FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 7, 2023

Contact: Beth Cefalu,
Director of Strategic Communications
(845) 638-5645

Rockland Reminds Hotels Of Emergency Actions

New City, NY – This week all hotels in Rockland received letters from the County of Rockland reminding them the new Emergency Order remains active in response to the City of New York’s discriminatory program to establish unlawful city shelters in the County.

“This County already has a housing crisis so extreme that Rockland has been unprecedently deputized by the State of New York to take over Building and Fire Code enforcement in the Village of Spring Valley,” said County Executive Ed Day. “Sending busloads of people to this County that does not have the infrastructure to care for them will likely result in a one-way bus ticket to homelessness.”

As a matter of law, each public welfare district is responsible for the assistance and care of any person who resides or is found in its territory including New York City. This new order bars other municipalities from establishing shelters in Rockland and prohibits them from foisting their own policies, costs, and responsibilities on this County.

A recent report indicates 3,932 units in the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) were empty and more than 2,600 units vacant in the city’s supportive housing network meant for homeless New Yorkers. Combined those units could house 15,000 people according to Brooklyn Councilman Lincoln Restler.

The article goes on to say it now takes NYCHA an average of 258 days to fill a vacant public housing apartment – nearly double the 131 days it used to take at the outset of the Adams’ administration in January 2022. This has resulted in an outstanding 700% increase in vacant NYCHA apartments from 486 at the beginning of Adams’ term to the current 3,932.

This is in addition to New York City’s current population is down roughly half a million since April 2020 and over 20,000 hotel rooms are unoccupied, and why the County of Rockland disputes Mayor Eric Adams contentions that New York City does not have room to help these individuals.

“This order’s sole purpose is mandating good and responsible government,” explained County Attorney Tom Humbach. “It regulates that government operates within existing laws and reflect the best interests of the electorate of Rockland County.”