NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — An intake center for asylum seekers arriving in New York City will open in the historic Roosevelt Hotel later this week, Mayor Eric Adams announced Saturday.
The Roosevelt Hotel, which has been closed for almost three years now, will serve as a centralized location from which the city will move asylum seekers to homeless shelters or one of nine refugee camps, dubbed Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers by the city.
The intake center will also connect newly-arrived asylum seekers with services like enrollment in city schools, health insurance, legal support, medical care and family reconnection services.
The Roosevelt Hotel sits on the corner of East 45th Street and Madison Avenue in Midtown. It closed during the early days of the pandemic.
The hotel will also open 175 rooms to children and families arriving in New York City. The housing program will scale to about 850 of the hotel’s total 1,000 rooms, according to the mayor.
In the announcement for the intake center, Adams also said a ninth refugee camp for asylum seekers will be opening soon as part of his “Blueprint to Address New York City’s Response to the Asylum Seeker Crisis.”
The city claims more than 65,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott started bussing migrants from the southern border to New York City in the summer of 2022.
In his announcement, Adams again called for federal and state financial support to address housing and other needs for asylum seekers arriving in New York City.
“With the opening of yet another humanitarian relief center, we continue to ask for our federal and state partners for a real decompression strategy and hope to open and operate temporary shelters across the state and nation, as New York City has reached its capacity,” said Adams. “New York City has now cared for more than 65,000 asylum seekers — already opening up over 140 emergency shelters and eight large-scale humanitarian relief centers in addition to this one to manage this national crisis.”
“While this new arrival center and humanitarian relief center will create hundreds of good-paying, union jobs and provide the infrastructure to help asylum seekers reach their final destination, without federal or state assistance, we will be unable to continue treating new arrivals and those already here with the dignity and care that they deserve.”
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