New York City will pay at least $600 million to give migrants shelter and schooling.

NYC Will Pay at Least $600 Million to Give Migrants Shelter and Schooling. New York City will spend at least $600 million on a year’s worth of shelter and services for the around 24,000 Central and South American migrants who have flooded into the city, according to new estimates released by the city’s Independent Budget Office.

Those figures reflect costs that can be as high as $93,000 annually for a four-person family staying in a shelter and with two kids attending public schools, the IBO said.

The office said the total cost of city services provided to the newly arrived asylum seekers may fluctuate “as the number of people arriving and remaining in the city continues to evolve.”

New York hadn’t previously budgeted for these costs, and Mayor Eric Adams has asked the state and federal government for assistance. Without that help, the city could tap its reserves, though that isn’t exactly ideal with a “shaky economic and fiscal outlook” ahead, the IBO said on Sunday.

The new estimates come as the city reports that the rush of migrants have slowed in recent weeks, following a shift in President Joe Biden’s immigration policies at the US’s southern border. Citing the slowdown, New York said it would shut down a temporary shelter on Randall’s Island this week that City Comptroller Brad Lander estimated cost roughly $150 million to build. New York is relocating migrants from Randall’s Island to a hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Adams Criticism

Adams defended the construction of the Randall’s Island facility during a press conference on Monday. He said the site was needed because New York was “in line to get 100,000 migrants.”

“Even if we were going to place people in hotels, it was going to cost something,” Adams said. “There’s a dollar amount attached to giving people shelter.”

The mayor also said he would comment on the IBO estimates once he gets numbers from the Office of Management and Budget, the city’s chief financial agency. New York is still fighting to get assistance from the federal and state government, according to Adams.

Adams also complained about a letter Lander sent to the city on Friday asking for the price of the Randall’s Island facility and other information, which was reported by City Limited.
“Brad, let’s work together Brad,” Adams said of Lander, saying he hoped their relationship wouldn’t be like that between feuding former Mayor Bill de Blasio and then-Comptroller Scott Stringer. “We’re not going to hide the cost of anything.”

Chloe Chik, a spokesperson for Lander’s office, said in response that the comptroller has been asking for the information “privately for weeks, so let’s not quibble over when we sent the letter.”

“The comptroller’s job is to do budget oversight, and we can only do that with the information,” she said in an emailed statement. “In the end, we share the same goal as the mayor: to use NYC’s resources wisely to serve all its residents, including these new arrivals.”

The city is paying for shelter stays, public schooling, health services and some immigration legal assistance for migrants. Department of Education data show that around 5,850 kids from families seeking asylum are enrolled in New York City public schools, at an extra cost of about $48 million for the current school year, not all of which will be paid for by the city, the IBO said.

New York is also shouldering an estimated $16 million for emergency response centers like the Randall’s Island tents, as well as translation services and a midtown center offering various other resources, according to the IBO.

The IBO estimates largely align with projections cited by Lander in September. Lander estimated that the city will pay between $500 million and $1 billion on asylum-seekers this year.

Lander’s projection that the Randall’s Island site would cost $150 million might include some expenses that the IBO folded into its estimate of shelter costs, Elizabeth Brown, a spokeswoman for the IBO, said in an email. The IBO doesn’t have the data to break out the price tag of the Randall’s Island facility specifically, and the site closing may also affect the estimates, she said.

The tab could grow if the city provides migrants with more legal assistance, which would help them get work authorization. Case representation could cost $22 million to $27 million, most likely paid for by both the city and private charities, the IBO said.