By Daniel Katzive
New residents arrived at a building on West 85th Street on Tuesday, a little more than 24 hours after the mayor’s office announced it would be converted into a Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) for asylum seekers.
Shortly before 1pm, a large white coach-style bus pulled up at the corner of 85th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. The bus discharged a stream of passengers of varying ages, who filed down the sidewalk bearing suitcases and large plastic bags.
Officials with clipboards and wearing IDs were on hand to greet arrivals, ushering them to the entrance of 207 West 85th Street, where security guards helped lift suitcases up the stairs.
The building, along with 205 West 85th Street next door and the Stratford Arms hotel on West 70th Street, are all being converted by the city into emergency response and relief facilities; all have previously been used as housing for students at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA). City records list AMDA, Inc. as the owner of the West 85th Street buildings, and building staff with AMDA IDs were among those on hand as the new residents arrived. A security guard in front of 207 West 85th told the Rag that AMDA students had moved out the previous week.
Rumors were circulating in the neighborhood last week that the Stratford Arms building would be converted to migrant housing, and City Councilmember Gale Brewer referenced these reports in comments at last week’s Community Board 7 meeting. However, the mayor’s office declined to comment or respond to requests from West Side Rag for information on the plans last week, while the Department of Social Services referred questions to city hall.
On Tuesday, AMDA referred questions asking for more information on how the new facilities will impact students and whether students will return to the residence halls in the fall to the mayor’s office, which did not respond to an email requesting more information. The AMDA web site listed the Stratford Arms and what it called “the Amsterdam” buildings as residence halls as recently as last week, but the buildings are no longer referenced on the AMDA site.
In announcing the new centers, Mayor Adams said in a press release Monday: “As the estimated number of asylum seekers that have arrived in the city since last spring surpasses at least 74,000, these sites will serve more than 800 individuals in 516 rooms.”
Update, 9:45 am June 14, 2023
City Councilmember Gale Brewer’s office has provided the Rag with some additional details on the HERRC facilities that opened this week.
The West 70th Street and West 85th Street HERRCs will each house about 400 residents in about 255 rooms per facility (255 on West 70th and 260 on West 85th). The new arrivals will join 10 existing permanent residents on West 70th and 8 on West 85th. Occupancy will be scaled up gradually beginning this week. The West 85th Street and West 70th Street buildings are both owned by AMDA but will remain part of the HERRC program indefinitely, with students not expected to return in the fall.
Gale Brewer said that she will be paying attention according to your previous article. Is she onsite? What exactly her plan is in regards to following up and paying attention?
Please provide details.
Gale Brewer talks the talk but does not walk the walk.
Been this way for years.
Let’s put the discussion of whether these migrants are legal, illegal, asylum seekers, economic immigrants, etc. aside for a moment. Let’s even forget for a second that they are pouring into the country in numbers never seen before.
The question still remains – why do we have to support them? I’m a first generation immigrant and I can tell you it is unprecedented. Prior to the current administration there was no demand to provide free housing and healthcare, not to mention meals and laundry service. Don’t get me started on the phones. Right to shelter had existed for a long time. The countries they immigrate from are the same with same or similar economic and political climate.
So ask yourself – why do we have to support these individuals now? What changed?
Thank you Gogo for your comment. Also please, we wanted to know the effect of these intruders and there kids on our society and our social life.
We shouldn’t have to support them Americans people are on the streets families kids babies no one opens up shelters for them ! They say they came here for a better life now we must support them no ! Do what we Americans do ! Work for it! Hand outs no way
We will be sheltering them until their court dates 7-8 years from now. My property tax’s went up 8 percent this year for a one bedroom I can sell for 10 percent less then last year to help pay for this craziness
I’m also a Cuban inmigrant. I came in the early 70’s when I was four years old. I have never seen such an outpouring of help. My parents both worked in factories for years and never received government aid.
Why now? We are trying to stabilize a country after the pandemia and now this. If they would have to work to earn their living the numbers will be diminishing. What’s this with sanctuary state?
As Cubans your parents were given preference and immediate work permits.
Give asylum seekers work permits and they can fill job openings wherever they are (there are 9 million infilled jobs here, now).
Then they wouldn’t have to be housed and fed by localities.
