'Separate but unequal system’: Some homeless advocates criticize changes to NYC's right to shelter
, the city and the Legal Aid Society spent five months working on a legal compromise that would reshape one of the most unique and far-reaching homelessness policies in the country: the right-to-shelter rule, which obligates New York City to provide shelter to anyone in need.
Hayes, who runs community healthcare clinics across the city, referred to the carveout for migrant adults as a “xenophobic underpinning of the agreement.”Migrant adults make up about 22% of the 65,000 total migrants currently in the shelter system, according to city officials. The agreement does not affect migrant families with children nor does it apply to those who are not migrants.
“Which would have meant that no New Yorker, including both new arrivals and longer-term New Yorkers would have been protected by it going forward.”“The city and advocates think they won because Callahan is still intact for New Yorkers,” said Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer who has defended the homeless. “That is important but then comes the question — what about the migrants?”
“There is an illusion that the city and Legal Aid can figure out how to solve the problems ,” Siegel said. “We need to speak in broader terms about how we address these issues. Because we haven’t succeeded in four decades in addressing these issues.
“I’ve already seen through my many clients who have been subject to the 30-day rule already, that the 30-day rule leads to street homelessness,” said Deborah Berkman, an attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group who has assisted migrants. The legal settlement has put advocates in an unusual and uncomfortable position of having to question the decisions of Legal Aid, a group that has been charged over the years with defending and expanding the right to shelter.
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