Recap: Late Summer Assistance for the Newest New Yorkers
ICNY helped asylum seekers prepare for the new school year and co-hosted a summit for service providers. But the work is far from over.
As the summer came to a close, the Interfaith Center of New York expanded our work to welcome the newest New Yorkers, support the faith communities serving them, and advocate for a humane response to the city’s so-called “migrant crisis.” In the two years since the first buses carrying asylum seekers from Texas began arriving in NYC, there have been some great successes in helping new migrants get accustomed to life in New York. There are also many unmet needs for immigrants and the organizations providing assistance for them.
To address some of those unmet needs, ICNY worked on two new initiatives in the past month: a backpack drive for thousands of students staying in migrant shelters and entering New York City School for the first time, and, in collaboration with New York Interfaith Disaster Services, a Migrant Services Coordination Summit for service providers. We gathered insights from these events, and want to share with you some best practices for supporting the newest New Yorkers.
Backpacks for Migrant Students
Since 2022, New York City has opened shelters specifically for asylum seekers called Humanitarian Emergency Relief and Response Centers (HERRCs). These shelters, located in rented hotels around the city, house new New Yorkers while they apply for asylum or Temporary Protected Status, look for work, and enroll their kids in school.
For all NYC families with school-aged children, September meant finding the right school supplies for their kids. Many families, particularly those of the 5,300 students living in HERRCs, cannot afford to buy these supplies. In order to alleviate the financial stress involved in purchasing new book bags and basic supplies, ICNY, The Episcopal Diocese of New York, D3-Open Arms, and many other partners made sure every student living in a HERRC shelter received a backpack with school supplies.
The Episcopal Diocese of New York sourced 284 backpacks with school supplies. ICNY procured enough school supplies to fill over 1,000 backpacks. Volunteers from the Jewish Theological Seminary packed hundreds of bags at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan. City government volunteers worked with ICNY to pack thousands of backpacks for shelter residents in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
As a result of these efforts across sectors and faiths, every student living in a HERRC received a stocked backpack for the beginning of the school year. Some of these students may be in class with your kids. ICNY is working to build a New York City where everyone belongs -- that begins with welcoming classrooms, where students can show each other compassion, and where everyone has the same chance to succeed.
Migrant Services Coordination Summit
Many of the relationships needed to run ICNY’s successful backpack drive were developed through our city-and state-wide coalition ‘Equipping Diverse Houses of Worship to Provide Shelter and Respite.’ Since launching this group in the fall of 2022, we’ve brought faith leaders together to share best practices, created networks across faith traditions, connected experts with practitioners, and organized advocacy opportunities for the public.
On September 17, ICNY joined New York Disaster Interfaith Services, the Legal Aid Society, and the Mayor’s Office of Faith Based and Community Partnerships to host the coalition's first in-person summit, connecting faith sector services to asylum seekers.
At the summit, ICNY gathered over 75 organizations working in all five boroughs of New York City. Taken together, these organizations serve 15,000 new New Yorkers each month, providing city resource navigation, clothing, shelter, and food pantries— all with a total budget of just $150,000. Despite the oversized welcome that faith communities and organizations have been able to offer with such limited resources, participants in the summit explained that they still need more funding, partners, and volunteers.
And this is where YOU can do your part.
Visit ICNY’s website to find volunteer opportunities to make a difference in the lives of new New Yorkers. Want your volunteer opportunity represented? Fill out this form to have it added, and ICNY staff will be sure it stays up to date.
What Can You Do to Help?
ICNY has made a difference, but the work is far from over. In both our backpack drive and the Migrant Services Coordination Summit, we heard about one consistent challenge: New York City’s 30 and 60 day shelter evictions. These rules require migrants to re-enroll and move to new shelters—individual adults after 30 days, and families after 60 days. Crucial, life-changing support networks of fellow community members and non-profits are disrupted when evictions force people into neighborhoods that may be hours away from where they previously lived. ESL and workforce development providers both noted at the summit how the 30 and 60 day notices diminish client retention.
These rules are particularly devastating for families with school-aged children. The 60-day rule means parents lose placed-based relationships, cooperative child care arrangements, language acquisition assistance, access to legal representation, and work. For many migrant children, who will have just begun to develop friendships in their classrooms and relationships with their teachers, the 60 day rule means they will have to start somewhere else all over again. This disruption is agonizing for the family and self-defeating for the wider city. ICNY sincerely hopes that the backpacks we provided will not need to do double-duty as suitcases for young new New Yorkers. On this topic, see ICNY Executive Director’s September 6, 2024 New York Times Letter to the Editor “Migrants in the New York City Schools”.
What can we as New Yorkers do? Here are 3 ways that individuals and congregations can take action to end shelter evictions!
Email Mayor Adams and your City Council Member in support of City Council Proposal (Intro 210) which aims to end shelter evictions, like the 30 and 60 day notice. Take action here.
Host a phone bank to end shelter evictions with your house of worship. This is a great and easy way to raise up your congregation's voice. Reach out to Kelly Viselman (Kelly@jfrej.org) to learn how you can organize an hour-long phone bank session, during which congregants call New Yorkers in districts whose City Council members haven't signed onto the bill.
Sign this letter. Add your house of worship to this Faith & Organizational Letter in support of ending shelter evictions in NYC.