NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – New York City will close 25 more migrant shelters—including the large relief center at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn—over the next two months, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday, attributing the closures to the city’s success at curbing the number of asylum seekers arriving in the city.
Adams said in a press release that his administration’s strategies, including 30- and 60-day shelter stay limits and lobbying for stricter border controls, have helped “drive down the number of people in the city’s care and reduce costs,” leading to the decision to close 15 shelters in NYC and 10 outside of the five boroughs.
Adams said efforts by the city have led to 22 straight weeks—since early July—of shelter census declines. He also touted nearly $2.3 billion saved on migrant crisis spending between Fiscal Year 2024 and Fiscal Year 2025.
“Thanks to our smart management strategies, we’ve turned the corner, and this additional slate of shelter closures we’re announcing today is even more proof that we’re managing this crisis better than any other city in the nation,” the mayor said in a statement. He said the city will continue to look for more sites “to consolidate and close.”
Molly Schaeffer, the executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, said Floyd Bennett Field “provide critical shelter and resources to hundreds of families at their greatest time of need” and has “continued to serve as an integral component of the unprecedented system we established to receive and care for the more than 225,000 asylum seekers who walked through our doors.”
New York State, which was paying the costs of sheltering migrants at Floyd Bennett Field, will continue to reimburse the city for the costs for equivalent care incurred at other sites across the city, the mayor said.
Floyd Bennett Field was first announced as a migrant shelter in October 2023. The location of the site—at an old airfield off Jamaica Bay—sparked protests from residents of nearby neighborhoods as well as criticism from migrant advocates, who said the site was remote and cut off from the rest of the city.
Tuesday’s announcement follows Adams’ announcement earlier in October that the city’s largest shelter at Randall’s Island will close on Feb. 28.
It also comes a little over a month before President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term. He has vowed to deport migrants en masse when he takes office.
Adams is set to meet with Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, on Thursday. The mayor told 1010 WINS he’s “looking forward to sitting down and sharing some of my ideas on what we could do to secure our border and deal with real comprehensive immigration reform.”
These are the 15 migrant shelters closing in NYC:
• El Rancho Hotel, Bronx
• Floyd Bennett Field Relief Center , Brooklyn
• Hotel RL, Brooklyn
• Imperial Hotel, Brooklyn
• Sleep Inn, Brooklyn
• 97th Street Dorms, Manhattan
• Americana Inn, Manhattan
• Hotel Merit, Manhattan
• Randall’s Island Relief Center, Manhattan
• Upper West Side Dorms – Amsterdam Relief Center, Manhattan
• Upper West Side Dorms – Stratford Relief Center, Manhattan
• The Essence at JFK, Queens
• JFK Respite Center, Queens
• Quality Inn JFK, Queens
• Voyage Hotel, Queens
These are the 10 migrant shelters closing outside of NYC:
• Holiday Inn Express, Albany
• The Ramada Plaza, Albany
• SureStay Plus Best Western, Albany
• Red Roof Inn Plus, Amherst
• Ardsley Acres Hotel Court, Ardsley
• Best Western Inn, Buffalo
• Quality Inn, Buffalo
• The Crossroads Hotel, Newburgh
• Red Roof Inn Plus, Poughkeepsie
• Central Motel Courtyard, White Plains