Last week, Hell Gate broke the story of the hundreds of migrant men forced to sleep outside of an East Village "reticketing" center. These men were being made to reapply to stay in a City shelter due to a 30-day limit on shelter stays for single adults imposed by the Adams administration, after which they would be encouraged to accept a flight out of the city before being given another shelter placement. Hell Gate spoke to multiple migrants who, after leaving their original shelter, complained of having to restart their wait on line each day, after leaving it to go work, find food, or attend important appointments for their immigration cases.That left them with nowhere to sleep for days on end, and needing to stay close to the shelter to get back on line early in the morning.
Now, the CITY is reporting that City Hall has figured out a simple solution to help people navigate this mess that City hall itself created—keeping a list. Via the CITY:
According to the new system, explained by Josh Goldfein, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society which represents the Coalition for the Homeless, people who apply for another 30-days in shelter are now being put on one master list that carries over for multiple days. If a person’s number is called while they’re not there to respond, they should still maintain their place at the front of the line, he said.
But despite the appearance of this list (which only materialized at the prodding of Legal Aid lawyers and journalists), City Hall still seems determined to make staying in City shelters as difficult as possible, for people who have had only thirty days to line up new housing options.
For over a year now, City Hall has pinned the blame for the City's often-haphazard handling of migrants on the federal government, for allowing migrants into the country but not providing the City with enough resources to house and support them. "Our administration is the last place where blame should be laid. We have led in managing this national humanitarian crisis almost entirely alone for more than a year now," a City Hall spokesperson told the CITY, repeating a line of argument they've used to little effect in efforts to move the state and federal governments.
Despite City Hall's protests about migrants and the hole that officials claim the cost of housing people has blasted in the City's budget, after eighteen months of increased migrant arrivals, New York is seeing many bright spots. More and more migrants are now receiving their work permits, migrant students have led to an increase in enrollment at City schools (which has boosted federal support for our schools), and a new Venezuelan restaurant corridor is growing in Queens. Meanwhile, only 10 percent of people offered flights out of town have taken the City up on the offer.
Eric Adams's dire warning that increased migration would "destroy" New York City, and that people would be left with no other option than to sleep on the street, always appeared more of a threat by City Hall than an actual unavoidable reality. As one small bureaucratic fix (a list) shows, it's not so much whether New York is going to be "destroyed" by increased migration but rather if mismanagement and a need for cover to pursue an austerity agenda is letting Eric Adams say it is.
Some links to add to your reading list:
