New York City officials want to ease pressure on overcrowded homeless shelters by housing migrants in a federal jail that once held mobsters, terrorists and Wall Street swindlers before being shut down after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide.
The proposal, suggested in an Aug. 9 letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration, came as New York struggles to handle the estimated 100,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since last year after crossing the southern U.S. border.
The city is legally obligated to find shelter for anyone needing it. With homeless shelters full, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has taken over hotels, put cots in recreational centers and school gyms and created temporary housing in huge tents.
The letter, written by a senior counsel for the city’s law department, identifies several other sites in which migrants could potentially be housed, including the defunct Metropolitan Correctional Center, which closed in 2021.
https://news.yahoo.com/nyc-suggests-housing-migrants-jail-190142384.html
A new 20 million dollar a month “migrant complex” that can hold 3000 migrants opens up in nyc
The strapped city has already expanded its controversial migrant complex on Randall’s Island’s youth soccer fields to house 3,000 people — 50% more than expected — before asylum seekers even moved in Sunday.
The site, which will now consist of five dormitory-style tents, began housing the first wave of migrants there in the afternoon, with about 150 single men expected before the end of the day, city officials said.
“This isn’t the solution for the next two, three, four months — this is giving us a little breathing room for the next few days, really,” warned Christina Farrell, the city’s first deputy commissioner of Emergency Management, to reporters during a tour Sunday.
Each air-conditioned sleeping tent will house 600 green and black cots, while a dining tent featuring long white tables will offer three meals a day.
The dining center will stay open 24/7 to also provide ’round-the-clock drinks and snacks, and laundry service and individual lock boxes will be offered, too.
There are separate bathroom cabins and an intake area.