City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala (D-Manhattan/the Bronx), and the chair and members of the Council’s Immigration Committee urged Mayor Eric Adams to consider using established indoor locations starting with 10 closed “large-scale” Manhattan hotels that they didn’t specifically identify. Here, Adams speaks at a podium on Friday, April 29, 2022. (John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — New York City Council members released a plan of their own regarding the city’s influx of asylum seekers on Wednesday, and it doesn’t include tent cities or cruise ships on Staten Island.
Instead, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala (D-Manhattan/the Bronx), and the chair and members of the Council’s Immigration Committee urged Mayor Eric Adams to consider using established indoor locations starting with 10 closed “large-scale” Manhattan hotels that they didn’t specifically identify.
Speaker Adams said the indoor locations provide a more humane option than outdoor sites at Orchard Beach in the Bronx or Randall’s Island as the city makes its way through hurricane season and enters the colder months.
The city first pivoted to an emergency relief center at Orchard Beach when handling the influx of migrants at Manhattan’s Port Authority Bus Terminal became untenable, but moved the relief center to Randall’s Island when the Bronx site experienced flooding despite similar concerns at Randall’s Island.
“Our city is grappling with a homelessness crisis exacerbated by an international emergency that we did not create, but demands effective and compassionate responses,” the speaker said. “While an emergency relief center providing more effective intake services for asylum seekers than the Port Authority makes sense, neither outdoor locations of Orchard Beach nor Randall’s Island are adequate. Given its own flood risks in the middle of hurricane season and colder temperatures from exposure to the East River as winter approaches, Randall’s Island is inconsistent with humanitarian relief. There are better options that New York City should explore to provide healthier and safer conditions for people who have already experienced so much trauma.”
In addition to their large-scale hotels that could each have room-counts ranging from 1,025 to 478, the Council members pointed to over 70 additional closed hotels, like the Gramercy Park Hotel, with 15,000 rooms across the city that could be assessed for conversion to supportive housing.
That’s part of the group’s broader strategy to reduce stress on the homeless shelter system through the elimination of bureaucratic obstacles and the pursuit of policy changes, including improved access to the city’s rental assistance program and supportive housing placements.
City Hall, and the office of City Councilwoman Kamillah Hanks (D-North Shore) did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
City Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) has been part of a local Republican push against President Biden’s border policies with the elected officials calling for a federal solution to the ongoing migrant crisis.
“The only plan we need is the plan to shut the border and reinstate the Remain in Mexico policy for asylum seekers,’' he said. “Until then, we can fill up every vacant hotel in the city and float in a fleet of cruise ships and it will still only get worse. I am glad Democrats finally admit this is a crisis, but if a city with a budget larger than Switzerland’s can’t handle it, maybe it’s time Joe Biden reexamines the border.”
City Councilman David Carr (R-Mid-Island), who has also been part of that local conservative push, echoed Borelli’s sentiment about the federal government.
“The buck stops with Joe Biden. He needs to fix the migrant crisis he allowed to develop by failing to control our borders,” he said. “I said the other day that this isn’t a problem that Staten Island or her sister boroughs needs to fix. It’s the federal government job to get this right.”
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