City Hall Moves to Wind Down Separate Shelter System for Migrants

 

The plan comes after two years of operating an ad hoc “shadow system” of separate shelters for migrants. 

This article originally appeared in The City.

By Gwynne Hogan

NEW YORK - City Hall is moving to return control of all shelter operations to the Department of Homeless Services by June of 2026, THE CITY has learneed, including those housing asylum-seeking immigrants.

The plan comes after two years of operating an ad hoc “shadow system” of separate shelters for migrants often under the auspices of agencies other than the homeless services department — and outside of New York’s longstanding “right to shelter.” 

The transfer plan was described by Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom at a gathering last month celebrating National Immigrants Day, according to several attendees present. 

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams Isom speaks about immigration at an event organized by Comptroller Brad Lander, Oct. 28, 2024.

The shift is reflected in updated budget documents City Hall released Wednesday afternoon, which indicate the transition will occur by the end of the upcoming fiscal year that begins on July 1. 

New York City saw an increase in migrants arriving in buses from border communities starting in the spring of 2022. At the time, the homeless agency opened a number of emergency shelters in hotels, but by that fall was overwhelmed as the numbers of new arrivals continued to climb. 

Other agencies like the Health and Hospitals Corporation and New York City Emergency Management stepped in, rapidly building out warehouses, hotels, tents, gyms specifically for these new arrivals.

Advocates decried the separate migrant shelters they said were a “shadow system,” operating outside the city’s unique right to shelter provisions that apply to the “traditional” shelters operated or overseen by DHS. 

Adams argued the city needed flexibility for the sake of housing as many people as quickly as possible to prevent families with children from sleeping on the streets, while lamenting what he said was limited support from the federal government. 

Williams-Isom declined to comment on whether the city would continue to run separate shelters for newly arriving migrants, or what will become of the massive HERRCS, or Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers, that have been overseen by other agencies like Health and Hospitals. 

A worker sets pillows on cots in preparation for migrants staying at a humanitarian shelter at the former Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in Eastern Queens, Aug. 15, 2023.

“Obviously we have a lot of questions about what it means. And we also want to ensure that this is part and parcel with any efforts by the city to protect new arrivals from the threat of mass deportations,” said Dave Giffen, the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. Still, Giffen said, he supports the move since “there are upsides to having a single city agency managing all of the shelters.”

More than 223,000 people have stayed in the city’s emergency shelters over the last two years, with around 57,000 currently living in them, according to the latest data from City Hall. 

An administration figure familiar with the move to give DHS control of all migrant shelters, and who asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters, said the specifics of the transition are still being hammered out. 

“Commissioner [Molly] Park still needs time to build an appropriate infrastructure to manage what will probably still be a large system and it will probably take a few before that happens,” the person said.

‘Significant Concerns’

DHS already oversees about 160 emergency shelters in the five boroughs. About half of the migrants in city shelters live in those locations, known internally as “sanctuary facilities,” as of October, according to city data. 

The other half live in shelters now overseen by other agencies — including Health and Hospitals, the Housing Preservation and Development department, the Office of Emergency Management, and the Department of Youth and Community — where decades of standard shelter practices, including rules like group shelters shouldn’t house more than 200 people, went out the window.

 

Many “right to shelter” protections were waived at those facilities, with adults put on strict 30-day time limits on their shelter stays without a guarantee of an extension. 

In the summer of 2023, during a heat wave, the city ran out of space for adult migrants and people spent days sleeping outside the Roosevelt Hotel on the sidewalk, hoping for a cot. As capacity was stretched to the brink again that winter, the wait for another shelter cot could last more than two weeks. Families with children were put on strict 60-day time limits on their stays, requiring them to move out and reapply for another shelter stint if they had nowhere else to go. 

The roughly 7,000 families in DHS sanctuary facilities for migrants have thus far not been hit with time limits or eviction notices. 

Other rules that apply in group shelters overseen by DHS — like that cots must be spaced at least three feet apart and secure lockers must be available for residents — were waived at emergency shelters overseen by other agencies.

Cots were set up close to each other in an Astoria church migrant respite center.

It remains to be seen if DHS would end the separate shelter system altogether and integrate newly arrived migrants with longer-term New Yorkers, or if it would maintain some distinct facilities for migrants with different rules. 

Advocates noted that the shift came after president-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory earlier this month, as his mass deportation plans make separate shelters for migrants into natural targets for round-ups. 

“It would be better to do it sooner rather than later,” said Kathryn Kliff, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society who said she’d spoken directly with Williams-Isom about DHS taking control of the shelters that had been under other agencies. 

“We also just have significant concerns about them continuing to run processes the way they're running them because it involves people having to go to these very public locations every 30 to 60 days, and that seems like it will put people at risk,” Kliff said. 

Slower Pace Ahead?

Rumors had been spreading among shelter providers over the fall about plans for DHS to take over migrant shelter operations from other agencies, several insiders said. 

Then at the National Day of Immigrants event hosted by Comptroller Brad Lander’s office, Williams-Isom described the transition in passing, piquing the ears of several of those in the room. 

One attendee recalled Williams-Isom saying she planned to help DHS Commissioner Molly Park get the resources needed when she takes over.

“People just looked around at each other and said, ‘I guess it’s true’” said another attendee who asked not to be named as they were not authorized to speak with reporters. 

Updated budget documents for the coming fiscal year appeared to confirm that shift, showing a $2.2 billion drop from earlier projections in the combined budgets of Health and Hospitals and the department of Housing Preservation and Development, which have both played a significant role in migrant shelter operations. 

That spending cut was more than offset by an additional $2.5 billion for DHS. 

The budget documents show DHS spending dropping in the following two fiscal years, presumably because the city expects that the pace of arrivals, which dropped following new restrictions put in place by the Biden administration over the summer, will remain slower under a Trump administration. 

Since hitting a peak of more than 68,000 in December of last year, the migrant shelter count has dropped by more than 10,000 — a trend Adams has credited in part to the time limits it’s placed on shelter stays for migrants in shelters not run by DHS.

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