Photos last week by Stacie Joy
City Council leaders say the Adams administration needs to create more reticketing centers in NYC to meet the demand created by the Mayor's 30- and 60-day shelter limit stays.
The letter, signed by District 2 Councilmember Carlina Rivera, House Speaker Adrienne E. Adams, and Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala, calls the situation at the city's lone center, located at the former St. Brigid School on Seventh Street and Avenue B, "untenable and increasingly unmanageable."
The lines here are only getting longer as more asylum seekers arrive here to reapply for a cot assignment or shelter location. Those in the line have been evicted due to the city's shelter limit, implemented late last year, which is 60 days for families and 30 days for individuals.
As previously reported, the long lines often result in many people being unable to enter before the site closes, forcing some to sleep outside the building or in Tompkins Square Park, where the city removed the public restrooms on Jan. 9.
Here's more from the letter:
With more than one center and a consideration for locations in each borough, the City can ensure people do not stand on line in the cold without access to even basic facilities like bathrooms. Multiple locations would also ensure that people are closer to culturally competent, community-based programs and services.Volunteers with LESReady!, a Lower East Side nonprofit with organizing and service-provision experience, have identified four potential sites in Council District 2 alone that could support overflow pending the City's approval. It is important that we provide the same services available at St. Brigid's at these additional locations and ask that the managing agencies also do more to provide translation services for both those seeking asylum and the local police precincts who help with the crowds present.
And...
Currently, having one reticketing center has not only led to physical capacity concerns, it has created a burden on the adjacent local community and its public spaces. Resources are needed to keep up with quality of life issues. It appears that efficiency at St. Brigid's has been in decline, with travel hardships and the overall cost-effectiveness of the process in place in question. Public safety concerns have increased without a support network available even locally to those waiting.
Line-cutting has been an ongoing issue. Other problems have been observed by officials and residents ... which likely prompted this newly posted Reticketing Center Code of Conduct. (The city published the Code in multiple languages.)
The 18 points covered include "ignoring directions from staff and City partners" and "setting fire to anything."
The letter concludes with the Council leaders urging the city to act "quickly and compassionately in creating a better system for the thousands of people coming to St. Brigid's for assistance."
Since October, the former school has operated as a Reticketing Center overseen by the NYC Emergency Management (formerly the Office of Emergency Management or OEM).
According to published reports, the city has spent more than $3 billion on housing and services for asylum seekers since the spring of 2022.
Previously on EV Grieve:
31 comments:
I’ve been there around 8 am numerous times recently (doing an extremely modest ad-hoc sandwich or cookie distribution) and there has been a consistent police presence and an orderly, fenced line. I’m reminded of the Jacob Lawrence “Migration” series — “And still they came” — people just stream in. The idea of multiple ticketing centers is interesting but I see a host of practical issues, starting with the need for a Ticketmaster-type system to manage and distribute the inventory of beds. And how would migrants know which center had the shortest lines and/or the best processing resources?
I’d like to see the City instead focus on improving conditions here. For example, finding daytime spaces for migrants to go where they can use bathrooms, brush their teeth (I saw one man doing this in a tree pit today), get food and stay warm and dry, not hang out in TSP. And how about installing a canopy over the line, at least the part by the school. Are there areas in the school that aren’t being used that could be opened up for waiting rooms? Yes the DMV can be hell but it’s inside…
From prior coverage, it also sounds like there is a lot that can be done better in terms of funding and working with community groups that are/can provide services. I think these actions would be a better use of City resources (money, time, energy) than developing new processing sites.
It’s hard to overstate how huge the need is. I appreciate EVG’s ongoing coverage and links to groups trying to help.
I understand that point of view but really Why shouldn’t services be given in a more efficient way? It’s ridiculous to have just one that is this small. Why would we want newcomers to wait day after day outdoors until their # is appropriate to be on line?
I will say that I am confused about that as well. Somewhere I had heard that they are given an appointment day/time to be at St bridgid’s for “Re ticketing”. But either that’s no longer true or the site isn’t able to assist them on their appointment day?
If there is a notice that people will not be seen today if their # will not be called for sure, why are there so many people directly across the st at the park entrance /playground area?
I heard that there is a warming center at Earth Church, is this still true?
Is there a translated list of resources (warming centers/meals/clothes…) in the area posted for them? How are they supposed to know about them? This is something I would like to be involved in, so that they do not have to wait out in the cold if they don’t have to be on line for services.
I joined the neighbors helping group and asked to join a specific group but I haven’t heard anything about this yet. Hope to help out to get these guys somewhere warm.
