During an interview with FOX 5 New York on Thursday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) defended the city offering migrant families money to exit the shelter system instead of changing the right to shelter law by stating that the right to shelter law isn’t the issue here because migrants are “here legally, and it is the responsibility of the federal government to not say New York City must pick up the price tag for it.”
Co-host Bianca Peters asked, “[Y]ou’re going to be offering migrant families up to $4,000 to exit the city shelter system. What do you say to New Yorkers who say that that’s too much money, we can’t even afford to put ourselves in housing?”
Adams responded, “Think about it for a moment, that was the same analysis that people gave us when we were giving out the food cards that were saving us millions of dollars in a year by, instead of giving — having a large company come and charge us and food waste, editorial pages started looking at it and saying it’s a great decision on the part of the administration, it was a smart thing to do. That’s the same thing here. Do we rather have someone stay in our shelter system where you’re paying almost three, four times the amount over the year instead of saying, here’s a $4,000 stipend, go out, find yourselves a place?”
Peters then cut in to ask, “But Mayor, just to interrupt fast, but you could just nip all of this in the bud if you looked at the law, which is on the books as the right to shelter being an umbrella term, which applies to these migrants. I know you said that you don’t agree with that. So, why not fix it there?”
Adams responded, “No, and that’s the real confusing part about it, the migrants and asylum seekers issue has nothing to do with right to shelter. It has nothing to do with it. Right to shelter is anyone that comes to this city and needs shelter has a right to receive shelter. I don’t change the law of right to shelter. The City Council must do that. But migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into the country. They’re paroled in and they’re here legally, and it is the responsibility of the federal government to not say New York City must pick up the price tag for it.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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