NYC struggles to house asylum seekers as migrants sleep on streets waiting for shelter

A large number of asylum-seekers have been outside of the city’s arrival intake center since Friday sleeping on the sidewalk as they wait to get assigned to a shelter for a bed to sleep in -- if there is one available.

NBC 4 New York was told that the buses parked in front of the hotel on East 45th Street and Madison Avenue Monday morning were brought in to help get people off the sidewalks while they wait for a room -- a process that can take an average of 24 to 48 hours. However, in some cases, migrants have been waiting for five to six days.

Jefferson – a migrant from Colombia – told News 4 New York Saturday that his bed for the previous four days has been a piece of cardboard. The dream sold on social media that he would get a bed and a job in New York City has become a nightmare he now says he regrets. Jefferson now has a message to other Colombians thinking of making the journey to the states, telling News 4 New York in Spanish: "Stay there. Don’t come here."

Mohamed Sale – who arrived Saturday in Manhattan– from the west African nation of Mauritania also has his regrets.

"For now I regret coming. Maybe when I take a hotel and stay for two months to get on my feet, maybe I won’t regret," he told News 4 New York.

Over the weekend, intake center employees handed out meals and bottled water to the migrants on line. For days, Mayor Eric Adams has sounded the alarm that the city has run out of space for asylum seekers.

With an average of 300 to 500 people arriving by day, the city is taking new drastic steps, like giving unaccompanied migrants already under the city’s care a 60-day notice to find another roof over their heads.

The city says it will always give housing priority to families with children. In response to the images of dozens of migrants sleeping outside of the Roosevelt Hotel intake center, a spokesperson for Adams told News 4 New York issued the following statement:

“As we've said for a while now, with more than 93,000 asylum seekers coming through our intake system since last spring, our teams run out of space every single day and we do our best to offer placements wherever we have space available. Children and families continue to be prioritized and are found a bed every night. While we at least offered all adults a temporary place to wait off the sidewalks last night, some may have chosen to sleep outside and, in all honesty, New Yorkers may continue to see that more and more as hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive every day. This is the heartbreaking reality and something our teams have worked tirelessly to avoid, but while our compassion is limitless, our resources are not. We still desperately need help from our state and federal partners. In the meantime, we encourage migrants to take us up placements available outside of New York City as they become available.”

It is important to note though that the Roosevelt Hotel is only an option to families with children and not single men. At this point, the mayor’s office says that more than 56,000 asylum-seekers have been registered in the homeless shelter system since the spring of last year. Which is why city officials say that New Yorkers will probably see more scenes like this one where some people have chosen to sleep out in the streets given the current limitations on space and resources to manage the continuous arrival of migrants in town who are desperate for help.