A steep drop in the influx of migrants has led New York City to close another seven emergency shelters in recent days — bringing the total to 11 over the past month, The Post has learned.
That’s 1,800 rooms taken out of the emergency shelter systeml, though there are still a staggering 56,600 migrants who remain in the city’s care, according to city data.
More than 400 new migrants entered the city shelter system from Nov. 18-24, but more than 1,200 migrants left — a drop of 800 in one week alone.
Those figures are in sharp contrast to the situation in January, when roughly 4,000 new migrant arrivals were flooding the city on a weekly basis.
“Thanks to our successful management and nation-leading programs helping migrants move on from the city’s care, we will have removed approximately 1,800 rooms or beds from the city’s emergency migrant shelter system by the end of November,” a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said.
“This is a testament to the hard work our staff and many partners have put in to ensure we kept thousands of migrants from sleeping on our streets every night, and the more than 167,000 migrants the city has helped move on to the next stage of their journey.”
Fewer arrivals and more departures from the shelter system has been the trend for more than a month, and if the rate continues more shelters will close in the coming weeks, city officials said.
One Midtown hotel that stopped operating as an emergency shelter for migrant families last week is already booked when it reopens for tourists again later this week.
The Americana in Midtown said it is reopening as a tourist hotel on Dec. 5, and it’s already booked with the Christmas holiday season approaching.
“We’re already sold out,” a front desk worker told The Post Sunday.
The migrant crisis took hotel rooms off the market and may have discouraged tourists from coming to New York with sky high prices, said state Conservative Party chairman Gerard Kassar.
“It’s not only what it costs taxpayers to shelter people. You have to look at the cost of lost opportunity — people not coming to New York because they feel it’s unsafe for tourists,” Kassar said.
Adams’ administration has faced backlash as it grappled with the migrant crisis since the spring of 2022 — with locals unhappy with the location of some shelters. Meanwhile immigration advocates have flung criticisms after Adams imposed time limits on stays for asylum seekers.
The city and Biden White House have been at odds over the crisis after hizzoner blasted the president for failing to adequately address the border.
The city last month stopped sending migrants to four other emergency shelters and Adams has committed to closing all 10 of the city’s migrant shelters upstate in Albany, Dutchess, Erie, Orange, and Westchester counties this month.
The city also plans to close Randall’s Island’s massive migrant encampment in February after dramatically cutting back the number of migrants sheltered there.
It wasn’t clear why the closures haven’t been prioritized on the shelters in Midtown — a tourist hot spot ahead of the holiday season, with only two of the 11 hotels recently closed in the high-traffic area.
An administration source said the closures are based on a number of factors, including the terms of the lease with each hotel. There are still at least five hotels in Midtown serving migrants.
The number of hotels and facilities needed for city migrant shelters could drop even more dramatically early next year when President-elect Donald Trump takes office with his chosen border czar Tom Homan promosing an aggressive crackdown on border crossings and ramped-up deportations of illegal migrants.
Still, the Adams administration said it plans to continue the use of hotels as emergency shelters for the foreseeable future.
New York City has indicated it is seeking 14,000 hotel rooms to shelter migrants through 2025 — as housing costs for the asylum-seekers for the past three years is set to surpass $2.3 billion.
More than 100 hotels are still currently sheltering migrants, and total spending on migrant services in the Big Apple will hit $6.1 billion, according to city data.
As of Nov.24, the city has more than 115,300 people in the shelter system including over 56,600 migrants.
Over 224,400 migrants have come through the city intake system since the spring of 2022.
The shelters closed in the past week were:
- JFK Respite Center. 197 North Boundary Road, Jamaica. 827 beds. Used for single adult migrant men since June 2023
- Essence JFK. 97-01 Waltham St., Jamaica. 71 rooms. Used for migrant families since July 2023
- Voyage Hotel. 37-10 11th St., Long Island City. 51 rooms. Used as a shelter for migrant families with children since July 2023
- Sleep Inn/ 687 Third Ave., Brooklyn. 50 rooms. Used as a shelter for migrant families with children since July 2023
- Americana Inn. 69 West 38th St., Manhattan. 46 rooms. Used as a shelter for migrant families with children since July 2023
- Hotel RL. 1080 Broadway, Brooklyn. 65 rooms. Used as a shelter for migrant families with children since May 2023
- Imperial Hotel. 2550 East New York Ave., Brooklyn. 59 rooms. Used as a shelter for migrant families with children since May 2023
