 afternoon. My name is Gary Jenkins and I am the commissioner for the Department of Social Services. Thank you for being here. Under Mayor Adams, New York City is committed to meeting our legal and moral obligation to provide shelter to all who need it, regardless of background and immigration status. Every night, our dedicated teams work around the clock to ensure that we meet this mandate in a city of over 8 million people. Let's be crystal clear. The city and this agency are here for people in need, but we also need our government partners to recognize the external pressures that are being placed on our shelter system. The fact is that we have seen a significant uptick in our families with children, senses over the past couple of months, driven in part by an increasing migrant population seeking services. We prioritize the privacy and dignity of our clients at all times and our teams tracks trends and capacity needs as best we can with the self reported information we are provided at intake. So we are better positioned to operationalize the right to shelter mandate. These families with children have already experienced considerable trauma and we are here to help them stabilize their lives, not further alienate them. We will not be deterred by unprecedented challenges or unhelpful narratives, questioning the veracity of our analysis. We remain squarely focused on delivering our mission to provide services to vulnerable families and individuals who come to us. As the mayor has said, we need federal support in every level of government to come together to ensure that we have the resources and support to proudly uphold the inclusive values of this nation and honor New York City's legacy as a safe haven for marginalized and vulnerable communities. Let me state the facts. The fact is when a family present to our shelter, if they present by 10 p.m., we are required by state law to house that family in a conditional placement by 4 a.m. Because of the large increase of families coming into our system, we did not meet that mandate for four families that was going in Tuesday, Monday into Tuesday morning. All families were placed by no later than 11 a.m. on that Tuesday. I want to repeat, all families were placed in a conditional placement by Tuesday. We recognize where we felt we are going to always strive for excellence because why our families deserve it when they come to our doors seeking help. That's not going to change. We're going to stay focused. I commend the staff who are there day and night being there for New Yorkers in need and for our migrants who come to us seeking shelter, seeking help, just seeking a warm, loving arms around them. And we're going to continue and we're going to always do that here in New York City. I want to now introduce Commissioner Castro, who is our mayor's office of immigrant affairs. And I would say it was, excuse me, I want to make a correction. It was Sunday into Monday. So three families were placed by 6 45 a.m. And the last family was placed by 11 a.m. Again, there were no families that had to stay in path 24 hours. We made sure that families were sent to their conditional placement. Commissioner Castro. Thank you, Commissioner Jenkins. My name is Manuel Castro. I am the commissioner of the mayor's office of immigrant affairs. And over the past several weeks, my office has been working closely with Commissioner Jenkins and other city agencies in the task force led by Deputy Mayor and Williams Isam to ensure asylum seekers who are arriving in our city are welcomed and they receive the support that they need in particular emergency shelter. As we meet this moment, I can't help to think about my experience crossing the U. S. Mexico border with my mother. How challenging that was for us to then make our way to New York those first days, those first weeks, those first years. And I have to tell you that I cannot be any prouder of Mayor Eric Adams leadership and the leadership of our administration to meet this moment. This is a historic moment. Not in any time in modern history. So many asylum seekers have come to our city and we have met this moment. Almost over 3000 asylum seekers have arrived arrived and we have provided emergency shelter and the support that they need. I have personally met with many of them in the bronze on Staten Island. And as they arrive in our bus in buses to midtown and I can tell you that they need support that they need New Yorkers to come together and embrace them. And this administration is ready to meet this moment. So with that, thank you all. Thank you to our staff at the emergency shelters at the Department of Social Services, at emergency management and everyone that has to come together to serve these communities. And with that, I'll welcome you. Welcome, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you commissioners. Both of you for this serious moment, unprecedented moment. And the goal of our team is to make sure that we meet the moment. Four families did not meet the deadline that's required by law. Not acceptable. And as the commissioners stated, they were not there for 24 hours. They immediately moved to address the issue. But I think as Commissioner Casfield stated, 3,000 people needed shelter in our city. Unlike other states in their heartless manner of sending those people seeking a place to stay in our country was sent out of those bordering states and sent to other locales. If it's New York, if it's Washington, the mere fact is we are responsive and we responded. And when you look at 3,000 people hidden our shelter system, an immediate response from the infrastructure of our system to address their concerns is what we are talking about. So any any comment or insinuation that we did not respond the way New Yorkers expect us to do so is just not true. And this is not a moment of saying, hey, we got you. We caught you. No, this is the moment with our administration is saying to them, we got you. This is who we are as New Yorkers. We got you. We're going to provide the services you need and many complex services because when you hear without proper