The New York Supreme Court ruled on Sept. 23 that Mainchance shelter in Midtown will remain open after the New York City Department of Homeless Services previously tried to close the center earlier this year.
Mainchance, a 24/7 shelter that offers housing, medical care, social work and three meals a day on 32nd Street, was informed in January that their contract with the DHS was being terminated at the end of June, even though the city was slated to continue funding over 95% of the center’s budget into 2026.
A community outcry began immediately, and the shelter filed a preliminary injunction against the DHS in June in the New York Supreme Court, which allowed Mainchance to stay open until a hearing at the end of July. At the subsequent ruling on Monday night the judge ruled that the DHS could not terminate their contract with the shelter before it’s expiration date in 2026.
“Now we can get back to our glory days and let people know that we’re open and can continue our mission,” said Brady Crain, the Executive Director of Mainchance.
First opened in 1989, the shelter has provided almost 200,000 people a place to stay in the last decade and will serve over 70,000 meals this year. Since COVID-19, Mainchance has helped place over 300 people in permanent housing, and according to Crain, Mainchance excels at connecting people with help as quickly as possible.
“We call ourselves a multi service center, almost a one stop shop, where it’s not a lot of bureaucracy. If you’ve got a problem, we can get you to the programs quickly and get you help quickly,” Crain said.
Even though Mainchance received all “excellent” or “good” ratings on audits in 2023, the city said they wanted to close the shelter to focus on centers with a Safe Haven model — which Mainchance has sought to convert to, according to Mainchance lawyer and board member Marc Gross.
“It made no sense whatsoever to be closing us down in the middle of the homeless crisis, which the judge herself acknowledged as a matter of fact,” Gross said.
The city did not attempt to close any other shelter this budget cycle, but Mainchance could cost the DHS up to $4 million in the next two fiscal years, according to city budget documents.
New York is in the midst of what Mayor Adams called a “housing crisis” in August. He said he will “exhaust every option to meet this crisis head on” to reduce homelessness in the city.
However, New York’s city council noted that they remain committed to fighting homelessness in the city, even though the DHS tried to shut down Mainchance.
“From our passage of the CityFHEPS Reform Laws and the Speaker’s Fair Housing Framework law to our focus on more affordable housing in the city’s land use process, the Council is consistently taking steps to reduce homelessness and help New Yorkers find places they can live,” a city council spokesperson said, in reference to two programs that seek to mitigate New York’s lack of housing and high cost of renting.
Even though New York’s homeless population is the highest it has been in more than a decade, with more than 100,000 people living on the streets, homeless shelters like Mainchance should always seek to have alternate sources of revenue if they are funded by the government, according to Donald Whitehead, Jr., the Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.
“It is necessary for shelters to make sure that they have a fallback plan,” Whitehead Jr. said. “You can’t fully rely on the federal government to maintain funding levels for anything — and that’s the same thing for the city government.”
The Mayor’s Office and the DHS did not respond to requests for comment.