This is a red herring. Asylum applicants get work permits. They dont need to be granted asylum to get those permits. Thus, your distinction is uninformed. However, applying for asylum falsely can put you on track for removal from the country; many refrain from applying in the first place and readers can decide for themselves why that is.
The Republicans are using the migrants as political pawns. They want to stick it to the Blue States with the hope that people will get fed up and blame the Democrats.
sanctuary is not a real law
Since your a sanctuary State you welcome them your State
will not get federal government money so no political pawns you just played yourself
What a confused logic. Democrats are letting insane number of migrants in, completely unvetted and without grounds for asylum. Our city is suffering. But somehow it is a Republican plot?
yes – do you read the news? Republican Governors in Florida & Texas are literally bussing and flying hundreds of migrants here without even warning our government officials first.
The city is getting the same notification of the arrivals as they are getting in down south….zero.
What changed is for free everything, all they have to do is register as a democratic voter.!
They can’t vote since they are NOT citizens.
I don’t like this one bit. Let’s stop calling this anything other than what it is—a red carpet welcome for illegal immigrants. I didn’t vote for this kind of sloppy leadership and problem solving. This all helps to push the law-abiding, tax-paying part of New York out of the city, not to mention out of the state.
You have an odd definition of both “red carpet” and “illegal immigrants”.
Do you vote in Florida or Texas?
Living free in a dorm and being fed in one if the most expensive city in the world is the red carpet. I mean what are US citizens paying to live in the same area?
Why doesn’t the government pay for my housing? My food? My insurance? I know It’s because I am an American citizen, and a new Yorker for 45 years and have been paying taxes, while these people are from Guatemala or wherever and life is harder there? Does that make sense? Not to me. And hopefully to an increasing number of new yorkers.
Trying to understand the simmering anger and hostility in these comments….the migrants are here and the southern border states have been coping with these issues for years…do we think that we can forever be insulated from this reality of the world we live in, hoping that others will cope with it rather than us? It is challenging no doubt…broader world issues have been dumped on our doorstep when we thought we could wall them off. Should we act humanely now or not? Contribute to bearing the burden with other parts of the country or not? The borders can’t be walled off or shut down and the issues cannot be ignored. Our national political system is incapable of formulating and adopting a rationale and humane policy. So we are where we are…the burden is ours, like it or not. Best to try our best to be welcoming and decent people, without fear mongering. (And they are not illegal…they are asylum seekers under the laws of our country until processed and either welcomed or kicked out. Feel free to advocate for different laws, if you wish, but don’t call them illegal. Vote for different politicians who think they have magic solutions, if you wish. And don’t expect to find paradise in another state…it doesn’t exist.)
I sense there is no use in mentioning the many historical reasons, having to do with undue interference of their governments by the U.S., since it seems that at the moment people are being driven by fear.
Are there jobs for all of them? NO. They are taking benefits from citizens and housing.
There are plenty of jobs for many of them. They fervently wish to work. Unfortunately, they are not permitted to. Many will therefore enter the underground economy, victims of exploitation.
They are not victims of exploitation. They violated our laws by essentially “breaking in.” What do they expect? Most of them are economic migrants who made enough money in their countries to pay tens of thousands to get here. We owe them nothing. My parents waited for 11 years for their turn to come up to be able to enter legally. Sorry, no sympathy from me.
What did you and the people that share your opinion believe they meant by build bridges not walls ? Like Alan J stated, we thought we could advocate for openness as long as the migrants remained a burden to the southern states. We need representatives and candidates that address the immigration system in a way that makes sense to us while keeping up with our founding values of democracy and humanity . We need to find a middle ground pronto.
Alan – of course we can’t be insulated from this reality. But the current administration can develop a policy that (a) acknowledges that the vast majority of these “asylum seekers” are in fact migrating for economic reasons (b) offers those who are employable a work permit and (c) takes into account the needs of current underserved US citizens for housing and healthcare and prioritizes them non-citizens.
“ the burden is ours, like it or not.” – says who? Why is it our burden ? The only thing that changed is Russia-Ukraine war. Yet the “asylum seekers” are not from Ukraine, they are your usual suspects they all of a sudden got a red carpet rolled out in front of them. Do we have a clear explanation why now? And why suddenly do we have to support them?
