Testimony of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander at the New York City Council Committee on General Welfare Hearing on Intro 210-2024
Thank you, Chair Ayala, for calling this hearing. Thank you to our new Chair of the Immigration Committee, Councilmember Alexa Aviles, and to Councilmember Hanif, for introducing Int. 210-2024, which would put an end to the City’s cruel and inefficient 30- and 60-day shelter limitations.
I strongly oppose the 30- and 60- day shelter limit policies, which are nothing more than a backdoor effort to chip away at the City’s 40-year-old Right to Shelter. The City’s Right to Shelter is rooted in the State Constitution and keeps thousands of people from sleeping on the streets. I commend Councilmember Hanif for her leadership in standing up to the scapegoating of immigrants and strongly support Int. 210-2024.
New York City has welcomed over 170,000 new arrivals seeking asylum since Spring 2022 and we’ve opened our doors – just as we have throughout the City’s history. This is not a time to ignite further anti-immigrant sentiment; it’s a time to make sure all levels of government are working together to welcome our newest New Yorkers, face this challenge together, and focus on getting new arrivals the work authorization and services they need. Better management – not shelter evictions – would help asylum seekers get on their feet, join our workforce, and accelerate our economic recovery.
Our office has been closely tracking the numbers of recent arrivals impacted by these shelter stay limits. As of February 4, a total of about over 7,000 families with children in emergency shelters have been given 60-day notices. Those 7,000 households include almost 28,000 individuals – approximately 14,200 adults and 13,400 children.
Over half of those families have reached the 60-day limit and were forced to re-apply for shelter. Of the 4,753 adults from families with children in households whose 60-day notices had expired as of February 4, 16% remain in the same shelter, 29% have been transferred to other shelters, and 55% have left shelter. We don’t know where those families went or whether they were given any additional options for support. According to the City’s own internal survey of individuals who arrive to St. Brigid as single adults to reapply for shelter, 968 people spent the night on the streets or in the train. That’s nearly 1,000 people in the mid-January cold without a place to stay.
Across the City, our office has already been seeing the deep instability that imposing shelter limit stays creates for asylum seekers – especially children. Families and individuals who receive a 30 or 60-day notice often are not given sufficient information on where to go, how to reapply for shelter, or how to keep their kids enrolled in school or childcare. At the Roosevelt Hotel, we met Maria – an eight-month pregnant Venezuelan asylum seeker who had just been evicted from her temporary shelter.
We’ve spoken with parents who tried desperately not to retraumatize their children suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). An Afghan refugee family had fled their home to Eastern Europe, only to flee from war again to South America. From South America, they made their way to New York, where the City placed them in a Brooklyn shelter. There, they were hit with a 60-day notice that would have uprooted their children once again, after just getting settled into a new routine and school. When these cases were elevated to City Hall, accommodations were made. We’re grateful but are alarmed at how many similar cases may slip through the cracks.
We’ve visited schools that have gone above and beyond to accommodate a sudden increase in students through mutual aid drives, increased ELL services, busing, and deep parent engagement, only to have those plans thwarted by the shelter limitations. As we testified at the Education and Immigration hearing in November, this policy destabilizes school communities and routines. It creates disruptions for teachers and other students as well. It impacts school budgets, and childcare for parents who receive a voucher through Promise NYC. Shuffling families around who have already been rooted near their shelters and schools will create more government inefficiencies as resources are haphazardly re-allocated, on top of being morally unjust.
In January, our Office launched an investigation into the 60-day rule. We have concerns about the financial implications of the policies being enacted. Through this investigation, we hope to learn more about how this policy is being implemented, its potential harmful impact on in-process asylum seeker applications and work authorization, and the extent to which this policy is displacing children from their public schools. This investigation is currently ongoing, and we will update the Council when we have findings to share.
Emma Lazarus said give me your tired, your poor – but not just for 30 or 60 days. There are other paths forward that don’t involve destabilization. Earlier this week, our office released a report that found a lack of coordination across multiple emergency contracts led City agencies to overpay millions of dollars to staff asylum seeker services. Rather than evicting families with children from shelter in the middle of winter, the City should insist on getting the most competitive prices from its own contractors to keep costs down.
With stronger management we can reduce shelter costs without kicking families out on the street. The City should be doubling down on efforts to connect new arrivals to immigration legal help, workforce development, and case management. Our immigrant New Yorkers have been the backbone of the City – creating businesses, contributing billions to the economy, and serving as some of most essential workers.
We can’t roll back the City’s fundamentally engrained Right to Shelter in the moments we need it most – not as the number of unsheltered New Yorkers continues to climb. We can address this challenge with common sense, competence, and compassion. Thank you for your time and for your leadership on this critical issue.
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