Asylum seekers in sweltering Bushwick rely on kindness of strangers

As the temperature hit the high 80s and the heat index went well into the 90s, Mustapha El Habib sat in a community garden in Bushwick on a recent evening and longed for a shower.

In the week since he arrived in New York from the Northwest African nation of Mauritania, he had gone more days without showering than with. “I’m so dirty,” he said.

Along with hundreds of others, the 26 year old is staying in a city “respite center” at 359 Stockton St., one of many temporary facilities that Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has opened to accommodate an ever-growing number of migrants, more than 100,000 in the last year.

City officials have scrambled to expand the number of facilities housing asylum seekers, but in the process they’ve come under fire from elected officials, immigrant rights activists, and the new arrivals themselves, who complain many of the makeshift digs lack essentials, such as laundry, lockers to store belongings, adequate food service, and even showers.

Adams administration officials did not respond to requests for comment about the shortfalls at the Stockton Street location, a commercial property. But similar complaints surfaced at a recent City Council oversight committee hearing, where Zachary Iscol, who heads the Office of Emergency Management, said the city was doing the best it could under trying circumstances.

“The alternative is people sleeping on the streets,” Iscol said.

During the recent heatwave, a portable shower trailer appeared outside the Stockton site, but a local activist said it had not been made operational and remained in the garage of the building.

While the city’s provisions have been called into question, the migrants say they have been receiving generous help from a mutual aid group active in the Brooklyn neighborhood. The volunteers have helped with food runs, opened their homes – and showers – to…