What Ending ‘Right to Shelter’ Could Mean for New York City’s Homeless Population
Mayor Eric Adams is eager to scrap the decades-old policy to relieve strain on the city’s shelters. But breaking this unique covenant holds risks, advocates warn.
An NYC Emergency Management official during a tour of the now-closed emergency shelter for asylum seekers on Randall's Island in New York City in 2022.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergIn 1979, a 26-year old lawyer named Robert Hayes filed a class-action lawsuit against the city and state of New York on behalf of homeless people facing overcrowding in shelters. The suit argued that the state’s Depression-era constitution established a responsibility for the government to provide emergency care for its neediest.
Robert Callahan, a man who had been living among the flophouses and missions of the Bowery neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, agreed to serve as lead plaintiff in the case Callahan v. Carey. With winter drawing near, in December the court granted preliminary relief to the plaintiffs; they returned to the court seeking safe beds and clean conditions, not just access to shelter, which ultimately led the city and state to sign a consent decree that would establish a landmark “right to shelter” for homeless men in New York in 1981.