Governor Kathy Hochul said her administration has reached a tentative contract with President Biden to house migrants at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field.
Don Pollard / Office of Governor Kathy Hochul
After months of negotiations, Governor Kathy Hochul on Monday said the state has reached a “tentative contract” with President Biden’s administration to use Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field as a site for yet another large-scale migrant shelter.
The deal comes as two other state-funded massive asylum seeker shelters have come online over the past week: one in the parking lot of the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center in eastern Queens and the other on several Randall’s Island athletic fields.
Hochul also announced the state is pouring $20 million into speeding up casework for roughly 30,000 migrants in city shelters to help them exit the system more quickly.
The governor, in a Monday statement, said her administration will work with that of Mayor Eric Adams to erect a new mega shelter for asylum seekers on the federally-owned former naval airfield. The site could provide shelter for over 2,000 newcomers as City Hall’s struggles to house thousands of migrants pouring into the five boroughs each week continues.
“We are feeling optimistic that in the near future, we’ll have a contract review in our hand for an opportunity to house upwards of 2,500 people at this time,” Hochul said following an unrelated press conference in the Bronx on Aug. 21.
“So, that is the process, as I mentioned a week or two ago, that is still ongoing,” she added. “But I feel that progress has been made. And we just have to review the terms.”
Adams, in a statement, thanked Hochul for her administration’s offer to subsidize the site — as the two have clashed in recent weeks over how much the state has done to handle the influx.
“I thank Governor Hochul for her commitment to pay for this site, and I’m looking forward to more of this kind of partnership with our…
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