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: