Cots, food scarcity and constant confusion: the toll of New York’s migrant shelter evictions
On 25 January at 10am, Jhoann Reyes carried his family’s belongings – several suitcases, a jumbo plastic checkered bag, three backpacks, and two baby strollers – from their room at the Stewart Hotel to the sidewalk. The New York City hotel-turned-emergency-migrant-shelter had been their home for a year.
Originally from Venezuela, Reyes first moved to Ecuador fleeing political persecution. There he met his wife Katherine. Over a year ago, the Reyeses and their kids left Ecuador because of gang violence, and came to New York through Colombia, Mexico and Texas. That misty day in January was their eviction date.
Reyes, 31, loaded their possessions into the trunk of a friend’s gray hatchback while Katherine waited under the hotel’s scaffolding to hide from the drizzle with their one-year-old in her arms, and two older boys by her side. The family headed to the Bronx, hoping to get a room at the NYC department of homeless services (DHS) Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (Path) shelter for families with kids.
But three hours later they were back in midtown, rerouted to the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center at the closed Roosevelt Hotel. They waited all night until they finally received a new placement at The Row Hotel near Times Square at 5am the next day. The room came with a new 60-day eviction notice limiting their time at the hotel, and marking the resumption of a taxing journey after a yearlong reprieve for the family.
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New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has framed the city’s shelter-eviction policy as a tool to direct human traffic in the strained, overflowing shelter system. First announced in October 2023, it encourages the families to look for alternative housing after they get served 60-day notices. The Reyeses were one of the roughly 9,100 families with children staying in the city’s 17 Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers (HERRCs), who received eviction notices between October 2023 and February 2024. (The situation is even more dire for single people without children, who, starting September 2023, had to re-apply for shelter every 30 days. On 15 March, the city limited the 30-day shelter stays even further. From now on, single adults won’t be able to re-apply for extended stays unless they can present extenuating circumstances.)
The 60-day eviction notices for families start the timer for the city to make the new arrivals self-sufficient, according to city officials. “It’s not just a time limit for a family to be in a hotel room,” explained Ted Long, MD, MHS, the senior vice-president for Ambulatory Care and Population Health at NYC Health + Hospitals. Long oversees 15 HERRC sites, which first opened in October 2022, as a response to the growing need for housing migrants. In New York City, where the Right to Shelter is enforced by the state constitution, anyone in need of a place to live is guaranteed safe, decent and appropriate shelter.
“It’s a deadline for us as a city to effectively help you,” said Long, adding that before an eviction happens, every family gets to brainstorm their next steps with case managers. According to Long, the fact that less than half of the evicted families return to the Asylum Seeker Arrival Center for new shelter placement is a testament to the system’s efficiency.
But the Guardian spoke to several non-profits and human rights organizations that say the reality is completely different. From interviews with the Legal Aid Society, the New York Immigration Coalition, Black Alliance for Just Immigration, Project Rousseau, and Advocates for Children of New York, what emerged was a picture of a systematic eviction practice that many are calling unfair, unnecessary and a tool to deter people from coming to New York. Still, these organizations are stopping short of calling the practice a violation of the right to shelter. “It’s not that these people are losing that right [to shelter],” explained Liza Schwartzwald, the director of economic justice at the New York Immigration Coalition. “It’s that they’re just making it more difficult to access that right.”
Over the course of three weeks after 25 January, the Guardian interviewed several families during and after their eviction and reintake processes. Though unanimously grateful for the help they are getting from the city and its agencies, all of them described their experiences as confusing, frustrating, and exhausting. Behind the city’s rhetoric of helping “asylum seekers in the city’s care take the next steps in their journeys” stands a palpable need to cut costs and manage the number of people in the strained shelter system – more than 65,000 people are currently staying in the city’s 216 sites across several shelter systems, including HERRC sites.
Each family with an eviction notice can work with case workers who help families find alternative housing, many of which are out of state. The city also offers one-way tickets to every migrant who asks for it, and some families agree to leave. They may move further in the country’s interior in search of better options or to be reunited with family members who live here already. Others return to their countries of origin.