It is a rotten shame what has happened amidst this ongoing situation. I feel awful for the migrants who are cold, hungry and with no where to go. It's utterly heartbreaking. They arrived to this country for a better life and we as citizens have failed them. Our city has also failed them by only issuing one ticketing center in NYC. It is ridiculous, unrealistic, and honestly, borderline dangerous. We cannot allow this to continue in the long term. Our clown of a mayor needs to come down to our neighborhood, perhaps deliver a public address to provide more information, and resources. Adams cannot ignore the migrants or us as residents who live here.
My guess is the money isn't there for more centers. Adams just slashed school lunches. The crisis is literally taking food away from school kids.
Any real solution has to start with the Federal government. Unfortunately one party intends to prevent doing anything at all in an effort to gain an advantage in November.
If the federal government wants to let asylum seekers into the country while they are being processed, then the federal government should be providing resources for them, it shouldn’t all be on the city to provide.
I know everybody likes to unload on the City and the mayor and facilities and service providers but I'm proud of NY for doing what it does in the face of what is essentially human trafficking by the leaders of other cities and states. The financial strain that could be borne by the whole country is being heaped on this city so right wing political forces can exercise their anti-immigrant agenda. And NYC takes it on the chin because it's the best city in America, and these days it's not even a close race. Where else but this city and this village?
nice partisan rant @ 11.24am
if that's the case, why isn't the fed allocating any additional funds to nyc to help the migrants?
Thank you 12:08! Exactly.
This is a humanitarian crisis. Blame should indeed be assigned to our mayor and city council members assigned to our district. If they cared, more would have been done by now or at least some plan could have been executed to avoid the chaos. That line is exhausting to look at. I can only imagine how many feel hopeless and vulnerable against the cold weather conditions with little chance of securing a warm bed to sleep on not to mention having access to food. It's sad. Everyone deserves somewhere to rest. There has to be additional space for these migrants so the intake system isn't overburdened. Why is 7th and B the only place within the five boroughs in facilitating care and benefits? It's maddening when we live in such a huge city with enormous wealth. None of this makes sense.
just a horrible situation, but more ticketing centers will do nothing except recreate this situation in other boroughs. there is very limited space to re-ticket to.
I am so impressed with how the community and community organizations stepped up to help in the face of this overwhelmingly unfair (and politically inflected) situation. The city always seems to be dumping on the East Village/Lower East Side (lower income, greater diversity I guess), and we're rarely well represented by our local officials (East River Park destruction anyone?), but we always prove to them our fighting spirit, our compassion for each other, and our unique identity as a funky place like no other.
@12:08pm: Why do you call @11:24's comment a 'partisan rant' when it is just simply the PLAIN TRUTH of the situation?
If you DON'T think that what Gov. Abbott and others are doing IS human trafficking, then maybe you need to use a dictionary.
@12:58 Correct, tragic conditions, manufactured chaos. I think the real clue is that the port a potties, temporary restrooms while the permanent ones are being renovated, were taken away, and as previously reported, the police have not been helpful. Adams and the entire admin could handle this better but he wants chaos in order to do what he does best, which is bloviate, slash budgets, give all the money to the police departments, and use people and entire neighborhoods as pawns in his plan to get more national coverage, recognition and who knows what else. He certainly is doing nothing to alleviate this by working with the community and nonprofits with experience in this area, compassionate experience, not like giving orgs with no experience lucrative contracts that they do not fufill properly and make huge profits from. (That org that had/have the no bid, immigrant shelter food contract, weren't they getting or still get $¡4 per person per day and were handing out moldy and horrible quality food?)
To everyone who keeps complaining about there not being enough money for this 'crisis', where do you suppose this money is supposed to come from? Dumping everyone who crosses the southern border into NYC is not an official policy, there is no federal law saying that is how it works, and there is certainly no funds allocated for it.
But as someone else pointed out, I guess the city will keep taking food out of children's mouth's so that they can keep playing pretend and doing the job of the federal government.
As long as people will keep assuming this has anything to do with Eric Adams, the more he will keep trying to do things to take credit for. He wants to be re-elected, he thinks this is what people want.
This city and the Mayor has resources none of us mere mortals can Imagine yet Adams, the developer's favorite puppet spins around chanting "city of yes" while a humanitarian nightmare expands each day.
Adams keeps pushing to get empty office buildings transformed into SROs. How about as a first step he takes a few floors where people can wait, eat their moldy meal inside and at least be warm for the several days it seems to take for reticketing and be a place for learning about other resources available to them.
@1:51pm: I don't think Gov. Abbott handing out free bus rides to willing recipients counts as human trafficking, but if it does, NYC is guilty of the same - this center will provide a free ticket to most locations in the world.
