There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers in New York, and officials said that as of Wednesday, not many of them have been told that they have reached the newly imposed 60-day limit for shelter stays.
Now more than 100 asylum seekers have officially received notices in the week since the limit was announced by Mayor Eric Adams, said Ted Long, a top official with the city’s Health + Hospitals.
Long stated that the notices are being given on a rolling basis.
“The people initially that we’re giving the notices to are the people that have been in our system for the longest,” he said.
More than 93,000 asylum seekers have come to New York City over the past year, officials said. Roughly 56,000 remain in the city’s care.
City officials from Adams on down have said the shelters are at capacity. The 60-day time limit was designed to help free up space for families in shelters. Long emphasized that the limit is meant to help asylum seekers receive help with things such as obtaining ID’s or arranging travel that could get them out of shelters; that’s a step roughly 40 percent have taken so far.
