Low-income New Yorkers are raising alarm bells that Mayor Eric Adams (Democrat) is placing most of the migrant shelters in their already impoverished neighborhoods, siphoning resources meant for Americans in need.
New York City is home to a staggering 193 government-run migrant shelters, none of which are in zip codes with the top five median incomes. New York Post Confirmed In a recent report.
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New York City Mayor’s Office
While TriBeCa, Battery Park City, the Financial District, and other areas of Lower Manhattan are completely isolated from the sprawling migrant camps and hotels, Long Island City (a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, not to be confused with the Long Island suburbs) is home to 23 migrant camps and hotels.
Locals say this is unfair, as 12 percent of the city’s migrant shelters are concentrated in just one district.
“The city dropped a bomb on us,” said Danny Beauford, a resident of Queensbridge Houses public housing in Long Island City. [migrants] “They are occupying it. They are taking over the car park with 8,000 scooters. They are being rude and urinating in front of everyone. If they do that even once, we will go to prison for a long time.”
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He also post Migrants are stealing food from food banks and waiting in long lines to receive supplies from local food pantries and welfare recipients.
“The people in the projects don’t even get food,” said Beauford, 36.[The migrants] They come early, tie their little cart to the gate to secure a spot, and then people from the project show up and ask, ‘Whose cart is this?'”
by postIn Long Island City, “nearly two dozen shelters are clustered around two public housing projects.” Another large development for Long Island City’s poor residents is Ravenswood Houses.
Beauford is not the only disgruntled resident of Queensbridge, the continent’s largest housing project.
“Why send them here?” asked Shawn Shields, one of the 7,000 residents. “Send them to 5th Avenue! Send them to Park Avenue, but they won’t.”
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“Why send them somewhere where people are already living paycheck to paycheck?” added Mr. Shields, 56. “They’re not living paycheck to paycheck in Manhattan.”
City Councilwoman Julie Wong (Democrat), who represents the area, argued that the long lines at food banks were because city contracted vendors were delivering “spoiled” and “inedible” food, but she also acknowledged that there were lack of resources to accommodate immigrants living in low-income neighborhoods.
“These shelters are located in the poorest areas of the community,” Wong said. post.[The Adams administration] They need to be dispersed so they don’t negatively impact communities, especially low-income communities.”
This is the previous statement she Queens Daily Eagle In April, she also drew a connection between long lines at food banks and the influx of immigrants.
They should be distributed equally, and that’s what the mayor always says: equal distribution. The data clearly shows that that’s not been distributed at all.
If you look at the number of shelters in my constituency, they are all purpose-built budget hotels, built arbitrarily and without the consent of the residents.
I think they’re just rushing to open shelters wherever they can get a contract without really thinking about how it’s going to impact the communities, how to make it equitable, how to resource these communities if they’re going to overburden them, etc. And they’re not doing anything to make this better.
I have not received a penny from the mayor for these migrant shelters. [proposed to] Cutting funding to food pantries. Food lines at Queensbridge House and Ravenswood House are getting longer, not shorter.
Public schools in the area are also struggling to accommodate a wave of immigrant children who don’t speak English and are falling far behind their classmates, Councillor Wong said. post Requests for more resources from City Hall are routinely ignored.
Queens City Council Member Joan Arriola (R-Queens) blamed the immigration chaos on President Joe Biden’s administration.
“The illegal immigration crisis should never have gotten to the point where we’re cramming people everywhere,” she told the outlet. “This is the result of massive mismanagement at the federal level, and now working class people in Queens and Manhattan are bearing the burden.”
City Hall spokeswoman Liz Garcia responded to the concerns by saying the Adams administration’s immigration plan has been successful.
“While we work hard to find safe and viable locations across the five boroughs, we welcome the temporary emergency sites and thank all communities who have stepped up,” she said. post.
“It’s clear that our efforts are working: we have helped over 65 per cent of the asylum seekers already in our care to take the next step and exit our shelter system towards self-sufficiency.”
