The number of homeless people in New York City’s shelter system skyrocketed 53% over the past year — driven by the unrelenting surge of migrants, according to Mayor Eric Adams’s preliminary management report released Tuesday.
The report compares data and performance of city agencies for the first four months of the fiscal year — July through October of 2023 — with the same period in 2022.
“During the first four months of Fiscal 2024, the average number of individuals in shelter per day increased by 53 percent compared to the same period in Fiscal 2023, driven by the unprecedented increase in entrants, primarily asylum seekers who made up over half of all entrants during the period,” the Department of Homeless Services said its quarterly assessment of its shelter system included in the 432-page report.
There was an average of 83,985 people in city-run shelters per day during the quarterly period compared to 54,738 individuals in 2022.
“The flow of asylum seekers to New York City drove a 147 percent increase in entries to shelter for families with children and a 185 percent increase in entries to shelter for adult families,” the report said.
The number of homeless people in New York City’s shelter system skyrocketed 53% over the past year.Robert Miller
Meanwhile, the average length of stay in shelters dropped by about 29 percent for families with children, and childless families and 10 percent for single adults compared to the same period a year ago.
Mayor Adams announced a 60-day limit in shelters for individuals in July and reduced it to 30 days in September to provide relief to the stressed system — though the report doesn’t explicitly cite the time restrictions as spurring the shorter stays.
DHS said the sheer increase in migrants led to a “larger proportion” of shelter residents exiting the system sooner.
The city has opened more than 210 emergency shelter sites to house more than 170,700 migrants during the border crisis now entering its third year, according to officials.
The report compares data and performance of city agencies for the first four months of the fiscal year — July through October of 2023 — with the same period in 2022.Robert Miller
More than 100 hotels have been converted into emergency shelters, at an estimated cost topping $1 billion.
The massive report details numerous ways city agencies have responded to help the waves of asylum-seekers, and how the crisis has impacted services.
The city’s public hospital system reported that enrollment in NYC Care — the free and low-cost city-run medical insurance program started by former Mayor Bill de Blasio to provide care for undocumented immigrants and others who are uninsured — shot up 16%, from 105,070 to 121,478 from a year ago.
“Some asylum seekers are qualifying for the program,” the report said.
Health+ Hospitals attributed much of the increase in enrollees to pregnant moms seeking prenatal care, including recently arrived migrants.
“The increase in late prenatal care registrants and accompanying increase in the number of deliveries from the end of Calendar 2022 to 2023, reflects the time period when there was an increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving to NYC,” the agency said.
“Historically, immigrant communities may arrive late in their third trimester, having had prenatal care in their home country. OBGYN care, especially pregnancy-related care, was a common need among asylum seekers.”