Mediaboss Marketing

Inside a Midtown church-turned-migrant help center, volunteer Alexia Sol has recently begun handing out a new form: a record of daily activities. The migrants are meant to use the form to track their efforts to leave the shelter system in hopes that the accounting will help them remain in it.

Always bring this paper with you, Sol recently told a group of men in Spanish at the Metro Baptist Church. She instructed them to meticulously log English classes, meetings with lawyers and any other proactive steps theyve taken to put the citys shelter system behind them. Record the date, time and place for everything you do, she said.

We cant be sure this will work, but its the best advice we can give right now, states a message on the log.

Starting this Wednesday, May 22, adult migrants can be evicted from city shelters after reaching a limit of 30 or 60 days -- depending on their age -- with limited opportunities to remain, under new shelter rules agreed upon in a court settlement in March. Under the agreement, migrants who have reached their stay limit will only be allowed to remain in shelter under extenuating circumstances, including making significant efforts to find their own place to stay hence the accounting suggested by Sol.

Migrants awaiting assistance at Metro Baptist Church in Midtown.

Arya Sundaram / Gothamist

There are approximately 250 migrants whose shelter stays will expire in the first five days of the new policy rollout, between May 22 and May 27, according to City Hall spokesperson Noah Levine. Many more will face the same challenge. From April 24 through early last week, city staffers at migrant shelters and intake centers alerted some 6,500 adult migrants that their shelter stays would be limited to 30 or 60 days, and theyd only be granted extensions under certain circumstances, City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said.

And starting May 27, all adult migrants who enter the shelter system will be subject to the new rules, Camille Joseph Varlack, Mayor Eric Adams' chief of staff, told reporters in a video briefing on Friday.

As of Friday morning, 29 migrants had applied for shelter extensions, Varlack said. She added that 14 were approved and 15 were denied.

Although city officials have yet to fully define what constitutes significant efforts to find new housing, migrants have been racing to document their efforts to get settled. At once, a network of attorneys and aid workers has mobilized to help prove their case, including by creating a paper trail.

The looming deadline marks a new era in the citys response to the migrant crisis, as the Adams administration increases pressure on the 65,000 migrants under the citys care to leave the shelter system and gain independence whether or not they are prepared to do so.

The administration has not indicated how many of those migrants it expects to leave the system. Josh Goldfein, a Legal Aid attorney involved in the settlement negotiations, said he will closely monitor the citys actions to see if they comply with the terms of the agreement.

When Sol instructed Venezuelan migrant Dorwar Perez, 24, to track his meetings, he nodded and replied mhm. He put the new form she provided into a bubble wrap bag he uses for storing important documents.

Dorwar and two of his fellow asylum-seeking friends said they planned to bring the new forms to their appointments the following day to get municipal IDs.

If he and his friends are denied shelter, Dorwar said in Spanish, I dont know whats going to happen with us. Where will we go?

Adams defends the shelter limits despite criticism from City Council leaders and the city comptroller, and has cited the need to reduce migrant costs by nudging migrants to leave the shelter system.

New York City's government has spent over $4.5 billion on the migrant crisis since July 2022. In unveiling his latest executive budget, Adams credited the shelter limits for helping to reduce migrant costs by $586 million through June 2025.

It's hard for me to understand how lots of people aren't going to end up on the street.

But a new report from the Independent Budget Office, the citys fiscal watchdog, says the administration hasn't considered the potential negative consequences of the shelter restrictions.

The budget office's report estimates the policy could cost the city over $2 billion per year, which includes health care for migrants who end up homeless, buses for public school students who move to new locations, and the impact to the local economy due to mail issues keeping migrants from accessing work permits.

Mamelak, from City Hall, said in a statement that the report seems to have a complete misunderstanding of the realities of this crisis, makes several inaccurate assumptions, and, in many cases, just simply misstates the facts.

She took issue with the budget office's assumption that a quarter of migrants who receive notices to leave shelter will become homeless, and the lack of consideration of migrants already working under-the table.

According to a shelter placement letter obtained by Gothamist, migrants are informed of the possibility to extend their stay if they meet one of a range of conditions, such as documentation of significant efforts to leave the shelter system or travel outside of the City of New York.

That could include applying for asylum, finding a job or taking English classes, among several other examples.

The more steps you take, the more likely you will be to demonstrate that you have made significant efforts, the letter said in Spanish.

You should document all the steps you take to leave temporary shelter, either presenting a document or taking photos with your phone that show the steps you have taken, the letter continued.

Nonetheless, immigrant and housing advocates say they worry about migrants being unfairly pushed out of the shelter system. Some point to the dearth of intensive case management services the city promised to help migrants exit the shelter system. A recent comptrollers office report cited the lack of such services for migrant families.

It's hard for me to understand how lots of people aren't going to end up on the street, said Deborah Berkman, an attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group. It seems like a lot of the standards are very difficult to comply with.

In particular, she voiced concern about migrants working without formal authorization, which could jeopardize their chances of getting asylum, in order to keep their shelter spots.

Power Malu, who helps run the migrant help center at Metro Baptist Church, said he hopes the new logbooks his volunteers are giving migrants will help show the city the types of activities they should accept as significant efforts to leave the shelter system.

This happens all the time with the city, said Malu, director of the nonprofit Artists Athletes Activists helping local migrants. They implement these policies, and they don't even know they're talking about or how it's going to be rolled out.

Malu added: But the bottom line is that we can't wait to see. We have to just act.

While he worries about what's ahead, Perez said he doesnt want to stay in the shelter system indefinitely.

He said he wants to avoid the fate of some other migrants hes met who have stayed for months in shelter without finding a job, or filing their application to get asylum and work permits.

As long as we're processing our (legal) documents, we need nothing more than to look for a job and leave the shelter, Perez said.

View original post here:
Migrants and advocates brace for stricter rules in NYC shelters as evictions loom - Gothamist