I don’t think we have been provided an explanation for the border wide open and insistence that we support them.
Try reading intelligent foreign news Jen – then you might understand that there is more going on in the world besides Russia Ukraine – and the small issue of international human rights law – geez
Ral, no need to lecture me. The tone of your comment is not appreciated. Why is it that the ones who readily give away our tax dollars to the cause we don’t agree with are so hostile and condescending ? I could say the same to you – try to process the information, not just gloss over it.
1. The southern border states don’t spend Billions of other people’s dollars to house them.
2. Borders CAN be walled off.
3. Biden has thrown open the border for 1 reason only, to prove he is different from Trump.
Yes!
All true, except there must be more to Biden’s open orders policy than just proving that he is different from Trump. Obama also deported migrants right from the border, in huge numbers. Media was silent about it. Immgration attorneys know that very well. So Biden’s wide-open border policy is due to other factors as well, whatever they might be.
Too sad that many buy it as “compassion” fed by very biased media. Same media didn’t report numbers on the turned away and deported under Obama. Btw, I liked most of Obama’s policy including the border one. Things were more sane back then.
The mayor keeps complaining and counting how many tens of thousands we New Yorkers are supporting but does nothing to change the Right to Shelter law. This city will be bankrupt in a year. Goodbye all our programs. Let’s see, shall we?
If the Mayor is complaining, it’s his own doing. He stood on his soap box and decried texas for not wanting the migrants and proclaiming that New York is a “sanctuary city” and that New York would welcome them. Well. . ..he got what he asked for. Maybe he should have thought about that before he shot his mouth off.
Wait until it’s hundreds of thousands, or a million, the end of the stream of illegals is not in sight. The end of NYC is.
What are we going to do for schools next academic year? Our children are on waitlists as it is. We don’t have enough seats and hadn’t have them for a while. All of a sudden we can accommodate hundreds of migrant children? Granted, they have to be at school, absolutely. But how and at what expense? Are we building more schools? Hiring more teachers? Also, how are we going to integrate completely different standards of learning plus language barrier? By lowering our already low standards?
Why our children’s future have to be screwed up to fulfill someone’s political ambitions?
It’s so bad in public schools right now that the school administration is taking bilingual children out of class to interpret for the new illegal children who don’t know one word of English. Now that is messed up.!
This is how misinformation gets disseminated. The children are certainly not illegal. They have a case pending for asylum and with the current policy that the majority voted for, the country allows for certain benefits while they await their cases to be approved or not. These kids can share invaluable lessons to our kids. More often than not these kids are more respectful to their peers and teachers and are at a higher educational level than our current school system standards.
School
Is ending for this year. Being interpreters is terrific for the bilingual kids. All immigrants need to learn English asap so they can seek jobs & get off the freebies.
Keep issue for all
Immigrants. Why is no one ( or so few) discussing it?
They are not illegal! They are asylum seekers. Stop dehumanizing them!
How about asylum seekers from other parts of the world? Why do they have to wait years to come in? Most of these asylum seekers from the border are single parents with children which make it more of a burden on us.
Do you have any human compassion for American middle-class and their children?
Whatever happened with the Safe Haven on W 83rd Street? Is it still empty or have the homeless in the neighborhood been moving in?
Things are going so great for the city that we can just afford to take in tens of thousands of migrants and support them for years?
I mean, is there no limit? Hypothetically if 5 million make to NYC in next year we have to put them up because of some right to shelter law, which hasn’t even kept our homegrown homeless off the streets?
Will the East Side be getting any shelters? Or will it be like the homeless shelter debacle where every UWS hotel was packed with homeless while our neighbors across the park sat in their ivory towers eating cake??
Perhaps it’s our local leaders, like Brewer, on the west side who have raised their hands to offer these shelters. I suspect the upper east side leaders take their constituents safety, health and property values a little more seriously.
Let’s hear the info on this! Please
Does anyone know for how long the asylum seekers are allowed to stay in the response and relief center?
It is a federal policy to admit them at the border. So the cost of their care should be borne by the federal government. And the federal government also needs to speed up the asylum processing, to reduce the time to house them in limbo. How about mobile immigration courtrooms?
