NEW YORK: For days now, newly arrived international immigrants have waited night and day outside New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel, sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk in hopes of a bed in the city’s shelter system.
And for weeks, Mayor Eric Adams has said the city is out of room and sought to dissuade more migrants from arriving.
The scene outside the former hotel — now a migrant shelter and intake center — has underscored the extreme overcrowding in a homeless housing system filled to record levels. City officials and activists alike call it heartbreaking.
But some critics accuse New York City officials of exploiting the lines outside the Roosevelt as part of a campaign to pressure state and federal officials to come up with more money to tackle the crisis and discourage more migrants from entering the U.S. from Mexico.
“Mayor Adams should not be using asylum seekers as props to get the attention of the Biden administration or discourage asylum seekers from coming to New York,” said Murad Awawdeh, the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition.
It may be mentioned here that $200 per night paid by new york city to Roosevelt hotel for rooms for migrants. So $205,000 per night to book the whole hotel.
That is equal to $74,825,000 per year
Each room $200 per night. Roosevelt hotel has 1025 rooms
Migrants outside Roosevelt Hotel hoping for their chance at a space in city’s shelter system. –INP
