About 1,000 children \u2014 or nearly 15% of the 7,600 kids living in migrant shelters whose families got notices to leave city shelters since the end of June \u2014 have left the public school system, representatives of the city\u2019s Office of Asylum Seekers disclosed at a City Council hearing Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Molly Schaeffer, the head of the city\u2019s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, shared that and other statistics in her testimony regarding families that had received notices to vacate shelter within 60 days \u2014 suggesting widespread disruption to children.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s devastating the schools,\u201d responded City Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan). \u201cWe\u2019re one administration. Are we thinking about what we can do to keep those kids\u2026so they will stay in those schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Schaeffer, another 830 transferred schools while another 2,300 switched shelters but remained in their original school, and 3,100 remained in the same shelter and school.<\/p>\n
The figures came out in a Council hearing scrutinizing the shelter stay time limits, which the administration of Mayor Eric Adams began phasing in just over a year ago.<\/p>\n
More than 23,000 60-day eviction notices have gone to families with children since then, who have had to re-apply for shelter if they had nowhere else to go. According to the most recent data, from August, only 5,300 households currently live in shelters subject to the 60-day time limits \u2014 indicating some families have had to move again and again.<\/p>\n
Protesters calling for an end to the time limits on shelter stays briefly interrupted the proceedings, chanting \u201cend shelter evictions now,\u201d before they were forced out of the chambers by Council guards.<\/p>\n
\u201cEviction after 60 days is not a trauma-informed policy,\u201d Councilmember Alexa Avil\u00e9s (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the council\u2019s Immigration Committee, told Dr. Ted Long, who oversees the city\u2019s Health and Hospitals emergency shelters, after he\u2019d dodged her question multiple times if he considered it to be a trauma-informed policy as a physician. \u201cIts important for human dignity to acknowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statistics and testimony presented at the City Council hearing highlight the devastating impact of the 60-day shelter stay time limits on migrant children and families. The policy has been criticized for months, and it is clear that it is causing widespread disruption to children\u2019s education and daily lives. The city must reconsider this policy and work to find a solution that prioritizes the needs of these vulnerable families.<\/p>\n
A: The administration of Mayor Eric Adams implemented the 60-day shelter stay time limits to help the city rein in costs and prevent the shelter system from growing in perpetuity.<\/p>\n
A: Around 57,000 migrants currently live in city shelters, down from around 67,000 in January.<\/p>\n
A: The statistics and testimony presented at the City Council hearing suggest that the 60-day shelter stay time limits are causing widespread disruption to children\u2019s education, with over 1,000 children leaving the public school system in the past few months alone.<\/p>\n
A: The city has announced a tweak to the policy, allowing families to apply for additional stays without needing to relocate, as well as a plan for a new centralized mail system to help prevent the loss of important documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Migrant Children Leaving School Due to Shelter Evictions About 1,000 children \u2014 or nearly 15% of the 7,600 kids living in migrant shelters whose families got notices to leave city shelters since the end of June \u2014 have left the public school system, representatives of the city\u2019s Office of Asylum Seekers disclosed at a City […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thecity.nyc\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/11924_Kelly_Gonzalez_city_hall-scaled.jpg?w=1920&resize=1920,1280&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5063,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/5063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/new-york\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}