New York has started the evictions of migrants in the region who have hit the 60-day shelter limit, prompting calls to abolish the deadline for asylum seekers.
One migrant, 39-year-old Joana Rivas arrived from Venezuela four months ago and had slowly found semblance of stability in New York City. She occasionally picked up cleaning jobs and enrolled her nine-year-old daughter at a public school in Manhattan.
New York Migrant Evictions
As the asylum seeker continued navigating her new city, a crucial anchor for her was the free housing she was given at a hotel-turned-shelter near Times Square. However, on Tuesday, her time at the shelter had run out. She had to keep her daughter home from school and pack their things to apply for new housing.
While outside a welcoming center for migrants in Midtown Manhattan, she said she did not know where to go until she got new housing. Rivas noted that she came to the welcoming center to see what they would tell her, hoping her daughter has somewhere to stay, as per the New York Times.
The city has started the eviction of dozens of migrant families that had already reached their 60-day limits on stays in the homeless shelter system. This is the latest effort by officials to urge more of the asylum seekers to leave and find permanent housing.
There are nearly 70,000 migrants who are living in a patchwork of hotels, homeless shelters, and giant, winterized tents that the city set up. The first wave of evictions came with an unexpected and significant hurdle.
Authorities in the city announced that they would temporarily evacuate 1,900 migrants currently housed in a tented shelter site in southeast Brooklyn. The decision was made due to a rainstorm heading for the city on Tuesday night.
The evictions are part of New York City Mayor Eric Adams' efforts to ease the pressure on the region's strained shelter system. In the heart of the city's Theater District, the roughly 40 families that left Row NYC were the first that are expected to leave city shelters in the next few weeks, according to Yahoo News.
City's 60-Day Shelter Limit
Some of the asylum seekers who were evicted on Tuesday immediately started to re-apply for beds, while others said that they managed to find more permanent accommodations outside of the system.
The city mayor imposed the 60-day shelter limit in October for homeless migrant families, noting that it was needed to relieve a shelter system that was overwhelmed by migrants crossing the southern U.S. border.
On Monday, advocates rallied to oppose the shelter limit, demanding the city cancel the eviction notices to families with children living in several Midtown hotels. In a statement, the president and CEO of WIN, Christine Quinn said that the rule is simply harassment.
Quinn noted that officials believe that forcing children out of their beds will make the families leave and go back to their countries of origin. However, she warned that it would instead force them to sleep on the floor of offices and the streets, said CBS News.
