Mayor Adams gives single adult migrants 60-day notice to leave shelters

Single adults in New York City’s emergency shelters for migrants have two months to find housing before getting kicked out under a new policy announced by Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday.

“We have reached full capacity,” Adams said during a news conference at City Hall. “We have no more room in the city.”

Adams said the city will begin handing 60-day removal notices to men and women staying in a network of emergency shelters established over the last year to house newly arrived migrants to make room for families with children. The mayor said the city will “re-intensify” case management services to help migrants connect with friends and families or find other housing options in an extremely tight rental market.

Migrant adults will have a chance to reapply for shelter at an arrival center if they cannot find other accommodations, but could be locked out of shelter if the city determines there is no space available. Adams suggested people could wait at those centers until a bed opens up.

News of the policy was first reported by Gothamist on Wednesday morning.

According to the latest city estimates, over 54,000 recently arrived migrants are now staying in city-run shelters or emergency housing. More than 100,000 people are spending each night in city shelters, as the increase in migrants coincides with record-high rents, limited housing stock and rising evictions.

Bureaucratic obstacles and discrimination against people with rental assistance subsidies also hamper speedy exits from shelters.

Adams reiterated his calls for federal assistance to house and serve the tens of thousands of recently arrived immigrants in need of temporary accommodations. He said the number of migrants entering New York City has continued to increase even as border crossings have declined overall.

“We have run out of ideas,” he said. “Every day this team is figuring out where do we put the next body.”

During the press briefing, Adams and top administration officials presented flyers they plan to send to the border to discourage migrants from coming to New York City.

The documents include information like “housing in NYC is very expensive" and “there is no guarantee we will be able to provide shelter and services to new arrivals.”

Adams said the city is “going to partner with our teams down at the border to help with the dissemination of flyers” and added that the city will also post the image on websites that are promoting New York City

“We have teams down at the border who are going to assist us in the distribution of flyers,” he added.

City Hall spokesperson Kate Smart said the mayor was referring to nonprofit groups assisting recently arrived immigrants along the U.S. southern border.

Adams also said he does not think kicking people out of shelters will lead to a rise in the number of people staying in public spaces — a figure that has increased since 2022.

Adams previously said he wanted to dismantle the city’s unique right-to-shelter rules that set minimum shelter standards and bed requirements that have prevented mass encampments ubiquitous in other major cities by asking a judge to suspend the “right” whenever city officials determine they cannot afford it.

But the city appears to be pulling back from following through with a motion to amend the 1981 consent decree that established the right to shelter.

During a private conference with a judge in state Supreme Court on Wednesday afternoon, the city’s attorneys and lawyers from the Legal Aid Society agreed to continue negotiating the issues around shelter rules.

“I think the goal is for everybody to come together and feel comfortable that people will be protected, but that the city will be able to respond,” Legal Aid staff attorney Joshua Goldfein told reporters afterward.

He added that it was critical for the city to receive more aid from both the state and the federal governments.

Goldfein was joined by Steve Banks, a former Legal Aid attorney who defended the right to shelter and served as the head of the Department of Social Services during the de Blasio administration.

Banks, who is currently working at the private law firm Paul Weiss, agreed to help Legal Aid oppose the city. He described the right to shelter as a “bedrock foundation principle.”

The city’s Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Both parties are due back in court on Aug. 16, although Judge Erika Edwards suggested the conference could be pushed further back.

Adams’ strategy ignited immediate backlash from several local lawmakers, as well as immigration and housing advocates. They said finding housing in less than 60 days is a preposterous task for many low-income residents.

"I think this is inhumane. It's poverty-shaming. it's victim-shaming,” said City Councilmember Diana Ayala, head of the general welfare committee. “I don't know why they think folks want to live there [in shelters] if they had alternative arrangements."

City Comptroller Brad Lander, who has been a progressive foil to the mayor, issued a statement saying, "the mayor’s announcement today doesn’t just undermine the right to shelter, but the defining role of New York as a beacon of promise inscribed at the base of the Statue of Liberty.”

A spokesperson for City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said the Council is reviewing the mayor's plan.

In a joint statement, the Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless said the policy raise legal questions.

“As prescribed by the New York state constitution, multiple court orders and local laws, both the state and the city have a legal obligation to ensure that people who lack shelter are safe and secure, and protected from exposure to the elements,” the two groups said.

They urged Adams to streamline moves out of shelters by cracking down on housing discrimination, adding more staff to the city’s depleted social services workforce and expanding access to housing vouchers through reforms he vetoed before the Council voted to override him.

They also urged the Biden administration to “provide increased funding to the city to meet this moment and grant immediate work authorization for the many new arrivals in desperate need of a job.”

This story was updated to include additional information from the court appearance and a statement from Comptroller Brad Lander.