


The Department of Homeless Services is ordering layoffs and cutbacks at the nonprofits it depends on to provide crucial services as part of City Hall-ordered budget cuts, The Post has learned.
The cuts are coming despite Mayor Eric Adams repeatedly declaring the city’s social safety net has been pushed to the breaking point by a surge of migrant arrivals and the ever-worsening housing shortage in the five boroughs.
City Hall sent the directive to the non-profits even though it has yet to strike budget with the City Council, which must be reached by July 1.
Sources say the negotiations over Mayor Eric Adams’ $106.7 billion spending plan have been acrimonious.
“The mayor is moving ahead with a plan to cut critical non-profit services at a time of overwhelming need,” said Catherine Trapani, the executive director of Homeless Services United.
The memo, delivered Wednesday afternoon, orders the non-profits cut expenses the agency had already agreed to fund by 2.5 percent in 2024.
Sources told The Post the order effectively abrogates already-signed deals and could result in layoffs.
“The contracts that nonprofits have with the city are mostly personnel,” said one provider.
“If you tell us we have to cut 2.5 percent, that’s people, that’s programs, that’s case managers.”
“It means more people in shelter and it means more cost to the city,” the person added.
“This will mean layoffs.”
The two-page letter from DHS Administrator Jocelyn Carter specifically suggests layoffs, increasing case loads for social workers and slashing hours services are provided as ways to achieve the savings.
“Change case ratios or consolidate functions — must be approved by DHS and comply with [state] regulation — go from 1:25 to 1:35,” the memo says, suggesting one potential cutback.
“Change hours of service, [example] eliminating evenings or weekends or certain weekdays,” is another suggested cut.
“Consolidate services and staff functions across sites,” it adds, in a third suggested cut.
The memo states that fixed costs — like rent payments — are exempted from the ordered cutbacks.
More than 97,000 people are housed by either the DHS shelter system and the emergency relief centers set up by the public hospital corporation.
Roughly half of them are migrants from the southern border who have arrived over the last year, seeking asylum from violence and economic instability in the Caribbean and South America.
Officials have opened 160 emergency shelters — mostly in hotels and motels across the city — and nine of the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers in an attempt to handle the crush of humanity.
City Hall did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Additional reporting by Bernadette Hogan