New York City is undergoing a crisis: an affordable housing crisis. According to the New York City Housing and Vacancy Survey, in 2023, the net vacancy rate for all housing accommodations in New York City was a historically low 1.41 percent, with the percentage even lower for the city’s lowest rental units. In tandem with this, there has been an influx of asylum-seekers to New York City. Since 2022, a whopping 210,000 asylum-seekers have traveled to and sought refuge in New York City. As a result, the ongoing affordable housing crisis, in tandem with, though not as a result of, the influx of asylum seekers, has overwhelmed the city’s shelter system. In response, the city, under Mayor Eric Adams, imposed shelter limits, which effectively act as evictions, on New York City’s newly arrived asylum-seeker population.
The city’s shelter limits, 30 days for asylum-seeking single adults & adult families and 60 days for asylum-seeking families with children, are a complete and utter policy failure. Said limits are plagued with a myriad of implications, impacting the education, acclimation, and access to care of asylum-seekers, and especially asylum-seeking families with children.
To this end, it’s evident that the city’s shelter limits are not a viable (nor humane) path forward. Rather, the city must implement both immediate and long-term solutions to address the immediate and long-term needs of the city’s newest New Yorkers and the broader issue at hand, which is the sheer lack of affordable (and available) housing in New York City.
In the immediate, the city must end shelter evictions in their entirety through passing Intro 210, proposed by Councilmember Shahana Hanif, as well as provide truly comprehensive legal & case management services to newly-arrived asylum-seekers, as advocated for by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. Doing so would address the immediate issue at hand while providing a pathway to long-term housing stability, result in long-term benefits that would offset any immediate costs, and center those most impacted–the city’s newly arrived asylum-seekers.
In the long term, the city must expand CityFHEPS voucher eligibility to encompass all eligible individuals irrespective of their immigration status and prioritize the development of affordable housing with units explicitly created for CityFHEPS voucher holders, such as through the city’s Affordable Housing Services (AHS) initiative. Doing so would address the overarching need for safe, stable, and (truly) affordable housing, result in both short and long-term savings, and again, center those most impacted by the issue at hand.
To this end, it is of utmost importance that NYC implement the aforementioned recommendations.
In addition to fulfilling impact, cost-effectiveness, and equity criteria, the City has both a legal and moral obligation to implement the proposed short and long-term policies.
Legally, all humans have the right to adequate and affordable housing. In New York City, the City is legally bound to provide shelter through the city’s right-to-shelter mandate. To go a step further, according to the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, “housing is a right, not a commodity.” This entails “protection against forced evictions” and the “right to choose one’s residence,” among a myriad of other provisions.
Morally, New York City has an obligation to care for the city’s newly arrived asylum-seekers through the implementation of the recommendations mentioned above, as New York City is a City of Immigrants. Whether they are first, second, third generation, or beyond, immigrants are foundational to the heart and soul of NYC. In addition to the city’s historical ties to immigration, we must also remember why newly arrived asylum-seekers––often incorrectly labeled as “migrants” come to NYC: political violence, economic crisis, climate calamities, and so forth, often as a result of the U.S. So long as the aforementioned push-and-pull factors continue, so too will mass-migration.
To this end, New York City has an obligation to extend care to the city’s newest New Yorkers, and implementing the aforementioned recommendations offers concrete ways to fulfill our obligation.
Frances Macalimbon Hamed (she/her) is a Senior at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter majoring in Urban Studies, minoring in Asian American Studies and Political Science, and pursuing a certificate in Public Policy with a concentration in Immigration. She has extensive experience working in New York City and State Government, think tanks, and local non-profits, and aspires to pursue a career in Public Policy and the Law.
