The financial hits from the migrant crisis keep on coming.
New York City has likely surpassed $5 billion in spending on services for migrants — including nearly $2 billion alone on housing the scores of new arrivals flooding into the Big Apple, according to city data.
The eye-popping figures, listed on the city’s online asylum-seeker funding tracker, shows the city overall spent $4.88 billion combined through fiscal years 2023 and ‘24. Based on the rate of spending, the city likely exceeded more than $112 million since the start of the new fiscal year beginning July 1, or will soon, cracking $5 billion.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has even projected the cost could double, hitting $10 billion over the three year period ending June 30, 2025.
The money spent so far includes:
- $1.98 billion on housing and rent.
- About $2 billion on services and supplies.
- Nearly $500 million on food and medical costs.
- Another $500 million on IT, administrative and other costs.
The NYPD alone has spent $21 million on public safety and security costs amid mayhem breaking out in and around the city-funded migrant shelters. The cost of the crisis equals nearly the entire NYPD budget of $5.75 billion.
The city Department of Homeless Services recently posted two more contracts this week totaling $40 million combined to contractors to provide services to migrants at hotels turned into emergency shelters.
Even hotels in the heart of the Broadway tourist district have been converted into emergency shelters through contracts the city inked with the Hotel Association of New York City.
Housing Works was awarded a $13.4 million contract to aid migrants at the City View Inn, at 3317 Greenpoint Avenue in Long Island.
A worker answering the phone there Tuesday said the City View has been a shelter for “nearly two years” and is still not taking reservations for lodging.
The city pays for all the rooms.
A second $26.3 million contract was awarded to the DC-based Project Redirect to assist migrants at Spring Hills Suites by Marriott at 140-35 Queens Boulevard.
“We’re not functioning at a hotel right now,” a worker there said.
The city is currently caring for more than 63,900 migrants through 210 sites in the shelter system.
Asked about hotels still acting as emergency shelters two years into the crisis, Adams’ chief of staff Camille Joseph Varlack said, “This is not a New York City issue or even a United States issue, this is a worldwide issue.”
“We’ve had the opportunity to speak to other cities who are expecting and experiencing migration and we expect that to continue between wars and climate change and all the other issues,” Varlack told reporters Tuesday about the crisis.
Varlack said city staffers were working to help move migrants out of hotels and to other locations.
There’s been a public backlash to shelters in many parts of the city, whether it be hotels or other shelter sites and encampments at Floyd Bennett Field, Randalls Island and the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center.
Adams also said there is still the challenge of moving migrants from a “shelter-type setting” to housing when many still don’t have official documents to be legally employed.
Some 212,000 asylum seekers have flowed through the system since the spring of 2022, according to City Hall.
Last week — from Aug. 5 to 11 — more than 700 new migrants entered the city’s shelter system. But that number is way down from the peak of 4,000.
City Hall reps said the administration’s actions has slashed the projected increase in migrant costs by more than $2 billion.
During his weekly press briefing Tuesday, Adams said the migrant crisis has become more manageable, declaring the “worst is behind us” but cautioning that “we’re not out of the woods.”
“I do believe we are going to see people starting to exhale. Our fingers are crossed but we put in smart policies.” Adams, citing 30-day shelter limits for individuals and 60-day stays for families.
“We went from 4,000 down to I think this week we’re around 700. That is a huge, huge drop. I have to say there was a moment where I did not see that light, or that light was a train coming right at us.”
He credited the shelter limits as well as drop in border crossings with lessening the head count and curbing astronomical costs.
“We were criticized for it but I think when people look back over this period they will see it was one of the most significant things we could do.” the mayor said.
“People should not grow up in shelters.”
Adams said the Big Apple should take a bow.
“We were inundated in the beginning of this. To be able to do what we have done shows a real message of resiliency to the city,” Hizzoner said.
“This is a real New York story. We need to document this story.”
When asked if the worst is over, Adams said, “We’re not out of the woods. We’re managing.”
“I can only say I hope the worst is behind us. We’re not out of the woods. I want to be clear on that,” he said. “We still have to deal with the small number of violent gang members who are in our city. We still have to monitor them.”
— Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
