The Effects of Emergency Homeless Shelters on Crime during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This study examines the associations between emergency homeless shelters and crime in New York City (NYC) during the COVID-19 pandemic, when public health imperatives required rapid housing solutions for individuals experiencing homelessness. In response, the city leased commercial hotels to serve as temporary emergency shelters, raising public concerns about potential increases in neighborhood crime. Using data from the NYC Department of Homeless Services and publicly available crime data, this study assesses the effects of both traditional congregate shelters and hotel-based emergency shelters on crime across 59 community districts at six time points between 2020 and 2022. Crimes were categorized as total, violent, property, or disorder. Quasi-Poisson regression models with community and time fixed effects were used to estimate associations. The findings indicate that traditional shelters have no significant relationship with crime. Emergency hotel shelters, however, were associated with modest reductions in total and property crime, although these findings approached but did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance with p-values around 0.051. These results challenge common public perceptions linking homelessness interventions to increased crime and underscore the importance of shelter design and implementation context. While limitations include constraints in traditional shelter data variation and shelter size information, this study contributes to the evidence base informing public health and housing policy. This study suggests that hotel-based shelters may not only support vulnerable populations during public health crises but may also have neutral or even protective effects on neighborhood safety.