Mayor Adams' Statement on Right to Shelter Hearing Held Today

August 4, 2023

NEW YORK – New York City Mayor Eric Adams released the following statement following today’s court conference in Callahan v. Carey regarding the right to shelter:

“As we’ve known since the early days of this crisis, this is not just a New York City emergency, but a crisis that requires support from the state and federal governments. We need all of our partners to step up and treat this crisis like the emergency that it is, instead of abandoning New York City to provide shelter and care for more than 95,000 asylum seekers by ourselves. As we have been warning for months, our shelter system has buckled as its population has more than doubled in a single year. Unless the state and federal governments fulfil their obligations to join us and do more in supporting asylum seekers, scenes like the one that broke our hearts outside The Roosevelt may sadly become more common, despite the best efforts of thousands of dedicated public servants to find space for hundreds of new asylum seekers every day, in a city already facing a severe housing shortage.”