Mayor Adams takes heat for trying to water down NYC right-to-shelter law — ‘Beyond disturbing,’ say critics

Mayor Adams weathered a torrent of criticism Wednesday for his administration’s legal push to diminish the city’s right-to-shelter law, with detractors calling the move misguided and demanding the mayor reconsider.

The city’s “troubling” request to a state Supreme Court judge to revisit the right-to-shelter law “appears to pursue an elimination of more than 40 years of legal protections for our city’s most vulnerable” and “leaves in question whether New Yorkers will be left to sleep on our streets, parks, roadway shoulder exits and subways,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala said in a statement.

“It’s beyond disturbing that so much effort is being spent on rolling back protections for all New Yorkers, instead of implementing immediate and long-term solutions that can help us avoid and move out of shelters.”

On Tuesday, Adams announced the city is seeking to include an exception to the decades-old legal agreement that would allow it to forego providing shelter in instances when the city “lacks the resources and capacity to maintain sufficient shelter sites, staffing and security.”

The mayor was careful to note that he isn’t “seeking to end the right to shelter,” but pointed to the more than 65,000 migrants who’ve streamed into the city since last year as proof that the city “cannot single-handedly provide care to everyone crossing our border.”

His words — and the city’s legal entreaty to a state Supreme Court judge to reexamine the 1981 consent decree that enshrined the right to shelter into law — drew swift and harsh rebukes.

Progressives like city Comptroller Brad Lander view the right-to-shelter law as a critical part of the city’s social safety net.

Lander criticized the mayor’s attempt to diminish the law as an abdication, but also laid part of the blame for the migrant crisis at the feet of President Biden’s administration, which the mayor has also criticized.

“The Adams administration’s attempt to abdicate its responsibility to uphold this legal obligation undermines the foundation of the social safety net in this city,” he said. “Providing shelter to arriving asylum seekers is a massive undertaking that stretches the management capacity of this administration and a financial strain that the federal government needs to cover.”

Lander also questioned the city’s legal approach and suggested that instead of trying to narrow the law to slow the flow of migrants into the city, the mayor’s legal team should ask the court to broaden its interpretation of the consent decree to further clarify the responsibilities of other cities in the state.

“Rather than seeking to circumvent the state constitutional requirement to provide safe and dignified shelter, the mayor should have gone to court to clarify that it applies to all municipalities in New York State,” he said.

Since last spring, when asylum seekers began surging into the city, the mayor’s team and advocates have sparred over the city’s ability to abide by the right to shelter decree.

The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, which both monitor the city’s adherence to the law, threatened to sue the administration when the Adams was poised to house migrants in tents at a Bronx parking lot. That came days after the city appeared to run afoul of right-to-shelter rules when it didn’t provide housing for people seeking shelter within the prescribed time frame.

Both groups said Tuesday that they “will vigorously oppose” Adams’ latest legal gambit.

The right-to-shelter law came into being not through legislation, but through what’s known as the Callahan consent decree, which stemmed from a court case resolved in 1981.

Previous mayors have sought to narrow the law. Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg both failed in their attempts.

Mayor Adams suggested Wednesday his attempt will be different and said “this is one of the most responsible things any leader can do when they realize a system is buckling.”

“People need to go on a field trip and see what other municipalities are doing. New York City has managed to handle 45,000 people who are in our care,” he said, referring to the migrants who remain in the city. “No mayor in the history of New York had to deal with the number of people in our shelter system like me ... No one had to deal with what I am dealing with right now.”

Adams refused to say how the city intends to define the lack of resources it referred to in its plea for the court to revise the law. When asked about it, he punted to the court.

“I’m not a judge, and I don’t think for judges,” he said. “My team is going to court to lay out our case, and you could monitor the case as it moves forward.”

When asked about the ultimate goal of the legal filing, Adams’ Chief Counsel Brendan McGuire said the intention “is not to get a court order so that we can shut the door and have thousands of people living on the street.”

“It’s not a question of legal risk,” he said. “It is looking for areas of flexibility where the mayor, as the executive branch, is not hamstrung unnecessarily by a 40-plus year-old judicial order.”

McGuire also pushed back on Lander’s idea that the city could push the court to broaden right to shelter requirements in other parts of the state.

“As a legal matter, he’s wrong. There is no constitutional right to shelter. So that’s the first issue. There’s a constitutional provision that mandates the state and its subdivisions to provide care to the poor. It does not specify a right to shelter,” he said. “Secondly, the issue here is what distinguishes the city from the rest of the state, and one of those things historically ... has been Callahan. And so we are addressing that now.”

Not everyone is attacking the Democratic mayor’s decision. Republicans in particular have praised him.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said “the city does not have the resources to manage the influx of tens of thousands of migrants indefinitely” and that he strongly supported mayor’s plea to suspend the law.

“I give the mayor a great deal of credit,” Fossella, a Republican, added. “The fault all lies squarely with our federal government, which has allowed the crisis at the border to spin out of control. It is unconscionable for the federal government to leave this matter for state and local governments to handle.”

Councilman Joe Borelli, also a Republican from Staten Island, took a similar view.

“Not one soul on the left can answer what the end game is for these people,” Borelli said of the migrants. “No one knows what triggers them to get out of our system.”

Despite Mayor Adams’ request of the courts to roll back parts of the right-to-shelter decree, Speaker Adams, Alaya and others on the Council are committed to enhancing its protections.

Among the “long-term solutions” Speaker Adams and Ayala referenced in their statement opposing the mayor’s move is the Council’s push to eliminate a rule that people living in homeless shelters must wait three months before being able to apply for city-subsidized housing vouchers — a proposal the mayor has panned because of how much it will cost.

“Instead of solely focusing efforts on emergency shelter space and taking away essential safety protections, this administration should pursue readily available solutions that can reduce homelessness, including adequate investments in eviction prevention, housing vouchers, agency staffing, and affordable housing development that are currently missing from its proposed budget,” Speaker Adams and Ayala said.