For the first time in the history of New York City’s immigration crisis, there are more asylum seekers in shelters than homeless New Yorkers.
This turning point came last Sunday, when 50,000 migrants are in the care of the city, increasing in number to 49,700 New Yorkers in local shelters.
The New York shelter system has practically doubled in size due to the influx, mainly from Latin American countries, which include migrants from Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia.
Also, housing asylum seekers is considerably more expensive. Without the respective work permits, many of them cannot pay for their basic needs. They aren’t entitled to the same public assistance benefits as residents, and for immigrants, the city isn’t collecting its usual share of hefty state and federal government housing.
“My heart breaks a little bit and I have these mixed feelings,” said Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, on a tour of the new arrivals center at the Roosevelt Hotel.
In addition, he said that it is important that the city receive people with dignity, but it is unsustainable at the rate it is going.
Williams-Isom noted the financial cost, an anticipated cost of $4.3 million through next spring, and a human cost in staff helping asylum seekers, NBC New York reported.
“They are working 12-hour shifts. We thought we would see some relief. But no relief comes. Calvary is not coming and they are just getting exhausted with the magnitude,” she added.
City authorities say they are helping redirect “a significant number” of asylum seekers to other destinations, reserving a small percentage of rooms at the Roosevelt Hotel where migrants can stay for a short time until they finish their paperwork.
“To give you that critical window of time that allows us to reach those friends or family across the country, and then reprogram you so you don’t have to go into the City’s system,” explained Dr. Ted Long of NYC Health and Hospitals, which runs the Roosevelt arrival center and other humanitarian aid centers in the city.
For their part, the Mayor’s Office, Eric Adams and Dr. Long say the current daily average number of people seeking asylum is about 400. However, they declined to say how many leave or are redirected on a daily basis.
Since the spring of last year, officials say 80,000 immigrants have passed through the shelters, meaning about 30 have left.
New York authorities and the Legal Aid Society are in talks as New York City prepares to ask a court to grant them more flexibility on housing rights.
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