NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – More than 1,000 migrant children in New York City have been forced to leave their schools after receiving eviction notices under Mayor Eric Adams’ policy requiring families to vacate temporary housing within 60 days, according to city data released on Monday.
Adams announced the 60-day shelter policy in October limiting the time migrant families with children can stay in shelters. The decision was made to reduce the strain on the city's overwhelmed housing system due to a large number of asylum seekers arriving over the past year, according to Adams.
Migrant families started to receive 60-day notices in January and are forced to find new housing within this period, though they can reapply for shelter if they are unable to secure housing.
A total of 8,233 households with children have received eviction notices from their shelters managed by the Homeless Emergency Response and Relocation Centers, Rendy Desamours, senior strategist and deputy press secretary, told 1010 WINS.
The notices impacted about 5,700 school-aged children residing in shelters, according to the data which runs through March 4.
Of these students, 82% are still attending the same school as before the notice.
However, 1,026 of these students have had to change schools due to the relocation. Two-thirds (678) are no longer in any New York City public schools and around one-third (302) have moved to different schools and shelters, and less than 4% changed schools without changing shelters, according to the data.
“The data provided by the Administration paints a disheartening picture: over a thousand children have had their education disrupted because of the cruel 60-day eviction rule for families in shelter,” Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala (D-Manhattan/Bronx), chair of the Committee on General Welfare, said in a statement.
The New York Immigration Coalition which has been advocating for migrant students and warning the city of the impact the 60-day shelter policy will have on them emphasizing their need for access to education in the city.
“All children deserve a quality education and a safe and stable learning environment – a critical need for all, but especially our asylum seeker families as they adjust to their new home and recover from the precarious journeys to our city,” Liza Schwartzwald, director of economic justice and family empowerment, New York Immigration Coalition said in a statement on Monday. “But rather than supporting and welcoming our new neighbors, Mayor Adams pulled the rug out from under them with his punitive and arbitrary 60-day evictions.”
In December, the United Federation of Teachers urged Adams to stop the new shelter limits for migrant families, emphasizing the disruption it would cause to children's education and school operations.
The policy also came under fire at a hearing of the City Council Education and Immigration committees in December and a petition was started by the union.
“To uproot these families from their current housing during the coldest months of the year and interrupt these students’ educational progress … is reprehensible,” read the petition. “With this action, you will traumatize not only these families but entire school communities.
Over 183,000 immigrants have been in the city’s care at some point since 2022. Roughly 60% of those migrants have been able to leave the system according to Adams administration.
“Mayor Adams’ promise that kids wouldn’t miss school held no truth when he first announced his evictions, and the data shows that it holds no truth now,”Schwartzwald said. “It is time for Mayor Adams to embrace the profound economic, social, and cultural contributions that asylum seekers will make to New York City by rescinding the 60-day eviction policy that is so clearly harming children and their families.”