City Hall says Mayor Eric Adams’ plan to clear space for new migrants in local shelters is working, but there’s a big gap in the available data.
Under 20% of migrants who have received 30- and 60-day notices to leave city shelters remain in the beleaguered shelter system, City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamelak said. That equates to about 1,700 of the 8,480 migrants the city says have reached the limit on their stays.
But it’s unclear where the remaining 80% who are out of time have gone. Mamelak said the city didn’t track where those migrants — about 6,800 people, based on the city’s data — ended up.
More than 120,000 migrants, who are mostly asylum-seekers, have come to New York since spring 2022. More than 60,000 live in city-provided shelters, which range from hotels to congregate settings, and the Adams administration has said for months that the city is out of space.
Immigrant advocates and some migrants say those kicked out of city shelters are facing a new level of chaos and confusion.
Late last month, the administration quietly opened two new sites to help process the growing number of migrants who have reached their stay limits. One of the sites is a “reticketing center” in an old Catholic school in the East Village, where migrants who have received vacate notices can get a free bus or plane ticket to another city.
The other site is a “waiting room” where migrants have been directed to stay while awaiting a bed in a city shelter, Mamelak said.
Josh Goldfein, a staff attorney at the nonprofit Legal Aid Society, said the location of the “waiting room” has changed multiple times, and that in recent weeks, migrants had stayed overnight for “several days” in the makeshift facilities.
Some migrants who were kicked out of city shelters are confused about where they should go, said Goldfein and Ariadna Phillips, an organizer with the South Bronx Mutual Aid group. Some hoping to reapply for shelter ended up at the “reticketing” center, while others landed at…
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