New York City Mayor Eric Adams proposed Monday that New Yorkers accept illegal immigrants into their private homes and get paid for it.
Following up on the latest effort to place a growing number of migrants in houses of worship, the mayor said he wants to go beyond that solution by paying local homeowners and landlords.
He said moving asylum seekers into private homes would be a progression from housing single migrant men in 50 churches, mosques and other houses of worship across the five boroughs.
“It is my vision to take the next step to this faith-based locales and then move to a private residence,” Mr. Adams, a Democrat, said Monday during a City Hall press conference. “There are residents right now who are suffering because of economic challenges. They have spare rooms.”
He said if the city can figure out ways around legal restrictions on such a move, “we can take that $4.2 billion — $4.3 [billion] maybe now — that we anticipate we have to spend and we can put it back in the pockets of everyday New Yorkers, everyday houses of worship instead of putting it in the pockets of corporations.
“We should be recycling our own dollars,” he said.
The city has received more than 72,000 migrants since last spring, with more than 45,000 living in 160 taxpayer-funded emergency shelters and hotels, the New York Post reported. Last week, the city recorded 2,200 new arrivals.
“We need to be clear, this is not sustainable with the inflow that we’re receiving,” the mayor said.
Mr. Adams said his administration would need to “find a way” to get around city government rules that typically bar the city from housing homeless people in private homes.
The nonprofit New York Disaster Interfaith Services plans to make available about 50 religious spaces for overnight shelter for up to 19 single adult men at each location per night.
The program will cost the city $125 a person, per day — about a third of what it reportedly cost taxpayers to house migrants at homeless shelters or hotels.
The city moved this spring to bus some migrants to hotels in nearby counties temporarily. Officials in Orange and Rockland counties went to court to stop the plan.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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