Advocates call on NYC to stop 60-day shelter limit for asylum seeking families
NEW YORK -- It's the latest asylum seeker crisis.
Families with children are bracing for a wave of shelter evictions this week. Advocates claim it will cause chaos, but Mayor Eric Adams is pushing back, saying no kids will be sleeping on the streets.
Time is up for thousands of families who got 60-day shelter eviction notices from the city in October, an action officials said they needed to take to make space for the new waves of asylum seekers arriving here almost daily.
Advocates rallied Monday to attack the plan. City leaders and immigration advocates demanded the city cancel shelter eviction notices to families with children living in a number of Midtown hotels like The Row, The Watson, The Stewart, and The Wolcott.
"Let's be perfectly clear: the 60-day rule is one thing and one thing only, harassment," said Christine Quinn, president and CEO of WIN.
The notices, which went out in October, were originally supposed to be up in late December, but the city postponed them to allow the families to stay put during the holidays. The first wave of evictions begin Tuesday with 40 families at The Row Hotel asked to re-apply for new shelter assignments.
"They think ripping children out of their beds will make these families leave and go back to their countries of origin. That will not happen," Quinn said. "What will happen is that children and their families will sleep on the floor of offices. They will sleep on the street."
Katarine Burbana has been staying at The Row migrant shelter with her 2-year-old daughter since they came to the city from Colombia five months ago.
"I'm scared," she said through a translator. "It's just my daughter and I. We went through so much to get here."
"Think of the children," she added, "and all those who being taken out of school and placed far from here. It's inhumane."
The mayor and the members of his administration who deal with the placement of asylum seekers said the asylum seekers' fears of having nowhere to go are unfounded.
"This is not going to be a city where we are going to place children and families on the street, and have them sleep on the street. That is not going to happen. We have made that clear," Adams said. "We understand the sensitivity of this and we are going to make sure we treat these families with the respect that they deserve."
Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom and Dr. Ted Long, two of the main point people on the immigrant crisis, insisted that they have met with each family at least four times to help them map out next steps for housing, jobs, and keeping their kids in school.
They also insist that children won't be uprooted from their schools and new housing options will be offered.
"If your child is in elementary school, you are the highest priority for us to immediately and quickly give you another placement in Manhattan, preferably close to where your child is in school," Long said.
The families are being asked to re-apply for shelter at The Roosevelt Hotel, which is also the placement center for any new arrivals.
A spokesman for the mayor said the 60-day eviction notices will affect about 1,600 families this month, alone.