New York opens its largest center for immigrants – DW – 08/21/2023

city NY Its largest center was opened for public this Sunday (08.20.2023). Immigrants Newcomers housed up to 3,000 single adults in a football field on Randall’s Island in Manhattan.

He Center for Humanitarian Emergency Response and Assistance Randall Island (HERRC) has four air-conditioned sleeping tents with attached beds that can accommodate up to two thousand people, while showers and toilets are located nearby.

The tents will start receiving the first 300 migrants who have been in temporary shelters this Sunday. However, due to the influx of people into the city – 300 to 500 per day – another tent has already started to be erected to expand the capacity to 3,000 single adults, mainly men.

The center has a tent where they are received, routinely tested for Covid-19 and TB, along with other health care, and given an identity card. Another tent was for eating, where they had meals 24 hours a day, and another had a laundry area.

“It’s not a solution for the next two, three or four months, (but) it gives us a little breathing room for the next few days,” said Christina Farrell, deputy commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management. Visit with the press to learn about the new accommodation.

On August 14, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration opened a 1,000-person shelter in the parking lot of a disused psychiatric hospital and has already welcomed at least 500 immigrants.

Since the influx of immigrants began in 2022, New York has received more than 100,000 people, 60,000 of whom are under its care, to whom it provides shelter, food, health care and education for children.

Adams has called again and again Financial assistance and work permits for thousands of immigrants to President Joe Biden’s government, but received no response. According to the mayor, the focus on immigrant groups has created a humanitarian crisis and is undermining the city’s finances.

The influx of immigrants since the spring of 2002 has forced New York to open 202 emergency centers in the five boroughs, some dedicated exclusively to families with children. Also, restricting stay in shelters to 60 days, the period in which the person has to search for shelter and if they can’t find it, they have to start the process of re-applying for shelter. .

Adams also eliminated the two-month requirement that a homeless New Yorker stay in a shelter to qualify for help paying for an apartment, so that families can find space in city shelters. The mayor has warned that the humanitarian crisis will cost the city about $12 billion over three years.

Love (efe, abc)