New York’s shelter system is being overwhelmed by migrants
The tent city in the parking lot of Creedmoor Psychiatric Centre in Queens is far from ideal. The neighbourhood, 15 miles (24km) outside Manhattan, is mostly residential and is served by a solitary bus line. But because of the influx of migrants the tents are badly needed. It opened on August 15th and within a week the 1,000-bed facility was nearly full. Another shelter site, on Randall’s Island, between Manhattan and Queens, along with one soon to open at Floyd Bennett Field, a helicopter base in Brooklyn, will add 5,500 beds for migrants.
Over 110,000 people are housed in New York City’s asylum-seekers-are-putting-new-york-values-to-the-test.html” title=”20,000 asylum seekers are placing New York values to the check”>homeless shelter system. Of those, 53% are asylum-seekers. For over a year they have arrived in the Big Apple on buses, shipped by Texan politicians, or of their own accord, coming by plane, train, car and bus. In the week ending on August 20th, 3,100 arrived. New York’s “right to shelter” mandate, in place since a lawsuit was settled in 1981, means that anyone without a roof to sleep under is entitled to one from the city.
“We’ve been forced to play an unsustainable game of ‘whack-a-mole’, opening site after site as asylum-seekers continue to arrive by the thousands,” said Eric Adams, the city’s mayor, on August 21st. Earlier this month many people were forced to sleep for days on the pavement outside the Roosevelt Hotel, the city’s largest intake centre. Mr Adams says there is “no more room”. The state attorney-general is looking into allegations that DocGo, a medical services provider hired by the city, mishandled migrants in its care.
2023-08-24 07:47:07
Original from www.economist.com
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