New York City will ease up on its 60-day shelter eviction notices for migrant families with children in kindergarten through sixth grade, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday. The measure is intended to prevent young children from changing schools in the middle of the year.
Beneficiaries of the new policy will be granted more time in the city's care, under the same shelter they were assigned for their first 60 days in the system. Under the old law, migrant families who reached their time limits without securing housing outside of city shelters would have to receive new placements at the city's Roosevelt Hotel intake center.
City Hall said the move will allow children to attend the same schools without the city spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on bussing them from farther distances.
Adams also announced that the city will create a centralized mail hub where asylum-seekers can access important government correspondence about their applications for asylum and work authorization, Gothamist reports. The proposal came after immigrant rights advocates said asylum-seekers who were shuttling between shelter locations were unable to easily access their mail.
"We're doing everything we can to make sure that our shelter system serves its purpose as a soft landing spot for new arrivals— not their final landing spot," Adams said in a statement. He announced the city's shelter census has been declining for 19 straight weeks, citing it as proof that our "efforts are working."
"The new policies we're implementing today will build on our successes, save taxpayers millions, and help even more migrants take their next steps towards fulfilling their American Dream," he continued.
The Mayor's office also attributed the reported drop to stricter policies from the Biden administration that have lessened unauthorized crossings in the U.S.-Mexico border, and eventually the flow of migrants reaching New York City.
The administration has also faced backlash from its handling of the migrant crisis, which has seen approximately 223,000 newcomers arrive across the city since the spring of 2022, according to AM-NY. Among those criticisms were that the 60-day limit for migrant families would be disruptive to children's schooling and that moving between different shelters could cause them to miss important notices in the mail.
But amid the new policy announcements, the office has been met with mixed reviews from immigrant rights and housing advocates.
Christine Quinn, the president and CEO of housing provider Win, said allowing the 60-day shelter stay limit to remain in place leaves "countless families in a perpetual state of limbo."
"While we applaud the City for limiting the scope of the 60-day rule, this measure falls disappointingly short of ending the rule in its entirety," said Quinn in a statement. "Evicting families from shelter is inhumane, destabilizing, and not a solution to this crisis."
On the other hand, Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition urged the city to invest in more affordable housing instead of shuttling newcomers between different emergencies as a result of "unnecessary shelter evictions." He also celebrated the new measures.
"We commend Mayor Adams and his administration for finally listening to advocates and immigrant New Yorkers by issuing the new rules for shelter residents, which will ensure the educational and emotional stability of children living in shelters," Awawdeh said.
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