I sound like a broken record but why is this just our issue. I am fine with having some of them. But we have a very disproportionate share. Why can’t other cities and states take more?
For example, I know that Detroit’s population is a small fraction of what it once was. There are huge sections of the city that are empty. There are plenty of other places that can each take a few hundred and provide them with housing, jobs, etc.
We need to stop being such nice guys and stop being such bleeding hearts. As with other things, we think we are being so virtuous but having so many of the migrants here is in no one’s best interest except those who get their self-worth from thinking they are helping them. It isn’t in the best interest of current NYC residents to have so many here, but, perhaps more importantly, it isn’t in the best interest of the migrants.
I don’t think you can just choose to send them wherever – my understanding is that migrants in TX are offered a ticket to New York, and they often take it gladly because of what they’ve heard about New York City. I don’t see a lot of migrants choosing a bus ticket to Detroit over NYC, DC, Chicago, etc.
how do I help?
By giving money to South America so they can help themselves. Bring technology to them and technical advisors.
The church on 86 between Broadway and West End hands out clothing and they can probably use help sorting and distributing.
Let me know if you find out.
All these people are seeking benefits and are going to take from us citizens. Housing is sky-high and these people will dim our hopes of affording a good apartment or a home we can afford. Over building makes our city augly.
Real estate people are the ones that prosper and the Democrat Party. Why are not plane loads coming from other parts of the world?
Please stop with all the homeless shelters and illegal immigrant housing on the UWS. Where are our politicos? Please choose another borough.
Apparently Gale Brewer is on top of things as she claims. You should ask her.
So, the AMDA students have to find somewhere else to live?
Can I bring clothes, household goods, et to donate to the asylum seekers at the West 70th Street location?
How can I volunteer to help the asylum seekers? Thanks
Good for you James & Randy. I’d also like to know how to help. We are so lucky and privileged to be in this great city. I believe if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. I am also saddened by the negativity of many of the comments above.
I am very saddened by all the hate and negativity in these comments about recently arriving migrants, or undocumented persons. (Not “illegals”) My ancestors emigrated for economic reasons and were despised in their new country . I suspect the same may be true of the ancestors of many of those writing here.
Yes we need better immigration policies but meantime
the best response was that from James: “How can I help?”
I don’t see any comments as hateful. NYC cannot even take care of its own homeless. And why aren’t they spread out amongst all the boroughs.? These people are not political asylum seekers but financial. They crowd our schools. Take bilingual teachers away from their current students. And is anyone worried or concerned about the students who now have no housing to return to? Or the conditions of local homeless people?
I agree with CJB. The comments are more about concerns for the impact this will have on us rather than hateful. How the U.S. handled our ancestors is entirely irrelevant. This is a new world and we are getting filled up. Some data:
We cannot accept everyone who walks into the United States simply because some people justify it by saying that this is how their ancestors immigrated into our country. It is now an entirely different country and a different world with less available space and fewer opportunities than at the height of our great immigrations.
In 1900, the global population was less than 2 Billion; it is now about 8 Billion and projected to grow to close 10 Billion by 2050.
In 1900, the U.S. population was about 76 Million; it is now about 340 Million.
This cannot continue!
Just as an addendum; In 1900, the U.S. Census for NYC showed a population of 3,437,202 (This included Brooklyn, which became part of NYC in 1898)
In 2010 it was 8,804,190
(Data from the 2020 U.S. Census is not yet available)
Please stop quoting your ancestors as the reason to keep this lunacy going. We are all either immigrants or descendants of immigrants.
This has nothing to do with hostility towards immigrants, so please don’t twist it as such.
The immigrants are very welcome as usual. The ones who want to work and make a life for themselves.
The current wave is falsely presented as “asylum seekers” when they are in fact economic migrants. It is fine to be an economic migrant too, welcome if you want to work and make your life better.
The question is – why are we ordered to support and provide free housing and services for them? We don’t have resources. It is not sustainable.
Your ancestors as well as mine had to work, and didn’t expect free housing and services provided to them at the taxpayer expense. To sum it up – hard work vs freeloading.
