NYC Homelessness: Hotels as Shelter – Charts & Data
New York City’s reliance on hotels as homeless shelters is surging. An investigation reveals that hotels are now teh primary response to NYC homelessness, with social services agencies placing nearly half of individuals and families in these accommodations. This shift,driven by rising rents and shelter closures,leaves many without crucial services. Learn why this problematic pattern is worsening, explore how long individuals are staying in hotels via insightful charts and data, and discover the lack of services causing people to get stuck in the system.. News Directory 3 breaks down the implications of this trend, offering an analysis of the data. Discover what’s next …
HOMELESS-HOTELS-CHARTS
Hotels have become New York’s primary response to homelessness outside of New York City, according to an investigation by New York Focus and ProPublica.
Social services agencies across teh state are placing nearly half of all individuals and families seeking shelter in hotels. However, those placed in hotels often lack services they should receive in shelters, such as meals, housing assistance and child care.
The increased reliance on hotels is due to rising rent, shelter closures and a spike in evictions after the COVID-19 pandemic moratorium ended.
The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has been aware of the problem for years but has not formally proposed rules or found a way to ensure people receive needed services.
Here are five charts that explain the investigation:
Statewide spending on hotels more then tripled from 2018 to 2024.
the number of families and individuals placed in hotels doubled in the two years after New York’s eviction moratorium ended in 2022, and spending on hotels outside of New York city more than tripled to $110 million.
OTDA Commissioner Barbara Guinn said the agency prefers counties use shelters, but there are not enough beds. She added that the agency had not studied the growth in hotel use.
Families placed in hotels are not guaranteed the same services as those in shelters. New York requires family shelters to provide services like child care, housing assistance and three meals a day, but the regulations generally exempt hotels.
There is an exception: A hotel is supposed to be considered a shelter if it “primarily” serves temporary housing recipients. OTDA spokesperson Anthony Farmer said the agency interprets “primarily” to mean “exclusively,or almost exclusively,” and that no hotels currently meet that standard. Though, an analysis of the agency’s data by New York Focus and ProPublica found that welfare recipients made up over half the capacity for at least 16 hotels during fiscal year 2024.Guinn said that social services offices must work within the confines of what hotel owners allow, and that counties try to provide services off-site.
The number of individuals and families housed in hotels for more than six months nearly tripled from 2022 to 2024.
Not only are more people being placed in hotels, but they are staying longer. The number of families and individuals spending at least six months out of the year in hotels nearly tripled from 2022 to 2024.
Steve Berg, chief policy officer for the National Alliance to End homelessness, said the lack of services leads to people getting stuck in the system, creating a snowball effect.
“It’s this expanding problem,” he said. “A good shelter should be housing-focused.if they don’t have a pretty substantial effort to move people quickly back into housing and provide the services that are necessary to do that, the shelters quickly fill up, and then they just need more shelters.”
Farmer said a lack of affordable housing contributes to the longer stays, and that counties can use other funding to help people move back into permanent housing.