A Collision of Crises
The plight of asylum seekers bused from Texas to New York City is colliding with the city’s longstanding housing crisis.
The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment in NYC is $2,224, far above the national average of $1,360. In Manhattan, the most expensive of the city’s five boroughs, the average monthly rent recently reached $5,000. Rents this high make finding a home very difficult for people with low and moderate incomes. The Coalition for the Homeless, a NYC advocacy group, reports that in recent years homelessness in the city reached its highest levels since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Data from the Coalition suggest that many homeless single adults face mental health challenges in addition to financial ones, but that most homeless families simply don’t earn enough money to afford New York’s astronomical rents.
New York City is the only city in the nation that guarantees a right to shelter to anyone requesting it. The guarantee stems from a 1979 consent decree that came out of a lawsuit filed by the founder of the Coalition for the Homeless. But New York’s mayors since 1979 have struggled with this consent decree, which did not address the root causes of homelessness or diminish the number of city residents without a place to live.
The recent influx of asylum seekers has added a new dimension to the city’s housing situation.
Over 20,000 migrants have arrived in New York City in the past several months, according to Jessica Katz, NYC’s chief housing officer. In an October 17 radio interview, Katz noted that over 15,000 of these migrants are living in city homeless shelters. Many are Venezuelans who crossed the Mexican border into Texas, then came to New York on free buses provided by either Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott or Democratic El Paso Mayor Oscar Leescar.
On October 7, current NYC Mayor Eric Adams declared a state of emergency, saying the southern politicians putting migrants on buses bound for New York gave no advance notice and made no attempt to coordinate with the city. “Our right to shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain,” he charged.
Adams himself has faced intense criticism for his approach to housing the asylum seekers. He initially planned a migrant relief center in a parking lot for Orchard Beach in the Bronx, with five large tents that would hold 1,000 beds. Bronx politicians complained that they weren’t notified about the plan. They also noted that the location was prone to flooding and far from public transportation.
Construction on the migrant relief center was already underway when heavy rains flooded the parking lot on October 3, leading Adams to abandon the site and move the relief center to Randalls Island, which is mostly made up of athletic fields. According to NYC’s commissioner for emergency management, it cost $325,000 to “demobilize” the Orchard Beach construction.
Bronx politicians said they were again not notified when the Adams administration decided to close the Orchard Beach center. Other critics said that Randalls Island, like Orchard Beach, is prone to flooding and difficult to access by public transportation.
The Randalls Island migrant center, with capacity for 500 single men, opened on October 19. It has winterized tents, Wi-Fi, laundry facilities and a recreation room. Three meals a day will be provided.
For migrant families, the city opened an intake center for families at the Row Hotel, just two blocks from the bus station where many migrants are arriving. Families are being housed at hotels throughout the city.
The pressure on the city to find immediate beds may be lessening. On October 21, Mayor Adams announced the number of migrants coming to the city had dropped sharply, as President Biden announced a new program to allow Venezuelans with U.S. sponsors to enter the country legally. This same program removed the right to asylum from those who cross the border by regular or irregular means.
For 20,000+ migrants already in New York, however, finding permanent housing will be difficult. Federal law does not allow asylum seekers to apply for work permits until 150 days after they have filed for asylum, and according to an Adams administration official, the migrants are ineligible for city housing vouchers. Without income or housing vouchers, migrants may have no choice but to remain in city shelters.
In recent interviews, many migrants have expressed a strong desire to find employment and become self-supporting as quickly as possible. But local governments are limited in their ability to help them achieve this aim. Only federal action can address the many places where the current immigration system is broken in a way that harms both migrants and municipalities.