Educate yourselves first, then post your Comment (often an ill-informed opinion): https://www.ilctr.org/quick-us-immigration-statistics/?gclid=CjwKCAjwyqWkBhBMEiwAp2yUFmx_VQjg6njIh4Iz_yNIl1L2xZVMpkXSdP6Uq718aCmF9MK_ixCCOBoC-vwQAvD_BwE#how-many
We are all immigrants to this great country, we all faced the hatred and bigotry when our ancestors took this land . Quit being racist and uncaring.
Why do we have a duty to house, and feed, educate people from other countries that are here only because the life in their country is tougher than here? Do you realize this is true for 80% of the world population?
Immigrant waves from 120 years ago are nit comparable. Different times, different need, different ability for people to organize en mass and march toward a border etc.
I do not want to pay to feed someone just because Ecuador or Guatemala has a bad economy and people are poorer. That doesnt make me racist or uncaring, i just care about my family and people close to me more than 80% of the world.
Immigrants in the early 1900s were not given free housing or food, for the most part. Immigrants had to find their own way, usually with the help of relatives or immigrant associations. Taxpayers did not fund immigrants.
I would like to get involved in helping at the 70th st. house. I live nearby and am fluent in Spanish. In case there are some Ukrainian refugees among them, I speak Polish and some Russian. Whom do I contact?
PUT YOUR VOTE WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS. I work in real estate, so many people don’t have their homesteads to NY, don’t vote, and want things to change somehow. CHANGE YOUR ID, YOUR PARTY, AND VOTE, EVEN IN THE “SMALL ELECTION S” CLEARLY THEY COUNT, and stop pretending like supporting other people is the taxpayers job. Demand FOIL Records to see where the $ is going. Diblasio $800 Million, GONE .. Biden invited them, and you voted for him too. What did you think was going to happen?
Actually, I was hoping for this, because I do think it’s the “taxpayer’s job” to support other people. Our civilization grows and prospers when we take care of each other. Hence the overwhelming success of programs like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, and others. They’re not perfect, but I’ll take them any day over the extreme right’s utopia where it’s every man for himself.
With millions of single migrants with children there’s more of a burden in need of social services for them. They are going to take from the low income citizens in New York. The cost of renting an apartment is utterly unaffordable for low income people already. It’s not like the 70’s.
We paid into social security for our entire lives. Medicare is anything but free. Medigap and a drug plan costs per person top $3K per year.
The extreme right? Total false dichotomy. I am for increased social benefits fir Americans. It’s my job as a taxpayer to support me and my family first, fellow citizens and then everyone else if we can’t take care of the second category in part because we’re giving it to the third. . As a liberal it is clear to me we need to pick ONE:
1. A country that takes care of its people
2. One that lets in millions of poor people with low education a year and supports them for years. I mean, we have millions of US citizens who are poor, why are we importing more??
U cannot have a welfare state with a border open in all but name. Because of course migrants are poorer sand they will take up all the benefits first. this doesn’t work mathematically and completely understandably it leads to resentment.
Letting in migrants devastates America’s underclass by creating an endless supply of cheap labor. It is also horrible for the environment, requiring more clearing of US lands, taking up, water etc.
Governors Abbott & DeSantis have no right to ship migrants to other states, I do believe that any relocation is Federal jurisdiction and responsibility. So why haven’t Mayor and NY Governor sued Abbott and DeSantis for funds to cover expense of NYC?
Texas and Florida are not obliged to house them or keep them. They don’t need to suffer solely because they are the border states and federal government did nothing other than letting incredible amount of economic migrants in, without any basis or explanation.
Our city volunteered, so here’s the result.
I could be wrong, but I am guessing that all of the negative comments are by people whose ancestors did not emigrate to America.
Why is it a negative comment to ask how all the food, clothing and shelter will be paid for? Why is it a negative comment to ask why a homeless person who has been here for years can’t get a decent place to live and a decent job and decent healthcare before people who got here yesterday? Why is it a negative comment to note that our ancestors who immigrated here lived in cramped tenements of 6 or 8 people in one small room and survived and made a place for themselves by working with each other as opposed to living off others. These are not negative comments they are historical comments and they are accurate. Go odown town to the Tenement Museum and get educated.
So if someone disagrees and has another point of view they must be labeled antimigrant. My family came here after trying to escape being murdered. But the waited. And expected no handouts
Sanctuary City policies are costing this city billions of dollars. When the well runs dry, then what? Raising taxes will compel even more New Yorkers to leave town, including me, which will exacerbate the crisis. Our elected officials are in denial about the grave consequences.
