New York Homeless Families Placed in Hotels Weren’t Guaranteed Social Services. New Regulations Could Change That.

New York State may soon guarantee homeless families placed in hotels the same services as those in shelters, including help finding housing, meals and child care. The proposal from the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance follows a ProPublica and New York Focus investigation that found hotels have become the state’s predominant response to homelessness outside of New York City. Counties had placed tens of thousands of adults and children in often-dilapidated hotels, the investigation found, and many people have been cut off from the services promised by the shelter system. The proposed regulations, published Wednesday, will go through a 60-day public comment period before OTDA, which oversees county social services offices, decides whether to adopt, change or drop them. Each county would be required to submit plans for delivering the support services as soon as the rules are adopted. Counties would also have to enforce limits on overcrowding and ensure that children don’t have to share beds with adults. “Everyone placed in emergency housing really should have a fair shot at stability no matter where they’re staying. And so I definitely believe that the state needs to consider and make [the rule change] a priority,” said Democratic Assemblymember Michaelle Solages, chair of her chamber’s committee on local governments and a member of the social services committee. OTDA first outlined new rules for hotel placements on its agenda about five years ago, but they languished there. In response to questions from New York Focus and ProPublica last year, OTDA Commissioner Barbara Guinn said she couldn’t “provide insight” on why the agency never formally proposed the rules. New York Focus and ProPublica interviewed families placed in hotels across the state who said that they weren’t receiving the services that they needed to get out of homelessness. None of the families said that they had received child care, not even those who have children with special needs. Many struggled to feed themselves and were placed in decrepit locations where children and parents slept four or more to a bed. Note: Requirements are for hotels outside of New York City. New York regulations state that hotels can be considered shelters, and thus mandated to provide services. But there aren’t any that are currently required to do so, Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance spokesperson Anthony Farmer said. Source: New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Despite the lack of services, hotels and motels frequently charged rates far exceeding market rent. Statewide spending on hotel stays outside of New York City topped $110 million in 2024, the investigation found, and more than tripled over six years as the number of hotel placements went up. Counties often shoulder the majority of the bill for families. An OTDA spokesperson said that many counties already provide services to people in hotels. Robert Henke, chairman of the Washington County Board of Supervisors, said his upstate county was one of them. The greater burden, he said, is the cost of hotel stays, which contributed to a county budget crisis and funding cuts. Due to an overwhelming surge in homelessness, spending on hotels leaped from $579,000 to over $1.9 million between 2023 and 2024, according to data obtained through public records requests. While the new rules don’t directly address these costs or how they’re split among government agencies, OTDA’s proposal noted that with additional support, families may not have to stay in the hotels as long, potentially cutting down on expenses. The agency also said it should cost counties less than $120,000 each to implement the new rules if they haven’t already. Brian Kavanagh, a Democratic state senator representing lower Manhattan and a member of the social services committee, said that he would work to pull together whatever resources are needed to implement the regulations, if they are adopted. Solages said she hopes the new rules will connect families to the help they need. “I hope that we can start expediting this,” she said, “because it’s not only very expensive to do temporary housing via hotels, but a hotel is not a proper place for a family.”