Preserve the Right To Shelter

Right to Shelter Threatened

From our first legal victory, Callahan v. Carey, which guarantees the right to decent shelter for homeless New Yorkers, the Coalition for the Homeless has worked to create long-term solutions to end modern mass homelessness.

New York City's twenty-year-old right to shelter for the homeless is now under threat. The Coalition for the Homeless, religious leaders, and community groups citywide are urging Mayor Bloomberg to abandon his plan to eject homeless individuals from shelters to the streets.

The Bloomberg Plan

For more than twenty years, homeless people in New York City have been protected by the right to shelter, a legal guarantee of shelter from the elements that dates back to Coalition for the Homeless' 1979 lawsuit Callahan v. Carey. Now Mayor Bloomberg is challenging that legal protection and moving forward with a plan to eject many homeless individuals from shelter to the streets. Mayor Bloomberg has sought court approval for a plan to terminate or deny emergency shelter to many homeless individuals whom the City determines have failed to comply with social service and shelter rules.

Under the proposal, homeless individuals who are sanctioned would be ejected to the streets for a minimum of 30 days and as long as 180 days. The Bloomberg Administration's plan - which is a continuation of a Giuliani-era policy blocked by court orders in early 2000 - would significantly curtail the legal right to emergency shelter for homeless people which has prevailed in New York City for more than two decades.

In June, a State appellate court ruled in favor of the Bloomberg Administration's appeal, and the City is moving forward with plans to deny and terminate emergency shelter for many homeless adults. Coalition for the Homeless is seeking an appeal of the recent ruling to the Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court.

• Bloomberg Pursues Plan to Eject Homeless Men and Women from Shelters to the Streets
  

• Right to Shelter Fact vs Fiction (pdf)

• Read excerpts from the Coalition's 2003 appellate brief in Callahan (pdf).

• Read Judge Sklar's 2000 decision (pdf).

• Read more about the Mayor's plan (pdf).

Campaign to Save the Right to Shelter

The Campaign to Save the Right to Shelter - a coalition of religious leaders, shelter providers, civic groups, and social service agencies - is challenging the Bloomberg Administration plan in an effort to preserve the right to shelter for homeless New Yorkers... More

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