New York City reportedly wants to continue using hotel rooms to house migrants.
The New York Post reported Thursday that the city's Department of Homeless Services is seeking a contract with hotels to provide a total of 14,000 rooms to shelter migrants at least through 2025.
The city has three existing contracts with the New York City Hotel Association to work with its network of hotels to voluntarily provide shelter space.
"The New York City Department of Homeless Services is seeking to continue the City Sanctuary Facility program by procuring a vendor who can assist in acquiring the use of large scale commercial hotels and hotel management services to help address the current emergency," the agency said, the Post reported.
Roughly 150 hotels currently are sheltering migrants.
The city projects that spending on housing for migrants over the past two years and this fiscal year combined will surpass $2.3 billion.
Total spending on migrant services over three years will hit $5.76 billion, the Post reported.
"The taxpayers can't pay for this indefinitely," said Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank, the outlet reported.
Gelinas said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, "should take control" of managing the migrant crisis in the city.
"We should stop using hotels as shelters by the end of the year," said Gelinas, who said hotels in Manhattan's Midtown and downtown districts should be serving the tourism industry.
In August, the Washington Examiner reported New York City has spent more than $5 billion to manage the crisis, making it the nation's most affected city as it grapples with the fallout from the ongoing border situation.
In May, The New York Times reported that the average daily rate of hotel rooms in New York City jumped 8.5% from 2022 to 2023 and remained high through the first few months of 2024 during the conversion of roughly 135 hotels to housing migrants.
Not one hotel that entered the city's shelter program has returned to its traditional hotel business, the Times reported, making New York City hotels more expensive than ever. The cost of staying at the remaining 500-plus hotels is up 6.7% year-over-year at a time when hotel prices usually dip, according to the report. The average cost of a hotel room was in May $230.79, up from $216.38 after the first quarter of 2023.
Overall, the city is operating with 16,532 fewer hotel rooms for travelers and tourists as city officials turned to the hospitality industry to house roughly 65,000 migrants.
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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