PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Kathryn Kliff, Attorney/Advocate from Legal Aid Society and Coalition For the Homeless, on 30/60 Day Shelter Stay Limits
0:20:17
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178 sec
Kathryn Kliff, representing the Legal Aid Society and Coalition For the Homeless, testified against the city's 30/60 day shelter stay limits for asylum seekers. She argued that these policies are counterproductive and harmful to new arrivals, making it harder for them to move out of shelters and access necessary services.
- The policy disrupts access to mail, employment, and education for asylum seekers
- Recent changes exempting some families with school-age children are insufficient
- Kliff called for ending the 30/60 day notices, improving case management, investing in legal services, and expanding city FHEPS
Kathryn Kliff
0:20:17
Good morning.
0:20:18
My name is Catherine Cliff, and I'm testifying on behalf of the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition For the Homeless.
0:20:23
Okay.
0:20:24
Thank you to the Committee of General Welfare, Chair Ihala, the Committee on Immigration, and Chair Villas for the opportunity to testify today.
0:20:32
Sure.
0:20:33
As we sit here today, we have an incoming federal administration who has made it very clear they plan to cause harm to our newest New Yorkers.
0:20:40
The city should be focusing its resources to help new arrivals get access to the help they need to move out of shelter, instead of imposing counterproductive requirements that force new arrivals to reapply for shelter every 30 or 60 days.
0:20:54
Case management and legal services are the answers, not forced relocations every 30 or 60 days.
0:21:00
As you will hear today from those families and individuals directly impacted by the 30 60 day notices, these policies make it even harder for people to move out of shelter.
0:21:09
Our clients often lose access to their mail once they move, including vital immigration documentation.
0:21:14
They lose jobs when they have to miss work to reapply for shelter or risk being placed in new locations far from their places of employment.
0:21:22
For single adults who don't meet the requirements to remain in shelter, these time limits relegate them to the streets, further delaying their progress and exposing them to more physical harm as winter approaches.
0:21:33
School age children, as was discussed in the introduction, are often placed further from their schools and miss weeks of school while they wait for new bus routes to be set up by the Department of Education.
0:21:43
In addition to all of these harms, physically going to the offices where new arrivals must go to request another shelter placement may put them at risk.
0:21:50
These sites are known to the public as locations where new arrivals will be, putting them at risk of apprehension by the incoming federal administration.
0:21:59
While we appreciate the city's announcement yesterday that families with children in grades k through 6 and non DHS shelters will not need to change shelters after their second 60 day notice, the policy should be that families should not have to change shelter at all, not even once.
0:22:14
Each shelter change leads to significant disruption and negative consequences for families, especially for school age children.
0:22:21
The Department of Homeless Services announced a few months ago that they plan to impose 60 day notices on new arrival families with children in the DHS system.
0:22:30
Up until now, DHS families have not been subject to these notices.
0:22:34
We've told DHS we do not believe they have a legal basis to implement this policy in DHS shelters, and they have now agreed that they will not require these families to move at the end of the 60 days as long as they request an extension prior to that date.
0:22:48
However, we wait specifics of how this process will work in practice.
0:22:53
We call on the city to end the use of the 30 60 day notices, provide quality case management at all shelter sites, invest in immigration legal services, and expand city thefts in accordance with the bills already passed by this council.
0:23:06
At a time when the incoming federal government is actively working to harm our newest New Yorkers, the city should be doing everything in its power to protect them.
0:23:14
Thank you.
