New York Metropolis will shut its final remaining emergency migrant shelter by the tip of the yr, in line with a plan that the Mamdani administration launched on Thursday.
The trouble goals to unwind crisis-era shelter insurance policies and produce the system again into compliance with right-to-shelter necessities and native legal guidelines.
The power, a Humanitarian Emergency Response and Reduction Middle (or HERRC), within the Bronx’s Mott Haven neighborhood, is the ultimate shelter working outdoors the normal Division of Homeless Providers system. Within the face of neighborhood opposition, it opened in Feb. 2025 with a capability for roughly 2,200 single adults and at the moment homes about 1,950 folks, in line with the town’s 45-day motion plan.
Below the plan, all residents will probably be transitioned into normal DHS amenities by the tip of calendar yr 2026.
To shut it, the administration plans a phased transition. That features opening a number of new compliant shelters that had been delayed underneath the earlier administration and reallocating capability inside the current system. Because the variety of households with youngsters in shelters declines, the town plans to transform some lodge rooms at the moment used for households into beds for single grownup males, timing these strikes to reduce disruption.
Metropolis officers are framing the transfer because the formal finish of the emergency shelter construction constructed in the course of the peak of the migrant inflow. Starting in 2022, the town opened 258 emergency shelters — together with 18 HERRCs — to deal with greater than 237,000 asylum seekers who sought shelter between spring 2022 and June 2025.
In January 2025, roughly 69,000 asylum seekers had been within the metropolis’s care. That quantity has since declined to roughly 30,000 as of February 2026. Total, about 88,000 folks stay in shelter citywide, in line with Metropolis Corridor.
The motion plan additionally units out how the town intends to revive compliance throughout the broader shelter system.
Native legislation caps most single grownup shelters at 200 beds. Through the peak of the migrant inflow, a number of websites exceeded that restrict. Town says it’s going to instantly cut back capability at websites marginally above 200 beds and produce three bigger websites into compliance via reductions and relocations by the tip of 2027.
For households with youngsters, the town at the moment operates 112 business lodge websites serving roughly 11,486 shelter items and housing roughly 8,100 households. Resorts don’t absolutely meet regulatory requirements, notably round entry to cooking amenities. Town says it’s going to broaden compliant household shelter capability, convert some accommodations to everlasting shelters the place possible and pursue census discount methods, together with accelerating exits to everlasting housing and strengthening prevention and diversion applications, to ease systemwide stress.
In a joint assertion, The Authorized Support Society and the Coalition for the Homeless stated the town’s acknowledgment of its authorized obligations underneath the right-to-shelter consent decree and native legal guidelines is “welcome,” however stated further particulars are wanted.
“Too many people remain in shelters without real access to affordable housing,” the teams stated. “If meaningful pathways to permanence and stability existed, the City would not need to keep moving people from shelter to shelter.”
The organizations urged the administration to make use of “all available tools” to scale back the shelter census and relieve capability pressures, together with absolutely using CityFHEPS vouchers, increasing supportive housing placements and expediting the leasing of vacant NYCHA items. “Without maximizing these existing resources, compliance efforts will fall short,” the assertion stated.
They added that they’re reviewing the proposed timeline for closing and consolidating websites and wish extra details about particular amenities into consideration to make sure the rights of unhoused New Yorkers — notably folks with disabilities — are protected.
“While this is a step in the right direction, many questions remain,” the teams stated. “The City must be forthright and prompt in providing details, fully comply with its legal obligations, collaborate with stakeholders, and prioritize the well-being of those relying on the shelter system.”
Parallel jail reform effort
A corrections automobile leaves Rikers IslandPhoto by Dean Moses
The shelter compliance plan was launched alongside a separate implementation plan from the Division of Corrections aimed toward ending a collection of emergency government orders which have ruled operations on Rikers Island since 2021.
Former Mayor Invoice de Blasio declared a state of emergency 5 years for the sprawling jail advanced, which former Mayor Eric Adams prolonged each 5 days all through his time period. On Jan. 6, Mamdani too signed an government order extending the long-running state of emergency, however not like previous extensions, set a Feb. 19 deadline for correction officers to come back ahead with a compliance plan.
That plan, launched Thursday, outlines a structured course of to raise or change emergency suspensions affecting Board of Correction minimal requirements, native legal guidelines and metropolis guidelines. The purpose is to revive compliance with requirements set by the New York Metropolis Board of Correction and implement Native Legislation 42, a sweeping solitary confinement reform measure handed in 2023.
Among the many key steps within the plan: Ending the authorization of 12-hour excursions and various shift schedules for correction officers and returning to plain eight-hour excursions; Formalizing pre-arraignment courtroom safety operations via a renewed memorandum of understanding with the NYPD; Creating a plan by 2027 to finish the commingling of younger adults and older incarcerated folks; and addressing suspended provisions associated to due course of, restrictive housing, restraints and separation standing, a lot of which intersect with Native Legislation 42.
The jail reforms are topic to session with a court-appointed monitor and a newly appointed remediation supervisor within the long-running Nunez case, and sure provisions of Native Legislation 42 stay underneath a short lived restraining order.
In a press release accompanying the discharge of the plans, Mamdani stated, “For too long, city government allowed entrenched problems and operational breakdowns to persist. This plan shifts us away from temporary stopgaps and toward sustainable reform.”
Late final month, a federal choose appointed a former CIA officer to take the mayor’s place managing operations on the jail advanced on Rikers Island, a part of the decade-and-a-half-long prisoner civil rights case that has now performed out over 4 mayoral administrations.
Chief U.S. District Choose Laura Swain introduced in Could 2025 that Rikers could be positioned underneath federal receivership, stripping the town’s management of the notoriously violent and troubled facility, after years of discussing the likelihood amid advocates’ requires a federal takeover.
“At Mayor Mamdani’s direction, the Department of Correction and Law Department developed this plan to address long-standing issues in our jail system,” stated Company Counsel Steve Banks. “We will begin implementing it in coordination with the remediation manager and, when required, with the approval of the remediation manager, the Monitor and the Court. Our goal is clear: achieve compliance with Board of Correction standards, implement Local Law 42, strengthen oversight and improve conditions at Rikers Island.”
“This plan marks an important next step in addressing issues that have festered for far too long,” stated DOC Commissioner Stanley Richards. “Under Mayor Mamdani’s leadership, we are moving from crisis-driven operations to safe, sustainable jail management.”
