Soulaymane Barry stood at the center of a roomful of West African men at a makeshift warming center in the East Village in New York. He was explaining in Fulani—the native language of most of the men—a new opportunity to sell a monthly newspaper on the streets. The blackboard behind him displayed numbers he had scribbled minutes ago: $1 for each sale, $0.70 for them to keep, and $0.30 back to the newspaper. Others lingered in the corners, tuning in while multitasking on their phones, processing the insights they had gleaned as they scoured company websites for job listings under the “career” section.
The meeting was organized by the Job Job working group of East Village Neighbors Who Care (EVNC), an informal group of community volunteers supporting the city’s newly arrived migrants. EVNC was founded in January following the increased presence of migrants in the East Village after the city opened a reticketing center at St. Brigid’s Church last October. Since then, EVNC has facilitated the opening of the Earthchxrch warming center, coordinated food and clothes distribution, helped with the translation of paperwork, accompanied migrants to courts, organized English classes, hosted resumé workshops, and more.
“One of the things that we see ourselves doing is our organization being agile and responsive,” said Jess Beck, a co-founder of EVNC. “When a need arises, we figure out how best to meet it.”
The fluid way EVNC has organized reflects the diverse and shifting needs of the city’s growing migrant population. As of June 2, more than 201,200 migrants have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022, according to a city spokesperson. About 65,600 currently remain in the city. As days got warmer and some migrants kept visiting the center, Beck said the needs for basics such as food and warmth were increasingly replaced by others such as work, legal help, and documenting proofs in preparation for the new shelter policies.
According to the terms from the March city settlement with the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless regarding the city’s legal challenge to the right to shelter, single adults need to show proof of “extenuating circumstances”—such as having a disability, recovering from a medical procedure, waiting for a court date or lease-signing, or having made “significant efforts” to leave the city’s care—to extend their shelter placement after their current one expires. According to Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney at Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Rights Project, the city uses a 20-point system to evaluate “significant efforts” in categories such as meeting with case workers, seeking housing alternatives, taking English classes, and finding work.
“[The city’s] assumption is that everybody’s going to start with basically 15 points,” Goldfein said, though each person can only get up to five points in each category. “The real inquiry was going to be in all the other areas … If you don’t have enough points, the manager is still going to review it.”
Goldfein said the point system is intended to serve as initial guidance while subject to managerial discretion for individualized determination. However, complicating factors such as proper training and the capacity of caseworkers to evaluate each case fairly still exist. According to the city, as of June 2, 668 cases have been completed for review of extensions of time in shelters due to extenuating circumstances. Of the migrants who reapplied for extensions, Goldfein said the Legal Aid Society has helped at least 15 revert the initial denial decisions and get extensions. The city has also failed to comply with its terms and has still not cleared the backlog of migrants waiting for shelter beds, which was required in the March settlement to be done by April 8.
While most migrants still do not have work permits, the city encourages them to find jobs to earn points to help them reapply for shelters. Goldfein said that trying to find work without work permits will help the migrant’s case, yet the city should not penalize the person for failing to make an effort based on believing they could not do so due to the lack of a work permit.
”The point is they are here, they want to work, they’re willing to work, and if we don’t let them, it’s not like they are just going to leave,” said Kathleen Keene, a co-founder of EVNC. “They’re not gonna leave just because Mayor [Eric] Adams is trying to kick them out of shelters and make it hard and give them tickets on the subway. That’s peanuts. It’s still a headache, but it’s peanuts. So what do we do for our city, to help our city at a time when we need a lot of workers?”
EVNC’s Job Job working group hosted its first weekly Friday meeting in late March.
“A lot of people don’t know what jobs are available or what jobs exist because they’re coming from another country, and maybe jobs that exist here don’t exist in their country,” said Nora Killoran, a volunteer at Earthchxrch warming center and co-lead of the EVNC Job Job working group. “The foundation of what we do each week is to give ideas about what’s possible, so it’s really a message of hope [of] what you can do in the future.”
Killoran emphasized that the group is a place to build skills and share information rather than a recruiting ground.
“We try to tell them, for example, for a restaurant job, you really need to have a resumé,” Killoran said. “We try to explain to people what a resumé is, how to use it, which jobs need a resumé, and that’s been really successful. We’ve probably made about 150 resumés so far.”
English classes have been another priority, Beck said, since most work opportunities prefer those who can speak the language. Goldfein said community organizations can help fill gaps in access to English classes, which have limited availability through city programs. He also highlighted the importance of helping migrants document their disabilities.
Barry, who speaks fluent English and has been helping other migrants with their English at Earthchxrch since January, moved into a mosque in March and has been working at a coffee shop near Union Square. He learned about the job from an EVNC volunteer who was the shop’s owner. Barry called EVNC “the light at the end of the tunnel.”
“I think the number one thing [that] we do is provide an opportunity for assimilation,” Beck said. “If you’re going back and forth to your shelter every day, or if you’re just in your shelter every day, you’re not meeting anyone. So it’s creating a community space where longer-standing members of the community can interact with new members of the community. That is where the magic happens.”
