State Criticism Of NYC Over Migrant Crisis Echoes Rockland's Concerns

ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY — Criticism from a lawyer for New York State to New York City officials about their handling of the migrant crisis underscores and acknowledges issues that county officials have raised since the controversy over temporary housing began in May, said Rockland County Executive Ed Day.

The letter was sent Tuesday from counsel for Gov. Kathy Hochul and Barbara Guinn, Acting Commissioner of the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, to Sylvia Hinds-Radix, Corporation Counsel in the New York City Law Department.

The letter, which was a response to the City of New York’s newest demands for help from the state, included several criticisms about the lack of action and planning for a crisis that first began back in spring of 2022 — points which the county has echoed, Day said. Those include:

• Beds still available in New York City’s shelter system
• State-owned properties in the city identified for housing but not used
• Lack of coordination and communication with localities and counties regarding temporary shelter outside NYC

The letter castigates city officials for overall slowness and lack of coordination, despite available state resources and ongoing state support. There, the attorney addresses the city's fight with Rockland and Orange counties.

"A lack of coordination from the City to date has impeded the State's ability to foster productive relationships and discussions, including with the counties and localities that have offered to help. In particular, the City chose to send migrants to counties and localities outside of the City with little-or-no notice to or coordination with the State or those counties and localities. That has created opposition and has led to litigation that might have been mitigated or avoided if the City had acted in concert with the State and with the counties and localities where it sent migrants."

The letter speaks obliquely to the issue in another section describing the state's own resettlement program, for which it has committed $25 million to provide one year of permanent housing (in the form of rental payments) and wrap around services outside NYC for 1,250 households.

"To date, the City has provided the State with a list of 252 households who potentially meet the program's requirements, and thus far only 17 of those eligible households have expressed a willingness to move," the letter said.

Day said migrants are already moving into Rockland County because they know people here, a process county officials have been calling "organic migration." That's enough of a problem without adding to it asylum seekers in temporary housing, they say.

Rockland "has one of the lowest unemployment rates across the state and a severe housing crisis that organic migration is complicating and compounding," Day said.

He also expressed another reason for Rockland's opposition. "Constituents are overwhelmingly opposed to housing migrants, all-expenses-paid, for up to a year, while our own homeless and low-income residents struggle to make ends meet."

SEE:

• Rockland Issues New Emergency Order On Asylum-Seekers
• Families With Kids Are 70% Of Migrants In NYC's Care: Data
• Adams To Biden: Help NYC Before It Spends $12B On Migrant Crisis
• Illegal Immigration: National Issue, Local Effects: Rockland