New York City is challenging a unique legal agreement that requires the city to provide emergency housing to anyone in need, as the city’s housing system has been strained by an influx of international immigrants since last year.
The city filed a request late Tuesday asking the court to allow a stay of that requirement as the single-adult housing population grows rapidly during the state of emergency.
The filing comes as Mayor Eric Adams embarks on a Latin America four-day tourStarting on Wednesday, he said in Mexico that he would prevent people from coming to New York and told them that the city’s shelter system was at capacity and resources were overwhelmed.
The city has been taking action to suspend so-called right to asylum Migrant numbers have surged for months, but they argue the requirement was never intended to apply to the humanitarian crisis of the recent influx.
New York City’s housing requirements have been in place for more than four decades since a 1981 legal agreement requiring the city to provide temporary housing to every homeless person. No other large city in the United States has such a requirement.
“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and with costs expected to exceed $12 billion over three years, it is clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Adams, a Democrat, said in a statement. statement. “New York City cannot continue Do this alone. “
Adams made the shelter request at the beginning of the crisis to show the city’s compassion for asylum seekers. His rhetoric has hardened in the months since, as the city has spent more than $1 billion leasing hotel space, building massive emergency shelters and providing government services to immigrants without housing or jobs.
“This problem will devastate New York City,” Adams said last month.
The mayor also recently tightened New York’s shelter rules, limiting adult immigrants to no longer than 30 days in city-run facilities because the facilities are overcrowded.
Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society, said the city’s request, if successful, would be catastrophic for the city.
“What’s the alternative? If we don’t have the right to shelter, if we keep people out of the shelter system, if people are now living on the streets, in the subways, in the parks, is this the outcome they want?” he said. “This is something we haven’t seen in decades. I don’t think any New Yorker wants to see this. I don’t think city officials want to see this, but if they win here, this is what will happen.” .”
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