Fadel, Leila, and Michel Martin, hosts. “New York City Homeless Bill of Rights becomes Law.” Morning Edition, NPR, 7 June 2023, https://www.npr.org/2023/06/07/1180665241/new-york-citys-homeless-bill-of-rights-becomes-law

New York Mayor Eric Adams passed the Homeless Bill of Rights this year as a law. This bill of rights acknowledges their right to sleep outdoors in public places, but NYC does have other laws that apply limitations to this. This bill also gives people the right to apply for rental aid as well as the right to complain about the state of the shelter without receiving any reprocussions. This law was put in place because homeless people were continuously harassed when they weren’t committing anything illegal. This bill is intended as a self-advocacy tool for the homeless and can be used to sue for other laws that currently exist. For example, if they didn’t receive the interpreters they needed or weren’t able to get in contact with a housing representative, they have the ability to use this in their favor. However, Mayor Adams has recently challenged the Right to Shelter law. The Right to Shelter law has been in place for decades and requires the city to provide shelter to anyone who requests it. The mayor requested a suspension from this obligation due to the shelters becoming incredibly overburdened by thousands of asylum seekers who aimed for New York because they had heard of this law. “The advocacy group,the Coalition for the Homeless, says that as of March, there were more than 75,000 people sleeping in city shelters each night. That includes thousands of children. And recent migrants to the U.S. are also among those without stable housing.” The shelters are overwhelmed with thousands of families and children because we are not receiving sufficient funds and help from the federal government.

This podcast I found to be very informative and inputs a lot into my research. I was unaware that there were so many asylum seekers and of the right to shelter law we have. As well as the homeless bill of rights, I hadn’t come across any of this information before, so I had to do further research on all of it. I found that the right to shelter law has been established by the court since 1980. At first hearing, Mayor Adams request to suspend the Right to Shelter Act sounded unreasonable. But looking further into the state of the shelters and finding that they don’t have any more space made it more understandable. However, suspending this law would result in so many more people living on the street, not to mention the thousands of people in the shelter before the first asylum seeker arrived in NYC. The matter of funds seems to be the most constant problem and NYC needs more federal help to relieve this huge issue. 

  • “Mayor Adams allowed this bill to go into law. He didn’t veto it. But he’s also challenging New York City’s right to shelter law, which requires the city to provide shelter to anyone who requests it.”  1:38