A domestic violence victim who had moved into a rental car last week, claiming that was the most viable alternative to a chaotic New York City shelter system, now has a bed in a private shelter, she says -- as new allegations surrounding the city's overburdened program continue to come to light.
Kathia Wiscovitch said she bailed on the city's shelter system because of "delays and scary conditions" at the only remaining intake office for women. The other had been converted into a migrant intake shelter, one of a number of such steps Mayor Eric Adams has taken to manage the influx of asylum seekers still flooding the five boroughs.
She has two jobs and a college degree, but after moving out of an abusive living situation in Brooklyn earlier this month, Wiscovitch says she found the process of applying for shelter at NYC's Franklin Avenue Intake office for women so upsetting and overwhelming that she walked out and moved into a rental car.
The city recently converted its only other intake office for women into a shelter for migrant men, so Franklin Avenue is now the only place where homeless women can apply for shelter. They describe long waits in a place that they say smells foul and has mentally ill people wandering around in hospital gowns, fighting, going through the garbage cans.
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Lacking staffing has also been a common complaint. And they're not just coming from Wiscovitch.
The I-Team has learned of similar complaints from women seeking shelter beds in recent weeks. The Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society both say this is "as serious a violation of NYC's right to shelter as it gets."
Coalition for the Homeless visited the Franklin Avenue center last Tuesday and says it confirmed the Adams administration is failing to provide women same-day beds, leaving them either to wait all night or multiple nights on chairs or floors in terrible conditions.
The New York City Department for Social Services didn't directly answer specific questions about whether and why there are delays and whether changes to accommodate migrants have contributed to complaints like Wiscovitch's.
There is a separate New York City and nonprofit-run shelter system for domestic violence victims but beds for single adults without children are extremely scarce and often unavailable.
The shelter that accepted Wiscovitch Sunday is completely privately funded but received a referral last week from a city caseworker that was helping the Brooklyn woman. The shelter director said she had to shift things around to make room and that the shelter would help Wiscovitch apply for permanent housing.
Wiscovitch had described being in a state of disbelief over her situation, spending long nights in a parked car — a painful choice, especially after being forced to leave her Brooklyn home the weekend before.
“I hit rock bottom and there's no assistance for people like me,” she said last week. "I'm in a domestic violence situation. I feel so hopeless. Hopeless, like I didn't know which direction to go."
In addition to her two jobs, collegiate education and a promising professional dancing career, Wiscovitch has an order of protection against her abuser -- and a city caseworker assigned to help her.
Text messages viewed by the I-Team show that caseworker, with the City's Family Justice Center, mistakenly sent Wiscovitch to a shelter on Williams Avenue in Brooklyn in search of a bed.
But even though the sign on the door still read “Help Women's Center” when she went there last week, Wiscovitch learned it was no longer a women's shelter because the city recently repurposed it to house migrant men.
A spokeswoman for the Family Justice Center did not respond to a request for comment about the mistake.
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Despite those prior flags from the Coalition for the Homeless, a DSS spokesman told the I-Team on Friday he was unaware of any delays and would check again.
DSS said in a statement that "there are adequate vacancies within the single adult women shelter system" and that Franklin staff "work diligently to meet the needs of all clients."
It's unclear how long Kathia would have had to wait for a bed had she not decided to leave the city's intake office.
But she said through tears that she still feels "stuck in the system and it's very overwhelming." Wiscovitch is hoping to find a bed in a private domestic violence shelter.
The city, which has had to open more than 70 emergency shelters to house migrants since summer of 2022, insists that there are beds available for women in its system.
