Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday paused a controversial rule that forces migrants to re-apply for a shelter spot after either 30 or 60 days, as a powerful nor’easter began to unleash the most snow the Big Apple has seen in years.
Adams cited the weather in announcing the pause of the evictions, which are meant to entice recent arrivals to find their own accommodations,
“We have suspended today if your 30-day or 60-day falls on today. We’re not going to make any changes,” Adams said on NY1 early Tuesday morning.
“We’re going to allow everyone to really plow through this day and not have to worry about any shifts in the delivery of services to those who are migrants and asylum seekers and our books,” he added.
The current policy allows single adult migrants 30 days and migrant families with children 60 days in a city-run shelter before they are given the boot.
Adams noted that there were no issues currently on Floyd Bennett Field, which evacuated migrants last month amid a high-wind storm and forced a Brooklyn High School to go remote so the building could be used as a temporary shelter.
The contentious policy deemed “cruel and unnecessary” by several members of Adams’ own party, was enacted last fall as thousands of asylum seekers inundated city shelters.
City Hall has argued that the limits on how long migrants can stay are necessary to help get asylum seekers out on their own and into more stable living situations, as the city’s shelter system struggles to handle the crisis with thousands more migrants arriving each week.
New York City is expected to spend over $10 billion on the care of migrants through the next fiscal year.
More than 170,000 asylum seekers have come through NYC to date, with just over 66,000 still in the city’s care.
Tuesday’s storm slowed New Yorker’s morning commutes as a dusting of snow continued to fall throughout the morning, and is expected to generate at least five inches of snow for the Big Apple — the most significant snow the city has seen in at least a year and since breaking its 700-day snow drought on Jan. 16.
Ahead of the storm, the mayor ordered all New York City schools to go remote on Tuesday.
After dumping several inches of white fluffy snow on the ground, the storm is expected to move out of the region by 1 or 2 p.m. Tuesday.