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District 39

Shahana Hanif

Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Columbia Waterfront, Gowanus, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington

City Limits – City Hall defended its practices at the time, saying a housing placement for a street homeless person can require time-intensive trust building and casework—trust advocates say is eroded by the sweeps themselves. 

Under Nurse and Hanif’s legislation, the city would also have to start tracking how many people were arrested per removal, or brought involuntarily to a hospital for a mental health assessment. 

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City Limits – A DOC spokesperson told City Limits the agency monitors water temperatures at its facilities. The agency did not respond to queries about how many AC outages its jails have experienced so far this season.

On July 14, members of the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus (BLAC), including Councilmember Shahana Hanif who oversees District 39, toured parts of RNDC, which houses adolescent and adult men.

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City Limits – While the continuation will not be accompanied by the full $20 million that advocates and the four community-based organizations (CBOs) that implemented the program have pushed for, the $16 million allocated in the city’s newly announced $107 billion spending package is close enough for them to celebrate.

“While $16 million won’t be enough to satisfy the demand providers know exists, this investment will ensure that our immigrant families won’t be left high-and-dry,” said Immigration Committee Chair and Council Member Shahana Hanif.

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Gothamist – A City Council oversight hearing on Wednesday on facilities housing asylum seekers grew visibly tense when an official in Mayor Eric Adams’ administration revealed that some sites lack even showers, requiring migrants to travel offsite for their bathing needs.

Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who helped lead the hearing along with Councilmember Diana Ayala and is also pushing legislation that would preserve access to city shelters for asylum-seekers, said she was stunned by the revelation.

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Daily News – In a statement after the hearing, Hanif, who co-chairs the Council’s Progressive Caucus, countered that it’s Iscol’s defense of the administration’s “shadow shelter system” that’s “dangerous.”

She was referring to the so-called “respite centers” Adams’ administration has opened across the city. Adams’ team has said the sites — many of which lack showers in apparent violation of right-to-shelter rules, 

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Daily News – “This program is an economic driver that will make asylum seekers more self-sufficient and less reliant on costly city-funded shelter beds,” said Hanif, who chairs the Council’s immigration committee as well as its progressive caucus.

Many of the families who’ve recently arrived in New York have struggled to access the city services and legal help — such as applying for asylum and work permits — that could help get them out of city care.

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Gothamist – With many immigrants widely ineligible for federally funded childcare, Promise NYC has been heralded as a vital support – especially to migrants who have newly arrived in the city. Families with children account for more than 70% of those living in shelters.

“Given the administration’s admirable advocacy for work authorization for asylum-seekers, it is befuddling that they are threatening to cut the resource that allows our newest New Yorkers, especially those who are women to go to work,” Councilmember Shahana Hanif, who chairs the immigration committee, said at the hearing.

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New York Times – Young Bangladeshi Americans are making inroads into politics, most notably with the election of Shahana Hanif, a daughter of Kensington, to the City Council in 2021. Ms. Hanif’s victory, at age 30, made her the first woman to represent the district, as well as the first Muslim woman and one of the first two South Asians on the council.

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City Limits – The legislation’s passage came as New York City grapples with its latest climate change crisis,  with smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires creating hazardous air across the five boroughs this week, prompting the city to cancel outdoor events and urge residents to remain indoors.

“[As this] package passes every New Yorker is experiencing this air quality issue.

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