2 Migrant Centers in Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen to Close; Adams Plan to Shutter 25 Citywide
Mayor Adams said that the amount of asylum-seekers arriving in NYC was the lowest in 17 months. The number of migrants moving out the system is now exceeding the number of new arrivals each week, he said.
| 11 Dec 2024 | 03:14
The Merit Hotel, on W. 46th St., is one of six migrant shelters in Manhattan and 25 citywide that will close in the next two months including six in Manhattan. (
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Mayor Eric Adams says that The Americana Inn, on W. 38th St., will close in the next two months as part of shutdown of 25 shelters across the five boroughs. The two largest shelters, one on Randall’s Island and another on Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn, are also slated to close. (
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Asylum-seekers queuing up in Midtown Manhattan in July 2023 following the conversion of the Roosevelt Hotel into a shelter and intake center. On Dec. 10, Mayor Eric Adams announced that six migrant shelters in Manhattan would be closing in the next two months as part of a plan to close 25 across the city, although the Roosevelt Hotel is not one of them. (
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Families began arriving at the Roosevelt Hotel in the summer of 2023 as the number of incoming migrants began to overwhelm the city shelter system. (
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St. Brigid’s School, a shut-down Catholic elementary school in the East Village, drew long lines of asylum-seekers after the city used it as a processing center for people who exceeded 30 or 60 day shelter limits–and were seeking new placements. It remains in operation. (
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Six migrant shelters in Manhattan, including two in the Chelsea/Hell’s Kitchen neighborhoods, will be closing in the coming months as part of Mayor Eric Adams plan to close 25 shelters citywide. The number of asylum-seekers arriving in the city continues to ease.
The 61-room Americana Inn at 69 W. 38th St. in Chelsea is on the closure list. A emergency shelter located in Hell’s Kitchen at the 23-room Hotel Merit on W. 46th St. near Times Square between Ninth and Tenth Avenues already saw the last of its migrant check out in early November, but it was also included in the latest announcement.
One of the biggest closures in Manhattan is the Randall’s Island shelter, which at its peak housed up to 3,000 migrants in massive white tents that were set up on youth soccer and baseball fields. Randall’s Island was already slated to close for good by Feb. 25 even before the announcement on Dec. 10, which was made as Adams himself was heading to Puerto Rico for a conference.
The other Manhattan shelters on the shut down list include: the 97th Street Dorms on 3rd Ave. which at one point housed Hunter College students, and two UWS shelters: the Amsterdam Humanitarian Response and Relief Center at 205-207 West 85th St. and the Stratford Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center, housed in the former Stratford Inn at 117 West 70th Street. .
The most high profile center on the closure list is Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennet Field. The fear by some advocates for asylum seekers was that President-elect Donald Trump was going to target migrants there because its the only city shelter that sits on federal land. Adams however did not mention Trump in the announcement about the closures.
More than 223,000 asylum-seekers have arrived in NYC since the spring of 2022, some of whom were bused to New York by the Republican governor of Texas, Gregg Abbott. At its peak, the city was operating 210 shelters across the city. One of the shelters in the Times Square area was the scene of wild brawl in February in which two police officers were knocked to the ground and kicked and beaten by up to a group of eight migrants after police had tried to take one migrant into custody. Eventually seven people were indicted for the attack. That center was not among those slated for closure.
Adams has called the influx of migrants a “crisis,” pointing out the migrants who entered New York City exceeds the population of Albany. He said it has cost the city over $7 billion and was responsible for a round of deep budget cuts a year ago. Most, but not all, of last year’s cuts were restored in the current budget as the migrant surge eased.
He has repeatedly called on the Biden Administration to pick up some of the costs, but said his pleas fell on deaf ears in Washington, which has only chipped in with about $200 million.
Migrants rights activists slammed Adams for the 30-60 day limits on shelter stays, which they argue lead to homelessness and was disruptive to kids who are entitled to a public school education, which becomes tougher if they are forced to move.
NYC has a guaranteed “right to shelter” stemming from a 1979 court case, which Adams has sought to amend since arrivals began picking up in 2022. Adams has insisted it was necessary move to comply with the right to shelter law but at the same time preventing the city from going broke. A total of 55,000 migrants are said to be still housed in city shelters.
Adams cited a sharp decline in asylum-seekers arriving in NYC over 22 straight weeks, leading to the lowest levels of new arrivals in 17 months, as one reason for the newly-announced shelter closures. He added that he was in alignment with President Joe Biden’s implementation of stricter border policies at the federal level that has seen the number of migrant arrivals plunge over the past several months.
“Our intensive case management, paired with 30- and 60-day policies, have helped more than 170,000 migrants take their next steps on their journeys, because migrants don’t come here to live in our shelter system—they come here to pursue the American Dream,” Adams said in a statement.
He said more shelters will be closing in the months ahead. “We’re going to continue looking for more sites to consolidate and close, and more opportunities to save taxpayer money, as we continue to successfully manage this response.”
Adams stirred more controversy over his approach to immigration recently, by announcing that he was considering partnering with the incoming Trump administration to deport asylum-seekers who commit crimes, a task that is complicated because the NYPD is barred by city laws from working with immigration agents. NYC is considered a sanctuary city.
He was asked at a Dec. 9 press conference if would be willing to hand over migrants accused of a crime to federal authorities before a verdict and before a sentence is reached. He did not give a direct answer but said he was going to kick ideas around with Trump’s border czar, Thomas Homan.
He said his main aim is to protect the public. “They should serve their sentence. I want to hear what the border czar, what his ideas are, because justice is making sure that person served a sentence.” But he said he would not object if the sentence was served in a country outside of the United States.
Adams will reportedly meet with Homan on Dec. 12.