New York City Mayor Eric Adams has asked a judge to temporarily suspend a 42-year-old court ruling requiring the city to shelter homeless adults amid a surge in asylum seekers that’s weighed on the municipal budget.
The request, dated Tuesday and filed by a lawyer for the city, asks for permission to suspend the obligations when the city lacks the “resources and capacity to establish and maintain sufficient shelter.”
New York’s unique “right to shelter” law is the result of a 1981 legal settlement during the administration of Mayor Edward Koch. The mandate has forced the city to turn to securing hotels to house migrants. It has opened 130 emergency shelters and eight temporary facilities to manage the surge.
“This ongoing flood of asylum-seekers arriving in New York City from the southern border represents a crisis of national, indeed international dimension; yet, the challenges and fiscal burden of this national crisis have fallen almost exclusively upon the city,” Assistant Corporation Counsel Jonathan Pines wrote to Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Deborah Kaplan.
Read more: NYC Spends $8 Million a Day to House Migrants as Influx Swells
Pines said that as of May 15, more than 44,000 asylum-seekers remain in locations provided by the city, with more arriving each day. Including the “resident homeless” population, New York’s Department of Homeless Services is currently sheltering more than 81,000 individuals — a 75 % increase from the previous year, according to the filing.
“The unfortunate reality is that the city has extended itself further than its resources will allow, placing in jeopardy the city’s obligations to manage its fisc in order to maintain critical infrastructure and services and provide for the well-being of all of its citizens,” Pines said.
Even if a suspension is granted, Adams’s move faces certain court challenges from advocacy groups.
--With assistance from Laura Nahmias.