documentation, you have to navigate so many of the resources that we need to find ways to address. But we don't have people in our shelters who are not being fed, who are not spending days on the floor sleeping with children. That is not who we are. That is not who we're going to be as a city. And we're asking all to be a part of this initiative, our faith based institutions, our legal advisors, those who want to volunteer. We were just here with Norma Siegel the other day. We are all in this together to deal with this influx of innocent people seeking asylum or fleeing wars who are fleeing crises in their own country. New York is one of the few states where you have right to shelter. One of the few. We're not like those who are sending people away during their time of needs. We are representative of what this country stands for. And we will always continue five families or four families that did not receive services within the time frame that the law calls for is four families too many. But those over 3000 individuals that we were able to provide services for, I want to say, job well done for those families that we provided services for. And we're going to continue to provide services as a transition into normalizing their lives and not having to live within the shelter system. And so that is the reason we wanted to be clear today. The call, this press conference, this press conference was called because we wanted to push back on that narrative that any entity is stating that this administration is not doing his job. And so job well done Commissioner Jenkins, a job well done Commissioner Castro and the deputy mayor and our entire team as we deal with this unprecedented historical level of children and families that we're going to have to provide services for. So we'll answer any questions you have any questions for the commissioner or questions for me. Mr. Mayor, what type of communications have there been with the federal government on this topic and what do you plan to do with any help that may be offered? Well we want to be extremely specific on what we need from the federal government and resources. We have been communicating with the White House. They have been partners with us to help us navigate this moment. Our team has been in constant contact with the White House. We announced earlier this week when we realized the influx of people seeking assistance. And so our goal is to have our teams specify what we need as an emergency cash assistance to be able to provide for these families so that they can normalize and stabilize the environment. And keep in mind it's not only Latin America. You are finding people from all over the globe that are coming here, coming to the borders, using the borders to come across. And we have organizations throughout this city that have stepped up and stated they want to help. And we will continue to meet that challenge but we do need help from the federal government through FEMA to assist us that this city was already dealing with the shelter population. And we're going to need help to deal with this unprecedented surge that we are experiencing right now. And they need to let us know. And I say to my advocates, I say to everyone that's in this, how about us working together? If there's a particular area that they believe someone was there for a long period of time, that we're not aware of that. Share it with us. We don't have to save families, homeless families, through press releases and through letters. We want to communicate. And so there's something you see that we're not seeing. You have a person that crossed the border that's running my mayor's office of immigrant affairs. How about talking to him? You have a person that lived in a homeless shelter. How about talking to him? Let's stop trying to solve our problems through press releases and Twitter. Let's solve it by communicating with each other. So if those advocates have cases that we have not done correctly outside the four families that I'm aware of, then how about just talking to us directly? They speak with us all the time when they want something. How about speaking to us when they need to do something? The administration or the governments of Texas and Arizona and ask them why they're sending people to New York if in some cases they have no relatives, no family members here, no connections. And also if New York City's shelter system is already overburdened, why is New York City the best place to send these individuals? Well, first let's deal with the first level. People want to come to New York because this is the most diverse city in our country for the most part. And so if you're coming from a particular place in Africa, there is a population here to assist you. If you're coming from Central America, if you're coming from Asia, there are places here. We have communities in very few places on the globe. There are communities that are here to help you transition here. So there's a natural desire because of our reputation that you want to come to New York. There's a natural desire just about everybody. I'm pretty sure no matter what country you in has a reflection of how we are as a city. Second, we're not one in a few cities, states with right to shelter. You know, other places are just the opposite. Those bordering states that are forcing people out, they don't have right to shelters. You know, I don't think people realize how compassionate we are as a state that's stating we're not going to turn you away no matter where you came from. And I think that is probably why people want to come here. And our conversations with the Biden's administration is that we think FEMA should kick in right now, allow us to take this issue that this country is facing. And we're hoping they do so, that they're doing so and we're optimistic that they are. We have not communicated with the other bordering states on why they're doing it. It's wrong to send people out of your state. We're going to follow the law. The law states that we're right to shelter state and we're going to follow the law in those 3,000 individuals. No matter how challenging it was, no matter that we are overburdened, everyone knows, you know, the struggles we're having around homelessness in our city, no matter what the challenge was, this administration of DSS, they stood up. I mean, when you think about an overburdened system, 3,000 surge and still responding. And then the four families that stayed a few hours longer, which should not have happened, we're saying, listen, we're going to move to do better. I mean, you know, this is what New York is expected of us. And I'm just really proud of this administration for doing their job. