New York City is temporarily turning a cruise ship terminal into a shelter and service center for asylum seekers, mayor Eric Adams said Saturday, announcing the latest in a series of facilities the city has set up — and sometimes shut down — as it strains to handle a relentless influx.
The mayor’s office said in a release that the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal will have room, food, medical care and other services for 1,000 single men until it returns to cruise business in the spring. Prior to this, residents would move from another relief center to a hotel, which would accommodate asylum-seeker families with children.
“Our city is at its breaking point,” said Adams, a Democrat who has made repeated requests for state and federal aid to address the flow of asylum seekers — some of them sent to out-of-state governors. Lived by – City for the largest population of the country. Adams traveled this week Step, Texas, to visit the southern US frontier and press the point. He declared a state of emergency over the issue of this fall.
According to the mayor, a total of 41,000 refugees have arrived in the city since last spring. Along with the terminal, the city will house five “humanitarian emergency response and relief” centers for the approximately 28,000 refugees currently housed and those who may yet arrive. Some 77 hotels have also been tapped as emergency shelters.
The city’s previous moves to create a haven for newcomers have had mixed reception and use. A plan to erect a hangar-shaped tent in the beach’s parking lot was canceled amid concerns about storm surge flooding. The city then built a complex of huge tents on an island that contained a park and sports facilities; The tent facility closed after three weeks of use of the light as the number of arrivals slowed down for a time.
Some advocates for people who need shelter have criticized the cruise ship terminal plan, saying the waterfront building could flood and is unsuitable for housing people. hotel A better short-term option, and a longer-term plan, should be to free up space in the city’s existing homeless shelters by making a more robust effort to get their occupants to permanent housing, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said. .
“Asylum seekers continue to be moved around cities like chess pieces and are a sign of City Hall’s failure,” the groups said in a statement.
Adams said city officials “continue to exceed our ethical and legal obligations and meet the needs of the people who visit New York.”