


A visibly frustrated Mayor Adams said Tuesday that he was planning to put migrants into new tent shelters because NYC was “out of room” — and that all options were now on the table as he feared a coming epidemic of migrants sleeping on the streets.
“I want to be clear, the visual signs of this crisis in this city, people are going to start to see it,” Adams warned at his weekly question and answer session with reporters, days after more than a half dozen emergency shelters were shuttered by the FDNY due to potential hazardous conditions.
“We are out of room, and its not if people will be sleeping on the streets, it’s when. We are at full capacity,” the Democrat said, adding, “this is going to hurt and it’s not going to be pretty.”
Adams said his office was working with experts to find a “humane” solution to the city’s overstuffed shelter system, which is currently caring for more than 60,000 asylum seekers in addition to the tens of thousands of homeless New Yorkers that it also provides services to.
“When we reach that point [people sleeping on streets] we need to manage it [so that] it is not a citywide visual state of chaos.
“We have to sort of localize it as much as possible, we have to make sure people have some sort of restroom facilities, some type of shower network,” Adams said.
When pressed by reporters on whether he was talking about more Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center tent cities to shelter migrants, Adams remained coy, and said the city was looking to identify “large spaces.”
“We’re finding out what are our options. Believe it or not, tents are costly. Everything is costly. What we are dealing with right now is a depletion of resources that is going to threaten our ability to provide the basic services to New Yorkers. And I can’t allow that to happen.”
Adams — visibly frustrated and frequently complaining his administration hasn’t gotten enough credit for its management of the crisis — sarcastically offered to arrange a round table with his critics to listen to their ideas for housing the waves of new arrivals. When asked later, he claimed the sit down invitation was sincere.
“Right now, what do we do right now with 2500- 4000 people coming here a week, coming faster than leaving? That’s the question we need to answer.”
The mayor also said the city was continuing to try to roll back the “Right to Shelter” law amid opposition from advocates for the homeless and asylum seekers, claiming there was no way the bill’s architects “visualized that this city would receive over 130,000 migrants” since last spring.
When asked about his regrets handling the crisis, Hizzoner said he wished he didn’t wait until this month to visit South America and Mexico to “see what we’re facing.”
More than 140,000 from the US border with Mexico have been shipped to New York City since the spring of last year, with nearly 66,000 still in city care, according to city data.