New York- The city of New York asked a court on Tuesday to temporarily suspend the rule that requires it to provide housing to all homeless people, a rule that has attracted 70,000 immigrants to the city in ten months and has led to the limit the resources of the city.
The City Legal Department sent a letter to the Manhattan Supreme Court requesting that the law that has prevailed since 1984 (Callahan vs. Carey) be amended, without specifying how long the suspension would last, although Mayor Eric Adams specified in a statement that “we are in no way seeking to end the right to shelter.”
The flow of immigrants has saturated public shelters and the city is paying thousands of dollars a day to some 150 hotels that it has had to rent in the city and in some counties in the north of the state – where it has encountered resistance – to accommodate both families with children as well as single adults.
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According to the mayor, $1 billion has already been spent to provide them with various services in addition to the shelter, such as food, school places for minors who have arrived with their families, and minimal medical services.
Adams, who has repeatedly asked the federal government for financial aid and to expedite the work permit for the thousands of immigrants to whom he provides accommodation, made it clear that with this judicial protection measure he seeks to implicate the Joe Biden government or, At least to other cities.
“Since we cannot provide care to an unlimited number of people and we are already overloaded, it is in the best interest of everyone, including those looking to come to the United States, to be honest that the city cannot provide care on its own. everyone who crosses our border,” he said.
“Being dishonest about it will only result in the collapse of our system, and we need our partners in (federal) government to know the truth and do their part.”
He said today’s action will allow them to “get clarity from the court and preserve the right to housing for the tens of thousands in our care, both previously homeless and asylum seekers.”
“Now we have more asylum seekers in our care than homeless New Yorkers,” he said.
A good part of those who arrived in New York have done so on trips organized by the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who has chartered buses from the border with Mexico with hundreds of immigrants on the grounds that “progressive cities” -New York, Washington and Chicago, with Democratic mayors, would have open arms for the immigrants who crowd the border.
However, of those three cities, New York is the only one that by law must provide mandatory housing to anyone.
The city’s decision to resort to the judiciary to end this obligation immediately caused the reaction of the organization Making the Road New York, which provides services to immigrants, who described it as “beyond frustrating.”
“That is a surefire way to ensure more people end up sleeping on the streets, not a way to address homelessness and meet the needs of asylum seekers,” said José López, co-executive director of the organization.