Related: ‘No words for the anxiety’: migrants desperate for jobs trapped in US asylum maze
About half of the families who have been served eviction notices have nowhere to go, so they report back to the Arrivals Center and re-apply for shelter. If the shelters are full, families receive vouchers for 28-day hotel stays under the Hotel Vouchering Program. At the end of their cycles, they have to start the process again. The practice leaves families scrambling between finding a new place to live, simultaneously applying for asylum and work authorization, and keeping their children in schools. It is a process filled with uncertainty, and there are no signs that it will become easier with time.
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Sara Mu?oz, 18, has been evicted twice already. On 12 January, she left The Row Hotel with her two-year old daughter Zoeh and reported to the Roosevelt’s Asylum Seeker Arrival Center for a new placement. Mu?oz was only 12 when she had to leave her home country of Venezuela: her family was on the brink of starvation, she told the Guardian. She went to Peru with her mother, Jennidey, but five years later, economic instability in the country uprooted them again. Jennidey came to the US first, then Mu?oz followed with her partner Michael and their newborn. She said her journey to the US was “horrible”, describing a harrowing trek through the Darién Gap jungle with Zoeh clinging to her chest. When Mu?oz eventually crossed the border more than a year and a half ago, she had been separated from the father of her child. They have since been reunited.
Life at The Row wasn’t easy. As the shelter filled up, the atmosphere got tense, and food scarce. But Mu?oz was glad to have a room. Waiting for her name to be called at the Roosevelt, the young mother was mentally preparing herself for a tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. “If you are going to send me there, OK,” said Mu?oz. “I can’t say no. I can’t get down. I can’t get sad because of my daughter.”
She spent the whole day in the center’s waiting room, but her turn didn’t come. Together with other families, she was allowed to spend the night in the Roosevelt’s common area lined up with cots. Her baby cried all night. “My daughter didn’t want to sleep on stretchers,” said Mu?oz, who documented the steps of her reintake on her phone and shared her notes with her lawyer who is also helping other migrants. Mu?oz wanted other families to know what to expect, said Andrew Heinrich, the founder of Project Rousseau. The non-profit organization provides full-scope immigration services to the new arrivals, and is helping Mu?oz apply for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJS), which would make it possible for her to qualify for lawful permanent residency and to get a green card.
We want to work. We don’t want to depend on the government and have them say ‘these bums don’t do anything’
Sara Mu?oz
The day after her eviction, Mu?oz was relieved to get a room in a shelter in East New York. But her worry is not over. Just like the Reyeses, Mu?oz was handed a new 60-day eviction notice as soon as she got to the new shelter, which is a standard practice at the HERRCs now. On 16 March, she was evicted again, and is currently staying at the Roosevelt’s Asylum Seeker Arrival Center with her daughter. Her partner Michael left New York for a job in another state.
Mu?oz is afraid she might eventually end up in the streets, as 15 May, her latest eviction date, looms and her work authorization awaits approval. “We want to work,” said Mu?oz. “We don’t want to depend on the government and have them say ‘these bums don’t do anything.’” While Mu?oz waits for her SIJS paperwork and work authorization, and prepares for the General Educational Development test, an alternative to the US high school diploma, she volunteers at La Morada, a restaurant in the Bronx that provides free meals to the migrants.
For migrant families with school-age children, the eviction and reintake process is especially stressful because it can lead to disruptions in education. According to H+H’s Long, the city is working hard to keep the families in the same boroughs close to their kids’ schools. But this is not what is happening in practice, migrants’ advocates say.
“The mayor has consistently said that he’s rolling out this new [shelter eviction] policy, but it won’t impact their ability to go to school,” said Jennifer Pringle, the director of Project Lit – Learners in Temporary Housing at Advocates for Children of New York. In reality, The Guardian learned, some families are sent so far away from their original placements, their kids have to switch schools midyear. “If you’re placed over an hour away in a new hotel for 28 days or another 60 days,” said Pringle, “it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for you to regularly get your kid to school.”
