How Waves of Migrant Arrivals Sparked a Housing Fight in New York City

FAR ROCKAWAY, N.Y.—The thousands of migrants streaming into New York City each month are prompting officials to grapple with another issue: an existing homelessness problem.

After a dip during the Covid-19 pandemic, the population of the shelter system has now reached a record high, city data show, exceeding the previous record set in 2019. Advocates and legislators are hoping an expanded system of city housing vouchers can help put more residents in permanent housing—and cut down on ad hoc solutions such as converting warehouses and office buildings to shelters.

The city’s shelter population began surging last year, particularly after Republican governors of border states began busing migrants to cities such as New York and Chicago. More than 90,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since spring 2022, and nearly 61% remain in either traditional shelters or various relief centers.

The migrant crisis has already cost the city $1.4 billion, Mayor Eric Adams has said, and the city expects to spend at least $2.9 billion on the matter this fiscal year.

The vouchers have become a flashpoint issue, leading to arguments between Adams and his fellow Democrats on the New York City Council. The council voted July 13 to expand the program, overriding a veto by Adams.

“Every New Yorker at the lowest income levels that we can help avoid eviction through the use of [city housing] vouchers is another crisis averted,” Speaker Adrienne Adams said at the council meeting where the veto was overturned. “This proactive approach stops forcing people into shelters.”

Christine C. Quinn, the chief executive of Win, a nonprofit agency that has city contracts to operate shelters for families with children, said the system was already showing strain in large part because previous iterations of the city voucher program didn’t keep pace with the high cost of living.

“There was a problem—a significant, significant problem—before the asylum seekers arrived,” said Quinn, a former council speaker.

On Wednesday, Mayor Adams said the city had more than 105,000 people in its care—including nearly 55,000 migrants—and that shelters were so full the city would soon implement a 60-day limit on shelter stays for adult asylum seekers.

The mayor argued the city can’t afford such an expansion of its social safety net, which he says will cost $17 billion over five years. The changes, he said, could inadvertently give priority to people struggling with their rent over those who are already homeless, whom he said would be “at the back of the line.”

The voucher program has served an estimated 9,300 households over the previous 12 months, according to the Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan watchdog. The commission didn’t support the council’s override, calling further expansion unaffordable.

Danielle Jeffries and her husband, Ansar, used a voucher to move into an apartment complex in Queens, a New York City borough, just a few days before Thanksgiving. She said that while she knows the mayor is juggling several crises at once, whatever he and other city officials can do to help others like her, they should.

“The ones that are trying to survive and trying to live and everything—yeah, we need these vouchers,” said Jeffries, 48. 

Jeffries, a beautician, said she and her husband, Ansar, a landscaper, landed in New York City’s shelter system after her husband’s parents died and they couldn’t keep up with the taxes on his parents’ house, which they also lived in. They were unable to make ends meet even though they both continued to work.

Their new home is part of the Rockaway Village tower complex, which is dedicated to low-income households and was developed by a nonprofit: Phipps Houses. Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., who lived in Far Rockaway in his youth, said he is glad to see a former vacant parking lot be used for affordable housing—rather than a luxury building that would have contributed to gentrification.

The Jeffries qualified for the voucher in part because they had spent at least three months in the city’s shelter system. Adams in mid-June issued an emergency rule ending the 90-day shelter requirement. Two weeks later, Adams said 500 households that would have otherwise had to stay in a shelter for three months had already been approved for the voucher.

It was a more limited move than what the council had pitched. Lawmakers not only wanted to end the 90-day requirement but also eliminate a work requirement, while loosening income restrictions to qualify.

Adams vetoed the council’s package of bills in late June amid contentious budget talks. He argued the plan would allow people not at meaningful risk of homelessness to qualify for vouchers ahead of those more in need. After the council overturned that veto, Adams said he was considering how to proceed.

The mayor announced plans last week to place a 60-day limit on shelter stays for adult asylum seekers. The mayor said the city would distribute fliers at the U.S. southern border telling people to consider going elsewhere.

“We have no more room in the city,” Adams said Wednesday. “We cannot continue to absorb tens of thousands of newcomers on our own.”

The advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society said in a joint statement that they were reviewing the policy’s legality. Lawsuits filed by the groups established a legal right to shelter in New York decades ago. Adams said the new limit is designed to give priority to shelter space for children and families.

City Council Member Pierina Sanchez, who sponsored some of the voucher legislation, supported the veto override.

“These bills and these reforms are really trying to change the way we do business to keep people stable,” she said in an interview. She added that the city would be in a better position if the federal government could do more to help manage the migrant influx.

—Jimmy Vielkind contributed to this article.

Write to Erin Ailworth at [email protected]