NEW YORK - Mayor Adams’ former chief of staff told the Daily News he would have “welcomed” a legal challenge to the city’s handling of the right-to-shelter law in connection with the migrant crisis — a clear indication the Adams administration contemplated how the courts could potentially narrow the law’s application.
Frank Carone, an attorney who served as Adams’ top aide until last year and the presumptive head of his reelection campaign, said the Callahan consent decree — which was issued by the state Supreme Court in 1981 and requires the city to provide shelter to those in need — has been extended far beyond what it was intended to do, and that the migrant crisis could easily be used to persuade a judge to more narrowly define it given the severity of the situation.
Carone told The News that revisiting the issue in court could establish “clarity” when it comes to the city’s obligation and suggested such clarity would likely limit the scope of the law, which is viewed as sacrosanct by many progressives.
Under the current circumstances — about 65,000 migrants have streamed into the city over the past year with many seeking housing here — Carone believes the intent of the consent decree would have to be significantly expanded if it were to remain in place in its current form, and that advocates for that would have a difficult time making that case to a judge.
“Their argument would have to be absurd,” Carone said. “You would have to include anyone in the world coming into New York City seeking shelter. How could you say that with a straight face?”
If right-to-shelter rules were to go to court, the city would likely face off against the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless, which are responsible for monitoring the city’s adherence to the law and have been critical of the administration’s ability to abide by it during the migrant crisis.
The law — which came into being not through legislation, but through the consent decree stemming from litigation during Mayor Ed Koch’s administration — has been front and center over the past year as the city has struggled to manage the migrant situation, which Adams has repeatedly framed as a humanitarian crisis.
Debate over the law’s recent application has also proven particularly contentious.
In September, Legal Aid and the Coalition threatened to sue the city if it ran afoul of the law when the Adams administration was poised to house migrants in tents at a Bronx parking lot. That threat came days after the city appeared to run afoul of right-to-shelter rules when it didn’t provide housing for people seeking shelter within the prescribed time frame.
Since then, Adams has suspended certain right-to-shelter provisions through an executive order, citing the migrant crisis as the reason.
The Legal Aid Society has also appeared to soften its tone on the issue in recent weeks — in what some view as a signal they could lose in court if the law is challenged.
Earlier this month, Josh Goldfein, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, told The News he saw a migrant carrying a child entering a shelter intended for single adults — an apparent violation of a provision prohibiting children from being housed in congregate settings alongside single adults. After alerting Adams’ administration, he was informed that “multiple” migrant families with children were being housed there.
“It’s not clear to us if this was done on purpose or by mistake,” Goldfein said at the time.
Carone views that as a rhetorical shift — and as a tell that Legal Aid doesn’t see itself on firm footing if the right to shelter law were revisited in court.
“You’re seeing them tiptoeing now,” he said.
Past mayors have attempted to narrow the law’s scope. Former Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg both failed.
Legal Aid declined to comment when asked about Carone’s remarks. Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director for policy with Coalition for the Homeless, also declined to delve specifically into what Carone said, but pointed to a legal fact that’s applied in the city for more than four decades.
“New York City has a legal obligation to honor the right to shelter for all class members, regardless of immigration status,” she said.
A spokesman for the mayor declined to comment on Carone’s remarks.
Last September, Adams said the city’s “prior practices” when it comes to housing the homeless “must be reassessed” — a remark some interpreted at the time as an allusion to the right to shelter law. The administration later clarified that it wasn’t reassessing the law itself, but “reassessing the city’s practices around the right to shelter.”
Since then, though, Adams has largely avoided discussing his thinking on the matter.
He also hasn’t explicitly indicated that he wants to roll back the law — one of the last things he wants to see is people sleeping on the streets — but Carone’s comments show the city has considered how it would respond to a lawsuit and how such a response might lead to the law being scaled back.
Privately, some homeless advocates are concerned about that prospect and were reluctant to discuss it publicly, but others believe it’s overdue.
Robert Mascali, a former deputy commissioner at the city’s Department of Homeless Services, said the right to shelter law should remain on the books, but in a revised form.
“Let’s make it fit with what we have to deal with today,” he said.
Mascali agrees with the Legal Aid perspective that children should not be housed in congregate shelters with single adults, but added that some of the law’s provisions should probably be dialed back.
“When this was set up, it was about 40, 50 people a day coming into shelter. Now, it’s 400 people a day,” he said. “This isn’t going to end tomorrow.”
