Shocking pictures have laid bare New York City’s migrant crisis after dozens of people were seen sleeping outside the iconic Roosevelt Hotel which has reached capacity since being turned into a designated center for asylum seekers.
Migrants were seen lining the street at 46th and Vanderbilt as commuters made their way to work on Monday morning.
The Roosevelt Hotel, which was shuttered three years ago, is one of several hotels that were transformed into emergency centers as the city struggles with an influx of migrants.
New York is bound by a decades-old consent decree in a class-action lawsuit to provide shelter for those without homes.
Many of the hotels are within walking distance from Times Square, the World Trade Center memorial site and the Empire State Building.
Shocking pictures have laid bare New York City’s migrant crisis as dozens of people were seen sleeping outside the iconic Roosevelt hotel in midtown Manhattan
Migrants were seen lining the street at 46th and Vanderbilt as commuters made their way to work on Monday morning
But rooms at the Roosevelt, where only migrant families have been staying, have already filled up, as the city says more than 93,000 asylum seekers came through the intake system last spring.
Some of the thousands of migrants who have arrived in NYC have been been bused in from Florida and Texas, as the states’ conservative governments argue progressive cities should share the burden.
Texas’ governor Greg Abbott has sent around 9,700 asylum seekers to New York City, according to Politico. Florida’s governor Ron DeSantis has flown about 85 migrants to Massachusetts and California.
Meanwhile, NYC Mayor Eric Adams responded by sending migrants to red states -with some even being sent as far as South America and China.
Adams, a Democrat, spent about $50,000 of the city’s money to send 114 migrant households elsewhere. A total of 28 families were sent to Florida with 14 being sent to Texas, a few were sent to Colombia and one family to China. The migrants were allowed to choose where they were sent.
Mayor Adams’ office said in a statement regarding the migrants seen on the strees on Monday: ‘Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night.
‘While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive each day.’
The migrants sitting outside the hotel will likely be taken to a different shelter once they’re processed.
On Sunday morning, some migrants were seen leaving the hotel and getting on a city bus headed to a shelter in the Bronx, Eyewitness News reported.
Many told local media they were from Venezuela and did not want any handouts, just work.
The storied hotel near Grand Central Terminal served as election headquarters for New York Governor Thomas Dewey, who in 1948 was said to have wrongly announced from the Roosevelt that he had defeated Harry Truman for president.
The Holiday Inn, located in Manhattan’s Financial District was also designated as a migrant shelter by the city’s government.
In February, US Bankruptcy Judge Philip Bentley approved the hotel’s application to sign a contract which will see the establishment house migrants to the tune of $190 a night – a fee that will total $100,000 a day for taxpayers.
It’s not new for the city to turn to hotels for New Yorkers without homes when shelters and other options weren’t available.
During the pandemic, group shelters made it difficult to comply with social distancing rules, prompting the city to rent out hundreds of hotel rooms as quasi COVID wards. As the pandemic eased, the city became less reliant on hotels.
That changed as thousands of migrants began arriving by bus last year. And that will continue to happen after the end of Title 42.
The Roosevelt hotel, which was shuttered three years ago, is one of several hotels that were transformed into emergency centers
‘New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive each day,’ the mayor’s office said in a statement
The migrants sitting outside the hotel will likely be taken to a different shelter once they’re processed
The city says more than 93,000 asylum seekers came through the intake system last spring.
The Watson Hotel on West 57th Street, which used to receive rave reviews for its rooftop pool and proximity to Central Park, is now being used to house migrant families.
‘It is our moral and legal obligation to provide shelter to anyone who needs it,’ the city’s Department of Social Services said in a statement.
‘As such, we have utilized, and will continue to utilize, every tool at our disposal to meet the needs of every family and individual who comes to us seeking shelter.’
Before the surge in asylum seekers, the city was dealing with increased homelessness, packed shelters and a dearth of affordable housing. New York even announced a plan to send hundreds of migrants to hotels in suburban Orange and Rockland counties across the Hudson River, angering local leaders.
Earlier this month, mayor Adams said there is ‘no more room in the city.’
As more migrants have arrived, Adams, who has called the immigration crisis a ‘disaster’, has tried a range of approaches to housing them, from tents to relocating them to other parts of the state.
Adams declared a state of emergency in October 2022 and has called on President Joe Biden, a fellow Democrat, to provide more resources and to help migrants get work permits.
The city is slated to spend over $4.3billion to try and slow the crisis.
It will also set up a shelter for up to 1,000 migrants in the parking lot of a state psychiatric hospital as thousands of asylum seekers continue to arrive in the city weekly, officials said Wednesday.
The new emergency relief center at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Hospital in the Queens borough of New York will house adult men who are asylum seekers and will offer services including meals and medical care, the officials said.
‘This center will provide not just a place to stay but also critical services to support these individuals on their journey,’ Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said at a City Hall news conference.
New York state will provide the space at the 300-acre (121-hectare) Creedmoor facility and will reimburse the city for setting the migrant center up and staffing it, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said.
There are currently more than 56,000 migrants in New York’s care, with more people arriving daily, officials said.
Mayor Eric Adams has scrambled to house migrants while asking for help from the federal government.
‘New York City continues to receive thousands of asylum seekers each week, and we have stepped up and led the nation, but this national crisis should not fall on cities alone to navigate. We need a national solution here,’ the mayor said in a statement.
