coalition leaders and The New York Shelter for All in Need Equally, NY SANE, signed five principles for humane treatment of not only migrants but also homeless New Yorkers. They demand all families be provided with safe shelter and that the state of New York uphold its responsibilities of providing shelter (ABC 7, 2023 ). Although the city is scrambling, the people who rely on shelter in New York have advocates in the legal system who will continue to fight for adjustments instead of elimination.
New York City provides shelter for tens of thousands of people. Whether in New York for 30 years or 30 days, the government provides care when needed. The right-to-shelter mandate protects those in need. The mandate may need modifications due to the current circumstances of the city and its resources. With the complexities this situation presents, homeless advocates and the Adams administration will have to work together to protect the city and its people.
References
Alfonseca, K. (2023, September 26). New York’s right-to-shelter policy faces scrutiny amid
migrant crisis. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/US/new-yorks-shelter-policy-faces-scrutiny-amid-migrant/story?i d=103498346
Balk, T. (2023, October 9). Without shelter right, N.Y.C. homelessness could grow.
Gay, M. (2023, October 15). Why New York needs a right to shelter. The New York Times.
Gov. Kathy Hochul says New York’s right to shelter law being misinterpreted amid migrant
crisis. ABC7 New York. (2023, October 12). https://abc7ny.com/right-to-shelter-nyc-migrants-kathy-hochul/13902220/
Holder, S., & Capps, K. (2023, June 2). New York City’s right-to-shelter mandate for
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