That’s right. Take care of low-income citizens FIRST! Low income people can’t afford $3,000.00 rent which is all over. Projects are damn dangerous to live in.
There are consequences to any action, including denying asylum to humans in need of safety and shelter. As someone whose entire extended family (except my parent) was killed after unsuccessfully trying to emigrate during WWII, I’m grateful to live in a place where leaders risk the consequences of allowing immigrants here rather choosing to send them back to the places they came from. Are we all really so deprived that we can’t share what we have?
The problem with this mentality is that there is no limit to all of this sharing. What, in your mind, would be a reasonable cap of numbers of these asylum-seekers? 1 million? 5 million? 20 million? This is all for NYC, hypothetically.
Surely your mind accepts the idea that 20,000,000 immigrants is too much for the city (and needs to be turned away before the city collapses from a social safety net standpoint). My limit is far lower than that. We’re already at 74,000. Time to start limiting our hypothetical largess.
No “sharing “is endless.
Our family migrated to the US with green cards in hand when I was 5 yrs old. My father worked 3 jobs. We never saw him. We never received one cent of help. All we did was contribute. Worked hard put ourselves through college. It took 5 yrs to get processed before we were able to come to the us. What is happening now is disgraceful.
No vetting, no nothing. How does ask this come to an end. How much more can we take. Our healthcare costs and taxes are going up to support these people !
I was struck by one interview I saw, with a young couple from Mexico who came with their child.. The wife explained that “We are the only members of our family left. Everyone else was killed by the gangs.” That’s when my feelings changed about these asylum seekers. You have to be pretty desperate to travel here the way they have done. It’s in our interest to help them get on their feet, educate the kids, teach them all English, and train them to do the jobs that nobody else wants to do.
Interesting. And yet, hundreds of thousands of US citizens live in Mexico, and thousands of retirees move there from the US every year.
Those US retirees live in nice places that are not run by drug cartels _ however if you read the news you see that drug violence is encroaching beach resorts too. Many parts of Mexico are extremely unsafe and violent
These comments are so disappointing. The UWS has more than 200,000 people, and is one of the wealthiest and most privileged areas in the world. The median income here is twice what it is in the rest of the country. And many of you are freaking out over a few hundred people, declaring it the end of NYC 😂
It’s going to be OK, folks. There’s plenty of everything to go around if we work together instead of letting fear make us reactive and hateful.
Just because you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth does not mean the rest of us were. I fled a war, immigrated legally, and worked 80 hours per week for many years. Don’t tell me I am privileged to live on UWS, I earned it!
No. It’s not just a few hundred people it’s some 70,000. We are not just worried about the UWS. And this isn’t the end of it. What do u think happens when word gets back to south of the border that people are being sent to live for free in NYC in as you put it one of the wealthiest areas in the world? You think that leads to more, or fewer, migrants?
So it’s now an “Emergency Center”! Pols have made it the norm to declare everything an emergency which lets them suspend normal procedures, the democratic process, our rights, etc.
These comments make me sad. There are 165 million displaced people in the world. It’s not a problem we can escape by building a wall – whether metaphorical or real. First consider that these are mostly refugees from failed states or gang violence. So it’s in our best interest to figure out how we can help locally during this emergency and systemically – through international cooperation.
And btw, any number of economic studies show a strong correlation between immigration and innovation. Illegal immigration is a huge problem in the US, and we need much better solutions. But those solutions start with empathy and creativity, not hostility.
What if we helped these refugees stand up and then began problem solving with them?
America represents opportunity, and should also represent fairness. There are jobs if we allow them to work. Fast track that legislation and these folks can share in the same way most of our immigrant forefathers did.
For everyone grousing, the only way to change this is to change leadership. We all knew the border policy and sanctuary city policy and majority have voted for it.
