Thousands of migrants have poured into New York City in the past two weeks, fueling what Mayor Eric Adams called “one of the biggest humanitarian crises” in the city’s history as officials struggle to find shelter.
In particular, Mr Adams has spoken repeatedly about the city’s hotel accommodation program for migrants, suggesting that the homeless newcomers were harming the tourism industry and taking rooms away from holidaymakers.
At the moment, however, there are thousands of unoccupied hotel rooms in New York City, the country’s largest hotel market, reflecting the reality that the industry has not fully recovered from the pandemic.
In mid-May, according to hotel data company STR, more than 20,500 rooms were available each night in the five boroughs, suggesting there was room for both tourists and migrants.
The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, which represents workers in hotels that make up 70 percent of the city’s rooms, said about 3,500 rooms in union hotels were used to house asylum seekers.
Many more migrants stay in unorganized hotels. In all, about 42,500 migrants who arrived in recent months were living in New York City last week, with the majority staying in hotels, city officials said. Mr Adams said on Monday that around 5,800 migrants arrived last week and 4,200 the week before.
Unlike other major US cities, New York City has a mandate to provide shelter to anyone who asks.
STR said the city’s hotel occupancy had increased by a few points in recent months, but that the increase reflected typical seasonal gains as more tourists arrive in the spring.
The use of hotels for migrants has not harmed the tourism industry, said Vijay Dandapani, the CEO of the Hotel Association of New York City, which represents 300 hotels in the city. “There has been no negative impact so far,” he said. “Hotel rooms remain available.”
For months, Mr. Adams has been sounding the alarm about what he calls a humanitarian and economic crisis, on which the city has spent $1 billion so far and could cost as much as $4.3 billion by June 2024. Still, he sometimes has the impact: On Thursday, he said half of the city’s hotels were occupied by asylum seekers. City hall officials later clarified that only 40 percent of a series of mostly medium-sized hotels were deemed suitable to house the migrants.
Of the 150 locations used to host migrants, about 140 hotels have had few, if any, vacant rooms, the city said.
Mr Dandapani said that as tourism in the city has not yet fully recovered, some hotels have decided to accept migrants as another source of income. In Manhattan, hotels collect about $185 a night, he said. (The median room rate for all New York City hotels was $297.90, STR said, the highest in the country.)
According to STR, through May 13, nearly 86 percent of hotel rooms in New York City were occupied in the past month. That rate was 8.4 percent higher than the same time last year and is the highest of any major market in the United States, the group said, but was still 5 percent below the city’s rate for the same pre-pandemic period.
Many of the rooms occupied by migrants have been paid for through a bulk contract with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation, which signed a $237 million deal that started in September.
City hall officials said that while the company can help hoteliers, the hotels that host migrants do not pay a 5.875 percent occupancy tax to the city as they are required to do for rooms for tourists.
“Every day we receive hundreds of additional asylum seekers and we are out of space,” said Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr Adams. “Our city is known for its world-class hotels, and we must ensure they continue to serve the tens of millions of tourists who visit the five boroughs each year.”
On Monday, Mr Adams continued to draw attention to the influx of migrants. He and Gov. Kathy Hochul tried to show a united front at a press conference, urging the federal government to expedite work permits for asylum seekers, who they said were eager to find legal employment in the country.
Ms. Hochul, a Democrat, described the need for expedited work permits as a possible solution not only to the migrant crisis but also to a labor shortage in the state, saying that many migrants could help fill thousands of low-skilled restaurant jobs and in farms upstate.
“They’re eager to work,” Ms. Hochul said at a restaurant worker training center in Brooklyn’s Industry City. “They came here looking for work and a new future, and they can become part of our economy and our communities.”
Presenting the influx of asylum seekers as a potential economic boon to the state, the governor may have sought to appeal to local officials outside New York City who have resisted efforts to accommodate migrants in their communities.
She said New York state officials were looking for state-run facilities that could serve as temporary housing, including vacant dormitories at public universities during the summer, as well as closed psychiatric centers and possibly closed prisons.
Mr. Adams called on the White House to comply with their requests while emphasizing that the current situation is not sustainable. “It creates an underground market where individuals can be exploited, unable to pay our tax base, doing long and difficult and dangerous work because they live in the shadows of the American dream,” he said.
Luis Ferré-Sadurni reporting contributed.
