Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has yet to clear a waitlist of new migrants waiting for New York City shelter beds, more than a week after a court-ordered deadline for eliminating the backlog.

Migrants leaving the city’s reticketing center in the East Village on Monday evening told Gothamist they were not given shelter beds and were instead provided addresses for temporary shelters in churches without cots.

The ongoing delays and subpar accommodations are at odds with the terms of a settlement the city agreed to last month with the nonprofit Legal Aid Society and Coalition for the Homeless — and leave the city at risk for potential legal action, such as a formal judicial order requiring the city to comply.

The settlement requires the city to eliminate the dayslong waits for shelter beds and ensure migrant shelters meet certain minimum conditions, including providing beds, by April 8. In exchange, the administration has been allowed to deny housing to adult migrants in some cases, in a modification of the city’s landmark right-to-shelter law.

Molly Schaeffer, director of the city’s Office of Asylum-Seeker Operations, testified at a City Council hearing on Tuesday afternoon that migrants reapplying for shelter at the reticketing center receive a “cot placement in 24 hours.”

City officials have not yet provided either the Legal Aid Society or Gothamist with the number of migrants waiting overnight without shelter placements. City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak on Friday said only that the number had declined significantly in recent days.

At a press briefing that day, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom would not say when the city would clear the waitlist, as hundreds of migrants seeking shelter continue to arrive in the city daily. She said City Hall officials plan to add more shelter beds and are working closely with the Legal Aid Society to ensure the city complies with the terms of the settlement.

“The system’s not going to turn over right away,” Williams-Isom said. “It’s going to take a couple of days, a couple of weeks.”

Josh Goldfein, senior staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society, said the administration had yet to declare it had satisfied the settlement terms, or if problems remain. Goldfein receives daily and weekly reports with data about migrants in shelters, as required by the settlement.

At least five migrants told Gothamist on Monday evening they were still waiting for a proper shelter placement after arriving at the reticketing center during business hours. Goldfein said those accounts raised “serious concerns” about whether the city is upholding the settlement’s terms.

Migrants kicked out of shelters under the Adams administration’s 30- and 60-day limits for recent arrivals are allowed to reapply for shelter at the reticketing center, located at St. Brigid’s Church in the East Village. The line outside the building has occasionally extended around the block. On Monday evening, nobody was waiting in line, but shelter beds were still scarce.

Seeking shelter at the reticketing center

Hector, 27, from Nicaragua, said he and a friend arrived at the reticketing center at 5 p.m. on Sunday, after finishing their daytime construction jobs. He asked that his full name not be shared publicly for fear of jeopardizing his immigration case.

Both men received slips of paper with an address for “an overflow waiting area” at a church in Flatbush. The church didn’t have beds or showers, Hector said. They returned again on Monday at 5 p.m. and received the same slips of paper directing them to the church.

Richard, 51, from Venezuela, was waiting outside the reticketing center around 6:30 p.m. on Monday, while his wife applied for a new shelter bed inside. She had been waiting inside since around 10 a.m. on Monday, and they were set to receive a temporary placement in a church, he said.

“Immigrants don’t have rights to anything, even a bed,” said Richard, who requested that his full name not be used because he feared retaliation from shelter staff.

Goldfein said city attorneys told him last week they “had a problem” with migrants not receiving shelter beds, and were working to come into compliance with the settlement terms. But Goldfein said he was still awaiting more information about what exactly occurred. Goldfein said he may ask a judge to intervene if the city doesn’t respond to his request, or if he finds it “unsatisfactory.”

The settlement requires the Legal Aid Society to make “good-faith efforts” to resolve potential violations before bringing any concerns to court. If the city continues to violate the terms, the organization could ask a judge to order it to comply and craft a compliance plan.

City officials have vowed to add more shelter beds, and Goldfein said he would continue to closely monitor their plan moving forward.

Under the settlement finalized in March, the city is allowed to limit the length of shelter stays for single adult migrants. The deal modifies the city’s long-standing right-to-shelter rules, which generally require the city to provide a shelter bed to anyone who needs one.

City officials have yet to enact additional shelter limits for migrants, as the administration and the Legal Aid Society negotiate the details of who will qualify for extensions of shelter stays. Migrants will only be eligible to extend their stays under “extenuating circumstances,” per the settlement.

Shelter stays continue to be limited to 30 days for single adult migrants and 60 days for migrants with families, with an option to reapply at the end of those terms, according to Goldfein.

Waiting for more information

Goldfein said the city’s data reporting system obscures whether officials are violating the settlement terms. He noted that the city’s report from Friday said the last migrant to receive a cot waited zero days after appearing at the reticketing center.

“In other words, there’s no waitlist from their point of view,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that (other) people didn’t wait.”

Other data the Adams administration provided to the Legal Aid Society indicated the city has made some headway on clearing the backlog of migrants awaiting shelter, according to Goldfein.

The “active waitlist,” or the number of migrants on the shelter waitlist who have checked in with city staff in the past 10 days, declined from 1,139 last Monday to 1,025 on Friday, he said, referencing the city’s reports. Some days last week it was even lower, he added.

Fewer than 100 migrants were staying in “waiting rooms” — ad hoc shelters without beds or cots — on Saturday and Sunday, Goldfein said. He said he requested more data from city attorneys about the number of migrants waiting overnight without shelter beds but has yet to receive that information.

This article was updated with additional comment from Josh Goldfein, senior staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society.