October 17, 2023 (NEW YORK, NY) – The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless issued the following statement responding to Mayor Eric Adams’ baseless and uninformed comments that attorneys and advocates for the homeless have failed to propose solutions to City Hall to meet the needs of new arrivals: “Since last year, we’ve had constant communications and many meetings with the Adams Administration, including with deputy mayors and agency commissioners, on solutions City Hall can pursue to meet the needs of new arrivals. We’ve detailed our proposals ad nauseam, in private meetings, in court, and publicly in numerous press releases, statements, media interviews, press conferences, social media posts and everywhere possible. “The Mayor can live in whatever reality he wants, but for anyone with eyes to see, the truth is that we have worked with both the City and the State diligently and consistently to identify practical and tangible solutions. “The Mayor is simply trying to scapegoat whomever he can out of frustration with the lack of assistance from Governor Hochul in providing shelter facilities and the slow pace of the implementation of the State’s plan to resettle people throughout New York. “He also bears the blame for his late embrace of offering real case management to the new arrivals and for his failure to adequately staff City agencies to help New Yorkers already in shelter move into permanent housing. All of these efforts, which are now finally in motion, were proposals that we made over a year ago and have worked with his Administration to implement. “The Mayor’s latest solution is to simply throw in the towel by running to court to undo the Right to Shelter and put thousands of long-term New Yorkers and new arrivals alike at risk of injury or death on the streets of New York, disrupting school every 60 days for kids who finally have stability and sending their families to dangerous congregate shelters. “That’s not leadership. Instead of spreading easily disprovable falsehoods to the City Hall press corps about our organizations’ good faith work through this emergency, the Mayor should spend his time advancing the slate of additional proposals we devised, which have been in City Hall’s possession for well over a year.” The full list of proposals that Legal Aid and the Coalition for the Homeless have submitted to the City and State include: connecting new arrivals to available immigration relief that will put them on a pathway to employment; assisting new arrivals in obtaining work permits, jobs, and public benefits that would allow them to exit shelter; implementing effective case management services at all new arrival shelter sites that will enable people to move out of shelter earlier and reduce the need for shelter capacity; implementing a real resettlement program to connect people with communities in need of new residents utilizing federal properties outside of New York City that the federal government has offered for shelter capacity; making use of State properties outside of New York City that could be used for shelter capacity; making use of all available properties in New York City that could be used for shelter capacity; addressing the need for additional rental assistance and homeless prevention efforts to avert and abbreviate shelter stays for New Yorkers, which would reduce the need for shelter for New Yorkers and free up existing shelter capacity to address the immediate humanitarian crisis; providing adequate staffing in City offices and programs that new arrivals and longer-term New Yorkers alike rely on to exit shelter; supporting the full implementation of the recently passed reforms to CityFHEPS; spending funds already appropriated through the nearly $200 million in New York State’s Rent Supplement Program to move long-staying families who are currently residing in New York City Department of Homelessness’ shelters to permanent housing; rebuilding the New York City Commission on Human Rights’ Income Discrimination Unit to hold landlords, real estate agents, and brokerage agents accountable for unlawfully denying placements to housing voucher holders; and expanding the City’s shelter capacity by not canceling or delaying planned shelter openings.
