The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella coverage and advocacy group that represents over 200 immigrant and refugee rights teams all through New York, on Tuesday condemned what it claims is Mayor Eric Adams’s assertion that “proper to shelter will increase homeless”.
Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and chief govt officer, informed Caribbean Life that the mayor makes the assaults “with out offering options.”
“Right now, Mayor Eric Adams and his administration mentioned that asylum seeker encampments are usually not allowed wherever in New York Metropolis, and that the town will work with the NYPD and Parks Division to clear them,” he mentioned. “All New Yorkers want secure housing with the intention to construct productive and wholesome lives. But, Mayor Adams has doubled and tripled down on attacking New York Metropolis’s long-standing proper to shelter insurance policies by prioritizing shelter evictions as a substitute of individuals’s skill to stay safely with a roof over their heads.
“The plain results of these assaults is that persons are pressured to sleep on the road,” Awawdeh added. “Clearing encampments with out offering different housing is one other instance of his short-sighted insurance policies.
“New Yorkers need options to our homelessness disaster,” he continued. “Mayor Adams should broaden CityFHEPS vouchers to New Yorkers who’re susceptible to turning into unhoused, are housing insecure, and no matter immigration standing, to lastly transfer susceptible individuals into everlasting housing.
“It’s time to implement insurance policies that enhance the long-term success of all New Yorkers,” Awawdeh pressured.
Earlier this month, NYIC and Make the Street NY, one other immigrant advocacy group, strongly condemned as “a devastating blow” to Caribbean and different immigrants and low-income households a Manhattan Supreme Courtroom determination putting down a lawsuit that might have compelled the Adams administration and the Division of Homeless Companies (DHS) to implement the CityFHEPS housing voucher bundle that was handed in Could 2023 by the Metropolis Council.
The Metropolis Preventing Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Complement (CityFHEPS) program is an area housing voucher for New Yorkers getting ready to or experiencing homelessness.
On Aug. 1, Manhattan Supreme Courtroom Decide Lyle Frank struck down the laws to broaden eligibility for CityFHEPS housing vouchers for low-income New Yorkers going through eviction or homelessness.
“Too many New Yorkers are struggling to maintain a roof over their heads as housing prices proceed to rise. This growth of CityFHEPS vouchers would have been a lifeline to susceptible households caught within the shelter system and susceptible to eviction,” Awawdeh mentioned.
“By increasing alternatives to stay in secure, secure housing, we construct a metropolis the place New Yorkers can put down roots to take a position and develop of their communities,” he added. “This court docket determination is a devastating blow to low-income households, and any of us who might fall on arduous occasions sooner or later.
“We stand with the Metropolis Council in interesting this determination, and implore the mayor to start out implementing actual options to the issues confronted by so many New Yorkers,” Awawdeh continued.
Jennifer Hernandez, lead organizer at Make the Street NY mentioned: “At a time when New York Metropolis is going through an unprecedented affordability disaster and working-class communities of coloration are struggling to pay ever-increasing rents, it’s outrageous that Mayor Adams would proceed to face in the way in which of commonsense adjustments to this system that might have been a lifeline for a lot of tenants in eviction processes.
“As an alternative of combating in opposition to the pursuits of low-income New Yorkers, the mayor ought to spend his time and power ensuring that everybody on this metropolis has secure, secure and inexpensive housing,” she mentioned.
Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for the Metropolis Council, confirmed that the Council will enchantment the court docket’s determination.
“We disagree with the court docket’s ruling and might be pursuing an instantaneous enchantment,” Desamours mentioned. “It’s unlucky that Mayor Adams’ administration has fought to delay assist to New Yorkers that may stop them from evictions and homelessness amidst a housing disaster.”
The mayor mentioned that whereas he’s completely happy that the court docket agrees along with his administration’s place that these legal guidelines went past the Metropolis Council’s legislative authority, “we’re hopeful that our companions within the Council will be part of us in remaining dedicated to working to attach New Yorkers in want with secure, inexpensive, everlasting housing.”
In February, the non-profit Authorized Assist Society had filed a category motion lawsuit in New York State Supreme Courtroom in opposition to Mayor Adams and the town to compel the administration to totally implement the just lately enacted bundle of laws that reforms and expands CityFHEPS.
The Authorized Assist Society mentioned the lawsuit was filed on behalf of New Yorkers who could be eligible for CityFHEPS below the brand new legal guidelines however who’re barred from accessing the lease subsidy as a result of the Adams administration has “refused to implement the reforms.”
