Hundreds of migrants trying to get back into the Big Apple’s overwhelmed shelter system have been flooding an East Village block as Mayor Eric Adams warned the crisis would soon be more visible than ever, The Post has learned.
The scores of asylum seekers lining the sidewalk on East 7th Street near Tompkins Square Park are among the thousands forced to reapply for temporary housing after being booted under the administration’s 30-day cap on shelter stays.
Some told The Post they have been waiting for multiple days for a shot at another monthlong stay in the city, with little luck.
“This is third world,” East Villager Yanira Rubio, 24, told The Post. “I’ve seen lines outside this place many times, but this is much more than a line. This is a humanitarian crisis.”
“These people are freezing. They’re starving. The desperation on their faces is unbearable,” she said.
“I almost can’t look, but I have to look to remind myself that we can’t keep ignoring what’s going on right in front of us.”
City Hall has limited stays for single migrants to 30 days before they have to leave the shelter system or reapply for a spot as part of its plan to reduce the number of asylum seekers in its care, which is more 65,000.
But with new arrivals being prioritized for housing and thousands more arriving each week, those whose time expires are forced to the back of the line and can now only apply at the former St. Brigid School on East 7th Street.
Prior to last week, asylum seekers could apply for reentry at any of the city’s migrant facilities.
“It’s a miserable situation,” said Mohamed Beija, who came from the West African country of Mauritania.
“We’re just waiting to be told there’s no shelter for us.”
Last week, Mayor Adams, who has pinned the recent sweeping city cuts on the crisis, said that New Yorkers could soon start seeing migrants sleeping on the streets with little to no room left at shelters.
Roughly 400 asylum seekers showed up before dawn Monday at the East Village site.
By the time The Post arrived seven hours later, more than 250 people still remained on line and vented to a reporter how they hadn’t showered for days and were starving as they only received a small snack during the wait.
Omar el Hadrami, 28, of Mauritania, also in West Africa, said he has come for the last six days with no luck.
“Every morning I come here. Every day they search for space, and they tell me they can’t find any space so I need to [go] back to the Bronx,” he said. “I haven’t showered in six days.”
“Every day it’s the same situation. Nothing changes. – ‘We have no place available for you today, but you’re on the waitlist for tomorrow.’ They give you a snack of tuna with some crackers and a bottle of water.”
If there’s no space in the shelters, asylum seekers are given a MetroCard and told to make their way to The Bronx respite center where there’s a cot to sleep but no place to wash up.
Diallo Elhadj Boubacar, 30, of Senegal, praised the shelter he was in, comparing it to a hotel where he could go work on his English during the day so he could soon work, but was told to leave this morning.
“These are people at the end of their rope, desperate for the most basic necessities that everybody else takes for granted,” East Villager Roslyn Feinstein, 69, said of the “truly heartbreaking” situation.
“The city just can’t handle the overflow,” she said. “I’ll give it another month before the tent cities start going up.”