Mayor Adams criticizes Hochul against migrants and calls on the state to use an executive order
Mayor Adams fired back Thursday after Gov. Hochul’s legal team wrote a scathing criticism of how the migrant crisis is being handled, which is wreaking financial havoc on the Big Apple.
Hizzoner lamented that it wasn’t right that New York City was responsible for housing “over 99 percent” of the emergency shelters, arguing that the crisis was statewide. He called on Hochul to issue an executive order to prevent locations outside of NYC from banning migrant shelters.
“I think this is a national and statewide problem that has been unfairly dumped on the bosom of New York City residents. We’re only 0.05 of the landmass in upstate New York!” said a frustrated Adams during a news conference in Manhattan on Thursday.
“It’s just unfair to New York City,” he added.
“We go into individual court cases where everyone finds creative ways to not be the state and country that we are,” Adams told reporters.
Gov. Hochul, through her attorney, on Wednesday criticized City Hall’s handling of the influx of migrants, claiming Adams has not only been slow to respond to the crisis, he has even refused to use several sites as state-provided shelters — despite his refusal to do so claimed to have passed its “breaking point”.
The situation appeared to peak earlier this month when dozens of migrants slept outside the historic Roosevelt Hotel-turned-housing after the city told them they could not provide a bed for the night.
“There was never a desire for anyone to sleep outside. The dam has broken! I don’t know how to put it more clearly … For a year and eight months no one slept on our streets. I stood on that podium day in and day out, declaring that the dam will eventually break,” Hizzoner said.
“When the dam burst, the water flowed, and that water in this case was people who had to sleep outside the Roosevelt Hotel.”
The city is appealing to the decades-old housing law that obliges the Big Apple to temporarily provide a bed to people who ask for it, arguing that the refugee crisis has left the system in an emergency situation.
Meanwhile, City Hall has introduced a new policy requiring single adults to reapply for housing after 60 days to make room for families with children. So far, 2,900 people have received the notifications.
Adams has asked the state to help house more migrants, but in Wednesday’s letter, the Hochul government said it did not agree to house more migrants outside the five counties.
“Some of the plots of land that were made available to us were in flood zones, and some were not suitable for building. And that’s how we analyzed each location,” Adams explained why his staff rejected the governor’s locations.
“We haven’t neglected a single one of our 3,000 locations that we’ve researched to house over 100,000 people.”
Meanwhile, Adams budget officials predict the crisis will cost $12 billion over the next three years if the steady flow of migrants into the Big Apple doesn’t slow.
Around 101,200 migrants have arrived in the city since spring 2022, and over 58,500 are living in 201 taxpayer-funded shelters, according to the latest statistics from City Hall.
