New York City failed its obligation to the homeless on Monday night when at least 60 men, many of them immigrant asylum seekers, were denied beds at shelters, said the Legal Aid Association.
This is the latest lapse due to an overloaded system struggled for months to accommodate thousands of migrants, mainly from Latin America.
The Legal Aid Association said the Department of Homeless Services informed it Tuesday morning that 60 men who went to a single men’s shelter on East 30th Street in Manhattan on Monday had were not brought into the shelter that night. This organization represents the Coalition for the Homeless, which oversees conditions in shelters by court order.
The city declined to immediately respond to questions about whether it was denying residents shelter or where those who were not given a bed to sleep in. The denials are first reported by NBC New York.
Under a landmark 1981 agreement, the city was required to provide shelter beds for everyone who wanted one. But this summer, the city’s shelters were strained by an influx of migrants, many of whom were bused by Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, from the Texas border. to pressure Democrats on immigration policy.
As of the end of August, Mayor Eric Adams said there were 5,700 migrants in shelters. As of Monday, the number of people in the main shelter system had grown by 9,000 in three months, to more than 55,000 – an increase of nearly 20%.
In July, the city violated the admissions office right to families with children in the Bronx, when some families sleep on chairs or on the floor. The last time the city failed to provide enough beds for a significant number of single men was in 2009, Legal Aid said. The population of single men’s shelters has grown by nearly 1,000 in the last month alone.
“As part of our effort to address unprecedented demand for shelter services, we have accommodated thousands of newly arrived asylum seekers,” the Department of Homeless Services said. “This includes hundreds of people yesterday alone, and we continue to open emergency sites across the city,” said in a statement.
The number of 60 men denied shelter on Monday, the society said, does not include many who were processed at the receiving office and assigned to shelters elsewhere in the city. street, then taken to those shelters, only to be told there were no beds, and sent back to the receiving office.
Legal Aid attributes part of the problem to the continuing influx of migrants. The society said seven more buses from Texas arrived on Monday, and more than 300 men arrived at the 30th Street shelter that day.
Yet another part of the problem, Joshua Goldfein, a corporate employee attorney, said there are beds available in the system, but the city doesn’t allow newcomers to use them because of bureaucracy and inflexible policies.
The city, for example, has shelters it designates for people with mental illness and substance abuse problems, he said, and has refused to put people in those shelters if they have not been evaluated and identified as needing them.
The city declined to immediately respond to Legal Aid’s assertion that there are beds available but not in use.
“The city has known for months that they are facing an increasing number of people coming to eat and drink, and they already have enough beds in the system to give everyone a bed,” said Mr. Goldfein. “It looks like they’re having a hard time managing the number of people coming in and making use of the resources they have.”
Sheena Jasmine contribution report.
