Report cites rise of ‘long-term stayers’ in New York City’s shelter system

(The Center Square) — The average length of a stay in New York City's homeless shelters is increasing as the city wrestles with a surge of tens of thousands of asylum seekers that has pushed its emergency housing system to the brink.

That's according to a new report by City Comptroller Brad Lander, which found that the average stay in the city's shelter system exceeded a year, with the number of days that adult families spend in emergency housing increasing to 885 days — or roughly 2.3 years — in fiscal year 2022, up from 773 days in the previous fiscal year.

Families with children stayed in emergency shelters for an average of 520 days as of fiscal year 2022, an increase of two weeks from the previous fiscal year, the report noted.

"The Department of Homeless Services does not generally provide a pathway to permanent housing placement, except through shelter, Lander wrote. "Homeless clients handled by DHS must be willing to enter and remain in shelter until they are placed. Given the lengths of stay noted above, this presents a significant potential barrier to permanent housing."

The report urges DHS to do more to move people from emergency shelters into permanent housing and implement “effective” strategies for reducing the length of stay in shelters.

"The shelter system will keep growing and growing if you can’t get people out," Lander wrote. "Their challenge has grown significantly but their resources have also grown significantly."

Lander also points out in the report that the state agency doesn't publicize the number of asylum-seekers its emergency housing system serves.

Over 100,000 migrants have come through New York City in the past year amid a surge of immigration along the southern border. The surge coincided with the end of the pandemic-era Title 42 policy that required migrants to stay in Mexico while requesting asylum, which expired in May.

Mayor Eric Adams has opened nearly 200 "humanitarian" relief centers to provide housing, food and other necessities for nearly 60,000 migrants under the city's care.

Adams has estimated that the cost of sheltering tens of thousands of asylum seekers across the city could rise to $12 billion in coming years.

In a scathing response to the audit, DHS disputes the comptroller's findings and argues that it contains "errors and fundamental misunderstandings about the scope and breadth" of the agency's work.

"We are deeply concerned that the report presents an inaccurate representation of our agency’s structure and operations at a time of unprecedented resources that the city and DHS/DSS have committed to the national crisis of homelessness," DHS Deputy Commissioner Christine Maloney wrote.

The agency points out that the length of stay in a shelter is impacted by a variety of factors, including a shortage of affordable housing in the city and personalized issues such as a homeless individuals' immigration status, credit history, medical needs and whether they are a victim of domestic violence.

"DHS cannot be compared to other states or cities that may not face these same issues or that place time limits on how long the individuals experiencing homelessness can stay in shelter," Maloney wrote.