NYC migrant crisis could soon cost $12B: Mayor Adams
New York City’s surging migrant population is set to double by June 2024 — meaning the city will be on the hook for 100,000 homeless immigrants — as costs are estimated to rise to a mind-boggling high of $12 billion over the next three years.
“We are past our breaking point,” Mayor Adams declared in a dire address at City Hall Wednesday, pleading with the feds and everyday New Yorkers to help mitigate the crisis.
The city currently spends a nightly average of $383 per 25,600 asylum-seeker households, including families with kids, adult couples and singles — for housing, food and other services, according to officials.
“With more than 57,300 individuals currently in our care on an average night, it amounts to $9.8 million a day. Almost $300 million a month and nearly $3.6 billion a year,” the mayor said.
“This is the floor, not the ceiling,” he warned, revealing the city’s current expenses could rise even further.
New figures released by the Office of Budget and Management show costs could balloon to $4.7 billion by June 2024, a leap from the current $2.9 billion estimate over the same time period.
“That’s up from the $1.4 billion we spent last fiscal year, and it nearly equals the budgets of Sanitation Department, our Parks Department and the FDNY combined,” Adams added.
“If things do not change, we expect to have more than 100,000 asylum-seekers in our care by the end of June 2025, driving projected spending to $6.1 billion in that fiscal year if we do not change course.”
He said the new projections would spike city costs to $12 billion by the end of June 2025, a massive rise from the $4.3 billion previously anticipated through the end of 2024.
“To meet this need, we’ll have to add $7 billion to our financial plan, and this is on top of what we have already spent on this crisis,” Adams said — admitting every service the city spends taxpayer dollars on will hit the chopping block.
“If we can save $1 or $2 on the meals, if we can save on the laundry because all those sheets have to be cleaned. If we can save on napkins, we can save everywhere. We’re looking everywhere to see how we can bring down the cost of the asylum-seekers.”
“We have to cut across the board,” he noted, without naming specific programs.
Roughly 100,000 migrants arrived in the Big Apple since the spring of 2022 and over 57,300 individuals are currently living in 198 emergency shelters across the five boroughs.
“Almost 100,000 men, women and children have asked for a place to stay. That’s almost the population of Albany, New York!” Hizzoner said.
Officials tracked 2,900 migrant arrivals in the city during the first week of this month, between July 30 and Aug. 6.
The crisis in that time frame as scores of migrants slept on the streets outside Midtown’s Roosevelt Hotel because the city had no beds to provide.
City Hall also implemented a new strategy to free up shelter beds by giving single migrants an eviction-style notice, mandating they reapply for placement at the end of 60 days.
As of Tuesday, 1,450 individuals received their “60-day notice,” which OMB officials project will help cut down on the overall shelter population.
Meanwhile, the Adams’ administration has been challenging the city’s Right to Shelter Law, which requires it to provide shelter to anyone with no place to call home in the boroughs.
“You come to New York City, and we are supposed to feed, clothe, house you as long as you want,” Adams said of the mandate.
“That is just not sustainable . . . you will find that people come from all over,” he said.
The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless called on the federal government to step up as it fought to preserve the policy.
Gov. Hochul told reporters in Brooklyn Wednesday that she would cajole Albany lawmakers to again allocate $1 billion in next year’s state budget to help the city deal with the crisis.
“There has to be money to support the city. This is a humanitarian crisis not of their own making,” the governor said.
