The city Department of Homeless Services has quietly provided 150 migrant families with up to $4,000 each to exit the city shelter system and move into permanent housing, agency officials confirmed to Gothamist.
The one-time grants are part of a pilot program dubbed Asylee Moveout Assistance. They’ve been made available to asylum-seeking families and pregnant women who live at 62 emergency Department of Homeless Services shelters and have lined up their own permanent housing, department spokesperson Neha Sharma said.
The initiative was launched in December and is modeled on a similar, pre-existing city grant program that provides up to $4,000 — called “enhanced one-shot deals” — for residents of city shelters to help pay for moving costs, Sharma said. Some asylum-seekers may not be eligible for that program due to federal and state restrictions, Sharma said.
The move-out grant program, launched with scant public notice or attention, represents one of the Adams administration’s most novel efforts to reduce the census of migrants in city shelters and help those in the system “take the next step in their journeys,” as Mayor Eric Adams has put it.
The administration has also implemented new limits on shelter stays, ranging from 30 to 60 days for most migrants, and offered free travel to migrants leaving the city altogether.
The city’s migrant shelter census has hovered around 65,000 for the last several months, even though the number of new migrants arriving in the city and seeking shelter has declined steeply. The city has accommodated more than 210,000 migrants, mostly asylum-seekers, in an influx that began in 2022, and has spent more than $5 billion and an average of $372 per night for each household.
“The city continues to use every tool at its disposal to implement innovative solutions while creating fundamental resettlement supports for recently arrived asylum-seekers who may not be eligible for most federal and state-funded rehousing assistance,” Sharma said in a statement.
She added: “We look forward to supporting more households as we assess the successes of the pilot and feasibility of scaling up and expanding access to this form of assistance.”
The grants are paid for with leftover funds from existing budgeted Department of Homeless Services contracts with nonprofit shelter operators, who also run the grant program, Sharma said.
Migrant families who line up housing can receive one-time grants of up to $4,000 to help pay for moving expenses, security deposits, first and last month’s rent, and other household supplies, Sharma said.
Families receive up to $1,000 gift cards for necessary household items, and moving companies, landlords and other merchants are paid directly, she said.
Recipients are required to document their expenses, and parents with work permits are prioritized. Since the awards are one-time grants, those who return to city shelters aren’t eligible to receive second grants.
The Adams administration has experimented with other grant programs for asylum seekers, such as a pilot program to provide prepaid debit cards for migrant families in shelters to buy food and baby supplies, in lieu of traditional boxed meals.
The debit cards have been criticized as overly generous, but the administration says the program reduces food waste and is a net cost-saver. It recently expanded the program, which began with a trial run of a few dozen families earlier this year, to include 7,300 migrants, at a cost of about $2.6 million.
Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney for Legal Aid, said he supported the pilot program, and encouraged the state to help with resettlement efforts.
“Anything that increases the city’s flexibility to provide people with what they’re saying they need will be a benefit to everyone,” Goldfein said. “In helping people to move out of shelter and reduce their costs.”
“It’s a classic technique used by resettlement organizations to connect people with the community,” Goldfein added. “It’s a more proactive way to do things than imposing arbitrary time limits.”