New York City to Close Migrant Shelter on Randall’s Island in February
The New York Times
The decision to close the shelter complex, once the city’s largest, is a sign that the migrant crisis that has strained city resources is easing.
New York City will close a sprawling tent shelter that houses thousands of migrants on Randall’s Island and has become one of the largest and most problematic shelters in the city, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Wednesday.
City officials noted that the number of asylum seekers in city shelters has decreased for 14 consecutive weeks and is now at its lowest point in over a year, giving the city flexibility to close the shelter by the end of February.
The closing of the giant shelter, more than two years into the city’s migrant crisis, underscored how the strain on city resources has begun to markedly ease, at least for now. Still, officials will have to move many of the 2,250 adult migrants on Randall’s Island to other city shelters, and to be ready to accommodate more people if crossings at the southern border shoot up again in the future.
Mr. Adams, who once said that the migrant crisis would “destroy New York City,” struck an optimistic note in announcing the closure.
Though he warned that “we’re not out of the woods yet,” Mr. Adams, a Democrat, said the city had “turned the corner on this crisis.”
“We’re not scrambling every day to open new shelters — we’re talking about closing them,” he added.
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