In 2024, the city temporarily suspended requirements for some shelters during a surge of new immigrant arrivals, so that it could more quickly set up emergency sites. Mayor Mamdani now wants a plan to bring all facilities back in compliance with rules about capacity and other standards.

Men outside a shelter for adult migrants in the Bronx last spring. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

On Tuesday morning, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani issued an executive order requiring the Department of Social Services and Department of Homeless Services (DHS), in tandem with the Law Department, to create a plan to phase out the use of emergency shelters for migrants that don’t meet longstanding city standards. 

The move marks the end of a chaotic, nearly three-year chapter in New York’s shelter system, during which the city scrambled to open dozens of emergency sites in response to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers—facilities that didn’t have to meet the same standards for space and resources required under city law.

The city has been shuttering these sites over the last year, as the number of new immigrant arrivals declined. Mamdani expects to receive a plan in 45 days, or by Feb. 19, to bring the entire shelter system back in compliance with shelter regulations on capacity and other requirements, like that all facilities for families have a kitchen.

Under former Mayor Eric Adams, the city reached a settlement to temporarily suspend some of those right to shelter rules during the surge of new arrivals, so that it could more quickly bring emergency shelter capacity online. 

“The initial suspension and modification of these rules and regulations occurred at a time when the city was desperately seeking shelter capacity to address the influx of asylum seekers in need of shelter services,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement. “As the situation has stabilized, these emergency provisions are no longer necessary nor are they in the best interest of the New Yorkers we serve.”

In December, the city was still operating three non-DHS emergency shelters, two for mostly single adults in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and one for families with children at the Row Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Two closed at the end of last year, leaving just the Bronx site, though it was not immediately clear how many people remained there. 

The city’s latest asylum seeker census shows there were just under 4,000 migrants staying in non-DHS facilities as of November. There are currently over 28,000 migrants in DHS-run sites, according to the agency—of the more than 86,000 people in DHS shelters overall—and the vast majority are families with children.

Mamdani’s order doesn’t yet end the earlier city settlement that suspended certain requirements for shelters, citing the migrant emergency. DHS continues to operate a number of commercial hotels as shelters that are not fully compliant, according to Dave Giffen, director of the Coalition for the Homeless. 

“They’re not revoking that [settlement] suspension yet. [The city is] still saying we need some ability to place families in hotels that don’t have cooking facilities,” Giffen said. 

While the executive order does not require the agency to come into compliance with these standards in 45 days, it requires the submission of a plan describing how DHS will do so.

The coalition and The Legal Aid Society applauded the order by the new administration.

“Since the City is no longer experiencing an influx of new arrivals at the high levels seen over the past three years, under the prior administration’s own logic a crisis framework is no longer appropriate or necessary, nor is it a substitute for a humane, durable housing and relocation strategy,” the groups said in a joint statement.

During the primary election, then-candidate Mamdani said that he would end 30- and 60-day shelter limits for migrants in the system, a policy Eric Adams instituted in 2023 for adults and in 2024 for families with children.

“We’re optimistic,” Giffen said. “The philosophy of the new mayor and his administration seems to be aligned with ours, that the answer to mass homelessness is affordable housing, that people who are unsheltered on the streets should not be criminalized, but be provided with access to permanent housing.”

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