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, Mr. Mayor, I have a question. At what level is the shelter system, what's the capacity right now level wise? How much of the asylum seekers are representing that capacity level? And where are these families being, where are the shelters that you mentioned, that they're coming into the Bronx, but where are they being located? Okay. And the commissioner would say this, but let me tell you this. We're not allowed to say we don't have room. We're not allowed to say that. Right to shelter means we have to keep expanding and be creative in our expansion. That means if we have to get hotel rooms, we'll get hotel rooms. That means that we have to find other spaces. We'll find other spaces. There's no such thing as this state saying we're turning you away. We're going to have to keep expanding based on the needs and we're going to have to keep finding the funding based on the needs. This is the hand we are dealt and we're going to play that hand. And it means moving throughout the five boroughs, wherever we have to place people in a humane environment, we're going to do so. But we're not going to allow people to believe they must sleep on our streets because we're not going to be there to provide them the bedding that they deserve and the housing that they deserve. We're going to keep accommodating whomever is at our coming to our state. And we're going to continue to do that. You want to talk about the numbers? Thank you, Mayor. So as the mayor, I just want to reiterate what the mayor said. We are a right to shelter city and we are going to always build capacity so that individuals who present to us, we're legally mandated to provide temporary housing for them. That work has not stopped. And we continue to work with individuals in our system to provide the services that they deserve. As far as housing, folks getting individuals to permanent housing, supportive housing, that work has not stopped because we've seen an influx of individuals in our system. Our current census for a DSS is approximately 48,000 right now. And that includes families with children, single adults and adult families. So we're still digging as you know, we don't ask for individuals immigration status because they have a right to come into our shelter system. We have that conversation with them during the assessment. And we're going to continue to build capacity. We don't have that luxury to say, no, you can't come in. We're going to always find a way and find a bed for those families to come in. If you don't ask for immigration status, and that's the reason why you don't know how many of these asylum seekers are currently in the system, and how did you use that very same information or acquire it to come up with the number 21? Well, that's just looking at the trends and looking and having those discussions with families that come in and doing that assessment. But we are not going to ask for immigration status for individuals that come in. It's definitely an estimate. The average number of residents, 3,000 is a huge number. What's the average daily number regardless of this? How many people normally come to the shelter looking for assistance? So I don't have that statistic right now on me, but I will get back to you. I have my team get back to you. You just said something that's very important. 3,000 is a large number. We process 3,000. That's a large number. Four, we have to do a better job. But 3,000, this team process, this commissioner went out to speak to families, went to bus terminals, interacted with people. 3,000. We're going to go to Chris. Actually got called on. So Mr. Mayor, Legal Aid Society was saying that you've been covering up the fact that the law was broken earlier this week by not letting everyone, the public know right away. Why did you not let the public know right away that the law had been broken and what's your response to the accusation of a cover up? 8.8 million people, 30 million opinions of, we don't have to cover up. This is an organization of transparency. This is an administration of transparency. There's no reason to cover up when you house 3,000 people and four families, which we should have done the correct job based on a law you house within a period of time. You know, there are two concepts for law. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. This administration operated in the spirit of the law. And this administration is made up of human beings. Human beings drop the ball sometimes. Those who are perfect are not part of my administrations. Those who are dedicated are part of my administration. This commissioner and this commissioner and this deputy mayor, they operated in the spirit of the law. We got housing for families. If those families were sleeping on floors for days, like we're done before, I could understand the Legal Aid's critique. But to critique an administration that is compassionate to house 3,000 people for families that should not have been there, there was no reason for us to cover up. We did a great job and we're going to continue to do better every day. What was the actual time? I found out today. The administration has been talking with Legal Aid. They sat down with Legal Aid. They laid out on Tuesday, I believe it was. They communicated with Legal Aid on Tuesday. Today is Thursday. They communicated with Legal Aid on Tuesday. Hey, Legal Aid, we had a surge. We had a surge. Four families, we should have done better. The law requires such and such. We violated the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law, we got people housing. We talked to Legal Aid. This was no feeling of trying to cover up anything. No. We just did just the opposite. We said, hey, Washington, hey, border and states, New York needs help to address this humanitarian crisis. So we didn't cover up. We can't be very public facing. So I'm not sure where people believe housing 3,000 people and four families that we're saying we got to do better because we don't want any families sleeping on the floor. But people were not there for days, Chris. That's why it was important to do this press conference because people were trying to give this signal that this was an inhumane administration in any humane city. That is not the facts. 