AT CAPACITY: Mayor Adams announces 60day leave notices for asylum-seekers in city shelters, advocates disapprove

By ARIAMA C. LONG Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

Mayor Eric Adams announced the city has started sending out 60-day ‘leave’ notices to adult asylum-seekers and handing out flyers at the border discouraging others from coming due to a lack of space. Advocates on the ground condemn the move as “morally repugnant.”

According to the mayor’s office, over 90,000 asylum-seekers have come to the city since last year. Of the tens of thousands that have left already, at least 54,800 have stayed.

The notices will go to adults that have been here the longest, not families, in the over 185 emergency shelters and 13 humanitarian relief centers. The notices will be paired with case workers so asylumseekers can find alternative housing either with friends and families or other networks. The city requires those who can’t find somewhere else within the 60-day period to reapply for a new placement at the arrival center.

Power Malu is founder of the Artists, Athletes and Activists (AAA) organization. Both his parents are Puerto Rican immigrants. He was born and raised on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. He initially created AAA to help the island of Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in 2017 and then with pandemic relief in 2020.

Malu heard, from rumors among his undocumented friends, that there would be buses arriving with people from the Texas border last year. His group has been onthe-ground triaging and assisting migrant arrivals at Port Authority bus terminals and airports ever since. They offer food, assist on cases, provide Ubers and Lyfts for transportation, enroll kids in schools, and help asylum-seekers apply for benefits with grassroots fundraising, said Malu.

Plenty of asylum-seekers have left for Canada, upstate, and other cities, while there are many in the city who have managed to find work, figured out how to share apartments, and overall want to leave the shelter system already, said Malu. Still, there’s a real language and culture barrier for migrants as well as instances of serious discrimination preventing people from accessing housing and services. And others decide to sleep on the streets, said Malu. He predicts that more people will take that route under the new policy.

“There’s a lot of BS going on in the system,” he said.

He takes a real issue with the “horrible tactics” the city has engaged in to actively discourage migrants from coming, namely the temporary housing conditions and now the flyers at the border. He also doesn’t agree with the lack of long-term solutions to heal the city’s current homelessness crisis or the divisive rhetoric pitting vulnerable migrants against homeless individuals in need.

“There are unhoused who have been in the shelter system for years, and they’ve been neglected,” said Malu. “Now that migrants are coming in, it’s like you’re forced to look at the shelter system and unveil what’s been happening since before they got here. The migrants are being punished because they are revealing how horrific the system has been for our unhoused population for years.”

Malu applauded the city council’s move to get the City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement (CityFHEPS) voucher bills passed. He said the vouchers and more efforts to unwarehouse vacant apartments should help homeless people move their way into permanent housing, and feels that the expedition would free up more space for asylum-seekers.

Other immigrant organizations across the board are “stunned” and “outraged” in response to the announcement, said Open Hearts Initiative Advocacy Coordinator & Neighborhood Organizer Bennett Reinhardt. He is adamant that the city’s new policy will make it harder for people to access support just as they are starting to make a home in their new communities.

“Without work authorization or rental assistance, it will be incredibly difficult for the

Raise your voice for stronger renter protections across the nation

National organizations and tenant leaders are calling for activists to add their voices to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) Request for Input (RFI) about creating tenant protections at multifamily properties with agency-backed mortgages. Advocates have until Monday, July 31 to help shape strong renter protections––and any renter protections created by FHFA could cover a significant share of renters across the nation.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) has a sample comment letter for individual comments and an organizational sign-on letter in support of tenant protections.

“Landlords and business interests have submitted hundreds of comments against tenant protections,” NLIHC said on its website. “It is up to tenants and advocates to voice their support for federal renter protections like sourceof-income discrimination prohibitions, just cause eviction standards, and anti-rent-gouging measures. Submit your comment today, and learn more about other tenant protections at www.tenantcomment.org.”

Manhattan Arts Grants open for applications

thousands of individuals affected by this announcement to find places to go,” said Reinhardt in a statement. “Many have been trying to do so in the months since they first arrived in our city and have encountered the same struggles that so many New Yorkers face: an extremely limited amount of available affordable units and systemic barriers to access.”

Adama Bah, 35, runs a grassroots organization, Afrikana, that has been on the ground helping Latino, Hispanic, African, and Caribbean migrants for the past year as well. Bah is originally from Guinea-Conakry in Africa and a former asylum seeker.

She grew up in East Harlem with her family. In her book, “Accused: My Story of Injustice,” Bah tells her story as a Muslim American living in the city after the 9/11 terror attack in 2001. Subsequently, she was arrested as a teen with her father under false suspicions of being a terrorist in 2005.

“Do they have any idea what I went through? It took me 16 years to become a citizen. I’ve already gone through the

Manhattan-based artists, arts groups, and community-focused organizations can apply for the 2024 Manhattan Arts Grants. Funding of up to $16,000 is available for a single project.

“Our grants are often among the first awards an artist or group receives and can help recipients to leverage additional support from other sources,” according to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. “Recommendations for awards are made through a juried selection process comprising artists and arts leaders whose expertise reflects the cultural and creative diversity of Manhattan.”

Applications are due by 5 p.m. onSeptember 12. An information session for those interested in the grants will be held Thursday, July 27, from 6–8 p.m. To attend, go to https://lmcc. net/rsvp/.

Free after-school arts program for NYC high school students

The CUE Art Foundation, a nonprofit arts organization based in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, has opened applications for the October 2023–June 2024 CUE Teen Collective (CTC), an after-school arts program for NYC high school students in grades 10 and 11. CTC is a year-long free program for students interested in exploring careers in the arts. The syllabus is structured to create exposure for students to a wide range of working professionals in the arts. The program consists of talks with artists and curators, trips to gallery and museum shows, visits to art fairs, hands-on studio sessions, and more.

At the culmination of the program, CUE also