In fiscal year 2024, New York's social services agencies increasingly turned to hotels for temporary housing, which lacks essential support services. Families like Jasmine Stradford's faced hardships as they were relocated among multiple hotels, feeling neglected within a system designed to assist the homeless. This shift highlights a new trend—nearly half of all emergency shelters outside New York City now involve hotel placements, raising concerns over the adequacy of services provided to vulnerable populations in need of support.
Stradford and her family received almost none of that. Instead of placing them in a shelter, the Broome County Department of Social Services cycled them through four roadside hotels over three months.
State regulations exempt hotels from providing the services families receive in shelters, such as food, help finding housing and sometimes child care.
In the past few years, hotels have quietly become the state's predominant response to homelessness outside New York City.
Jasmine Stradford sat on her porch near Binghamton, New York, with toys, furniture, garbage bags full of clothing and other possessions piled up around her.
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