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Nov 06, 2023

500 cots ready for migrants at JFK mail warehouse

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Five hundred cots have been set up and ready for use at a cavernous warehouse at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens as Mayor Eric Adams’ administration awaits federal approval to convert the space into a migrant shelter.

New York City is bursting at the seams to house 45,900 asylum seekers in the 157 emergency sites that have been set up across the five boroughs.

An additional 2,200 asylum seekers arrived at city shelters over the last week alone, said mayoral spokesperson Kate Smart this week.

The beds at JFK's Building 197 and multiple trailers outfitted with showers and toilets are expected to accommodate up to 1,000 asylum seekers, THE CITY reported Thursday afternoon.

The warehouse is ready to welcome single adults as soon as the city gets the green light from the Federal Aviation Administration, a source said on an internal call between City Hall and City Council Friday morning.

There are currently nine Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers (HERRCs) open in the city, and 3,000 other sites remain under consideration, they added.

"We’re grateful to the state for working to secure us [the JFK warehouse] and partnering with the city to open this space as an emergency respite site for asylum seekers as New York City continues to face this humanitarian crisis," Fabien Levy, a City Hall spokesman, told The Post on Friday afternoon.

"We believe the state is just awaiting FAA approval before we can begin to use it as an emergency respite site."

Typically used as an overflow station for the United States Postal Service, the facility is a 20-minute bus ride from the Locust Avenue Long Island Railroad stop.

The building's blue and red exterior haunts the side of an unsightly highway across the JFK tarmac.

Adams is reportedly hoping to use the space to house migrants who have been languishing in overcrowded, smaller respite centers throughout the area.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which has authority over the airport, and Gov. Kathy Hochul's office have both been involved in negotiations about the JFK location, officials from both offices told THE CITY.

"We’re also looking at space at JFK, looking at a hangar there, waiting for federal approval," Gov. Hochul said in response to a question about the migrant situation on Tuesday.

Similar large-scale emergency shelters on Randall's Island and the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal were previously dismantled by the Mayor's team.

City officials are also preparing to open the former Lincoln Correctional Facility in Harlem to shelter adult migrants.

"As we always say, all options [are] on the table," Adams spokesperson Fabian Levy told THE CITY.

"We are hopeful we can find additional state and federal sites since, with more than 155 sites already open in New York City, we are out of space."

On Friday's internal call, a source confirmed that about 72,000 migrants have arrived in the city thus far.

"We have reached a point where the system is buckling," Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom said Wednesday during a briefing on the migrant plight.

There are now about 45,800 migrants – or about half the city's shelter population – spread between hotels, respite centers, transitional shelters, humanitarian relief centers and upstate hotel rooms, she confirmed.

Power Malu, a community organizer with Artists Athletes Activists, told THE CITY that he worried the city's already-scant resources were being mishandled.

"Why are we putting our attention and our energy into finding more office space or more hangars, or correctional facilities when we have apartments that are vacant," he asked.

Other advocates have also called out Adams’ repeated claim that the city has not more room for asylum seekers. As of last weekend, there were still 1,000 empty beds across area shelters, Gothamist reported.

City officials have argued that respite centers in gyms and vacant office space are for short-term stays – but as the weeks go by, more and more migrants are finding themselves stuck in limbo.

"There's no privacy," Enrique, 28, told THE CITY about his two-week stay at former Police Academy gymnasium in Manhattan.

He said the lights stay on all night, making it hard to sleep, and residents are forced to bathe in front of each other without curtains separating the showers.

"We want to get out of there, to see if they can move us somewhere else, but so far nothing," he lamented.

But Juan Carlos, 29, from Venezuela, told the outlet that he was grateful for his bed in a vacant midtown office space.

"I feel good there," he said, noting that he went almost two weeks without showering before city officials allowed them to use the facilities at the nearby Stewart Hotel.

Carlos added that he has also secured an off-the-books job at a fried chicken place in the Bronx.

"Now that they set up a way for us to shower, we feel so grateful…I’ll start saving so I can rent myself something, thank God," he said.

Mostafa Won, 32, an asylum seeker from Mauritania, said he is having a similar experience at the respite center in a vacant Catholic school in the East Village.

"They treat us well. We eat well, no problems," he told THE CITY.

Won explained that he fled his home country after several of his friends were imprisoned for protesting against slavery and military dictatorship.

"I came to the United States because it's a country of laws, where they respect human rights," he said.

"That's my goal, to be in peace."