By The newspaper
Feb 27, 2024, 11:33 AM EST
A fire inspection last night at a home in Queens (NYC) led to the discovery of 87 people living in the basement.
The incident occurred last night around 11:40 pm at 132-03 Liberty Ave. in Richmond Hill, police sources said. The discovery was made by city firefighters (FDNY) who had gone to the house to conduct an on-site inspection. The Department of Buildings (DOB) has not commented.
The occupants were sent to a migrant shelter in the Bronx, he said. Pix11. At this time, no further details were available about the occupants or their immigration status.
The building’s backyard was filled with what appeared to be delivery bicycles. Apparently this detail was what motivated the presence of the firefighters, who had received a complaint about the presence of electric bicycle batteries that represented a potential fire hazard, he said. NBC News.
More than 80 people lived in the basement and, according to inspectors, slept in shifts to accommodate everyone. This finding would combine two major current issues in New York: the influx of immigrants that has overwhelmed the city’s shelter system and the spate of deadly fires caused by electric bicycle batteries.
The use of electric bicycles has become more common in NYC as a personal and work means to deliver food and other products. But they have generated a serious problem: the lithium-ion batteries found inside caused hundreds of fires and at least 18 deaths in 2023, many of them Hispanic. There are an estimated 60,000 delivery workers in New York.
At the same time, the 53% rise in the average daily population in NYC shelters is “driven by the unprecedented increase in incoming people, primarily asylum seekers who represented more than half of all entrants during the period,” said the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) in its quarterly assessment included in a recent report.
The immigration crisis has marked the two years of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, in the midst of a national political battle between Democrats and Republicans. It is estimated that between April 2022 and December 2023, NYC spent approximately $3.5 billion on housing and services for the more than 164,500 people who passed through the city’s intake center.