New York City’s bill to house and care for newly arrived migrants is projected to surpass $12 billion by the end of June 2025, according to new forecasts released by the mayor’s office on Wednesday.
The mounting costs will require the city to find another $7 billion to foot the bill, on top of what’s already been allocated, Mayor Eric Adams said during a morning press conference. The rising price tag comes despite Adams’ latest efforts to curb the ballooning shelter population, and the mayor renewed pleas for more state and federal aid.
“This is the budgetary reality we are facing if we don’t get the additional support we need from the federal and state governments,” Adams said.
Thus far, the federal government will cover only a fraction of the costs — some $140 million. And the city still has “not received a dollar” yet, Jacques Jiha, director of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget, said in an afternoon briefing.
The rapid growth of the shelter population in the last month has more than doubled the budget office’s projections, according to an agency report. On average, 98 new asylum-seeker households entered the system daily over the past month, up from a daily estimate of 40 households, based on prior months’ data.
In an effort to curb the growth by 20%, according to the report, the Adams administration last month announced a plan to limit adult migrants’ shelter stays to 60 days, with the option to reapply. Even that reduction would still leave the city with another 55 households entering the shelter system each day, according to the budget office’s forecasts, and with mounting costs.
“The city is running out of money, appropriate space and personnel to care for families,” Adams said.
The city spent $1.45 billion on new arrivals during this past fiscal year. And, even with Adams’ 60-day shelter limit, the tab for the fiscal year ending next June is now expected to reach $4.7 billion. That amount nearly equals the…
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