Adi Talwar
City Limits’ series on family homelessness in New York City is supported by Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York and The Family Homelessness Coalition. City Limits is responsible for all editorial decisions.
The city’s housing vacancy rate plunged to 1.41 percent in 2023, the lowest it has been since 1968, officials announced Thursday. Options were particularly scarce for low-income New Yorkers: just 0.39 percent of units renting for under $1,100 were available last year.
“When we force people to rely on public handouts, we not only harm their perception of what makes America great, but undermine the important truth that when people come here, they want to work.”
Los primeros desalojos de familias inmigrantes con niños bajo la política de estadía de 60 días de la alcaldía comenzó el 9 de enero. Desde entonces, unas 1.600 familias se han visto obligadas a abandonar sus refugios tras expirar su plazo, mientras que otras 7.200 han recibido avisos de 60 días que expirarán en las próximas semanas.
The first evictions of migrant families with children under City Hall’s 60-day shelter policy began on Jan. 9. Since then, about 1,600 families have been forced to leave their shelters after their time expired, while another 7,200 have been given 60-day notices that will expire in the weeks to come.
The first four months of Fiscal Year 2024 saw timely processing of just 14.3 percent of cash assistance applications—a new low—and 41.6 percent of SNAP applications. Delays can have serious consequences for applicants, from hunger to missed rent payments that can put families at risk of eviction.
“Black New Yorkers are disproportionately affected by homelessness, making up 58 percent of shelter residents; 80 percent of the workers caring for these individuals are women of color, yet the top ranks of the organizations that employ them and set organizational policies are overwhelmingly white.”
In his annual address Wednesday, his third since taking office in 2022, Mayor Eric Adams touched on plans for a “Tenant Protection Cabinet,” developing affordable housing on two dozen city-owned sites, and issuing new NYCHA Section 8 vouchers. But several advocates said the speech fell short in addressing the city’s homelessness crisis.
While supporters say New York City’s right to counsel program needs additional funding to cover all the qualified tenants who need the legal help, they’ve also hailed it a success, and are now pushing to replicate it statewide.
“Instead of 100,000 migrants by mid-2024, we expect to care for 80,000 by June and 90,000 by the end of the year,” Mayor Eric Adams said while unveiling his budget Tuesday, saying a combination of strict limits on immigrant shelter stays and “reticketing” efforts to move immigrants to locations outside the city helped drive that estimate down.
While the Adams administration has been issuing shelter deadlines to adult immigrants for months, and to some families with kids in hotels as part of a separate initiative, Tuesday’s evictions were the first to apply to families with children under City Hall’s broader policy, which officials say is an effort to manage more than 168,500 new arrivals since 2022—69,000 of whom remain in the city’s care.
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