Since thousands of migrants began arriving in New York City last year, Mayor Eric Adams' administration has searched for places to house them: hotels, parking lots, a cruise ship terminal and more. Almost every idea has caused an uproar.
Mayor Eric Adams speaks at Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn on May 4, 2023.
More than 67,000 migrants have arrived in New York City since the crisis began. Of those, 41,500 people are currently being cared for by the city, Anne Williams-Isom, the deputy mayor for health and human services, said at a news conference Wednesday. She said 4,300 people had arrived in just the past week.
The main destination for many people who are crossing continues to be New York City. One shelter in Laredo, Texas, was filled last week with Venezuelans, who have made up a significant number of the people coming to the city since last year. Some said they were attracted to the city because they had friends or relatives there.
Williams-Isom told reporters that the city was facing a serious humanitarian crisis and needed New Yorkers to come together in a spirit of cooperation and problem solving, not armchair quarterbacking. Gabriela Vizhnag, 50, the mother of a third grader, said she was “not racist or anti-immigrant” because she had immigrated from Mexico. But she opposed the plan to house people in a school gym with no available showers and only two bathrooms.A group of migrants from Venezuela watched the protest from a shelter across the street. One, María Briseño, 38, said she understood why parents were upset.
Activists and legal groups have called on the city to focus on helping people find permanent housing, but New York is in the grip of a long-running housing crisis, and its voucher program has been plagued with troubles. “Instead of monies coming from people who are visiting us and spending in our tourism, in our Broadway plays, instead of them using those hotels, we’re using those hotels,” Adams said.
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