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Thursday night, the same day Mayor Eric Adams unveiled a preliminary budget focused on "fiscal discipline" and two days after Gov. Kathy Hochul laid out her priorities for the year ahead in her State of the State speech, 70,525 people slept in a New York City Department of Homeless Services (DHS) shelter.
Some advocates for the unhoused think these policies are more about getting homeless people out of sight than getting them help.
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The mayor delivered the dire warning a day after his office said more than 1,000 asylum seekers will start pouring into the city every week due to this Wednesday’s expected expiration of Title 42, a controversial policy the federal government has used on the southern border to quickly expel migrants who cross into the U.S. from Mexico.
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The data, which was first reported by the Daily News this week, revealed that only 30% of homeless people who accepted a bed in a shelter between Feb. 21 and Aug. 28 after being approached by Adams administration’s outreach workers in the NYC subways were still in the city’s care after a week.
Adams’ early commitments to open new “low-barrier” shelters comes into sharper focus as he closes out his first year in office, with yet another plan to remove homeless New Yorkers from trains and public spaces. New York City has about 600 new specialized shelters for street homeless New Yorkers, but data shows relatively few people are moving from the subways to the largely congregate sites.