Lawyers: State Court Should Give Up Control Of Shelter System
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City attorneys are pressing a New York state judge to give up oversight of its homeless shelter system, which has been under state court monitoring for nearly 25 years. At issue is a lawsuit filed by the Legal Aid Society in 1983 claiming that the city failed to provide adequate services to homeless families. Soon afterward, city homeless services came under the state court supervision.
Last week the state judge who is overseeing the case, Helen Freedman, signaled that the court would stay involved in the functioning of the shelter system when she issued a new order that put in a place a special master panel to examine how the city decides who is eligible to stay in a shelter.
The city filed new legal papers yesterday requesting that the litigation be resolved. The top lawyer for the city, Michael Cardozo, said in an interview that shelter conditions have improved since 1983.
