City Limits: Fewer Migrants Subject to Shelter Deadlines as City Transitions to Unified System
The entrance ramp to the Prevention Assistance and Temporary Housing (PATH) office is long and steep, and on a recent warm summer morning, children ran up it while their parents walked to the front door. Some were dragging small wheeled suitcases.
The building, run by the Department of Homeless Services (DHS), is the first stop for families with kids seeking shelter in the city. As of late June, that now includes migrants and asylum seekers, who previously had to complete their shelter intake at a separate arrival center in Manhattan.
The city has been transitioning immigrants to a single shelter system under DHS, as it dismantles the extensive network of emergency shelters run by other city agencies opened to house migrants and asylum seekers over the last three years. During peak periods, several hundred arrived daily.