Members of the Open Hearts Initiative are excited to welcome new neighbors to the HERRCs on the Upper West Side, as part of our mission to support and welcome homeless neighbors in our own backyards. If you’d like to learn more about our work in leveraging material resources, organizing in the neighborhood, and advocating for policies that solve homelessness–and hopefully get involved–please be in touch! info@openheartsinitiative.org
No one walks thousands of miles because they want to. Why so much hate and fear? We are all immigrants. I left TX because of the bigotry and hatred there. And now it’s here. I promise you that you would never want or take the jobs they will gladly take. I live on the UWS and cannot wait to help. Shame on you all!
Hate, fear? No, just inability to provide for economic migrants from our own already stretched pocket.
To answer your question about walking thousand miles? A lot of us would do that to get free housing and services for years. No questions asked, no justification has to be given.
This is a complex issue and people have various opinions some of which are reflected in WSR reader comments. (I know my family & friends have differing opinions)
But my concern is this – that those who are fully supportive of financial assistance/ City services etc for the migrants seem quick to criticize (and name-call) those who have concerns or are not enthusiastic.
Attacking people with different opinions is not how to galvanize support or change people’s feelings….
Good god, the posts updating on this subject matter really bring out the worst, most entitled personalities in the neighborhood. Get a hobby, people. In the meantime, welcome to our new neighbors! I’d love to know how to help out if there are any specific resources needed.
No, UWSbb, you are the entitled one for being so ready to give away our tax dollars to anyone who asks. You obviously don’t need the programs our taxes already pay for, but some NYCers actually need those programs, and some programs are going to be cut because this huge new debt.
It’s easy to give a lot away when you have plenty to spare. Please don’t assume everyone has the same resources as you do.
Quite the opposite – I most certainly do not have ‘plenty to spare’ but I do want to be aware of ways I can help when it’s possible. Taking issue with the often overwhelmingly negative response to this subject matter does not suggest I want other areas to lack. But at the very least people should feel welcome.
We spend more on our military and our police than any other nation, there’s money to help everyone and then some, but no one wants to continue that conversation. Take all of my taxes, I’m not a libertarian, I’d rather there be an abundance of social services, you never know when the day will come you will need a hand out too
BTW apparently the City has now ordered cuts – including suggested staff cuts – at the non-profits that serve the Department of Homeless Services shelter system
FYI additional food resource info for migrants.
(But unclear if this is available at regular DHS shelters?)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/15/nyregion/rethink-migrant-meals-nyc.html
I think if people are concerned about their property values should be more concerned about multi-billionaires buying up properties, undertaking length and very loud construction (7 years on West 69th where many people moved out when bedrock was being drilled for over 6 months). Not to mention half the street parking being lost to construction parking.
Migrants are eligible for housing vouchers once they’ve stayed at a DHS hotel (paid by FEMA) and have started working (work permits take 3-6 months).
This kind of billionaire level gentrification of the area will eventually make it unaffordable to current nimbys. It won’t be temporary migrant stays at hotels. So check your facts first, neighbors.
Vera,
It was my understanding that adults without green card status don’t qualify for subsidized housing assistance?
In working with homeless families in DHS family residences, there were families living there for years because the parents did not have legal status – and so they did not qualify for permanent housing assistance. They were able to remain in the DHS system however due to the City’s obligation to provide shelter.
How can I help? Is there a place for donations? Thanks.
Help low income or poor Americans instead!!
So the students are not coming back to school because the migrants are here for a long time.
How is it normal to kick out the underprivileged students from their program to house (for free) the people who jumped the border for economic reasons and get all the benefits for free? At our taxpayers buck and at the children’s expense. And wait what is going to happen to the local children at school next September.
Totally dumbfounding and very unfair.
https://patch.com/new-york/upper-west-side-nyc/2-uws-centers-asylum-seekers-expected-remain-indefinitely?utm_term=article-slot-1&utm_source=newsletter-daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&user_email=d5a65a6fe09425ac70075354e66a5704baef155ca9c8e99e3dbc8289e080600d
You can question the policy of housing these immigrants or the intentions of the politicians, but have you noticed who the nannies are, the home-care attendants, food delivery people, construction workers? Many of them are highly skilled and are filling jobs that many Americans are unable or unwilling to do. People are coming with their families and are unlikely to engage in illegal activity, as many assume. Doing so would jeopardize their chance of gaining citizenship, which is what they’ve risked their lives for. What makes them different from immigrants that arrived in this country earlier? Is it that they’re not coming from Europe?