The public hospital system in New York City will spend over $90 million to shelter immigrants in four hotels in downtown Manhattan by spring in response to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), Mitchell Katz, approved $40 million in payments for the four-star Row NYC near Times Square, and $28 million for the four-star Stewart Hotel across from Madison Square Garden, according to documents reported to The City.
Another $20 million will go to the Watson Hotel on West 57th Street in Hell’s Kitchen, where a group of immigrants recently protested against being moved to a shelter in Brooklyn, and $5.8 million for the historic Wolcott Hotel on West 31st Street.
The planned $93.8 million in H+H spending follows an agreement from October 13 for the hospital system to manage and operate what Mayor Eric Adams calls “Humanitarian Response and Relief Centers” for Immigrants (HERRCs).
Last week, the seventh HERRC opened at the Wingate by Wyndham Hotel in Long Island City. The other two HERRCs are located at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook and at the world’s tallest Holiday Inn in Manhattan’s financial district.
The first HERRC, a tent shelter built at Orchard Beach in the Bronx, never opened due to flooding concerns and was replaced by another short-term shelter on Randall Island.
Huron Consulting Services is receiving $18.5 million to help open the HERRCs.
Another company, Rapid Reliable Testing, has an $11.5 million contract for screening arriving immigrants.
As of Wednesday, at least 47,600 migrants have arrived in the city since last spring. Of these, nearly 30,000 are living in public-funded “shelters.”
The city’s mayor has not detailed his spending on the immigrant crisis. The city’s Office of Management and Budget recently estimated it will total $4.2 billion by mid-2024.
Source: The New York Post