New York City asked a court on Tuesday to temporarily suspend a rule requiring it to provide housing to all homeless people, a rule that has attracted 70,000 migrants to the city in 10 months and limited resources. Is done.
The City Legal Department sent a letter to the Manhattan Supreme Court requesting that the law in practice since 1984 (Callahan v. Carey) be amended, without specifying how long the suspension would last, although a statement by Mayor Eric Adams specified that “we are not in any way demanding the abolition of the right to shelter.”
The influx of migrants has saturated public shelters and the city is paying thousands of dollars a day to the nearly 150 hotels it has had to rent in the city and in some counties in the state’s north – where it has faced resistance. There is – both families with children as well as single adults to explore.
According to the mayor, $1,000 million has already been spent on providing them with various services in addition to shelter, such as food, school places for minors who have come with their families, and minimal medical services.
“The City Can’t Provide Care on Its Own”
Adams, who has repeatedly called on the federal government to expedite financial aid and work permits for the thousands of migrants she is hosting, made it clear that with this measure of legal protection she will not be able to meet Joe Biden’s administration or others. Want to trap less than the cities. ,
“Since we cannot provide care to an unlimited number of people and we are already overburdened, it is in the best interest of everyone, including those who want to come to the United States, to that the city alone cannot provide.” Take care of everyone who crosses our border,” he said.
“Being dishonest about it will only result in the collapse of our system, and we need our partners in the (federal) government to know and share the truth.”
He said today’s action will allow him to “get clarity from the court and preserve the right to housing for the tens of thousands in our care who were previously both homeless and asylum seekers.”
“We now have more asylum seekers than homeless New Yorkers,” he said.
“Beyond Despair”
A good portion of those arriving in New York have done so on trips organized by Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, who has taken chartered buses across the border from Mexico with hundreds of migrants on grounds that “progressive cities”—New York, Washington and Chicago, Democratic With mayors, there will be open arms for migrants crowding the border.
However, of those three cities, New York is the only one that by law must provide mandatory housing for anyone.
The city’s decision to resort to the judiciary to end this obligation immediately caused a reaction from New York’s Making the Road organization, which provides services to migrants, which described it as “beyond despair”.
“It’s a surefire way to ensure that more and more people sleep on the streets, not the way to address homelessness and the needs of asylum seekers,” said Jose Lopez, the organization’s co-executive director.
