This past week, our administration announced that the City of New York has come to an agreement with the Legal Aid Society and the court to provide the city with additional flexibility under the 1981 consent decree in Callahan vs. Carey.
This new agreement addresses the city’s “Right to Shelter” and the arrival of unprecedented numbers of migrants in our city and our requirement to support them. It is long overdue, and a welcome step forward in addressing a crisis that has had far-reaching implications for our city, our people, and our values.
New Yorkers have always recognized we are a city of immigrants, and a city that looks after its own. But when the Callahan decree was put into place more than 40 years ago, as part of a court-ordered settlement, it focused on providing shelter and dignity to fewer than 2,5000 unhoused New Yorkers.
Specifically, that Callahan suit was brought to protect the longtime homeless men and the immediate impact of the 1981 consent decree was to require the city to find 125 additional beds. The Callahan decree was never designed to cope with a national immigration crisis involving influxes of tens of thousands of people without housing or legal work status. More than 183,000 people have been cared for by the city.
This new agreement recognizes the realities of where we are now, affirms our shared mission to help those in need, and grants us additional flexibility to navigate this ongoing crisis.
After months of negotiations, we have come to an agreement that relieves New York City of certain obligations under the Callahan decree and gives us more tools to manage entries and exits of single adult migrants from the shelter system for the duration of this crisis. This will allow us to continue to help those in need while ensuring we have the flexibility to continue supporting and stabilizing the most vulnerable.
Going forward, we will be able to provide adult migrants 30 days of shelter, and individuals under 23 years of age will be provided 60 days of shelter. The city may extend shelter stays in appropriate cases, including to accommodate disability-related needs. In addition to shelter, we will continue to provide legal, casework, and reticketing services to help more people move out of shelter and find their own way without public assistance. This settlement applies to single adults and does not impact families with children.
Since this crisis began, we have taken fast and urgent action — opening up more than 200 emergency sites to shelter migrants. We have also stood up navigation centers to connect asylum seekers with critical resources; enrolled tens of thousands of children in public schools through Project Open Arms; and stood up, with funding from New York State, a first-of-its-kind Asylum Application Help Center through which we have helped individuals submit approximately 40,000 applications for asylum, Temporary Protected Status and work authorization over the past eight months.
As a result of our responsible policies, which include providing 30 to 60 days of intensified case management, more than 60% of the asylum seekers who have come through the city’s intake center have left the city’s care and are taking the next steps in their journeys towards self-sufficiency.
From city government, to nonprofits, faith leaders, philanthropic organizations, and academics, the entire city has stepped up to serve. This model has worked in other cities too — and now we must scale it up to the federal level.
This is a national humanitarian crisis that demands a national solution. But over and over again, bipartisan immigration reform has been thwarted in Congress by far-right Republican extremists, even as they demand the very solutions they refuse to enact. And while we are proud that this agreement will help us continue to manage the ongoing situation — the federal government must step up and do its part.
The federal government has the resources, authority, and experience to resettle large groups of immigrants across the country. They alone can unlock additional federal funding for New York City and expedite work authorizations to ensure that those entering our country can add their much-needed skills to our economy.
New York City has managed the asylum seeker crisis with courage and compassion for nearly two years. We have done our part, and will continue to do so, but our country must finally come together to create lasting solutions that benefit all Americans, as well as the newcomers whose contributions are essential to the long-term health and prosperity of our nation.
Adams is mayor of New York.
