NYC NOW - January 10, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: January 10, 2024

Five Hispanic voters are suing Mount Pleasant for violating their rights under New York's 2022 Voting Rights Act. Plus, correction officials are expected to face questions about detainees lack of access to laundry services. Finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson sat down with reporter Karen Yi to describe the scene of a migrant shelter after Mayor Adams began enforcing shelter stay limits.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Lance Lucky. We start in Mount Pleasant, where five Hispanic voters are suing the Hudson Valley Town for allegedly violating their voting rights. It's the first lawsuit filed under New York's 2022 Voting Rights Act. David Imamura is an attorney representing the plaintiffs and is also a Westchester County legislator. He says Mount Pleasant's at-large voting system, where votes can be cast for any candidate. prevents Hispanic voters from electing candidates of their choice. And that's because while the village of Sleepy Hollow is heavily Hispanic,

the rest of the town of Mount Pleasant is heavily white. And the white majority of the town has systematically boated against candidates supported by the Hispanic population. The lawsuit seeks to change Mount Pleasant's voting system, such as by creating districts. A lawyer for the town did not respond to WNYC's request for comment. Lawyers for Rikers detainees say inmates there report going months without any access to laundry service. Michael Klinger of the Brooklyn Defenders says detainees are told to wash their laundry by hand.

He says some use body soap in the shower, then there's nowhere to dry the items. They have to wash their clothing in the shower. They have to wear wet clothing afterwards. They have to sleep in a damp bed because they chose to dry their clothes on their bed. A Department of Corrections spokesperson says detainees can turn in their sheets and clothes for a fresh set twice per week or use an in-house laundry. The new city jail's boss is set to go in front of the city jail's oversight agency Wednesday to address complaints and propose a plan to fix the issue. Next, we head to the scene of a city migrant shelter

after Mayor Adams' new rule that limits how long families can remain in one place. That's after the break. On Tuesday, some migrant families packed up and moved out of their New York City shelters, as Mayor Adams began enforcing his new rules, limiting how long families and their children could remain housed in one place. WNYC's Karen Yee was outside one of the shelters as about 40 families were forced to look for other places to live. She sat with my colleague Sean Carlson and explained what happened. So last fall, the city began notifying migrant families with children that they had 60 days left to stay in their shelters. And when the time was up, they needed to find other housing or else go to the city's main intake. Center and ask for another shelter bed.

And I was at the Roe Hotel. This is one of the emergency shelters, just steps from Times Square, where this first round of moveouts was happening. And, you know, I saw families carrying very large suitcases and even kids carrying suitcases, starting to check out of the hotel, some after more than a year there. Some families had their stuff in bags because they didn't have suitcases and they were piled on top of strollers and they kept falling on the floor. I spoke to Angel Gonzalez, who was carrying a large

suitcase and was one of those moving out after 11 months in shelter. He's saying when he left Venezuela, he left everything behind, and this is a new opportunity that he has to take advantage of. Gonzalez is going to Philadelphia, actually, to stay with a family member that he recently reconnected with. Why did Mayor Adams roll out this policy? The city is currently caring for 66,000 migrants that have come to the city in the last year and a half, and most of them are migrants with children. Adams has said over and over again that the city just doesn't have any more room

and more migrants keep coming to New York City every week. He already rolled out a similar policy. He's limiting shelter stays for migrant adults to 30 days, and he says it's worked to incentivize people to get out of the city shelter and find housing opportunities elsewhere. So caseworkers work with migrants to help them get in touch with lost relatives

or friends of friends, and those who have nowhere to go and still can't afford rent, have to reapply. Of the families moving out today, did most of them have somewhere to go? A handful did. I talked to families who called everyone they knew

until they located someone who knows someone or convinced the family relative to take them in, them and their children, which makes it a little bit more complicated. But some families were headed to Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, but many of them didn't have anywhere to go. And you could see those families were a little bit more stressed,

a little bit more scared, hurrying over to the Roosevelt's hotel, which is the intake center where they have to reapply for housing. My colleague Ariasundrum spoke to 29-year-old Joanna Rivas outside the Roosevelt this morning, who didn't have anyone to turn to after four months at the row. Rivas has a nine-year-old daughter and says she hopes to move forward, find a job, and become independent for her daughter. Karen, what's going to happen to the kids who've been going to school based on where they're staying? That's been a huge concern for education and immigration. advocates who have pushed back against this policy.

For many of these families, school is actually the most stable thing they have in their lives. They told me their kids don't want to leave their friends or their teachers behind or their school communities. Angelica Hernandez says her six-year-old son has been crying because he has to leave his teachers and friends after a year of getting to know them. And they're moving to Philadelphia, too. Under federal law, homeless children in shelter have a right to say. stay in the school that they're going to, even if they move to another shelter.

But in practice, that could be very tricky. Families were concerned that they would be relocated to Floyd Bennett Field. That's that 10th facility in Brooklyn. And that could be hours away from where their kids go to school right now, mostly in Manhattan. The city says they want to minimize school disruption and have set aside hotel rooms for families who still need shelter tonight and want to stay near the schools of their youngest child. But City Hall hasn't confirmed to me whether every family who reapplied for shelter actually got a new shelter bed. What should we expect in the coming weeks? Is this policy going to face any legal challenges?

Right. These notices are going to continue expiring. The city says they've issued 4,800 notices so far. And they're going to continue at other hotels such as the Stewart and the Watson, which are also in Manhattan. There's been criticism of the mayor's policy, like I mentioned from advocates and elected leaders. They're questioning why families who have nowhere to go have to move out only to move into another shelter rather than letting them stay where they are close to their children. school. The city controller Bradlander today says he's investigating the city's implementation of this policy and how much it's costing taxpayers to transfer migrants around city shelters and how the city has been communicating with families. This is something I think we'll see play out in the coming months. And while the city says they have enough hotel rooms today for

families, it's not clear whether that will continue to be the case. That's W&MISC, Karen, thanks for joining us. Thanks, Sean. That's my colleague, Sean Carlson, in conversational. with reporter Karen Yee. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Lance Lucky. We'll be back tomorrow.