NYC’s Migrant Housing Crisis Comes To An End

By Y.M. Lowy

After housing thousands of illegal migrants since mid-2023, the era of New York City’s migrant shelters is coming to an end. 

Earlier this month Mayor Adams announced that the last migrant tent camp, which is located in Queens and has 1,300 beds, will be closed by June. Several other tent shelters have already been vacated and dismantled or are set to be closed within the next few months. 

In addition, the 2,900-person intake center and shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, which has been the epicenter of the NYC migrant crisis, is also scheduled to close down sooner rather than later, according to Adams. 

Although a total of 36 migrant shelters are already closed or are closing soon, some hotels are continuing to house migrants for the foreseeable future, and a new shelter for men has recently opened in the Bronx. Currently, NYC’s shelters are housing around 44,000 migrants, a significant decrease from 69,000 in January of 2024.