Some local residents are angry after hearing Friday’s news that Gov. Kathy Hochul approved Mayor Eric Adams’s clearance for Harlem’s Lincoln Correctional Facility (31–33 West 110th Street), which closed in 2019, to be repurposed as a temporary shelter for displaced migrant workers. His administration has been grappling with finding housing for a wave of migrants who have relocated to the city in recent weeks.
“We’re grateful to the state for providing this site and partnering with the city to open this space as a temporary site for asylum seekers as New York City continues to face this humanitarian crisis,” said a spokesman for Adams, noting that “hundreds of asylum seekers continue to arrive in New York City every day.”
Many migrants were left on the streets and struggling after Adams approved the move last year, causing about 45,000 to still be homeless out of the 70,000-plus who enrolled in the city’s shelter system since last spring. This led Adams to say that the city is overextended and cannot continue to support the number of new arrivals.
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Title 42 is a pandemic-era rule that stunted the immigration progress across the U.S./Mexico border. Reportedly, New York City plans to announce programs resulting in 50 “Faith-Based Stabilization Shelters,” with 10 of them opening July 1 and 10 additional ones each month till November, and potentially continuing to at least 950 more beds by the fall.
“As we ride through here, we see so many homeless people. Why isn’t the city taking care of the homeless people who are already here?” Harlem resident Robert Avery asked.
The 10,000-square-foot, eight-story facility intended for use was an all-men’s minimum-security prison, and will now serve as an “emergency respite center,” housing approximately 500 new adults, will open in the coming days.
“In recent weeks, as Title 42 expired, the Governor directed her team to visit every available state-owned property, assess their feasibility for sheltering asylum seekers, and offer suitable sites to the city for their use,” Hochul’s office said. “The city and state have agreed to use 31–33 W. 110th Street in Manhattan, one of the state-owned properties we identified, as a temporary respite center for asylum seekers, and we have begun the process to transform the space so it is appropriately welcoming.”
The centers are operated by the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management.
Hochul released a request in March that said: “This is a temporary and short-term use of Lincoln, and the state’s plans for the site continue to be to move forward in the months ahead to redevelop it as affordable housing. We continue to join our partners at all levels of government to call for a permanent, federal solution to this crisis. We continue to need additional financial and operational support from our partners.”