@1:51pm
why point any blame when this has been happing on both admin?
the whole point is to find an solution.
@6:52 PM: They've been lying to people about where they're going and what will happen when they get there. Dumping busloads of people in frigid weather in New Jersey and running away. Their explicit stated goal is not to help people find safe places to live, but to inflict suffering on northern states--using vulnerable people as political pawns. If you don't think that's wrong, then you shouldn't need to minimize it. Just wallow in the filth you're embracing.
Oh man. After reading these comments, I am left feeling powerless with little to no hope before I go to bed. Anyone else feel this way? Sara @ 8:31 hit the nail on the head. These migrants have been lied to with false, empty promises and no immediate resolution. I can't imagine what it must be like to be transported to a foreign country during the winter under the guise of asylum with the offering of a new, different life only to be met with red tape, endless bureaucracy, indifference, inadequate resources, and no shelter. Local and national politicians alike are often complacent and corrupt. They say things are going to change, and become revitalized, but do they ever really? What a shit show this is.
Does anyone know what those two, influential neighborhood institutions, NYU and The Cooper Union are doing to assist? And is the new arrival with all the food, Wegman’s, offering to help?
up to almost # 20k now at the ticketing centers people waiting for beds. 450,000 empty apartments. Adams is purposely trying to make things difficult for the asylum seekers because he has said he doesn’t want NY to be the #1 place everyone wants to come. He said he wants to be known it’s not easy here and he is hoping that people quit coming here. York is the most diverse place, so no matter what language you speak you can find your community in a borough and have the best chance to start over and find work. so the fact that he is being purposely cruel is not going to deter people and it needs to stop because people are suffering from hypothermia. Going to the hospital and getting sick from pneumonia. Only if you were in a shelter you receive three meals. These meals are not proper nutrition but that is another story. If you were in the ticketing center, you only receive a frozen pancake, a hard boiled egg and an apple for the day. The rest of the food people are surviving on and the park is coming from us neighbors I’m smaller nonprofit like Ev loves Nyc, village neighbors who care And a couple soup kitchens. Many reports I receive Our people have been waiting for a bed for two weeks and when it is very cold, they ride the train all evening. They are receiving tickets for trying to lay down and sleep on the train or hop turnstiles because they do not have any money to purchase a ride. Earth church is a temp warming station but it is full every day. it simply cannot accompany all of them men with nowhere to go. We need more warming stations during the day, we need more food at the park. We need Adams to do something immediately
No one wants to look like the ogre who closes the door on these people, but if it doesn't happen soon and if there isn't a clear message sent that NYC alone cannot care for all of West Africa and South America, even more public services are going to be cut and NYC will have an entirely new serf class of poor, illegal immigrants who dump their problems on the taxpayers.
There are times to come charging in on your white horse and there are times when you have to make a political stand against an untenable situation. This is one of those latter times.
The City doesn't have unimaginable and infinite resources. Money allocated to one thing always comes at the expense of something else. And where does the money come from? Mostly from taxes, especially property tax - higher rent anyone? More than 3 billion on housing and services for asylum seekers since 2022 is a big bite out of the budget - General Fund revenue 2023 was 108 billion. We can all agree we want to help but are we all willing to pay? Should the City impose an asylum seeker levy on residents? Look at how people squeal about the idea of a congestion tax - a payment by individuals, for something they use, to improve public transport used by everyone. And we know from past experience that New York and blown budgets lead to a rapid decline. The mythical bottomless mayoral money pot doesn't exist, it's just tax money, either collected directly by the City or provided by grants from federal tax revenue.
@1:51PM - Yeah, and what's the definition of "sanctuary city?" Or do you only care about migrants when you don't have to face the consequences of your beliefs?
As @8:00AM rightly points out the city doesn't have infinite resources. And neither does the entire country. In case you didn't know, now you know.
Where's Schumer?
It’s hard enough for a US citizen to make it in NYC. And plenty of New Yorkers are leaving because they can’t afford to leave here. Rent is more expensive than a mortgage payment in the suburbs.
In the meantime, neighbors have been unable to get elected official interest in and substantive help for elderly couple (lifelong NYC residents) in dire straits and who don't fit in any convenient "category".
And not a "cool" social justice cause.
As an EV resident, I agree with much that you suggest, with the exception of installing a canopy—one small canopy won't make a significant difference for a line this long, and will only become another ill-maintained eyesore on the block in short order.
Disagree that we have failed them—we are trying, despite our own domestic issues, and many of them are most likely already faring better than they were in their (former) home countries.
There are multiple churches on 7th that dont seem very involved... would be great to see.
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