The first migrant families residing in city-paid hotel rooms were served their eviction notices this week as New York Mayor Eric Adams seeks to open up beds for more recently arrived entrants.
Some 40 families who have been housed for up to a year at the Row NYC hotel were turned out for having exceeded Adams’s 60-day housing limitation, which was announced in October, according to the Associated Press. And this is only the beginning, as the Adams administration plans to serve similar notices across the Big Apple.
Many of the migrants who lost their months-long hotel rooms say they will just make their way to any number of other hotels the city is contracting with to house migrants. Some also told the AP that they had found private arrangements to move to.
Venezuela native Maria Quero, 26, who is more than eight months pregnant, told the AP that after five months at the hotel they don’t know what they are going to do.
“We have no idea what is going to happen there,” Quero exclaimed. “It’s very stressful. It gives me a lot of anxiety.”
“Let’s hope we have a suitable place. We know people who have been to the tents while they are pregnant,” her husband, David Dominguez, added. He also noted that some migrants had been put in tents, but hoped that would not happen to his wife. “A woman cannot be in a tent when she’s pregnant.”
Another family told the AP that they had been living rent-free at the hotel for a year and have saved up enough to rent their own apartment in New Jersey, but will have to pull their children out of their free New York school.
Despite the eviction plan, Adams claims he will continue to find free housing for migrants.
“This is not going to be a city where we’re going to place children and families on the street and have them sleep on the street,” Adams recently said. “That is not going to happen.”
Adams has also pledged to keep migrant families within the same school regions so migrant children will still have access to the same schools for their free education and won’t have to have their schooling disrupted by changing schools. Adams did not say how he plans to implement this plan.
The eviction policy is under scrutiny by City Comptroller Brad Lander, though. Lander launched an investigation into the policy change and is looking to see if Adams explained the issue properly to the illegals.
“What information is actually being provided to people? Are there protocols for the 60-day evictions?” Lander said in a statement.
The first evictions came on the same day a Brooklyn high school closed its doors to students and instituted “virtual classes” online because Adams turned the brick-and-mortar facility into housing for migrants.
On Tuesday, Adams announced that illegal aliens would be moved from their temporary shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to the gym at James Madison High School in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn.
As a result of the Adams administration’s order, James Madison High School Principal Jodie Cohen alerted parents that classes will be conducted online for the foreseeable future.
The school principal also told parents that school sports teams and practices have been canceled.
“I am writing with an update regarding the activation of James Madison High School as a temporary overnight respite center due to the forecast of potential high winds and flooding conditions beginning this evening through tomorrow morning,” Cohen wrote in a letter posted to the school’s website.:
To ensure a smooth transition for families temporarily sheltering overnight in the building, our school building will be closed on Wednesday, January 10 and school will be in session remotely for all students. Students should plan to log on and participate in their classes from home. For information about digital learning tools, applications, and platforms used by New York City Public Schools, please visit schools.nyc.gov/digitallearning. [Emphasis added]
The following PSAL Games are still on: Boys Basketball, Boys Swimming, and Boys Table Tennis. All practices have been cancelled. [Emphasis added]
New York Councilwoman Inna Vernikov blasted the Adams administration’s move to turn the school over to illegals.
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