Robert Desir, a lawyer on the Society, mentioned that Decide Frank’s ruling “will price the town thousands and thousands of {dollars} on shelter prices”, agreeing that the choice can even have “a devastating affect on 1000’s of New Yorkers getting ready to eviction or already experiencing homelessness.”
Meantime, on Friday, Adams and veteran civil rights advocate and former govt director of the New York Civil Liberties Union Norman Siegel celebrated what they described as “main milestones” for the Avenue Homelessness Advocacy Venture (SHAP), as this system marks two years because it started working.
Adams mentioned SHAP is a volunteer outreach initiative that goals to construct relationships and supply direct help to these experiencing homelessness.
He mentioned SHAP’s major objective is to coach volunteers, together with these with lived expertise, to advocate for and supply companies to unhoused New Yorkers.
The mayor mentioned that between yr one and yr two of this system, the SHAP group elevated the proportion of homeless New Yorkers they’re helping in transferring voluntarily off the streets and into some type of supportive programing from an approximate 33 % success fee to virtually 50 %.
“Due to the Avenue Homelessness Advocacy Venture, on a regular basis New Yorkers are answering the decision to volunteer and lend a serving to hand to their neighbors in want, and their good work is paying off, with almost 50 % of homeless people connecting with SHAP selecting to voluntarily come off our streets,” Adams mentioned. “Fixing our homelessness disaster requires each considered one of us to comply with within the footsteps of SHAP volunteers by treating these experiencing homelessness with dignity and humanity.
“Thanks to all of the volunteers, companion organizations, and to Norman Siegel for main the way in which and dealing so nobody is pressured to sleep on the streets of our metropolis,” he added.
Deputy Mayor for Well being and Human Companies Anne Williams-Isom mentioned that because the begin of the Adams administration, “we mentioned that we might now not stroll previous our brothers and sisters in want with out extending help.
“SHAP is a method we’re actualizing that dedication. The mannequin reveals that we will all play a job in connecting with our fellow New Yorkers and, once we do, roughly one out of two individuals are actually voluntarily connecting to supportive packages,” she added. “We additionally know that homelessness is a housing problem. That’s the reason our administration has related extra individuals than ever to CityFHEPS, and we’re constructing extra inexpensive housing within the months and years to come back.
“Thanks to Norman and all our volunteers for his or her efforts over the past two years, and for all they may do within the time to come back,” Williams-Isom mentioned.
Siegel mentioned: “SHAP’s imaginative and prescient and strategy — the identical volunteers conducting outreach on the identical places on the identical day and time — will increase the probability of belief being developed between the volunteer and the particular person experiencing homelessness.
“With our robust placement and referral fee over the previous two years, the SHAP mannequin has confirmed to be a profitable mannequin for serving to individuals experiencing homelessness voluntarily go away the streets and parks of New York Metropolis,” he added.
Since its formation, Adams mentioned SHAP has made “appreciable progress” in serving to these experiencing homelessness join with very important companies.
In its first yr, he mentioned SHAP efficiently helped one out of three individuals experiencing homelessness voluntarily go away the streets.
Now, in its second yr, the mayor mentioned about one out of two individuals — 223 people experiencing homelessness out of 451 — which have interacted with SHAP have voluntarily left the streets by means of a referral or placement with a supportive program, a virtually 50 % fee of success.
Adams mentioned his administration continues to prioritize transitioning homeless New Yorkers from streets, subways, and homeless shelters into secure, everlasting housing.
Final week, he introduced that, for the second yr in a row, the town has produced extra supportive housing and housing for previously homeless New Yorkers than ever earlier than in New York’s historical past.
Adams mentioned his administration moreover moved a document variety of homeless New Yorkers into everlasting housing by means of the best utilization of CityFHEPS housing vouchers and positioned a document variety of previously homeless households into permanently-affordable housing.
Moreover, in Fiscal 12 months (FY) 24, he mentioned the town constructed the highest-ever rely of supportive properties and houses for the homeless within the metropolis’s historical past, and elevated manufacturing of housing for the previously homeless by 15 %.
The mayor mentioned DSS helped 16,902 households transfer out of shelter and into everlasting housing over FY24, 12,526 of which had been positioned into sponsored everlasting housing — “a greater than 20 % enhance over FY23.”
