NYC’s migrant shelter population surges to nearly 100K, costing taxpayers $8M a day
The Big Apple’s shelter population has now surged to nearly 100,000 – doubling in size since last year — as a never-ending flow of migrants continues to flood into the city amid what has fast become a humanitarian and fiscal crisis.
As of this week, 98,400 people were being housed in city-run shelters — a population roughly equal to the size of Albany, according to City Hall’s latest headcount.
Nearly half of them – 48,700 – are asylum seekers.
In the last month alone, 13,000 migrants have been processed solely at the historic Roosevelt Hotel ever since it was repurposed into an asylum seeker welcome center.
But it’s not just the sheer number of migrants that’s staggering.
It costs roughly $385 a night to put up a migrant family in one of the city’s shelters, officials said – meaning the asylum-seeker crisis is setting taxpayers back about $7.9 million every day.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, warned the growing crisis will only set taxpayers back even more.
“The problem New York City is facing aren’t really Mayor Adams’s fault,” Krikorian told The Post on Friday.
“It’s Joe Biden’s fault. The root cause of these problems is sitting in the Oval Office.”
The city is set to receive $104.6 million in grant funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help cover its growing migrant expenses, but Mayor Adams has begged the Biden administration to foot the entire bill, which he estimates could cost as much as $4.5 billion.
Hizzoner has repeatedly lashed out at the current administration for not doing more to help stop the flow of immigrants into the Big Apple, saying the influx has “destroyed” Gotham.
“Everybody is scrambling to deal with the fallout from the Biden administration’s policies,” Krikorian said.
“The thing that Mayor Adams and others are culpable for is not clearly calling for a change to immigration policy. Adams and other big city mayors are begging for more money from Washington, which solves nothing,” he continued.
“They want help in mopping up the floor instead of turning off the faucet and the faucet is going strong — despite the Biden administration’s claims.”
As local officials grapple with an already overburdened shelter system, Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom disclosed at a migrant briefing on Wednesday that there are currently 174 sites set up across the city, including 11 Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers.
In the last week, more than 2,200 new asylum seekers were processed and set up by the city, Williams-Isom said.
The steady stream of migrants was evident outside the Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday afternoon with asylum seekers coming and going.
Most of the rooms in the former four-star hotel are reserved for migrant families with children.
“Everything is good. The communication, the help — everything,” Venezuelan mom, Elba Castro, told The Post.
“It’s good. They’re organized, they’re attentive. There are personnel on every floor. And the food too,” her partner, David, a migrant from Peru, added.
Venezuela, Elizabeth Brito, said she was pleased with the facility because “a lawyer is helping us” and “we have stability here.”
“Are they giving us help here? Yes, they give it to me. The hotel, everything is nice. They treat us well and they help with the paperwork,” said Tamara Perez, a mom from Venezuela with a 4-year-old child.
Testifying before the City Council about the state of the migrant response, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said Wednesday that the city was making use of 10 hotels in Westchester County and upstate New York to deal with the influx.
Iscol also told lawmakers that the city had used or identified 1,000 sites for respite centers or temporary shelters as the crisis mounts.
