This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with New York Focus, an investigative news outlet reporting on New York. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week, and sign up for New York Focus’ newsletter here.
Reporting Highlights
- Growing Reliance: New York’s social services agencies placed just under half of the individuals and families receiving emergency shelter outside the city in fiscal year 2024 in hotels.
- Lack of Services: State regulations exempt hotels from providing the services families receive in shelters, such as food, help finding housing and sometimes child care.
- Expensive Solution: County social services offices regularly pay the hotels rates that are more than fair market rent for two-bedroom apartments in their areas.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
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. She and her partner were being evicted after falling behind on rent.
So last June, they and their children — then ages 3, 12 and 15 — turned to New York’s emergency shelter system for help. It was built to provide homeless residents not only beds, but also food, help finding permanent housing and sometimes child care so parents can find work, attend school or look for apartments.
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, where they mostly had to fend for themselves.
“I remember staring at my kids, thinking that I’d failed them,” Stradford said. “Then I remember going to DSS and being completely dehumanized.”
Stradford’s family was part of a growing trend: In the past few years, hotels have quietly become the state’s predominant response to homelessness outside New York City. New York Focus and ProPublica found that the state’s social services agencies placed just under half the 34,000 individuals and families receiving emergency shelter outside the city in fiscal year 2024 in hotels — up from 29% in 2018. The change was most pronounced in Broome County, where hotel cases more than quintupled.
Statewide spending on hotels more than tripled over that period to $110 million, according to an analysis of state temporary housing data by the news organizations. In total, hotels outside New York City were paid about $420 million to shelter unhoused people from April 2017 to September 2024.
Statewide Spending on Hotels More Than Tripled From 2018 to 2024
Data source: Analysis of Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance data on emergency shelter payments. Years are fiscal years.
Credit:
Lucas Waldron/ProPublica
It’s a makeshift arrangement that provides people a roof over their head but little else. State regulations exempt hotels from providing the same services that families are supposed to receive in the shelter system.