New York City is planning to open a second relief center in a Midtown hotel to temporarily house migrant families with children arriving from Texas and other southern states, Mayor Eric Adams said on Wednesday.
The city plans to use the Row NYC hotel in Times Square as an intake center and temporary shelter for 200 families, Adams said in a press release. The hotel could expand the capacity to accommodate more families as they continue to be bused to New York City by the governors of southern states who are trying to pressure President Joe Biden to tighten security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“This is not an everyday homelessness crisis, but a humanitarian crisis that requires a different approach, and these humanitarian emergency response centers will take on a multitude of looks with the similarities that they will all help triage and provide immediate support to arriving asylum seekers,” Adams said in a news release. “We will continue to respond with care and compassion as we deal with this humanitarian crisis made by human hands.”
As of this weekend, there were an estimated 18,600 asylum seekers in New York City, according to City Hall.
The so-called Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center will provide new arrivals with food, medical care, and case management services, the mayor said. For those who have friends and family in the U.S., the city will help them reconnect with their loved ones. And, if they don’t want to be in New York, the city will help get them where they want to go.
It’s unclear when the hotel relief center will open or how much it will cost the city to run.
Spokespeople for the mayor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams learned about the mayor’s plan to open a second relief center as she was speaking to reporters at City Hall.
The Row NYC hotel is the second relief center announced by the Adams administration.
Last week, the mayor announced he was relocating a planned 1,000-bed tent city for asylum seekers from Orchard Beach in the Bronx to Randall’s Island amid concerns over flooding and inaccessibility. The scaled-back Randall’s Island facility, which is in the midst of being built, is expected to temporarily house 500 people.
The influx of thousands of migrants at such a rapid pace is straining the city's shelter system, Adams has repeatedly said. In response, City Hall has tapped about 40 hotels to serve as temporary homeless shelters, along with an assessment center in Manhattan that will offer migrants services. The city is also considering temporarily housing migrants on a docked cruise ship to help alleviate some of the strain on homeless shelters.
While the Legal Aid Society has been critical of the plan to open up tents to temporarily shelter people, a hotel is a much better alternative, said Joshua Goldfein, a staff attorney for the organization.
The organization will monitor the situation at both relief centers to ensure that the city lives up to its legal obligations. Meanwhile, Goldfein said there are steps the mayor's administration could take to lessen the crisis.
“We believe the answer to the city’s problem is to move people out of shelters into permanent housing and that would create space and would not need to open new shelters,” Goldfein said.
This story has been updated to include comment from the City Council Speaker and the Legal Aid Society.
