Policy Solutions

Those who have gathered in NYC and Albany on December 5th, 2023, to protest Mayor Adams’ and Governor Hochul’s efforts to dismantle the legal Right to Shelter in New York, urge the Mayor and Governor to adhere to principles and take actions, including the following, that will protect the lives and wellbeing of all individuals and families in need and provide real pathways to stability.

Mayor Adams must:

  1. Refrain from weakening the Right to Shelter in any way. No human being should ever be relegated to sleeping on the streets.

  2. Ensure that families with children in need of shelter are always provided with safe placements in non-congregate facilities with private locking rooms.

  3. Help households currently in the DHS shelter system to access permanent housing by fixing bureaucratic obstacles that prevent thousands of people from utilizing rent vouchers, especially CityFHEPS, and accessing supportive housing.

  4. Overcome the administrative obstacles that are keeping faith-based groups from being able to provide shelter beds to new arrivals.

  5. Cease the capricious and harmful implementation of 30-day and 60-day shelter limits on new arrivals.

  6. Increase the staffing needed to provide appropriate levels of casework for all new arrival households to identify pathways to stability.

Governor Hochul must:

  1. Refrain from weakening the Right to Shelter in any way. No human being should ever be relegated to sleeping on the streets.

  2. Ensure that families with children in need of shelter are always provided with safe placements in non-congregate facilities with private locking rooms.

  3. Implement a comprehensive statewide decompression and resettlement plan.

  4. Override the 30+ executive orders from county executives and other local ordinances that preclude the City from sheltering new arrivals in those counties.

  5. Work more closely with faith-based organizations wishing to provide beds and services to new arrivals.

  6. Help locate, operate, and fund the use of State-owned facilities as temporary housing for new arrivals to assist the City with decompression efforts.

  7. Put more resources into MRAP to increase uptake, and permit MRAP-eligible families to be placed in hotels within or near the communities where they will be relocated pending placement in more permanent housing.

  8. Put more resources into both advertising the Governor’s migrant job program to new arrivals and connecting households with work authorizations to the employment opportunities identified by the Department of Labor.

  9. Provide the City with more funds for case management and legal services to assist new arrivals.

  10. Reduce demand for DHS shelter capacity needed to assist new arrivals by expanding access to State FHEPS so that it can include doubled-up families with school-aged children, individuals discharged from State prisons to City shelters, and other New Yorkers who would otherwise end up in shelter.

  11. Increase the number of beds at Randall’s Island and Creedmoor to address the reduction in capacity resulting from the closure of sites by FDNY and provide the City with resources necessary to make sites safe that have been flagged by FDNY. 

  12. Support State-wide use of CityFHEPS vouchers, something the Governor has acknowledged could help increase DHS shelter capacity, and pass and implement the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP).