NYC May Spend $312M to House Migrants
As thousands of migrants from the southern border are bussed to New York City, officials in the Big Apple have had to put them up in 14 hotels as it struggles with housing its own homeless population.
The city has said it needs more than 5,000 hotel rooms. Providing this high-cost housing could cost NYC taxpayers $312 million each year, according to The New York Post.
While Department of Homeless Services signed a $139 million contract with the city, “City Hall shelled out an average of $147.67 per day in rent,” The Post reported.
Assuming the federal agency is reimbursing the city at a similar rate, providing 5,800 hotel rooms could add $312.6 million in new spending to the city budget. That doesn’t include costs, like providing food and medical care.
While the city is struggling to provide shelter for the homeless population, the surge of immigrants in recent weeks has forced officials to make emergency deals with 14 hotels.
Since May, more than 6,000 migrants have come to NYC, seeking shelter, including at least 750 on buses that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he began sending there earlier in August.
On one day in August, five buses from Texas arrived with migrants. Before that, the most buses to arrive in the Big Apple in a single day was three.
That five-bus caravan carried 237 passengers, including 14 children, all of whom were accompanied by their parents, city officials said.
The Texas buses began arriving in NYC after Abbott in April started relocating migrants to Washington, DC, to protest what he calls President Biden’s “irresponsible open border policies.”
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