Only 100 NYC Migrants Told To Leave Shelters Since Limit: Officials

NEW YORK CITY — Only a handful of New York City's tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been told they reached a newly imposed 60-day limit for shelter stays, officials said Wednesday.

More than 100 asylum seekers have officially received notices in the week since Mayor Eric Adams announced the time limit, said Ted Long, a top official with the city's Health + Hospitals.

The notices will be given on a rolling basis, Long said.

"The people initially that we're giving the notices to are the people that have been in our system for the longest," he said.

More than 93,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City over the past year, officials said.

Roughly 56,000 remain in the city's care across a constellation of shelters, relief centers and massive humanitarian sites, which soon will include a location for 1,000 single adult men near a Queens psychiatric center.

City officials from Adams on down have said the influx has put shelters at capacity. The 60-day time limit announced last week was designed to help free up space for families in shelters, as officials said asylum seekers would have to return to intake centers for placement.

Long emphasized the limit is meant to help asylum seekers receive help with things such as obtaining IDs or arranging travel that could get them out of shelters — a step roughly 40 percent have done so far.

“People are not surprised, in fact they’re coming to us with questions, things they need help with,” he said about the 60-day notices.