Testimony: NYC Council General Welfare + Immigration Committees

I am submitting this written testimony on behalf of the Open Hearts Initiative, a grassroots organization of neighbors advocating for housing justice in their own backyards. Our neighborhood-based chapters have hundreds of volunteers who actively welcome and support homeless New Yorkers in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side; Upper East Side; Midtown Manhattan; Lower Manhattan; and Douglaston, Queens. We've been working to welcome our newest neighbors, who have the same rights and many of the same needs as long-time New Yorkers.

While this group of new neighbors has many of the same needs as anybody experiencing homelessness–such as material needs like food and clothing and safe shelter in a neighborhood where they feel welcomed and supported–they are also facing unique challenges. These include extensive language barriers, the lack of work authorization from the federal government, healing from the trauma of weeks-long journeys across dangerous terrain to reach New York City, and–devastatingly–virulent and xenophobic backlash from a minority of New Yorkers who have responded with fear and hatred, rather than welcome and compassion. Another challenge has been the approach of the City itself in providing social services for asylum-seeker neighbors.

In particular, the shift in the City's response to our new neighbors over the last several weeks, namely, the abandonment of the right-to-shelter mandate for dozens of single adult men, is troubling and dangerous. When the City failed to provide immediate shelter for several days in late July and early August, during a heat advisory that urged everyone else (those with the means and resources) to stay inside and in air conditioning, we saw the largest violation of the City's right-to-shelter in recent memory. That is, perhaps, until the 60-day notices, which have now been issued to well over a thousand of our migrant neighbors over the past few weeks, run their course. These notices are harmful measures that could displace our newest neighbors from their community ties that have been carefully and thoughtfully established by countless community organizations, mutual aid networks, and everyday New Yorkers who have wanted nothing more than to be good neighbors.

Our Upper West Side Open Hearts chapter, for its part, organized a community chalking event outside the Stratford Arms, a Humanitarian Emergency Relief and Response Center (HERRC) in the neighborhood that has become the subject of an aggressive campaign designed to push homeless neighbors out. Our group brought chalk and bottles of water and invited everyone to participate in writing welcoming messages on the sidewalk in front of the shelter, during which we met dozens of neighbors–staying inside the shelter and elsewhere, and including shelter staff–and inscribed messages in 8+ languages. Simply put, everyone belongs on the Upper West Side, and that includes our newest neighbors. That the 60-day notices could break the community ties that so many have worked hard to build, and the trust between neighbors that has started to develop, by having neighbors lose their shelter beds and reapply at the arrival center is counterproductive at best.

At the same time, the notices do not move migrants any closer to housing and stability and, upon potential street homelessness, have the potential to expose them to sweeps. Intensified case management cannot manifest reduced immigration court backlogs, work authorization, and access to rental subsidies. Without these, people will have just as much trouble as they currently do. We join the calls to the state and federal governments to provide additional financial and logistical support to the City to serve our newest arrivals, but the City cannot stop meeting basic needs.

In fact, there is much the City can do to increase shelter capacity that does not involve limiting shelter stays: immediately implementing expansions to the CityFHEPS vouchers that this Council passed; increasing capacity at City agencies for processing CityFHEPS vouchers; and increasing case management without punitive notices.

Welcoming asylum-seekers also means standing up for them when they come to our own neighborhoods. We condemn protests that have been led, including by members of this body, over the last several weeks after the City announced temporary shelters in and near their districts. Our hundreds of members already have and will continue to welcome new neighbors in their own backyards.

We thank the Council for this hearing on the 60-day notices. Please do everything you can to stop them for the safety of our newest neighbors and in service of welcoming, compassionate, and whole communities.

Submitted by Bennett Reinhardt, Advocacy Coordinator and Neighborhood Organizer

Submitted to NYC Council on August 13th, 2023.