The hotel would easily make well over $1 billion in taxpayer funds by turning the building into a migrant shelter.
Of the 193 migrant shelters the city is using to house 65,300 people, 153, or about 80%, are hotels, motels or inns, according to internal documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The city is spending an average of $156 per hotel room to house migrants, State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found. May Analysison the other hand, Reportedly Prices have risen by more than $300 per room per night since migrants first began being bussed across the southern border in the spring of 2022.
Of the estimated $4.88 billion spent on the migrant crisis through May 31, $1.98 billion has gone toward housing, according to the Office of Management and Budget. That includes the cost of hotels but also other shelters, such as Floyd Bennett Field and the sprawling tent city on Randalls Island.
Among the most surprising migrant shelter contracts is a $5.13 million-a-month agreement between the 1,331-room Row NYC Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and the city’s Health + Hospitals Agency, according to a board meeting in June. reportMeanwhile, the Crowne Plaza JFK in South Jamaica, Queens, won a $2 million per month deal for 335 rooms, the report noted.
William Shandler, manager of the Iron Bar across from the Row Hotel, said he and other nearby establishments are being “hit on both sides” by the city’s decision to house immigrants in a luxury hotel that was once packed with patrons.
“Our taxes are going to pay for immigration, so where are we going to get the money?” Chandler said. “How are we going to function as a business?”
Hotels have taken more than 16,000 rooms off the market to house migrants, the research institute reported. November Report By CoStar.
That’s a problem, according to City Councilwoman Joan Arriola (R-Queens), who said the hotels were built for tourism, “not to protect the tens of thousands of people who cross the border every day.”
“These places were supposed to boost the city’s economy, but instead they have become a net loss and a huge expense,” she added.
Capital inflows from cities support the hotel industry, 21,000 new guest rooms will be created According to the city’s Department of City Planning, just 200 came online in the four years before the pandemic.
When travelers avoided New York City during the 2020 pandemic, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio provided financial relief to many hotel operators by contracting with shuttered commercial buildings to house the city’s homeless in private rooms instead of crowded shelters.
Mayor Eric Adams continues this trend.
In September, The Post reported that New York City had extended its contract with the New York City Hotel Association for three years, worth a staggering $1.3 billion in rent for immigrant housing alone, nearly five times the original $275 million, but the deal could be shortened if the city suddenly decides it no longer needs the space.
In January, the city signed a $76.69 million emergency contract with HANYC to provide “last resort” shelter for migrant families in 15 hotels in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx through July.
The group’s president and CEO, Vijay Dandapani, insisted that it was working with the city to ensure that the costs and obligations of housing migrants in its member hotels were “as low as possible.”
“We are proud of the work we’ve done as an industry to support the city’s mission of caring for asylum seekers arriving in New York City,” he said.
Ken Girardin, research director at the watchdog group Empire Public Policy Center, said housing immigrants is a huge hit to taxpayers.
“The immigration crisis has taken a huge toll on state and local finances, and housing is where taxpayers are suffering the most,” he said.
The mayor’s office declined to provide a cost estimate for hotels to shelter the migrants.