3,000 people got housed because of this surge. In light of a surge, just one more. In light of a surge, you mentioned earlier that since New York is a right to shelter state, you have to sometimes look for other alternatives in order to abide by that law. Are there any plans to rent hotel space, find other type of spaces to house homeless people in? Yes, we actively being when you say actively wondering, is there any plans to buy a more hotel space or this is the job of the deputy commissioner deputy mayor. This is the job of the commissioner. This is the job of our team. The deputy mayor communicated with me the other day because of the surge. Eric, we're going to have to look into new locations. We have to do some different things. I just have full belief and confidence in the deputy commissioner of navigating all of these pieces because not only housing, we have to deal with the education piece. We have to deal with the medical piece. We have a lot of pieces here. This is under her portfolio, not just have the utmost confidence and her ability to do so. Thanks for reminding me. We had a call last night when we first learned of the four families when I heard of it. It was last night. Thanks a lot. How do you justify that? Now, the people who are sending people away, they tell you they did something differently and automatically you believe them. I wish you treat me that way. You believe them? You know, the mere fact that they sent people out of their state, people who were seeking refuge in our country, they sent them away. Did they deny that? No, they said they sent them to DC. They should never send them away. Some of the migrants themselves, and they said it wasn't the government that sent them here. It was non-profit. Okay, okay. They sent them away. They sent them out of their state. Our country is home of the free, land of the brave. We do not become cowards and send people away looking for help. All of us came from somewhere, even from Texas. They came from somewhere. And so they should not have sent people away that were seeking refuge. So if they want to justify that in their own little way of saying we send them to Washington so they can do a layover, then come to New York, they can say what they want. They were wrong. They ended up here because they didn't get to support there. Mr. Mayor, you said that you feel that people are trying to create an impression that people are sleeping there for days at a time 24-7. I can tell you that, first of all, just without any respect, it was my reporting and my interviews with some of the family members up there that disclosed that people said they were sleeping inside the path. When I went up there to interview those families, the furthest thing from my mind was that they were going to tell me they were sleeping there. So these are people who have hiked through the Panama jungle and survived without food. Right? And no idea there was a violation of local law. But they tell me, one father in particular, who I have on camera and watch the interview himself tonight, tells me that there were 80 people sleeping on the floor. He was there for five days, 24 hours straight, and that he has no reason to lie about it or make it up. How do you square that? We do not have any documented or reported cases. This was what I was very clear, speaking with my team. Do we have cases of people sleeping for days? Do we have cases of people denying services, not being fed? The team said we don't have cases of that. Now, there are cases of that we need to know about. We can't correct what we don't know. And then we informed Legal Aid and your agency and then the families told us that they were not being fed regularly. And then Legal Aid people tell us that they've confirmed it with their clients and some of them have sent us pictures. Okay. I can only tell you that my conversations with the agencies, because we're not going to be administration, we're not going to be humane, that's not going to happen. Do we have people that have been in our shelters, in our path, our holding facilities? No, Mayor, we did not. Do we have people we have not fed and we're not feeding? No, Mayor, we did not. Now, we're going to go out and continue to do our inspections. That's what the commissioner does. That's what I do. We're going to continue to do that. We're not aware of those cases. And if they interview, I mean, you're an excellent reporter. So if you see cases like that, please let us know, because that is not who we are. And that is not what this administration is about. Hold on, hold on. And I would say last night, I visited PATH, spoke with families, watched the operation. I did see families going to get food. And it wasn't like a ration of food. It was, if they wanted extra, they would provide it with extra food. Some families overnight, after once we placed them, they have to return the next day to finish out the intake. So if they're in by 10, we're mandated to have them in a conditional placement by 4 a.m. They return the following day to finish up. So they do return to the location. And we provide transportation. I just follow up on just two points. One, what are you, forgive me if you've raised, and if you've already talked about this, then just skip over it. But is there a system that you're putting in place to try to help these families with emergency cash assistance since they're not entitled