Adams puts a new price tag on serving migrants: $4.2 billion

After months of placeholders and shifting numbers, New York City Mayor Eric Adams is putting a more specific price tag on the amount the city is spending on shelter and services for asylum-seekers: “$1.4 billion this fiscal year, 2.8 the next. Those are the numbers.” 

Adams said he had tried to avoid giving specific costs, because the estimate was always shifting as people came in. More than 44,000 migrants have come to the city since last April, according to City Hall, mostly from Latin American countries like Venezuela and many without ties to the city, and in need of long term shelter. Now his Budget Director Jacques Jiha was “at a place where we’re comfortable saying $1.4 billion,” Adams said, but warned “those numbers may grow also.” 

The mayor had estimated the total cost to the city at “anywhere from $1.5 billion to $2 billion,” as recently as mid-January. Before that, the Adams administration had been using $1 billion a year as somewhat of a placeholder. Adams first gave the new $1.4 billion estimate for this fiscal year at a City Hall press conference last week, and repeated it in a couple media appearances Monday. 

Adams spoke about the new estimate of $4.2 billion over two years at more length at an unrelated press conference Tuesday, when asked about a state budget response memo prepared by his office and first reported by Politico New York.

Adams said Tuesday there were some good items in Hochul’s executive budget, “but the fiscal aspects are concerning to us” – like the proposal to split the costs of housing asylum-seekers ⅓ each among the city, state and federal governments. 

“If we look at the history of a Republican controlled Congress, they don’t want to do comprehensive immigration reform,” Adams said. “If we’re counting on that 30% split, that just doesn’t add up.” While he’s been hammering the federal government to give more aid and to work on a “decompression strategy” at the U.S. southern border, Adams expressed doubt that the city could be getting more money than has already been earmarked. “Sen. Schumer and Congressman Jeffries were able to get the $800 (million) plus in the omnibus bill,” he said, referring to a pot that New York will share with other local governments. “We don’t know if we’re going to get more help from a Republican-controlled Congress.”

Adams once again raised the threat of service cuts in the next fiscal year if the city doesn’t get more financial support from the state. He said on his visit to Albany next week for budget testimony, he’ll meet with legislators representing the city and warn them “this is going to impact the basic services in your districts. That is crucial to show we’re in this together.”

Most of the costs estimated by City Hall are going towards temporary shelter. Just an hour after Adams’ comments Tuesday, the city announced the opening of another emergency shelter, this one at a 492-room Holiday Inn in the Financial District. The press release included a jab about funding attributed to Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Philip Banks: “Despite almost single-handedly bearing the cost of this crisis for almost a year now, New York City is continuing to find ways to help these vulnerable families and make sure their needs are met.”