NYC Asks Judge to Suspend Right-to-Shelter Mandate

New York always has been a sanctuary city, with Lady Liberty towering above the harbor holding a torch to light the Golden Door.

But as it emerged from the cusp of bankruptcy in the mid-1970s, NYC struggled to find the resources to handle a large number of people who ended up on the streets of the city seeking shelter.

In 1981, as the result of a lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society, New York City signed a consent decree establishing a right-to-shelter mandate in NYC.

This week, in the midst of a migration crisis and a homelessness crisis that has overwhelmed NYC’s shelter system, city attorneys have asked Erika Edwards, a New York Supreme Court justice, to suspend the city’s obligation to provide shelter to anyone who asks for it.

“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers having come through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and projected costs of over $12 billion for three years, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Mayor Eric Adams said, in a statement released in tandem with the petition to the court.

In a letter to Edwards, the city’s attorneys also asked for the 1981 consent decree to be suspended whenever the governor or mayor declares a state of emergency and there is an influx of people.

NYC officials have estimated that up to 10,000 asylum-seeking migrants are arriving in the city on a weekly basis. The city has spent millions of dollars this year renting hotel rooms for use by asylum-seekers, establishing the Roosevelt Hotel as its primary influx point for migrants, who previously were being dropped off at the dilapidated Port Authority Bus Terminal.

During a July heat wave, the Roosevelt was filled to capacity and hundreds of people ended up sleeping on the sidewalks outside the hotel. Earlier this month, in an effort to free up some of its shelter space, NYC expanded its housing voucher program to allow the vouchers to be used by shelter residents to move upstate.

Thus far, upstate NY municipalities have not agreed to take in migrants, with one upstate county also declaring it won’t accept NYC housing vouchers from NYC shelter residents who move there.

The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless issued a joint statement warning that the suspension of the 1981 consent decree would “gut” protections for new arrivals in NYC and result in the number of homeless people on the streets “balloon[ing] to a level unseen in our city since the Great Depression.”

“This is the city’s most significant and damaging attempt to retreat on its legal and moral obligation to provide safe and decent shelter for people without homes since that right was established 42 years ago,” the groups said.

Adams said the city is not trying to end the consent decree, which he said was “never intended to apply to the extraordinary circumstances our city faces today.”

NYC isn’t the only US city overwhelmed by an influx of migrants. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that thousands of migrants are being deposited on the streets of San Diego-by the US government.

With shelters in the area filled to capacity and Border Patrol resources pushed to the breaking point, immigration agents have been dropping busloads of people off on the streets, at bus stops and train stations, WSJ reported.

San Diego County officials, who estimate that more than 7,800 migrants were dropped off in San Diego during the last two weeks of September, have declared the situation to be a humanitarian crisis