The choice of Randall’s Island for the asylum-seeker tents recalls the historic role of the island—along with adjoining Wards Island—as a drop-off point for New York City’s most marginalized groups.
The Fair Student Funding Formula, used to distribute the majority of New York City’s education budget to each of its 1,600 public schools, has been criticized for failing to provide enough funds to students who need it most, including those in temporary housing and in the foster care system. A working group has until the end of October to recommend changes.
New York City is opening its latest checkpoint for recently arrived immigrants, this time converting a hotel near Madison Square Garden into an intake and assessment center with rooms for nearly 300 families and single adults, City Limits has learned.
Down 99 beds from this time last year, space is running out in New York City’s patchwork of shelters for teens and young adults, which provide counseling, education, job training and other services. Many who qualify for the youth shelters—including newly arrived immigrants—are instead turning to the strained Department of Homeless Services system.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
More than 5,200 New York City families moved from homeless shelters to permanent housing during the 2022 fiscal year, down significantly from the year prior. A new report says the city could accelerate move-outs with a few policy tweaks that streamline access to rental assistance.
The city’s affordable housing lotteries are notoriously competitive, but new data shows some progress: in the most recent fiscal year that ended in June, 6,173 applicants were approved for a unit through the lottery system, up nearly 24 percent from the fiscal year prior. But the approval process took longer for applicants than the year before, and the odds remain tough.
City Limits rounds up the latest housing and land use-related events, public hearings and upcoming affordable housing lotteries that are ending soon.
The new, formalized procedure essentially codifies what has become a de facto sweeps policy under Mayor Eric Adams, and replaces a 2020 directive that removed the NYPD from most street homeless outreach and clean-ups in the wake of an uprising for police accountability and reform spurred by the murder of George Floyd.
Dirty bath water and a slew of apartment rejections test the faith of three single moms trying to get out of the city’s homeless shelter system. After 14 months, Johanna Garcia finally found an apartment for her and her children—but the journey wasn’t easy, and the average length of stay in shelter for families like hers is only getting longer, new data shows.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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