NEW YORK (NewsNation) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams spent the coldest night of the year at a migrant shelter in Brooklyn in an attempt to promote the new housing option after many migrants refused to move there.
Adams spent one night sleeping on a cot at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, to showcase to migrants that the facility is “warm and welcoming” — equipped with a well-heated space, food, clean bathroom and bathing facilities and good security.
“Spent the coldest night of the year at Brooklyn Cruise Terminal with ‘Homeless Hero’ and advocate Shams DaBaron & @AMEddieGibbs. Our brothers are being kept warm and the team working here is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbor,” Adams tweeted.
The mayor’s post included video and photos of him at the facility, including showing him dining with migrants and playing video games.
“What we saw is what we have seen since the beginning of this crisis, individuals who are grateful to the greatest city in the world for providing them the opportunity to work towards the American Dream. I’d like to be clear that the facilities at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal are providing the same services to asylum seekers as every other humanitarian relief center in the city, and the team at the terminal is giving new meaning to the words ‘love thy neighbor,” Adams said in a statement.
Adams chose the coldest night of 2023, when temperatures hit a low of 12 degrees in Brooklyn Saturday night, with temperatures having dipped into the single digits earlier that day.
“I gotta give credit where credit’s due. The mayor responded to a lot of concern about the conditions at the shelter, which is really a cruise ship terminal. He said, I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do, so I think even though it was a symbolic act; it was meaningful,” said New York City Councilman Erik Bottcher (D).
This comes after some migrants said they’d rather be on the sidewalk, in the cold and snow, rather than in the Brooklyn shelter.
Migrants’ called the new accommodations “inhumane.” They’ve shared videos that show side-by-side cots and claim there are only four bathrooms for all 1,000 of them. They also reported the building lacks heat and water.
The city said the location is temperature-controlled, food is provided and the migrants can receive free bus and ferry passes to take them where they would like to go.
Last week, dozens of men camped out on the sidewalk outside the Watson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen where they had been staying until the city asked them to leave to make room for families with women and children.
Migrants also said the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, which is in an old industrial area, is too isolated and will prevent them from continuing to work or build a community. The city claimed that was not true.
Since last spring, New York City has welcomed more than 40,000 migrants, and the city is caring for almost 27,000 of them, according to city officials.
Adams said it’s costing the city billions to provide housing and other resources for them and they’re still waiting on more help from the federal government which so far has only agreed to give the city $8 million for reimbursement.