New York City limiting migrant families with children to 60-day shelter stays to ease strain on city

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday that he is limiting shelter stays for migrant families with children to 60 days, bidding to ease pressure on a city housing system overwhelmed by a large influx of asylum seekers over the past year.

The Democrat’s office said it will begin sending 60-day notices to migrant families with children in shelters to seek other places to live. It also will provide “intensified casework services” to help families secure new housing, according to a news release.

It’s the mayor’s latest attempt to provide relief to the city’s shelter system and finances as it grapples with more than 120,000 international migrants who have come to New York, many without housing or the legal ability to work. More than 60,000 migrants currently live in city shelters, according to his office.

Adams has estimated the city will spend $12 billion over the next three years to handle the influx, setting up large-scale emergency shelters, renting out hotels and providing various government services for migrants.

The mayor last month limited adult migrants to just 30 days in city-run facilities amid overcrowding. Adams is also seeking to suspend a unique legal agreement that requires New York City to provide emergency housing to homeless people. No other major U.S. city has such a requirement.

“With over 64,100 asylum seekers still in the city’s care, and thousands more migrants arriving every week, expanding this policy to all asylum seekers in our care is the only way to help migrants take the next steps on their journeys,” Adams said in a statement.

Recently Adams took a four-day trip through Latin America, starting in Mexico, where he sought to discourage people from coming to New York by telling them the city’s shelter system is at capacity and that its resources are overwhelmed.