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NYC considers Central Park among sites to house migrants as

crisis mounts
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Migrants from West Africa, Mexico and Venezuela camp outside the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City this week. Photo credit Catherine Nance / SOPA
Images/Sipa USA

By Laura NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- New York City officials are considering
Nahmias/Bloomber
housing migrants in Manhattan’s Central Park and Brooklyn’s Prospect Park as
part of a plan to find new sites for some of the more than 95,000 asylum
seekers who have arrived in the past 15 months.

11 hours ago

“Everything is on the table,” Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services
Anne Williams-Isom said Wednesday at a press conference when asked
about housing migrants in city parks. The sites are among 3,000 locations
the city is reviewing, she said.

The news site Gothamist reported on Wednesday that the city is considering
erecting tents in the two major parks and on Randall’s Island as possible sites
for the asylum seekers, citing unidentified people familiar with the
discussions.

Williams-Isom declined to comment on how imminent the plan is, and didn’t
directly answer a question about who the city is working with on potential
plans to house people in city parks.

On rare occasions in Central Park’s history, the iconic public space has been commandeered for housing in emergencies.
Photo credit johnandersonphoto/Getty Images

A memo obtained by CNN earlier this year listed a YMCA in Park Slope,
Brooklyn; a recreation center in Staten Island; the campuses of York College
and Medgar Evers College; and the parking lot at Citi Field in Queens as
possible shelter sites.

Placing migrants in temporary structures inside either Central Park or

Prospect Park would bring high visibility to a crisis that’s dogged Mayor Eric
Adams’s administration for months. On Tuesday, scores of people were
sleeping and waiting for help on the sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel in
midtown Manhattan.

Adams has repeatedly criticized the Biden administration for failing to provide
significant logistical or financial aid to the city to help manage the crisis. The
mayor and members of New York’s congressional delegation met last week
with US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas to discuss the
issue.

Dozens of recently arrived migrants to New York City camp outside of the Roosevelt Hotel on Aug. 1, 2023. Photo credit
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

On Wednesday, Williams-Isom denied the city is letting people sleep on the

streets as a tactic to force the federal government to come to the city’s aid.
No one in the Adams administration “would use any people to do a stunt,”
Williams-Isom said.

The city’s shelter system housed 107,900 people as of July 30, a record high
that has more than doubled since January 2022, when the total shelter
census citywide stood at 45,000 people. Some 56,600 of the city’s current
shelter residents are migrants.

On rare occasions in Central Park’s history, the iconic public space has been
commandeered for housing in emergencies. During the Depression in the
1930s, homeless people set up "Hoovervilles," and during the Covid-19
pandemic a field hospital was erected to manage the overwhelming number
of early cases of the disease.

This story originally appeared on Bloomberg.com.

Related

NYC again eyes Randall's Island

for migrant mega shelter as
crisis grows: reports

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Hundreds of migrants sleep

outside Roosevelt Hotel as space
runs out; some try to force way
inside

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NYC fliers tell migrants at Mexico

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Central Park Migrants Asylum Seekers Prospect Park Manhattan

Brooklyn Eric Adams Immigration

Featured Image Photo Credit: Catherine Nance SOPA Images/Sipa USA

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