This was the reality for the Reyes family. For about two weeks after the family got a new shelter placement, their 10-year old son Jose Andres did not attend school. “It’s really far, and my wife can’t take him,” said Reyes. The Row is under a mile away from their old shelter, but for Katherine, who stays at home with their other two kids while Jhoann hustles, it was overwhelming to walk the distance twice a day. The family tried to hire someone to take Jose Andres to school, but it was too expensive.
If you’re placed over an hour away in a new hotel for 28 days or another 60 days, it is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for you to regularly get your kid to school
Jennifer Pringle
Technically, the city has the necessary tools to keep children in school without interruption. For example, the Reyes could request a bus service for their son as soon as they changed shelters. But it is a lengthy, hard-to-navigate bureaucratic process. “If the parent isn’t able to get their kid to school, they have to find a phone number for the school […] The school may say, we need proof of change of address. They have to find someone who will give them a letter saying where they’re living, then the school has to update the address information, then someone has to submit an online busing request,” explained Pringle. She is concerned about the negative effects of the evictions, and short new placements on children. “If there are so many barriers and obstacles to getting that [uninterrupted education] actually set up, it’s an elusive service.”
The Reyeses eventually arranged busing for Jose Andres, the Guardian learned. On 26 March, however, they will be evicted again, and will likely have to repeat the process.
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For the young new arrivals and their families, schools have become a safety net and a community to lean on. In PS 139 in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, for instance, a parent group united to help migrant families facing evictions. Christian Perticone, a father of eight-year-old twin daughters, recalled a message in the group’s WhatsApp chat that made him first realize that several families in their second-grade dual-language class lived in a shelter. “Sorry. Who could give me two large suitcases?” asked Suerkis Polanco in Spanish. Polanco’s family was one of the three families at The Brooklyn Vybe Hotel in Flatbush who were handed eviction notices. The request for suitcases started a discussion, which led to the Ditmas Park parents coming together to help the families in need.
“That was a turning point for me,” said Perticone. “Everybody has started to step up.” On the day the eviction notices expired, the migrant families went to The Roosevelt hoping to get new placements close to their school. But the closest anybody was being sent [...] was an hour away,” said Perticone. “The families sort of had to choose between making sure that kids were going to be in school again on Monday, or riding it out in the system, when they were getting offers to be sent to other boroughs.”
Megan, an eight-year-old from Venezuela, was sad about the prospect of leaving her school and new friends, her mother Laura Sosa said. Luckily, she didn’t have to. The Polancos, the Sosas and two other families who chose not to disclose their names are now staying with their Ditmas Park hosts, members of the parent group, until at least the end of the school year. Sosa has finally received her work authorization, and she is hoping to be able to rent her own place soon. Perticone said that their parent group is currently helping approximately 13 families in their school, running a GoFundMe campaign which has already raised more than $61,000 for long- and short-term housing solutions.
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Despite the confusion and stress that migrants experience when they receive eviction notices, city officials are adamant that evicted families do not end up in the streets. Each family with an expired notice that came back for the reintake has received a new placement, advocates confirm.
The situation is vastly different for single adults who spend weeks and months waiting for a spot in a shelter. Some of them are homeless, others end up in makeshift shelters in basements, unsanctioned commercial spaces, and even vehicles. All the families the Guardian has spoken to are Latinx. But the experiences of Black migrant families and single adults are exacerbated by racism and over-policing, said Melissa Johnson, the New York organizer from Black Alliance for Just Immigration.
The new wave of migration has strained New York City, and the municipal agencies are scrambling to manage the volume of daily arrivals while upholding the rights to seek asylum and shelter. Mayor Adams is requesting additional $400m from the state to help contain the crisis. Additionally, the city is rolling out a pilot program to provide 500 families in shelters prepaid debit cards for food and baby supplies.
In a situation that has polarized the city, public advocates, officials and New Yorkers all seem to agree that the solution to the so-called migrant crisis should come from the federal government. Perticone, of the PS 139 parent group, concurred: “It seems like this is a lot for a city to have to figure out all on its own.”