to food stamps? I know you do move them back and forth from the PATH to other temporary overnight placements. And in some of those places, like hotels, for instance, they don't serve meals. So maybe those are some of the families that are telling us that they're hungry. I believed them. I mean, I can't, I just, that was my sense was that I believed that they don't understand the local laws and the history of this controversial issue. So what are you doing to put a system in place that families like these have diapers, food, et cetera? And then the other question is, can you just, to the best of your ability, walk us through the, when you saw the uptick reflected in the census? Because the numbers appear sort of flat. And so if the numbers are flat, then that means you'd be moving people out at the same rate as you're moving people in. And a lot of our homeless advocates are saying like, they just don't think people are moving out of that global shelter system that way. So just to supply, Melissa, I mean, the mayor said earlier that, you know, we're working with the federal government, working with the White House, really understanding what support they can provide to us at PATH. We have supplies as far as pampers, milk formula, food for the families. We do provide that to them. We do that each night at PATH, at PATH. And what was the other question? It was about what we do for food when they're going back and forth. They can't get emergency cash assistance. One family told us, we have to get to the Saratoga Inn in two hours to get our room, but we don't have a metro car and we don't have any cash. So we provide metro cars, but first we provide transportation to that location. Some families select, and I witnessed it last night when I asked the family, I was like, ma'am, why don't you allow us to take you? And she said, no, I'd rather take a Uber. And she said, I was like, but is Uber going to cost you? She said, my preference is to take an Uber. So I was like, okay, but we do provide transportation to the conditional placement. So that was, I believe it was June, when we started seeing late May, early June, when we started recognizing that the numbers were going up. So speaking with the staff, saying, what are you seeing? That's when it was revealed that, oh, these are families from out of state, from other countries that start in the show up. Because it's so important for us to just wrap our head around what we're dealing with, because the questions you ask are so important. You're from another country. You come here to America. You're sent away. You end up in a city. You're trying to navigate all of this. I can only imagine what those families are going through. You're trying to navigate and you say, well, here, I'm going to give you a metro card. What's a metro card? So we're not even trying to place people on trains and try to navigate the system. It takes a while before you're able to navigate this new environment. We're providing them transportation. We are dealing with, okay, I need Pampers. We're providing them with Pampers. I need to get something to eat. We don't even know the streets where to go get something to eat. We're providing them with food. I mean, this city is so humane. If anyone has dropped in a city that they don't know or country they don't know or speak a different language, then all of a sudden you come here to a city that is not sending you away like other states. They're saying we're going to provide you what you need to stabilize your life. That's what we're doing. And for anyone to say that this city is not being humane, that's just not accurate. That's not accurate. Now, are there going to be some that feels as though, well, it wasn't 100% perfect? Yes, yes. But I mean, look at this surge that these guys and ladies are handling. This city should be commended that we're not Texas, that we're New York. And I'm proud of this city and I'm proud of the people that are working in it dealing with this problem. Yes, Mr Mayor, I want to go back to the talks to the White House. Have you provided them specific dollar amounts that you need from them, a specific timeline on when you need these supplies? What are the specifics with those talks? What are they saying back to you? What can you expect from them in the coming days? That's the job of Deputy Mayor William Isom and her team. We're going to need dollars in the areas of, you know, pampers cost money. We're going to need food. You know, we're right now, we're using our emergency funds. But we also got, we're going to deal with some medical issues of, you know, there's some real medical issues that we need. And then education. We're going to deal with, we're going to deal with, you know, these young people are going to have to find housing. I mean, education, we got to place them in schools, translation services. And so we're working out the numbers and we're going to sit down with FEMA and state that, you know, we need to help to stabilize what we're doing. And we're going to have the exact dollars amount. Deputy Mayor William Isom, the Chief of Staff, they're all in communication with the White House. Deputy Mayor William Isom is part of this task force we put together to specifically look at this issue of how we're going to address this influx, this surge. This is a historical surge. The last time I remember, I think we had 2,000 children that came to the city. But these numbers are not numbers that we've witnessed before. This is a historical surge that this administration adjusted to in a short period of time while already dealing with the housing crisis. We adjusted to it. We lived up to the spirit of the law. And we're going to continue to live up to the spirit of the law. And we're going to stay on top of the letter of the law. Those four families with a letter of the law, we should have abided by it. But we were there with the spirit of the law. And of my knowledge, we don't have families that are living overnight. And if you know that, please let us know because that's unacceptable to us. We're not going to allow that to happen. Thank you very much.